Choppy FPS Issues

[stju]

i believe there is something badly messed up, especially concering lo-spec GPUs...

my laptop computer has a SIS630 shared chip (& 1200 Celeron & 384 SD Ram), I know that this is not much of a 3D chipset, but it´s enough for WCIII and AoM to play 1024x768, with medium details....

in RoN I get 4-10 fps, and it does not matter much what details I turn on and of....

[wilebill]

jbestimt,

Success. Replaced audio driver with latest version from www.realtek.com.tw, rebooted. In rise2.ini, set all the grade options to "A," turned off VSync, set texture compression to "FULL," set resolution to 1240 x 768 x 16.

FPS maximum went from 30 fps to 58 fps, with fps never going below 29 to 30 fps except during the heaviest battles when it declines to about 17 fps. This is good enough to play the game without irritation from low fps driving me crazy.

Updating the audio driver was key. You were right!

[PTM]

Things I've tried since my last post.

1. New Sound Drivers + Old Video Drivers (43.45)
Result: ~30 FPS maximum, battles slow down significantly, and by the information age ~7 FPS becomes average.

2. Old Sound Drivers + Old Video Drivers (43.45)
Result: Same as above.

3. New Sound Drivers + New Video Drivers (44.01)
Result: Horrible choppiness, even worse than with older drivers. The average FPS rate declines by ~5, and the battles decline by ~7.

4. Old Sound Drivers + New Video Drivers (44.01)
Result: Same as number 3 above.



I've tried disabling sound and I've editted hardware acceleration on sound; no change.

I've disabled EVERY Graphic except Units (using ForceGraphicToggle or whatever it's called) And the game STILL slows down to the SAME FPS as it would with all the other graphics.

Lowest settings imagineable. No change.

Uninstalled/Reinstalled my GFX and Audio drivers multiple times and in multiple variations.

No Anistropic filtering, maximum anistropic filtering, medium anistropic filter. No change. The same goes for anti-aliasing.

Graphic settings in rise2.ini: all A's. No change. All F's. No change. In fact, I don't know why, but now the graphics are worse than they were when I first installed the game and it had all the settings on AUTO. Even if I put AUTO back it makes no difference. There's no longer any surf and there is some distortion on rare resource: Fish and Whales, as well as a few other things. Yes, I have them enabled. Yes, they are at maximum.

And VSYNCH has ZERO effect at all. On/Off - who cares? My FPS still maxes. If I turn up my monitor refresh rate it makes no difference either, even in the beginning of the game. Yes, I have it turned off in my GFX card settings too.

I tested to see if it was doing it right (through my GFX card anyway) and indeed it was. I was able to make my CS FPS whatever I wanted.

I don't get why WC3, a game with similar system reqs. runs PERFECTLY and this game lags so bad it's unplayable. It really angers me because this game is absurdly fun and it's like having a present under the tree that you can't open when it comes to it.

Any more ideas? jbestimt?

- PTM

[PTM]

I don't know if it matters but:

I can "hear" the slow down if I run winamp in the back. The music place fine until the game starts up then it starts to run as if it's in slow motion. It runs OK during the menu screen, even though the menu screen lags, but during game (even in the start) it runs slow. Very slow.

If I minimize RoN then the music speeds back up to its normal rate.

Kind of interesting, considering RoN is using the same system resources (99%) rather or not it's maximized or minimized.

- PTM

[PTM]

...bump?

- PTM

[jbestimt]

PTM, I understand your frustration. You have a pretty hefty system. No reason it should be struggling so much.

Someone here suggested running this utility and see what results it gives you.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/article.php?sid=311&cat=7 .

From our tests, RoN really taxes most systems (raising some graphics cards 13 degrees ).

We'll get to the bottom of this.

j

[stju]

what i cannot understand are the specs at the cover....

if the game needs min 1500 Mhz, 512 Mb Ram and and GPU thats Geforce 3 or better, as long as i know i do not really care....

but this seems to be MS-policy, want a good laugh? here are the specs for freelancer....

600 mHz
128mb ram
16 mb 3d GPU

guess if you install that one on such a system it would make you even more cry than RoN...

I still don´t get why its so slow, afterall AoM and WCIII run decently, but it really does nopt matter, i just would like to have known before I pay €50 for a game...

well at least it works on the Desktop....

[flash9286]

how do you check your fps

[wilebill]

Check FPS by going to the options screen, click on the graphics tab, there is a checkbox that says something like "Show fps on screen"

[PTM]

I'll check that util. when I can.

I'm sorry about lack of posting on my own thread, delaying the IT process. I haven't lost faith, it's just that I've had finals lately (Junior year = worst year ever).

In other news, RoN randomly started quasi-working, locking the games FPS at 20 throughout the entire game. 20 still blows, but at least it's ALWAYS 20.

I don't know why this is, but it does make the game playable. Let's see if we can't raise that though.

- PTM

[JFman01]

God, I'm having enough difficulty my frosh year... Junior will be hell. (yes I am posting for a real reason, we'll get to that eventually). I find that im going too much in depth when I study, just realized that today during my bio final. Anyways...

Got myself a 1.4 or 1.05 ghz amd t-bird (AMD may have sent me the wrong cpu) and a 64 mb Nvidia with 256 ddr ram. And the instant I the multiplayer (m-player only) game starts, im down to 5 fps. I was fine graphically, but having some connection trouble and re-installed directx, and then the trouble started. I don't know how to rollback a directx installation and I don't want to have to use system restore so...


John F

[asleepathewheel]

I'm having horrible fps as well, using a 1.7p4, GeForce2GTS 32 Mb, 384 Mb ram. Soundblaster live! value. latest video and sound drivers.

goes well, but then relatively minimal skirmishes involving possbily only 50 units will kill the frame rate.

Please someone tell me something that will save this game for me, I really enjoy it from what i've seen so far.

[jbestimt]

try turning off hardware acceleration for your sound card. Sound Blaster Live cards have some perf problems associated with certain drivers/settings.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by jbestimt
try turning off hardware acceleration for your sound card. Sound Blaster Live cards have some perf problems associated with certain drivers/settings.

Tried that, but no luck. I've played through a few games with few problems on similar settings, not sure what has been wrong the last few days. Really like the game though.

[bobadoe]

I used to have FPS problems on my comp but that was years ago. I was running windows XP. On my first try on playing the game, the game worked for couple minutes then just crashed and somehow my computer got messed up to. I had to reinstall windows XP again (no update, except new nvidia driver). This time however, the game worked with a hitch. Great FPS (150~160) and no crashes. Could it be that RON has some conflict with other programs running in the background?

I think people are just f'tarded they need to get new computers and brains. Reinstall your windows du.mb@ss. Then itll work. Stup1d fu.cks.