Some tips on performance

[n0tsane]

i'll turn my settings up after i install the patch to see if there is any improvement to fps, but for right now i just wanted to get the most fps while still being able to play the game in all its glory. i like the eye candy in this game, but a lot of it just isn't needed for those who are having problems even playing the game.

[JrStonewall]

On the benchmark I had less than 1 fps going from no aa to 4x aa, but the visual appeal of 4x aa (or higher) simply cannot be stated in mere words. Put it this way, on 1024x768x32 the difference between no aa or 2x aa and 4x or 6x aa is like the difference between 640x400 and 1024x768 as far as jaggies are concerned. I guess it was a mistake to even try it on high aa settings as now I notice jaggies everywhere using 2x aa even at 1200x1000 res.

[thehouse]

If you are having trouble with choppy video here is what worked for me.

My system:

AMD 1600+ XP
768 Ram DDR
GeForce 4200 TI - 64 meg
Windows XP

I was getting choppy game play at 800x600. I have everything turned off execpt auto.

Here's the steps:

1. Go to nvidia.com and downloaded the newest drivers.
2. Install drivers. (reboot required I think)
3. Right click on your desktop and click properties
4. Click the setting tabs
5. Click the advanced button
6. Click the nvidia tab (This is the tab that lists your card type)
i.e. - my tab said "GeForce4 Ti 4200"
7. Under performance and quality there should be direct3d settings, click it.
8.Under mipmap detail level there is a dropdown box. Select blend.

That's it. Changing that option has allowed me to run the game at 1280x1024 with smooth game play, when it use to chop at 800x600. Amazing!

You can try some of the other option on the mipmap setting if you still are not getting the performance you need.

Hope this works for you as well as it did for me.

[Orlando Benjamin]

Hey all of you talk about nVidia card, you tell tricks and tips to make the game run faster in nVidia Cards like GeForce, but what about ATI Cards like the RADEON.

The game run slow in my RADEON 9700 PRO and I don't know a tip to make this game run faster even in the lasterst drivers 3.10 and game patch 1.1.

please help me in this one guys

[n0tsane]

sorry, i dont know anything about ati cards or how to tweak them to run better like nvidia cards. only thing i can suggest is if your ati driver has some performance options, set them a little lower than the default setting which may be set at high in most cases.

[Sarpedon]

Turning Particle Effects off made a HUGE difference for me, and I don't even miss them all that much.

[Jurobi]

Maybe y'alls problems are that your systems are too fast? I am running X2 on a Duran 1200, 512 MB RAM, a NVidia Geforce 2MX, Direct X 8.1 (Build 4.08.01.810), and a SB Live! 5.1. I get about 40 FPS except in the cutscene mission briefs, which are choppy, but that may be due to the sound card. The only thing I have done to my computer as far as an upgrade is to XP Home edition from Win 98 FE.

I have the option for the game to handle the video. Nothing jagged, shadows seem to work fine. The game looks great and handles far better than that Microsoft junk.

The problems y'all describe are similar to what I ran into (for existing games) into each time I upgraded to a faster CPU.

[MightyMidget]

LAG! If there are no khaak in a system i get about 33 fps, if the system is really busy (still not many khaak) i get 25 fps if there are lots of khaak i get like 18 fps! I'm on the ore belt mission and the whole darn mission is laggy, its sitting pretty at like 18 fps the whole time .

My system is:

Raedon 9800 Pro (clocked up to 418 core and 357 memory)
Cpu 2.4 gigahertz (pentium 4, tried overlocking to 2.8 but the game hangs... a pity cause that helped a bit).
1 gig of ddr 333 ram!
10 gig free on my 80 gig harddrive
catalyst 3.10 with smothvision on app preference as well as anisotrpic filtering, both are at 2x for open gl and direct 3d.

Game settings all of them are turned off except bumpmapping and particles - neither of which seem to make more than 1-2 fps difference(including automatic quality control as i noticed it only seemd to dip my performance by 1 or 2 fps even in very laggy areas)

I'm using a program called fraps to determine fps so i'm not guessing here these are actual figures! In very sparse systems such as scale plate green i get over 40 fps somtimes and others about 35. Someone please do somthing to fix fps my system should not lag! I get well over 100 fps in most games, in battlefield 1942 with 32 ai's and all settings turned up full i notice no slow down, in jk3 i get well over 50 fps, in jk2 i get about 100 fps, in strategy games such as rise of nations i get a cap of 60 fps and in battles no lower than 30! This game looks awsome i'll admit, but we need some options to reduce lag, say one that will reduce the number of enemies and ships in systems? Or somthing... at least until we all get the next generation of supercomputers.

As an anecdote completely unrelated to fps please make projectiles move faster as they are pathetically slow, and balance things accordingly for the change... also more importantly fix the jerky forcefeedback steering, you guys seem to have programmed the game to recognize pitch and yaw input past a certain point as super fast turning, please make the controls linear!

Jurobi how the heck is that possible? Quote:"Maybe y'alls problems are that your systems are too fast? I am running X2 on a Duran 1200, 512 MB RAM, a NVidia Geforce 2MX, Direct X 8.1 (Build 4.08.01.810), and a SB Live! 5.1. I get about 40 FPS except in the cutscene mission briefs, which are choppy, but that may be due to the sound card. The only thing I have done to my computer as far as an upgrade is to XP Home edition from Win 98 FE."

If that is the case then it is more than likely our problems arise as a result of bad engine design on the part of egosoft, I don't want to be a real pain in the ass customer here, but you guys have to do somthing about all this stuff the game has awsome potential as far as games go! Even as it stands i still like it better than any of my other games, but these issues need to be addressed soon please .

[MightyMidget]

Get this! I've got my bro to try his comp with the fraps fps utility and he gets a worse framerate than me! He has the same computer except a 3.06 gigahertz hyperthreaded pentium 4 and a 9700 pro instead of a 9800 pro like me, and he runs slower by about 4-7 fps as tested in kingdoms end. This puts his squarely at between 15-20 fps where i was 18-24 fps. Also another note on this i tried the game with all settings off and all settings on the difference was negligble and at 640x480 the game ran exactly the same!

Egosoft this is not a hardware problem, and my comp is 100% up to date on everything. Windows XP, catalyst 3.10 all the windows updates, directx 9.1b? or 9.0b i'm not sure which but its the latest one i believe at least as of a few months ago anyhow. Anyone care to explain how on earth this is possible?? I'm going to go play for a bit and then post my second by second log of framerate, just so you know, along with an accurate descirption of what's going on in system.

[MightyMidget]

The engine is simply designed badly. My computer runs hardly any better with all the settings turned down on the video level as well as in game, than it does with all of them turned up on the video card as well as in game.

My system specs are:

9800 pro (clocked to 418 core and 357 memory)
2.4 gigahertz pentium 4
1 gig ddr 333
80 gig drive 10 gig free
4 gig virtual memory
(I tried closing all applications and network/net connections with no difference, driver version has also made no difference however but i am currently using 3.10 catalyst).

Video Settings:

Antialiasing 2x
Anisotropic 2x (quality mode)
All other settings minimized

Game Settings:

Autoquality on
Bumpmaping off
Shadows off
Particles off
Antialiasing off
Resolution 640x480 x 16 bit color

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AVERAGE FPS: 24.5


Video Settings:

Antialiasing 8x
Anisotropic 16x
All other settings maxed

Game Settings:

Autoquality off
Bumpmaping on
Shadows on
Particles on
Antialiasing on
Resolution 1600x1200 x 32 bit color

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AVERAGE FPS: 15

ALL TESTS WERE PERFORMED IN THE ORE BELT WITH 2 KHAAK PRESENT 1 CRUISER ALL THE STATIONS ASTEROIDS AND A ROUGH ESTIMATE OF 10 OTHER SHIPS IN SYSTEM. (OUT OF SYSTEM I HAVE A FLEET OF 5 STATIONS AND 10 SHIPS IN BOTH TESTS)

AVERAGE FRAMERATE WAS MEASURED BY TAKING THE HIGHEST VALUE SUBTRACTING THE LOWEST VALUE DIVIDING THE RESULT BY 2 AND ADDING THE LOWEST VALUE BACK AGAIN.

My math may be incorrect as i am tired, but this should give a ballpark idea of the average fps, work it out more accurately if your interested.

Hardly any difference, given that the change in settings is incredible and should have by all means reduced my computer to slag the way it was running with them all turned down!

ALSO VERY IMPORTANT TO NOTE:

My brother has a 3.06 gigahertz computer with a 9700 pro rather than my 9800 pro and his computer actually ran slower than mine under the same circumstances with the same settings. He ran slower by an average of 5 fps!

Its a great game no doubts a there, but someone shoulda been doing a better job beta testing cause performance and control issues were obviously dismissed or overlooked!

24.5 fps with all settings turned down as far as they go both video and game, and 15fps with all the settings turned up as far as they go both video and game... that is **9.5 FPS DIFFERENCE**, and i'll bet if you worked out the average using a more accurate method the results would be even closer!

[MightyMidget]

well i can live with the lag i guess... its not serious most of the time, but its still kinda ridiculous that it can slow down such powerful comps so much, but i guess you can't have everything right? I wouldn't mind the controls and projectile speeds being tweaked tho at the least.

[n0tsane]

it seems like a lot of people are using their driver configuration to set AA to 2x or more, the game supports its own AA. if you set your card to the option to Application Controlled for AA and then set the option with X2 for AA. that might speed things up. it might not look as nice as running with an AA of say 4x or more, but it still looks nicer than running with nothing at all or running with slow choppy movements.

[MightyMidget]

no i've already done that notsane.

[MightyMidget]

Mission 6 is a slide show, between 5-and 10 fps. AND i have a top of the line system!! 9800 pro and 2.4 gigahertz is pretty darn good! With 1 gig of ddr 333 ram too. Guys please patch it soon.... it seems that when i'm in a system with no stations framerates skyrocket to about 50 and when i'm in a place with lots of stations it goes down... for some reason stations are a major performance drain.. please look into it!

[MightyMidget]

This is a great game but it is spoiled by lag i'm not sure i enjoy it so much. Please fix it soon, i've observed that stations are a major cuase of lag.

[Digit]

Well my new PC arrives on Monday, AMD 3000XP and a Gigabyte nForce2 Pro mobo.

So help me god if X2 doesn't run...

[gambo2166]

Well iv tryed every thing. This game sux on ati cards. My system: xp3200+ 512,pc3200,9800pro,cat3.10. Its like watching a slide show. I can trade just fine but when im in a battle it just un playable at 640x480 no AA no AF 16bit color . I got my game at gamestop and tht will not give me my money back only the same thing. I play all my game at 1600x1200x32 and it just wrong that I payed 40 bucks on this un playable game and cant get my money back. Im sry if I sound harsh but its just fact thay mad a bad game I wish it was better but intell thay fix this problom its just a wast of 40 bucks. rant off.

[raskor414]

Well iv tryed every thing. This game sux on ati cards. My system: xp3200+ 512,pc3200,9800pro,cat3.10. Its like watching a slide show. I can trade just fine but when im in a battle it just un playable at 640x480 no AA no AF 16bit color . I got my game at gamestop and tht will not give me my money back only the same thing. I play all my game at 1600x1200x32 and it just wrong that I payed 40 bucks on this un playable game and cant get my money back. Im sry if I sound harsh but its just fact thay mad a bad game I wish it was better but intell thay fix this problom its just a wast of 40 bucks. rant off.

Have you installed the patch? I was fighting a good 20 pirates and there was some jerkiness but it was hardly unplayable. And you have a faster cpu AND faster vid card.

I run with 1024x768x32 with AA, bumpmaps, particle effects on, shadows and AQC off.

I would suggest you get 3dmark '03 (www.futuremark.com), run the test and then compare your result to similar systems. Maybe there is something not quite right in your setup. My fps was constantly jumping around (ie down to 20, up to 50, rinse repeat) - I made a bios change and the problem went away. My 3dmark score made a nice jump too!

Another good all-around system benchmark that can even give you some suggestions for things you might have missed is Sandra (www.sisoftware.com). My performance was downright crap when I was still running Win98. The problem was that Win98 did not recognize the sata hd and did not enable DMA. A *WORLD* of difference - hd transfer rates increased by almost 15x once I made that one change.

[gambo2166]

Well I get 18000 with 3dmark01 and 6500 with 03 its not my rig I can play all other ganes at 16x12 call of duty,ut03,battle field,nascer racing 03,fligh sim 04, its just a bad game engine. BTW I have installed the patch.

[gambo2166]

Ok Iv done some reading and if you turn up AA to max in vid card setting it halps big time! Dont ask me why but it did. I got my 1st kill . Im feeling a little better now.