Some tips on performance

Post by **Bernd** » Sun, 30. Nov 03, 04:37

Hi,

some tips to adjust your system to a good performance in order of importance:

- Turn on shadows only if you have a CPU above 2GHz and a DX9 grahic card (e.g GeForceFX5900 or Radeon9800)

- Turn OFF all overwriting of effects on driver level. Especially turn OFF Antialiasing (AA) on driver level.

- Turn on antialiasing (AA) in the game settings only if you have a DX9 or a high end DX8 card OR if you are playing at a low resolution (640x480).

- Install latest drives and make sure nothing is running in the background.

- Turn on Bumpmapping unless you have a card with no hardware T&L support. So most users can turn this on most of the time. Bumpmapping is still a very cost intensive feature on older cards (GeForce especailly MX models) and if you are still unhappy about the framerate after following the above steps turn it off.

- If your framerate is bad no matter what graphic settings you use, you probably are running low on physical memory (RAM). Free up RAM by closing whatever may be taking up memory (other programs, HD cache, etc.) or (the expensive solution) install additional RAM. Memory will not affect performance significantly above 256MB and not at all above 512MB of installed RAM.

These rules are not "written in stone". For example shadows can be very impressive and run a lot of the time during normal gameplay on CPUs far below 2GHz. Its impossible to give a perfect rule in this area because its always the combination of the whole system that counts and not one particular component (like CPU or graphic card).

Also there are millions of other ways how you can missconfigure a system. Many of those are set in the BIOS settings of your computer or by installing the right drivers for other components like the mainboard (north & southbridge chipset). So if none of the above helps please compare other up to date games or benchmarks and see how they perform. Listen to people with similar systems and compare to their performance. If you think something is wrong with your system visit the websites of the manufacturer of the mainboard / graphic card components.

HTH...

-Bernd

ScribbleJ · Post by **ScribbleJ** » Sun, 30. Nov 03, 18:11

- don't forget to run dxdiag (click start, run, then type in dxdiag) to make sure all your drivers for DX are working okay. Especially pay attention to the DISPLAY tab and the AGP Texture Acceleration, it's easy to miss. If you see it's disabled, usually this is because you don't have the right motherboard drivers installed.

river · Post by **river** » Mon, 1. Dec 03, 05:42

Also consider that AA does not add much at higher resolutions (1280x1024, 1600x1200). Sometimes a higher res and fewer options turned on can work well--I find 1280x1024 with everything off in the demo gives my system the best fps (61) and still looks very good.

-river

ratb75 · Post by **ratb75** » Mon, 1. Dec 03, 14:54

Another little tip, (for GF4 and higher users) which most of the time looks totally stupid, but works the hell good:

if your experience slowness at 800x600 or 1024x768, then try (don't laugh) 1280x1024.... why? The card is design to run at high res, so may be some commands are not well optimized for low-res... Try it, I did, and it worked better/faster/smoother for different games (EA'sF1 2K2 - X2 - Dungeon Siege - ... and lot of others).

Also I suggest to play in the same color depth then what your desktop is running on. If 32bit, stay with 32b, if 16, stay with 16.

Problems could also come from the driver you're using... for MSI/ASUS/NVIDIA cards try the latest 52.70 @ http://www.overclockuk.co.uk/downloads/ ... p-5270.exe For my FG4 TI4600 it went fantastic better since this new driver

Hope it helped

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DrZaius · Post by **DrZaius** » Tue, 2. Dec 03, 03:04

when i first ran X2.. the framerate was good (30-40fps) but it would stutter in parts.. (tiny pauses)

If anyone else is getting this. DISABLE YOUR NETWORK.

It worked for me. There was no network traffic, no internet traffic, but for some odd reason it fixed the stuttering.

GimpsRazoo · Post by **GimpsRazoo** » Tue, 2. Dec 03, 12:08

CHECK IT OUT......

There are beta nvidia 53.03 drivers availiable...... some drivers have not been certified yet, but they work any way... im using them on an FX5600 and they have provided an extra 5 - 10 fps higher in places @ 3200 X 1024 running dual monitor support in the benchmark... try em out

peace out

Gimps

azombie · Post by **azombie** » Thu, 4. Dec 03, 23:48

as odd as it sounds, I found that by turning up the resolution (from 1280x1024 to 1600x1200 to match my desktop resolution), the game actually ran better and smoother...

i am also running the 53.03 drivers and they seem to be good

AMD Athlon XP 3200
1GB PC3200
256MB GFFX5900 Ultra
SB Audigy 2
Cougar HOTAS

Wildabeast · Post by **Wildabeast** » Sat, 6. Dec 03, 00:35

K, just got the game yesterday, still unable to play it, mainly because of the stuttering mentioned here.
So, I updated to latest official Nvidia drivers, no help. I've thought about trying the beta ones, but the last few times I've used beta drivers, it wasn't pretty.
I've tried settings all the way from 640 by 480 16 bit windowed with everything disabled all the way up to 1280 by 1024 32 fullscreen with everything enabled, no change. I've tried locking the refresh rate, no good. I've tried in bios to increase and decrease AGP aperature, no good. Heck, I even disabled AGP texturing in DX diagnostic, no help. Reinstalled latest directX 9.0b, still no change. Even tried disabling the Network card and running in several compatibility modes. No extra background process running.
I'm totally at a loss now, other than trying the beta drivers, which past experience has made me leery of.
Anyways, specs...

Windows XP Home edition fully updated
Nvidia Ti 4200 128BM at 4X agp, with latest nvidia drivers, 52.16
Audigy audio, latest drivers
P4 2.53Ghz CPU
512MB ram
roughly 17GB free HD space

spawn601 · Post by **spawn601** » Sat, 6. Dec 03, 05:02

I have a question, when I run dxdiag and checked the AGP texture accel, the area is greyed out, any suggestions ? Could it be that the board does not permit AGP texture accel ? or is it a driver issue, and if it is due to an old driver then would a windows update driver suffice ? or would I have to use the manufacturers supplied driver ? Please advise

Thanks

Azzkicka · Post by **Azzkicka** » Sat, 6. Dec 03, 05:10

I have a question, when I run dxdiag and checked the AGP texture accel, the area is greyed out, any suggestions ? Could it be that the board does not permit AGP texture accel ? or is it a driver issue, and if it is due to an old driver then would a windows update driver suffice ? or would I have to use the manufacturers supplied driver ? Please advise

You have to install your motherboards AGP Driver.

spawn601 · Post by **spawn601** » Sat, 6. Dec 03, 09:16

Thanks AZZ, I'll attempt to do so once I get back home from work, this night's dragging

spawn601 · Post by **spawn601** » Sat, 6. Dec 03, 17:16

Actually turns out that when I inquired at the shop I purchased my PC from I was told that the board does support AGP accel, checked on SIS' website and my board does'nt nor does it support fast-write for ATI. I was lied to......

But, the shops closed, went belly up. KARMA does work

Oh Well, live and learn, next time I decide to have someone bulid my custom PC then I choose EVERYTHING and not trust the person outright.

n0tsane · Post by **n0tsane** » Wed, 10. Dec 03, 00:07

i have a 2ghz AMD Athlon XP, 512mb DDR, and a Geforce Ti 4800 SE with the latest official drivers and i was running the game at 1024x768 32bit, but i wasn't able to turn on AA without it stuttering. i thought maybe the game was just that powerful and my system was having problems playing it, but my room mate was having the same thing on his computer and his is much better than mine. after updating to the latest beta drivers 53.03, i tried again at the same 1024x768 and noticed a big frame rate improvement. i then just to try it and prove it wrong i upped it to 1280x1024 32bit with AA running... and then a funny thing happened, the game was running better than i could ever imagine a game running on my computer... one last thing i would suggest to anyone that has this option, as far as i know all geforce cards have this, is to turn your Digital Vibrance under Color Correction up just the slightest bit... this makes all colors in any game stand out so much more. now i only hope a patch will come out to fix the rest of the bugs.

thank you for those people who suggested beta drivers and turning the res up to 1280x1024.

JrStonewall · Post by **JrStonewall** » Fri, 12. Dec 03, 23:40

river wrote:Also consider that AA does not add much at higher resolutions (1280x1024, 1600x1200). Sometimes a higher res and fewer options turned on can work well--I find 1280x1024 with everything off in the demo gives my system the best fps (61) and still looks very good.

-river

The problem is that even at resolutions like 1280x1024 once you use 6 or 8x aa then turn it off you can suddenly see jaggies all over that you couldnt see before.

I play dungeon seige in max res and 6x aa because I couldnt stand the jaggies once I saw how sweet it looked with high aa. My card is only a fx5200 and cpu only 1.5ghz so it cant handle the high settings for X2. Still since I havent used higher than 2x aa at 1024x768 my eyes think it is beautiful!

OmniAlpha · Post by **OmniAlpha** » Sat, 13. Dec 03, 10:43

Ok, G'Day everyone. I also am having issues with the game...the game starts ok, a little jerky though, then once I am in my ship and I start to get the info on it, the game hangs.

I am running;

P4 2 gig
1 gig DDR 400 ram (2x512)
160 gig free HD space
XP Pro with all updates
GForce 4 5200 128 meg with 53.03 patch

Help me guys...what can I do?

IMugly · Post by **IMugly** » Sat, 13. Dec 03, 19:42

NEVER trust a salesman. ALWAYS research before you buy.

n0tsane · Post by **n0tsane** » Sat, 13. Dec 03, 22:03

I haven’t seen anyone mention this yet anywhere for a performance tip so I’ll say it here.

I was messing around trying to get my X2 to run good at the same time still looking good and this is what I found to be my optimum settings after running the benchmark several times and changing different settings.

1. Turn off Shadows and AA, not needed to play the game it just makes it look better, but turning them off does not take away from the game play and gives you better fps.

2. Running at 1280x1024 and running at 1024x768 I found I only lost 1 fps. At 1280x1024 you hardly notice you don’t have AA on anymore.

3. Updated to the official 53.03 drivers from NVIDIA’s site. I was running beta drivers. Not sure if it makes a difference.

4. In the driver settings under Performance and Quality Settings you'll see a Direct3D Settings. In there is Mipmap detail settings. I set that from Best image quality to Blend and got 15 more fps. I set it to Best performance and lost 2 fps, so Blend seems to be the best.

In the end I now have almost 60fps over the 28fps I started with.

A little info on my system to compare with your own:

2 GHz AMD AthlonXP, GeForce 4 Ti4800 SE, 512mb DDR, WinXP SP1
Since my GeForce is from Gainward I have their ExpertTool running which over clocks the card for more performance. I could try to over clock my CPU a little more to see if that helps too.

PsychoticFx · Post by **PsychoticFx** » Sun, 14. Dec 03, 20:50

Notsane, Thank u very much for the tip on blend. Made a HUGE diff

Detail is much better and gameplay has less lag. woulda never thought

Thanx again for sharing

P4 2.6 Hyperthreading
soyo dragon plus mobo
1 gig ddr 400
Audigy ls sound card
GeForce Fx 5200 128mb
DX 9B
60 GIG HD
Win Xp Pro SP1
X2 The Threat, only program on hard drive
Updated Drivers for everything I could find

Splitman · Post by **Splitman** » Mon, 15. Dec 03, 06:58

Hanging problems are widely discussed elsewhere in the forum - due to bad/corrupted saves. Try going back to an earlier, manual save. I manually save at every station, and have had no hangs since doing that (I rotate through about 6 to 10 game slots). The autosave is a bit suss....

JrStonewall · Post by **JrStonewall** » Mon, 15. Dec 03, 19:04

n0tsane wrote:I haven’t seen anyone mention this yet anywhere for a performance tip so I’ll say it here.

I was messing around trying to get my X2 to run good at the same time still looking good and this is what I found to be my optimum settings after running the benchmark several times and changing different settings.

1. Turn off Shadows and AA, not needed to play the game it just makes it look better, but turning them off does not take away from the game play and gives you better fps.

2. Running at 1280x1024 and running at 1024x768 I found I only lost 1 fps. At 1280x1024 you hardly notice you don’t have AA on anymore.

3. Updated to the official 53.03 drivers from NVIDIA’s site. I was running beta drivers. Not sure if it makes a difference.

4. In the driver settings under Performance and Quality Settings you'll see a Direct3D Settings. In there is Mipmap detail settings. I set that from Best image quality to Blend and got 15 more fps. I set it to Best performance and lost 2 fps, so Blend seems to be the best.

In the end I now have almost 60fps over the 28fps I started with.

A little info on my system to compare with your own:

2 GHz AMD AthlonXP, GeForce 4 Ti4800 SE, 512mb DDR, WinXP SP1
Since my GeForce is from Gainward I have their ExpertTool running which over clocks the card for more performance. I could try to over clock my CPU a little more to see if that helps too.

What?!! Turn OFF aa? Jeez, I'm used to 6x aa on 1024x768 in Dungeon Seige LOA. Besides my system works just fine in X2 with aa on and its junk, winxp 1.5ghz p4, 512 mg ram, FX5200. I do have the latest drivers. But I set mine for image quality over performance. Guess what, I've been playing 3 days now (with a few hours sleep here and there) and X2 is smooth as silk. No slowdowns, stutters, freezes, or CTD at all. Of course I haven't triggered the khaak yet (and don't plan to until I get the patch). Oh, I turned AQC OFF. Seems that could be causing some jerkiness on your supercomputer systems. Autosave is off but my normal save game is growing over 33meg each which is worrisome.

I just hope the patch enables the full aa abilities of your gfx card. I want to try it with 6x aa or at least quinqux. 2x aa is pretty lame.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

Some tips on performance

Some tips on performance

for anyone getting stuttering cut scenes

Question ? AGP Texture acceleration