NEWS: X³: Terran Conflict Rolling Demo available for download

Musicker · Post by **Musicker** » Fri, 15. Jan 10, 08:52

I kinda like my system too.

I bought it last March though, it's almost a year old. I may have to upgrade to the newer and faster i7 soon.

My 2x GTX 260 896mb cards in SLI should be fine for graphics duties for some time yet though, I'd think.

Ashitaka-san · Post by **Ashitaka-san** » Wed, 10. Feb 10, 15:03

Code: Select all

--------------------------
   X3 - Terran Conflict
--------------------------
Game Version: 1.2.0.0

Operating System:	Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.vistasp1_gdr.090805-0102)
DirectX Version:	DirectX 10
Graphics Card Info:	NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS [1013 MB]    Driver: 7.15.0011.8570
CPU Info:		Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     T7500  @ 2.20GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.2GHz
Usable System Memory:	2046 MB


Video Settings During Benchmark:
	Screen Resolution:	1024 x 768 * [32], fullscreen
	Using Shader Profile:	1.4
	Antialias Mode:		NONE
	Anisotropic Mode:	NONE

Graphics & Shader Settings:
	Texture Quality:	medium
	Shader Quality:		medium
	High Quality Bumpmaps:	disabled
	Environment Mapping:	enabled
	Glow Filter:		disabled
	Ship Color Variations:	disabled
	More Dynamic Lights:	disabled
	Used Vertexsize:	40 bytes

Framerates
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Scene "Trade"	 33.7 average fps	 8.0 minimum fps	 66.0 maximum fps
  Scene "Fight"	 57.8 average fps	 23.0 minimum fps	 141.0 maximum fps
  Scene "Build"	 36.7 average fps	 21.0 minimum fps	 60.0 maximum fps
  Scene "Think"	 15.2 average fps	 10.0 minimum fps	 29.0 maximum fps

Overall average framerate: 35.9 fps


(c)2008 EGOSOFT
For more information visit http://www.egosoft.com

So, after looking at others specs, it seems my results are quite low so I'm looking for some suggestions.

I'm pretty sure part of the problem is due to the fact that I'm on a laptop and it gets too damn hot. Even after getting a cooling unit to place under my laptop, the garphics card is still getting up to 84C.

I'm thinking of getting some good arctic silver or something of the sort and putting that on the graphics card (although never toyed with a laptop before). Also may try some other drivers from latopvideo.

Anyone else have any suggestions on how to get this baby running better?

Post by **Geek** » Wed, 10. Feb 10, 16:31

TC is very ressource hungry and you can not expect high scores with such hardware. I also use a laptop, results here

I know it is hard (if not impossible) to modify a laptop components. But you should update your drivers. Adding 1 GB of RAM would be nice ; while TC can not use more than 2 GB, the OS (especially Vista) need memory too.

Flozem · Post by **Flozem** » Wed, 10. Feb 10, 18:15

Also worth mentioning:
X3TC is more CPU than GPU intensive so the CPU would form a bottleneck for you:

The laptop has only 1.1Ghz per core which is too damn slow since X3TC can only use 1 core.

You might want to try dedicating one core to X3TC and one for all other (windows) resources. This should help you a bit.

Post by **Geek** » Wed, 10. Feb 10, 18:59

No. Frequency does not divide per number of cores.

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Wed, 10. Feb 10, 19:19

Geek is correct. If it reports 2.2GHz and 2 cores, then that's 2 cores each running at 2.2GHz. It's usually dodgy PC adverts that claim that 4 cores at 2.4GHz apiece equals a PC running at 9.6GHz!

Flozem · Post by **Flozem** » Thu, 11. Feb 10, 00:36

heh - just checked with one of my favourite websites... lol I always thought I had my singlethreaded programs running at 1.5 Ghz instead of the 3.0 Ghz the C2D advertises...

Never too old to learn.

But nevertheless, dedicating one core to X3TC should still make sense.

Ashitaka-san · Post by **Ashitaka-san** » Thu, 11. Feb 10, 01:17

Geek wrote:TC is very ressource hungry and you can not expect high scores with such hardware. I also use a laptop, results here

I know it is hard (if not impossible) to modify a laptop components. But you should update your drivers. Adding 1 GB of RAM would be nice ; while TC can not use more than 2 GB, the OS (especially Vista) need memory too.

May I ask how hot your laptop gets while running X3 and other games? I am actually going to remove the bottom panel to allow more air flow into the laptop - might help things a bit.

I did upgrade my graphic drivers to the most recent 195.39 Vista 32bit drivers but no change.

I have also been thinking of upgrading to 4 GB of memory. So, maybe now is a good time to do it

I'll also check into dedicating one core to X3TC.

Flozem · Post by **Flozem** » Thu, 11. Feb 10, 07:28

How fast is your harddisk by the way? If it is a 5400, you could consider installing a faster disk. If there's room for a second hdd in your laptop, that would be preferable as you can then install the game on a different physical disk than the OS for improved performance.

X3 uses two or three library files that are huge and accessed frequently. I noticed huge performance gain when I installed by OS on disk 1, X3tc on disk 2 and the virtual memory on disk 3.

Post by **Geek** » Thu, 11. Feb 10, 10:24

My laptop keeps cool at all times (GPU temp under 3d games never go past 60° C, laptop case 35° C), but at the cost of significant fan noise.

OniGanon · Post by **OniGanon** » Thu, 11. Feb 10, 19:31

Code: Select all

Operating System:	Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6002) Service Pack 2 (6002.vistasp2_gdr.090803-2339)
DirectX Version:	DirectX 11
Graphics Card Info:	ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series [2809 MB]    Driver: 8.14.0010.0685
CPU Info:		Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU    Q9400  @ 2.66GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
Usable System Memory:	4094 MB


Video Settings During Benchmark:
	Screen Resolution:	1680 x 1050 * [32], fullscreen
	Using Shader Profile:	3.0
	Antialias Mode:		8x
	Anisotropic Mode:	16x

Graphics & Shader Settings:
	Texture Quality:	high
	Shader Quality:		high
	High Quality Bumpmaps:	enabled
	Environment Mapping:	enabled
	Glow Filter:		enabled
	Ship Color Variations:	enabled
	More Dynamic Lights:	enabled
	Used Vertexsize:	28 bytes

Framerates
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Scene "Trade"	 36.9 average fps	 13.0 minimum fps	 81.0 maximum fps
  Scene "Fight"	 77.7 average fps	 28.0 minimum fps	 174.0 maximum fps
  Scene "Build"	 102.8 average fps	 61.0 minimum fps	 170.0 maximum fps
  Scene "Think"	 46.8 average fps	 26.0 minimum fps	 92.0 maximum fps

Overall average framerate: 66.1 fps

Out of curiosity, I ran the test again with AA and AF disabled, and gained a whopping 2fps avg, lol.

Flozem · Post by **Flozem** » Fri, 12. Feb 10, 10:29

disabling environmental audio (EAX) could help as well...

Ashitaka-san · Post by **Ashitaka-san** » Sat, 13. Feb 10, 05:08

Flozem wrote:But nevertheless, dedicating one core to X3TC should still make sense.

I tried searching for information on this but could not find anything. How do I dedicate one core to X3TC?

Thanks.

Flozem · Post by **Flozem** » Sat, 13. Feb 10, 07:44

Once you are in game, Alt-Tab to your desktop. Ctrl-Alt-Del to Windows taskmanager.

First you should check which core is pretty much idle, so for that check the prestations tab.

From there go to the processes tab and right-click on the process for X3TC. The right-mouse menu should show an option that says set affinity... That will allow you to choose the core to use for the game.

In Vista you might first have to go into admin mode and go into "processes for all-users" mode. Can''t check the right name now since I wrote this from XP. But google is your friend...

Ashitaka-san · Post by **Ashitaka-san** » Sun, 14. Feb 10, 09:56

Flozem wrote:Once you are in game, Alt-Tab to your desktop. Ctrl-Alt-Del to Windows taskmanager.

First you should check which core is pretty much idle, so for that check the prestations tab.

From there go to the processes tab and right-click on the process for X3TC. The right-mouse menu should show an option that says set affinity... That will allow you to choose the core to use for the game.

In Vista you might first have to go into admin mode and go into "processes for all-users" mode. Can''t check the right name now since I wrote this from XP. But google is your friend...

Alright, thanks for that, I checked it out.

However, what you are speaking of seems to only set which CPU core X3TC can be processed on.

Wouldn't this still permit other programs to run on both cores? How would it increase the performance of X3?

Flozem · Post by **Flozem** » Sun, 14. Feb 10, 13:47

I believe most Windows services still run on only one core. At least I see most of the times that one core is idle. You don't want to be running X3TC on the same busy core when you have one idle.

If you are really desperate, you could set all other services fixed to the other core. Do not expect great miracles though. It helps, but not much. I had better speed increase by using three physical discs and have each dedicate to one part of my system: OS, Virtual memory and games / applications.

BSG fan · Post by **BSG fan** » Fri, 19. Mar 10, 22:35

Hi all.

Having just received a copy of Windows 7 and remembering the gaming transition from XP to Vista. I decided to benchmark the two on my system and post up the results for anyone who might be interested.

This may have been covered already to some degree but I had the results to hand and wasn't going to trawl through a load of post to see.

I used the rolling demo for X3TC and repeated the benchmarks for both high and medium texture detail. The results are below and following them are some observations I noticed during the tests. The system configurations were exactly the same save for two separate disks for the OS's. Hybrid Sli is set for the on-board video card (which on the 780a is basically a 8400GS mGPU)

System Spec:

MB Asus Crosshair II Formula (780a sli)
CPU Athlon X2 x64 5000 BE @ ~3.22 GHz (286 fsb / 12 multi)
Ram 2 x 2 Gig Geil Black Dragon 1066 @ 1072 (5/5/5/15 2T)
Video Geforce 9800 GTX @ 750 / 1100(ddr) / 1688
HDD Both were Seagate Barracudas SATA

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l26/t ... n/CPUZ.jpg

~Sorry for the low grade pics~

Results

Vista Scores:

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l26/t ... /vista.jpg

Windows 7 Scores:

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l26/t ... n/Win7.jpg

Ok, first off, we can see the general average fps from Vista are 0.4 and 1.5 higher for medium and hight textures respectively. Close enough to call identical considering I only did one pass of the test. Also we see pretty similar numbers across the board for medium textures, for both Vista and Windows 7. Maybe a one or two fps drop in Windows 7 for average and maximum fps but steady numbers for minimum.

In the high texture tests, Windows 7 is showing a quite consistent 2 fps drop across the board. This is reflected in the 1.5 fps drop in total average for high textures I mentioned above.

And what kind of conclusions can we draw? Well I call it close enough to not matter, which is what I was hoping for seeing that I am upgrading to Windows 7 anyway. Interesting tho... maybe lol. You might notice that the usable system memory appears reduced in the Vista tests. This is just the new way that Windows sees shared video ram as all tests where using hybrid sli with the onboard GPU. Onboard GPU uses 512 meg of system memory.

I must say that what ever the numbers show, I saw a lot less of the occasional stutter at low fps with the Windows 7 test, than with the Vista test. Not sure if it was a fluke but Windows 7 didn't really stutter at all. Strange but true.

Opinions?

~

{overzied images replaced by links, merged - Carlo}

Carlo the Curious · Post by **Carlo the Curious** » Mon, 13. Dec 10, 15:09

New toys, new benchmark:

Code: Select all

--------------------------
   X3 - Terran Conflict
--------------------------
Game Version: 1.2.0.0

Operating System:	Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_gdr.100618-1621)
DirectX Version:	DirectX 11
Graphics Card Info:	ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series  [753 MB]    Driver: 8.17.0010.1052
CPU Info:		Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         950  @ 3.07GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.1GHz
Usable System Memory:	6144 MB


Video Settings During Benchmark:
	Screen Resolution:	1920 x 1200 * [32], fullscreen
	Using Shader Profile:	3.0
	Antialias Mode:		8x
	Anisotropic Mode:	16x

Graphics & Shader Settings:
	Texture Quality:	high
	Shader Quality:		high
	High Quality Bumpmaps:	enabled
	Environment Mapping:	enabled
	Glow Filter:		enabled
	Ship Color Variations:	enabled
	More Dynamic Lights:	enabled
	Used Vertexsize:	28 bytes

Framerates
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Scene "Trade"	 49.0 average fps	 18.0 minimum fps	 111.0 maximum fps
  Scene "Fight"	 105.9 average fps	 39.0 minimum fps	 237.0 maximum fps
  Scene "Build"	 131.4 average fps	 80.0 minimum fps	 173.0 maximum fps
  Scene "Think"	 55.6 average fps	 33.0 minimum fps	 95.0 maximum fps

Overall average framerate: 85.4 fps


(c)2008 EGOSOFT
For more information visit http://www.egosoft.com

Big improvement over my last rig, although still with a big dip on the cap explosion.

Rive · Post by **Rive** » Mon, 13. Dec 10, 15:17

After some months on TC-addiction I've decided to give a try to the demo (

) but tell me this first: can I update the demo to an actual game patch level, or it's fixed to an old game version?

Carlo the Curious · Post by **Carlo the Curious** » Mon, 13. Dec 10, 15:20

There are no updates for the demo, as far as I know.

NEWS: X³: Terran Conflict Rolling Demo available for download

X3TC windows 7 vs. Vista Benchmark