Seemingly absolute performance fix

Khaak_Slayer · Post by **Khaak_Slayer** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 02:47

Well, i installed the latest official WHQL drivers from nVidia yesterday, and finally got a chance to play XTC tonight, and i have to say, i have noticed an immense performance increase, even in heavy combat. I am barely noticing any slowdown at all.

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/winvista ... ql_uk.html

This is the link to the Vista 64 bit driver 178.24, obviously you should search here for the one suitable for your system: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Let us know your results.

sehlers · Post by **sehlers** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 03:23

These don't help me at all really. I installed them days ago, and some sectors my battles are little more than slide shows.

I do have windows vista 64 bit as well.

Bleh I wish they would patch this. I'm like everyone else. Like 60 fps when i'm in a new game, but 5 fps when i get about 20 or 30 sectors explored on the map.

Aaargh.

1Prophecy · Post by **1Prophecy** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 04:13

That's a CPU, not a graphics problem.

Khaak_Slayer · Post by **Khaak_Slayer** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 04:21

Actually it appears it doesn't help, i was playing a lot in Teladi sectors when installed that, and they are extremely fast for me, however Argon sectors are almost always laggy still, no matter how many ships there are in there. My bad.

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 08:06

sehlers wrote:I'm like everyone else. Like 60 fps when i'm in a new game, but 5 fps when i get about 20 or 30 sectors explored on the map.

You're not like EVERYONE else, then--I have way more than 30 sectors explored and I don't get 5fps.

Turricanion · Post by **Turricanion** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 08:41

Turn off ingame monitors
Update vista software/upgrade packs
update sound drivers
update video drivers
defrag machine, and close all unneccessary applications.

should notice a 30fps increase and more stability when u have higher fps already.

paulms1980 · Post by **paulms1980** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 09:12

its quite simple
use something like diskeeper to defrag then close the defrag program (auto frag)
make sure uve not got any spyware in your system, disable ya network card 4 internet
then disable your antivirus/security programs
check task manager for any un nessecary tasks running
make sure ur not using any dodgy codecs
strongly recomend using a dedicated soundcard, ive got a xfi elite pro and it does make quite a big difference!
even a p4 with 1 gig ram CAN play this game @ a decent rate

silenced · Post by **silenced** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 09:15

seems like people with old p4 cpu's, which were mostly single core with hyperthreading, got not so many problems ...

but those with dual core / quad core systems got those problems ...

(just a guess ...)

LordDivine · Post by **LordDivine** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 09:41

pjknibbs wrote:
sehlers wrote:I'm like everyone else. Like 60 fps when i'm in a new game, but 5 fps when i get about 20 or 30 sectors explored on the map.
You're not like EVERYONE else, then--I have way more than 30 sectors explored and I don't get 5fps.

Long running games with severe performance degradation is a common problem for many people at the moment. Even people with extreme hardware. That Thread ---> http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=218622

BigBANGtheory · Post by **BigBANGtheory** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 11:06

I'll try the new drivers, I have Vista x64 8GB of RAM, 8800 GTX KO and a core2quad clocked at 3.2GHz and the game for no good reason seems to grind to a halt intermittently.

The only thing I have noticed is that is seems to do a disk read/write operation when the slow down happens.

What does help a little is increasing the thread priority to 'above normal' but take that with a pinch of salt cos I haven't done any proper testing its more a passing observation.

ezra-r · Post by **ezra-r** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 11:32

Its not a GPU issue and of that Im sure, neither should be CPU, since an Intel Core Duo e6600 should be more than enough.

I am using those drivers for XP64 and I dont get better performance. I have tried to tune down and up settings in game and in the gpu properties and do all suggestions and performance is exactly the same thing, no improvement past the choppy performance.

I have tried tweaking CPU priority, affinity and all ity's and all I get is the same exact performance, that is not fluid framerate and some ocassional stutter in certain conditions while even lower framerate when in sectors with HQ's (that could be gpu but Im dealing with normal playing). I even tried disabling sound to no avail.

Miracle solutions? doubt them.

Although Im sure egosoft will bring a patch that will make better use of new cpu's and get better performance, like they did with X3:R when it was released.

Another thing that came to mind was ram speed bottleneck, but considering RAM a DDR2-800 is prolly fast enough for any game and that Im not an expert in that so I dont know how to tweak it.. I have discarded it for now.

Augustini · Post by **Augustini** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 11:58

silenced wrote:seems like people with old p4 cpu's, which were mostly single core with hyperthreading, got not so many problems ...

but those with dual core / quad core systems got those problems ...

(just a guess ...)

Nice theory but it doesn't hold up. I recently upgraded from a P4 3,4 Ghz to a Q6600 Quad 2,4 Ghz processor. Before upgrade i had 1-20 Fps (1 in extreme battles, 20 when alone in unknown sectors)

After upgrade, i have 60+ Fps.

danleach · Post by **danleach** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 12:44

Mmm I have had those from the start in X3 TC
My problem isn't really low fps most of the time, it is stuttering.
I can be in a fight at nice high fps then i get a 1/2 sec stutter, then 4 sec later a 1 sec stutter, then 6 sec later a 1/2 sec stutter.... while the av fps is always good. Its like the game is loading of the HD or something, but it should be doing that with 4gb ram. And i dont think its CPU or GFX card as i have a dual core 5200+ amd and an Nvidia GTX260.
Its almost like the game has to 'stop' to load things in before carrying on.

lv9pv · Post by **lv9pv** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 14:35

I have lots of sectors explored. And my game go from way perfect til slide show.

The worst slide show was in the Alderan (Spelling) system in the Terran Plot. That was such a slide show that the game would not even take keyboard input with out me hammering the keyboard.

But mostly the game is more then playable, tho the few times it starts to crumble are really bad.

System Spec.
AMD X2 6000+, Nvidia 8600 GTS, 4GB Ram. Im playing the game at 4x4 and max GF settings in windows XP

paulms1980 · Post by **paulms1980** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 15:24

ok mt rig plays this game ok
my mates rig p4 prescott 3ghz plays it with 1gb ram and 512mb gpu and its ok
but both of us have a pause every so often
its actually quite annoying as weve proved its not PC power related.

BugMeister · Post by **BugMeister** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 15:38

if you're running XP, switching off the Windows indexing service helps [**]

it prevents the OS from going into its automatic index updater routine, during gameplay
I always switch off the Windows search function, and go off-line if I'm in for a long session..

I also put ZoneAlarm into it's "game mode", as well - just to ensure no intrusions..

- those background tasks are a nuisance sometimes..

[**] - you'll get some noticeable OS thrashing, when you turn it back on
..as it immediately goes about it's task of tagging everything in sight..

Protrader · Post by **Protrader** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 16:19

Disabling Indexing service is standard operating procedure on all versions of windows.

Dont quite get why its on before your first search using text, I would bet 80% of the population has never saved one second from the indexing service.

Atkara · Post by **Atkara** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 16:59

sehlers wrote:These don't help me at all really. I installed them days ago, and some sectors my battles are little more than slide shows.

I do have windows vista 64 bit as well.

Bleh I wish they would patch this. I'm like everyone else. Like 60 fps when i'm in a new game, but 5 fps when i get about 20 or 30 sectors explored on the map.

Aaargh.

If you have activated the warptunnel option, start a new game and make sure it's turned off. You never know

Deadoralive · Post by **Deadoralive** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 17:17

Joined: 10 Oct 2008

Posted: Sat, 25. Oct 08, 17:17 Post subject: Another tip

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am using a :

Intel Quadcore 2.4ghz
XFX 790i Ultra mainboard
2x 750GB harddrive (spinpoint samsung)
4gb ocz ddr 3 ram
Geforce 9800x2 videocard

Running vista 64bit home premium edition.

I also encounterd heavy stuttering and combat lag to a point where to would loop my sound being impossible to play.

What solved it for me (so far) is to :

- Turn harddrive indexing (for faster searching of files) off.
- Put in a 4gb usb 2.0 stick and enable readyboost on it.
- Turn texture quality to medium.

So far, the stutterings are gone and i am able to play at 1900x1200 resulution with every other detail (except the texture quality) on full.

Hope this will help some other ppl as well.

Sandalpocalypse · Post by **Sandalpocalypse** » Sat, 25. Oct 08, 18:40

Paulm,

Go to your x3/mov/ directory and rename the file "00002.dat" to anything. This will probably fix your intermittent stutter.