X3:AP + XRM: Severe Performance Fluctuation - Fixed by Windows reinstall.

NightPrince · Post by **NightPrince** » Tue, 1. Jul 14, 20:26

Hello everyone,

My X3 is the latest version of Albion Prelude(Steam updated it to 3.1 I think). The "third party software" is XRM and some of the add-on packs in its thread. I'm playing Free Play as the mods don't support the Argon Plot. The problem first occurred today when upon launching X3, It started lagging. It was most unexpected as the game ran flawlessly less than 10 hours ago and I did not install anything since.
I jumped back to Argon Sector M148 to continue my marines' training. Then I activated the SETA drive, it reached 810%, started lagging and at 1000% it became awful. This was the 1fps sort of thing. I was seeing my ship's trail in front of me... It was occasionally lagging at random, even when I was doing nothing and nothing was happening in the sector.

For instance, just before going off, I fought in battles between Xenon K, 2 Xenon J, 4 Xenon P with fighter escort and an Argon fleet without any performance issues. Afterwards, the mere encounter of fighters led to significance performance drop. Anyway I saved, and quit the game. After a few hours I ran the game again. Oddly enough, there were no problems and I went to a Terran - Argon battle to check it out. The SETA was working perfectly and I experienced no performance issues. It was great, I saved and quit the game again after a few hours of fun.

Awesome, however when I entered it again some time ago the performance dropped again.
I doubt that the issue is in the hardware because of the reasons stated above. This is the link to the DxDiag file.
And a little off-topic: Ships tends to randomly turn left. I'm playing with a joystick if that matters.

I would appreciate any assistance you might be able to render on this matter.
Thank you in advance,

NP

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Tue, 1. Jul 14, 21:41

Start by updating your OS to Service Pack 1 and apply all other outstanding OS and DirectX updates. Then update your graphics and sound drivers to the latest Win7 x64 2014 drivers from the respective Nvidia and RealTek (HD Audio Codec) update sites.

Check and/or repair your X3TC and X3AP game installations separately by using the Steam verify gamefiles cache tool for each game- but that might break your XRM etc mods - not sure on that.

Check your joystick calibration, deadzones and also check it (and any other controllers) for any sticking/stuck buttons giving the constant/intermittent 'turn left' signal.

Other than that we cannot really help any further as this forum is for vanilla X3 game Tech Sp. You could try asking in the S&M XRM thread ..

NightPrince · Post by **NightPrince** » Thu, 3. Jul 14, 12:53

Hello again,

I did as you said and updated everything but nothing changed, then I re-installed Albion Prelude and started a new vanilla game. It was running great, the SETA drive worked, but as I headed out to "Aid the war effort" and started shooting down some Terran fighters it started lagging again. After I managed to clear them out, the performance became flawless again and the SETA was working perfectly at 1000%. After that I went into a sector where an immense battle between several capital ships was at it's peak and opened fire at a bomber. In the previous sector there were no capital ships, only a single frigate with fighter escort, but there was no difference in the severity nor the duration of the lags.
I find the possibility of Hardware problems unlikely and I would appreciate further assistance on my case.
Thank you in advance,

NP

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Thu, 3. Jul 14, 13:17

Did you do a 'clean' reinstall (of both TC and AP) to get back to vanilla? See towards the end of this Sticky. Have you also since verified your Steam game reinstall for both TC and AP separately?

In large battles etc this game can tax even a good gaming system at 1000% SETA! Also I hope you are minimising all unnecessary background applications and services to reduce strain on the cpu which only uses one core/thread for the game exe at a time.

Please post a fresh DxDiag so that we can verify the updates all worked properly.

NightPrince · Post by **NightPrince** » Thu, 3. Jul 14, 23:13

Thank you for your continuous assistance, Alan. I have been around for good 10 years now and I have read countless of performance reports in this section so I imagine it's frustrating for you guys to answer similar reports over and over again. I wouldn't be posting one more if the situation wasn't so hopeless.

Let me shed some further light on the issue at hand.

I am not complaining about SETA lag, now that one's kinda natural

I meant that EVEN in SETA the game does NOT lag at all under normal circumstances. Problems are twofold. First, when hostile ships are present in the sector, even if not engaged in any combat, the performance degrades slightly to below 20 FPS. The second and much larger problem is that as soon as I open fire on ANYTHING, the performance drops substantially to barely-playable levels. As soon as the fight is over, the game returns back to normal.

I used to run this game on a much less powerful rig and while the overall performance used to be poorer, it was never contingent on my involvement in the action and I never experienced such spikes, which made me doubt a hardware cause in the first place.

I uninstalled the game, then installed it from the scratch in accordance to the published instructions. I am using the Steam installer and didn't add anything to the game, other than the official patches, applied automatically. The game installation was dully verified.

Everything in that sticky was tried out before posting here, as well as limiting background processes to the system essential ones.

The latest DxDiag report is here

Thank you for taking your time with this problem and I hope we manage to find a solution

NP

Post by **CBJ** » Fri, 4. Jul 14, 00:20

Performance problems during battles are quite often sound-related, as bullets and explosions generate a lot of noise. Sudden changes in behaviour can be caused something as simple as having installed another game or piece of software that came with a codec or codec pack, which then interferes with sound processing in X3TC or X3AP.

I can't see any problem codecs in your [url=http://www.egosoft.com/support/faq/faq_answer_en.php?answer=610&version=8][b]DX[/b][b]D[/b]iag[/url] report, but it's worth thinking about whether you recently installed anything that could have installed any. On the subject of your [url=http://www.egosoft.com/support/faq/faq_answer_en.php?answer=610&version=8][b]DX[/b][b]D[/b]iag[/url] report, I notice that you've not updated your Windows 7 installation to SP1; it would be a good idea to do so and there's a remote possibility that it may even help with your current problem.

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Fri, 4. Jul 14, 11:42

I would agree with CBJ about this being a possible sound-related issue and possibly through lack of DirectX update via SP1 etc. Looking back at both your DxDiags, and with 2 different RealTek drivers installed, I see this under the Sound Devices section:

HW Accel Level: Basic
Cap Flags: 0x0
Min/Max Sample Rate: 0, 0
Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 0, 0

That may not itself be a big issue but also *might* imply that the soundcard is not doing a lot for you in terms of sound processing hardware assistance and may not be properly set up in its RealTek Control Panel. For reference my RealTek DxDiag with fully updated Win7 and DirectX looks like this:

HW Accel Level: Basic
Cap Flags: 0xF1F
Min/Max Sample Rate: 100, 200000
Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 1, 0

NightPrince · Post by **NightPrince** » Fri, 4. Jul 14, 20:37

Hello and thank you again for the continuous assistance.

I updated my Windows to SP1 along with all other available updates.
I uninstalled my current Audio drivers and installed the latest ones from the RealTek site.
I have not installed any software for the last several weeks (this issue first arose a few days ago, following several days of flawless gameplay).

The double-sound driver seems to be resolved now -> click this sexy link but the properties don't seem to have been altered.
Alan, can you suggest an approach how to remedy this situation as I am not much into audio drivers.

I'll be giving this one more shot before switching back to FreeSpace 2.

Thank you, again.

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Fri, 4. Jul 14, 21:21

In the RealTek HD Audio Manager, click the Default Format tab and see if what (if any) hardware processing format you have selected.

In Windows 7 Control Panel, System & Security, System, Device Manager, Sound Video and Game Controllers, RealTek High Definition Audio, General Tab (phew!), does it say this device is working properly?

One thing you *could* try just as a test given that you have 8GB of RAM is to disable your pagefile (set Virtual Memory to none) and see if that helps in complex battle situations.

After that I am out of ideas, sorry.

NightPrince · Post by **NightPrince** » Fri, 11. Jul 14, 20:36

Hello again,

I gave up on trying to locate the problem and re-installed the Windows. Now everything is back to normal, and this is seen under the Sound devices section:

HW Accel Level: Basic
Cap Flags: 0xF1F
Min/Max Sample Rate: 100, 200000
Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 1, 0

I am still, however, clueless what caused the performance problems in the first place.
Thank you for your continuous assistance and fast responses to my case.

NP