AMD stuttering with menu's Fix.

[dome123]

x3:ap

Hi , i don't know if you guys are still have this problem with the new 14.4 cat drivers where when playing with the menu's open the game slowed down and stuttered? Well it did for me anyways ...... however using a program called RadeonPro i was able to fix this problem with a few simple tweeks. If this post is still relivent please let me know.

Happy trading, Joe.

[Alan Phipps]

Thanks. It is always worth putting discovered solutions to issues here because only some people have these issues with the game and AMD drivers, while others do not. Nobody is quite sure why. The advice to those that do have issues still could be valuable.

[dome123]

Np Alan and aggreed. So some of you are still having this problem , I had a couple of people mail me from this site, why you did'nt just post here .......
Anyways, this is how i have my RadeonPro config settings.

Just to first state, i am running win7 x64 on a intel 4670k cpu , 8g ram and a r9 290x card.

Ok, install radeonPro 1.1.1.0 or greater, you can find the download using google easy, its free.

Create a profile for the x3ap.exe , just click the tab with the green cross in it at top middle and browse down to your x3ap.exe. I use steam so mine is in d:\steamapps\coomon\x3 terren conflict\x3ap.exe. Yours is probably on the c: disk somewhere.

Ok now click the Tweaks tab. Tick the "Lock Frame rate to monitors refresh rate". Change the "Display refresh" rate from 0 to (Your display rate) 60hz most monitors display at this but some do not so go into windows display properties and check yours if you are not sure.

Move down to Misc Tweaks. Tick Disable Aero, Tick Force Process High Prioty. Untick Cpu 0, Cpu 1 Cpu 3, leave Cpu 2 ticked ( There are reasons for this , Don't complain JUST DO IT SOLDIER!) if you have 2 cores then just leave cpu 1 ticked , if you are lucky anuff to have 8 then untick 7 of them making sure that cpu 0 is one of the unticked ones.

Now this should fix your menu problem however as I'm a don't touch it when its fixed kinda guy, I can't say for sure that these are the tweeks that fixed it only problably are in my opinon. So I'll tell you what else I change just in case I'm wrong, either way the changes i have made where to impove game performance so it can't hurt to do the same. (I take no responsibility for damaged software or hardware as a result of this post )

So ... moving on , click the visual tab. Tick Anti-Aliasing drill down the box to Overide application setting and select 8xEQ .... woooowa ! if you have a powerfull card like 290x then 8xEQ , if you have an older card just set it to 2xEQ you can always set it higher later. Remember fix Menus first !

Now tick the Anisotropic Filtering box and select 16x ......... or lower if you have a older card, like maybe 4x to be on the safe side.

Tick the Tessellation Control and slide the the bar one slot along to "Appliaction controls Tessellation Factor" ... not AMD Optmized.

Lastly tick the Verical synch Control box and move slider to "Always off".

And thats all folks!! Hope it works for your menus too, and also I hope it speeds up your game a bit as it has for me.

[Alan Phipps]

Thanks for the detailed reply.

[je8]

Actually i just bisected the "guide".
Using RadeonPro v1.1.1.0

The only thing you _really_ have to do is: only select ONE Cpu core in "CPU Affinity".
Checking "Force Process High Priority" is optional

That will fix the "menu lag" problem.
The downside is. that X3:AP will then only be able to use 1 core.

But I'm not sure if X3:AP utilizes multithreading anyway. (someone please confirm)

[X2-Illuminatus]

X3AP itself always uses just one core.

[je8]

X3AP itself always uses just one core.

Good, then this workaround should have no noticeable effect on performance otherwise..

Looks like it also, I get about 80-144fps (vsync on) while in the menu.

[Alan Phipps]

That is odd then as X3AP is programmed to be capped at 60 fps to avoid gpu overheat in opening screens, menus and such.

[je8]

That is odd then as X3AP is programmed to be capped at 60 fps to avoid gpu overheat in opening screens, menus and such.

I have a 144hz LCD monitor, do you think that might affect it?


Edit: (here are some screenshots taken with fraps)
http://imgur.com/bVZSzq0,FNVCTtF,yQPPoT ... aM,rEI1QYj

[Alan Phipps]

No I was not doubting your word that it happened, just that whatever you are doing in the gpu control panel etc is circumventing the entirely-intentional fps cap. I doubt that the display monitor used can have anything to do with the detail of the game code and its programmed interaction with the graphics driver and its set-up.

It now seems that both AMD and Nvidia have ways of circumventing the fps cap by messing with their VSync settings. The thing is that it is good if that can help to solve low fps situations, but bad if it also prevents a 60 fps cap from working as intended to protect high end gpus from racing away on low-complexity screens.

[dome123]

Well , ether way je8 i'm glad that my "guide" seemed to help your stutter problem via disabling some of cpu cores that the game will use.

Multi threading is something different btw, in that it has to do with virtual cores, if you have multi threading then i would disable it while playing x3 games. And yes, x3:ap can only utlize one core. Also i'm not sure that you had the same problem, by the way you comment (That will fix the "menu lag" problem)
It seems its more likely you game was just running slowly anyway but not grinding to a halt when you open a menu.

("Force Process High Priority" is optional ), maybe but i think i would like to have the core running x3:ap on high priority given that you are only using one xD and windows has alot of other services that will be using all of your cores /shug

[sebbi08]

hi thank for the guid one thing for me the CPU affiniy made the menu lags goning away using the locked frame rate with monitor refresh rate made the frame rate again better but made my curser somtimes haning and going slower

EDIT : ok just had to ser the Vsync Control to "Always on"

[dome123]

Good stuff, glad it helped

[BDK]

Here's what I do to make the game run excellent all around on AMD cards.

1) Download the dll from an older driver ( 12.8 ) and place in the root folder of the game (X:\Games\X3 Terran Conflict) this will stop any and all slowdowns due to new drivers.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_DiTZ ... sp=sharing

2) Cap the FPS to 60 (or whatever your monitor supports) so the game does not overheat the GPU by rendering thousand of frames. Also stops any coil whine as well.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_DiTZ ... sp=sharing

Done and done Oh and in case anyone is paranoid, go ahead and scan the files on http://www.virustotal.com

[Angry_Acorn]

X3AP itself always uses just one core.

Nope didn't work for AMD Athlon X4 760K, selecting affinity in RadeonPro to one CPU made a huge input lag, however setting affinity to two CPU's finally fixed the damn map lag. Graphic settings doesn't seem to impact this issue at all, especially if you have high-end GPU.

[Alan Phipps]

@ Angry_Acorn: X2 was making a factual statement. Like all other X2/X3 or earlier games, x3ap exe only uses one core at a time. The OS/BIOS may decide to swap that core usuge amongst the cores available to spread overall core usage, but the game exe only ever uses one core at a time. By setting affinity you are just restricting the number of cores that the game can be given to use in their turn.

The other cores can help by running the OS, background applications, services and drivers etc and so leave the core running the game exe undisturbed by those.

[Vern Yakimishyn]

I have been playing since X-BTF, and have been plagued with this lag, thinking that it has been my PC. RadeonPro has given me a new game to play. What a difference, it has solved my fps slowdown that builds, until i am watching a slideshow. I can now get into some big ship battles, which was unthinkable til now. Thankyou for this guide.

[zhukov032186]

Well, I'll be damned. This fixed mine, too. I've been dealing with this crap for years and the instant I fired the game up I was like "Whoa. It's fast now."


Note : After this, I discovered you do not need RadeonPro. You can achieve the same effect in Windows. Open task manager, right click on X3AP.exe or whatever, set to high priority and only allow one CPU. Job done. No extra software needed.

[scoutster]

You can also pack this into a schortcut (bleh.. just googled it)

Code: Select all

Target:
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start "X3AP" /affinity 4 /High "C:\GAMES\STEAM\steamapps\common\X3 Terran Conflict\X3AP_n.exe"

Start in:
C:\GAMES\STEAM\steamapps\common\X3 Terran Conflict

CPU affinity is bitencoded so CPU2 = 4

[rboerdijk]

Some people mentioned the affinity-changes fixed their lag-problem. Apparently this doesn't seem to work for everyone, though.

Could the people for whom it did work, please also specify their CPU/GPU? Maybe we can figure out a pattern for the cases where it didn't work.