I'm playing it on a 1 Gig Hz Pentium III with a GeForce III 64MB and 912MB Ram and I dont experience that much of a slow down...
Calm before the storm perhaps heh
Some tips on performance
Moderators: timon37, Moderators for English X Forum
-
comradesniper
- Posts: 202
- Joined: Sun, 9. May 04, 05:24
ok, i tried the 28.88 drivers, and i got Bumpmapping rith no black flickering but reduced performance happening at random intervals and some cutscenes failing to load properly. also, i got lighting that wasnt so rich in colour.
so, ive turned off bump mapping and gone to the latest drivers. currently at 1280x960/32bit.
i dont know my exact framerate, but its more than playable, and i can even run winamp in the background without stutttering! quite a feat for a Geforce 4 MX440 budget card, eh?
another good thing i found to get even more performance is to actualyl close explorer as well as other programs, then goto the task manager and run the game from there. (win XP). this frees up an extra 9-12mb of ram.
so, ive turned off bump mapping and gone to the latest drivers. currently at 1280x960/32bit.
i dont know my exact framerate, but its more than playable, and i can even run winamp in the background without stutttering! quite a feat for a Geforce 4 MX440 budget card, eh?
another good thing i found to get even more performance is to actualyl close explorer as well as other programs, then goto the task manager and run the game from there. (win XP). this frees up an extra 9-12mb of ram.
-
joeythomas7
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Sat, 26. Jun 04, 11:00
Hello,
I'm a newbie to X2 and have had a prob with frame rate. I've gotta Dell laptop,
P4 3.02gig HT
512ram
32mb nvid go5200
Thing is i played it up until Brennans Triumph mission and everything was a ok. Saved it and went back to it later and it was really jumpy, unplayable. I turn all graphic enhancements off as standard and play at 1024x768 (my lappie standard, as i believe they struggle on anything other). Is there any quick solution? or is the moral of the story don't leave X2?!? Plus can i upgrade my lap graphics card? not many sites(dell, nvidia) say much about buying an upgrade.
Any help would be much appreciated.
I'm a newbie to X2 and have had a prob with frame rate. I've gotta Dell laptop,
P4 3.02gig HT
512ram
32mb nvid go5200
Thing is i played it up until Brennans Triumph mission and everything was a ok. Saved it and went back to it later and it was really jumpy, unplayable. I turn all graphic enhancements off as standard and play at 1024x768 (my lappie standard, as i believe they struggle on anything other). Is there any quick solution? or is the moral of the story don't leave X2?!? Plus can i upgrade my lap graphics card? not many sites(dell, nvidia) say much about buying an upgrade.
Any help would be much appreciated.
-
EventHorizon
- Posts: 447
- Joined: Wed, 14. Jan 04, 16:48
joeythomas7, laptops are not really that good for playing games. However, your's doesd let you down in the graphics card department.
I have no idea why it would be so slow after saving/exiting/comming back, but I doubt your graphics cards has anything to do with that. This game is so CPU hungry that it would make you cry!
As you are trying this on a laptop, have you tried switching off speed step? This technology lowers the clock speed of the CPU when yuo are running on battery power...
I have no idea why it would be so slow after saving/exiting/comming back, but I doubt your graphics cards has anything to do with that. This game is so CPU hungry that it would make you cry!
As you are trying this on a laptop, have you tried switching off speed step? This technology lowers the clock speed of the CPU when yuo are running on battery power...
-
CBJ
- EGOSOFT
- Posts: 54125
- Joined: Tue, 29. Apr 03, 00:56
Answered here. For future reference, please just ask your questions in one thread.joeythomas7 wrote:Hello,
I'm a newbie to X2 and have had a prob with frame rate. I've gotta Dell laptop,
P4 3.02gig HT
512ram
32mb nvid go5200
Thing is i played it up until Brennans Triumph mission and everything was a ok. Saved it and went back to it later and it was really jumpy, unplayable. I turn all graphic enhancements off as standard and play at 1024x768 (my lappie standard, as i believe they struggle on anything other). Is there any quick solution? or is the moral of the story don't leave X2?!? Plus can i upgrade my lap graphics card? not many sites(dell, nvidia) say much about buying an upgrade.
Any help would be much appreciated.
-
MMcQ
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Fri, 6. Aug 04, 20:59
athlon 1600xp, at 1400mhz
512 ram
radeon 9600 XT - all drivers up to scratch, latest patches etc...
easily hits recommended specs, yet i consider the game to be unplayable?
ive tried everything, turning down all detail on drive level, and in-game, even tried disabling network/net connections. the more empty systems run okay, but when im in areas such as Argon Prime, with AQC on, i can see ships and stations basically turning into giant blocks and triangles - yet frame rate is still rubbish. I hoped for better, is this just what i should expect? I tried tinkering about with various settings, and then doing the rolling demo benchmark. I get fair frame rates, ranging from 150 to low 20's. This means nothing, most of the game for me takes place in busy areas - not in places where theres just me and one other station, so most of the time its jerking around. any ideas?
512 ram
radeon 9600 XT - all drivers up to scratch, latest patches etc...
easily hits recommended specs, yet i consider the game to be unplayable?
ive tried everything, turning down all detail on drive level, and in-game, even tried disabling network/net connections. the more empty systems run okay, but when im in areas such as Argon Prime, with AQC on, i can see ships and stations basically turning into giant blocks and triangles - yet frame rate is still rubbish. I hoped for better, is this just what i should expect? I tried tinkering about with various settings, and then doing the rolling demo benchmark. I get fair frame rates, ranging from 150 to low 20's. This means nothing, most of the game for me takes place in busy areas - not in places where theres just me and one other station, so most of the time its jerking around. any ideas?
-
CBJ
- EGOSOFT
- Posts: 54125
- Joined: Tue, 29. Apr 03, 00:56
There are two immediate possibilities I can think of.
First, the game is much more CPU-bound than the rolling demo because it is tracking 15000+ objects. Your processor should be able to cope, but if there is anything at all that is eating up cycles (e.g. AV software) then it might struggle a bit.
The second is sound. Everyone quotes their processor, memory and graphics card specs, but very people bother to mention their sound cards. If you have an on-board sound chipset then this can slow things down considerably. Switching off EAX on a system that isn't coping well can also help in some cases.
First, the game is much more CPU-bound than the rolling demo because it is tracking 15000+ objects. Your processor should be able to cope, but if there is anything at all that is eating up cycles (e.g. AV software) then it might struggle a bit.
The second is sound. Everyone quotes their processor, memory and graphics card specs, but very people bother to mention their sound cards. If you have an on-board sound chipset then this can slow things down considerably. Switching off EAX on a system that isn't coping well can also help in some cases.
-
MMcQ
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Fri, 6. Aug 04, 20:59
gamesurround , Hercules Fortissimo II
I havent been using EAX, and from the dxdiag box i have turned hardware sound acceleration level to no acceleration in the hope that would help.
possibly i am expecting too much, but flying around a system like argon prime, i get nothing over 25 fps ever i'd guess. Is there any way of displaying fps in game btw?
-also, when i ctrl/alt/delete and bring up task manager, i go over to processes, and look to end as many as possible hoping to speed things along - but last time i tried this i think i ended something critical, as the computer insisted it turn itself off, i just dont know what processes i should and shouldnt keep running, its a different language, spoolsv, svchost etc...
I havent been using EAX, and from the dxdiag box i have turned hardware sound acceleration level to no acceleration in the hope that would help.
possibly i am expecting too much, but flying around a system like argon prime, i get nothing over 25 fps ever i'd guess. Is there any way of displaying fps in game btw?
-also, when i ctrl/alt/delete and bring up task manager, i go over to processes, and look to end as many as possible hoping to speed things along - but last time i tried this i think i ended something critical, as the computer insisted it turn itself off, i just dont know what processes i should and shouldnt keep running, its a different language, spoolsv, svchost etc...
-
Chamdar
- Posts: 53
- Joined: Sun, 22. Feb 04, 17:30
-
MMcQ
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Fri, 6. Aug 04, 20:59
-
EventHorizon
- Posts: 447
- Joined: Wed, 14. Jan 04, 16:48
Your CPU is very much lacking.
I had an Athlon XP 1900+ (Stock, 1.6 Ghz) and it just could not cope. So I am now running an Athlon XP (Barton core) 2500+ @ 3300+ speeds (2.3 Ghz).
The Radeon 9800 Pro also helps (from a 9600 non-pro), silky smooth @ 1280*960. Grab a new cpu, Athlon XP's are at rock bottom prices these days! You really will notuice a difference!
I had an Athlon XP 1900+ (Stock, 1.6 Ghz) and it just could not cope. So I am now running an Athlon XP (Barton core) 2500+ @ 3300+ speeds (2.3 Ghz).
The Radeon 9800 Pro also helps (from a 9600 non-pro), silky smooth @ 1280*960. Grab a new cpu, Athlon XP's are at rock bottom prices these days! You really will notuice a difference!
-
The_Abyss
- Posts: 14933
- Joined: Tue, 12. Nov 02, 00:26
-
Boronshark
- Posts: 299
- Joined: Thu, 23. Jan 03, 17:56
I've just re-installed X2 and patched to 1.4 after several months away from it. In the interim I've rebuilt most of my computer and I'm having graphics problems. When The game is running it stutters graphically, the graphics look fine, no obvious problems in quality but no matter what I set the options at (AGQ, bumpmapping etc) this problem remains.
My specs are
2.8GHz P4 (hyper-threading)
1GB DDR-RAM
256MB GeForce FX5600
SoundBlaster Audigy 2
Any ideas?
Duncan
*Please ignore signature, Trinity Holdings will be relaunching in a universe near you*
My specs are
2.8GHz P4 (hyper-threading)
1GB DDR-RAM
256MB GeForce FX5600
SoundBlaster Audigy 2
Any ideas?
Duncan
*Please ignore signature, Trinity Holdings will be relaunching in a universe near you*
Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) - HyperX Beast 32GB PC3-17100C11 2133MHz - MSI GeForce GTX 760 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5
-
The_Abyss
- Posts: 14933
- Joined: Tue, 12. Nov 02, 00:26
-
dnauk
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Thu, 23. Sep 04, 19:54
The_Abyss wrote:
The AMD 64 bit CPUs rock for X2 - only now found out myself just how much.
The 6800 GT helps too.
God I wish that were true...!
I have'ne played games for many a year, but with the releae of this game to remind me of my 'Privateer - The Darkening' and Doom3 I thought an upgrade would be in order to play some of this new stuff well.
So I got
AMD 64 3200
1Gb 3200 DDR RAM
FX5900 card
and a frame rate somewhat slower than a cricket test match...
OK, not really - but I admit to being surprised at any slowdown, especially in the earlier parts of the game. And it's true that changing the resolution settings makes little or no difference. Yet Doom3 runs as smooth as silk, so what is going on?
I've read loads of tips on this thread so far on my lunch break, and the only one I haven't tried is the Mip settings in the card driver, so I can't wait to get home and try that for the extra couple of FPS!
Even patch 1.4 hasn't addressed this - so when do we expect to get the game playing as it should?
The AMD 64 bit CPUs rock for X2 - only now found out myself just how much.
The 6800 GT helps too.
God I wish that were true...!
I have'ne played games for many a year, but with the releae of this game to remind me of my 'Privateer - The Darkening' and Doom3 I thought an upgrade would be in order to play some of this new stuff well.
So I got
AMD 64 3200
1Gb 3200 DDR RAM
FX5900 card
and a frame rate somewhat slower than a cricket test match...
OK, not really - but I admit to being surprised at any slowdown, especially in the earlier parts of the game. And it's true that changing the resolution settings makes little or no difference. Yet Doom3 runs as smooth as silk, so what is going on?
I've read loads of tips on this thread so far on my lunch break, and the only one I haven't tried is the Mip settings in the card driver, so I can't wait to get home and try that for the extra couple of FPS!
Even patch 1.4 hasn't addressed this - so when do we expect to get the game playing as it should?
-
The_Abyss
- Posts: 14933
- Joined: Tue, 12. Nov 02, 00:26
-
dnauk
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Thu, 23. Sep 04, 19:54
Replaying to The Abyss again... you wrote
What sort of FX5900 are you running, and what game settings are you running on? I would think that only shadows would slow the game down noticeably on that system, particuarly if the gfx card is a non-Ultra.
Ha! You and me both. Though the 5900 is a non-ultra I haven't even tried shadows and it still slows. That is until I drop below 800x600. At 720x480 the game is silky - even with all options turned on. And that I'd recommend to all with problems. 720x480 anti-aliased to the max looks better than 800x600 and, though it reports less of a frame rate benchmarked, it runs much better in the game.
I think there's a bottleneck somewhere. I'm sure when I get stutter my machine is accessing the hard drive. It doesn't seem to do it in the lower res.
Oh, and I have the ltest nVidia drivers and it doesn't appear I have an option to adjust Direct 3D settings, just some extra settings for bi- and tri- linear filtering.
What sort of FX5900 are you running, and what game settings are you running on? I would think that only shadows would slow the game down noticeably on that system, particuarly if the gfx card is a non-Ultra.
Ha! You and me both. Though the 5900 is a non-ultra I haven't even tried shadows and it still slows. That is until I drop below 800x600. At 720x480 the game is silky - even with all options turned on. And that I'd recommend to all with problems. 720x480 anti-aliased to the max looks better than 800x600 and, though it reports less of a frame rate benchmarked, it runs much better in the game.
I think there's a bottleneck somewhere. I'm sure when I get stutter my machine is accessing the hard drive. It doesn't seem to do it in the lower res.
Oh, and I have the ltest nVidia drivers and it doesn't appear I have an option to adjust Direct 3D settings, just some extra settings for bi- and tri- linear filtering.
-
carsonm
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Mon, 10. May 04, 16:14
I have been running X² for quite a while on what started as a fairly basic system but evolved into what's below:
Amd Athlon Xp 2400+
1.25Gb DDR400 RAM
Chaintech Nvidia FX5700 256MB 8xAGP
Dell 20.1" TFT (absolutely fantastic)
1x 200GB SATA for Games and 1x 120GB SATA for paging file and general storage
I came up with the above after having a few problems running the game at higher than 800x600x16. Bumpmaps on, shadows etc off
After upgrading the ram, graphics and particularly the addition and setup of the two SATA drives, I am running the game MAXXED out -
This game is really something.
I would advise anyone outhere with problems to consider investing
in the SATA drives - especially for the configuration above - for some reason, no matter how much RAM you got XP always uses the paging file. I have only games on the big SATA drive - DOOM3, UNREAL 2004, Call of Duty,.... blah, blah, blah
right i think ive said enough - hope ive helped - cya
Amd Athlon Xp 2400+
1.25Gb DDR400 RAM
Chaintech Nvidia FX5700 256MB 8xAGP
Dell 20.1" TFT (absolutely fantastic)
1x 200GB SATA for Games and 1x 120GB SATA for paging file and general storage
I came up with the above after having a few problems running the game at higher than 800x600x16. Bumpmaps on, shadows etc off
After upgrading the ram, graphics and particularly the addition and setup of the two SATA drives, I am running the game MAXXED out -
This game is really something.
I would advise anyone outhere with problems to consider investing
in the SATA drives - especially for the configuration above - for some reason, no matter how much RAM you got XP always uses the paging file. I have only games on the big SATA drive - DOOM3, UNREAL 2004, Call of Duty,.... blah, blah, blahright i think ive said enough - hope ive helped - cya
-
Alkali
- Posts: 75
- Joined: Sun, 4. Apr 04, 04:59
I too had the stuttering graphics problem:
Athlon XP 2400+, Radeon 9600pro, 712MB DDR, SIS k7s5a M/B.
On my system it was a question of changing the Graphics Aperture size in the bios. At 256MB it was stuttering like a bas**rd - took it all the way down to 8MB! - Smooooooth!
Why is this? - I don't know - could be something to do with the memory configuration in my machine?
Athlon XP 2400+, Radeon 9600pro, 712MB DDR, SIS k7s5a M/B.
On my system it was a question of changing the Graphics Aperture size in the bios. At 256MB it was stuttering like a bas**rd - took it all the way down to 8MB! - Smooooooth!
Why is this? - I don't know - could be something to do with the memory configuration in my machine?
-
Crillie
- Posts: 91
- Joined: Thu, 1. Jul 04, 18:50