Game runs fine until I try to open any windows

bouncethehead · Post by **bouncethehead** » Sun, 5. Feb 06, 19:30

Only those that I mentioned before in an earlier post. Minimal services, other bells and whistles turned off, unplugged from the net, disabled sound devices, checked chip set drivers, video drivers, sound drivers. Basically every tip I've read on the forums and things I already knew. To be honest, I'm starting to see it the way TheLastResort is seeing it. I know I don't have a killer rig but I have run all kinds of games on pretty decent settings with no problems at all (Doom3, Half Life, CoH, etc).

Most games you have problems running the game, not brining up menus...

Post by **CBJ** » Sun, 5. Feb 06, 19:42

I'm afraid that comparing it to other games is meaningless. Those games do not have a huge game universe running in the background with thousands of objects. This means that by simply tweaking the graphics downwards they can make them run on just about anything. With this game, there is a lot going on that cannot be switched off, so all aspects of your PC specification are important. The minimum really does mean the minimum to make the game run and there is no guarantee of a minimum framerate.

Anyway, something else to try is running the 1.3.2 BETA patch at the top of the forum. This contains some new quality/performance options for lower-end systems and is therefore well worth a try. You should also bear in mind that menu performance may be processor-intensive rather than graphically intensive (the reasons for this are too obscure to explain) so tuning ideas that are aimed at getting the most of the CPU may help. One example of this is sound, where on-board sound chipsets often pass load onto the processor, and when the processor gets busy this can impact on performance.

Finally, please make sure that when you install patches they really are installed correctly. The version shown on the main menu screen should change after each patch installation.

bouncethehead · Post by **bouncethehead** » Sun, 5. Feb 06, 20:42

CBJ,

I have tried it under the beta patch and yes, I have installed the patch correctly, both versions. I am capable of that. As stated several times in this post, I have turned off all services I am able, killed all devices and processes that I am allowed, looked into other ways of tweaking graphics and cpu usage.

I am a very patient person and try to figure problems out. I am not computer illiterate. My system meets the minimum reqs for this game and above on RAM and I have seen specs in different posts that are below mine and running the game fine. I have steadily upgraded my machine over the past year and a half that I have owned it and have not had any problems running games until this one. I'm rational, I understand that there are a lot of configurations out there and software companies try their best (usually) for testing.

Technology wise, I may not be able to compare this game to others, especially if this game tries to cram the meaning of life into my comp (does this game load the whole universe at once? please, I don't buy that). However, I can compare if I can play other games and not this one.

I'm stuborn and I'll probably still try to figure out how to get this game to work. Do not think I do not appreciate everyone's help in trying to find a solution to this problem, even yours CBJ.

Thanks

Post by **CBJ** » Sun, 5. Feb 06, 20:54

Just for information, I've looked up your graphics card (FX5700LE) and I was slightly surprised to find that the raw performance figures for this actually put it as slower than the standard model FX5200 or even the Ti4200. That puts it very close to the bottom of the scale for performance of cards that meet the bare minimum requirements, and should be borne in mind when comparing performance with other users.

TheLastResort · Post by **TheLastResort** » Sun, 5. Feb 06, 21:27

The 5200 may be a good video card, but it has a major flaw. the gpu has a tendency to operate hotter than its standard onboard cooling devices can handle, and the gpu will slowly singe, and eventually scar its respective circut board. I run tek support and i see it about once a month. So graphically, the 5200 runs much slower than its specifications would lead you to belive since a good majority of the time its literally melting its own soder points. (* If you dont believe me ill post pics of my old 5200 >< *).

But the arguement isnt really compairing this game to other games, we're simply stating that opening up the game menu does not statistically introduce an increased number of quotients into the game. Graphic overlays are usually pretty tame on your cpu unless theyre using a real time rendering system of their own, (*I.e a picture in picture dispaly, wich works just fine for my targeting recitle in the game and gives me no lag whatsoever*). It just seems odd that a computer that is having very little trouble rendering the rest of the game will slow almost completely to a standstill when menus are activated (*Sound will hiccup, and repeat itself in strings, the mouse is almost completely non responsive, and exiting the menu by pressing esc again will take literally ages, last time i timed it at 4 min. 36 sec.

Im not complaining, every game has bugs out of the box, I just want to enjoy the game I spent my money on. Any other suggestions I sould try, or is this something the the company could possibly adress in the next patch?

bouncethehead · Post by **bouncethehead** » Sun, 5. Feb 06, 21:39

Agreed. TheLastResort, just check these forums out. I've tried about everything I can think of and have had time to find here. I've patched and unpatched, uninstalled and installed. Checked drivers of all sorts. If my hardware stinks, as CBJ has checked my video card for me, I guess I just won't get to play this game. I'll check around for another patch and all but most likely, I'll shelve this game.

Post by **CBJ** » Mon, 6. Feb 06, 00:15

TheLastResort wrote:The 5200 may be a good video card...

Just to be clear, the 5200 is a budget card with the kind of performance you can expect at that price point, but as you say that's not really the issue here.

I suspect that the performance issues you are experiencing are a combination of things, and the menu is just the thing that tips the balance. Despite your assertion that it shouldn't affect performance, there are aspects of the menu that can. In fact displaying and navigating the menu system uses graphics, processor, memory and even sound resources, and any one of these could be the bottleneck in your case.

There are a number of threads explaining how to get the best out of your system, especially the performance tips sticky thread at the top of the forum, and it is well worth trying even the suggestions that you don't necessarily think will affect menu performance (such as the audio codecs).

EdgeSup · Post by **EdgeSup** » Mon, 6. Feb 06, 05:07

Try getting some ram heatsinks for your video cards ram and take the cover off and put a fan on the case. And also get some compressed air and blow the dust out of your GPU and CPU heatsinks.

It made a difference on my computer last week it was running slowly and shutting down in the menus jammed up and went black screen x3 window 6 times in one session of playing. Only recourse was to restart the computer each time.

Once I'd blown all the dust out I have not had it crash again in the last 7 days of playing.

Gary · Post by **Gary** » Mon, 6. Feb 06, 11:11

What motherboard do you have? Is it a Micro ATX?

Most of the Micro ATX boards have shared memory and have performance issues compared to standard full ATX motherboards.

If you do have a Micro ATX does it have an onboard graphics card?

Is your graphics card PCI or AGP if it is NOT onboard?

My honest advice if you do have one of these boards is to bin it and get a full ATX board.

EdgeSup · Post by **EdgeSup** » Wed, 8. Feb 06, 08:07

Gary - he has a 5200 video card.

My computer is still running perfectly;
Although without PCI express:
I have set my graphics to low, with glow (high dynamic range) enabled.

Bouncethehead - try low graphics settings - as it was pointed out high graphics settings are not what it is able to cope with.

bouncethehead · Post by **bouncethehead** » Wed, 8. Feb 06, 13:50

Not meaning to sound like a jerk but see my above posts, I have tried every setting in every. Thanks for trying to help.

DerDu · Post by **DerDu** » Sat, 11. Feb 06, 04:16

hm.. i got the same/similar trouble with my grafix
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... torder=asc

but CBJ mentioned that the high-load-universe may cause also trouble together with low-grafic-boards..

i would be glad if u would provide a "blank"-universe-mod so we could prove or dismiss that

Post by **CBJ** » Sat, 11. Feb 06, 14:42

You can create a blank universe very easily using the Galaxy Editor. See the Scripts and Modding forum for details.