X3:TC - Bad framerate?

xiriod · Post by **xiriod** » Thu, 27. Nov 08, 15:43

I decided to give X3:TC a go after finishing the plot in X3:R. I installed the scripts and mods that seemed nice and also the remove civilian mods. But it seems to me that framerate in X3:TC is a lot worse than X3:R. Very choppy behavior when flying around.

I got a 3ghz dual-core, 2 gig ram and a 4850 Toxic card so I thought I'd be ok really. Is this a known thing with X3:TC that we hope will be fixed in a later patch? Or am I just very unlucky?

esd · Post by **esd** » Thu, 27. Nov 08, 15:50

Your first step is to uninstall all scripts and mods and start a clean game with a clean installation.

If you still get issues, please post a full [url=http://www.egosoft.com/support/faq/faq_answer_en.php?answer=610&version=8][b]DX[/b][b]D[/b]iag[/url] output.

Spaceweed Adict · Post by **Spaceweed Adict** » Thu, 27. Nov 08, 15:51

Nope your not unlucky its the same for everyone.
Best thing to do is play on the lowest settings till it gets tweaked.
Was the first thing I noticed coming from X3R to TC.
But it is playable you'll get use to it but pick your sectors for the missions try to avoid heavily populated and heavy astriod sectors.

BugMeister · Post by **BugMeister** » Thu, 27. Nov 08, 15:57

have you added scripts to TC or was that just in X3:R
the two games function as separate entities on your hard drive..?

- in any case a dxdiag might hold a clue or two..

Mad Ashy · Post by **Mad Ashy** » Thu, 27. Nov 08, 15:58

Far too many roids in TC so many the ai cant navigate through them and so many your graphics card is given a hard time. Hope they reduce the roids.

anneking · Post by **anneking** » Thu, 27. Nov 08, 16:04

Spaceweed Adict wrote:Best thing to do is play on the lowest settings till it gets tweaked

What do you mean by lowest setting, AA=0 AF=0 or other ?

Well I’ve got a dual 3.3Ghz / 4870 /4Gb / XP top end rig, saw my first bad slowdown last night in Company Strength, a bit surprising, looks an okay sector, not too much going on, usual page and a half of Khaak (patrol mission).

Near impossible getting to the menus and issuing commands to my ships, and some commands got completely screwed. Doesn’t bode well. Might have to decline these types of missions in future, retire and do build instead hah.

Hmm. I wonder if the scripts are to blame, using FCC and sector scan, I'll try removing them when I get home. See if that changes things....

SlyReaper · Post by **SlyReaper** » Thu, 27. Nov 08, 16:09

Go a dual 3.24GHz, 4GB RAM, 4850 here on WinXP. Framerates are pretty low. Worst was when I was flying around Aldrin for he Terran plot. That was more like seconds per frame. Which is odd because he fog occludes any distant objects, so the graphics card should be doing next to no work.

esd · Post by **esd** » Thu, 27. Nov 08, 16:11

SlyReaper wrote:Which is odd because he fog occludes any distant objects, so the graphics card should be doing next to no work.

Strangely with X, the fog actually negatively impacts FPS, rather than improving it.

xiriod · Post by **xiriod** » Thu, 27. Nov 08, 16:21

Wow, that was a lot of answers fast

I am somewhat glad that it was not only me, even thought it's not a good thing... And I tried with and without scripts and same thing. I guess it would have been worse if I did not use the remove civilians script

I will put the settings on low, no AA and AF.

Poobah · Post by **Poobah** » Thu, 27. Nov 08, 16:21

Yeah, with X3:R using a mod to remove all the fog DRAMATICALLY increased my FPS in foggy sectors.

xiriod · Post by **xiriod** » Thu, 27. Nov 08, 16:45

I found a script that removes fog in X3:TC, I will try that as well

Thanks for all the info guys!

Post by **Cycrow** » Thu, 27. Nov 08, 18:02

there are generally 2 types of fogs in games.

one of them is for the draw distance, so you get a kind of fog effect when looking at objects in a distance.

this is used in alot of older games to improve framerate by not rending after a certain distance.

then there is the proper fog, where fog particles are actually rendered specifically to simulate fog, and this has the opposite effect as it requires more graphically processing to achive. This fog usually looks better

AjRyder · Post by **AjRyder** » Thu, 27. Nov 08, 18:24

Not having a problem with mine 4X Anti 4X filtering and top res!!!! Im only using a Opteron Dual core system 2gig ram 500Gig HDD Raid 0 and a atnd alone ATI X1950 PRO 512mb AGP graphics card. Only problem I have is I sometimes get a freeze for about 3 seconds and then the game continues with no problems, does not matter where I am. I dont get any other problems.

anneking · Post by **anneking** » Thu, 27. Nov 08, 19:30

Update: slowdown fps on khaak mission:

Okay removed all scripts, no change.

Reduced AA=>0, AF=>0, no change.

Had a look at CPU performance monitor = 50-60% utilisation (on the 2 cores @ 3.3GHz), surprising result, I expected it to be topping out at 100%. Well it’d made sense right.

Something odd going on, like the interrupts not being processed in time, dunno. Runs fine until the 3rd khaak spawn, then its total crap fps, even after killing half the ships onscreen the slowdown doesn’t change.

AjRyder · Post by **AjRyder** » Thu, 27. Nov 08, 20:43

anneking wrote:Update: slowdown fps on khaak mission:

Okay removed all scripts, no change.

Reduced AA=>0, AF=>0, no change.

Had a look at CPU performance monitor = 50-60% utilisation (on the 2 cores @ 3.3GHz), surprising result, I expected it to be topping out at 100%. Well it’d made sense right.

Something odd going on, like the interrupts not being processed in time, dunno. Runs fine until the 3rd khaak spawn, then its total crap fps, even after killing half the ships onscreen the slowdown doesn’t change.

Best thing you can do when playing any game is make sure all other programs are not running, I always goto task manager and just leave my virus protection on, everything else gets shut off. All you do is press control Alt delete and then go down the list. Make sure you leave any virus protection on if your on the net with the system.

I go through disable the google updater, DVD update software, apple software, In cd, rich video, and windows search. just use common sense when ending programs, and I only do most of my user account, not the system or default. Give it a try as it really does make a difference on the speed of the game and how it runs.

esd · Post by **esd** » Thu, 27. Nov 08, 21:17

anneking wrote:Had a look at CPU performance monitor = 50-60% utilisation (on the 2 cores @ 3.3GHz), surprising result, I expected it to be topping out at 100%. Well it’d made sense right.

X is a single-core game, so 50%-60% load on a dual-core actually means one core is at 100% and the other's ticking along running the rest of your system.

AjRyder · Post by **AjRyder** » Thu, 27. Nov 08, 21:59

esd wrote:
anneking wrote:Had a look at CPU performance monitor = 50-60% utilisation (on the 2 cores @ 3.3GHz), surprising result, I expected it to be topping out at 100%. Well it’d made sense right.
X is a single-core game, so 50%-60% load on a dual-core actually means one core is at 100% and the other's ticking along running the rest of your system.

You can in task manager tell the program what core to use. Its very simple to do. If you are having trouble it may help you

xiriod · Post by **xiriod** » Sat, 29. Nov 08, 14:25

How much does the individual hull colorization of ships option impact the game in fps really? Anyone done the numbers?

It's a pity to turn off all the good stuff, and I liked the flaming pirates ships

AjRyder · Post by **AjRyder** » Sat, 29. Nov 08, 15:49

What is the spec of your system why do you need to switch off? As I have said before my system is naerly 4 years old yet settings are on full!!!!!!

AjRyder · Post by **AjRyder** » Sat, 29. Nov 08, 16:03

Here are my settings on my system.

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t110 ... ptions.jpg

Just to let you know what I am running
Opteron 2.4ghz dual core
WD HDD x2 250gig Raid 0
X1950 Pro AGP 512mg card
Sound blaster audigy2 Platinum sound card
2 gig crucial memory
All this running on Asus Av8 Delux main board.
I have always said home made systems are the best.

So if your spec is higher then mine you should not be having any problems, as I am not having any major issues, the only issue I have is the 2 second freeze when I jump into some sectors and I believe that may be down to the AGP bus. But im not due to upgrade my system for some time still its still lightening fast

So if your spec is better then mine do the easy checks first. Make sure your graphics card drivers are upto date and sound card drivers. Also people over look the system drivers for the mainboard, these are most important and you will find these are updated more by the manufactures better then if your system is built by a company like Hewlett packard. So what I would do if I had a system like that is look at the details of the system board and who makes each component and update from there drivers list, as normally they have more upto date drivers for download.

Another thing if you have just brought a new pc, say from HP, update all drivers straight away, as they will be out of date out of the box. Some can be by months.

So once you have done this you should have better frame rates and enjoy the game more, so when they do sort this out in the patch, like me, your game will play even better then before.

{Jumbo image replaced with link. esd}