X3TC Performance Tweaks

[nankura]

hey guys

Im just wondering, what sort of mods there are out there and performance tweaks that i can perform to improve performance on x3tc. the game ofcourse is a very hardware intensive game.

Now. usually im fine, going through space, missions have all been fine. accept Aldrin that was an epic fps drop moment.

Lately ive removed fog, that helped alot. but then i went to emporer mines because i have improved races 2.0, to help in a battle and there was probably over 100 ships fighting. so my pc copped a beating

Anyway. ofcourse to help the situation, heres my specs, and modlist. as i understand some scripts can be cpu intensive and nvidia control panel settings

My PC

AMD Phenon II 955 Black edition ( everything is at stock speeds )
ASUS M4A87TD/USB3
Gigabyte GTX 460 1GB Special Edition twin fans
1TB Western digital green hdd
64bit Windows 7 Home Prem
8GB DDR3 G.Skill Ripjaw-X Gaming series 1333Mhz RAM
Xigmatek Air Cooling system with thermaltake V3 Case
750W Power supply GX/Coolermaster
Most background processes disabled. aero disabled. and i mostly just have msn in the background + Avast virus protection

My Scripts/Mods
ATF Shipyard Mod v6
ImprovedRaces 2.0
Military Base Response Revamp
NPC Bailing Addon
Salvage Commands and NPCs
JSON Parser Library - default community addons
No Fog Mod 2.5

Ingame Settings
2x AF - AI disabled window mode
Resolution 1280x1024 windowed mode
Textures Medium
Shaders High
Dynamic Lights on
Ship colour Variations on
Glow enabled

All other options are off

Heres 2 screenshots of my nvidia settings
http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/1772/nvidia1.jpg
http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/623/nvidia2j.jpg

sorry for the long post. i try to provide as many details when asking for tech help as i can. to help u guys help me, anyway

The main time i feel the extreme choppy gameplay and fps drops is when theres a great number of ships battling. before i even get to the battle or see the shots been fired i feel it. small fleets. and like. 3 caps vs another 3-4 capitals doesnt effect me in the slightest

I also do get the slight little loading lag spike as it loads into the game. or when comming out of a portal jump

so yeah, any mods or settings that i can adjust will be greatly appreciated

[CBJ]

Since a) your game is heavily modified and b) you seem to be asking mainly about mods and scripts, I'm going to move this over to the Scripts and Modding forum.

If you want help with getting the best performance out of the standard game then you really need to run an unmodified game and provide 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] report, as per the very first thread in the Tech Support forum.

[apricotslice]

Post a dxdiag anyway, that does help. For those that know, it will point out if you have old drivers, or just hardware that doesnt cut it.

In the meantime, drop your graphics settings down to low.

Also, it helps if you completely disable the internet, and turn off all programs that use the internet.

There is a sticky in the tech support forum from memory about things to do to improve performance.

There is a mod to remove the Aldrin rock. That improves things significantly in there.

[DrBullwinkle]

what sort of mods there are out there and performance tweaks that i can perform to improve performance on x3tc.

As a test, try your game without IR and MBRR. In my experience, that kind of script can be harsh on performance (although I know that Jack08 has tried to make IR 2.0 as fast as possible).

There are also some tweaks that will help, with or without those scripts. I have tried every performance enhancer that I have seen recommended on the forum. The best, for my game, are:

- Improved Combat Frame Rate. This makes the greatest improvement, but it sacrifices most of the eye candy from lasers and explosions. I use the Plugin Manager to turn it on only when I really need it (for major battles).

- As Apricot said, reduce texture and shader quality to medium or low.

- X-Unleashed

- lower poly asteroids

- Resized Aldrin Big Rock

- more performant complex tubes (a.k.a. Invisible Tubes Mod)

- Laux's Mods. Especially: Remove Mini Asteroids.

[nankura]

heres my dxdiag

http://pastebin.com/d3x1cARu

i decided to use pastebin as to not spam the forum thread.

I installed the Mods for Low Poly rocks and X3:R Textures in x3tc. the improved shaders mod. i think its called

And i also turned off AI and AF in the graphical option menu and set nvidia to control that

Ive seen an excellent performance increase. everything feels smoother even mouse response time, tho ive yet to test in battle. im already seeing a notice-able improvement generally.

though in black hole sun with a response fleet around. thats over about 50 ships ( exiting the equipement dock not all the ships are visible just yet, but in the sector on the radar ) im getting between 25-40 fps up and down

Note: just tried that Unleashed mod and it held around 40-59 fps in black hole sun and 34-35 in Aldrin

Its just odd. like i mean, my pc isnt exactly out of date just yet. its still got some hardcore gear, i just feel like i should be getting better fps and im not sure whats really slowing me down. it might be one of the mods, and i can guarantee its not a hardware issue, i run battlefield 3 and dota 2 smooth as a non pimply face and all my hardware is quite fresh

Is it possable that mixing Improved Races and Military Base Response revamp is causing issues?, Military base response replaces the stock response scripts spawning a quicker response to an invasion etc, and i have noticed most of the ships that spawn and cause lag have "response" in red in there name

Decided to do another test ( sorry updating this post as i test )

I loaded Albion Prelude with everything on max settings and went to a crowded area and there was some fighting going on with over 100 ships i think, i didnt really count but it was alot. all vanilla, and just been around the ships i was at 50-80 fps. and once the fight started between 40-28

so ive pretty much narrowed it down to been mixing Improved Races 2.0 and Military Base Response in X3TC, but when uninstall both of them, and loading into my game/saving/loading again. the game now crashs after 3 minutes of gameplay ( i have a feeling the savegame has gone curropt or something )

gonna suck if i have to start again. or reinstall the game, i just got my tyr

[TrixX]

Don't really need MBRR if using IR 2.0

IR 2.0 is updated to be a lot smarter than it used to be

[nankura]

well thats fine and dandy, problem now is that if i remove either mod and load up my save. the game crashs, but with both mods installed it doesnt.

So it seems that by removing either mod, or both, it messes with my save file, even saving and reloading doesnt work