X3TC/X3AP In search of performance hints

[XenonSurf]

Hello,

comming from X:Rebirth, I want now in paralell also deal with these giants X titles. X3TC v. 3.2c, X3AP v.3.1.

On my average i7 desktop 3GH, 6GB RAM with Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS, I have found via Nvidia Inspector a special in-build profile for my grafic driver to use, adding SLI and 4-core usage settings. The game starts and runs fine, but a high resolution like 1920x1080 was meant (if at all) to be long in the future when the X3 engine was built, the unpleasant side effect is that the fonts and windows (like the sector map, the menu topics in the side-bars) keep rather small, not adjusting to the screen, and are a pain to read.

Against that, I intend to use the x3fontmaker tool as explained by manniac in

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=252150

Another performance thing I want to cure is the working temperature of my grafic card, which goes over 100°C in some stages of the game (and then going down again), a normal effect with this card but I managed to 'cure' this with other games by tweaking both settings and resolution.

My native resolution is 1920x1080 using a DVI connection cable.
It's strange that when I change to 1280x720 (also 16:9) the framerates largely increase, but still the temperature behavior is exactly the same (goes over 100°C in stations, and go down when undocking, only 1 example)

At default, my grafic settings for both X3AT and X3AP are all High, only the View Distance is Medium, AA=4x, AF=8x.

What settings are you using with a likelywise card (Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS with around 1.5 MB of memory IIRC) ?

I would highly welcome any performance tweaking hints, I'm sure I can lower the settings without X3 looking worse, I especially want to get the card's temperature down.

Thanks a lot for your replies!

XenonS

[X2-Illuminatus]

There's nothing you can do with regards to the small text size, except for using a smaller resolution and increasing the font size slightly.

At default, my grafic settings for both X3AT and X3AP are all High, only the View Distance is Medium, AA=4x, AF=8x.

Try to reduce the Shader quality first, and if that doesn't work the other graphics settings.

[XenonSurf]

Hi X2-Illuminatus,

yes, I just realize that the Shader settings will help. I think if I limit the FPS to 60, it will further help to unload my GPU.

Thanks,
XenonS

[XenonSurf]

For GPU temperature, I have solved the problem.
It^s the excessive framerate.

In Nvidia Inspector I can enable a framerate limiter and set it to 60 fps. This will make my temp remain idle at 85°C instead of going over 100...
Anyone should care about this, caus the card^s longevity will be so much better

Good fighting / trading for everyone,
XenonS

[CBJ]

X3AP already implements a framerate cap. As far as I can remember X3TC doesn't.