Game Guides Archive

---

RogueFettt wrote:

I sacrifice graphics for less lag. I got so pissed off one day cause i was freezing for 5 seconds at a time on coro that I turned all of the graphics to 0. Even went into the configuraion utility and checked the low detail models or whatever. I don't get much if any lag anymore although it sucks that the game has to look like Nintendo 64.

---

I have to agree with RogueFettt. The lag is due to a high detail of graphics. I upgraded to 1 GB RAM and I saw an incredible difference from my 512 MB days and it has improved it alot.

I turned down some not all graphics and sure enough it runs smooth. But there is that occasion when the Direct X on the game starts acting funny. What I mean by that is that it slows to a crawl, it seems like the bandwidth meter on the onscreen meter goes crazy, sound cuts out then in while freezes occure and the frame rate goes down to 1. Now I have my settings turned down and what happens next is weirder.I dont know if anyone is experiancing this but a couple of times the polygons were evident on the ground and it went really cartoony on me. Like the details on everything went from detailed to crap in 0-60 seconds.

It was odd. I exited the game and tried to go back in. What happens next gives me hint to the Direct Xc being the problem.

I tried to log in and it said on a pop up message something to the effect:Your Direct X commponent is experiancing a problem loading. In order to correct the problem you must restart your computer.

NowI never ever had problems with SWG in Beta C. Im tlaking about before launch! Played non stop since except for a 4 month vacation i took from this game in protest of the combat. Now im back and DirecX is upgraded to C version. I was experiancing horrible lag at 512 MB so I upgraded and things ran a hell of alot smoother. But this Direct X thing pops up every once in a while.

Any one else having this issue? This particular issue with Direct X?

When I reboot im running fast as ever again. Like it needed to dump off memory or something. Weird but this is what im experiancing.

---

SharkBoy007 wrote:

OK, first off, I didn't know where to put this, so bear with me. Secondly, I'm not here to rant or cause trouble, just expressing my observations by comparing two MMORPGs. And no, I am not leaving SWG for ANY MMORPG, no matter how "cool" or whatever. So please be kind enough to read the whole thing before one starring.

With that said, I will admit that I purchased WoW, as I needed a break after all the FS grinding, and having spent almost a week or so trying to get Phase 3 done (it's completed, thank the Force). I have friends who play WoW, and I wanted to play a game that had a social aspect to it, so there. That said, I noticed that SWG is far more in-depth than I intially thought, which isn't surprising since SWG is my first game of this kind. Upon creating a WoW character and starting the game, I came to appreciate the developers alot more. WoW is a fun game, but to be honest, I cannot see what all the fuss was about. WoW is more like an "MMORPG Lite", lol. But aside from seeing how much more in-depth SWG is, I noticed one other thing, more glaring than anything else:

THE LAG

First, let me say one word: Coronet. Everyone knows how laggy it is, and it's seem to get laggier, even with it seeming like there isn't so many people playing, at least on my server, and one other I play on semi-regularly (Scylla). In Coronet, we are restricted to playing on a relatively flat field. Very few buildings have more than one level, and most of the buildings aren't even enterable. And you can't get very many people fighting in the area without lagging it so bad it's like watching a slide show. Now before you say it's my computer, all drivers are the latest versions, I have 1 GB RAM, and 3.2 GHz processor, and an ATI Radeon 9700. So, it's not my machine.

Now, contrast this with what I experienced in WoW. I was in the Orc captiol of Orgrimmar. Think Coronet, but larger, and all the buildings are enterable, and there is alot of different levels to go on. NPCs are about 3x what you see in Coronet, and the players are similar in number to what SWG was seeing for a little while after release. During my time there, there was a large raiding party hitting it, made up of players. During this time, not a single slow down. It was relatively low lag, if any lag. Suffice it to say, I never experienced any lag.

SO, that said, I would like to say this:

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHATSOEVER FOR SWG TO BE EXPERIENCING LAG, MUCH LESS LAG ON THE MAGNITUDE WE HAVE TO SUFFER.

If some small(er) company can pull off an MMORPG with relatively low lag, a large company with the resources that SOE has at its disposal should sure be able to pull that off. I don't play EQ, and I never will, so I can't comment on that, but if anyone else has, does that game have as much lag as SWG?

I am pleading with the developers to get up off their rear ends and fix this lag. It can be done! I really see the potential in this game, and I'm hoping that the addition of more developers and such is a good sign of SOE's renewed commitment to this game. Please, PLEASE fix the lag! I KNOW you can do it. I've seen it done elsewhere by a company with nowhere NEAR the resources you guys can bring to bear on it.

If you guys fix stuff like this, SWG would blow all other MMORPGs out of the water, and that belief is why I'm still here hanging on.

Thank you for taking the time to listen

---

Well, not to offend you and also i read the whole thread. I agree with that the most other MMORPG's don't have that big graphic/load lag.
But also no other MMORPG has this spread of custom details of any character. No char seems look like the other. This means that your system has to load a bunch of textures.
to get rid of that lag SOE should develope a solution for the RAM stacks. You figured for sure that when you relog the lag is much less than before after playing a while. So, this would help. Instead you can tweak your settings. I am sure you'll find some good advices here in the forum to do that in a way what don't affect your "look" experience too much. some features are almost unimportant for the graphical impression but needs a lot of graphical resources.
I absolutelely with you to force the Devs to find some solution for that issue, but i really don't want to get rid of seeing all the clothes and different faces and stuff as a price for such a solution.
Btw. My system is quite similar to yours but a 9800 pro and i have always at least 17 frames in coronet. Usually 30 at all.

---

S-R6 wrote:

Drivers have alot to do with problems in game. Something else that factors into your video card processing is also your network connection and your connection server. If you are in connecting to a east coast server and you're on the West Coast, the bottleneck would occur at the network level. If the packets are not coming in fast enough or are fragmented, you're video card will have a hard time keeping up no matter how much RAM you have on the VC.

---

Not exactly in my opinion. We have to distinguish the kind of lag. Connectivity ' and graphics lag. I do call from Germany the whole way to Bria and i am fine. Ofcourse it's a bit odd to do PvP with a ping of 245, but still usable. The threat owner ment to tell about the graphical lag what happens to all and it doesn't depends on the connectivity. Ofcourse this is an issue too especially on a few planets. Recently i was waiting for about 1 minute to get the mission reward message after finished the Janta on Dantooine on Bria.

---

Jazzica wrote:

Well, not to offend you and also i read the whole thread. I agree with that the most other MMORPG's don't have that big graphic/load lag. No offense taken, and thanks for reading through it all. I didn't want people to automatically assume that I'm saying WoW is better than SWG, because while they are both good games, if push came to shove, I'd keep SWG before I kept WoW.
But also no other MMORPG has this spread of custom details of any character. No char seems look like the other. This means that your system has to load a bunch of textures. I admit that this is something I didn't think of, and you could be right. But there is enough texture differentation with regardst to clothing, weapons and armor (though not anywhere near the degree of SWG), that I'm not sure I completely agree with this.
to get rid of that lag SOE should develope a solution for the RAM stacks. You figured for sure that when you relog the lag is much less than before after playing a while. So, this would help. Instead you can tweak your settings. I am sure you'll find some good advices here in the forum to do that in a way what don't affect your "look" experience too much. some features are almost unimportant for the graphical impression but needs a lot of graphical resources.
I absolutelely with you to force the Devs to find some solution for that issue, but i really don't want to get rid of seeing all the clothes and different faces and stuff as a price for such a solution.
Btw. My system is quite similar to yours but a 9800 pro and i have always at least 17 frames in coronet. Usually 30 at all.

---

---

quackyducky wrote:

Yeah, the lag in this game really needs to be fixed. Maybe that's the next expansion: SWG Expansion Pack 2 - The End of Lag

---

SWG expansion: Revenge of the Lag

Message Edited by beauchamp6543 on 01-25-2005 06:54 PM

No offence to anyone by saying this, but YOU think you suffer from lag? ughhhh try playing on dial-up with low RAM That really sucks, but with the last patch that came out things have became much easier, i never used to be able to shuttle, but now it takes me about 2 minutes to and that pleases me, i dont know what they did, but they have done somthing to cure me of my lag problems...Thank you SWG, oh and on dial-up, anything that involves a group is totally pointless because within 20 sec's of a battle you will have 50-95% packet loss and soon be dead, WOOT