Game Guides Archive
Thread: Any tricks to get a framerate boost?
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JakinIrali
Thu Dec 09, 2004 6:37 am
#1
I just upgraded from an 800Mhz P3 with 700mb ram to a 4.3Ghz P4 with 1028mb ram. My video card I've hadon both systems is a GeForce FX 5600 Ultra. However, after the upgrade I noticed practically no framerate improvement - at least nothing like I would've expected. The framerate doesn't drop to unplayable levels within Coronet anymore, and I can play with most of the graphic settings turned up much higher now. But even if I minimize ALL the graphics settings, the game still can't get past 15fps regardless of location. Is there something obvious that I'm just stupidlymissing here?
GregorianPipes
Thu Dec 09, 2004 6:57 am
#2
That is odd. The RAM upgrade should have helped that a lot. I recently upgraded to a 3.0 P4, 1-gig of PC3700, and a 7200rpm harddrive, and an ATI Radeon 9800pro 256. Framrates jumped from unplayable levels in Coronet to never dropping below 22, usually stays at 30. Also, load times dropped considerably. You might consider upgrading your video card. It may be the bottleneck of your system. Go for a 256 bit, 256mb card if you can.
Metalstrike
Thu Dec 09, 2004 7:30 am
#3
Start the swg client per normal accept the TOS at the next screen select game options,choose the graphics tab and 2nd from the top should be a drop down menu that says vertex/pixel shader version.Press the drop down arrow and select 1.4 (override) click ok and close the client down and restart the client.See if this helps you any.
Ka-oan
Thu Dec 09, 2004 7:34 am
#4
This post doesn't give me much hope here...
I to have horrid framerate issues. I'm running on an AMD XP1800+, w/ 1GB of RAM, and a nVidia FX5600 256MB video card. According to the system performance monitors I run when I'm testing, my processor is the bottle-neck as it is always spiked at the exact moment my framerate drops. However, looking at the upgrade you just did... I'm beginning to worry.
A few questions:
1) What kind of hard drive are you using? S/ATA, ATA100/133 IDE (7200rpm or 5600rpm), any RAID configuration?
2) Do you notice excesive harddrive activity during play?
3) Is your AGP port set for 8x or AUTO in the BIOS? Is it set to Performance or Quality? Any AA or AF (AB? I don't remember the other one) settings?
I to have horrid framerate issues. I'm running on an AMD XP1800+, w/ 1GB of RAM, and a nVidia FX5600 256MB video card. According to the system performance monitors I run when I'm testing, my processor is the bottle-neck as it is always spiked at the exact moment my framerate drops. However, looking at the upgrade you just did... I'm beginning to worry.
A few questions:
1) What kind of hard drive are you using? S/ATA, ATA100/133 IDE (7200rpm or 5600rpm), any RAID configuration?
2) Do you notice excesive harddrive activity during play?
3) Is your AGP port set for 8x or AUTO in the BIOS? Is it set to Performance or Quality? Any AA or AF (AB? I don't remember the other one) settings?
JakinIrali
Thu Dec 09, 2004 8:00 am
#5
Can't rightly remember what HDD I have SWGon right now. It has it's own partition, and I have 3 harddrives on my system (one originally purchased specifically for streaming TV-quality video, so you know that one runs bloody fast). All 3 harddrives are set up for virtual mem, so my computer has more than 10GB of cached disk space.
I did consider it a harddrive issue when I first loaded the game again, but during the caching phase, the framerate still drops to the point that the game is practically frozen for a couple seconds (Coronet). After the textures & models are all loaded though, there's very little harddrive activity except when I travel by swoop (loading terrain data).
I'll give you more info when I get home. I just plugged this system in last night and jumped right into SWG to catch up on things as I've been absent for a few days. Didn't mess around withsettings too much aside from allocating the cache space, because I figured just the brute strength of the new system would've blown the old one away,& later on I'dstart tweaking to get every lastounce of performance I can out of it.
I also checked the game settings (I copied my old profile over so I wouldn't have to re-download everything) so I thought perhaps the game thought it was still running on a P3, but SWG's hardwareprofile recognized the new components without a problem.
PixellJ
Thu Dec 09, 2004 8:17 am
#6
Check what resolution you run at. I have a AMD 2500, radeon 9700, 1 gig RAM, and run at 1024x768.
JakinIrali
Thu Dec 09, 2004 8:21 am
#7
Oh yes, bare minimum 1024x768.
And a 60hz refresh rate if I recall. I guess I could try playing with the refresh rate too. I don't think it'd ever make a big difference but perhaps certain frequencies are optimal for some cards?
john_p
Thu Dec 09, 2004 8:28 am
#8
This game just eats fps. I went from a 9600XT to an X800 Pro (overclocked) and noticed very little increase in overall fps. I could turn on antialiasing, but shadows etc still kill the framerate by a large amount. This is on a 3.4 gig P4. Just have to put up with it I guess .. possibly related to the large amount of data that gets transferredbetween the server and the client?
JakinIrali
Thu Dec 09, 2004 8:31 am
#9
john_p wrote:
This game just eats fps. I went from a 9600XT to an X800 Pro (overclocked) and noticed very little increase in overall fps. I could turn on antialiasing, but shadows etc still kill the framerate by a large amount. This is on a 3.4 gig P4. Just have to put up with it I guess .. possibly related to the large amount of data that gets transferredbetween the server and the client?
See what I'm finding strange is that even if I drop all the settings to minumum like I did on my low-end computer, I don't see any framerate improvement. It's as if the game fpsis capped at 15. I find it hard to believe that it's a hardware issue. It's probably something really stupid that I've overlooked.
ObiQuixote
Thu Dec 09, 2004 8:39 am
#10
I just upgraded to radeon 9800/256 and UT went from 40fps at 1280x1024 medium settings to about 120 with maxed settings. SWG went from about 20 average to.. well about
20 average.
If you have a lot video ram might check to make sure your AGP aperture is low. Helped me a little bit with loading times at least.
20 average.
If you have a lot video ram might check to make sure your AGP aperture is low. Helped me a little bit with loading times at least.
PixellJ
Thu Dec 09, 2004 8:41 am
#11
JakinIrali wrote:
Oh yes, bare minimum 1024x768.
And a 60hz refresh rate if I recall. I guess I could try playing with the refresh rate too. I don't think it'd ever make a big difference but perhaps certain frequencies are optimal for some cards?
refresh shouldn't matter since the game is locked at 30 FPS. refresh only becomes an issue when you find yourself capped at 60 FPS (in your case). EVERY card will work at 60 MHz though, that's a standard. As a sidenote, 60 is really hard on eyestrain, because the human eye can perceive flicker at 60.
Other things to consider though are your basic driver settings. Things like anti-aliasing, pixel shadingand all that stuff. Turn it all off, and work your way up from zero.
JakinIrali
Thu Dec 09, 2004 9:55 am
#13
PadiOne wrote:
lol, this isn't quake. framerate is capped at 30.
Lol well I'm not looking for any 90fps. I'd be happy with 30. I'm just trying to get the SWG video experience the way it was intended and so far, it's just not happening. Sickeningly slow framerates during battles takes a lot away from the feel of it.
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