[fsphiladelphia]

Hi -- I've been reading the board for a little while, first time post.  Hopefully someone will beam me.  After playing the Hotu version for a while, I found the HLP forums and took the plunge into FsOpen.  To the people responsible for all of this, I'd like to say a sincere thanks.  This game is gorgeous, fun to play, and just very complete.  Your work is definitely appreciated.

After a couple of weeks with it, I loved the game so much I had to break my modest grad student budget and pick up a video card.  I got a 7300gs and returned it after 2 days, exchanging it today for a 7600gt.  So far, I can say the new card rocks.

What I want to know (and I've searched through the forum as well as other websites, but can't tell definitively) is:  what graphical settings make the biggest impact on gameplay?  For background info, my system is as such:  Athlon 64 3200+, 512MB ram.  While experimenting with the 7300 and now with the 7600gt, I've been playing the Derelict mission 'Rites of Passage' over and over, comparing FPS.

Right now I'm getting a constant 60 FPS whether I'm looking at space or at cap ships, when a battle starts it drops to about 34.  When facing the enormous space station (which I should have the name memorized by now (Altair Station?)) in the middle of a battle, it dopped to under 10 for a few moments, i think something was either warping in or there was a shockwave.

I've got the AF up to 16, and the AA is at 8xS.  In the nVidia forceworks settings I have the texture filtering set to Quality, transparency filtering is on supersampling.  I'm running the game at 1280x1024.

This is my command line:

C:\Games\Freespace2\fs2_open_3_6_9.exe -mod derelict,mediavps -spec -glow -env -jpgtga -mipmap -2d_poof -noscalevid -missile_lighting -cache_bitmaps -orbradar -rearm_timer -3dwarp -warp_flash -snd_preload -alpha_env -fps  -spec_exp 11 -spec_point 0.8 -spec_static 0.8 -spec_tube 0.8 -ambient_factor 65 -ogl_spec 80

Basically, I'm looking to have the best possible graphical experience, and I'd love to do so without dropping below 25 FPS in the most intense moments.  I'd also like to keep it in 1280 x 1024 because I've got a 19" monitor.  I'm sure this is possible, but what graphics settings most negatively impact the performance?  I am guessing it's the AA being set to 8xS.

Thanks for any input, and, glad to be here.

[MP-Ryan]

The biggest culprits to your framerate, without removing FSO visual experience, are AA and AF, along with your texture settings.  Basically the things you set in your video software, not FS.  You should be able to max out the graphical options in FSO itself.  Just tinker with the video card's settings - they actually don't make an enormous difference to visual quality in the higher ranges (versus the high or moderate ranges), but they do use more resources.

[fsphiladelphia]

Thanks for the info.  I'm going to keep tinkering with the nvidia control panel to see where it goes.  I do have the settings maxed in FSO.

I am emboldened by the fact that the framerates are pretty high already, including constant 60 if in a smaller dogfight.  It might be higher than 60 if I unpeg the vsynch, so maybe I'll do that just to take a look and see where it really is.

[fsphiladelphia]

I turned off vertical synch to see the 'true' fps, and lowered the AA to 4x.  Here were the results:

120 fps most of the time, including smaller dogfights.

~85-90 fps while staring at luxor station prior to the battle.

a drastic range of ~38 - 90 fps while staring at luxor station and some capships during a firefight, dropping to a low of around 13 fps while some fenris cruisers jump in (3), but only a pause in the otherwise 38-90 fps for a second or two while they jumped in.

finally, it stayed at or above 30 fps during a huge fight between luxor station with 6 or 7 other cap ships on the screen all firing beams, but like the above scenario, it would momentarily freeze whenever there was a shockwave or something warped in.

Are the above results basically typical?  I'm somewhat satisfied and will probably tinker to improve it.  Also, I've read in other threads, but don't quite grasp the concept about moving the shockwave files from one .vp to another, or to another directory?  Is this something that would improve performance, and how would one go about that?

[Herra Tohtori]

I have much similar system - same CPU, but I have 1024 MB RAM and my GeForce 7600 GT is (supposedly) from XFX's XXX range of products, and I'm using it clocked to 720/1750 MHz for core/memory (versus default clocks of 650/1600 MHz versus the stock 7600 GT clocks of 560/1400 MHz...).

My settings for FS2_Open are:

1280x1024@32bit resolution

cmdline: fs2_open_3_6_9.exe -spec -glow -env -jpgtga -mipmap -nomotiondebris -2d_poof -missile_lighting -img2dds -no_vsync -cache_bitmaps -dualscanlines -targetinfo -orbradar -rearm_timer -ship_choice_3d -3dwarp -warp_flash -snd_preload -alpha_env -voicer -fps  -ambient_factor 0 -no_emissive_light -fov 0.55 -spec_exp 16.7 -spec_point 0.6 -spec_static 0.9 -spec_tube 1 -mod mediavp368zeta


8xS AA
16xAF set from the Launcher
Trilinear mip mapping set from Launcher
All settings maxed in NVidia Control Panel; visual quality set to High Quality etc. etc.

Vertical synchronization disabled from the launcher, but enabled on the NVidia Control Panel; that makes the game run faster while keeping the framerates from causing page tearing.

Running with MediaVP 3.6.8 zetas with adveffects enabled.

For most of the time I'm running happily at over 60 FPS. The least FPS I've seen has been in Axem's Just Another Day's Disco Inferno mission, where there is a gargantual particle spewing explosion cluster, it dropped the FPS to <19 with the screen full of explosions...

As has been already stated, the biggest impact to performance is AA and AF levels from drivers, and at least with my card, specifically the AA setting. Changing the setting from 8xS AA to 4xAA improves the frame rates greatly without sacrificing much visual quality. AF setting can be kept maxed out rather safely.

Most likely the biggest thing affecting your system's performance is the rather low amount of system RAM. Many textures are rather big in MediaVP's, and that can cause slowdowns especially on explosions.

[fsphiladelphia]

Thanks for the info there.  It's great to get feedback from someone with a similar system and almost the same video card.  I'll try disabling vsynch in launcher and setting it to 'force on' in the nvidia control panel.  Without more ram, I'm going to keep the AA at 4x, though 8xS did look nice.

Also, thanks for the heads up re: the ram.  I know ram is usually one of the usual suspects, and it's probably time for an upgrade there, as well.  I am getting great framerates, but when shockwaves and warp-ins happen, there can be a lag.

Still, I can't say enough about the 7600 GT -- for $100 after rebate at Micro Center, I'm not sure there is a better value out there.

Are the 3.6.8 zeta vp's better/more efficient as far as performance than the ones that would have come straight from the SCP installer?  Do they look a lot different?  Also (revealing real noob status here) how do I know if I have adveffects enabled?  The game looks stunning and the visuals I'm getting are on par with the screenshots I've seen in the forums, so I imagine I have them on, but I don't know.

[Huggybaby]

Hey fsphiladelphia,

I've been through the process you're going through now, looking for best performance/quality. The biggest changes I could make to help frame rates without changing overall quality are detailed in this post:

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,44757.msg913653.html#msg913653

Let me know if you try any of these and what you think!

Huggybaby

[Herra Tohtori]

MediaVP 3.6.8 zetas are the latest (and probably last) incarnation of pre-3.6.8 release VP's, which aren't going to exist. The MediaVP cycle will jump directly to 3.6.9 MediaVP's hopefully in close future.

As far as I know, the SCP installer does install these latest MediaVP's, but there are numerous things that can make performance better without affecting visual quality. One of the most important things for PC's with low memory is to download and install DDS Beamglows, which replace the ANI beamglows in the MediaVP's and reduce the memory use while retaining practically the same quality.

Another way to reduce slowdowns is to extract the medium resolution shockwaves from mv_effects.vp (they should be image files named shockwave-<something>) and locating them into mediavps\data\maps\ directory; from there they should replace the ultra-high resolution shockwaves that reside in mv_adveffects.vp.

Those ultra-high res shockwave textures are one of the things that cause the most FPS drops when using adveffects, as opposed to only using normal effects.

Unfortunately, I can't post more accurate instructions at the moment.

[Turey]

Turn off missile lighting. There's no way in hell you'll be able to see it in the course of normal playing, and it causes a reasonably large slowdown, especially when someone fires off a fish.

[S-99]

Hi fsphiladelphia. I have the exact same system specs as you do, except i have 1.5gb of ram. System ram is not a culprit in speed with the fso even with mv_adveffects. The culprit is yes your video card settings. It's like what was said already, those do not make much of a difference to need to have up all of the way, it's best to just go into the 7600gt settings and tweak it for performance right from there. After that, FSAA is very resource intensive, just go the good way and pretty much turn off fsaa. AF is a good thing to turn on, it makes enough of an extreme difference in visual quality if you have it as low as 2x or 4x this will sacrifice some performance, but you'll probably find it negligible. Another thing you should turn on is triple buffering, this will improve performance. Another speed sacrificing thing that i recommend you turn on is trilinear filtering, because bilinear filtering looks like ****, yet again trilinear is negligible in performance drop.

Another thing is to take control of your refresh rate. The 60fps and nothing higher sounds due to the fact that you have vsync on in the features tab of fs2. Either turn off vsync (vsync matches the framerate of your game to the refresh rate of your monitor) and experience variable but higher framerates, or do what i do. For fs2 i play in 1024x768 at 85hertz with vsync on. This helps ensure that my framerate stays constant and steady, not going above 85fps, and doing a pretty damn good job not going below 85fps. The way i tweaked the framerate using vsync and my refresh rate provides an extremely smooth and stable gameplay with virtually no tearing of the 3d environment if i so much as turn my fighter (vsync helps alleviate tearing that's one reason many use it).

You have virtually the same set up that i have. I'd really recommend getting at least a gig of system memory though or else if you're playing games like halflife2, fear, or even fs2scp for that matter you may experience hops and jumps in gameplay due to the system utilizing virtual memory a little further as compared to my machine which doesn't need to access it so much in games because of my 1.5gb's of memory (my system doesn't hop and skip anymore in any games since i upgraded from 512mb system memory).

Last thing to say is that, there should be no reason why you can't run with max settings in fs2scp. I have all of the mediavps including mv_adveffects with all of the high end features checked in the launcher, along with my 7600gt control panel tweaked for performance (except for my activation of trilinear filtering), and i get absolutely flawless gameplay. and plz trying getting an extra 512 stick of memory, or just plain old add a stick of 1gig to pair with your existing memory.

Missile lighting? i notice that all of the time, especially helps when avoiding missiles or just plain old looking for enemy missiles (not really a performance dropper either, also i notice it because i look for it or i wouldn't have it checked in the launcher). Ultra high-res shockwaves? I'm not sure if those were replaced with either the medium or just the high end shockwaves or are going to be replaced (whatever shockwaves in adveffects they don't ruin my performance either).

You have a good gaming machine, learn to tweak it's settings properly.

[fsphiladelphia]

Thanks for all of the input guys.  It's a big help.  FSO is great, but optimizing it seems to be system-specific and there are lots of little inside tricks and without this board I'd never be able to try them.

When I get home today I'm going to try the medium res beams and shockwaves.  I did notice last night that I'm by far having more issues with shockwaves than with beams.  The mission I'm benchmarking with features something like 10+ cap ships firing beams at one another at one point, and it doesn't go into the 20s (fps), but if there is only a neligible difference in quality, I'll try the new beams.  I'll also continue messing with the nvidia control panel.  I really would like to keep the AA at 4x if possible and the AF at 16. 

Question RE: AF -- if I have it set to 16 in the launcher, can I turn it off in the nvidia control panel -- ie: is the system running that effect twice now, once through FSO itself and once through the nvidia control panel?  If so, is it better to have it on in one versus the other, or should I have it set to 16 in both places?

As for the shockwaves, I don't mind dropping them down, since they are only onscreen a second and really are one of the main culprits.

Is it correct o assume in the 3.6.9 mediavps most of this stuff will be better optimized so these workarounds will no longer be necessary?

Another qustion -- my computer uses DDR Ram, PC3200.  At this point I am considering heading to microcenter after school to pick up at least 512MB more.  I know that DDR ram is forwards-compatible (if that's the right concept) as far as speeds -- but does it make a huge impact if the second DIMM is at PC4000 or higher as opposed to PC3200?

Thanks again for the answers, this is a big help.  I haven't really been interested in a game and getting it to work so well in probably 10 years, and this forum is great..

[Herra Tohtori]

Question RE: AF -- if I have it set to 16 in the launcher, can I turn it off in the nvidia control panel -- ie: is the system running that effect twice now, once through FSO itself and once through the nvidia control panel?  If so, is it better to have it on in one versus the other, or should I have it set to 16 in both places?

I think that it is indeed better to set those features to "software controlled" mode in NVidia's drivers. That includes anisotropic filtering and MIP mapping, as both of those can be set to the same levels that the drivers support (16x for AF and trilinear filtering for MIP mapping).

Of course you can try out if there's any difference in FPS/quality if you first set these features to software controlled in drivers, the ndisable them in launcher but enable them in drivers, or if you run them both.

Another qustion -- my computer uses DDR Ram, PC3200.  At this point I am considering heading to microcenter after school to pick up at least 512MB more.  I know that DDR ram is forwards-compatible (if that's the right concept) as far as speeds -- but does it make a huge impact if the second DIMM is at PC4000 or higher as opposed to PC3200?

Find out if you have two 256 MB modules or one 512 MB module. If you have one 512MB memory module, buy a similar one, or as similar as you can get, and you're set to use the memory to it's full extent. But if you have two 256 MB modules, then it gets more complicated.

In case you don't know - dual channel is a feature that enables the computer to double the memory bandwidth without increasing the memory or front side bus clock frequencies. But the paired modules is a requisite. In order to enable dual channel ability, memory modules must be installed in pairs so that the specs for size and speed match and preferably even same brand. So, adding a single 512 MB module would not enable you to use dual channel mode on at least that module - dunno if it would affect the other two modules as well.

You can of course stick a third, 512 MB module into the socket, and it will work... kinda. The PC will detect the new memory isntalled, but it will only operate in single channel mode. How it affects the two older modules I don't know.

So... if you have two 256 MB modules, and you want the PC to keep using the dual channel feature for the new memory as well... then you can either buy two new 256 MB modules to get your memory up to 1 GB, or you can buy two 512 MB modules to get it to 1.5 GB.

[Wobble73]

Of course that would be dependant on how many memory banks he has spare to put the memory in! 

Oh and fsphiladelphia .................................










You have now been beamed 

[CP5670]

The biggest performance killer is the shockwave. Switching to a smaller version of that will help a lot. AF should be set to 16x globally at all times, unless you find the 7 series shimmering too annoying. The performance hit from AF is something like 2% on any card from the last four years.

You can of course stick a third, 512 MB module into the socket, and it will work... kinda. The PC will detect the new memory isntalled, but it will only operate in single channel mode. How it affects the two older modules I don't know.

This only works on the old Socket A processors, where you do get full dual channel. Anything newer will only boot at all with 1, 2 or 4 sticks.

[jr2]

This thread is quite interesting.  fsphiladelphia, keep asking questions, I'll be reading the answers... 

[fsphiladelphia]

Jr2 - there's definitely lots of info here.  I'd love to ask more questions but I don't know if I'll have any until later this afternoon after I am back home experimenting.

I am going to have to go home and see if I have 2 memory modules or one before I commit to buying anything.  That's a bummer because the store I go to is near my school, 25 minutes from my apartment.  So I'll have to go home, check it all out, and go back.

I know I have four memory slots to work with.  I seem to recall seeing two modules when I installed the video card yesterday, but I also seem to recall the crucial system scanner telling me I only had 1 512MB module installed.  I bought the computer about 15 months ago, and I know it came with 512.  It's possible that I took the memory from my previous setup and installed it as well and it isn't being recognized, but I doubt I would have just chucked any old kind of memory in there.  I'll easily be able to figure this out in a couple of hours when I get home by removing one or the other and running the scanner/checking system properties.  Crossing my fingers to find a single 512MB module in there.

The one thing I really like about getting into a game which can be somewhat intensive is that it forces you to keep your machine up to date.  It's been a while since I've taken such an active interest in my setup.

You have now been beamed 

Thanks!

[jr2]

@fsphil: Sometimes, I've seen computers accept two different types of memory, and just ignore the incorrect one (the one that's lower, eg bank 1 instead of 0).  (I've also seen this happen with an incorrectly seated memory chip..)

Also, if you remember your make/model, go to the manufacturer's website, punch in the model info in the support section, and see what they gave you, it could possibly be under 'technical documents' or similar.  Or google your make model specs, eg Dell Dimension XPS 5400 specs... just make sure you're looking at factory specs, not someone's customized one.

[castor]

7600GT should be more than able to handle it, I guess, but you could try without the -env flag -- environment mapping tends to be one of the heavier options.

[Turey]

7600GT should be more than able to handle it, I guess, but you could try without the -env flag -- environment mapping tends to be one of the heavier options.

and it looks fugly on some ships.

[fsphiladelphia]

Also, if you remember your make/model, go to the manufacturer's website, punch in the model info in the support section, and see what they gave you, it could possibly be under 'technical documents' or similar.  Or google your make model specs, eg Dell Dimension XPS 5400 specs... just make sure you're looking at factory specs, not someone's customized one.

Already a step ahead of you   I just went to crucial.com and put in my computer -- compaq presario 1625nx, apparently it comes with 256 standard.  I distinctly remember there being 2 modules inside, however, because I unlatched one of them yesterday while installing the video card. 

The second is definitely something I added myself, most likely from my past computer.  If I had to guess, I would say that right now my memory is probably not running in dual channel.  I think one of the modules might be PC2100 and one is PC3200.

I could easily go get a 1GB stick or two 512GB sticks.  However, if I get the two 512 sticks, I'll be up to 1.5 GB and possibly 2 of the 4 sticks would be running dual channel.  On the other hand, if I get the single 1GB stick, I may not be able to boot up with 3 sticks in there and I'd have to get rid of one of the 256's, which would leave me at 1.25GB, also not running in dual channel because it would not be matching sized modules.

I'd like to minimize travel time, if possible, and avoid driving around Philadelphia at rush hour when school is right next to the store.  I am guesing at this point, the 2 matched 512 sticks is probably the best/safest bet?  Best case scenario, the 2 existing sticks are already in dual channel and the new ones are as well, and I have 1.5 gb at dual channel.  Worst case scenario, I am at 1.5 GB without being at dual channel.

Question about that, however -- would it be a noticeable upgrade to add 1gb of ram if I do not receive the benefit of dual channel?

At least I can rule out buying a single 512MB module, because in that case, I can't boot up with 3 modules, and I'd have to lose one of the 256's and I'd definitely not be in dual channel.

...and I suppose while I'm here, may as well add another option -- getting 2 additional 256mb modules?

Hm, the more I write the more I realize I should go home and see if the existing ones are in dual channel or not.  That will probably make it a lot easier.  Final question (for this post) -- would it be preferable to run 1GB in full dual channel or 1.5 GB not in dual channel?  (buying a matched GB of 512's, or even just a solo 1GB module and losing the 256's altogether might be a final option).

Haha...what a can of worms I've opened up.

7600GT should be more than able to handle it, I guess, but you could try without the -env flag -- environment mapping tends to be one of the heavier options.

It's definitely something I could experiment with in a couple of hours.