[Jeff Vader]

1. Please do not double-post unless there is a good reason. If it's been 5 minutes since you posted, and no one has yet posted after you, and you feel like you have something to add, MODIFY your post and add the thought that came to your mind.

2. If I knew what was going and how to fix it, I would have told you at the very beginning. I'd dare say that the same thing goes for quite a few people here.

My card is Nvidia...

That's great but with Nvidia having released probably hundreds, or at least dozens, of GPUs, saying "it's Nvidia" doesn't quite narrow it down.

[ScottForster]

Sorry for getting all pissy, I have had a pretty rough week...

[jr2]

In my signature there is a link to GPUZ.  It tells you what your GPU is.  Also, CPUZ tells you what your processor / mobo / memory is. 

[ScottForster]

Ok I have an Nvidia GeForce 7100/ nForce 630i   


I also tried disabling start up menu options as suggested. Worked fine for a while, couple days, and now it is back to doing it again.  My question remains, if it WERE hardware related, why does it only do it intermittantly. Sometimes if I don't play it for a week or two, it runs fine for a couple days, then it is back to the bad performance... I recently installed a new HD and put the Freespace folder on the new hard drive. Hoping maybe THAT would help.

I just don't understand that if it were hardware related, why doesn't it do it all the time and not intermittantly... Kinda like if I have a battery that is too small for the car, it would be slow to start ALL the time, not just SOME of the time...

[ScottForster]

Anyone?

[ScottForster]

Would the game run for me if it were able to run in Direct3D???

[chief1983]

That's like asking if your car that needs a new distributor would work if it ran on diesel.

[ScottForster]

So then how do I fix it?

[Mongoose]

Okay, Scott...please stop making multiple posts in a row and bumping the thread after only a couple of hours.  This is a forum, not a chat room.  If someone reads this thread and has a new idea for you to try, they'll post it.  The fact that your issue is very intermittent and may potentially be on the hardware side of things means that it may be a difficult one to pin down.  I know you're probably really frustrated at this, but please try to be patient.

[LordPomposity]

You most make an update.

[Mongoose]

That's not helping.

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and move this over to the Support board, since there may be a couple of people who look there but haven't seen it here.

[Jeff Vader]

I was bored. Or maybe not bored but I guess I have a dash of OCD. So I went and googled around (and read old posts regarding this issue).

1. I could not find any sensible information about HP Pavilion 8530 that would have had a GeForce 7100 (the GeForce 7100 bit could be found from your fs2_open.log).

2. I did find out some sad things about that GPU. From Wikipedia: "Although the 7300 LE was originally intended to be the "lowest budget" GPU from the GeForce 7 lineup, the 7100 GS has now taken its place. As it is little more than a revamped version of the GeForce 6200TC, it is designed as a basic PCI-e solution for OEMs to use if the chipset does not have integrated video capabilities." So you basically have a very basic GPU that was, by no means, designed for gaming. If it doesn't work all that well in gaming, that is certainly not the SCP's fault.

If the computer in question is not a laptop, consider investing into even a semi-decent graphics card. If the computer is a laptop, consider investing into a new computer. I know, I too hate it when the offered solution is "buy something new", but really, there is not much that can be done on FSO's side, especially since the card in question was not designed for real gaming and the computer manufacturer is unlikely to provide any significant driver updates.

[Veers]

This is certainly a pickle... hmmm

Searching root pack 'C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG.com\Freespace 2\mediavps_3612\multi-mission-pack.vp' ... 110 files
Searching root pack 'C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG.com\Freespace 2\mediavps_3612\multi-voice-pack.vp' ... 307 files

I dont think they should be under the mediavps folder, but under the \Freesoace 2\ folder. with the launcher and everything else. But problably not related to the problem.

Initializing OpenGL graphics device at 640x480 with 16-bit color...

As The E previously said, that needs to be changed to atleast 1024x768 at 32 bits of colour depth. Which you did and didnt fix the problem.

Sorry about the problems, I'm sure the problem will be identified soon.

-EDIT-

Hmm... Jeff said what I was thinking.

a very basic GPU that was, by no means, designed for gaming. If it doesn't work all that well in gaming, that is certainly not the SCP's fault.

[ScottForster]

But like I have said, if it were GPU related, then why does it not do it all the time and not only some of the time

[Jeff Vader]

If I knew why, I'd tell you. But if it was FSO-related, it would definitely be more common.

[jr2]

Could be overheating.  You have a desktop or laptop?

[ScottForster]

Desktop

[assasing123]

i would say it must be overheating and just reaching the top of the GPU, i run with a GTS 250 1gb with factory overclock and sometimes it chuckles on very heavy scenes of BP, same for a 5870 from ati i have on another rig, BP uses a lot of extra features that just aren't used in retail version, much higher textures, effects and processing that can easily kill some medium, low and EVEN some high end video cards, also the dual or N cores won't help given freespace dosn't uses multithreading. so your procesor might as well be getting to it's top.