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General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: AtomicClucker on March 17, 2011, 02:47:50 am

Title: Tweaking FS2 on a Radeon5650?
Post by: AtomicClucker on March 17, 2011, 02:47:50 am

Sort of a geekery question, but what can I do to getter performance on a Radeon 5650 for FS2?

I do have a desktop (has a GTS 250, so it runs FS2 happily), but I got a work laptop for sale on Newegg and spend a good deal of my school day trapped in the art department. The laptop can competently run Blender and even renders scenes without suffering a heart attack or heat issues, so it has half-baked 3d capability.

Out of the box FS2 Open runs like a pro and the Media VPS runs decently when I pulled the advanced package stuff out. The only real drawback is the slowdown due to backgrounds and speech files everytime there's a bit of dialogue. Turning down a few of the graphic effects also helps, the models themselves work fine at higher details except for particles.

Laptop Specs in nutshell: HP Pavilion dv6 3143 with a Radeon 5650 gfx card (no, I don't use the crappy Intel GMA, never under any circumstances should it be used).

Title: Re: Tweaking FS2 on a Radeon5650?
Post by: Fury on March 17, 2011, 03:03:18 am

Radeon 5650 is more than enough to run FSO smoothly. Some people have reported issues whenever they see comm ani and/or voice-acting. I don't think the coders ever found the real reason for this issue. Backgrounds on the other hand shouldn't cause any issues at all.

Title: Re: Tweaking FS2 on a Radeon5650?
Post by: AtomicClucker on March 17, 2011, 03:29:29 am

FS2 goes super laggy with backgrounds on, but I'll try some different combos to see if I can fix it.

Title: Re: Tweaking FS2 on a Radeon5650?
Post by: Fury on March 17, 2011, 03:58:01 am

What backgrounds you're referring to specifically?

Title: Re: Tweaking FS2 on a Radeon5650?
Post by: AtomicClucker on March 18, 2011, 03:10:44 am

So after playing a few missions of the FS2 MVPS main campaign, seems the chief slowdowns are the planetary backgrounds or similar effects. Turning those off puts everything back to normal.

Examples are the nebula backgrounds in the training missions, or Cygnus Prime in Deneb missions. Wings of Dawn has a similar problem, but I suspect it's more of an ATI problem. However, I'm going to steer clear of turning this into a tech support discussion.

What sort of flags could be modified through the launcher's custom settings line?

Title: Re: Tweaking FS2 on a Radeon5650?
Post by: Some14U on March 21, 2011, 04:06:57 pm

My laptop is similar to yours,  a HP dv6t 3000 CTO, ran this pretty well with no noticeable drop in the FS2 main campaign.
Even the Intel IGP ran surprisingly well except for BP and WoD.

I'm using AMD Radeon 5650 mobility with Cat 10.8 (HP 8.771.1.0).

My Flags + using antipodes build rev 7084 under MVC 2010 SSE2

Code: [Select]

-spec -glow -env -mipmap -missile_lighting -normal -3dshockwave -post_process -cache_bitmaps -dualscanlines -targetinfo -orbradar -rearm_timer -ballistic_gauge -3dwarp -warp_flash -snd_preload -fullscreen_window  -no_emissive_light -ambient_factor 120 -ogl_spec 32 -spec_exp 16 -spec_point 1.5 -spec_static 1.25 -spec_tube 1.5 -bloom_intensity 90


Title: Re: Tweaking FS2 on a Radeon5650?
Post by: AtomicClucker on March 22, 2011, 08:19:12 pm

Hm... I'll try the antipodes build and see if that can solve the chug backgrounds give me in FSO.