[Klaustrophobia]

either could easily do it on older hardware depending on what's happening in game.  big textures and lots of things to render for the GPU, lots of collisions and stuff for the CPU.

[The E]

On a modern high- to medium-end GPU, that is true. But if your GPU is ****ty enough (And a Radeon 4250 meets that description), the GPU will become a bottleneck.

[Harbinger of DOOM]

Once I get a new video card, then I presume my CPU will become the bottleneck? Which graphics setting(s) will prevent CPU lag?

[The E]

There is always going to be a bottleneck of some sort. The point is, once you have a decent GPU, FSO is always going to be CPU-bound. Thankfully, recent builds have done quite a lot to make the game faster.

[General Battuta]

Once I get a new video card, then I presume my CPU will become the bottleneck? Which graphics setting(s) will prevent CPU lag?

CPU lag is caused by collision detection more than anything else, afaik.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

There is always going to be a bottleneck of some sort. The point is, once you have a decent GPU, FSO is always going to be CPU-bound. Thankfully, recent builds have done quite a lot to make the game faster.

You don't say. Remind me to send cookies to Swifty some day. "go_even_faster" significantly improved my FS gaming experience.

[Harbinger of DOOM]

CPU lag is caused by collision detection more than anything else, afaik.

So it's a .pof issue, then? No settings tweaks can maximize my performance?
How many CPU cores/threads does FSO use, anyway? Does it even use more than one? If so, can I just overclock my Sempron to increase framerate?

"go_even_faster" significantly improved my FS gaming experience.

Huh??? What's that, and how can I enable it?

[General Battuta]

CPU lag is caused by collision detection more than anything else, afaik.

So it's a .pof issue, then? No settings tweaks can maximize my performance?

It's not a .pof issue, it's not particular to any asset. It's just a problem with the engine itself. I believe FSO is single-threaded. Overclocking could probably help with a CPU bottleneck.

Huh??? What's that, and how can I enable it?

It comes standard on...well, every build I use, I'm not sure about whether 3.6.14 has it. I think it does.

[headdie]

"go_even_faster" significantly improved my FS gaming experience.

Huh??? What's that, and how can I enable it?

It was a code rework done by Swifty rather than a feature, if it is in trunk then every build from that point will benefit from it, not sure if it made it into 3.6.14 as I think it was completed after the RC lockdown

[Master_of_the_blade]

I have an Nvidia 210 GT which I overclock to
Core clock: 625MHZ
Shader clock: 1478MHz
Memory Clock: 610MHz

My CPU is the intel Core i7 2600.

[Luis Dias]

Well I haven't finished downloading the visuals2.vp, yet. But, yeah, hopefully it'll run just a bit smoother now. If not, I'll just get that GTX 650 I've had my eye on. Or a GT 640. Though I'll probably have to upgrade my CPU, too, as my single-core will most likely bottleneck the video card. Would the FX-4300 do the trick?

FSO is not built for multiple cores. Just FYI.

[Klaustrophobia]

however given how long ago single cores were phased out, it still implies a slower processor.

[rubixcube]

Could FSO be modified to support multiple cores? It would greatly improve performance on modern pc's.

[The E]

Short Answer: Yes. At some point.

Long Answer: Doing so would take quite a bit of time. FSO was designed at a time where noone had a multicore machine at home; several of the core systems in the engine rely on the fact that it is all executed sequentially. There are a few areas where we think we may be able to introduce multithreading eventually, but given that the game is pretty damn playable on current machines even with the amount of stuff mods like BP or TCs like Diaspora throw at it, it's a low-priority task for us. Not to mention that there are things we already have planned that take precedence over any such endeavour.

Unless, of course, someone decides to do a Valathil and implement it anyway.

[Harbinger of DOOM]

Wait, I thought Diaspora required a dual-core?

[General Battuta]

Wait, I thought Diaspora required a dual-core?

No.

[Black_Yoshi1230]

Every FSO-derived work is single-processor work. Hell, weren't FS1 and 2 made during the Pentium III days?

What's really funny is that I can just put four Tev TEI capships with a lot of fighter escort and not get lag, but I start to slow down looking at three Fed caps (Nara, Karuna, Custos), an AWACS, and three Fed four-ship wings at twenty kilometers away.

[Harbinger of DOOM]

What's really funny is that I can just put four Tev TEI capships with a lot of fighter escort and not get lag, but I start to slow down looking at three Fed caps (Nara, Karuna, Custos), an AWACS, and three Fed four-ship wings at twenty kilometers away.

That's due to the graphics card. What model do you have?

[General Battuta]

The TEI capships are way less detailed in pretty much every respect AFAIK.

[Crybertrance]

The TEI capships are way less detailed in pretty much every respect AFAIK.

But I guess that's gonna change pretty soon, so then, I guess the graphics card will give you problems.