Hit Deity

I'm having similar "anomalies" in my game. Bodies that I've KO'd or killed will twitch/slide along a surface and won't stop. I finally just accepted it, thinking it was a (bad) design of the game. I hope it's patch/problem that can be fixed, as it's very weird. Not to mention that if the game is constantly calculating physics on stuff like this, it's got to be robbing the game of performance. I'm running D3 through Steam. It should be patched to the latest version, right? I'm willing to test some things. Where should I start? {Going to work today; can fiddle with it tonight, maybe.}

Maybe there are different degrees of tearing. For me, it's all over the screen, usually, bits of it here and there (randomly) that appear to be out of sync at odd flashing intervals.... Sometimes I like the faster framerate for "complicated" games, while others I can get by with turning VSync ON for a "prettier picture". Just depends on my mood.

Things seem to have returned to "normal", although I don't remember some of the lit-up areas looking so washed out as to be "strangely-lit" around some light sources near the beginning of The Rift, but at the least the crashes have stopped. I reverted all (except for a few) NVidia settings back to default, pretty much where I think they were before I started messing with them. This all started when I used the QuickSave button (F4 by default) to save my progress. I seem to (now, in hindsight) remember someone posting to avoid using the QuickSave button...anyone else having problems? It seems my QuickSave file got corrupted somehow, as it finally got to the point that the game would either not load at all, or it would take over 2 minutes of "loading" and I would just give up on it and force-terminate the program through TM. I loaded up The Outpost and The Crown of Penitence (I think the FAQ listed them as good starting missions to try out my skills on first), but they still play sluggishly. I'm going to call it quits for the evening and try again tomorrow, or the next night.... Are there any missions that you folks would suggest as good-story/well-built ones that would "showcase" TDM's abilities and drawing power...one(s) that would be good first-experience material? Thanks for the help, guys.

No error messages: Just complete hangs, requiring a 5-second press of the power button; CTDs; and one where I had to get Task Manager open to kill the Doom3.exe executable.

Now it just crashes...a LOT. Twice while trying to save, once upon launch, once upon installing The Rift FM, once while playing...I'm giving up for now. Even tried restoring all NVidia settings back to default, but still having problems. Tried updating TDM to make sure all files were "OK", but it said everything was up to date. Very frustrating.

{see above post too...} I am restoring NVidia's settings back to default and trying again. When I get the resolve to do it. Things just get worse and worse the more I mess with it. It shouldn't play this "slow" on my system. The FOV change to 85 seemed to help a bit. Definitely looks more "natural" to my eyes.

Hrrmm...com_fixedtic shows '0', which it says is the default. Been tinkering with different graphics settings, trying triple buffering on, forcing VSYNC, etc, but nothing seems to help with the "fine-stuttering" problem. The games seems "bogged down" for some strange reason, only FPS shows around 60. Freakin' weird...and aggravating. Maybe it's a multi-core/timing problem? Will try ye olde affinity fix and see what happens. And it was The Rift I was playing. Oddly, guard's armor looks different now on a reload. Something may be buggered in the old setup. {EDIT: Nope, definitely not a (fixable) multicore rendering problem. Setting core affinity made the game un-launchable. Had to change it back. Going to try restoring NVidia settings to default and going from there. Has anyone done any serious graphical tweaking that made any huge differences in smoothness of graphical rendering?}

Hyperthreading: In the BIOS?? Or Multicore?

There wasn't any ice that I could see, just gentle slopes, and everything was just skittering around like crazy. Unless the slope was much greater than it appeared onscreen, but we're talking spiders' bodies sliding downhill, stuff just rolling around all over the place and sliding downhill on gentle slopes...no ice though. I'll try the fov change shortly. Can anyone point me in the direction of this Dram's excellent bow-aimer?

Everything feels "clunky" in TDM. My character slides around on some of the terrain, gets stuck in some really strange areas, and the most annoying of all: I can't judge distance/scale in TDM as well as I would like. I'm assuming time will be a big factor, and I will have to "get used to it", but it almost feels like a FOV problem. I might try changing that a little and see what happens. Things just seem "distorted" at times. So far, I'm not being drawn in, but I will try some different things to see what happens.

Okay, good, thanks for the tips, guys. This might help some other games, where I am "forced" to turn VSync OFF because of the framerate "problem" (micro-stuttering, more than low FPS) and have to watch screen tearing frequently, but it plays smoother, it just doesn't look smoother. Funny, isn't it? Why do we choose to work with these things again (PCs)?!?! Oh, right, the customizability. {Right, hang in there, just.....hang....in....there....}

Oh, and where do I configure my triple buffering properties? Is that in NVIDIA's control panel only, or is there somewhere in the game or cfg files to try that out?

I hope it's not my CPU. It's an AMD six-core 1055T. And 30 FPS gets choppy when it's got that micro-lag/stuttering problem that seems to be cropping up in video games more and more lately: Metro 2033, Dragon Age II, and now TDM. Weird. Not only has the FPS gone up, but the stuttering/lag is much less noticeable (gone, even). And I turned VSYNC OFF, and I put those command parameters in doomcfg.cfg that nbohr1more suggested. Definite improvement.

Wow, did both and framerate improved tremendously. Most areas are now ~60 FPS, but some still drop to ~40 FPS and have some slight, barely noticeable lag. Much improved, thank you!!

You completely lost me there. The first part: ok. But I should or shouldn't use triple buffering?

All right, I picked the steam.exe shortcut option and it worked fine. Installed the Training mission, then it ran just fine. A little slow, but it ran fine. I'm only getting ~30 FPS in the Training mission, whereas Doom 3 ran at ~60. Turned off some graphics options (well, dumbed them down) and still get 30 FPS. I hope that's not its "regular speed", because even when it hits ~60 FPS (when I'm looking at a single wall with no detail, let's say) it's still "choppy". Not fun to play like that... Will experiment some more....

Where are the installation instructions for TDM? Am I just blind? One entry in the FAQ says to be sure to create a shortcut on my desktop and put in -applaunch 9050 etc,etc, but then another entry says to be sure to run TDMlauncher directly from the Doom3 folder. Important: Create a shortcut on your desktop and set it to the following: steam.exe -applaunch 9050 +set fs_game_base darkmod This ensures that when you start Steam, it will launch TDM and not Doom 3 without TDM. and then... You MUST use doom3\darkmod\tdmlauncher.exe to run Dark Mod in Windows and NOT Doom3.exe. I'm just going to start randomly clicking on stuff and hope it works...here goes!!

I've heard it's either heat or driver issues... I doubt it's heat, really, because the same sparklies show up pretty consistently from place to place, regardless of temps in PC or GPU, on my system at least. They happen at the same areas, same junctions, and with the same regularity, regardless of drivers, temps, or anything else that I can think of that might introduce "random" factors. I think it's a rendering problem, specific to certain cards. I've played the same games on different cards, and some do it and some don't. It might be a design problem. Wish I knew. I would think it has something to do with the way different cards "overlay" textures onto surfaces. For some strange reason, they chose a highly visible effect to put there at the problem areas, probably as a debugging tool. It would be interesting to know if it is fixable or not, and they just leave them in sometimes because it's not worth the trouble to fix, or if it's a graphics card limitation that you can't get around. (I have a feeling it's the latter, or more would get fixed.) What about putting (a) different texture(s) on those surfaces...does that change the sparklie effect any?

I suggest an update, because it was because of the FAQ that I became concerned. I get frustrated and fed up with having to "fix" stuff after the fact, and all it took was a little bit of prevention and foresight to avoid problems. Still waiting to install TDM...

Okay, looks like lots of worry over nothing. Too bad I have had zero free time the last 48 hours to try it out. Maybe tomorrow....

I have seen a lot of problems posted about the expansion pack Resurrection of Evil (RoE). Is there something I should do before I install TDM? I don't need anymore aggravation in my life, if I can avoid it. Didn't know if maybe someone had decided RoE was better off left out of the picture, so to speak. The FAQ just says something like "TDM won't work with RoE". I have D3 and RoE through Steam. Getting rid of RoE will be difficult, if not undesirable. Thanks for the help....

No problem. I almost gave up on it a couple of times and was glad when I stuck with it. (Someone else summed it up on another forum and it made sense to me; and I paraphrase: ) "The main problem with Metro 2033 is that it tries to be a lot of different things and really only succeeds well at a few of them, which is, thankfully for us, enough." It's a great game, and one that has gotten better the more I play it. If I can "master" it, then I think anyone can, really. I'm not completely ecstatic about the ending (last two levels), but I realize they had to wrap it up and bring everything to a close. It just seems "tacked on". If it helps (it did for me): I had to think of it as "This is the actiony part, so go into combat mode. This is the real, playable part with lots of depth, have fun, try different things. Oops, back to weird mutant, full-on assault part. Just get past it, just get past it... It keeps flip-flopping from rail shooter to stealthy-tactical areas. It definitely keeps the game from being "stuck in a slow, grinding rut" that's for sure. My 3rd or 4th playthrough: I realized you could kinda go along for the ride a lot of times during the rail and shoot areas, avoiding damage and just plunking a few enemies here and there for show and the game let me continue on to the next part. It's more forgiving the more I play and learn about it And I've played it a couple of weeks now, and except for revisiting it from time to time, I'm "done" with it. I just wanted to re-do a lot of sections that I "survived" the first time. Now I'm "living" them! There aren't too many games that are this engrossing anymore, and it was a nice side-treat for a little while. I'll definitely replay it at some point (which is saying a lot, really, since many, many games just get deleted after a certain time has passed), but it won't suck away 3 months of your life (or more!), so I recommend it highly!

I'd say it's pretty short. The learning curve is a little steep, at first, but I got over it pretty quickly and I don't consider myself a very good gamer. It just takes a little effort. They really nailed the claustrophobic aspect pretty good, with a greatly-reduced FOV that makes you really think about what you're trying to see in the game world. And the whole gasmask mechanic is a little annoying at first, but after my third playthrough, I don't even notice them anymore. And the game is considerably easier now that I know what to expect and how the game works, as opposed to trying to play it like other games. I don't usually replay games anymore, unless they're just really good, and I think Metro 2033 is a work of art. Yes, it's a little rough around the edges, and the AI can be a little dull from time to time, but even with it's checkpoint save system (thank goodness it's about every 5 minutes) it's not so bad. And as linear as the game is, I have enjoyed taking the direct assault approach sometimes, and then happily reloading to try to do the same part in a stealthy manner. My one bit of advice: It depends on how you plan to play the game, I guess, is how much you'll get out of it. And I'm not really referring to the stealth vs. assault aspect either. If you are willing to put a little effort into it and stick with it, I'll say it's worth it. But if you are just looking for a quick diversion, you will probably miss a lot, so take that for what it's worth. The game is simple enough to let you breeze through it, but at the same time, it has a lot of depth and variation that can make you want to explore more and find out what's under the hood. Some tidbits: **slight spoiler/gameplay development revelations** (are there any spoiler tags on this thing?) I didn't realize you had to over-pressurize the pneumatic weapons to get the full benefit from them. I kept running out of ammo, only to realize after an endless amount of retries that there are several combinations of weapons that are virtually "unlimited" (combine reusable ammo with pneumatic projectile weapons and you see where I'm going). Several beasts have specific weapons that deal quite handily with them (others, you can spend hours dying repeatedly and get nowhere). Invest in silencer-equipped weapons! They are worth their weight in gold. Pick one or two weapons to focus on and sell all the other ammunition to be able to afford the "good weapons and armor". Speaking of armor: getting the armored suit is a waste of time...spend your money on the stealth suit -- you only get one opportunity to buy one, so don't pass it up or you will regret it! It makes getting hit something you don't have to worry about until the very end of the game...then buy the heavy armor. Sheesh, this freakin' thing needs to come with an instruction book! There are about 5 places in the game that you really need to have a certain weapon, armor, or ammo type and there won't be any mention of it in the game...sure, you can still beat it, but you will die a lot and be frustrated often. Okay, maybe it was just me, but after learning several of these basic tenets, I was having a less-than-enjoyable time. Some balancing and tweaking points were missed. With that being said, it is definitely worth it. Trust me. The story, characters and atmosphere are unforgettable. The graphics are nothing short of amazing and runs just fine on a decent system. If you have to, run it in DX9. It still looks amazing. DX11 just makes you piss your pants. Okay, the story could use a little work, some plot holes plugged, but it's still pretty good. If anyone knows of another game that looks this graphically intense, please let me know. I was floored by this one. I bought it for $10 on Steam one day on sale, but it's definitely worth $20.

And to answer the original question: Not really, not that I see, anyway. Not unless I happen to stumble across a "new" FM release and want to ask questions or give a little praise. I have nothing but fond memories of Thief, but it's time to upgrade. And if "being stuck in the past" means desiring to play a great game with awesome atmosphere, great stories, and stellar gameplay, then yes, I am firmly rooted in the past. Of all the games since Thief, Metro 2033 has been the only one to even come close to anything resembling stealth for me. You can stealth about 80% of that game, by my estimation, and I could probably do more. Now that's saying something from a contemporary release. Yeah, they force to "rail gun" some sequences (there's no way around it), but it's actually fun, in a Half-Life 2 sorta way, but the majority of "single-player" areas with humans can be stealthed. I just wish they had added more ways to stealth the mutated creature AIs in the game, instead of forcing confrontations. So, maybe 50% of the game is stealthable, but it doesn't really feel that little. Maybe I'm just biased. Best game I've played in a long time though.

What's a C&D order? If cease and desist, then "would they be so petty?" Probably, I guess. Sheesh. Hadn't thought of that. And: I hope Thief4 (or Thorf, as I like to call it) isn't a flop, and I hope they don't call it "Thorf" either. I wish they'd call it Thief: Deadly Darkness () over Thi4f anyday. Anyhoo, I've played nothing but good releases from Eidos Montreal so far: the Thief, Tomb Raider, Hitman, & Deus Ex series are among my top favorite games of all time, so I hope EM does it right and doesn't force me to "boil their toes in oil" over this... {<---figure of speech}. I haven't played any of the other series, so I can't comment on them. How hard is it to get a game right? I don't understand it. Must be a "marketing percentage" thing...has to be. Or, bad intel...curse of the gods...krappy karma...evil ninjas...nega-spidey (he gets blamed for a lot)...Osama Bin Laden (oh, wait, he's got a ventilated cranium...)...I'm out of options. Somebody must be out to get us. Can't be coincidence. Edit: Oh, and I am hoping TDM is nothing short of fantastic. I have a tremendous backlog of game (series) I'm trying to catch up on, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. And my Thief-itch is back with a vengeance, so I'll take Doom 3/TDM for a spin and see what happens. Of course, I'm currently stuck on Metro 2033 right now. Awesome game, but I can only replay it so many times....