st.Lucia

[Ravenhook]

Has anyone else suffered with framerate issues on the opening/starting point on st.Lucia?.

My comp has 3.2ghz p4 775 processor, 1gb ddr2 ram and an ati x1600 512mb ddr2 graphics card.

It runs assassins creed without lagging and that is a resource hogger, but virtually siezes up on st.Lucia...any ideas please...this mod looks terrific and I cant wait to play.

Many thanks

[Tels]

Has anyone else suffered with framerate issues on the opening/starting point on st.Lucia?.

My comp has 3.2ghz p4 775 processor, 1gb ddr2 ram and an ati x1600 512mb ddr2 graphics card.

It runs assassins creed without lagging and that is a resource hogger, but virtually siezes up on st.Lucia...any ideas please...this mod looks terrific and I cant wait to play.

Many thanks

 

Does the following help you?

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php/...en_mostly_black

 

Also, the 1Gbyte RAM sounds quite low, if your BIOS subtracted a bit of memory (you can check by asking Windows what your available memory is), your computer might run out of memory and swap to the HD which is *very* slow. Upgrading to 2 Gbyte would be advised (not only for Saint Lucia, but in general).

[Springheel]

You should be able to get quite good framerates with 1GB RAM and that system.

 

For some reason some of the default .cfg settings are not right for a lot of people, causing slow framerates. Try these settings:

 

seta image_usePrecompressedTextures "1"

seta image_useNormalCompression "2"

seta image_useAllFormats "1"

seta image_useCompression "1"

seta image_preload "1"

[jdude]

If it's anything I'd say it's the rats that come out at the start which lag his CPU. Notice he's not even on a duo core it's just a 3.2 ghz processor. It could also be your graphics card depending on what your resolution is. Also, you don't say what you think is a significant fps drop and if it is a constant drop. If it is constant, it's because your GPU is too slow, if it is a lag spike, it's because either a) the rats as I mentioned, or your GPU is caching textures. If I were you I'd just ignore the fps drop at the start and play on

[Springheel]

Notice he's not even on a duo core it's just a 3.2 ghz processor.

 

That's better than my processor, and I have no spike at all when the rats come out.

[New Horizon]

I run an athlon xp 2800 and I don't get that kind of performance. That processor should be more than enough.

[Ravenhook]

Thanks for the info, I'll try setting the cfg this afternoon.

The rate drop is this....at the starting point you take a couple of steps, then a momentary freeze, a couple more another momentary freeze etc etc etc. I did not go any further so I don't know if it continues past the starting area..it does continue doing this in the building directly across from where you start.

Assassins Creed, Thief 3, Oblivion all work seamlessly, all are resource hoggers.

[Tels]

Thanks for the info, I'll try setting the cfg this afternoon.

The rate drop is this....at the starting point you take a couple of steps, then a momentary freeze, a couple more another momentary freeze etc etc etc. I did not go any further so I don't know if it continues past the starting area..it does continue doing this in the building directly across from where you start.

Assassins Creed, Thief 3, Oblivion all work seamlessly, all are resource hoggers.

 

The freeze you describe is either harddisk swapping (running out of memory) or graphic card swapping (running out of video memory).

 

Both things can easily be caused on your system by having the wrong config values. The values we use say D3 should use compressed textures. If they get reset, D3 uses uncompressed textures. While these *might* look a bit better, they use ungodly amounts of memory and cause usually excessive swapping on all but the most strongest systems (e.g. if you have >2Gbyte main memory and 512 Mbyte video memory you won't notice it much).

 

Please post back here if the config change helped

 

Oh, btw, you'll enjoy the mission

[jdude]

That's better than my processor, and I have no spike at all when the rats come out.

 

Oh, My mistake then. If it isn't the cfg file then I'd think it would be the GPU caching textures would it not?

[Mortem Desino]

I've got a similar rig, just dumbed down a ton

P4 single core 2.4ghz

512MB ddr2 RAM

Radeon 9600 Pro AGP (128MB ddr video ram)

& Two-monitor setup

medium quality at 800x600 (16:10 stretched rendering

 

And your symptoms sound frighteningly similar to mine. Going through VisPortals Bogs down your cache and single-core CPU.

And if you're running Windows Vista, try yelling at EXPLORER.exe which kinda automatically takes 50% of your physical ram.

Edited November 19, 2008 by Mortem Desino

[Dram]

Rule of thumb with Vista and playing games: TURN OFF AERO THEME

[Eldrad]

I try and try and try!

 

Every time I try to run the St Lucia mod it says the file is an archive and does nothing.

 

I have never had trouble before running anything. DO I need some special unzip program?

 

Can you help or do I just hit my computer again with a sledge hammer?

 

I just deleted everything and have given up for the night.

[HappyCheeze]

I try and try and try!

 

Every time I try to run the St Lucia mod it says the file is an archive and does nothing.

 

I have never had trouble before running anything. DO I need some special unzip program?

 

Can you help or do I just hit my computer again with a sledge hammer?

 

I just deleted everything and have given up for the night.

 

SL is downloaded as a self extracting 7-zip file. Is that what you're talking about? It should be an .exe file. Unless you're running linux, you'll need to look here

[Tels]

I've got a similar rig, just dumbed down a ton

P4 single core 2.4ghz

512MB ddr2 RAM

Radeon 9600 Pro AGP (128MB ddr video ram)

& Two-monitor setup

medium quality at 800x600 (16:10 stretched rendering

 

And your symptoms sound frighteningly similar to mine. Going through VisPortals Bogs down your cache and single-core CPU.

And if you're running Windows Vista, try yelling at EXPLORER.exe which kinda automatically takes 50% of your physical ram.

 

512Mbyte RAM? The minimum requirement we listed is 1Gbyte, and that's for a reason! On my system, the Doom3 process alone needs over 500 Mbyte memory, if you add in to that the operating system, the drivers and maybe a bit of file cache, there is no way this all fits into 512Mbyte memory. So you will experience a lot and slow harddisk swapping.

 

SL will never run fast on such a system, unless you downsize the textures *quite a lot* and even then I am not sure it will all fit into 512 Mbyte.

 

Upgrade your memory! (if you can afford the power bill for running two monitors, you can afford a second stick of memory

[Mortem Desino]

Quite the contrary, my friend. My texture size remains St. Lucia's Default. Moving between visportals DOES cause a annoying average pause of 1 second, but D3.exe continues to run smoothly.

 

My system also sacrifices HD space for HD speed (No, I DID NOT buy those solid state devices) making my paging file a little less annoying of an alternative to physical memory.

 

It might also be that I changed the Builders' conversations to a large ogg of the "Bear Pits" from T1.

[Flanders]

...I changed the Builders' conversations to a large ogg of the "Bear Pits" from T1.

lol

[Arcturus]

I swapped yesterday my 1GB 667 Mhz RAM to 2GB 800 Mhz and I can say the difference is huge. I have no more lags in SL.

[Eldrad]

SL is downloaded as a self extracting 7-zip file. Is that what you're talking about? It should be an .exe file. Unless you're running linux, you'll need to look here

 

That is the same file that I have downloaded five times. I shall try again. It simply does not work when I click it. It keeps saying it is a archive file.

Edited November 20, 2008 by Eldrad

[HappyCheeze]

Which link are you going to for the download?

[Crispy]

It simply does not work when I click it. It keeps saying it is a archive file.

If everything's gone according to plan, you should have a file called tdm_saintlucia_v1.0.exe. This is a self-extracting archive, so it's possible there isn't a problem, but I'm not sure because I don't know exactly what you mean.

 

Please post the exact message you're getting, or we won't be able to help you. (A screenshot would be ideal but that may be too much to ask.)

[irchel]

Disable Catalyst A.I. helped for my 2600 xt.

 

Unbelivably well made level. Only thing that strucks me is that 1 gb of ram doesn't really seem to be sufficient under vista/32. What, please, uses so much memory? The vertices? Physics? Sounds? Something must be really inefficient there.

[Springheel]

1 gb of ram doesn't really seem to be sufficient under vista/32. What, please, uses so much memory? The vertices? Physics? Sounds? Something must be really inefficient there.

 

I think you answered your own question.

[greebo]

Yes, it's mostly the textures which use up so much memory. Physics, AI or the code in general don't use much in comparison.

 

Saint Lucia is using a large amount of different textures as well (plus a large variety of models, which in turn use a lot of textures). It's possible to build a mission of the same size which is using less memory in principle.

[New Horizon]

Disable Catalyst A.I. helped for my 2600 xt.

 

Unbelivably well made level. Only thing that strucks me is that 1 gb of ram doesn't really seem to be sufficient under vista/32. What, please, uses so much memory? The vertices? Physics? Sounds? Something must be really inefficient there.

 

Well, Vista requires more ram to achieve the same performance you would have in XP. Here is a side by side of how much ram vista would need to get roughly the same performance as XP on the same computer.

 

This list was made by someone who had been using vista since it went beta.

 

XP RAM Vista RAM

 

128 MB 512 MB

 

256 MB 1 GB

 

512 MB 1.5 GB

 

1 GB 2 GB

 

After Vista boots up, open up the task manager and see how much ram is being used by vista just to run the system.

[Crispy]

NH: Is that with Aero on? Is there still a difference if Aero is turned off?

 

(Serious question, I'm honestly interested.)