Detail Level vs. Performance

[lupine04]

This is as much a commentary as it is a question..

I noticed something interesting earlier on. I was running Fraps on my system, adjusting the game's detail settings to see how many FPS I could eke out of the game.. and I found something very odd (to me)..

There seemed to be no more than about 6 or 7 FPS difference between the highest and lowest detail settings, at 1024x768 and 1280x960 and with Anti-Aliasing set (2x). This is kinda cool, if wierd.

I have a GeForce FX 5900, for reference.

The disturbing thing, though, is that it seems very difficult to get the FPS near or above 30fps... I keep peaking at 25 FPS or so.. which isn't *terrible*.. but naturally, the higher the consistant frame-rate, the less the chop (relatively speaking) when your card is being heaviest hit.

In any case.. anyone found any particular tweaks that seem to work for them?

[pandorae]

This is as much a commentary as it is a question..

I noticed something interesting earlier on. I was running Fraps on my system, adjusting the game's detail settings to see how many FPS I could eke out of the game.. and I found something very odd (to me)..

There seemed to be no more than about 6 or 7 FPS difference between the highest and lowest detail settings, at 1024x768 and 1280x960 and with Anti-Aliasing set (2x). This is kinda cool, if wierd.

I have a GeForce FX 5900, for reference.

The disturbing thing, though, is that it seems very difficult to get the FPS near or above 30fps... I keep peaking at 25 FPS or so.. which isn't *terrible*.. but naturally, the higher the consistant frame-rate, the less the chop (relatively speaking) when your card is being heaviest hit.

In any case.. anyone found any particular tweaks that seem to work for them?

I have noticed the same thing!

I run a FX 5600 / 256 and I have gotten very little improvement in FPS out of the tweaks ...

It is a moot point for now, since my performance is just fine whenever the lag gremlins aren't nuking us all ... but interesting nonetheless!

[bkwrm13]

Coded limit? What's the max FPS you get in a normal area?

[nunyas]

Running on a Radeon 9700Pro myself. Screen resolution has no impact on my Frame rate at all. 1024x768 through 1600x1200 all give me the same frame rates (though I don't use FSAA or Aniso since i only have 128MB on my card). Using the external game configuration utility I've locked the game into using DirectX. Tweaking the settings do make a difference in performance for me. I can have as bad as 10FPS average... to 30FPS or better if i turn everything off. I typically run the game's detail settings somewhere in the middle and my framerate is typically in the high 20s.

Given the fact that changing resolutions have absolutely 0 effect on my framerate and very negligible on yours, indicates that the game is highly CPU dependant. I've overclocked my CPU (it's an Athlon XP 2500+ Barton Core) to 3200+ and gained 5 to 10 FPS depending on the settings(I average about 32FPS with my current game settings with my CPU clocked to AthlonXP 3200+ speeds).

[bkwrm13]

Not promising for me. I ordered a refurbished 9700 Pro and I've got a AthlonXP 1700+. Didn't want to upgrade the CPU just for this game.

Nunyas, have you tried OpenGL (I know its better for nvidia cards) and see if you got lower FPS?

[miths999]

I cannot really decide what to think about the performance and the settings of this game either. I run it on a p4 2.6 with 1 Gb RAM and a Geforce FX 5900 XT, and even if I turn most settings pretty far down I am struggling to get much more than 25 fps as well - unless I am in a very barren area or face into a wall.

25 generally feel smooth enough in this game, unfortunately the ton of npcs Nevrax decided were needed in cities mean that I drop below 15 here, so since I do not really want to bother with constantly readjusting my settings it means that I play with most settings only a bit over 50%.

Away from cities and out in the great wide open it really does seem as though most of the settings have very little impact on performance. While I am reasonably satisfied with the ~25 fps I get, if the performance changes are just as small for people with slower systems I think they should consider changing this a bit - or do some general optimizations so it also becomes possible for people with fairly or very fast systems to reach the performance levels you would expect.

[bkwrm13]

Thanks guys for helping to set my expectations fairly low.