Lag

[Spike88]

My game runs fine 95% of the time. Whenever I see smoke up close or fairly close to my sub, my game starts to lag. This also occurs in Il-2 when I fly through clouds(although the lag is way less than it is in SH3), and when there would be dust or smoke in Half life 2 Episode 2.


Now, I dont want to get rid of the Smoke, but is there a way to make it so it doesn't lag my game so much ? Does particle density have something to do with it?

[Rafael]

This is a video card 'problem'. Your video card cannot handle (sometimes) the extreme conditions. For instance, with WAC 4.0 you need a quite good video card.

In fact, it depends on the mod you are running in combination with your computer specs.

[Spike88]

I guess I should mention I'm running GWX3.0

[Rafael]

I guess I should mention I'm running GWX3.0

I don't have the problem on my MacBook Pro 15" running Windows XP with BootCamp from Apple with GWX 3.0. However, I have the same (if there is much smoke) as you with WAC 4.0 sometimes.

It really depends on your computer specs. You wrote, with the standard SH3 you don't have any lag.

Don't use F12 and if you see too much smoke in the periscope ... lower it. And try not to run more programs too, such as IE. You can try to close IE (or any Browser) with alt+tab and see if there are changes.

[Sailor Steve]

I can't use any of the advance damage mods, as my video card won't handle them. Now when I see smoke close up my game still lags, but at least it doesn't crash anymore.:sunny:

I seems to me that your only options are a new video card or get rid of the smoke. Or don't look at it close up and live with the lag. That's what I do.

[Rafael]

I seems to me that your only options are a new video card or get rid of the smoke. Or don't look at it close up and live with the lag. That's what I do.

I certainly cannot live without the (funnel) smoke... in WAC it is very good done. Very much smoke ... I am a spoiled kid right now. :rotfl:

[Jimbuna]

You don't say what your card is.....if you have AA enabled, try turning it down or off even.

[Pisces]

Smoke is a particle thing. There should be an intensity slider in the options screen. That way you can try to lessen it perhaps.

[Spike88]

You don't say what your card is.....if you have AA enabled, try turning it down or off even.

I have an NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE with 64mb dedicated and 1000ish available.

I don't use AA.

@pisces: I'll try using the particle slider.

[irish1958]

As noted above the two big frame rate killers are particles and AA. The third one is overload of the CPU/video card RAM due to the complexity of the game. There is no solution for the third one except to eliminate some of the work. For example, the sea floor mod is a frame rate killer. If nothing is happening, your frame rate may be fine with it enabled; but as soon as some competition occurs, frame rate may drop to 1 or 2.
Harbor traffic is another. You might be sailing out of the harbor with a nice frame rate, but two or three more ships come in and perhaps some bombers appear and all hell breaks loose...frame rate now 1 per minute.
You might get some help from AlacrityPC (google it)