Major slowdown with a decent PC

[Trav_R]

Okay, I think I already know the solution to my problem, but it requires spending a few hundred dollars on a video card, and I want to be sure that's what I need before I do it. I've got a 2.4Ghz P4 with 1.5 GB RAM. I have an old GeForce FX 5200 video card with 128 mb of RAM. I can run half life 2 great at medium settings, along with many other modern games at medium to high settings. Now, with SH3, at some points in the game the slowdown is very noticeable. Most of the time I don't do 1024 time compression because it is way too jumpy, but I can understand that. However, on my last patrol, I noticed that it was being jumpy even at 8x when on the bridge! I know that the game does lots of calculations for all ships in the Atlantic and such, so I can understand it slowing down at 1024, but at 8x? I figure with a 1.5 GB of RAM, i'd be okay, but I guess not.

When Alt-Tab out of the game and run the task manager and go to the performance tab, I'm down to 200 MB of free memory, and the page file is up to an entire gigabyte. I've never played a game that used that much memory before. Do you guys notice that amount of memory being used up when you play too or is something going weird on my machine?

So, that's sort of two questions in one - first is my video card. If it's good enough for half life 2, why not SH3. I'm not sure if it is the problem or not

Second is, could it be the massive amount of memory that's being used up? It doesn't seem normal to have a game take up a whole gigabyte of the page file, plus several hundred megs of RAM. That's pretty outrageous to me, and I wonder if other players' PC's devote that much memory to the game and if there's something I can do about it.

I've seen some computer experts on these forums, I know you're around! I'm pretty good with the things too, but mainly on the programming/game playing side, not so good with video cards and figuring out where massive hunks of memory are going.

So, I'd be glad to hear any suggestions on this, and thanks to anyone who has any.

[glenno]

Buy the best graphics card you can afford.

[The Avon Lady]

Trav, what audio adapter do you have?

[irish1958]

I have the same problem with slow frame rate 0n a fairly good computer (P IV at 2.8GHz and 128 mb video RAM ATI Radeon 9700 Pro). I have not tried the Omega drivers yet, however. I'm not very good at computers tunning so I don't really know what more I can do to improve the situation.
irish1958

[Redwine]

Hi...

I was having a similar problem, i had only 30 FPS, and with explosions, FPS droops down to3 FPS or 5 FPS, it was with the drivers setting at minimun.

I happnes with ATI 5.7, 5.8 and 5.9 drivers.

P4 3.4mhz, ATI X800XT Platinum Edition 256mb, 1GB RAM.

Some days ago i upgrade to ATI 5.10, and my computer was touched by a "magic stick", my frame rate rise up...cuadruplicated.

In internal screens where i had 30/40 FPS y have now near to 160 FPS, in the critical moments at explosions where i had 3/5/7 FPS i never have under 30 FPS now, at pericope underwater i was having 25/30 FPS as much, i have 110/120 FPS now, and with my drivers sliders at medium instead at minimun.

As tips....

1] Try checking if you have a backgrond procces or WXP service running unnecesarily.

I had the "Simple Service TCIP/IP" running with no objective, and it take the 65% of my CPU constantly at all times.
Closing it i recovered 65% of my CPU.

You can check your CPU usage at idle going to

Control panel > Administrative Tools > Performance (i am not sure if the names are corrct, i have my OS in spanish)
There you have how to watch grafically your CPU % usage when computer is at Idle. The normal is between 1% and 3%, with some sporadic peaks.

2]
Try changing diferent drivers, as you can see in my experience it was important, a bad driver can slow down performance.
Be ware, use Go-Back or Windows restoration device, may be you experince bad functions with some drivers versions, then you will be able to roll back.

3]
Try using End It All 2 to momentary close all unecesary tasks when use SH3.

4]
Try to use Task Manager to look and understand wich services are you running at background.


Sorry i cant help more.

Best regards, Red.

[Twelvefield]

If you are running mods that increase the amount of shipping (including RUB), you're going to take a performance hit for sure.

[Trav_R]

In response to Avon Lady: My Sound Card is an ESS 1969 PCI Audiodrive. Just an old card that I yanked out of an old computer sitting on the floor. I installed it a while back and disabled my original integrated card to help solve some problems I was having with another game.

In response to others - I don't have any unnecessary processes running. My system tray is empty. No antivirus, no firewall, not a single background app running. I'm just guessing it's time for a new video card. Surely 1.5 GB of memory is not the weakest link in my system, it's got to be my video card, right? That's the normal conclusion I would come to, but the fact that my page file was over a gig and I had only 300 MB or so of RAM left when the game is running means that over a gig of memory is going to SH3, and I've never even heard of a game using even close to that amount of memory. That's a bit confusing to me, so I was hoping to see if anyone else has run the task manager while SH3 was running to see approximately how much memory it takes up on their machines.

[SteamWake]

Hey redwine, can I borrow that magic stick ? :P

Most likely has something to do with aa and how particles are handled.

[Redwine]

Hey redwine, can I borrow that magic stick ? :P

Most likely has something to do with aa and how particles are handled.

Download Catalyst 5.10, 5.11beta are there around but i dont tryed it yet.

Particles was setting at maximun in both cases.

AA if i am not wrong, is managed by the drivers sliders in its control panel, they was at minimun before, and at medium later.

Did you tryed the 5.10 ?

[FesterShinetop]

What kind of Anti Aliasing do you have set?
I have the same card, same processor and half the memory. Runs OK, but I shouldn't get too wild with the graphics settings. And if I even think of turning on AA my frames drop into negatives... well sortof... :shifty:

[Redwine]

What kind of Anti Aliasing do you have set?
I have the same card, same processor and half the memory. Runs OK, but I shouldn't get too wild with the graphics settings. And if I even think of turning on AA my frames drop into negatives... well sortof... :shifty:

Hi, same response as above, i dont take a look at AA seting, i only set the sliders into the driver control panel at medium, between "Performance and Quality" it has a "determined" AA and AF level, with the slider at medium AA and AF says : "Aplication Preference" and inside sliders shows 2x.

The matter is i was enforced to use the slider at minimun before, into the Performance position, now i was able to increase quality at medium, and plus i have lot of FPS more.

[zoinks]

here's what i'm getting with this system:
lain-li pc-7b plus
pc power & cooling turbo-cool 510/sli
asus a8n-sli premium /nvidia6.66
3700+ san diego
zalman 7000b-alcu
crucial value 2x1g
plextor 740a
hitachi t7k250 250gb sata2
evga 7800gtx ko /nvidia77.77
esi juli@

fps at 1600x1200 using IUB with HT(lite):
at dock 20
cruising through harbor 25
past lighthouse 30
at sea 70-90
sub compartment well over 100 except com 80 - 120
uzo 100
scopes 85
in convoys 45-60

time compression is shaky at 1024 and 512(most times) ok at 256 and below.

i can only remember crashing twice. a ctd once with the stock game while loading a mission and one lockup with RUB after leaving the game paused for about 5 hours.

[Breezely]

The fastest way to up your FPS is to shutdown all uncessary services. Assuming you're using windows, right-click on my computer, go to manage, click down to services and stop everything with a status of started that you don't need.

I only have pci card from ATI. It's not the best but doing the above has upped my rates to the mid twenties and up.

[kanderstag]

Hey Trav, what standard does your 5200 use, PCI or AGP? Is the AGP x8? If you're PCI... plan on building/buying another puter. Even if it's AGP x8, you're cpu is still going to be the choke point for a good video card. The gameplay experience you have with HL2, at what resolution is this?
A 6800GT would be overkill for your rig, but it would be a stepping stone if you wanted to upgrade the system cheaply at a later date. With a little foresight, you can carryover some components as standards evolve. Or bite the bullet and build a new system based off current technology.
Don't forget the power supply. A lot of these pre-builts have low watt power supplies. If you do upgrade this, think about getting one you can use for a future system as well.

[Trav_R]

My 5200 is AGP, not sure about 8x or not, but I know my motherboard can handle 8x. I'm about to cruise around newegg and get me a new card, I'm due for one anyway. From all the reading I've done and responses I've gotten, it seems almost certain that it is my video card that's holding up the show.

I don't remember what resolution I ran HL2 at, it wasn't above 1024x768 I know that much.

I just built this computer about 3-4 months ago with the help of a friend, and he suggested a 400 watt power supply so that's what I have. I'm assuming it's enough for just about any video card.

When you say my CPU will be the chokepoint, you're talking about my main CPU right? Not my video card processor, I assume.

Okay kanderstag, you seem to know quite a bit about hardware, so I'm gonna ask ya. I want to buy me a video card, probably today. I'd like to buy one that I can use for a future system, naturally, but my current motherboard only supports AGP, and I don't want to bother with getting a new PCI-express capable board right now. So, is there a card I can get a card now that will be useful in a future system? I'm willing to spend up to $200-$300, but naturally less is better.

Thanks everyone for the help and especially kanderstag. I appreciate all the help but kanderstag's response seemed right on the money for what I was looking for.

[deckard]

try this if you want-
SH3 vanilla1.4 sound fix
http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=44713&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=deckard

i think it will put less strain on your RAM,
let me know if it helped :hmm:

[kanderstag]

Given your specs and desires, I'd pick between the 6600 and 6600GT. The price difference is $50 and both should be good enough. There are motherboards out that support both PCI-E and AGP for the time when you upgrade.

I have a 6800GT, this is my bias. It is $300 now and in relation to what the games demand, is a top-notch card. With this card, the choke point is your cpu, not the gpu. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

[zombiewolf]

I have the same card with 1024 ram.
turns into a slide show in harbors or storms,
I have to limit my mods hope the sound fix helps I am running my card at performance no aa.
If I only use uzo and f3 it aint as bad

[Trav_R]

Hmmm the motherboard that supports both would have been nice to know a few months ago when I built this sucker :damn: At this point though, I'm stuck at deciding whether to buy a good AGP card or just buy a PCI Express card and a PCI Express capable motherboard. I have the money, I'm just a tightwad (i.e. student) and I have qualms about spending that amount of money without a lot of forethought. For now, though, the Anti Aliasing suggestions may temporarily solve my problem. How do I change them or see what they are? Is it on my vid card software, or within the game?

[zombiewolf]

:|\ same here mine is pci and I have used all my ram slots.
I am just waiting to see what new mother boards are out there.
i am runng a way updated compaq that came with its own onboard sound and vid so my ram is shared... :hmm: