Laggy mouse

[Drebbel]

Recently managed (took a lot of effort though) to re-install SHIII. Also installed the newest NYGM.

I hadd not played it for many months and it seems my mouse is more laggy than before, of course it could just be ny mind playing tricks with me.

But how would one get a swifter responding mouse ?

- Is it the cpu (I have P4 3 Ghz) ?
- Is it RAM (I have 1 G with about 650 free when starting SHIII) ?
- Is it the Videocard (I have GeForce FX 5600 with 128MB) ?
- Or is it the NYGM ?
- Something else ?

So do I need better hardware or is there a software tweak to fix this ?

[Der Teddy Bar]

My current system is a
P4 2.6Ghz
1Gb of Memory
ATI 9800 Pro 256Mb video card.

As you can see this is by no means a 'games' machine :D

Thats said, I also play SHIII in windowed mode with these additional applications always open...
Outlook
Netscape

And often with Word, excel and Trillian open.

As you have a nVidia card, this may be your issue. I will get back with a framerate shortly after I sink this merchant ship and do so surfaced.

[gabeeg]

Drebbel,

If you have the Nvidia control panel installed , open it and see if you have a sub-catagory called "Aditional Direct3D Settings" under "Performance and Quality Settings". If you do, there is most likely a setting for "Max frames to render ahead" set this to 1 or 2. This may not be your problem...but I had the same issue on my FX 5200 and when I checked, I had for some reason set this to 4 and my mouse stutter was pretty bad...changed it to 1 and mouse is now smooth (it was actually smooth when set to '2' also.

[Drebbel]

I did find "hardware acceleration" which was set to "one screen"

But maybe I should slide the videocard "systemperformance" more to the performance side , so further away from the quality side.

[CptGrayWolf]

I noticed the more mods I would add, the more my mouse would lag.
Curious to see if there's a nvidia solution to this little problem.

[Drebbel]

Drebbel,
Did you try out the game before putting on NYGM?

:rotfl:

[Fritz Fraghof]

I am getting big mouse lag too (Nvidia 6600GT). I don't understand why cos the frame rate is 60-80fps and the cursor is still lagging badly. All I have discovered is that turning up AA/AF to make it look pretty makes the mouse lag unbearably...even if frame rate is still 60!? Any ideas? Update : testing further.. whenever I switch to any 3D view from a 2D one I get about 5 seconds - perfect - without any mouse cursor lag, then it becomes very laggy..how strange..

[U-Bones]

I am getting big mouse lag too (Nvidia 6600GT). I don't understand why cos the frame rate is 60-80fps and the cursor is still lagging badly. All I have discovered is that turning up AA/AF to make it look pretty makes the mouse lag unbearably...even if frame rate is still 60!? Any ideas?

What driver are you using with the 6600 ? I only get those kinda FPS with stock 1.4b. I get ~24FPS with my mods, but no mouse lag. AA/AF maxed, set to "quality" rather than performance.

My old machine was almost unplayable with mouse lag, 'vida 5600 256/agp, 1gb ram, amd 2400.

[Fritz Fraghof]

What driver are you using with the 6600 ? I only get those kinda FPS with stock 1.4b. I get ~24FPS with my mods, but no mouse lag. AA/AF maxed, set to "quality" rather than performance.

Just the official latest Nvidia ones (I don't have too many mods - eg.I am very careful with smoke mods as some hit performance majorly). I seem to have to have only 2xAA and 2xAF to get as little mouse lag as possible.

[Fritz Fraghof]

I fixed it for myself. Mouse cursor is as smooth as silk now. Nvidia control panel/advanced Direct 3D settings/Max frames to render ahead/**2**...... I had it set to 0 previously and that was crap so obviously SH3 likes to render ahead. =) OMG I am going to be a much better Captain now!

[Drebbel]

Seem unable to change mine. Is set at 1 and there is no option whatsoever to set it hiher or lower. :cry:

[gabeeg]

Drebbel,

One thing, if you are using 8x.x version or 9x.x versions of the Nvidia drivers...they are slow as a dog on my 5200 and older cards such as the 5x00 series. The best drivers for performance for me were the 67.66 drivers. I am now using the 71.44 drivers for some bug fixes and features I wanted. The 71.44 drivers are not quite as fast...but pretty close and very stable. I may go back to the 67.66 drivers just for the slight increase in performance...with a 5200 I need every single FPS I can get.

[Fritz Fraghof]

Seem unable to change mine. Is set at 1 and there is no option whatsoever to set it hiher or lower. :cry: 1 also works for me fine, just not 0. If you want to change it you prolly need 'Coolbits' (a tiny download/registry setting) to activate a few extra Nvidia features in the control panel.

[CptGrayWolf]

Drebbel,

One thing, if you are using 8x.x version or 9x.x versions of the Nvidia drivers...they are slow as a dog on my 5200 and older cards such as the 5x00 series. The best drivers for performance for me were the 67.66 drivers. I am now using the 71.44 drivers for some bug fixes and features I wanted. The 71.44 drivers are not quite as fast...but pretty close and very stable. I may go back to the 67.66 drivers just for the slight increase in performance...with a 5200 I need every single FPS I can get.

Interesting, once again, newer doesn't always mean better.

[Drebbel]

The best drivers for performance for me were the 67.66 drivers. I am now using the 71.44 drivers for some bug fixes and features I wanted.


Thanks mate. Usefull info.

Are these bug fixes SHIII related. Or is it safe for me (only game I play is SHIII) to use the 67.66 drivers ?


Also: I searched the nvidia archive over at http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp-2k_archive.html but could not locate the driver you are refering to. Are you sure 67.66 is the right version ?

[gabeeg]

Drebbel,

you can get it at http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_winxp_2k_67.66.html

It is a beta driver...but don't let that scare you, tons of people are using them successfully for some time now. As for bugs...well there is the known nivdia UZO fog issue, but doing a ctrl-p will supposedly clear it up after a second or two. For me the 71.44 driver is pretty bug free when it comes to SHIII, I get the lag/freeze in the UZO for about 1 to 2 seconds and then it goes away on its own (no ctrl-p)...this does not bug me at all. Supposedly the 77.77 drivers fix all the nvidia/SHIII related bugs (sun glare/bloom problem (I have not noticed this) and UZO lag) as well as making DC and SHII playable again (I cannot play DC with my 71.44 drivers as the text is all messed up). I have decided that since I play SHIII all the time and DC...well almost never, I don't need the 77.77's.

Another option are the enhanced drivers created by "Omega" and others:

http://www.omegadrivers.net/
or
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?id=2 (quite an assortment)

I personally do not use these (enhanced) drivers because I use a laptop and well...there are problems usually. On my desktop, I have an ATI Radeon card and have successfully used the ATI version of the Omega drivers with good performance increases.