GWX + Black Sea + Constant bad weather : Choppy gameplay?

[Drakken]

Playing GWX 2.1 in Sea of Azov in the Black Sea, I have had bad weather for more than a week now. But suddenly, the gameplay has become extremely choppy at 32x to 256x TC. The only wait I can advance significantly is at 1024x.

Is there a way to improve it to be more palatable?

My specs:
Athlon AMD 3200+ 64 Processor 2.01 Ghz
2 Gig RAM
nVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT

[danlisa]

There's 2 things that can cause this:

1) Large plotting marks on the nav map. Clear it down and see if things improve.

2) There is a strange bug in SH3 where severe weather mixed with a given heading will drastically reduce your FPS. Change course or move your view to another headingto see if it gets better. Use Ctrl+F8 to bring up your FPS counter.

[Drakken]

Tried both, unsuccessfully.

1) I cleaned my plotted course on the Nav Map, but it improved only slightly...

2) I play most of the game on the Nav map. After having made Ctrl+F8, I could see the FPS decrease to 0-1 FPS when reaching 32x until 256x... then slightly increase to 3-5 FPS at 512x and 1024x. However, everything is fine at lower TC.

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by Drakken

Tried both, unsuccessfully.

1) I cleaned my plotted course on the Nav Map, but it improved only slightly...

2) I play most of the game on the Nav map. After having made Ctrl+F8, I could see the FPS decrease to 0-1 FPS when reaching 32x until 256x... then slightly increase to 3-5 FPS at 512x and 1024x. However, everything is fine at lower TC.

Did you use SH3 commander to change some of the TC settings, e.g. 3D and particle rendering?

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Drakken

2) I play most of the game on the Nav map. After having made Ctrl+F8, I could see the FPS decrease to 0-1 FPS when reaching 32x until 256x... then slightly increase to 3-5 FPS at 512x and 1024x. However, everything is fine at lower TC.

Are you saying you're getting frame rates that bad in the Nav Map screen? Something is definitely wrong there. I expect bad rates in bad weather in a graphics screen, but not the maps.

[XLjedi]

I don't think I've ever come across a ship in the black sea that's not docked...

I assume there are some shipping routes there, but darned if I've been able to find anything to shoot at without a dock attached to it.

Other thing I noticed... the ASW boats there will run straight overtop of you and throw there DC's out to the side. Time after time I've been able to sit there still in 50m water and watch as the DC's fall harmlessly to either side.

[Drakken]

Originally Posted by aaronblood

I don't think I've ever come across a ship in the black sea that's not docked...

I assume there are some shipping routes there, but darned if I've been able to find anything to shoot at without a dock attached to it.

Trust me, in 1943 there are a lot of Russian convoys in the Black Sea, mostly in the OST/ASOW patrol grid. In three sorties in my WaW3 career I have sunk ca 25.000 GRT of Russian transports. Most of them are smaller vessels, but you can encounter some small tankers and troop transports from time to time. And the advantage is, while the Russian escorts have ASDIC they are rather poorly experienced.

However, the problem is that A) only Type II vessels are available in the 30th/33th Flotille ( I have a state-of-the-art Type IID), and B) the sea is very shallow in the Sea of Asov. The deepest I've been is around 30 meters before the hull bumps on the bottom. So if you encounter a destroyer in the Sea of Asov at close range (like 500m) in bad weather, you are in deep trouble. I know, I've been through it and survived.

[Drakken]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Are you saying you're getting frame rates that bad in the Nav Map screen? Something is definitely wrong there. I expect bad rates in bad weather in a graphics screen, but not the maps.

I confirm. It slightly improves at 512x and 1024x.

Could it be a saved game issue?

[Drakken]

Originally Posted by onelifecrisis

Did you use SH3 commander to change some of the TC settings, e.g. 3D and particle rendering?

Yes, I use SH3 Commander and I have changed my TC settings so that crew fatigue may fluctuate at 256x.

I do not remember them all at heart, I'll check them and put them on the forum when I come back home tonight.

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by Drakken

Yes, I use SH3 Commander and I have changed my TC settings so that crew fatigue may fluctuate at 256x.

I do not remember them all at heart, I'll check them and put them on the forum when I come back home tonight.

That's the problem. Crew fatigure is linked to the 3DTC, so you must have that at 256x. Even on the navmap, 3DTC will cause slowdown. If you reduce it back to the default 32x (if only to check what I'm saying) you'll find your game runs smooth at all TC levels (but your crew won't fatigue above 32x). If you want smooth 3DTC at 256x then its time for a hardware upgrade.

[Drakken]

Yep, definitetely helped. Thanks!

However, this is too bad because I learned to liked rotating my crewmen's shift in the engine room and the watch at 256x. I had to optimize the management of my crew on my ships, but I had the best of the two worlds: Optimal TC for contacts and airstrikes, and crew fatigue. It just doesn't feel the same at 32x.

[ra57]

I have been out on patrol in the black sea now in Juli 43 but the grid I am supposed to patrol is Asow and I can´t find it. Can somebody help me?

[Pisces]

Checkout page 193 of the GWX 3 manual. (Eventhough the OP started this thread about 2.1)