Hi!
I' ve played this great game a few times now, but found out that even people with a way slower cpu then mine, got a lower cpu utilization.
I got a crappy graphics card, but i dont think this is the bottleneck, since pausing the game increases the performance a lot. (Means: game logic is propalby slowing down the system)
Any ideas about possible causes? I really wanna enjoy this game without getting spamed about lagging the whole game.
My System:
P4 Mobile 2.8Ghz
512Mb Ram
Geforce GO 5300 (drivers are up-to-date)
Hardly any background apps are running
Spring settings: set almost all sliders to the very left
Extreme bad performace
Moderator: Moderators
-
Lindir The Green
- Posts: 815
- Joined: 04 May 2005, 15:09
What checkboxes are selected/unselected in the settings thing? Some of the options in there really hog CPU/GPU, its not just the sliders. Things like Shadows, Dynamic Clouds, Hi-rez clouds, and Reflective Water can seriosly affect performance. Try disbling all the grapohical tickboxes, see if that also helps.
-
DrMushroom
- Posts: 4
- Joined: 21 Oct 2005, 20:25
@Lindir The Green:
DSL 3000 kbit/s. plus if I play replays offline i get the same bad performance
@Maelstrom except Fullscreen, inverted mouse and this color thing i set them all to 'off'. Unfortunatly this didnt help. I still believe that my graphics card isnt the main bottleneck. (Though you re right: The 5th geforce generation runs shaders very slow)
Thanks for your help guys!
Another proposal?
DSL 3000 kbit/s. plus if I play replays offline i get the same bad performance
@Maelstrom except Fullscreen, inverted mouse and this color thing i set them all to 'off'. Unfortunatly this didnt help. I still believe that my graphics card isnt the main bottleneck. (Though you re right: The 5th geforce generation runs shaders very slow)
Thanks for your help guys!
Another proposal?
-
Forboding Angel
- Evolution RTS Developer
- Posts: 14673
- Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43
512 ram is barely enough to run windows properly.
Until you can afford more, set your max page file size to 4 gigs. That should help out quite a bit.
Try to get your ram around 1.5 gigs and your computer will sing to you. Also check these things.
Make sure that your desktop background is set to Center and NOT Stretch. Stretching causes one hell of a huge memory hole.
right click on "My computer" and select "Properties". Once the dialog opens, click the Advanced tab, Under performance click the settings button, when the dialog opens click the radio button that says "Adjust for best performance", then scroll down and put a check in the box that says "Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop", now click apply and then ok.
You will have to reset your background image after doing this but trust me it's worth it. It will give you a large performance boost in all things windows.
Until you can afford more, set your max page file size to 4 gigs. That should help out quite a bit.
Try to get your ram around 1.5 gigs and your computer will sing to you. Also check these things.
Make sure that your desktop background is set to Center and NOT Stretch. Stretching causes one hell of a huge memory hole.
right click on "My computer" and select "Properties". Once the dialog opens, click the Advanced tab, Under performance click the settings button, when the dialog opens click the radio button that says "Adjust for best performance", then scroll down and put a check in the box that says "Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop", now click apply and then ok.
You will have to reset your background image after doing this but trust me it's worth it. It will give you a large performance boost in all things windows.
Ram first, yeah.
Spring is a highly unoptimized engine. We need more developers who can clean up the mess (even SYs will tell you it's a mess, so I'm not insulting anyone). As fantastic as this engine is, what it comes down to is that it was programmed by people who were learning as they went along. So the parts they did at the end probably work quite reasonably, but the stuff at the beginning needs a serious tune-up. Unfortunately, what's the first thing any development has to work on? The underlying engine upon which virtually everything else relies.
Basically, spring should run no slower than OTA on a 1 ghz computer with 512 ram and some kind of half-decent graphics card. Either a geforce 4 of some type NOT ENDING IN MX or a 9700 pro should probably be sufficient. Right now, for a decent experience you probably need a 1.5-2ghz computer with a card at least one generation after the ones I just mentioned. The main unnecessary engine bottlenecks are pathfinding and shadows (which really should be renamed "advanced lighting")
Spring is a highly unoptimized engine. We need more developers who can clean up the mess (even SYs will tell you it's a mess, so I'm not insulting anyone). As fantastic as this engine is, what it comes down to is that it was programmed by people who were learning as they went along. So the parts they did at the end probably work quite reasonably, but the stuff at the beginning needs a serious tune-up. Unfortunately, what's the first thing any development has to work on? The underlying engine upon which virtually everything else relies.
Basically, spring should run no slower than OTA on a 1 ghz computer with 512 ram and some kind of half-decent graphics card. Either a geforce 4 of some type NOT ENDING IN MX or a 9700 pro should probably be sufficient. Right now, for a decent experience you probably need a 1.5-2ghz computer with a card at least one generation after the ones I just mentioned. The main unnecessary engine bottlenecks are pathfinding and shadows (which really should be renamed "advanced lighting")
depends on a lot of things kixxie.
For example, is that an AMD XP or an AMD 64?
what speed ram are you using? 2700 or 3200? Is it SDRAM or DDR?
If you have an amd xp, I would consider building a new rig. You can do a lot with surprisingly 500 bucks. You can get urself an amd 3xxx+ and a decent motherboard. If you aren't going to overclock, you don't need to spend over 120 on a motherboard. Chaintech has a decent skt 939 mobo for under 100 bucks. It is very lacking in OC ability, but thats ok. Asus's premium boards are pretty good too, just stay away from the one with the passive cooling. DFI makes some great mobos that kick butt in OCing, but they are extremely picky motherboards and are def. not for amateurs.
So depending on the budget and how old ur computer is....
A. If its old and you have like 500 bucks to spend, just buy a new cpu, motherboard, ram
1. AMD 64 3200+ - $160 or a 3500+ for $201
2. MSI K8N Neo4-F Mobo - $80 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813130491
3. RAM - CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) - $99 (2-3-3-6) Not bad ram for the price you get. Loads better than ValueRam by far.
That alone is a decent computer for $339 or $380. Salvage ur HD, case, moniter, kb/mouse, and speakers.
If you want a vid card on a budget, go for a 6800. If you want screaming performance go for a 7800. I keep having problems with ATI cards, so I would opt for nvidia.
XFX 6800 GS: $199 (OpenGL 2.0)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150118
EVGA 6600GT: $135 (OpenGL 2.0)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130214
XFX 7800GT: $278 (OpenGL 2.0)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150108
I would opt for the 7800 if u can afford it
6800 would be 2nd choice. and the 6600 if you are dying for every penny you can keep. Still, the 7800 mops the floor with the other 2. You can't even compare a 6800 to a 7800.
B) Upgrade to a gig of ram and maybe a new cpu.
Sorry if I went overboard. Making computers is my hobby and I love doing the research for it.
PS: Everything can be found on newegg. Newegg rocks. I would compare a few prices with zipzoomfly tho. Zippy and newegg are the places to go for cpu parts. Zippy often has some things cheaper than newegg, and visa verse
For example, is that an AMD XP or an AMD 64?
what speed ram are you using? 2700 or 3200? Is it SDRAM or DDR?
If you have an amd xp, I would consider building a new rig. You can do a lot with surprisingly 500 bucks. You can get urself an amd 3xxx+ and a decent motherboard. If you aren't going to overclock, you don't need to spend over 120 on a motherboard. Chaintech has a decent skt 939 mobo for under 100 bucks. It is very lacking in OC ability, but thats ok. Asus's premium boards are pretty good too, just stay away from the one with the passive cooling. DFI makes some great mobos that kick butt in OCing, but they are extremely picky motherboards and are def. not for amateurs.
So depending on the budget and how old ur computer is....
A. If its old and you have like 500 bucks to spend, just buy a new cpu, motherboard, ram
1. AMD 64 3200+ - $160 or a 3500+ for $201
2. MSI K8N Neo4-F Mobo - $80 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813130491
3. RAM - CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) - $99 (2-3-3-6) Not bad ram for the price you get. Loads better than ValueRam by far.
That alone is a decent computer for $339 or $380. Salvage ur HD, case, moniter, kb/mouse, and speakers.
If you want a vid card on a budget, go for a 6800. If you want screaming performance go for a 7800. I keep having problems with ATI cards, so I would opt for nvidia.
XFX 6800 GS: $199 (OpenGL 2.0)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150118
EVGA 6600GT: $135 (OpenGL 2.0)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130214
XFX 7800GT: $278 (OpenGL 2.0)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150108
I would opt for the 7800 if u can afford it
6800 would be 2nd choice. and the 6600 if you are dying for every penny you can keep. Still, the 7800 mops the floor with the other 2. You can't even compare a 6800 to a 7800.
B) Upgrade to a gig of ram and maybe a new cpu.
Sorry if I went overboard. Making computers is my hobby and I love doing the research for it.
PS: Everything can be found on newegg. Newegg rocks. I would compare a few prices with zipzoomfly tho. Zippy and newegg are the places to go for cpu parts. Zippy often has some things cheaper than newegg, and visa verse
He's got a laptop (geforce go), so salvaging equipment is out.
Don't buy too expensive of a video card if you can help it. I keep saying to everyone I can - this is the worst possible time to upgrade your computer. We're getting nothing more than prototypes right now, things to tide ATI and Nvidia over until their big guns are ready. Full Directx 10 compliance is what you need to wait for if you want a card that will have lasting value.
Don't buy too expensive of a video card if you can help it. I keep saying to everyone I can - this is the worst possible time to upgrade your computer. We're getting nothing more than prototypes right now, things to tide ATI and Nvidia over until their big guns are ready. Full Directx 10 compliance is what you need to wait for if you want a card that will have lasting value.
I'm running TASpring on a 1.6 GHz Intel Centrino (M) Processor, 512 mb ram (pagefile @ 1gb), and a Mobility Radeon 9200. In general, I'll run TASpring without any problems, beat most people through pathing maps, and rarely have any issues with slowdown or performance hits. What can hurt are the trees (plains and passes with the tree-viewing-distance not minimal kills me). I run with all the 'pretty' options disabled and most of the other stuff below half (except unit lod which is pretty close to max).
I'd recommend trying to defragment first, since your computer should be able to run spring without any problem at all (512mb ram is plenty, people - I've only come close to full utilization when exploding stacks of 500+ mines...and half the time it then proceeds to crash). More likely that not (it is these days), I'd wager there is some spyware running on your machine also providing a big performance hit.
Getting new hardware is overkill - the problem in this case is software related. Try the defragment first.
FA:
Increasing Pagefile only helps if the OS drops all 'excess' data to disk AND doesn't need it. If he has the spyware problem, or lots of alternative processes, then that can actually hurt his performance. The desktop background may cause an issue, but AFAIK, that is dropped pretty much as soon as ram is an issue (then it is covered up by the game anyhow - no effect until you close the game and take 5 minutes to load your desktop image).
I'd recommend trying to defragment first, since your computer should be able to run spring without any problem at all (512mb ram is plenty, people - I've only come close to full utilization when exploding stacks of 500+ mines...and half the time it then proceeds to crash). More likely that not (it is these days), I'd wager there is some spyware running on your machine also providing a big performance hit.
Getting new hardware is overkill - the problem in this case is software related. Try the defragment first.
FA:
Increasing Pagefile only helps if the OS drops all 'excess' data to disk AND doesn't need it. If he has the spyware problem, or lots of alternative processes, then that can actually hurt his performance. The desktop background may cause an issue, but AFAIK, that is dropped pretty much as soon as ram is an issue (then it is covered up by the game anyhow - no effect until you close the game and take 5 minutes to load your desktop image).
-
Lindir The Green
- Posts: 815
- Joined: 04 May 2005, 15:09
)-
Forboding Angel
- Evolution RTS Developer
- Posts: 14673
- Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43
512 is the bare minimum to run xp effectively.
256, bleh. Takes forever to load anything with that.
Considering that he has a 2.8 proc I would guess that his ram is his bottleneck, I would also guess that his ram is sdram and he's using a 32 bit proc.
Kelson, the reason I went to the page file is that it seems as his memory is causing a huge roadblock, so adding more pagefile memory would alleviate some of that strain.
Also, how much hdd space do you have left? If you have less than 10 gigs that can be a serious issue.
Do this go to http://www.safer-networking.org and get spybot, run it and clean all spyware off of your system.
2nd, try downloading "CCleaner" and run that program. If you still are having problems I would try a reformat and clean install. The speed your system is running at is absolutely ridiculous and I would guess that the OS install is a propriatory install, making your computer a pile of crap until a format.
256, bleh. Takes forever to load anything with that.
Considering that he has a 2.8 proc I would guess that his ram is his bottleneck, I would also guess that his ram is sdram and he's using a 32 bit proc.
Kelson, the reason I went to the page file is that it seems as his memory is causing a huge roadblock, so adding more pagefile memory would alleviate some of that strain.
Also, how much hdd space do you have left? If you have less than 10 gigs that can be a serious issue.
Do this go to http://www.safer-networking.org and get spybot, run it and clean all spyware off of your system.
2nd, try downloading "CCleaner" and run that program. If you still are having problems I would try a reformat and clean install. The speed your system is running at is absolutely ridiculous and I would guess that the OS install is a propriatory install, making your computer a pile of crap until a format.
Ok, this is the same discussion that happened with UT2k4 when it got popular.
I have a 1.4ghz with a CRAPPY $30 GeForce2 32mb card, running with 512mb ram and less than 10gb left empty on my hard drive, with a 4-5 year old XP-Pro install that I never update. I get at LEAST (as in almost NEVER BELOW) 27fps at 800x600, with no shadows or reflections and lowest particles, but everything elsed maxed.
People need to stop complaining.
/me pets my piece o' crap machine.
I have a 1.4ghz with a CRAPPY $30 GeForce2 32mb card, running with 512mb ram and less than 10gb left empty on my hard drive, with a 4-5 year old XP-Pro install that I never update. I get at LEAST (as in almost NEVER BELOW) 27fps at 800x600, with no shadows or reflections and lowest particles, but everything elsed maxed.
People need to stop complaining.
/me pets my piece o' crap machine.
I can barely run spring. Ive been forced to use a laptop recently. I usually go below 20 fps on larger maps or big games. Stupid laptop...
1.5ghz Celeron (thats swahili for shit-box)
256mb ram
Intel integrated graphics w/ shared memory.
I run all settings totally down, simplified minimap colors, 600x480.
I really would like an option to disable smoke as that would improve things quite a bit. Im no programmer but i could attempt it
Ive tried a lot of things to speed things up. One thing i would recommend to users with low ram or even those with lots is to download PowerStrip.
Powerstrip enables you to do certain things when a program launches. When spring launches i free up ram, set system priority lower, and raise spring CPU usage. Works pretty good:
http://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm
1.5ghz Celeron (thats swahili for shit-box)
256mb ram
Intel integrated graphics w/ shared memory.
I run all settings totally down, simplified minimap colors, 600x480.
I really would like an option to disable smoke as that would improve things quite a bit. Im no programmer but i could attempt it
Ive tried a lot of things to speed things up. One thing i would recommend to users with low ram or even those with lots is to download PowerStrip.
Powerstrip enables you to do certain things when a program launches. When spring launches i free up ram, set system priority lower, and raise spring CPU usage. Works pretty good:
http://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm
-
PauloMorfeo
- Posts: 2004
- Joined: 15 Dec 2004, 20:53
That's a 33% clock rate increase. That's, uh, like putting your computer in the water and seeing if it'll still run. While you're in the pool. Really, you shouldn't do that. And especially on a laptop, holy crap! If you don't show up on this forum for a few weeks I'll have a pretty good idea why...
Last edited by Caydr on 25 Jan 2006, 08:57, edited 1 time in total.