Very poor performance

[canukausiuka 1]

I have been playing ofp for months now, but it seems that my performance, over the past two or three months, has gotten horrible.  When I first got the game, I remember, I could play Steal the Car at 1280x1024x32 and see what was going on, but everything worked well at 1024x768x32.  Now, I cannot even get playable frame rates at 800x600, even on Steal the Car!

I tried the recommended tuning suggestions, and did a complete reinstall of ofp and resistance, but its still not playable.  I admit, I could never play the resistance campaign, even when I first got resistance (Nogova, it seems, was just too much for my computer, period).  However, the original islands and campaign always worked fine.  But now, even with a 50-m terrain resolution (in theory, the same as the original, no?) and an 800-m viewdistance (less than original) its still not playable.  I've set my LOD preferences back, disabled shadows, even disabled multitexturing, but nothing seems to boost my performance.

I know that it isn't fade, I have a legit copy for both, with the boxes, instructions, and CD-keys intact.  I could desperately use some help, because ofp is almost the only game I want to play anymore, but I can scarecely play it.  If anyone could help me get to the problem, I'd be highly appreciative.

My system:

PIII at 1.0GHz

512 MB SDRAM

32 MB RADEON 7200

WindowsXP Pro (I had Win2K, but upgraded)

As far as I know, everything has the latest drivers.  If any other information could help, I will gladly provide it.  I just want to get back into my game, but with the kind of performance I have been getting, its not possible.

[theavonlady 2]

Try defragging your disk, manually setting a maximum virtual swap file size to 1GB and take a look at what programs and tasks are automatically starting up with Windows (see this site for a great reference).

Let us know if that helps.

Also, what are your OFP preference and option settings? Search The FAQ for words such as "tweak", "lag", "sluggish", "stuttter", "performance", etc.

[ale2999 0]

my friend, I am having the same trouble as u, lol, there seem to be no solution. it depends what is an accepteble frame rate for u, but I with stock mission on the original Islands get like 15-20 fps, and on nogova 3-12 lol o well my new motherboard should be back soon lol

[Skunk Monkey 0]

You say you upgraded to XP.

I think here is the reason, XP itself is taking more RAM and CPU away from OFP, thus reducing your performance.

With only a PIII 1Ghz I would stick with 2000.

New CPU, motherboard and GFX card wouldn't do any harm

Your machine should be fine to run OFP with 98 or 2000.

[TheBrain 0]

Do you have any virus scanner installed?

Any other running tasks may decrease your system performance. Check your task manager to see if there are any time-consuming tasks.

[Mister Frag 0]

Besides opening Task Manager as suggested to see if something else is grabbing lots of CPU cycles, I would run DXDIAG and make sure that all of the tests on the Video tab complete successfully, and that full Hardware Acceleration and AGP support are enabled.

[canukausiuka 1]

I'll try defragging my hard drive and checking what all starts with windows when I get a chance this evening.  I'll also post my preferences settings.  I had wondered if it was WinXP that caused it, and if it is, I guess I'll just have to wait a while (I was planning to do a reinstall of win2K this summer, liked it better anyway, lol).  I used to have Norton AV, but I uninstalled it when I put on winXP.  I've been using the task manager to see what's going on, but it seems like ofp is taking almost all the CPU cycles. (even in the mission editor - is that normal?)  I know that hardware acceleration is at full, but my card is PCI, not AGP (I know, bad move, but I don't have an AGP slot... it came with one of those integrated cards... blah! )

My guess is that it probably is windows that is behind the slowdowns.  Going to need a good long weekend to fix that though.

I wish I had my parents' computer at school with me, though.  It runs everything beautifully (3GHz processor + radeon 9700 = amazing performance), but I can only use it when I go home.

Anyways, thanks for the help, I'll try them out next time I get a chance.

[Mister Frag 0]

Windows XP isn't really any more hardware-demanding than Windows 2000, and it's a better OS to play games on.

How much physical memory do you have free sitting at the Windows Desktop before you start OFP? You can find out in Task Manager by clicking on the Performance tab. There may be some unneeded XP services that you can shut down to get some memory back.

[ale2999 0]

I noticed this program called svchost to be monopolizing the resources, when ofp is chugging down. tried to shot it down and the system became unstable and reset itself. do u guys know what it does and how to disable it?

[Mister Frag 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (ale2999 @ Feb. 18 2003,18:20)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I noticed this program called svchost to be monopolizing the resources, when ofp is chugging down. tried to shot it down and the system became unstable and reset itself. do u guys know what it does and how to disable it?<span id='postcolor'>

Your system will not run without SVCHOST, it's the process that runs the system services which are implemented as dynamic link libraries.

To see what services are using SVCHOST to load them, go to the command prompt (just run CMD.EXE from Start -> Run) and type TASKLIST /SVC. Anything that shows SVCHOST as the Image Name requires SVCHOST, and killing it will have dire consequences.

[toadeater 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Mister Frag @ Feb. 19 2003,04:11)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><span id='postcolor'>

Might also want to check this page about XP Services, it's better than any explanation on M$'s own websites:

XP Services Guide