Big Mods - Slow Flashpoint

[Artak 0]

Reverting three steps down to 56.72 made me lose yet another fps. Now it's 3-4

Hey Benu, here is a pic from my process manager. It's in finnish, but shows that there's more then enough of RAM to spare.

Reducing the texture sizes has had no effect of any kind, negative if any.

Regular ofp with BIS addons works like a dream. It's these big mods and/or maps like BAS Tonal and FDF Mod ect. that make my comp go on it's knees and ask me to finish her misery.

[Spy17 1]

Hi Artak!

Do I understand you right? When you bought your computer it was really fast and you have the impression speed is getting worth over the years?

I think I have the same problem (P4 2,6, 1G RAM, GF4200)

Rig runs IL2 better than ever but OFP gets worth.

My first thought was defrag but the XP defrag did not help.

Maybe it is really the new gfx drivers. (need them for IL2 though)

Hope we find a way out of this!

[Artak 0]

Quote[/b] ]When you bought your computer it was really fast and you have the impression speed is getting worth over the years?

Hehe. That certainly is how it seems with OFP, but something tells me that computers don't get slower over time, only software get more bigger and demanding - like these new high res addons.

I've kind of made up my mind already about buying a new AMD 64 bit and a new mobo because the prices have come down on the 64 bits so much.

The hard part is to get my wife convinced of why it's imperative to spend 250€ on a computer that runs othewise well, but works slow on a game

[D34N 0]

Quote[/b] ]but works slow on a game

Is this the only game it is slow on? That is very important to know.

My First thought is that your CPU limited.. but now I think it might just be your video card.

Quote[/b] ]I've kind of made up my mind already about buying a new AMD 64 bit and a new mobo because the prices have come down on the 64 bits so much.

If its not the CPU thats the problem then maybe you should save you Euros and wait till mid-2005 or Early 2006 to spring for Dual-Core 64Bit Processor and a New Graphics card.

[Artak 0]

We'll OFP is the only game I've played for the past.. umm.. four years (since ofp was released) and I don't have any other games. I did play BF1942 through quickly in a couple of days, and if my memory serves me correct, it ran smoothly.

Saving money and waiting for better component releases is an eternity project. There's always something better in the works and the older ones dropping prices.

You just got to jump in the ferret wheel at some point and hold on tight.

[MachoMan 0]

Artak go with the mobo upgrade, you have a really bad chipset in there, it was basicly obsolete by the time it was released . When u manage to save 150 euros again go buy a new card.

[Spy17 1]

The addons are clearly demanding!

I just made a test with a clean OFP (without Addons):

I fly A10 and hunt a sqad of T72 on everon.

Viewdistance 5000

terraindetail very low

This used to work very nicely when the computer was new!

Now it laggs like hell.

Maybe it has to do with the windows swap file or something like this.

[D34N 0]

Hmmm.. too bad you dont have any other games.

Quote[/b] ]Saving money and waiting for better component releases is an eternity project. There's always something better in the works and the older ones dropping prices.

Tell That to ATi and Nvidia!

If you wait till mid-'05/early '06 then you could have a brand spanking new CPU for Windows Longhorn (W/DX10)

Quote[/b] ]You just got to jump in the ferret wheel at some point and hold on tight.

Ferret Wheel?... I like the sounds of that!

[iNeo 0]

This is too on-topic for off-topic, belongs in General.

[lukemax 0]

A MOD should Lock-NOW!!!!!!! They always do it to my topics!

[Heatseeker 0]

And how does it run without all the addons installed?

Have you tried reinstaling OPF recently?

Is you PC free from viruses and spyware?

Every time i reinstall OPF it flies but using many addons can slow things down significantly.

Mod folders , do you have your addons seperated and organised in mod folders? I think you should keep'em like that and establish a limit of size for each folder, also dont start your OPF with all of them enabled, only with the addons you want to use at the time, try Kegetys launcher or diferent shortcuts maybe?

I see this is related to Tonal, though i never had such low fps unless running many units in the large towns the island is well known for running slow and being very demanding even with the latest hardware.

I dont think a new graphics card would solve your issue, im leaning more towards cpu and mobo but keep in mind that if you upgrade those you will problably need to upgrade your RAM too.

Hope this helps, i believe this belongs in troubleshooting .

[Baphomet 0]

Quote[/b] ] A conclusion can be made that Flashpoint with all it's new addons has become bigger and more demanding to run. I want it to be as smooth as it was when still back in version 1.0.

Indeed. Personally I find I'm using less and less addons because of it. I just don't need the extra detail. Unfortunately there isn't much choice in the matter. Personally I'd easily take a "regular detail" addon of the same types out there now versus these higher detail ones any day. They're just simply nonexistent.

As for islands... well, as technology increases more people are going to try making islands with more objects and density. That at least in my mind is justifiable. It adds to the gameplay. 3d rendered rivets on a plane or a button on a jacket on some soldier, is clearly excess.

However for me. Using FDF without a huge performance hit is plausible and I have two pcs and one of them is slower than yours   . At least 1.2 was alright if I got rid or minimized the usage of certain things, reverted effects back to their generic OFP status or simply eliminating certain scripts. I use FDF mainly for the portable static weapons and other little features that may add a slight decrease in performance but overall really add dimension to the gameplay.

[havocsquad 0]

Two important words of advice for PC performance with OFP, I garantee they will improve at least some of your problem.

First, use plenty of mod folders and reduce the number of addons you load with OFP to minimum needed.

Second, regularly defragment your hard drive every month to optimize your PC's performance.  I am still running OFP with just a  800mhz P3 with 256 megs of ram, and even though it lags badly during heavy missions, it runs much better after I defragment my hard drive.

Just some suggestions that might help.

Havoc.

[Artak 0]

Quote[/b] ]A MOD should Lock-NOW!!!!!!!

I think the moderators work as fast as they can, and will lock this topic if they see fit - with or without members telling them to. The moderators are like police, they're here to serve and protect.

This is not so much troubleshooting then trying to find out which component would boost up OFP performance the most or rather which component at the moment is lagging it the most.  

Quote[/b] ]And how does it run without all the addons installed?

Runs well without them big addons.

Quote[/b] ]Have you tried reinstaling OPF recently?

I have a very clean install and tidy mod folders which I lauch with kegetys' OFPlauncher.

Quote[/b] ]Is you PC free from viruses and spyware?

Yes

Quote[/b] ]im leaning more towards cpu and mobo but keep in mind that if you upgrade those you will problably need to upgrade your RAM too.

Most new motherboards support the 266Mhz DDR-SDRAM that I've got.  

[Placebo 29]

LukeMax your threads often get closed because they have very little worth or content, just like that reply.

I see no reason why this thread should either be closed or moved to General, it serves a purpose and it can serve that purpose just as well where it is

[iNeo 0]

I see no reason why this thread should either be closed or moved to General

Because off-topic is about military, politics, science, other military games and similiar topics loosely related to the game?

Quote[/b] ]it serves a purpose and it can serve that purpose just as well where it is

Then why ever move a thread?

Ok I'll stop now.

[Hawkins 8]

Just as a side note:

My CPU usage is the same as Artak's when running Flashpoint. I have the following rig:

Microstar 865PE NEO2-pfs MB

Intel P4 2.8Ghz, FSB800 prescott

1024MB DDR PC3200 Kingston RAM

Club 3D Radeon 9800SE 128MB

It's true that OFP is demanding on the CPU, and it does eat my usage, but I get no lag either.

[BraTTy 0]

@HawkinsDaFin ...I also have a raedon 9800se,i purposely bought it to softmod it with omega drivers.My performance went from 3100 (3dmark03) to 5600 with no artifacts.Its sweet and cheap.My sons raedon 9800pro only gets 5200 3dmark.

@Artak.. looking at your specs and if it was me (i play other games tho) my first upgrade from where you are at would be a new video card.Which is not the same recommendations others are giving.Of course OFP is more cpu dependandt but your graphics may be maxing out.

For example if I put a ti4200 in my computer (PIV 2.8) I will only get 1800 3dmark03 .Wouldn't matter if I had a new AMD 64...it would most likely show only 1800 3dmarks (its max),altho the cpu tests may increase the score a tad.

My wife (actually plays BF42) was confined to the boat with her ti4200 and AMD Xp2400+.She could not fly well cause of the choppiness.It only averaged about 13fps cause of the video card.She now has my old fx5600 ultra and is learning to fly.And even increased the graphics and can see people in the water better.

Just saying a cpu would help OFP,but you still will be limited to what you can do.

[Heatseeker 0]

Well my GF4ti was/is a great OPF card, it ran great with high resolution and good performance, now having jumped to the 6th generation cards the improvements werent very significant performance wise, mainly because OPF doesnt use the latest stuff graphics wise so i would have gone with a new mobo/cpu if i was below 2 gig and the ti4200 would have stayed for a while more (i didnt buy a dx9 card for OPF lol ).

I think that for running a large amount of good addons cpu and ram are the most important factors, ofcourse the graphics card will help everything look purtier and will also improve performance with high poly counts and textures but i still think cpu and ram are the determinant factors with flashpoint .

[llauma 0]

@Artak.. looking at your specs and if it was me (i play other games tho) my first upgrade from where you are at would be a new video card.Which is not the same recommendations others are giving.Of course OFP is more cpu dependandt but your graphics may be maxing out.

For example if I put a ti4200 in my computer (PIV 2.8) I will only get 1800 3dmark03 .Wouldn't matter if I had a new AMD 64...it would most likely show only 1800 3dmarks (its max),altho the cpu tests may increase the score a tad.

My wife (actually plays BF42) was confined to the boat with her ti4200 and AMD Xp2400+.She could not fly well cause of the choppiness.It only averaged about 13fps cause of the video card.She now has my old fx5600 ultra and is learning to fly.And even increased the graphics and can see people in the water better.

Just saying a cpu would help OFP,but you still will be limited to what you can do.

The GF4 ti cards are great for dx8 games. The reason why it get's a really bad 3Dmark03 point is because it doesn't support dx9 which means that it can't run most of the tests.

A FX 5600 is compairable to a GF4 ti when playing dx8. The ultra might be slightly better though but the GF 4600 ti won't give up without a fight.

I've had some problems with the never drivers which have halvfed the FPS as most compaired to others. That's because they are made to boost the GF6800 to max while the old ones where developed for the GF 4. One set of drivers lagged me down to 3-4 FPS when using object reflection while normal land reflection worked just fine. After switching back to the old drivers I went back to 40 FPS while running the same test.

[Artak 0]

Hehe, alright. Now I'm even more confused than to start with. Others are saying gfx and others mobo+cpu.

HawkinsDaFin saying that his cpu load in process manager is also at 100% with the better processor would suggest that "processor load is ment to be at 100% when playing OFP". And that would lead me to thinking that I need a new gfx card.

But then again all this praising of the GF4 cards is leaning me towards the processor and motherboard.

Can anyone else confirm the cpu 100% cpu load and say it's 'normal'?

I've searched for affordable gfx cards and cpus+mobos and came up with these:

GFX:

PNY VERTO GF6600 GT 128M GDDR-3 &FAR CRY - 207.30€

MOBO:

EPoX 8KDA3+ nForce3 250GB sata-raid 8ch-audio glan - 117,90€

CPU:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ - 156,90€

[llauma 0]

Hehe, alright. Now I'm even more confused than to start with. Others are saying gfx and others mobo+cpu.  

HawkinsDaFin saying that his cpu load in process manager is also at 100% with the better processor would suggest that "processor load is ment to be at 100% when playing OFP". And that would lead me to thinking that I need a new gfx card.

But then again all this praising of the GF4 cards is leaning me towards the processor and motherboard.  

If you don't play other newer games I think a CPU would be the far best choice to speed up OFP but a GF 6600 GT is a great card for a low price and it allows you to get all the new features added by dx9. If you play new games I would maybe recommend the 6600 GT.

But why not get both?

[Artak 0]

Quote[/b] ]But why not get both?

Damn, I need to start getting a job..

[BraTTy 0]

A FX 5600 is compairable to a GF4 ti when playing dx8. The ultra might be slightly better though but the GF 4600 ti won't give up without a fight.

Oh for comparison ,this is actually one the 5600ultras that run at 400/900 OEM from what I remember

I never owned a ti4600 and can't compare

I was a sucker that went from a ti4200 to a regular fx5600 and realized its same if not/poorer performance as it wasn't a quality card either and generated artifacts

Its in my youngest sons computer underclocked,so its definately sub-ti4200 performance

ti4200 is a adequate card,the minimum that I would play a game on today,but games like Morrowind and such would have long pauses,it does with the 5600ultra

[llauma 0]

A FX 5600 is compairable to a GF4 ti when playing dx8. The ultra might be slightly better though but the GF 4600 ti won't give up without a fight.

Oh for comparison ,this is actually one the 5600ultras that run at 400/900 OEM from what I remember

I never owned a ti4600 and can't compare

I was a sucker that went from a ti4200 to  a regular fx5600 and realized its same if not/poorer performance as it wasn't a quality card either and generated artifacts

Its in my youngest sons computer underclocked,so its definately sub-ti4200 performance

ti4200 is a adequate card,the minimum that I would play a game on today,but games like Morrowind and such would have long pauses,it does with the 5600ultra

Check out this site..

By those tests the FX 5600 ultra is even worse than the GF 4200 ti. Offcourse the FX cards supports DX9 effext but as OFP isn't a DX9 game that doesn't matter.

But that test is a pretty big one so unless you show me another big test that shows the opposite I'm gonna take it as the truth.