Author Topic: Get more game performance! (Read 47248 times)

Spanky · « **on:** Sunday, April 25, 2010, 21:30:08 PM »

This thread will go over a couple things that can help you gain FPS or help stabilize FPS when playing games.

Windows Vista and 7 introduce a new 3D GUI called Aero. While this looks great, it uses more resources. For me (I'm sure this greatly varies depending on if you use multiple monitors or what resolution you use and if you play windowed or full screen) the GUI uses 136MB of my graphics card's memory. Disabling Aero, the usage drops to 61MB. That's pretty significant, especially if you're starved for graphics card memory as it is. Even if you're not, this can be an improvement.

To disable Aero automatically when starting a game, right click on a game's shortcut, go to the "Compatibility" tab and check the boxes "Disable visual themes" and "Disable desktop composition". Now, when the game/program is launched, Aero will be disabled thus freeing up graphics card memory. memory.
This next tweak owes thanks to Blueblaster since he introduced it to me Even if you're not doing anything on the computer, Windows is doing many things behind the screen. These are called services and while many are necessary, some aren't critical. Unfortunately Windows is a blanket and covers many uses right out of the box and while some services aren't necessary for you, they might be critical for someone else. Tweaking these to suit your needs can improve performance and memory usage. I won't go into a whole lot of detail on this since another site already has, it's called BlackViper. They have services tweaks for XP, Vista and 7, tutorials on how to do it yourself or pre-made registry downloads to quickly change things.
Graphics drivers. This is a little controversial, some people think that you shouldn't install the latest driver since it can be buggy or not be optimal however when it comes to Nvidia 8xxx series and newer (and even some older) I think it's best to stick with the latest WHQL driver. They rarely have major unknown bugs and often increase performance. For ATi it might be different but try out the latest. Also updating DirectX is recommended and can fix several issues.
Cleaning up the hard drive can greatly improve loading times but may not change FPS. Removing any unnecessary programs, cleaning up temporary junk files and startup programs with CCleaner as well as defragmenting can do a world of good. It can also lengthen your hard drives lifespan.

More will be added, feel free to add suggestions!

Alex · « **Reply #1 on:** Sunday, April 25, 2010, 21:34:35 PM »

Thanks for these. I'm gonna see if I can get some better performance in Bad Company 2. Damn console ports.

Spanky · « **Reply #2 on:** Sunday, April 25, 2010, 22:00:28 PM »

The first one should be good for running games at higher resolutions or with a lot of anti-aliasing or with high quality textures. The second should be good for low amounts of RAM but closing un-necessary programs might help more than tweaking services. But this guide is meant to help you get the most

BlueBlaster · « **Reply #3 on:** Sunday, April 25, 2010, 22:27:59 PM »

I might as well list some obvious ones:
- Close un-necessary programs and processes
- Have the most optimum graphics drivers installed (the latest versions don't always mean they are the best)

I can't think of anything else you could do to boost performance other than in-game related stuff.

Okay, this might be stretching it but:
- Get rid of un-necessary temporary files in the user folders
- Get rid of leftover hotfix uninstallers
- Defragment the hard drive

Spanky · « **Reply #4 on:** Sunday, April 25, 2010, 23:00:19 PM »

Ah yes, I forgot about drivers

I didn't really think to add cleaning the hard drive since that would only improve loading times a little and not really affect FPS but that's still game performance.

snBcrPepe · « **Reply #5 on:** Thursday, December 20, 2012, 18:10:02 PM »

Any more performance tips?

When I played this more seriously, I had a series of performance tweaks to be made on armyops.ini. I am not sure, but I remember that the game did not use the last version of directx by default (or smt like that) and it was possible to swap that (the most immediate result is that we would see a progress bar while loading the maps).

Furthermore, what ingame definitions have a bigger implication on fps (namely, anti-aliasing,v-sync, projectors, decals, etc)? Which have none?

Concerning sound, which of the options should I use in the menu (HW?)?

My desktop pc is the following:
A8N-E
AMD 3200+
1,5gb RAM
7600GT,

eKC0mm · « **Reply #6 on:** Thursday, December 20, 2012, 18:30:12 PM »

gotfrag.com had a good tweak guide for getting back some FPS but the best thing anyone can do if their not running smooth is to lower all graphic settings.

I just recently got a better GPU since my last died and i can now play the game on full graphics with 50 - 60 fps. But i played with low everything forever. Personally im not used to all the eye candy. It gets in the way occasionally but looks very cool.

Possessed · « **Reply #7 on:** Thursday, December 20, 2012, 18:32:45 PM »

dunno, but, my PC is worse that yours and I can play with descent fps @ 1360x768x60, all on high, no AA/AF.
disabling shadows and seting Level of Detail to None/Low helps alot. just leave Sound at default, unless u have a dedicated sound card(off board).
having less programs/services using you CPU helps to achieve the "max" fps u can get.

Spanky · Quote from: ELiZ on Monday, February 16, 2015, 09:57:26 AM

Quote from: snBcrPepe on Thursday, December 20, 2012, 18:10:02 PM

Any more performance tips?

When I played this more seriously, I had a series of performance tweaks to be made on armyops.ini. I am not sure, but I remember that the game did not use the last version of directx by default (or smt like that) and it was possible to swap that (the most immediate result is that we would see a progress bar while loading the maps).

Furthermore, what ingame definitions have a bigger implication on fps (namely, anti-aliasing,v-sync, projectors, decals, etc)? Which have none?

Concerning sound, which of the options should I use in the menu (HW?)?

My desktop pc is the following:
A8N-E
AMD 3200+
1,5gb RAM
7600GT,

You have a lot of questions

AA uses DirectX 8 by default. Me and others have tried to get DX9 working but the libraries in AA are all linked together and it has to be compiled with the AA binary and other files. Basically, it won't work. I would highly doubt that you would see a progress bar while loading the maps. If you have proof, I would love to see it.

Heavy Anti-Aliasing will be a detriment to FPS but a little bit shouldn't really hurt unless you have an onboard graphics card or a pretty old one. It might hurt pretty good in your case. I'm running a 8600GT with 256MB of RAM and cranking Anti-Aliasing to full knocks FPS down almost to the point where it's not playable. You can probably run minimal Anti-Aliasing on a Nvidia 9xxx series card or higher without any ill effect on FPS.

VSync shouldn't hurt FPS. What it does is, it cuts your FPS to your monitors refresh rate. A lot of people think that if they have 200 FPS that it's so much better than 60. It's not. The fact is, you can't see any more frames than what your monitor is producing via it's refresh rate. Most monitors are can do 60. Some will do 75 at lower resolutions. Some TV's will do 120 or 240 or even higher with some of the fancy ones. VSync matches the FPS of your graphics card with your monitor's refresh rate. This eliminates tearing. Look at gunfire in AA or a flickering light, you'll notice that you see a cut in it or it becomes uneven every so often. It's a bad problem with AA and other games on the Unreal engine. It doesn't really hurt anything. Enabling VSync just gives smoother visuals.

Projectors and decals are the same thing, just used for different purposes. In AA, projectors would be the black marks left from explosions. Decals are mostly used for bullet holes. With low end graphics cards or onboard video, disabling them gives a pretty good performance boost. But pretty much any "modern" graphics card can handle them easily. Your 7600GT should be no exception to that.

If you or anyone else wants to raise FPS. There's 2 major things you can do that are pretty cheap these days:
- Get the fastest clock CPU you can.
Pepe, in your case that would be upgrading to a dual core Athlon 64 X2 4400+ this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-Athlon-64-4400-X2-939-DUAL-CORE-ADV4400DAA6CD-/140896675708?pt=CPUs&hash=item20ce18a77c
The dual core wouldn't necessarily help in AA but it would mean that the other things on your computer would have another core to use while AA uses the other. On this note, you can also set AA to run at a higher process priority. Don't expect massive improvements with that.
- Get away from onboard graphics. Cheap PCI-E cards are available for under $40, even less finding them used. AGP cards are older and should be even cheaper.

Those two things will give you more performance than any amount of tweaking. You could put $60 into your computer and have insane increases in performance.

Possessed · « **Reply #9 on:** Thursday, December 20, 2012, 18:47:37 PM »

I do not see any reason to use AA/AF on AA2. aa/af won't work in AA2 for me, or at least it doesn't smoth much as in other games.

Spanky · Quote from: ELiZ on Monday, February 16, 2015, 09:57:26 AM

If you like eye candy, Anti-Aliasing is great. AF doesn't really do much though. Anti-Aliasing isn't needed by any means. You have to force it in your graphics card control panel. Not being native to the engine reduces performance further.

If you want to see what highest settings look like with full Anti-Aliasing, take a look here:
http://aao25.com/media
Click on the images for full 720p size.

Possessed · « **Reply #11 on:** Thursday, December 20, 2012, 19:03:54 PM »

eh, doesn't look much smother as in other games(for obvious reasons), but I tried AA in Catalyst, ATI Tray Tools(I only use ATT now, and I even close it, Catalyst and its services slow down ur gpu a bit) and in ArmyOps.ini(must be AF, not sure, too lazy go check it

)

-eLusive · « **Reply #12 on:** Sunday, December 23, 2012, 12:29:18 PM »

anyone know how to improve my fps in aa? I currently have 30/40 fps and its lagging a lot(in my older cpu that was lower i was used to play with 60 fps) i have g-force gtx 460 M , intel core i7-2630 QM 2.00 ghz. Don't know why i'm lagging so much in this game, it is affecting my performance and it shouldn't be like this:D anyone can help here?

-eLusive · « **Reply #13 on:** Sunday, December 23, 2012, 12:31:25 PM »

ah and i have everything in low/very low lol

1m50ry · « **Reply #14 on:** Sunday, December 23, 2012, 13:08:34 PM »

Quote from: -eLusive on Sunday, December 23, 2012, 12:29:18 PM

anyone know how to improve my fps in aa? I currently have 30/40 fps and its lagging a lot(in my older cpu that was lower i was used to play with 60 fps) i have g-force gtx 460 M , intel core i7-2630 QM 2.00 ghz. Don't know why i'm lagging so much in this game, it is affecting my performance and it shouldn't be like this:D anyone can help here?

http://aao25.com/2-5-assist/lag-spike/msg36049/#msg36049

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Author Topic: Get more game performance! (Read 47248 times)

Spanky

Get more game performance!

Alex

Re: Get more game performance!

Spanky

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BlueBlaster

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Spanky

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snBcrPepe

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eKC0mm

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Possessed

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Spanky

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Possessed

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Spanky

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Possessed

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-eLusive

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-eLusive

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1m50ry

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