Hey everyone, wondering if someone would be able to help me with some trouble i am having. Keep in mind even though i am new to posting on these forums i have been lurking arround a for a bit and already learned much. But unfortunately there are still some things that elude me so i am hoping someone here might be able to help.
1st up my specs.
OS: WinXP Pro +SP2
MB: Asus Striker Extreme
CPU: Quad Core 2.6GHz
MEM: 2Gigs OCZ - Dual Channel 800Mhz DDR2
VID: PNY 8800GTX 768MB's PCI-E
SND: Bgears' b-Enspirer 8CH
HDD: 1x WD Raptor 10,000RPM 150Gig & 2x WD Caviar 7200RPM 500Gig
MON: 28" Widescreen Viewsonic
OTR: Thremaltake BigWater liquid cooling
Keep in mind my system is loaded with all the newest drivers for all hardware as well as windows updates including the new March release of DirectX Redist. In adition to this, i have tried differnt video driver releases from 169's to 174's but still not had any effect.
#1 Problem:
Upon a fresh install of Windows & the game, then launching the game and viewing the SMR video options, everything is on High as would be expected for my system. However once shuting down the game and re launching it the "Shadows" in game video option will from this point on be set to "OFF" automatically. If i manually select Low, Med or High then restart the game, it will always default back to OFF. I even tried setting it manually in the Settings.ini file and even adjusting the file properties to Read Only but it still keeps defaulting to Off.
#2 Problem:
Any map that has tress in it produces major stutering when scrolling across the landscape with the camera. Turning tree's off completly seems to be the cure.
Thgoughts:
On my sons system (ATI X850 Pro - AGP) if you turn in game shaders from high to med or low it auto sets his in game shadows to OFF. but putting it back to High will allow you to set shadows once again.
On my system it seems like its not properly detecting my video card shaders capability or something similar after the 1st launch. As it thinks my shader setting should be med or low like on my sons system, and thus not allow a setting of anything other than Off for shadows. The changing of the actual Shader setting does seem to work as it does make things look better, it just doesnt seem to help with the auto disablement of the in game shadow setting like it does on my sons system.
In addition to this even though the in game shadows is being auto set to off, the objects in the game are still producing shadows. However they always look terrible, similar to blob shodows and they flicker under the trees whenever you move the camera.
Anyone have any thoughts or ideas on this?
SMR & Shadows
#1 I've had the same thing and found that making the change while playing a map will not allow a change. Doing it from the opening menu will hold the change.
As to #2... 4 GB would be a better amount of memory.
Now, two questions for you....
#1 What size Power Supply does that monster have?
#2 Have you tried Omega Drivers for ATI? Those are free downloads.
As to #2... 4 GB would be a better amount of memory.
Now, two questions for you....
#1 What size Power Supply does that monster have?
#2 Have you tried Omega Drivers for ATI? Those are free downloads.
I'm correct 97% of the time..... who cares about the other 4%....
Interesting...an Asus board shouldn't act like that...it's not your video card unless it's broke. Shaders need to be set to medium as for many maps if set lower...it causes rips in the landscape textures...track can vanish.
Your Nvidia card is bigger in ram than mine and I'm not having any issues...so it's not the card for sure. What else is running in your systems background? When you turn on the game, minimize the game and open up the system preformance monitor...check the graphs and watch for your memory peak. Sounds like you have something going on as I leave all my setting at full and full trees...no issues.
EDIT/// You had mentioned that if you turned off the trees the large map ran fine. Hmm...I have mine stuffed with them and it has never given me any issues. And you said you had 2gig of ram...so if the game wants close to that even with what XP wants...about 300mb or so for windows...you should still be under the mark. Regular windows runs somewhere around 30-40 processes sometimes less...how many is your system running? The game is still page filing through your hard drive, but you had mentioned you have a 7200 drive so it should be fine, although the new serial drives transmit at a much higher rate. I'm not sure about the NorthBridge chipset on that Asus board. I stopped using Asus several years back as they weren't keeping up with the changes and they couldn't get their frame rates up to half what I needed for rendering.
Your Nvidia card is bigger in ram than mine and I'm not having any issues...so it's not the card for sure. What else is running in your systems background? When you turn on the game, minimize the game and open up the system preformance monitor...check the graphs and watch for your memory peak. Sounds like you have something going on as I leave all my setting at full and full trees...no issues.
EDIT/// You had mentioned that if you turned off the trees the large map ran fine. Hmm...I have mine stuffed with them and it has never given me any issues. And you said you had 2gig of ram...so if the game wants close to that even with what XP wants...about 300mb or so for windows...you should still be under the mark. Regular windows runs somewhere around 30-40 processes sometimes less...how many is your system running? The game is still page filing through your hard drive, but you had mentioned you have a 7200 drive so it should be fine, although the new serial drives transmit at a much higher rate. I'm not sure about the NorthBridge chipset on that Asus board. I stopped using Asus several years back as they weren't keeping up with the changes and they couldn't get their frame rates up to half what I needed for rendering.
First let me say thanks to both of you guys for taking the time to help me with this. Its been driving me nuts and even after a fresh install of windows has not cleared up yet.
As per your questions:
My Power Supply is an Enermax Liberty 620watt. Which from the research i did back when building this system should be ok? Its actually a spare my roomate had so i figured i would put it to good use.
As far as the NVidia 8800 GTX goes, its good to hear you have one and it works great with this game. Not so good for me as i will need to keep diging to find my perf gremlin.
The Asus Striker Extreme features the nVIDIA NForce 680i SLI chipset.
As far as processes go, i can tell you i have at idle(desktop - no open programs) 23 running which all look to be pretty standard default ones. I try to run a tight ship:)
In addition to this TM says i have aprox 1.7Gigs free for memory (if i am reading it corectly) and 250MB under the PF meter usage column. Just a side note i curently have my PF set in windows to a min and max of 4092 as i always understood that it was better to have a fixed size than a fluxuating one.
The perf monitor MMC is something i must admit i have always known about but never really used before. So i am going to see what i can figure out about it and setting differnt counters. Right off the bat however when i am in game one thing that is grabbing my attention is the fact that the pages/sec keep spiking out to max (100) and back down almost in a pattern forming method. Not sure if that is to be expected or not as i said i need to do some learning when it comes to the MMC and perf monitor.
Also just a side note, it was my impression that windows is unable to use more than 3?, 3 1/2 gigs of ram due to its own limitations in a 32bit enviornment. Its not until you go 64bit that windows will actually use more than that and thats if you have a mobo that supports VMM. Anyway that is the main reason why i never went any higher with the amount of ram. Didnt want to buy 4Gigs and have some of it go to waste. But maybe i am wrong about the whole thing, not sure.
Well i am going to go dig arround with the MMC hehe a new gadget to play with yay! but thanks for the help thus far, its great to see and hopefully with your guys help i will be able to squish this pesky little gremlin yet.
As per your questions:
My Power Supply is an Enermax Liberty 620watt. Which from the research i did back when building this system should be ok? Its actually a spare my roomate had so i figured i would put it to good use.
As far as the NVidia 8800 GTX goes, its good to hear you have one and it works great with this game. Not so good for me as i will need to keep diging to find my perf gremlin.
The Asus Striker Extreme features the nVIDIA NForce 680i SLI chipset.
As far as processes go, i can tell you i have at idle(desktop - no open programs) 23 running which all look to be pretty standard default ones. I try to run a tight ship:)
In addition to this TM says i have aprox 1.7Gigs free for memory (if i am reading it corectly) and 250MB under the PF meter usage column. Just a side note i curently have my PF set in windows to a min and max of 4092 as i always understood that it was better to have a fixed size than a fluxuating one.
The perf monitor MMC is something i must admit i have always known about but never really used before. So i am going to see what i can figure out about it and setting differnt counters. Right off the bat however when i am in game one thing that is grabbing my attention is the fact that the pages/sec keep spiking out to max (100) and back down almost in a pattern forming method. Not sure if that is to be expected or not as i said i need to do some learning when it comes to the MMC and perf monitor.
Also just a side note, it was my impression that windows is unable to use more than 3?, 3 1/2 gigs of ram due to its own limitations in a 32bit enviornment. Its not until you go 64bit that windows will actually use more than that and thats if you have a mobo that supports VMM. Anyway that is the main reason why i never went any higher with the amount of ram. Didnt want to buy 4Gigs and have some of it go to waste. But maybe i am wrong about the whole thing, not sure.
Well i am going to go dig arround with the MMC hehe a new gadget to play with yay! but thanks for the help thus far, its great to see and hopefully with your guys help i will be able to squish this pesky little gremlin yet.
By PF I'm guessing you are speaking of Virtual Memory (VM), and yes, 4096 is good. I have an 8G HD that is used for nothing more that VM and temp files transfer for downloads and editing. Nothing operational is there and it's empty 99% of the time. Your Raptor would be a good place for yours, but VM is best as a 4Gb whole and not scattered around the drive. Find a 5Gb or better drive and stick it in there and use it just for VM.
I've noticed the spiking at time also, but as I get into a map it just pegs out and the VM goes up and down. This program is a memory hog.
As to the 4GB, my system uses matched pairs the best, as I suppose your does also, so 3GB drops all the memory into singles and you loose speed, so at ~$49 for 2Gb, if you can get it to match your existing memory, XP may not see the last half to 1Gb of memory, but it can be a good trade off. I started with 2Gb myself, but when I found it wasn't enough, I bought 2Gb more, which refused to match even tho it was the same manu and type/spec, I had to trade it in for a 4Gb set and it runs much smoother now. And the 4Gb set cost less than the 2 2Gb sets! Go figure...
Try everything you can afford to try and play with the settings. I have found that some maps require different settings than others, so it may take adjusting and noting of settings.
Keep us informed of what you find.
I've noticed the spiking at time also, but as I get into a map it just pegs out and the VM goes up and down. This program is a memory hog.
As to the 4GB, my system uses matched pairs the best, as I suppose your does also, so 3GB drops all the memory into singles and you loose speed, so at ~$49 for 2Gb, if you can get it to match your existing memory, XP may not see the last half to 1Gb of memory, but it can be a good trade off. I started with 2Gb myself, but when I found it wasn't enough, I bought 2Gb more, which refused to match even tho it was the same manu and type/spec, I had to trade it in for a 4Gb set and it runs much smoother now. And the 4Gb set cost less than the 2 2Gb sets! Go figure...
Try everything you can afford to try and play with the settings. I have found that some maps require different settings than others, so it may take adjusting and noting of settings.
Keep us informed of what you find.
I'm correct 97% of the time..... who cares about the other 4%....
...yup...Warll is right, if that Raptor is only 8gigs, you can move the swap file from C drive to one of those WD 7200 drives...that was what I thought you were using. I forgot about those super fast scuzzy drives being so small. Man...I bet that thing generates some heat.Warll wrote:Ouch, I can't imagine that 8 gig drive being very fast. Its likely not the best idea to put the page file on a slow drive.
In computer management you can reassign that page file to say your other drives. Control Panel/System/Advanced/then under Performance click Settings/Advanced/then under Virtual Memory click Change... turn off and on which drive you want to set the page file for, using the set key as you go. Processor scheduling should be set for Programs as well as Memory usage.
Something's got to work because your system is just like mine if it has the 680i chipset you are ready for Direct-X 10 when it gets out later this year.
Lowell - "if that Raptor is only 8gigs" - read his first post, the Raptor is 150Gb!
I may be wrong, but XP assigns VM as it needs it, so if it need 500Mb now, and then when you start a game it needs 3Gb, it doesn't go searching for a 3Gb solid lump of space, it puts it where ever it can find the first open space, the same way it does when you save something. And yes, it is only a 5400, but from there you have a 7200 then a 10,000 by which time you're talking about large drives, and you're back to multi-use.
There are older SCSI drives at 9.1 Gb which run at 10,000 (WD).
I'm missing what all this speed thing is all about. The game is not going to run any faster with a 15,000 rpm drive than it will with a 7200 rpm drive. The game data is being stored in memory, and the VM is over-run and/or variables. I'm having no problems with mine.
If you want to defrag your 150 Gb and make part of it a 5 Gb drive, I guess that would be close, as long as the other drive you have made from the 150 Gb are not being acessed at the same time.
I'm just here to make a suggestion, not to have a debate.
I may be wrong, but XP assigns VM as it needs it, so if it need 500Mb now, and then when you start a game it needs 3Gb, it doesn't go searching for a 3Gb solid lump of space, it puts it where ever it can find the first open space, the same way it does when you save something. And yes, it is only a 5400, but from there you have a 7200 then a 10,000 by which time you're talking about large drives, and you're back to multi-use.
There are older SCSI drives at 9.1 Gb which run at 10,000 (WD).
I'm missing what all this speed thing is all about. The game is not going to run any faster with a 15,000 rpm drive than it will with a 7200 rpm drive. The game data is being stored in memory, and the VM is over-run and/or variables. I'm having no problems with mine.
If you want to defrag your 150 Gb and make part of it a 5 Gb drive, I guess that would be close, as long as the other drive you have made from the 150 Gb are not being acessed at the same time.
I'm just here to make a suggestion, not to have a debate.
I'm correct 97% of the time..... who cares about the other 4%....
Ok guys i have some news but i am not sure i understand it yet. I have been doing some testing and purchasing
This is what i can tell you thus far.
At present my primary dirve is my Raptor-X drive which is new by WD and is a 150Gb drive that runs at 10,000RPM. My slave drives, both of them are WD 500Gb running at 7200RPM. Just wanted to make sure there was no misunderstanding is all. The main reason in getting the new Raptor-X drive was due to its better Burst rate, faster access time and better overall sustained rate compared to my 500Gb drives. Also keep in mind all drives are SATA drives. The raptor is SATA-I and the 500's are SATA-II's.
Now thats why i put my new Raptor as my primary. I did run some benchmarks on the drives after first install and the bench's showed a positive perf improvement as i somewhat expected or hoped for. Now keeping this in mind, read on.
Recently i began playing with the MMC Perf monitor in XP. What i was finding was during SMR game play i was having a ton of MAJOR pages/sec spikes every few seconds. This puzzeled me and concerned me greatly. So i took notice of the monitor when SMR was not running and found although the spikes didnt spike as high, they were still very frequent.
As a trial an error kind of person i am and somewhat out of desperation, i decided to play arround with my swap/page file in windows. Originaly i had it setup on my C drive as expected under a typical install of XP. Keepin in mind my C drive is my Raptor drive. At any rate, to try something new i decided to move my swap file (4092) over to my E drive which is one of my 500Gb drives. After rebooting and more testing i was amazed to find almost no pages/sec spikes and the ones that were there did not spike very high and didnt not come very often. It was a big differance from what i was seeing when my swap file was on my primary drive. Now at this point i dont understand enough to know why such a drastic differance in the pages/sec from simply moving the sawp file. But i am still learning.
Another thing i can tell you is the perf increase i now see in starting windows, program launching etc is very noticable, which i like even though i dont truely understand it yet. My guess is because with the swap file on the primary drive things had to be qued in a particular order and wait their turn to be accessed on the 1 drive. But when the swap file is on another drive, the que is essentialy shroter for each drive and both ques can be run simeltaneously. Atleast thats my gut feeling even though i dont have a solid technical understanding of it yet.
Ok on with some more info...
The system monitor was showing me while SMR was running i still had aprox 850MBs free for processes. But thinking more on what you guys were saying about adding extra memeory i decided ok why not. So today i went out and purchased a 4Gb kit (2x 2Gb Modules) of SLI ready OCZ DDR2 800MHz memory (PC2-6400). I didnt really want to mess with the whole mismatch thing from my old pair to the new pair so thats why i decided i would just get the bigger kit of 4Gigs and simply remove my old 2Gig modules i had been using.
Ok now as somewhat expected right off the bat i dont see any real differance with the extra memory installed. But we pretty much already figured that as it was better to have a little extra than run a little short. So i am ok with that. At this point though its not helping with regards to my issues in SMR. But again thats somewhat expected and fine with me, i just thought i would see if it helped or not. BTW windows shows 3.25Gb of my 4Gb but again i knew that going into this as well.
Now onto what i found out with more testing of SMR...
I did a clean install of SMR and found some very interesting and yet puzzling results.
1.) If i install SMR and do NOT patch it and leave it running at version 1.0. I get the major stutter.
2.) If i install the 1.01 patch, i get NO stutter. Its smooth as butter.
3.) If i install the 1.10 patch the stutter returns and its so bad it litterly makes me ill to watch it on the screen. Kind of like sea sickness in a way.
4.) No matter what version the game is or is not patched to, no matter what the game ALWAYS defaults my in game Shadow Quality setting to OFF. And no matter how many times or how i change it, I can not get it to stay on.
So thats what i know thus far. unfortunately it seems to offer up more questions than answers atleast to me at this point. But i am determined to figure this out. Overall it seems that something odd is going on with regards to the patches. How the first and last patch cause the issue but the 2nd patch does not. All i can think of is something to do with the documented fix of improved NVidia settings in the 1.01 patch. And somehow its broken again in the newest patch. But than i dont understand why others are not having the same issue.
On a side note, i did purchase another 500Gb drive today as well just like my other 2. My thought was if i can tell for sure that i get better performance from the 500's over the Raptor, i will install a new 500 as my primary. But at this point i am still trying to determine which drive is really offering the most performance. If nothing else i just have another drive to store backups on.
So thats what i know so far. Bottom line, i think the stutering and even the shadow issue in SMR is more directly related to the video end of things. Although at this point i am not sure how to fix it. Atleast not without trying another GTX in the system.
wow long post, hehe sry guys, didnt mean to dump all this on you but it helps me sort thru it writting it down and having some people to discuss it with.
This is what i can tell you thus far.
At present my primary dirve is my Raptor-X drive which is new by WD and is a 150Gb drive that runs at 10,000RPM. My slave drives, both of them are WD 500Gb running at 7200RPM. Just wanted to make sure there was no misunderstanding is all. The main reason in getting the new Raptor-X drive was due to its better Burst rate, faster access time and better overall sustained rate compared to my 500Gb drives. Also keep in mind all drives are SATA drives. The raptor is SATA-I and the 500's are SATA-II's.
Now thats why i put my new Raptor as my primary. I did run some benchmarks on the drives after first install and the bench's showed a positive perf improvement as i somewhat expected or hoped for. Now keeping this in mind, read on.
Recently i began playing with the MMC Perf monitor in XP. What i was finding was during SMR game play i was having a ton of MAJOR pages/sec spikes every few seconds. This puzzeled me and concerned me greatly. So i took notice of the monitor when SMR was not running and found although the spikes didnt spike as high, they were still very frequent.
As a trial an error kind of person i am and somewhat out of desperation, i decided to play arround with my swap/page file in windows. Originaly i had it setup on my C drive as expected under a typical install of XP. Keepin in mind my C drive is my Raptor drive. At any rate, to try something new i decided to move my swap file (4092) over to my E drive which is one of my 500Gb drives. After rebooting and more testing i was amazed to find almost no pages/sec spikes and the ones that were there did not spike very high and didnt not come very often. It was a big differance from what i was seeing when my swap file was on my primary drive. Now at this point i dont understand enough to know why such a drastic differance in the pages/sec from simply moving the sawp file. But i am still learning.
Another thing i can tell you is the perf increase i now see in starting windows, program launching etc is very noticable, which i like even though i dont truely understand it yet. My guess is because with the swap file on the primary drive things had to be qued in a particular order and wait their turn to be accessed on the 1 drive. But when the swap file is on another drive, the que is essentialy shroter for each drive and both ques can be run simeltaneously. Atleast thats my gut feeling even though i dont have a solid technical understanding of it yet.
Ok on with some more info...
The system monitor was showing me while SMR was running i still had aprox 850MBs free for processes. But thinking more on what you guys were saying about adding extra memeory i decided ok why not. So today i went out and purchased a 4Gb kit (2x 2Gb Modules) of SLI ready OCZ DDR2 800MHz memory (PC2-6400). I didnt really want to mess with the whole mismatch thing from my old pair to the new pair so thats why i decided i would just get the bigger kit of 4Gigs and simply remove my old 2Gig modules i had been using.
Ok now as somewhat expected right off the bat i dont see any real differance with the extra memory installed. But we pretty much already figured that as it was better to have a little extra than run a little short. So i am ok with that. At this point though its not helping with regards to my issues in SMR. But again thats somewhat expected and fine with me, i just thought i would see if it helped or not. BTW windows shows 3.25Gb of my 4Gb but again i knew that going into this as well.
Now onto what i found out with more testing of SMR...
I did a clean install of SMR and found some very interesting and yet puzzling results.
1.) If i install SMR and do NOT patch it and leave it running at version 1.0. I get the major stutter.
2.) If i install the 1.01 patch, i get NO stutter. Its smooth as butter.
3.) If i install the 1.10 patch the stutter returns and its so bad it litterly makes me ill to watch it on the screen. Kind of like sea sickness in a way.
4.) No matter what version the game is or is not patched to, no matter what the game ALWAYS defaults my in game Shadow Quality setting to OFF. And no matter how many times or how i change it, I can not get it to stay on.
So thats what i know thus far. unfortunately it seems to offer up more questions than answers atleast to me at this point. But i am determined to figure this out. Overall it seems that something odd is going on with regards to the patches. How the first and last patch cause the issue but the 2nd patch does not. All i can think of is something to do with the documented fix of improved NVidia settings in the 1.01 patch. And somehow its broken again in the newest patch. But than i dont understand why others are not having the same issue.
On a side note, i did purchase another 500Gb drive today as well just like my other 2. My thought was if i can tell for sure that i get better performance from the 500's over the Raptor, i will install a new 500 as my primary. But at this point i am still trying to determine which drive is really offering the most performance. If nothing else i just have another drive to store backups on.
So thats what i know so far. Bottom line, i think the stutering and even the shadow issue in SMR is more directly related to the video end of things. Although at this point i am not sure how to fix it. Atleast not without trying another GTX in the system.
wow long post, hehe sry guys, didnt mean to dump all this on you but it helps me sort thru it writting it down and having some people to discuss it with.
Just another thought, something we really havent touched on. What screen resolutions are you guys running at?
I noticed the higer the res i run at the more likely this major stuttering issue is to happen. Also increasing the Shaders to High and AA to 8.
I am or have been running at 1920x1200 which is my monitors native resolution. If i bump things all the way down to 1024x768 it will run smoother but then everything is huge on screen. lol
I noticed the higer the res i run at the more likely this major stuttering issue is to happen. Also increasing the Shaders to High and AA to 8.
I am or have been running at 1920x1200 which is my monitors native resolution. If i bump things all the way down to 1024x768 it will run smoother but then everything is huge on screen. lol
OK, some thoughts. My bro says you can get a program for disc management to declare the first 4Gb of your C drive as your VM or PF or whatever. Windows cannot touch it then. Since you are doing it on a different drive, I would suggest using that drive for storage only so that no program is using it. Things like maps and data you're working on and program downloads and storage of various game map storage, IE: UT2K4, Call of Duty, that kind of stuff. A smaller fast drive just for this would be good. Use that drive you plan on using for your backups.
My bro has been telling me I should have my screen set higher than 60 Hz, but when I do I get a flutter, or what I see as feathered lines going up the screen. Check your setting and try various ones. Right-click on the screen, Settings, Advanced, Monitor. You probably already know that, but hey, better safe than sorry. Also check "Hide modes that monitor cannot display" I've never had stutter, but then I have an ATI video board!
I think the reason for the faster launch is because most people store all their programs on C drive. So when the system is starting up, it has to switch between what it is loading and PF. With the PF on another drive it doesn't have to do so much repositioning of the head. Each time it wants to access something different on the drive it has to jump to the menu to find out where it is, then go to it. I try to keep my programs on other drives and keep to a 24Gb C drive. Not a 24Gb partition, that's the whole drive.
As to the memory, even the 1.25 Gb extra memory will cut back on the PF/VM. And you will tend to notice a difference when you play more AIs and bigger longer maps. Less lag.
Shadow Quality. If anyone else can come up with a combo that holds this, speak up!. If I set it in the opening menu, it will hold it in the map, but it then looses it when the game is restarted. Even setting it by changing the Settings.ini does the same thing. See what it does in the other Screen Resolutions, and out of full screen. Of course you could always read "The Options Screen" in the manual that came with the game, all two sentences!
As to screen res, I run at 1280 x 1024. I tried 1600 x 1200, but it's hard to hold a microscope and play the game at the same time!
My settings, top to bottom, left to right are:
Full
1280 x 1024
4x
medium
disabled
low
off
low
But thats just me.
A few other things, the available settings. Mine are:
Resolution:
1024x768
1152x864
1280x768
1280x960
1280x1024
1600x1200
Anti-Aliasing:
None
2x
4x
6x
Texture:
Low
Meduim
High
Trees:
Off
Low
Medium
High
Shadow:
Off
Low
High
Shader:
Low
Medium
I'm using a Sapphire RADEON X800, 256Mb
Also, just for the heck of it I did a "Reset All". It set the Shadow at High, but when I restarted the game, it was at Off. There is definitly a problem there. Back to 2K.....
My bro has been telling me I should have my screen set higher than 60 Hz, but when I do I get a flutter, or what I see as feathered lines going up the screen. Check your setting and try various ones. Right-click on the screen, Settings, Advanced, Monitor. You probably already know that, but hey, better safe than sorry. Also check "Hide modes that monitor cannot display" I've never had stutter, but then I have an ATI video board!
I think the reason for the faster launch is because most people store all their programs on C drive. So when the system is starting up, it has to switch between what it is loading and PF. With the PF on another drive it doesn't have to do so much repositioning of the head. Each time it wants to access something different on the drive it has to jump to the menu to find out where it is, then go to it. I try to keep my programs on other drives and keep to a 24Gb C drive. Not a 24Gb partition, that's the whole drive.
As to the memory, even the 1.25 Gb extra memory will cut back on the PF/VM. And you will tend to notice a difference when you play more AIs and bigger longer maps. Less lag.
Shadow Quality. If anyone else can come up with a combo that holds this, speak up!. If I set it in the opening menu, it will hold it in the map, but it then looses it when the game is restarted. Even setting it by changing the Settings.ini does the same thing. See what it does in the other Screen Resolutions, and out of full screen. Of course you could always read "The Options Screen" in the manual that came with the game, all two sentences!
As to screen res, I run at 1280 x 1024. I tried 1600 x 1200, but it's hard to hold a microscope and play the game at the same time!
My settings, top to bottom, left to right are:
Full
1280 x 1024
4x
medium
disabled
low
off
low
But thats just me.
A few other things, the available settings. Mine are:
Resolution:
1024x768
1152x864
1280x768
1280x960
1280x1024
1600x1200
Anti-Aliasing:
None
2x
4x
6x
Texture:
Low
Meduim
High
Trees:
Off
Low
Medium
High
Shadow:
Off
Low
High
Shader:
Low
Medium
I'm using a Sapphire RADEON X800, 256Mb
Also, just for the heck of it I did a "Reset All". It set the Shadow at High, but when I restarted the game, it was at Off. There is definitly a problem there. Back to 2K.....
I'm correct 97% of the time..... who cares about the other 4%....
Hey thanks for the great info!
I am guessing when you say a program for disc management to declare the first 4gb of my drive as my VM, you are speaking of somthing like partionmagic or even using the XP disc management tool. Then setup a seperate partion on a drive just for the VM. I think thats what you mean anyway. At any rate i been toying with the idea of dedicating a partition to the page file just havent goten that far yet. But definately something i am going to try, thanks!
As far as my monitors refresh rate goes, 60Hz is the max and only setting it will let me go with. Being a LCD monitor and a widescreen as well its just the way it is i guess. The fluttering you speak of i am guessing you mean screen tearing? I definately get more of that the higher i go with the settings and higher resolution. But enabling VSync in the NVidia CP seems to clear it up and keep my monitor and graphics in sync. But no matter if i enable it or not, the stuttering while paning accross the map is brutal.
As far as shadow quality goes, you are saying you have the same problem as me? Everytime you start the game you have to reset it? Because thats what i found i have to do to. Like it doesent stick once you exit the game. Major pain in the butt... But i am happy to hear i am not the only one that has come across that.
Ya the screen res at 1920x1200 makes things a bit small but 28" widescreen of viewing is incredible. So i just either put on my specs or install the font mod someone arround here posted.
Thanks again for the info, i am going to see what else i can break, i mean figure out.
I am guessing when you say a program for disc management to declare the first 4gb of my drive as my VM, you are speaking of somthing like partionmagic or even using the XP disc management tool. Then setup a seperate partion on a drive just for the VM. I think thats what you mean anyway.
At any rate i been toying with the idea of dedicating a partition to the page file just havent goten that far yet. But definately something i am going to try, thanks!As far as my monitors refresh rate goes, 60Hz is the max and only setting it will let me go with. Being a LCD monitor and a widescreen as well its just the way it is i guess. The fluttering you speak of i am guessing you mean screen tearing? I definately get more of that the higher i go with the settings and higher resolution. But enabling VSync in the NVidia CP seems to clear it up and keep my monitor and graphics in sync. But no matter if i enable it or not, the stuttering while paning accross the map is brutal.
As far as shadow quality goes, you are saying you have the same problem as me? Everytime you start the game you have to reset it? Because thats what i found i have to do to. Like it doesent stick once you exit the game. Major pain in the butt... But i am happy to hear i am not the only one that has come across that.
Ya the screen res at 1920x1200 makes things a bit small but 28" widescreen of viewing is incredible. So i just either put on my specs or install the font mod someone arround here posted.
Thanks again for the info, i am going to see what else i can break, i mean figure out.
The program for the VM setting is Disc Keeper I do believe. The best place to find that and a lot of other data on your computer is Koroush Ghazi's 'TweakGuides'
http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html
In there he talks about a lot of system info and takes you through setting things up. It's on line and it's free. And you only want 1 VM, not 2.
Now I understand what you mean by 'stuttering'. I call it 'jerky movement'. I think the main problem with that is that everything in this game has to do something. The rocks probably even vibrate! When you add the wheels on the Engines and every wheel on each car turning, the cars swaying and the noises that each car makes rolling down the track, you have your system working like crazy. If you watch the trees, their shadows even shift as you move. I do get that, and it gets worse as you add more Trains.
Go into the editor and make a map with 4 cities and an Annex and Industry, or even just the cities, and run it, no detail, just flat land and see what it does.
And yes. I have the shadow problem also. I just never paid any attention to it. If I want that kind of realism I'll go down to the 3 railroads that travel thru my town
. It's the challenge of the game, not whether the cows move or the dust puffs out or the Annexes growing. TIJER and I have spoken about just not worring about growth of Industries and Annexes as you don't sit there, vibrating with antisipation, waiting for that Grain Farm to go from small to medium . It may have been neat watching it for the first couple of months, but after a while it really becomes the challenge of beating those other guys and the Victory Conditions that claims your mind in a map. 
http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html
In there he talks about a lot of system info and takes you through setting things up. It's on line and it's free. And you only want 1 VM, not 2.
Now I understand what you mean by 'stuttering'. I call it 'jerky movement'. I think the main problem with that is that everything in this game has to do something. The rocks probably even vibrate! When you add the wheels on the Engines and every wheel on each car turning, the cars swaying and the noises that each car makes rolling down the track, you have your system working like crazy. If you watch the trees, their shadows even shift as you move. I do get that, and it gets worse as you add more Trains.
Go into the editor and make a map with 4 cities and an Annex and Industry, or even just the cities, and run it, no detail, just flat land and see what it does.
And yes. I have the shadow problem also. I just never paid any attention to it. If I want that kind of realism I'll go down to the 3 railroads that travel thru my town
. It's the challenge of the game, not whether the cows move or the dust puffs out or the Annexes growing. TIJER and I have spoken about just not worring about growth of Industries and Annexes as you don't sit there, vibrating with antisipation, waiting for that Grain Farm to go from small to medium . It may have been neat watching it for the first couple of months, but after a while it really becomes the challenge of beating those other guys and the Victory Conditions that claims your mind in a map. I'm correct 97% of the time..... who cares about the other 4%....
My game doesn't studder at all. It runs fast and smooth. I have a friend whose game has a slight stidder to it and I couldn't figure out why as his system is made like mine. His water color messes up from time to time...mine has never done that...it runs smooth as glass. Maybe I do alot more to my systems than regular users do. they also run super fast in Half-Life2 and others. Supreme Commander runs better on mine, although there isn't a computer made that can run that game full size and loaded without a studder.
Last edited by Lowell on Sun Apr 13, 2008 9:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.