Some problems with RC4 (also applies to latest SVN snapshot)

[LeXa2]

Recently I've been surprised that the project isn't dead after all and even have evolved to the level of Relese Candidates. Headed on to sourceforge and downloaded pre-compiled RC4 for Win32 env. Installed and run onto several problems.

1. If I try to select snd_dx as sound driver to use - game instantly crashes.
2. LOW FPS. My PC is: AthlonXP 2100+ CPU, ATI Radeon 9700 GPU with 128Mb VRAM, 1500Mb DDR PC2100 RAM, Promise TX2000 RAID0 array utilizing four HDDs is used for not-so-important data storage (like games, e.t.c.). On this system I got about 25-30 FPS in Geoscape (1024x768). If I head on to UFOPEDIA and open up a page with transporter - FSP drops down to 3-5. As a result I got choppy sound and totally unplayable system.
3. Problems with switching to fullscreen. Just after the fresh install of RC4 game were switching to fullscreen mode properly. After a reboot I can't get it work fullscreen. It always stays windowed, no matter which settings I set in menus or in console.

Also, I tried to compile the latest SVN spapshot to see if some of the problems I encounter were solved. Checked out sources, configured my Dev-CPP build system with needed libs and successfully compiled the game with some minor warnings for ref_gl.dll. None of the problems were solved.

Are this probles typical and well known, or something is wrong with my system?

[LeXa2]

Update: Some mess aroung config.cfg and I finally got the game to switch to fullscreen. Not shure which was the option causing wrong behavior, will try to figure it out and post here.

[LeXa2]

Upd2: Is was set r_displayrefresh "1" which caused troubles with switching to fullscreen. If I sen it to be "0" - game switches to fullscreen properly.

[Bandobras]

Thank you for your report. Could you try running without sound (+set snd_ref "") and see if you FPS increse? Could you try other display renderers, e.g. sdl? Could you try upgrading you video drivers? Compiling with MMX support?

[LeXa2]

Could you try running without sound (+set snd_ref "") and see if you FPS increse?

Slight FPS increase. It gives me about 7FPS on the Transporter page in UFOPedia. IMHO, it's TERRIBLY slow.

Could you try other display renderers, e.g. sdl?

Not sure if ref_sdl is available when compilling under Win32. Even more - I can't find any refference in source code to ref_sdl.

[uquote]Could you try upgrading you video drivers? Compiling with MMX support?[/quote]
Will try to upgrade video drivers in a near future. ATM I've got Catalyst 5.9 installed. No other games had any troubles running with OpenGL. DoomsDay, Q3A, GlQuake, Quake2 - all of this work without any trouble.

Concerning compilation. First time I've done it I hadn't chosed any target architecture and instruction set. So the result most probably were for i386 without any extended instruction sets (suppose, that is the default for MiniGW's gcc). After that I've tried to recompile projects using -march=athlon-xp -m3dnow, which are best suited for my system. Got no improvements in FPS (or, maybe, they are TOO small to make any difference).

[Bandobras]

Enable MMX in the Makefile (or whatever the win equivalent is).

Anyway, I get around 500 FPS on battlescape and around 100 on menus with a comparable computer as yours (NVIDIA and Linux, though), so there is something bad here...

[LeXa2]

Enable MMX in the Makefile (or whatever the win equivalent is).

I compile using Dev-CPP, which uses MiniGW GCC build system. So building is almost just like it proceeds in linux, except that there's no need to use make. Instead, Dev-CPP IDE uses a "Project" concept. So, when I enable AthlonXP as a target and 3dnow as preffered instruction set - it simply adds '-march=athlon-xp -m3dnow' to GCC's command line when compiling. I'll try to compile for i686/MMX, but all the experience I've got tells me that this won't help. Will try to do something with my system (drivers/fresh install/e.t.c), also it'll be worth trying to install linux and check if UFO:AI will work correctly under it.

Anyway, I get around 500 FPS on battlescape and around 100 on menus with a comparable computer as yours (NVIDIA and Linux, though), so there is something bad here...

Got the point, thx. Will try to figure out what is wrong.

[kungfujoe]

I'm having similar problems.  I just installed the Win32 Installer on my system, and the game frequently seems to slow down to the point where it's very choppy; audio and video.  I'm running:
Athlon X2 4800+
2GB RAM
nVidia GeForce 7800GT
WinXP SP2
SoundBlaster X-Fi Platinum

Latest drivers for all components.

This should obviously be more than powerful enough to run the game, so something else is wrong here.  Like LeXa2 reported, if I switched the audio renderer to Dx, the game locked up (couldn't even three-finger-salute out of it, had to hit the reset button).

The game seems to slow down somewhat randomly, but it's very repeatable in the first mission - if I scroll up to where my 8 soldiers are, the game slows way down.  If I scroll away to an unseen part of the map (i.e. the background shows up, but no sprites on screen), it speeds back up.

I also ran into a little bug:  The first mission came up, so I sent my Dropship, loaded with 8 soldiers.  When it was half-way there, I decided to see what would happen if I also sent my interceptor (1 soldier).  Nothing apparently happened.  However, when the dropship arrived and the mission started, only one soldier was on the map - the soldier that was in the interceptor!

[ubequitz]

the game frequently seems to slow down to the point where it's very choppy; audio and video

I'm not sure if I'm experiencing the same symptoms but occasionally I do get inexplicable slow downs that last 15 to 30 secs or so (this seems to happen once or twice every 30 mins or so). I've only run the game under Linux though. I've found bringing up the console and waiting a few seconds seems to help... I have no idea where the real problem lies. I don't get a slow-down on the first mission moving to where the dropship is though.

I also ran into a little bug:  The first mission came up, so I sent my Dropship, loaded with 8 soldiers.  When it was half-way there, I decided to see what would happen if I also sent my interceptor (1 soldier).  Nothing apparently happened.  However, when the dropship arrived and the mission started, only one soldier was on the map - the soldier that was in the interceptor!

This is fixed in the SVN version (which should turn into RC5 soonish hopefully.

[Mephisto]

another interesting fact on these "slow-downs":
If you switch to the main menu, everything is fine. After clickíng on "options", it'll start slowing down again (to around 1-2 fps).

Now:

Esc back out and click options again (you may have to do this a few times) and all of a sudden everything is as smooth as it can be.
Now even the mission is playable (just continue)


System:
Athlon64 X2 3800+
2048MB of RAM
WinXP Pro SP2 32bit
Geforce 6800GT
Creative Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro

[kungfujoe]

Oddly, I haven't seen any significant slowdown since I posted in this thread last.  I don't know what was conflicting with the game, but nothing was taking up lots of CPU cycles at the time.

It does crash for me about half the time I try to load the game, though.