UFO:Alien Invasion
Technical support => Feature Requests => Topic started by: DrJonez on July 10, 2007, 10:45:27 am
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Hi,
First off, let me say that the game looks awesome. So many little features and things that I've always thought were SUCH obvious additions to the game, and that no companies have come even close to getting right yet with any of their X-COM clones. Bravo :)
So, my problem.
First, let me list my PC stats:
Core 2 Duo 2.4ghz
2GB PC6400 RAM
Nvidia 8800GTS
Windows Vista Ultimate
So, with a setup like that, I can pretty much run any game that's out right now on highest or near highest detail with no problems and silky smooth framerates. I can run UFO: Alien Invasion as well, but there are times when my framerate drops to nearly zero and the game becomes all but unplayable.
It mostly happens in the screen where you're equipping your soldiers with their guns and armor and such when assigning them to an aircraft. My framerate is ok until I go to primary or secondary weapons, where there are a lot of items on screen, and then it drops down so low that dragging and dropping any items becomes very difficult, and the music starts skipping and sounding all screwed up. Also, any time I go on a tactical mission my framerates are miserable unless I'm zoomed in extremely close.
I've tried turning all of the video settings down to their lowest settings, and I'm still not getting anywhere. Any ideas why it's running so slow? :(
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It might be shoddy nVidia OpenGL support. Vista's drivers are still not exactly up to par.
I have played UFO:AI on my machine running Vista with pretty much the same specs (but using an ATi card), and I didn't notice any problems with the frame rate. I was unable to play the game fullscreen, though.
But that was long ago, and the version you're playing may just have some issue with Vista. Have you tried the 2.2 test installers?
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Err, what's a 2.2 test installer? :P
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Ahh, I found it. Downloading now. I'll let you know if it fixes anything :)
Are there any specific changes in this that are supposed to address frame rate issues?
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They're installers for more recent versions of the game (depending on how often mattn builds them, but he does so pretty often). Grab them here:
http://mattn.ninex.info/?page=Download
And be advised that this is not considered a stable version - bugs are going to be in there, and if you find them, report them.
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Are there any specific changes in this that are supposed to address frame rate issues?
There was a change that improved speed, but that was from around 40FPS to around 60FPS. It wasn't aimed at improving 2FPS, that's another problem altogether.
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Wow, 2.2 seems to have fixed it. Thanks a ton :) That was fast!
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Oh by the way,
So, with a setup like that, I can pretty much run any game that's out right now on highest or near highest detail with no problems and silky smooth framerates.
Try Supreme Commander and weep. That game is slow as anything on any machine out there.
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Ok, so maybe it's not as fixed as I thought :[
I tested it by just quickly going into the equip screen for my dropship, and I was still pulling a good 45 fps in there, and I thought it was fixed.
Just started a new game, went to equip my soldiers, and it's back to being choppy again :[
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No more suggestions?
It seems sort of intermittent. Sometimes when I go into the equip screen it's very laggy, and sometimes it's just fine. I give up :[
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make sure that you are using your vendor's latest graphiccard driver - and not those m$ shitty drivers - they don't work
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I was running Nvidia drivers from April before, and installed the latest ones just yesterday. No problems in any of my other games :(
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The other games most likely don't use the OpenGL API, though.
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I have several games that I know for a fact use OpenGL.
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I see. Then maybe it's something specifically related to the quake 2 code? You could try looking for other Q2-based games (such as Warsow) and see if they do the same.
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We have had this issue before, remember guys?
The problem is the dual core and the Nvidia driver.
There are two solutions for this issue, I prefer the one above the other.
1. In the Nvidia driver settings, there are a setting to turn off the use of multithreads. (Dont remember the exact name anymore). Doing this will force the driver to do all its work on one of the CPU:s... This could ofcourse be a negative thing on other games.
2. The other solution, which I use is to start UFO AI. When ALT-TAB back to desktop, press ALT-CTRL-DEL and go to the processlist. on UFOAI.EXE rightclick and select SET AFFINITY. It is default ticked to use both CPU:s. Untick one of them and go back to the game.. It should now run perfectly fine.
What is causing this I dont know, I suspect it is something in the UFO AI code that is not quite good regarding multiple CPU support.
Good luck!
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the latest ufo:ai test versions of 2.2 should fix this - could somebody please verfiy this?
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Wow, this game uses the Quake 2 engine? It's kinda hard to recognize it ;)
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the latest ufo:ai test versions of 2.2 should fix this - could somebody please verfiy this?
Hi Matt,
I too, have had the problems. Am downloading the beta version now and will get back to you!
I am very impressed at what you have done with this game. It looks great and it is fun!
Will reply shortly.
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you have to grab the sourcecode from our svn in order to be able to test this - there is no installer yet which includes the patches
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you have to grab the sourcecode from our svn in order to be able to test this - there is no installer yet which includes the patches
Oh dear. I am on windows and have no compilers/tools at all.
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hooray!
all you need to know is on the wiki
http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
see "getting the source" and "compiling"
all the tools you need are free of charge.
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hooray!
all you need to know is on the wiki
http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
see "getting the source" and "compiling"
all the tools you need are free of charge.
Ah! I was searching the forum for a topic on compiling, and it was in the wiki. Thanks much.
....
http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Compile_for_Windows
Not an awful lot of detail :P.
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Ok, I compiled the svn version Matt, I run the game and as soon as I get to Aircraft --> Assign Soldiers --> Next. (On the equip the soldiers with equipment screen) The FPS drops from 68~ to 5FPS. I believe this is the same problem in actual game play too, when the FPS drops to non-playable.
Windows XP Pro, Intel Core2 Duo, 2gb ddr2 RAM, Nvidia 7600GT.
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do you switched to single thread usage?
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Now it seems to be working fine. I am not entirely sure if windows remembers processor affinity, because when I alt-tab out of the game, it is killed.
In all the places I got terrible FPS seems to be running at the max (68.6)?
Thanks for your help.
EDIT: Reset computer and the extremely low FPS is back. Looks like it isn't fixed.
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Ok dudes, I did some testing. Changing the nvidia threaded optimization changed squat. Changing the processor affinity did squat.
Changing my texture quality, trioscopicdoodar to 0, multitexturing off, texture LOD off, texture compression did squat all.
I think I may have narrowed it down.
First: in game test.
The ship & the crew being rendered drops it down to about 12fps, as seen here:
(http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/8576/alien1lz2.th.jpg) (http://img209.imageshack.us/my.php?image=alien1lz2.jpg)
How ever, if I scroll away from the crew maybe a little less than a screen away, it rockets to 40fps:
(http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/7884/alien2cd8.th.jpg) (http://img522.imageshack.us/my.php?image=alien2cd8.jpg)
I think it has something to do with drawing all the crew members, something isn't optimized. If I spread the crew members around away from the starting point, the FPS increases quite substantially.
Geoscape test:
The selecting of team members screen, running at a cool 58FPS.
(http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/7754/alien3iv6.th.jpg) (http://img108.imageshack.us/my.php?image=alien3iv6.jpg)
How ever, as soon as I next to the equip screen, the FPS drops to a horrible 12fps.
(http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/763/alien4cb0.th.jpg) (http://img151.imageshack.us/my.php?image=alien4cb0.jpg)
If i change from Primary weapons to armour, the FPS rockets to 50fps.
(http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/672/alien5ex2.th.jpg) (http://img293.imageshack.us/my.php?image=alien5ex2.jpg)
In this case, the drawing of all these items are absolutely murdering the frame rate, but why is it doing this?
I am not sure if this the same problem the topic starter is having, but this adversely effects the playability of the game.
I hope I have been of some help.
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when switching to armor everything work fine... so could you please verfiy whether the framedrop is also in the secondary menu or misc menu?
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which were the weapons you equipped your team with?
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when switching to armor everything work fine... so could you please verfiy whether the framedrop is also in the secondary menu or misc menu?
Secondary was ~17 FPS, mouse movement and music was a tiny bit more improved than primary menu, misc was again ~17FPS and mouse movement and music "jerkiness" was slightly improved again.
I think it is dependent on the amount of items being drawn to the screen. As I found another instance of this:
(http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/7088/alien7om6.th.jpg) (http://img258.imageshack.us/my.php?image=alien7om6.jpg)
As you can see, I am getting a nice 59 FPS, but as soon as I open the inventory screen:
(http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/1293/alien6ww4.th.jpg) (http://img248.imageshack.us/my.php?image=alien6ww4.jpg)
It drops quite alot just for a simple inventory window.
The team was equipped with the default weapons (I didn't change a thing, was straight from the starting of a new "Very Easy campaign").
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there's an updated patch at http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1754311&group_id=157793&atid=805244
please try that one (don't forget to set the mentioned cvar)
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I see. Then maybe it's something specifically related to the quake 2 code? You could try looking for other Q2-based games (such as Warsow) and see if they do the same.
I'm having this same problem we are discussing in a thread above.
The variable is the equipment. The less equipment the better. Any more than three rows of equipment and it gets super laggy.
Then when you go to a map, you bring items/equipment. When adding those items/equipment to the items already on that map, you reach a certain number where framerates plummet.
I have Invidia Go Force 7700, using fresh driver from Asus web site. 2 gigs ram, dual core. Nothing else lags it.
MY BAD: Research shows that turning off dual core function with this game fixes this problem. alt-taB OUT, contr/alt/del, right-click on process, set affinity, uncheck one core, either one. Fixed. Must be a multithread problem with doom2 game engine.
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I've been playing the latest Dev build with sound disabled, and I am maintaining a CONSISTENT 65+ FPS. System Specs:
Intel C2D E6400
2Gb @ 1066MHz
74Gb 10K Raptor (System Drive)
400Gb Sata 3.0Gb/s (Data and Game drive)
Creative SB Audiology (forget the exact model)
WinVista x64 Ultimate (Hey, I got it legal for $45, why not try it?)
Try starting the game with "+ set snd_init 0".
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try to use StartAffinity. it's a tool to run an application on a specific core.
http://www.adsciengineering.com/StartAffinity/
works fine for me.