13 réponses à ce sujet

[thewrongthing]

I've been fortunate not having suffered from the freezes and crashes that I've read about from many players on this forum.  My game has always run reliably but with annoyingly low fps - about 10fps with the lowest settings.  I'm wondering if that's simply a result of my older hardware/laptop or if there's something that I can do to improve it.  Here are my specs:

Dragon Age - UA (from Steam)
Intel Core 2 Duo - 1.60 GHz
2 GB RAM
nVidia GeForce 8400M GS, driver 266.58
Windows XP SP3

I've already created a created a custom profile for the game on nVidia's control panel.  Is there anything else I can do, or is this all that I can expect to pull from my current machine?

Thanks.

[Gorath Alpha]

Besides rolling the drivers back a few notches, lower the resolution. Here's the rest:

http://social.biowar...40782/2#7574611

[OBakaSama]

Looking at the specs I would have thought the system is somewhat underpowered myself...

[Gorath Alpha]

It certainly is, however, it should be possible to get between 15 - 20 FPS with lowered resolutions, although it might need going as coarse as 800 by 600, and as pointed out, all of the 8n00 cards, especially the mobile, had that bad cooling control firmware (re: the linked overheating discussion), and only the 8800s were ever corrected with upgraded / updated high end cards.

P. S.  nVIDIA set aside 200,000 in USD as a reserve against what it expected to pay back to its partners for replacing damaged video devices, especially high end mobile cards, which it did rush to upgrade quickly.  The 8600 continued to be troublesome throughout its foreshortened useful life, especially the 8600 GTS.  It hasn't been quite as obvious of a situation with the very bottom rung of the ladder, which was never designed to play games on. 

The 8400 was for business charts, graphs, presentations, and spreadsheets, and was not as "good" as the previous year's Geforce 7300 GT, for overall performance, although it did upgrade from Dx9 to Dx10, and was at least equal to the 7300 GS. 

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 08 juin 2011 - 06:39 .

[thewrongthing]

Overheating may be the issue indeed, even though my vents are clean and I use a cooling pad. It's very good to know that my firmware is shoddy, so I'll check out that aftermarket program you linked.

I'm wondering though: I get low fps even when first booting the PC and launching the game, not only after long hours of usage. Does that still signal a heat issue?

[Gorath Alpha]

At what resolution? And don't forget, if you didn't also have a very slow CPU, the end result wouldn't be as drastically slow (10 FPS is not what ordinary game playing folks are willing to accept), and even if at very low resolutions, such as 800 by 600, you are very unlikely to get more than 20-22 FPS in the best conditions, which still is nothing at all to be impressed with.

The key thing here is that you may not be ready to shell out the cost of the newer and higher quality machine you need, just yet, and repeated exposure to overheat conditions is a sure and certain way to gradually degrade that old 8400 so it's not even working well enough for 'Net surfing any more.

Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not the next day, but heat is a killer, and it gets at every part of the PC, some parts of which have no protective slowdown capability (drives, RAM, Chipsets).

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 08 juin 2011 - 06:29 .

[thewrongthing]

Gorath Alpha wrote...

And don't forget, if you didn't also have a very slow CPU, the end result wouldn't be as drastically slow (10 FPS is not what ordinary game playing folks are willing to accept)

Is there anyway to shift some of the load away from the CPU onto the GPU?

[Gorath Alpha]

If you had a desktop, a cheap second video card from nVIDIA, to run the PhysX, would be a possibility. As you have a laptop, I personally can't think what to do . . how clean are you running? Anything going in the background?

Try a totally Clean boot, with no 'Net, no virus scanner, no firewall, no anti-adware, nothing like that, just the plainest OS and the game only, and see if that helps.

[thewrongthing]

So I downloaded Speed Fan and it turns out that my pc is not overheating. I also reduced the resolution, which only resulted in a minor improvement. Instead, I seem to get drastically improved fps when my characters have no sustainable abilities on.

So my question now becomes: is there a way to disable the spell effects from sustainable abilities, either through the game's options or through some mod?

Thanks.

Modifié par thewrongthing, 10 juin 2011 - 08:50 .

[Gorath Alpha]

I'd had no answer to that last question. I hadn't thought it might be possible to do what he wanted.  Six days had passed, and the "Can You Run It" optional choice in-forum, not at SR Labs, seemed to need a little PR, so I wrote this new comment to the thread. 

This message thread is another one from a member who could have asked ahead of time, using our own "Can You Run It" thread first:

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/58/index/7311001

This option is far superior to the low rate of accuracy from the "usual" 'net site associated with the four words "Can You Run It"; the SR Labs' results just aren't good enough.  We'll be able to out-handle them by miles, if given that opportunity.

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 19 juin 2011 - 03:12 .

[thewrongthing]

Found a mod that disables effects from sustained abilities here: http://www.dragonage...file.php?id=98. I've installed it and everything is running great, with greatly improved fps.

I owe it all to you, Gorath Alpha, and your always-condescending posts. Thank you as always for being so right.

[Gorath Alpha]

Nothing intentional about it, if it sounds that way (had I been looking down upon anyone the way you claim, instead of any answer, I would simply have passed over you, and not answered at all). It's the occasional sarcasm I let go of that younger readers don't realize is part and parcel of my entire generation's attitude, and I tend to ride herd on those comments most of the time.

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 18 juin 2011 - 11:28 .

[ShinsFortress]

Gorath Alpha wrote...

Nothing intentional about it, if it sounds that way. It's the sarcasm than younger readers don't realize is part and parcel of my generation's attitude, and I have to ride herd on that aspect.

I'll take exception to that.  Part and parcel of your attitude maybe.  I'm of the same generation, and I am quite sure that none of me, my friends or family employ "sarcasm" the way you do.

Senses of humour and other values may evolve across generations, but no-one else I know has to "ride herd" like that.

[Gorath Alpha]

Gorath Alpha wrote...

I'd had no answer to that last question. I hadn't thought it might be possible to do what he wanted.  Six days had passed, and the "Can You Run It" optional choice in-forum, not at SR Labs, seemed to need a little PR, so I wrote this new comment to the thread. 

This message thread is another one from a member who could have asked ahead of time, using our own "Can You Run It" thread first:

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/58/index/7311001

This option is far superior to the low rate of accuracy from the "usual" 'net site associated with the four words "Can You Run It"; the SR Labs' results just aren't good enough.  We'll be able to out-handle them by miles, if given that opportunity.

As pointed out, the thread appeared to have been allowed to die, and was fair game for a highjack after almost a week.  The personal aspersions are and were off topic with regard to frame rates (original topic) and to submitting component lists for comparison with the System Requirements.  I consider the thread mine now, and will request moderation toward that end from now onward. 

I've been wondering if, since it's newest, even if it has been comparatively unsuccessful against DAO's great sales numbers, a similar Can You Run it optional thread for DA2 would get any takers.