15 réponses à ce sujet

[Raeldor]

Hi All,

Is there any way to force DirectX 9 in Windows 7.  I'm playing on a CPU constrained laptop  and noticed a serious degredation in performance when I moved to xp to windows 7.  Is there any way to force DAO to use the DirectX 9 calls instead of DX10?  I'd like to know if this is the difference or if windows 7 is doing some kind of cpu throttling.

Thanks
Rael 

[crazybernas]

Does your laptop supports directx10? If it had windows xp from factory it is unlikely.

Modifié par crazybernas, 06 décembre 2009 - 05:34 .

[Raeldor]

Yes, it does support DirectX 10.

[crazybernas]

If it does support i don't think that using directx10 will cause more cpu load than direcx9. Only if you use directx10 features. In some cases it can boost performance by forcing the use of more effective functions. So i think the only way to force directx9 is disable directx10 features from the options menu if there are any(still don't have the game, don't know if there are any).

Modifié par crazybernas, 06 décembre 2009 - 05:45 .

[Mortiquendi]

unfortunatly the problem isn't being caused by directx 11, it is backwards compatable.



Windows 7 however is not nearly as good as XP for running games, so you should either run in xp sp3 compatability mode, or disable things from running in the background, not to mention you may have to wait for newer/better drivers for your video card / internal graphics processor. Or you could just reinstall windows XP.

[crazybernas]

Running in compatibility boosts performance? I noticed in one game a break in performance that i was already expecting from the new driver architecture but i dropped from 70 to 60 sometimes 50fps.

[Mortiquendi]

the compatability mode is just an easy way of disabling windows 7 bloat crap, so yeah you might take a hit there but it might increase performance ( shrugs ) he is working with a laptop with who knows what hardware so it was just an option that he could try.

[ShuttleXpC]

Direct X 10 - 11 have all associated tools for Direct X 9 in there. So it wouldn't matter if you upgraded to Windows 7 and are running Direct X 10 version, it still has the basic tools for Direct X 9. This is why games will still update DX9 files when you install them on Windows 7...

[kalas72]

DA is not a DX10 game.

[TSAdmiral]

I agree, I think it is a DirectX 9 game. Additionally, the claims of XP being a superior runtime environment for games is exaggerated, even against Vista.

[JironGhrad]

TSAdmiral wrote...

I agree, I think it is a DirectX 9 game. Additionally, the claims of XP being a superior runtime environment for games is exaggerated, even against Vista.

This is only partly true.  XP has a reduced memory footprint as compared to Vista and Win 7.  If you have 3-4Gb of RAM that's not really a problem usually; with only 2Gb though, the difference could well be a game-breaker.  With extensive testing and killing practically everything XP runs in the background, I've been able to get XP Pro to run with a 70mb footprint.  Even with the same steps (on the same hardware), I've been unable to get Vista below 250mb.  Something to think about since very few machines actually run that cleanly all the time (and none straight from the factory EVER do).

[Brp650]

I agree about Xp. I started playing on Win7 and would get slowdowns in certain graphic intensive areas even with my quadcore and 8gig of ram. I reinstalled on a second drive using Xp Pro 64 with a good majority of the services turned off and have yet to have one slowdown.

Win7 is much better than Vista..less bloat... but XP is still the best for playing games. Smaller memory usage leaves more for gaming and graphics

[enderandrew]

Compatibility mode does not reduce 7's bloat. You can however disable background processes and services that you don't need if you want to trim bloat. Making sure your computer doesn't have spyware or viruses in the background is also a good idea.



Spybot Search and Destroy, and Microsoft Security Essentials are two free tools for that very thing.



That being said, I do believe Dragon Age is a pure DirectX 9 game. In fact, I think you may need to install some of the 9,0c libraries to get it to work in Windows 7.



I can't recall if it was for DA:O or another game that I had to run the DirectX 9 installer in 7, even though 7 comes with 9.0l.

[stroker15]

non of the DA mod work on wind7 ? any help

[jujdred619]

You have to stop thinking of system memory as a resource and start thinking of it as a a cache. Just like the level 1 and level 2 cache on your CPU, system memory is yet another type of high-speed cache that sits between your computer and the disk drive.

the only benefit of having lots of free memory while running a game is so that you can open other stuff in the background faster. Now why on earth would any serious gamer even consider something so stupid?
Anyway

And the most important rule of cache design is that empty cache memory is wasted cache memory. Empty cache isn't doing you any good. It's expensive, high-speed memory sucking down power for zero benefit. The primary mission in the life of every cache is to populate itself as quickly as possible with the data that's most likely to be needed-- and to consistently deliver a high "hit rate" of needed data retrieved from the cache. Otherwise you're going straight to the hard drive, mister, and if you have to ask how much going to the hard drive will cost you in performance, you can't afford it.

Here's how much faster each cache memory type in your computer is than the hard drive:

System memory 37x faster
CPU Level 2 cache 82x faster
CPU Level 1 cache 283x faster

This isn't a new concept, of course. But Vista/7 treats system memory like a cache much more aggressively and effectively than any other version of Windows. Windows XP has no qualms whatsoever about leaving upwards of a gigabyte of system memory empty. From a caching perspective, this is unfathomable. Vista/7 tries its damndest to fill that empty system memory cache as soon as it can.

Although I am a total believer in the system-memory-as-cache religion, SuperFetch can still have some undesirable side effects. I first noticed that something was up when I fired up Battlefield 2 under Vista and joined a multiplayer game. Battlefield 2 is something of a memory hog; the game regularly uses a gigabyte of memory on large 64-player multiplayer maps. During the first few minutes of gameplay, I noticed that the system was a little sluggish, and the drive was running constantly. This was very unusual and totally unlike the behavior under Windows XP. Once the map is loaded and you join the game, the entire game is in memory. What could possibly be loading from disk at that point? Well, SuperFetch saw a ton of memory freed to make room for the game, and dutifully went about filling the leftover free memory on a low-priority background disk thread. Normally, this would be no big deal, but even a low-priority background disk thread is pretty noticeable when you're playing a twitch shooter online with 63 other people at a resolution of 1600x1200.

I'm not ok with letting SuperFetch have its way with my system memory. So I disabled it and installed eBoostr instead so that I have full control of my cache i/o. End of Problem. The question shouldn't be "Why does Vista/7 use all my memory?", but "Why the heck did previous versions of Windows use my memory so ineffectively?" I don't know. Maybe the rules were different before 2 gigabytes was a mainstream memory configuration.

The less free memory I have, the better; every byte of memory should be actively working on my behalf at all times. However, I do wish there was a way to tell SuperFetch to ixnay on the oadinglay when I'm gaming.


Please NOTE:  Superfetch and Prefetch are NOT the same thing.  Leave Prefetch alone.  NEVER delete the folder or anything in it.  

Modifié par jujdred619, 31 janvier 2010 - 01:03 .

[jujdred619]

OH, I forgot to mention.

I run DAO, at High/High settings (can't use Very High because of my Texture packs) pretty much 10 hours a day or more and I don't have any problems. It's a matter of merely knowing WHAT services/processes to shut off while gaming rather than just randomly pushing the Stop/Disable button and then wondering why you are looking at a blue screen.

OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate

Version 6.1.7600 Build 7600

Other OS Description Not Available

OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation

System Name BASEMENT-RIG

System Manufacturer NVIDIA

System Model AWRDACPI

System Type X86-based PC

Processor AMD Athlon™ 64 Processor 4000+, 2856 Mhz, 1 Core(s), 1 Logical Processor(s)

BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG, 7/18/2006

SMBIOS Version 2.2

Windows Directory C:\\Windows

System Directory C:\\Windows\\system32

Boot Device \\Device\\HarddiskVolume1

Locale United States

Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.1.7600.16385"

User Name basement-rig\\jujdred

Time Zone Pacific Standard Time

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 2.00 GB

Total Physical Memory 2.00 GB

Available Physical Memory 946 MB

Total Virtual Memory 5.00 GB <------because of the eBoostr cache I use on 2 USB flash drives

Available Virtual Memory 3.37 GB

Page File Space 3.00 GB

Page File Usage 2%

Page File M:\\pagefile.sys<-----I put my page file on a seperate drive from my OS, It only exists for emergencies, which occur more often than those that tell you to disable the Page file think, so don't do it, it's not a smart thing to do.

Also you will need a large page for graphics programs like photoshop. Just the way it is.

Sadly we can't really put our page file on RAM, because as soon as you turn off your computer, "poof", it's gone. Then when you restart, it has to recreate it all over again. (There is a 'workaround' to make this work while the computer is running, but it makes boot up times a little longer. Big deal. Who cares about boot up anymore anyway? I thought Sleep and Hibernate were there for a reason?



So, in essence, you really should just accept the way the future is heading and invest in 64 bit (Win 8 is rumored to be 128bit) and buy as much memory as you can put in your slots. Why do you think you have all those slots for anyway? They sure in hell aren't dust filters!