I've purchased and played through ME2 at medium-high
settings, with excellent performance, after playing through ME1 two years ago
and enjoying it thoroughly.
I decided to play through ME1 again with a different alignment and
decisions, and to play through the DLCs that weren't around the first
time. This way I could experience the other side of the coin in ME2.
However, I am having severe performance issues with this playthrough that I did
not have, last time, even though this is the exact same rig, under the exact
same video settings.
These problems include stuttering intro videos and menu screens, far longer
load times ( more than 1 minute for world loads, and longer-than-expected loads
for conversations and the galactic map), and a combat fps of around 10-15
frames, exploration at 20- 25, and conversations occasionally dipping to 25
from 30. I know a playthrough of the better-optimized ME2 could be
clouding my memory a little, but that's not enough explanation for all these
performance issues.
These issues persist at high settings, and low. The fps I describe above occurred
at both 1280x720, AFx4, Motion blur, film grain, Textures at High, Particles at
High, Shadows on, and at 800x600, Linear filtering, motion blur off, textures
at medium, particles at low, shadows off. The performance gain at
drastically lower settings was negligible. HW sound on, and off, same
results.
In addition, these issues are limited to ME1. Other games from the same time
period, not to mention newer, more advanced titles, run quite well. I
know this is not dramatic evidence of a problem, but it is a head-scratcher at
the very least.
The kicker, though, is this - it's not just me. I've been browsing and googling
forums for the last two days, and, confirmation bias aside, I've read many
other OPs describing similar symptoms, despite powerful rigs and high FPS in
other, newer, games. Inevitably, they are advised to update drivers, kill
background programs, update direct X, update windows, the usual PC optimization
stuff. With the exception of 1 poster for whom a reinstall was
beneficial, and one who gave his PC fans a good scrub, the solutions are
insufficient.
Among the solutions I've read, tried, and discarded:
-Forcing HW shadows on, or off
-Updating, rolling back, forcing on, and forcing off Nvidia Physx.
-Removing Daemon tools including pass-through drivers. (No, I'm not a pirate,
yes, I purchased ME1 and 2, as well as 1's DLC)
-Killing all unnecessary background processes (a step I always take, and quite
necessary for my older processor, see specs below)
-Uninstalling and Reinstalling ME1
-Forcing Linear or Trilinear filtering
-Disabling Power DVD, and Steam (usually off anyway)
-Enabling and Disabling CPU throttling Through BIOS
-Eviscerating a goose and divining my future with its organs
under pale moonlight
I have NOT tried starting a new character (this is a +1,
with profile excised of the overheat-bugged achievements), and I have not tried
running the game disconnected from my network (to see if SecuROM is just going
haywire). I have also not tried forcing all sound off, to exclude my audio system. These are next on my list, but
I am skeptical.
Here are my specs:
-Windows XP Pro SP3
-Pentium IV 3.60 GHZ +HT (I know, I know, not dual core, see below)
-4 GB DDR2 Memory (don't remember clock speed, but sticks are at least 1 yr
old)
-Nvidia XFX Geforce 9600GT 512MB PCI-E, running 196.21 drivers from clean
install
I haven't posted a technical question in a while, so if there are other specs I
should have posted, just let me know.
A word about my processor, yes I know it's aging, and I can't afford to
replace it right now. It is indeed the bottleneck of my system, but the
point is this - I have not had these particular performance issues with other,
comparable games, nor did I have them with ME1 the first time through.
Something is making it worse, I don't know what. I typically run games at
lower physics settings, and rarely above 1024x768, to give my GPU and CPU a
break, and I always clear my background processes before playing a game.
I know the issues that come with using a single core, and I know ME1 and 2 both
strongly prefer dual cores, but ME2 runs at higher settings no problem, and ME1
has run better in the past. Among the other games running fine and
looking better - Crysis, Far Cry 2, Medieval 2 - Total War, FEAR 2, STALKER,
ME2, C&C3, Fallout 3, Sims 3, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead 2, Batman: AA (although I did have to
drop a few settings in batman for the larger fights). Wow, that's
a lot of sequels.
I will say this - the timing, and the fact that changing video settings does
little, suggest a driver issue. As I do not recall having this problem
last time, does anyone remember what NVIDIA driver set they were using when
they first played ME1, or when ME1 came out? Perhaps a more drastic (and
temporary) rollback will help matters. I can't emphasize this enough,
it's very specific to ME1, and even effects seemingly non-intensive areas, like
the intro and menus, and low-density areas.
I apologize for the long post, but I wish to be as detailed as possible.
My research suggests that nobody really knows what's got ME1 going so sluggish
lately, even on better machines than mine (of which there are many). I could
use any and all suggestions as to why this is happening.
Thank you for your time.
Modifié par Pirate Pettit, 27 février 2010 - 10:00 .
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