Topic: SFC3 and Vista

[njareg]

Hey everyone

I recently upgraded to Vista Ultimate ( I know there is mixed opinions on that one ) 

I use to run SFC3 under XP and it ran very smooth and fast. Now that I've upgraded, SFC3 runs but doesn't seem as smooth. It almost seems a little choppy and I'm not exactly sure why that would be.

I've set SFC3 to compatibility mode with WinXP SP2 and have disabled visual themes as well as desktop composition. I'm using the most current video/sound drivers available for my hardware.

A rundown of my hardware:

DuoCore E4500 (2.20ghz)
Nvidia Geforce 7800GT 256 ram (not using SLI)
4gb DDR800 Ram
Audigy 4

I can give a complete rundown of my hardware if requested, I've pretty much given the essentials here. I ran XP under this exact same system and hardware. I installed SFC3 clean/stock and then applied the 534B patch, I also have disabled my virus scanner while playing just as I did with XP.

Any help / advice would be appreciated

[Pestalence_XC]

Try turning off compatibility mode

Keep Visual Themes and Desktop Composition

Make sure Administrator is checked.

Post back to see if it works.

Also double check your DirectX version.. a new DirectX was released this month on June 6, 2008.. do not use the web installer, use the redistributable

using the redistrib, you will run the exe and extract to an empty folder, go into the folder after extraction and run Setup.exe

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=822640AB-0983-4C41-9C70-632F6F42C557&displaylang=en

Make sure that the Vid Driver you are running is the 175 and not the 169 version (get the driver from NVidia, not Microsoft)

Also, the *.x files in the Assets/Models/xxxx folders (each individual model) may not be configured correctly for your vid card).. delete all the *.x files and relaunch game.. the game will create new *.x files when the model loads.

[njareg]

Hey Pestalence,

Thank you for all the great advice, I'll give these things a try and let you guys know how it turns out.

[Akira_Commander567]

Vista is Microsoft's biggest mistake, the thing has so many bugs in it, it's not even worth having. I have a Vista and I can't acceas multiplayer for ANY game except Call of Duty.

[Pestalence_XC]

Games like COD, BF2, or Crysis.. you need to install the latest version of Punk Buster and you have to launch in 32 bit mode.. Punk Buster is not 64 bit compliant.

Games like Hellgate London works on Vista 32 bit and 64 bit natively.

On older games written under DirectX 8, you will need to go to the support forums of those games and get the fixes or work arounds.

On games like DirectX 7 or older, It is highly unlikely that any games will work on Multiplayer unless the game manufacturer recoded for DirectX 9 support.

Vista has a hard time running Multi Player on games written in DirectX older than DirectX 9 since older versions were very buggy on Direct Play 8 and older. Also the networking code has to be written using the industry standard for Vista to recognize it in older games, which many companies did not do.. they wrote their own code and threw the Standardization books out the window.

People blame Microsoft for X game not working because the company did not use coding standards or update their software with newer tech when it came out..

So how is Vista buggy when the program was poorly written to begin with.

A properly written program will work on Vista regardless of DirectX, Unless it is written in VB 6

VB 6 support stopped in 2003 by Microsoft because of too many security vulnerabilities.. Vista will not operate VB 6 programs unless you add and register DX8VB.dll and DX7VB.dll in the system32 folder of windows AND on 64 bit machines also add it to and register them in the syswow64 folder.

Most games have work arounds to get it working.. It just so happens that I have not found the fix for SFC II as of yet for Dynaverse, however all other play modes of SFC II titles work just fine (this includes both EAW and OP in Single Player, GSA, and TCP/IP)..

Microsoft's goal was for programmers to use standardized coding methods in order to reduce bugs in relation to OS and hardware compatibility.. Unfortunately, due to lack of MS advertisement of this aspect, Microsoft gets blamed because the OS won't run programs that were badly written or that were written in vulnerable programming tools like VB 6.

I'm sure that if you do a web search for Vista 'name of game' workaround you will find solutions to your multiplayer problems for most games.. They usually involve installing DirectX 8 missing Data Link Library files (*.dll) and some sort of compatibility / administrator control settings.

[Akira_Commander567]

Also, how do you figure out the "ping" on my computer, more often than not, my ping is to high and when I start playing games like Call of Duty on multiplayer, I start to jump around randomly.

[FCM_SFHQ_XC]

Your Ping is the measurement in milliseconds it takes for a packet to travel to the server.
specifically about a game server:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping_%28video_games%29

While you can do a few tweaks here or there to help, for the most part high ping can really only helped by getting a better speed for your internet(CoD4 you probably want greater then 1.5Mbps DSL/Cable internet service)

Games like SFC3 & OP, don't transfer nearly as much information and can operate fairly smooth at 56Kbps

[Pestalence_XC]

Vista automatically sets your networking speed, however my system is extremely fast on the web and almost no lagging in games.. that is except for SFC due to me running the server and playing online at the same time, I can only draft up to 2 others and I get a tiny bit of lag.

You can ping sites by going to run and type in
c:\>ping www.dynaverse.net

and you will see your average ping to this site..

My average ping is about 26ms

Pinging Google (www.google.com), I get average 54ms

Now my connection is set where I am running No firewall or UPNP (both are disabled) and I am not running a router. I am running a Cable Modem (no router capabilities) and a network hub (No router capabilities) and my internal and external IP addresses match.

It also depends on what type of connection you have .. Dial-up will have an inherent high ping.. usually around 200-400 ms.. DSL has a medium high ping about 80-150ms, Cable has a med low ping usually around 30-70ms, and High Speed Cable usually has about 20ms-40 ms.. Pings on DSL also depends on how close you are to the telephone connection hub.. if you are within 1 mile, then pings are almost Cable speeds.. but the further away you get from the connection hub, the higher your pings will be.. Cable is mostly on fiber optic and do not suffer the same fate as DSL..

Most connections can obtain low pings over short distances.. but the more hops that your internet makes, the more ping time you will get.

to see how many hops and the average ping to each hop.. go back into command prompt and type in

c:\>tracert www.dynaverse.net

this will show all the hops between you and D.net.

If the first hop has high ping, then it is either your network configurations or your ISP

If the Ping is high further down the line, then the Hop point is to blame.

Every game and network connection uses different routes, so results may vary.

Like my tracert to google.. hop #13 is what is slowing my connection down

 13   153 ms    70 ms    69 ms  ae-2-79.edge1.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.68.16.78]

Now for me to get faster, I can contact the IP address listed, or I can just live with it.. most companies won't adjust their settings unless you have a contract with them that will guarantee your speed.

If it is your ISP, then they need to go out and fix where the connection is hindering your speed..

however things to check on your network connections first are..

Go to control panel and go into programs.. then click on small link stating 'turn on or off windows features'

in the box disable (uncheck)

Indexing Service
Tablet PC Optional Components
Telnet client
Telnet server
Windows DSF Replication service

then restart system.. Telnet can cause Pings to climb.. also you may want to look into NetBios and see if disabling it in Services.msc will help your ping.. just be warned.. disabling Netbios can sometimes break your internet connection until you re-enable it.. I usually don't mess with it on my system.. however under XP and a different ISP, I had no ill effects.. I am running Time Warner Road Runner Turbo and NetBios actually helps my connection.

there are applications on the web that will allow you to reduce gaming pings, however it will increast the time it takes web pages to load.. there are trade offs so be careful.

[Akira_Commander567]

Will a satellite connection mess everything up?

[Pestalence_XC]

Yes.. Satellite connection is not for gaming online.

The reason for this concern is the issue of latency. Latency is an expression of how much time it takes for a packet of data to get from one designated point to another. This is direly important when it come to on-line gaming in that latency translates into the time that it takes from the moment that a button is pushed to when the action is performed in the game. Often this can mean the difference between life and death. With DSL and Cable the response time is almost immediate, being between 50milliseconds-150milliseconds. The latency for satellite internet is between 600milliseconds-800milliseconds.

Players on cable and DSL are averaging 54-90ms .. Satellite just can not keep up. It may be broadband and loads web pages fast, but when gaming.. It won't stand up.

[FCM_SFHQ_XC]

Will a satellite connection mess everything up?

Satellite is good alternate to dialup for BROWSING the web and wont be using your computer for more the checking e-mail and tiny things like that.
Dial Up is better then Satellite if you are going to be using it for gaming.
It just takes so long for those transmission waves to go all the way up into space, then come all the way back down again. Dial-up transmission would already be done by the time the transmission makes it back down to earth.

[Akira_Commander567]

Thanks guys, well, you won't see me on SFC OP multiplayer anytime soon because I only have a satellite connection.

[Dash Jones]

Games like COD, BF2, or Crysis.. you need to install the latest version of Punk Buster and you have to launch in 32 bit mode.. Punk Buster is not 64 bit compliant.

Games like Hellgate London works on Vista 32 bit and 64 bit natively.

On older games written under DirectX 8, you will need to go to the support forums of those games and get the fixes or work arounds.

On games like DirectX 7 or older, It is highly unlikely that any games will work on Multiplayer unless the game manufacturer recoded for DirectX 9 support.

Vista has a hard time running Multi Player on games written in DirectX older than DirectX 9 since older versions were very buggy on Direct Play 8 and older. Also the networking code has to be written using the industry standard for Vista to recognize it in older games, which many companies did not do.. they wrote their own code and threw the Standardization books out the window.

People blame Microsoft for X game not working because the company did not use coding standards or update their software with newer tech when it came out..

So how is Vista buggy when the program was poorly written to begin with.

A properly written program will work on Vista regardless of DirectX, Unless it is written in VB 6

VB 6 support stopped in 2003 by Microsoft because of too many security vulnerabilities.. Vista will not operate VB 6 programs unless you add and register DX8VB.dll and DX7VB.dll in the system32 folder of windows AND on 64 bit machines also add it to and register them in the syswow64 folder.

Most games have work arounds to get it working.. It just so happens that I have not found the fix for SFC II as of yet for Dynaverse, however all other play modes of SFC II titles work just fine (this includes both EAW and OP in Single Player, GSA, and TCP/IP)..

Microsoft's goal was for programmers to use standardized coding methods in order to reduce bugs in relation to OS and hardware compatibility.. Unfortunately, due to lack of MS advertisement of this aspect, Microsoft gets blamed because the OS won't run programs that were badly written or that were written in vulnerable programming tools like VB 6.

I'm sure that if you do a web search for Vista 'name of game' workaround you will find solutions to your multiplayer problems for most games.. They usually involve installing DirectX 8 missing Data Link Library files (*.dll) and some sort of compatibility / administrator control settings.

How is it Vista's fault.

Vista has less operability than OLDER OS's...that's a problem.

A New OS should easily be able to incorporate the old stuff that the OLD OS was able to handle...I bet it would take less space even than the fancy dancy 3d animations and integration they did in order to install and implement that.

Plus, with how much Vista takes on memory, in my opinion IT's the poorly written thing around here.  I think they could make a better operating OS if they tried...but they're too busy trying to gouge a public by including things that restrict it's operability more than making it operable, or making eyecandy, rather than making it useful...that it amazes me that they ever released it.

Unfortunately it's on every computer out there being sold now.     

Anyways, I could go on, but this isn't the right place for it.  I believe they have SFC 2 working on Linux thanks to Bonk...though not on D2 either yet.  I just have to figure out how they did it with a more thorough read of the post.

[Tus-XC]

Will a satellite connection mess everything up?

As pesty mentioned the latenancy for sat internet is just to high.  Even if it were 100% effecient (no delay in computer or satelite) it will still take .28 seconds for info to go up and down 1 way (these sats are in geoscyncronis orbits... roughly 42000 km).  Even if you were to game with someone on the other side of the globe (a distance of approxately 20000 km) on a land line connection (ex 1.5 mbps)  the time it would take for the info to go one way (100% effecient, no delays) is .066 seconds (thats about a factor of 4 faster) and of course your speed increases the closer the other computer.  With satelites you will always have a min of .28 seconds for the info to go one way. speed of light is annoyin ain't it

[GFL Offkey]

Ya know sfc3 works with vista even multiplayer. so when sfc4 comes out maybe use a different setup for dynaverse

[njareg]

Hey sorry this reply comes a little late but I did give these settings a try and also installed the directX redist. I also deleted all my *.x files in the model dirs. The game does seem to be moving a little faster not as fast as XP did but better.

I should mention also that I'm running the game in window mode, now I ran it in window mode with xp under the exact same resolution settings, vid card etc and it was almost instantaneous.

Try turning off compatibility mode

Keep Visual Themes and Desktop Composition

Make sure Administrator is checked.

Post back to see if it works.

Also double check your DirectX version.. a new DirectX was released this month on June 6, 2008.. do not use the web installer, use the redistributable

using the redistrib, you will run the exe and extract to an empty folder, go into the folder after extraction and run Setup.exe

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=822640AB-0983-4C41-9C70-632F6F42C557&displaylang=en

Make sure that the Vid Driver you are running is the 175 and not the 169 version (get the driver from NVidia, not Microsoft)

Also, the *.x files in the Assets/Models/xxxx folders (each individual model) may not be configured correctly for your vid card).. delete all the *.x files and relaunch game.. the game will create new *.x files when the model loads.

[marstone]

A New OS should easily be able to incorporate the old stuff that the OLD OS was able to handle...I bet it would take less space even than the fancy dancy 3d animations and integration they did in order to install and implement that.

gosh, I hate to defend VISTA but to advance you have to cut ties with the old.  You can't stay compatible to the stoneage and still get the best and the newest.  and teething pains are to be expected when a full release is done.

[Dash Jones]

A New OS should easily be able to incorporate the old stuff that the OLD OS was able to handle...I bet it would take less space even than the fancy dancy 3d animations and integration they did in order to install and implement that.

gosh, I hate to defend VISTA but to advance you have to cut ties with the old. You can't stay compatible to the stoneage and still get the best and the newest. and teething pains are to be expected when a full release is done.

So go with Linux instead is what I gather from that statement.

I think most game makers learned from Sony and their PS2 that backwards compatibility sales much better than pushing forward with the new.  Note how much better the 360 did when they had compatibility.  And then it gets even better when they started making older games available for download and added options on top of  that.  MS knows about keeping the old options and just building on top of it, and the 360 is a prime example of how that is better, than not having those options.  Even Nintendo learned with their Wii which also is backwards compatible.  Ironically Sony is slowly doing the opposite, though much of their killer was their price range.  Even now they still can't keep up with the other two in sales (then again, their objective was to push the blu ray instead of win the console war this generation).

You don't cut ties with the old, you make the old compatible, and add options and abilities with the new.

The hammer never went out of date because the sledgehammer was invented, we just carry both now.