Topic: SFC OP Laggy frame rates in Single Player and Multi...?

[Dizzy]

Fixed my router issue (got rid of it), got another problem... My frame rate in OP wether on SP or Multi mode will be anywhere around 30-45 with 6+ ships, but as soon as something loads, like a shuttle, explosion, photons firing, mine blast, etc, my frame rate drops to like 6-12 or so. It's like the game is pausing to load the effect.

This happened the 1st time back on GW2 on the last several battles I played. I thought it was lag... but it was my system. So far, I have done everything I know, and Im hoping that someone has had the same problem as me so I will know what to do...

It's not DirectX 9.0c. I upgraded between GW2 and 3 and I still have the same problem.

I upgraded my display drivers between servers. Same problem.

I tried completely (first thing I did) uninstalling everything SFC and then reinstalled clean, updated all files and same sh*t.

I have changed color bit modes, resolution rates, refresh rates, hardware acceleration, etc, to no avail.

I even restored my Bios to default settings and then test after test tweaking the settings didnt do any good either.

I ran DXdiag and tested my hardware and it says it checks out.

I underclocked my processor from an Athlon 2.0 to a 1.8 (1.5GHz). Still didnt fix the problem...

I ran msconfig to find out what was loading at startup and took out everything that wasnt necessary. Still no go.

I banged on my computer case and put a dent in the side and SFCOP still hiccups, burps, lags and acts drunk.




So... did I miss trying something? Has this ever happened to anyone else? Last thing I can think of is to reformat and start fresh. Last thing I want to do, tho, cuz it will take days to back everything up and then get everything reloaded...

[Strafer]

I often get a hiccup when fighters are launched for a second or so, but then play resumes to it's normal rate...

[KBFLordKrueg]

Sounds too me all your memory space is taken up by the porn... 
I donno, Diz..I was just trying to make ya laugh...

[Lepton]

The possibilties to me would be that it is:

1.  Processor
2.  Video Card
3.  Memory
4.  Hard Drive

I think you have at least eliminated the processor and possibly the video card, but you may want to try and check your processor resources and graphics resources with another game and see if there are simliar hangups.  As for memory and hard drive, I know that OP used to hang up for me ages ago due to insufficient memory.  I didn't really have enough for the game and the game had to keep using space on the hard drive for memory.  Is the game addressing the HD alot?  Has the HD been defraged recently?  Perhaps you had a memory stick blow out for some reasson. 

It would seem to me that if you can reproduce such problems with another application then it is something systemic.  If not, then it must be OP specific.  Are you running high res models in the game?  Perhaps there are competing demands within the game engine if you are running high res models in the game. 

That's all I can think of.  Good luck.

[Dizzy]

 As for memory and hard drive, I know that OP used to hang up for me ages ago due to insufficient memory.  I didn't really have enough for the game and the game had to keep using space on the hard drive for memory.  Is the game addressing the HD alot?  Has the HD been defraged recently?  Perhaps you had a memory stick blow out for some reasson. 

As far as memory, I have 1GB. It's possible I have something else using it, but task managers performance tab doesnt show i am using any. MB its a memory stick blow out? How would you determine a momory stick blow out?

My hard drive... well, I defragged it about 2x months ago. Its in pretty good shape I think, but how do I tell if the program is writing and reading too much to the HD? This sounds like something I'd want to take a closer look at cuz its reasonable to think that the lag or burps whenever anything loads would be the delay you'd get in writing to the HD, only a guess tho.

Its not the hi res models. The last couple games of GW2 is when I started having problems. I havent switched the models. I doubt it is OP specific. Would an EAW test suffice for a comparative test or something else?

Only thing I can think of now, is that I had a crap load of pop-ups that I dumped... Repeatedly b4 I finally found the hiden files and got rid of them too. Perhaps along the way I got rid of a needed windows file? I do have an ActiveX damaged file I found, but are those necessary to run SFCOP?

Probably need to reload windows. Is there a windows reload that doesnt erase all my files?

Thanks Lepton. And Krueg, I got rid of that porn. I know you wanted copies of it all, I even erased those naked pics of DH's sister trying to fix this OP problem... Sorry

[Strat]

What version Windows do you have?

What kind of Video card do you have?

-Strat

[Holocat]

If a memory stick is physically damaged, I get the idea that the computer would complain.  You'd smell something too.  I remember failing to install memory right and my computer simply didn't register the stick, but that was back in DOS days and cables that did not give an indication as to what orientation it was to be plugged in, so I dunno if that applies here.

Just to throw another fish into the bucket, your background processes might be hogging cycles and memory, particularly if they run at a higher priority.  Active virus scanners and quite a few odd programs will hog for strange reasons.  For myself, wordpad will hog every extra cycle it can find.

The obvious solution is to shut off these active scanners and programs when not using them.  

[Strat]

Some good points there.

What are the hardware specs for your computer?

What processes are runnig in the backround?

What process is usuing the most CPU resrouces and what process is using the second most?

[Pestalence_XC]

Did you :

1. scan your system for spyware.. use Ad-Aware SE and Spybot Search & Destroy to check for these...

2. Use a registry cleaner like Reg Supreme and run a deep registry scan and remove all invalid entries?

3. Run ScanDisk on your system to check for system file errors

4. Defrag you harddrive

5. use System File Checker to check you system for any errored OS files.. run command prompt and type in SFC /SCANNOW and let it scan your system.. if it asks for your windows disk.. you have a corrupted OS file which needs reinstalling.. if it goes through without any glitches.. your OS is fine..

6. have you upgraded to XP Service Pack 2 ?? If so, did you get the 100 MB Windows Update version or the 266 MB Network install.. if the Windows Update Version.. DL and install the Network ersion as the Windows Update version is not the complete SP 2 for XP and can cause OS errors.. Network Install is stable without errors..

Just some ideas for you...
 

[Dizzy]

Ok, here are my specs:



I underclocked the cpu for testing, its actually a 2.0 Athlon, 1.667GHz.



As you can see, my processes are very few. If you run msconfig, you can reduce the processes to under 7 or so by eliminating all startups and services. I did this and still the problem persisted. I doubt it is a process resource problem...

I'll try doing what Pesty said and run those scans...

[Cleaven]

I have had that sort of problem. It was caused by my upgraded firewall software's monitoring of MS messenger channels. I fixed it by turning off the Messenger monitoring (and turning off MS messenger too). It was the firewall's messenger monitoring that was the lag cause, not messenger itself.

[Dizzy]

Thats great Cleaven. I was hoping someone had a similar situation.

Ummm, my windows firewall is off. I cant seem to find any other one thats running... How do I know where to look?

Oh, and Pesty, I ran that SFC /SCANNOW and a dos window opened and closed b4 I could even read anything in it. Was that supposed to happen?

Still cking the drives, but a while back in between GW2 and 3 I eliminated all registry/virus/pop-ups and trojans. My system is pretty clean.

[Cleaven]

What screen size or resolution are you running OP at?

This may be a colour depth or odd resolution problem. See if making changes does anything for you.

[FPF-SCM_TraceyG_XC]

Is it just SFC OP that runs slow, or is everything running slow?

Also try using SpySweeper as well, its more comprehensive than either Adaware or Spybot (but run both of those as well).

Try removing any new models you may have added recently, some models can place a greater strain on your system than others.

Your setup should not be having any problems with SFC OP at all.

[Julin Eurthyr]

Here's one for you all...
System:  Gateway 1 ghz, 60 gig HD, 128 MB RAM, EVga Geforce 200 MX chipset PCI video-card, 64 MB video memory

On LB5, I had no issues.

After LB5, I reinstalled OP and redid my model folders, switching from Fleetdock 13 to Desty Nova's Fed models (along with Rommie, and a couple of ISC for now...)

Played 3 on 3s over IP games to Die Hard, hosted a couple IP games, and played a couple of GS games, no frame rate issues, I stayed around my usual 30 FPS...

Started GW3.  First mission was a Karnak Enemy Sweep patrol.  Oddly, whenever my Karnak-granted fleeted ally shown up on screen, my FPS would drop to 1.5-3 FPS, otherwise I hovered around 30 FPS.  Aborted mission and rebooted as the lag from my ally caused me to miss way too many shots...

Second mission I drafted Hooch into an ED patrol.  Got the Computer controlling my ship bug.  Finished the mission (Hooch did most of the work), tried another, more issues, rebooted again.

Kept having a hard time till I drafted DH into my second Karnak Enemy Sweep.  When I checked out DH's ship, my framerate dropped again, but my AI ally wouldn't cause the FPS issues.  Got a "Windows Virtual Memory" message while checking this out, where my computer told me that it was increasing the page file size.  Managed to get back into mission, we finished it, and I didn't get any more problems for the rest of the night...

Decided to defragment my hard drive last night anyway.  I'll see if that helps out the Virtual Memory errors...  I keep debating on whether or not I should set aside a gig or so of my HD as a permanent swap file...

One other thing that concerns me.  I've always used the "skip movie" executable.  Before, I would see an off-white screen with just a tiny bit of the "loading" word, then when the title screen loaded up, I'd see that and all would be normal.  Since my reinstall and upgrade to DX 9.0c, I get my desktop (resized from 1280 to 1024), and the same little bit of the "loading" word.  Then, no response from system for the same length of time my system needs to clear the splash screen.  At that point, I can click on the desktop, it resizes back to normal (1280 resolution), and I can click on the Starfleet Command taskbox, getting me directly to the main menu.  Even though most of it is off-screen in the upper-left hand side of the screen, I still can click on multiplayer, and when the Multiplayer option screen shows up, it's in it's normal place...

[Cleaven]

Can you get it to behave differently if you change your desktop resolution, or change the game resolution in SFC.ini?

[SPQRPardek]

maybe you should try a fresh install of OP in a diffrent place on your harddrive, just to see if its the game and not your system. also i had a problem with the latest video card drivers,(nvidia) i had to go back to a older driver so OP would work. i did hear that Direct X 9c wasnt so great on some games.. but i havent tried it yet.

AMD 1700 @ 1.5 mhz
768 mb memory
Gforce 4 ti 128 mb memory
SB live
win XP pro

[Cleaven]

For what it's worth I've been using 9.0c since it came out and have had no problems with SFC. (Well there have been some count downs to zero, but who knows what caused them)

[Hexx]

Hmmm I'm still running Directx9b

Are we all supposed to have "c" or does it matter?

(... maybe THAT's why I keep losing in PvP..)

[Strat]

Ok, here are my specs:



I underclocked the cpu for testing, its actually a 2.0 Athlon, 1.667GHz.



As you can see, my processes are very few. If you run msconfig, you can reduce the processes to under 7 or so by eliminating all startups and services. I did this and still the problem persisted. I doubt it is a process resource problem...

I'll try doing what Pesty said and run those scans...

In the Windows Task Manager click the box "Show processes from all users" and lets see what that shows.  I'm looking for any sepcific programs what may be troublesome.

[benbean]

Dizzy,

Do you have vscync turned on?

[Strat]

Also,

Does this happen with stock 2552?

When did this start?

If your in the mood to keep experimenting:
It could be a Video Setting(Like benbean was saying).  If your not keen on all that stuff, then try the following to reset it all.

0) Download Latest Drivers for your Vidcard
1) Uninstall all nVidia Software(Add/Remove Programs)
2) Remove the Display Card from the Device Manageer (If not done by the unstalling of the software in step 2)
3) Restart
4) Follow instructions to install new drivers.

If that doesn't work, or you've already done it, we can look at the Display settings more specifically.

Let me know whats up.

Oh and I would suggest puttin the CPU back to its correct setting. 1.667GHz

While in BIOS, try the following if you can, unless you have specifcally something the way you want in there.

Select "Set BIOS to Fail-Safe Defaults"
Restart
Select "Set BIOS to Optimized Defaults"
Restart

There may be a problem in there too.  That sorta clears out funky settings.  If you have stuff the way you like it, take that into consideration before you do that, or simply set thngis back after you do the above.

[Strat]

Thats great Cleaven. I was hoping someone had a similar situation.

Ummm, my windows firewall is off. I cant seem to find any other one thats running... How do I know where to look?

Oh, and Pesty, I ran that SFC /SCANNOW and a dos window opened and closed b4 I could even read anything in it. Was that supposed to happen?

Still cking the drives, but a while back in between GW2 and 3 I eliminated all registry/virus/pop-ups and trojans. My system is pretty clean.

For that sfc/scannow
Goto Run and Type 'CMD' Press enter
Then do what pesty said about SFC /SNANNOW

The Window will Stay open and you can see the results. (Probably an error message)

What it SHOULD be doing though is opening another window were you see it scanning all files.  Something is now rowking right if it just disappears and nothing happens.

[Dizzy]

Dizzy,

Do you have vscync turned on?

What is Vsync?

[Dizzy]

Decided to defragment my hard drive last night anyway.  I'll see if that helps out the Virtual Memory errors...  I keep debating on whether or not I should set aside a gig or so of my HD as a permanent swap file...

One other thing that concerns me.  I've always used the "skip movie" executable. 

I defragged 2 mo. ago and it looks good. Even said I dont need to defrag again yet. I use the 'skip movie' exe as well.

[Dizzy]

Can you get it to behave differently if you change your desktop resolution, or change the game resolution in SFC.ini?

Hehe, I have tried these resolutions in windows: 800x600 16 and 32 bit using Refresh rates 60, 70, 72 and 75. On 1024x768 I ran 16 and 32 bit using all 4 refresh as well. I also tried changing the .ini file's game resolution from 800x600 (what i usually use) to 1024x768 to no avail. It still chokes when the action starts...

[Dizzy]

In the Windows Task Manager click the box "Show processes from all users" and lets see what that shows.  I'm looking for any sepcific programs what may be troublesome.

I did that. Dont have any. No other users.

[Dizzy]

Guys, I want to thank you all for the excellent help you all give every member of this community. You all are great.

This sh*t sucks. I was SO looking forward to this server. I finally have all my models done (None of them are super poly. Chokes when even low poly models are used). It is wholly frustrating...

There are a few great other ideas above I will try shortly... Let you know.

[Julin Eurthyr]

Decided to defragment my hard drive last night anyway.  I'll see if that helps out the Virtual Memory errors...  I keep debating on whether or not I should set aside a gig or so of my HD as a permanent swap file...

One other thing that concerns me.  I've always used the "skip movie" executable. 

I defragged 2 mo. ago and it looks good. Even said I dont need to defrag again yet. I use the 'skip movie' exe as well.

Mine said the same thing.  Files 6% fragmented, drive itself supposedly "9%" fragmented.  But when I looked at the analysis bar, there was no big chunk of white that could readily be used for much of anything...

Defragging anyway, "against window's better judgement", moved all my files except for a couple to the front of the bar, and I now have 2 nearly-equal sized free space chunks where before I had about 20...

Windows always hated non-contiguous swap files, I'm not sure if that prohibition still exists in XP, or if the technology is highly optimized to use fragmented swap files.  Either way, making sure your swap file is on contiguous HD space never hurt anything...  (who knows, your system could be nice and preety and I'm just blathering on here... )

[Dizzy]

Ok Julin, interestingly enough, I thought it quite surprising when I saw there were 3x SFC entries after I defragged.

Before I did it, it was 9% freagmented. Thats when I installed SFC.

Here are the files:


As I said originally, I noticed that the hiccups happen especially when there are explosions, weapons like photons and plasma torps being launched, etc... strangely enough all textures... Hrmmm...

I wonder what the "Above8bitTextures.txt and aafonts do?

Anyway, looks like that is something quite suspicious, eh? Could this be the problem? What happens when you have a fragmented file that windows cannot defrag? Would it create the lag/choking effect on the game's frame rate I am experiencing?

If so, then what should I do now? Should I delete the entire SFC install and start anew now that I am newly defragged?

[Dizzy]

I reinstalled EAW and loaded up some high poly ships. No problems. Didnt choke lag or anything like OP does.

So Im gonna delete EAW and OP, defrag and then reinstal (sigh) OP and see if that fixes the problem...

Any further ideas I should try?

Oh and get this... It is interesting to know that my other older/slower comp runs OP w/o a glitch... But here is something funny about that...

The OLD comp has a 1.7GHz processor and a 64MB MX440 GeForce card with 512MB ram.

The NEW comp has a 2.0GHz processor and a 64MB GeForce Ti 4200 (a decidely more powerful and expensive than the MX440) with 1GB of ram.

But at the desktop, running the model viewer using the same high poly model, with low processes on both comps, the OLD comp has a higher FPS at 169 vs 142.

Wonder why that is? The Old comp is loaded with XP home, the new is XP Pro. Old comp is using 129MB as shown on DXDiag, the New shows 127... ??? Why would the old comp run slightly faster?

Does anyone know where to get a system benchmark program, something simple that will test the various hardware speeds so I can compare these two computers?

[Cleaven]

What happens if you open up display properties, settings, advanced, troubleshoot, and turn down the hardware acceleration?

[Dizzy]

U know, I never tried that, Cleaven. I looked over that in the middle of trying to fix this issue, I didnt understand how that would help given the descriptions of the  changes made for each level drop. But I suspect the problem was in the fragmented SFC textures folder I mentioned a few posts ago. Hope it is....

I'm about to completely reload the whole package anew after several defrags. If it doesnt work then, then it's likely a hardware isue and I'll tinker with the troubleshooting hardware acceleration part and look elsewhere as well. Good idea.

[IAF Lyrkiller]

Dizzy, i had the same problem. everything would slow down to a crawl, and my two fans in the back would kick in. (laptop). i tried to figure out

WTF was going on. so what i did was restart the syst and do last known good configuration, and then ran a repair of windows. so far everything is

back to normal so it seems, since that time i have been playing Fallout:Tactics and Mechcommander2 w/ no iss. Now i know that some people

would go against a repair. it is your choice. i am just throwing it out there for you...

[Dizzy]

Reload Windows? 'Why fix it if it ain't broke?' (just to be safe will prolly reload some win files anyway...)

WOOHOO!

It was that textures fragmented file.

Here's how it happened. Somewhere during the last cpl days of GW2, this file: C:\Program Files\Taldren Software Inc\Starfleet Command Orion Pirates\Assets\Textures was fragmented somehow. It caused a game where I was in a PvP 2v2 and it lagged all to hell (or so I thought). But what happened was my frame rate crashed everytime SFC tried to load the textures: weapons, explosions, damage, etc... all that stuff. Something about it being fragmented caused SFC's game engine to screech almost to a stop while trying to access each time a weapon was fired or an explosion. Even AMD on a drone causes explosions and it killed the frame rate.

Using advice from this thread, I defragged and found that this file was fragmented:

I  loaded up EAW to see if the problem persisted there. It didnt! So that pretty much concerned my suspicions about it being that fragmented textures file.

So I uninstalled OP and EAW and defragged once more.

I then reloaded OP using Pesty's OP Enhancement Pack v2.0 yet again, (AWESONE installer. Easy one stop shop for no hassle SFC  everything). I loaded up with a 16 ship furball using all high poly models and my frame rate averaged 40fps! I fixed it. What a freaking needle in a haystack!!! Damn, took me 2 days and a half to find the *$#&%.

Thanks guys for all your help. This community kicks ass when it comes to getting tech support. Now if I can just get Crim to stop locking my trash talk threads...

Checks in the mail all!

[Dizzy]

On a side note guys, with an LCD monitor, what refresh rate is the best to use for SFC and web browsing. (Less flicker and eyestrain...) 50, 60, 70, 72 or 75 Hz?

Also in the sfc.ini file, what do these settings do when you change the numbers around? I figured out that 0 is off and 1 is on, but I have seen lowres=3 before... And didnt know some values can be higher than 1.

[3D]
wireframe=0
windowed=0
zbuffer=1
lowres=0
driver=0
backdrop=1
shipstacking=1
ambientlighting=0.33
luminancetextures=1
luminancedamagetextures=1
spacedust=0

In addition, I see that this:

[UI]
UIType=2
QuickTip=1
Grid=0
OrderDelay=30
HeadingDisplay=0
AutoFilm=1
SkipUpsell=1
ASCIICharacterSet=0

What happens when you mess with the UIType= ?
What is OrderDelay= ?
HeadingDisplay= ?

[Julin Eurthyr]

Glad to see you found your main problem...

Little explanation as to why it was giving you all that grief:  Fragmented files are scattered all over the hard drive.  The drive heads may have to move a lot in order to read the fragmented file.  Since the textures were fragmented, any time SFC needed a texture loaded into memory on the fly, it has to read it off the drive, and the drive was scampering all over the place trying to read the various file parts, and SFC practically froze while it waited for your hard drive to cough up all the information.

The Above8bit.txt files aren't much of anything, they're generated by the model viewer / game to list which texture maps are "above 8 bit" graphics quality.

aafonts I'm not too sure of, but I think it's used for most of the text in the UI...

Now, onto the most recent batch:

Refresh rate should be the highest you can get while still getting the framerate and resolution you want.

Now, on the .ini entries, most from memory:

Wireframe, I believe, forces the game to render the ships as wireframes (no textures)
windowed is the entry to allow SFC to run in a standard window, this feature is broken in OP.  Leave it at 0
zbuffer says to use the video system's z-buffer.
lowres is the indication of what resolution you want.  All I know is that 3=1024x768 resolution.
backdrop turns on and off the backdrop (space backgrounds?)
shipstacking - no clue.
ambientlighting is how bright things look in SFC.
The 2 luminance entries turn on the glowies
spacedust turns on and off spacedust.  Drawing dust in space (along with stars etc.) causes a significant framerate drop...

The UI stuff, I've never played with...

[Dizzy]

Yup, when I saw that fragmented file, and it contained the very things that happened right when the system choked, figured that was it. Good explanation. Was still a damned needle in a haystack. But this is good for peeps who 'think' they are having lag in Multi... may just be a fragmented file and they simply need to defrag to fix it. I'll bet there are a few 56k'ers out there who may attribute lag to their slow connect when in fact they just need to do a defrag... But what are the freaking odds I'd get just the perfect file to f*ck up my whole game? Heh. I'm going out to buy a lottery ticket.

Ship stacking I think is what causes the ships to float above and below one another when they occupy same space.

Thx for the info on that refresh. I notice that CRT's poison your eyes with the lingering effects of horizontal lines after spending a lot of time on them, but LCD's dont seem to. So why would a faster refresh on an LCD make any difference? I can see why frame rates would drop using higher Hz, but what is the lowest you can go and not have any discomfort, any noticable flicker or whatever on an LCD? I have 60, 70, 72 and 75 as choices.

[KBF-Dogmatix_XC]

On a side note guys, with an LCD monitor, what refresh rate is the best to use for SFC and web browsing. (Less flicker and eyestrain...) 50, 60, 70, 72 or 75 Hz?


<snip>

On an LCD, the "refresh rate" you're talking about is fairly meaningless.  By all means, set your monitor to as high as it will go, but my guess is that you will see no change in "flicker" on your monitor.  LCDs doesn't have the same flicker that CRTs have.

They have a pixel refresh rate that, if it's too high, you'll see ghosting in fast moving images, but it's not anything you can change, anyway.  Your monitor's refresh rate is set according to it's own specs by the factory.  Low 20's ms is perfectly find for all gaming...high teens is even better.  Mid to high 20's in milliseconds onthe pixel refresh rate and you'll start seeing lots of ghosting in fast moving images..especially in FPS games.


When I had a CRT, I always had to have a refresh rate of 85-100 hz because my eyes were very sensitive to the flicker.  My LCD defaults to 60 hz and can be set to 70 hz (no visual difference) and I'm not bothered at all.



I hope this helps or wasn't altogether repetitive... 

[Dizzy]

I didnt think LCD flickered... They never do when I hold the video cameras up to them compared to CRT's. Great selling tool.

But if refresh doesnt affect flicker on an lcd, then why set it at 75 or even 60? What is the benefit? Also, doesnt it take more processing power to operate at higher refresh? That'd cut down on FPS, wouldnt it?

My ms response time is 25. Very average, but SFC looks great. Better than it ever did on my CRT... For the first time I saw how beautiful the colors and light were as they played across the planets surface after I towed Mavericks G-BCHF into that planet... hehe. Impressive lighting display. Looks 10x better on an LCD.

[KBF-Dogmatix_XC]

Well, as I attempted to say, the higher refresh rate on an LCD is meaningless.  There might be a difference in overhead required between different refresh rates, but it's negligible, probably.  I don't think it affects anything other than how hard the monitor is working.


I totally agree about LCDs, by the way.  I think SFC looks great on them...I like mine better than any CRT I ever owned and I always bought top-brand models.