My graphics.

[Sel94]

YAY!:)

Well, +1 more thing to the list of stuff I need that is over $100. (Spare cash anyone?:helpsmilie:) So anything I can do in the meantime to optimize preformance/anything you recommend buying?(doesn't have to be cheap)

Dude your awsome.

[EtherealN]

I'd recommend that you investigate the ATi Radeon HD 5670. It should be around 99 dollars, does not require a PCI-e power connector and might even fit within the wattage budget of your existing PSU (though I'd still recommend replacing that). Fillrates would improve by between 3 and 7 times, and raw processing power of the GPU is ~15 times higher than the HD 3200.

 

nVidia alternative would be the GeForce GT 240.

 

These cards actually perform playable framerates with AA on in Modern Warfare 2 according to the test linked below, and as long as the cards are able to work with the wattage being fed you should se a revolution in framerates compared to the HD 3200.

 

http://techreport.com/articles.x/18288/1

 

On optimizations, yeah, there should be a few things you can do. I'll see if I can find the tweak-guides if you haven't seen them yet.

[Sel94]

Good news being then: if you're in luck, you'd look at between 100 and 200 dollars to get a workable card in there. (Card + Power Supply.)

Woh, hold on there, like, a power brick or somethin' for the card?

Just read your post so its K now.(Mabye) FYI.

Also, yes, I play on Steam a little and I've been thinking, were the components in my computer supposed to be sold for this generation of games, I only got it a few months ago. Although, I just bought a new(ish) game, Supreme Commander 2(only ten bucks on the weekend!) and it runs fine.

Edited June 8, 2010 by Sel94

[EtherealN]

Power supply for the computer. The one included on that model has 300 watts, and while that appears to maybe work out for a lightweight card like the ones I linked, it is tight.

 

Here's an article about some budget PSU's: http://techreport.com/articles.x/16073

 

As you can see, my 100-dollar estimate for PSU might actually have been up a bit high. (The one I'm looking at for my next build is 200 dollars, but I overclock and do all kinds of funky stuff with my machines so I have slightly different requirements). What you want to keep an eye on there is the PCIe and "modular" tabs. Modular PSU's are better - it basically means that you can plug and unplug cables from them. You also want to have at least one 6/8 PCIe pin. You wouldn't need it for the graphics cards I linked earlier, but if you want to upgrade in the future it's always nice if you don't have to replace the PSU again. :P

 

My fav of the ones in the article would be the OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W. One thing to remember here is that even if a PSU is slightly more expensive in purchase cost, you might save that money on reduced electricity bills. (Basically different PSU's are differently effective, so some might "waste" a lot of electricity.)

 

The procedure physically to do this would be to disassemble and remove the old PSU - this would require you to disconnect the motherboard power connector, CPU power connector, and DVD and HDD power connectors. These are fairly easy to disconnect - just make sure to not carry lots of static electricity when you do it. Definitely recommend reading a few tutorials first. Then just put the new one in and plug in the same cables at the same places. :)

 

EDIT: Yeah, Supreme Commander 2 will mainly tax your CPU if I remember that game's behaviour right, and your machine is pretty fine there since SC2 can move a lot of stuff over to separate cores on the CPU.

Edited June 8, 2010 by EtherealN

[JLZ]

You have all-AMD system so you could give a try to AMD Fusion for gaming.

 

From what I've read about it, it works. Also, there was thread on this forum about it. So you could ask people (who actually use it) how good it works.

 

Cheers

[EtherealN]

Could you upload a copy of your options.lua file?

 

C:\Games\LOFC2\BlackShark\data\scripts\options.lua (or different depending on where you installed it).

 

I'll have to wait a bit with working through the tweak guide, but that one might offer a few lifesavers that are quick to implement.

[Sel94]

It wasn't exactly where you said, but I still found it:smartass:. Anyway, when I double click it it says I can't open it because Windows wants to know what program I want to use. Uh-oh, I try to upload it but its an invalid file it says. :[

[EtherealN]

You don't have to double-click it, just attach it like you did for the DxDiag file.

[Sel94]

Yes I select it and hit "upload" and it says invalid file.

[Sel94]

When I try to open it, it gives me the option to search for a program that can open or I can select one of my own if that helps.

[EtherealN]

Ah, sorry. Right-click it and select "Send to" and then "Compressed folder" and attach the archive (zip) that is created.

[Sel94]

Here you go. Thanks for all your help so far. Getting late, we can have more fun with this tommorow. If you ever run for president, I'll tell everyone how awsome you are. L8er

options.zip

[EtherealN]

Try with the one I have here. Obviously, make a backup copy of your own first. Also, switch to fullscreen (I could have done that manually in the file for you, but in case there was a specific reason for it not being fullscreen I didn't want to break the file).

 

And well, the US constitution prohibits non-citizens (actually also citizens that are naturalized, ie not born in the US) from running for president, so I cannot run for that office. But if I move to the US sometime I'll consider governorship in California. :D

options.zip

[71st_Mastiff]

following errors I get after trying to make changes for my multiple monitors, I got it to work but I get these errors when I use it..

 

see attached this is a 7 hour clean install ordeal.. I even had to clean out the registry and used up all my activations. I also own a DVD copy how many time can I use the DVD before I have to ask for more activation?

[71st_Mastiff]

OMG this is so agravating I can no longer access the dam options page I keep getting those stupid erros..

ok almost there a couple of more tweeks and it will be ready for MP again..

Edited June 8, 2010 by Mastiff

[Maximus]

Mastiff, I may be wrong but I have heard about this quite awhile back. if you had a Geforce videocard into your system and you decided to swap to ATI. You may have to reformat the pc and reinstall the window O/S.

[coolts]

Mastiff, I may be wrong but I have heard about this quite awhile back. if you had a Geforce videocard into your system and you decided to swap to ATI. You may have to reformat the pc and reinstall the window O/S.

 

old wives tale unless you are running NT4.0 :smilewink:

[Sel94]

Try with the one I have here. Obviously, make a backup copy of your own first. Also, switch to fullscreen (I could have done that manually in the file for you, but in case there was a specific reason for it not being fullscreen I didn't want to break the file).

I want to do this right so what file do I download your modified file in, and when I right click on my normal options.lua and press "copy" nothing happens. Is that normal?

Oh, and it wasn't full screen because I wanted to work on something and play FC 2 at the same time.(not a good idea)

Edited June 8, 2010 by Sel94

[71st_Mastiff]

ok up and running again...

 

Coolt I'm getting 17 to 20 on the ground around K-C (Krasnodar-Center)

 

in the air a steady 57 to 60..

 

Temps are nice 50c, load, and idle 40c..

 

5850 is a good card but I hate to say the NVIDIA 285 is a little fast in load times and

better FPS GTX285 19 - 27 Krasnodar_Center. in the air steady 60+. 43c idle 72c load with fan at 100%.

 

But I want to fly Falcon so this will do..

Edited June 8, 2010 by Mastiff

[coolts]

ok up and running again...

 

Coolt I'm getting 17 to 20 on the ground around K-C (Krasnodar-Center)

 

in the air a steady 57 to 60..

 

Temps are nice 50c, load, and idle 40c..

 

5850 is a good card but I hate to say the NVIDIA 285 is a little fast in load times and

better FPS GTX285 19 - 27 Krasnodar_Center. in the air steady 60+.

 

But I want to fly Falcon so this will do..

 

 

thanks for letting me know. I must admit, for a blast of Falcon, switching my gfx card out may be a bit extreme, but the added benefits of a cooler running and less power hungry pc are all added incentives

[EtherealN]

Sel,

 

Just take the zip archive, right-click it and select "Extract all", open the folder that is created and select the options.lua, right-click it and select either "copy" or "cut". Then proceed to the folder in your FC2 install where you have the standard options.lua file. Right-click inside the folder (not on the file itself this time), and select "paste".

 

Note that I changed the value on the water (on of the biggest "thieves") to a setting not supported in the menu - if you change it in the regular options screen it has to be changed in a text editor in that configuration file. I also changed a few other things, so be careful to only change the fullscreen and resolution things when you change it back to fullscreen, and then test.

 

And yes, windowed mode will lower your performance.

[Sel94]

Okay so I tried it out and:

campaign is still unplayable due to the lag(wasn't expecting miracles there) but there is a small, yet noticable improvement my missons.

 

Just to make sure I did it right here are my steps in order:

downloded file>extracted and copied file> selected "paste" on the "scripts" file> selected paste over(or something like that because there was the regular file in there)>started up FC 2>changed to full screen>tested

[EtherealN]

Okey, we might be on to something then.

 

Let's get you to download Notepad++ ( http://notepad-plus-plus.org/ )

 

Open the lua file with that one. Down there you'll find something that looks like this:

 

   ["graphics"] = 
   {
       ["multiMonitorSetup"] = "1camera",
       ["color"] = "32",
       ["heatBlr"] = 0,
       ["scenes"] = "medium",
       ["water"] = 1,
       ["fullScreen"] = true,
       ["visibRange"] = "Medium",
       ["aspect"] = 1.3333333333333,
       ["textures"] = 1,
       ["shadows"] = 1,
       ["effects"] = 1,
       ["width"] = 1024,
       ["lights"] = 1,
       ["height"] = 768,
       ["civTraffic"] = 0,
       ["resolution"] = "1024x768",
       ["haze"] = 1,
   }, -- end of ["graphics"]

 

Let's do a few edits more to it and turn it into:

 

   ["graphics"] = 
   {
       ["multiMonitorSetup"] = "1camera",
       ["color"] = "32",
       ["heatBlr"] = 0,
       [b][u]["scenes"] = "low",[/u][/b]
       ["water"] = 1,
       ["fullScreen"] = true,
       [b][u]["visibRange"] = "low",[/u][/b]
       ["aspect"] = 1.3333333333333,
       ["textures"] = 1,
       [b][u]["shadows"] = 0,[/u][/b]
       [b][u]["effects"] = 0,[/u][/b]
       ["width"] = 1024,
       [b][u]["lights"] = 0,[/u][/b]
       ["height"] = 768,
       ["civTraffic"] = 0,
       ["resolution"] = "1024x768",
       [b][u]["haze"] = 0,[/u][/b]
   }, -- end of ["graphics"]

 

Try them one at a time and see if they help. Keep a backup copy of the file in case it breaks. Basically, by setting some things to 0 we will hopefully remove graphical features from the pipeline and free up enough to get things playable for you. I don't quite recall how many of these actually have "0" do anything for you (I get no difference between water=1 and water=0 for example), but it's worth a try.

Edited June 8, 2010 by EtherealN

[Sel94]

I set them all to 0 and campaign is still a no-go but there is an easily-noticable(not huge, but there) difference in my mission.(I'm using the same one to test all the changes.

Looks like we're getting somwhere. Are there any other files I can edit?(Oh, and now can I mod with Notepad++?)Man, you've been such an awsome help :]

[i'll probably also ask about that AMD Fusion thing in another forum to get any other boosts.]

[winz]

you can try also this:

open graphics.cfg in the config folder and edit

LandLodDistances
{
   LandDay
   {
       L01 = 30000;
       L12 = 50000;
   }
   LandNight
   {
       L01 = 20000;
       L12 = 40000;
   }

to

LandLodDistances
{
   LandDay
   {
       [u][b]L01 = 12000;[/b][/u]
       [u][b]L12 = 28000;[/b][/u]
   }
   LandNight
   {
       [u][b]L01 = 12000;[/b][/u]
       [u][b]L12 = 28000;[/b][/u]
   }

 

and ofc, don't forget to back it up before you edit ti.