Performance Issues

Forty Two · Post by **Forty Two** » Sat May 11, 2002 3:07 am

I have well above the minimum spec but it runs like a pig, is this because im running XP and have to play it in 32 bit?

Tackon D'wall · Post by **Tackon D'wall** » Sat May 11, 2002 5:25 am

What does it do to u're PC? We can't help you if you give us no info

The game works fine for me... graphics and sounds are perfect for me which is VERY unusual in the past few months. My soundcard sucks

What the game does have though every little bit seems to be a cache clearing pause in the game. It's not a huge deal though, just a few seconds usually. I think it does that to every PC though.

Hippy Lettuce · Post by **Hippy Lettuce** » Sat May 11, 2002 6:46 am

Nah, it runs so slow until you do a couple of things.

1. UPDATE your video drivers, this has fixed most performance problems with this game. For example, I am using an ATI Radeon, and ATI has released new drivers weekly for the past few weeks. Alot of it has to do with Direct X 8.1.

Last Friday I could not even get out of the ships hold, until I updated the drivers. It may be a pain in the ass, but it works...

2. Shut down everything running on your system, especially anti virus software that is on autoprotect... Generally all you want is explorer and systray running... This helps out with having enough free resources to run the game.... Again, this works wonders...

Basically, update to the latest video drivers, and in doing that, many of your performance problems should be solved...

Forty Two · Post by **Forty Two** » Sat May 11, 2002 7:47 am

All my drivers are the latest, bios is all updated, all unused programs are removed.

AMD 1.33 Ghz
Ge2 MX
512Mb Pc-2100

My mates having the same problems and hes got a Ge4 4200..

madmarcos · Post by **madmarcos** » Sat May 11, 2002 9:00 am

try running the game at 1024 x 768 resolution with NO real time shadows. also turn view distance to middle setting. then try 800 x 600 (blech).
i have an AMD 1.2GHz, Windows XP, 256MB PC133 RAM, GeForce 3 and the game runs well even at 1600 x 1200 with no shadows

Leviathan · Post by **Leviathan** » Sat May 11, 2002 9:55 am

my FPS in 1024x768 max viewdistace and shadows low even though i have a p4 2ghz 512 DDR gf3ti200. strange.

Forty Two · Post by **Forty Two** » Sat May 11, 2002 10:42 am

It is 800*600 with everything off and i still barely get 10 fps with more than 3 people on the screen, ffs whats it going to be like when i`m being attcked by lots of wibbly wobbly magic eh, or when i cast it for that matter

Sirius_Sam · Post by **Sirius_Sam** » Sat May 11, 2002 10:43 am

My sys:

AMD 908 Mhz
Radeon 7200
512Mb
SBLive! Value
OS: Windows XP pro

As Hippy Lettuce stated, updated drivers seem to be the most important factor. Tack hit the nail on the head with the cache-clearing 'lag'...it sucks, but it's not that big of a deal.

I have noticed that I gain a SIGNIFICANT frame boost (with absolutely no stuttering) if I go to 800x600 resolution. I can run everything on 'high'. At 1024x768, I have to turn real time shadows off and adjust the view/fog distance, but the game is still very playable. Gauge it like you would a First-person Shooter and when you find the right balance between smoothness and graphic quality, just keep the settings that work for you (the game doesn't actually look THAT much better at higher resolutions and the gameplay's the thing anyway

).

S_S

THE JAKER · Post by **THE JAKER** » Sat May 11, 2002 11:15 am

I like the way the game looks at 1600x1200, it looks better to me. I will post the requisite specs:

Athlon 1.4 Ghz
512 MB
GF3ti200
XP Home
Soundblaster something or other.

My "framerate" is not that great, so I turned off the counter so I don't notice it anymore. Sure I notice the difference in smoothness between MW and Castle Wolfenstein or really Ghost Recon, which looks just fabulous, but it does not make the game unenjoyable by a long shot. I have shadows off, AI medium, View highest.

The reason I posted actually was this: you can make some of those little load pauses go away (but the other ones will be longer) if you change a line in the .ini file - "Don't Thread Load=0" changes to "=1". I just tried it for a second, still making up my mind about it.

Sirius_Sam · Post by **Sirius_Sam** » Sat May 11, 2002 1:09 pm

I must say, after reading THE JAKER's post that 1600x1200 looks incredible, but regardless of tweaking (on my system anyway) I just can't get it to run smoothly enough to create an immersive feeling in the game...I think I'm going to have to keep my settings at 1024x768 ('course my system specs are a little lower than Jaker's) for enjoyable play.

Jaker, I tried modifying the .ini file as you suggested and I prefer the old "one long pause" instead of the "lots of little pauses", guess I'm just used to it now

S_S

CtrlAltDel · Post by **CtrlAltDel** » Sun May 12, 2002 9:36 am

Originally posted by Forty Two
All my drivers are the latest, bios is all updated, all unused programs are removed.

AMD 1.33 Ghz
Ge2 MX
512Mb Pc-2100

My mates having the same problems and hes got a Ge4 4200..

your problem is that you have a geforce 2mx, those cards are crap to begin with, and now you are trying to play this game which hammers older cards.

you could change the lighting in the game, by editing your ini file, that helps some geforce 2 and 4 people also.

Edit the following lines in your Morrowind.INI

[LightAttenuation]
UseConstant=0
ConstantValue=0.0
;
UseLinear=0
LinearMethod=1
LinearValue=3.0
LinearRadiusMult=1.0
;
UseQuadratic=1
QuadraticMethod=2
QuadraticValue=16.0
QuadraticRadiusMult=4.0
;
OutQuadInLin=0

SET YOUR LINES EXACTLY AS ABOVE.

Andrinor · Post by **Andrinor** » Wed Jun 12, 2002 11:09 pm

My specs:
Windows 2000
PIII 1 Ghz
256 mb ram
ATI rage pro 128, 16 mb of video ram

I realize that my vram is disgustingly low, but the video card is specifically listed as being supported, and the other specs meet the recommended values. I'm not sure how to measure my frame rate, but I would guess that it's under 10 fps, because I can't even play. I can barely walk outside, and it's running at 640x480 with no shadows and no music. It's terrible...with a video card like mine, I'm not expecting to be running at 1600x1200 or anything, but I do expect to be able to at least play the game at 640x480, and at this point I can't. I have the latest drivers from the ATI website, but they are from october. I'll try finding 3rd party ones. Any other advice for me?

Bitex · Post by **Bitex** » Thu Jun 13, 2002 2:48 am

ATI Rage pro 128..I remember we had those gfx cards in the school computers in 1999. Could JUST run Tomb Raider 3 without jerking..Battlezone 2 was a problem. It just doesn't cut it anymore I think, you'd be way better off investing a few dollar bills/pounds/pieces-of-eight/whatever in a gf3 ti200 card..they're really cheap. Any geforce will make an enormous difference to you. Think about this: Quake III and Return to castle wolfenstein (even jedi knight II) get LOADS better framerate on my system (700Mhz, gf2mx, 320Mb ram, soundblaster 1024 live) than Morrowind. Says a little about the system demands on this one.
Remember we tried the Q3 test demo at the school computers, was way too jerky to be playable.

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Thu Jun 13, 2002 3:22 am

im running a p3
256 meg ram,
win 98.....

but with geforce 4 ti 4600

should i tweek the ini file???

800 by 600 mode, no shadows and ai off, and view distance moderate...debating on getting more ram, prices are really good, but might have to get 133 hertz ram, which costs more...

Jodmos · Post by **Jodmos** » Thu Jun 13, 2002 6:13 am

What helps alot at low end sytems is to turn of the Music.
Music in MW is played in MP3 fromat wich eats alot of cpu power.

nVrt · Post by **nVrt** » Thu Jun 13, 2002 4:13 pm

AthlonXP 1600+ (1.4ghz@1.55ghz)
MSI board w/ kt266 chipset (my main bottleneck)
Swiftech MC462/Delta 88
120gb over (3) Maxtor 7200 rpm u100 hds
80gb raid0 (offline)
512 MB DDR2100
PNY Geforce3ti200 (slightly o/c)
SB live! value
19" Gateway EV90
Windows 2k pro - 29.42 dets - DX8.1

(hardware with little to no impact on performance, just for continuity: 12x dvd-rom, MS explorer mouse, MS natural keyboard, 3com OfficeConnect 10/100 nic, Promise Fasttrack66 -unused, awaiting replacement-)

Looks wonderful at high quality settings (no AA) in 1024x768 32bit. I found a framerate loss with running any other resolution. Framerate is quite tolerable. Drops to maybe 18ish in large cities/large battles. Normally upwards of 35-40 indoors. You get used to the memory dumps/loading every... what... 45 seconds?

For your performance issues, I'd recommend getting the 29.42 WHQL dets (for NVIDIA cards). You can pick them and others up at many places, like http://www.guru3d.com/files. Also, I personally quite like the GTU (GeForce tweak util). High quality setings with no AA is perfect IMHO... (might lower the Antistropy down just a tad though also)