VTM: Bloodlines performance problems.

XxXSpitfireXxX · Post by **XxXSpitfireXxX** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:49 am

I'm having performance problems in bloodlines when I'm outside. I think it's because of the rain because when I don't see rain I get 50-60 FPS. Is there a way to fix that ?

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 10:11 am

[QUOTE=XxXSpitfireXxX]I'm having performance problems in bloodlines when I'm outside. I think it's because of the rain because when I don't see rain I get 50-60 FPS. Is there a way to fix that ?[/QUOTE]

It may be your video card or you may need more RAM. The game can be a notorious resource hog. Have you tried just playing with Bloodlines video settings? (i.e. lowering them from default). That might help your problem.

XxXSpitfireXxX · Post by **XxXSpitfireXxX** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:56 pm

I'm running the game on a

AMD Athlon XP 2000+ 1846 mhz
ATI AIW 9800 Pro overclocked
1GB ram DDR 2-3-2-5
Windows XP Pro SP2
Asus a7v8 X-X motherboard

I don't the problems are my specs. In fact I can run the source engine ( the engine on wich the game is running ) at 1152x864 everything high, AA2x AF2x in games like HL2 and CS:S. Maybe the problem might be that the game is poorly coded and not optimised so I was wondering is someone knows a special patch or something I could write in the console ?

Lucita · Post by **Lucita** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 6:04 am

Wellknown problem...The game is a hardcore memory leak after one hour or so. Your specs look good enough to play the game without problems though the All in Wonder ATI chipset might be the main problem. Those motherboard built-in graphic chips are way slower then their AGP or PCIe counterparts.

I have a P4 2.66 GHz, 1 GByte RAM and a Radeon 9600 XT 256 MB RAM graphiccard and still got problems after a while....

XxXSpitfireXxX · Post by **XxXSpitfireXxX** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 1:25 pm

the 9800 AIW pro is not a built-in card, its like a 9800 pro with more stuff. You do video editing with it, plug it in your tv and record, ect. It runs as fast as a normal 9800 pro, its just that it can do more things.

Red Raven · Post by **Red Raven** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 3:49 pm

anyone ellse having probs when you walk around in the city it slows down and skips?

Lucita · Post by **Lucita** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 11:59 am

[QUOTE=XxXSpitfireXxX]the 9800 AIW pro is not a built-in card, its like a 9800 pro with more stuff. You do video editing with it, plug it in your tv and record, ect. It runs as fast as a normal 9800 pro, its just that it can do more things.[/QUOTE]

Oh sorry....Allways thought the AIW cards were the built-in ones....But 128 DDR RAM can be a bit slow nonetheless...

cannon fodder · Post by **cannon fodder** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:38 pm

[QUOTE=XxXSpitfireXxX]I'm running the game on a

AMD Athlon XP 2000+ 1846 mhz
ATI AIW 9800 Pro overclocked
1GB ram DDR 2-3-2-5
Windows XP Pro SP2
Asus a7v8 X-X motherboard

I don't the problems are my specs. In fact I can run the source engine ( the engine on wich the game is running ) at 1152x864 everything high, AA2x AF2x in games like HL2 and CS:S. Maybe the problem might be that the game is poorly coded and not optimised so I was wondering is someone knows a special patch or something I could write in the console ?[/QUOTE]

Your performance problems are just related to the game being incredibly resource hungry (both in terms of graphics card and HD/CPU/RAM) in the "hub" areas, this is due to them being large, high-poly count, with a lot of pixel and particle effects going on.

There are a few things you can do to improve performance more or less in order of importance (they worked for me and I have a very similar PC to yours: AthlonXP 11.5x166 = 1909mhz, 1GB ram @ 2.5-3-3-7 & 333mhz, 128mb 9800pro clocked to 415core/365ram - recently upgraded to GF6800GT but my advice still applies).

1. 1024x768, no more than 2xAA (none will be quicker - but is ugly) turn off bump mapping, and particle effects in the options->graphics/visual tabs, reduce the geometric complexity slider to about 60 - 70%, set shadows to "simple" or "none". This should give a c.10fps boost in the visually "busy" areas of the hubs - like outside Asylum in Santa Monica. Downgrading the graphics further won't serve much purpose, as beyond this point the game becomes CPU/RAM/HD speed/access times bound.

2. This game during normal play easily uses 750mb RAM, 1.0 - 1.5GB pagefile, and shows 95 - 100% CPU utilisation. (I have two monitors so ran taskmanager with the performance tab showing on my secong monitor while playing). This suggests a few things:

2.i) (I'm pretty sure you'll already be doing this but I'll say it anyway) make sure your RAM clock and FSB clocks are in 1:1 sync.

2.ii) Kill all background applications and other unecessary RAM bloat before you start playing. i.e. disconnect from internet/network, kill messenger, firewall, and antivirus before starting play - this could free approx 150 - 200MB RAM. (also use start->run->msconfig and/or services.msc to stop alot of the useless crap loading in the first place)

2.iii) Use one of the tools listed in http://www.gamebanshee.com/forums/showt ... hp?t=53829 to unpack your .vpk files - this will save the time needed during loading for the system to uncompress them to get the files it needs.

2.iv) If possible have the game and your pagefile (giving your pagefile it's own 4096MB partition isn't a bad idea either as it prevents fragmentation) on a separate hard disks on separate IDE channels (SATA would be even better).

Thief · Post by **Thief** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 3:23 pm

[QUOTE=Red Raven]anyone ellse having probs when you walk around in the city it slows down and skips?[/QUOTE]
Yep. Older video card was part of it though. If you can deal with the random glitching and very horrible fps, then more power to you. It took me a while and a number of headaches to get through it like that though...

Celacena · Post by **Celacena** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 3:54 am

split-screen video

playing VtM over the last few days and the screen now splits horizontally so that the very top of the screen is displayed underneath what should be the bottom of the screen - I can handle the distraction in the short term, but what is likely to be my problem?
I can't remember how I solved that problem in ages past, so advice would be appreciated.

Welsh Al · Post by **Welsh Al** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:30 pm

Hello.
I was having huge slowdown issues, then i realised that i hadn't installed manufacturer's motherboard drivers. One short installation later, and i was flying.
Updating drivers; sometimes it really is the answer.