Gothic III: tried it yet?

[DesR85]

Time for me to update my progress on playing the demo. I just realised that after two hours playing the game, it hanged on my system. Could be either a memory leak or it could be the result of having only 512MB RAM. I suspect the latter, though I'm not so sure. To be honest, this is the first game I've played that stated 512MB RAM as minimum to play ever caused problems on my system. Games like Company of Heroes, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and a few others have not caused any problems whatsoever on my system even though it met the minimum system requirements of 512MB RAM. Sounds like Gothic 3 wasn't optimised properly yet.

About the combat system, it does look a bit like a click fest but it actually isn't, at least to me. No matter how many times you hit that enemy, he will still find a way to penetrate through your flurry of attacks. So, best strategy for me is to run around and unleash a few hits before running around again (As for tougher enemies, I just lead them back to a place where rebels hang out and let them deal with it ).

The loading is kind of slow, to be honest, thanks to my 512MB RAM. Not to mention that I encountered quite a lot of stuttering problems on my part here. As for graphics, it's good, though not optimised properly for performance. Considering that Gothic 3 even have problems running on high-end rigs, this is surprising even to me. I put quite a lot of graphics options to medium and it ran fine for me, though I do encounter some slow downs when engaged in a battle involving a few enemies or when running in a forest.

I'm not going to give a score here as I'm just playing the demo version of the game.

[C-K'R[PhoEniX]]

Wow, sounds like it's actually playable on your system. My system also has 512 MB RAM and it's unplayable even on low settings (graphic card GeForce 6800GT 256 MB, AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 2.0Ghz). Ashen also says it runs fine on his system. Why is it so slow on mine ? My computer runs all the other games fine, even Oblivion.

[Celos]

The music is awesome. I can't believe you don't like the music.
Also, combat is OK. Not the greatest way of implementing mob AI, but it could have been so much more worse. Also, the boar stun is removed in 1.08.

Basically, doing the "can't catch me" cha-cha as you so eloquently put it, is pretty much why people are nagging on the game all the time. What they don't realize is that the game isn't meant to be a click-fest. If you just exercise a little patience and strike at the right time, you don't waste any endurance at all, get some good damage and are free to strike again almost immediately. If you just click frantically, mobs will back away and then pounce on you, which will end in death. Also, when you click a lot, you'll do a few strikes after finishing clicking, which can also lead to some very violent deaths (another mob attacks and you aren't free to defend yourself).

Try it in god mode a few times. Just strike when the animal is trying to attack and figure out which is the right attack to use (right-mouse for fast, left for more damage). It makes the combat a lot more fun.

Fighting humans/humanoids is way too easy though. I just don't even bother using any tactics when fighting orcs. I just run in the middle of a camp and start twirling my blades. They'll die pretty quick.

[DesR85]

Originally Posted by C-K'R[PhoEniX]

Wow, sounds like it's actually playable on your system. My system also has 512 MB RAM and it's unplayable even on low settings (graphic card GeForce 6800GT 256 MB, AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 2.0Ghz). Ashen also says it runs fine on his system. Why is it so slow on mine ? My computer runs all the other games fine, even Oblivion.

What I did was to switch post processing all the way to off. Shadows go to low and the rest of the settings I set to medium. I can't believe that I have to select custom in order to bring up another menu to adjust the additional graphics options. Can't Piranha Bytes at least put both the graphics bar (the one with high, medium, low and custom) and the additional graphics options within the same page? At least players won't overlook the additional graphics options when they want to do further tweaks. I almost missed it the first time I played the Gothic 3 demo.

Oh, I almost forgot something. I was looking around at different places about my problem and found that it has something to do with saving the game. From what I read at the World of Gothic forum, the players mentioned that if you save the game, a memory leak will occur up till a point that it will freeze your game. I think that is most likely what is causing my game to freeze up.

Originally Posted by Celos

Basically, doing the "can't catch me" cha-cha as you so eloquently put it, is pretty much why people are nagging on the game all the time. What they don't realize is that the game isn't meant to be a click-fest. If you just exercise a little patience and strike at the right time, you don't waste any endurance at all, get some good damage and are free to strike again almost immediately. If you just click frantically, mobs will back away and then pounce on you, which will end in death. Also, when you click a lot, you'll do a few strikes after finishing clicking, which can also lead to some very violent deaths (another mob attacks and you aren't free to defend yourself).

I found that out as well. Maybe I'd better change my fighting tactics. Never jumped around a lot as this guy jump unnaturally high for a game character (no game character I know ever jumped as high as this unnamed hero, with the exception of Mario and Luigi).

[blueray]

Originally Posted by Celos

The music is awesome. I can't believe you don't like the music.
(...snipped...)
Try it in god mode a few times. Just strike when the animal is trying to attack and figure out which is the right attack to use (right-mouse for fast, left for more damage). It makes the combat a lot more fun.

Fighting humans/humanoids is way too easy though. I just don't even bother using any tactics when fighting orcs. I just run in the middle of a camp and start twirling my blades. They'll die pretty quick.

Well, good for you that you like the music. I don't really hate the music, but just think that the composer/writer(?) did not really considered the possible of mix up with a battle music (or triggering a false alarm of battle)

as for the battle timing, yeah, I noticed that too while in god mode. I may consider releasing from god mode once I mastered the timing. Another bad example of test players relying on god mode to do their job. Using god mode is the reason they didn't catch the stun bug.

Humanoids are really too easy. With Orc Slayer and a Bastard Sword (I had 216 STR), almost all orcs died in 1 hit.

Will check the new patch.

[blueray]

Originally Posted by C-K'R[PhoEniX]

Wow, sounds like it's actually playable on your system. My system also has 512 MB RAM and it's unplayable even on low settings (graphic card GeForce 6800GT 256 MB, AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 2.0Ghz). Ashen also says it runs fine on his system. Why is it so slow on mine ? My computer runs all the other games fine, even Oblivion.

512MB is definitely below the minimum (they specifically asked for 1GB as the minimum). However, try this .INI file tweak if you haven't aready:

the best and optimal settings for 1GB PCs on "medium" <-- here ! [Archiv] - JoWooD Forum

I have a 1.2GB system, and is running at acceptable frame rate after the tweak. I don't know how well it will help for 512MB system, but worth a try.

[DesR85]

Originally Posted by blueray

512MB is definitely below the minimum (they specifically asked for 1GB as the minimum). However, try this .INI file tweak if you haven't aready:

the best and optimal settings for 1GB PCs on "medium" <-- here ! [Archiv] - JoWooD Forum

I have a 1.2GB system, and is running at acceptable frame rate after the tweak. I don't know how well it will help for 512MB system, but worth a try.

Erm, I went to Aspyr's website a while back and they mentioned specifically that 512MB is the minimum and the recommended is 1GB (link). However, I do agree that 1GB is recommended for this game. About that tweak, I am slightly wary about tinkering with the .ini file. Afraid that it might cause problems.

[blueray]

what I read from the gothic 3 readme file is, the minimum is 1GB and recommended is 2GB. I was cursing the developer when I red about that, as I only have 768MB back then. Even with 768MB, the game is unplayable at all low. frame rate at single digit.

Now with 1.2GB and the.INI tweak, the game is more playable, with medium, and even though I turned off shadow, there is still shadow showing when I am holding a torch...yet the frame rate still remain at 1x~2x fps. The game is only barely playable at low without the tweak at 1.2GB.

I applied the tweak, and the only effect it has on my system is, G3 is running at an acceptable frame rate (see above) with medium setting, with some eye candy enabled (I turned off vegetation, resource cache and shadow from the medium setting)

My spec: A64 3000+, 1.2GB DDR400, 2x 40GB MAxtor Diamond Max 9 7200rpm in RAID 0, R9600XT 128MB. The game still stutter badly in town, and occasionally in the wilderness.

[Celos]

1,2 GB would mean that you're running two 512MB sticks and one 256MB stick? I suggest removing the 256MB stick as it might hinder the performance by preventing the other two sticks from running in dual mode etc. if you remove the 256 stick, you might see a performance increase

[blueray]

It is running in dual channel mode. The POST used to report "Dual Channel Disabled" before I added the other 512MB. All the modules are DDR400 CL2.5, so I don't see any problem there. The dual channel mode will activate as long as I have 2 identical modules (or downgrade one to match the other) plugged in the DIMM1 and DIMM2, the 3rd DIMM just act as an extra bank of memory.

[DesR85]

I've heard quite a lot of complaints about the fighting against animals such as boars and what not. Well, the stun bug wasn't present in the demo but the problem is that they (all animals) still have that machine-gun speed attack. I managed to deal with those idiots by using a long weapon such as a spear but I sincerely do wish that there will be a patch to somehow make those animals fight at the same pace as a regular rebel/orc.

[Lady Dragonfly]

Guys, the game eats up a lot of RAM, let's face it. I have Athlon 64x2 dual core processor 4400+ with 4 GB of RAM (2.96 usable) and the game still stutters. I mean I use the highest resolution and everything is flying just fine BUT when the hero runs and the new areas get loaded (which happens all the time) the game freezes for a couple seconds. Otherwise, no problem.

Solution: get RAM. As much as you can afford.

BTW, the learning curve for a starter fight in G3 is 5 seconds.

[DesR85]

Originally Posted by Lady Dragonfly

Guys, the game eats up a lot of RAM, let's face it. I have Athlon 64x2 dual core processor 4400+ with 4 GB of RAM (2.96 usable) and the game still stutters. I mean I use the highest resolution and everything is flying just fine BUT when the hero runs and the new areas get loaded (which happens all the time) the game freezes for a couple seconds. Otherwise, no problem.

Solution: get RAM. As much as you can afford.

It's more like this game still have memory leak issues. I've heard quite a lot of complaints from players in a number of forums I visited, including JoWood's forum as well. I know getting more RAM will considerably help for a game like this but to be honest, the fact that players with 1GB and above even encountered crash problems does make me question the stability of this game.

I sincerely do hope this memory leak issue will be resolved as soon as possible. Even graphically demanding games like Company of Heroes which requires 512MB as minimum and 1GB as recommended can run on my rig fairly fine without any crash problems (there are still stuttering problems when playing the game).

UPDATE: Okay, I recently encountered some graphical glitches when playing the Gothic 3 demo after updating my Nvidia Forceware drivers from 91.47 to 93.71 (My card is Nvidia, by the way). My advice is not to update to 93.71 and just stick to 91.47 version of the driver.

[DesR85]

Originally Posted by DesR85

UPDATE: Okay, I recently encountered some graphical glitches when playing the Gothic 3 demo after updating my Nvidia Forceware drivers from 91.47 to 93.71 (My card is Nvidia, by the way). My advice is not to update to 93.71 and just stick to 91.47 version of the driver.

Okay, scratch that. My mistake. It turned out to be my graphics driver problem. Doing a clean install of it pretty much fixes everything.

I want to do an update on my playing status. After upgrading my computer's memory to 1GB and upgraded my video card to a GALAXY Geforce 6600 (256MB), the game ran much smoother than previously, though there are still noticeable hitching at places (more hitching when entering towns and villages) and my computer froze at one point, forcing a restart. Doesn't feel like it's worth it to upgrade but at least I can play other games much better.