Performance! Memory leak?

[Ruds]

I don't know if I'm the only one with a great system, well above minimum requirements, and even exceeding system recommendations, that's having horrible choppiness, slowdowns, sound loops, 5-6 minute load times (absolutely zero exagguration), etc.

After about 45 minutes of playing, it's gotten so laggy that I have to restart my computer. I also tried bumping up my virtual memory since I'd seem that others had some luck with that from some other forums. It didn't work at all. I also tried defragging both of my hard drives - again to no avail.

Any ideas?? I'm running on the LOWEST video/visual settings possible!

Specs:
Pentium 4, 2.6ghz with hyperthreading
512 RAM
nvidia geforce 4, 64 meg and the latest drivers

[Gibrak]

My performance is sucky too and I'm in the same boat systemwise. Actually this is the worst game I've ever played as far as that goes. Maybe a code problem. When was the last time you defragged?

[Gibrak]

Sorry, missed where you defragged. How is your hard drive memory? I'm on my slave which has 31G left and it still sucks.

[Bakunin]

I went out and bought another 512 MB of RAM...if your willing to burn 50+ bucks it may help you out...I dunno...although your comp stats are pretty close to mine before the memory upgrade and I didn't have 5 minute load times...some choppiness and lousy sound, but I could tolerate it enough to play the game...you may want to shut down any "background" programs you have running...

[Sheallaidh]

I am having these problems.

My spec:

2.53 ghz P4
512mb RAM
GeForce FX 5900 GFX

Anyone have any idea how to resolve this?

[Sheallaidh]

The problem is RAM.

512mb is not really enough to run this game, I bought an extra 512mb stick and now the game runs perfectly, even with all settings on high.

[tank29]

As I posted in another post, I found somewhere else, that choppiness at least, can possibly be solved by increasing your page file size (please note the video problems incurred when doing this in the original post http://www.gamebanshee.com/forums/sh...95&postcount=2). I still get some stuttering music, but if I'm remembering right, the load times have decreased a bit (they weren't all that bad to begin with though).

[Maxinion]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheallaidh I am having these problems. My spec: 2.53 ghz P4 512mb RAM GeForce FX 5900 GFX Anyone have any idea how to resolve this?

Keep in mind, Bloodlines uses the Source Engine. Do you know how absolutely *terrible* the Geforce 5 series is in the Source Engine? REALLY TERRIBLE. Now, I'm not positive that this graphics card weakness carried over to Bloodlines (would be amusing, after all, this game The Way Its Meant to Be Played is with Nvidia cards...), but that could be it.

On a similar note, but brand new (top of the line) computer does get some stuttering in cities, but load times are about 30 seconds at most (and rarely at that). I'm only running 1 gb of RAM, so I doubt that that would be the difference between your 5 minutes and my 30 seconds.

And as for the original poster-- a Geforce 4 isn't even a DirectX 9 card (I thought that was needed for Vampire? Maybe not). That's really cutting some corners on this type of game. I wouldn't be suprised if a lot of your frame rate issues, at least, had to do with your graphics card.

[Sheallaidh]

Well my load times are now 10-20 seconds, with full graphics acceleration, all options turned up full. All down to doubling my RAM from 512 to 1024.

As an avid Counter-Strike player I naturally had Half-Life 2 pre-ordered via Steam, I completed the game the same day it was released and with full graphical settings I never once notice a single bit of lag or choppiness.

In addition, I have been playing CS: Source for some time, running off the same HL2 engine, with no problems, and an FPS of around 100 at all times.

I have a GeForce FX 5900, which up until very recently (new 6 series card) was the top of the line Nvidia card (only marginally less powerful than the FX 5950), and my processor speed is double the minimum syetm requirement.

Since getting the new ram I have conducted various tests, including running two different performance monitoring tools alongside the game. I have concluded, quite conclusively, that it was absolutely, definately, down the the game requiring more RAM than the system had to give it. For example, when it is raining in a large area, such as Santa Monica, if you make the system work as hard as you can - buy jumping around with level 5 celerity on, the game peaks at using 768mb of ram. Half again as much as I had previously, and DOUBLE the documented minimum system requirement.

[Maxinion]

In addition, it was mentioned somewhere that increasing your page file size helps. Indeed, it does! I moved mine from about 1 gb to around 4, and rainy scenes in Santa Monica are MUCH improved... much less stutter, and much smoother overall.

[Sheallaidh]

Quote:

And as for the original poster-- a Geforce 4 isn't even a DirectX 9 card (I thought that was needed for Vampire? Maybe not). That's really cutting some corners on this type of game. I wouldn't be suprised if a lot of your frame rate issues, at least, had to do with your graphics card.

I know people running the game on GeForce 4 cards perfectly well. The amount of RAM, the Page File size and the processor are more important factors in whether or not you can run this game.

The minimum system requirement is a 64mb card, it doesn't specify it has to be ATI, and it doesn't specify it has to be any particular series of GeForce.

Whatever your bias against Nvidia is reflected by your poor advice

[Maxinion]

Where do I get my info? I clearly stated that I was relying on HL2 info only, because Nvidia 5 series cards have trouble with that engine. Need proof? Anandtech HL2 Benchmarks Go read that. Also, I actually run a Nvidia 6800 of my own, so I have no bias against Nvidia. All I'm saying with respect to the Geforce 4 is that old tech sometimes gets crap performance. If in fact others do run it fine, than I'm sorry, it was just a supposition. This is a forum, where people are supposed to throw around ideas, fallacious as they may be. I'm merely trying to help the original poster out by giving them something to think about.

[Sheallaidh]

A much better post, now you sound more like you know what you're talking about, rather than just tagging comments in a similar vein to sound "in the know" (something that irritates me on my forums).

I've already read that article, and considered it, but I have always had this weird compulsion to only put Nvidia GFX cards in Intel systems, and only put Radeon in AMD systems. Since I currently have an Intel system I have GeForce for now.

For a long time, new games pushed the limits of hardware to the max, but in recent times this has dropped off as the system development has rapidly outstretched the game development. Only the very latest set of "next generation" games is actually beginning to use the massive power of the latest PCs - so it came as quite a shock to me to realise that it was in fact my system RAM that was insufficient, rather than my GFX or processor. It has been a very long time indeed since I've had to upgrade my system to play a new game! It sounds daft, but it's something I like, because it makes me feel as if progress is being made!

To be fair, the graphics on the HL2 engine are awe inspiring, and again it's some time since a new engine or title has provoked this feeling of "wow".

I read Anandtech as well as various other review/comparison sites regularly and I still maintain that the benchmarks they offer are only a cursory basis for comparison, on the grounds that at normal resolutions and game settings there is little or no difference in card capability between GeForce and Radeon.

I mean honestly, who plays a game at 1600x1200??!

I am not sure if you are into online competative gaming, but in most cases even people with the absolute cremde-de-la-creme of systems still tend to turn all the fancy graphics right down as low as possible to get the maximum performance for competativeness, so again, the bells and whistles that are at the core of Anandtech benchmarks are largely irrelevant. Most people I know even go so far as to disable Anti Aliasing, Vertical Synch and Antisotropic filtering, as well as reducing image quality as low as it goes.

With that said, from personal experience only, with full graphical acceleration and options turned on, I have never noticed a single problem with Half-Life 2 or any of the games with the HL2 engine. Up until VTM:Bloodlines of course, but even then, once I upped my system ram I can play the game perfectly with not the slightest glitch and all settings turned up full.

If I increased my resolution from 1024x768 to something silly I might notice a difference but, as I said before, who really plays at those insane resolutions?!

[vesselle]

another thing that seems to be helping some gamers, all over the dilapidation site forums (which appears to be the kinda default "official" forum currently with lots of appearances by the game devs) is adding a HL2 command to your game's shortcut.

512 mb RAM: -heapsize 256000 OR -heapsize 384000
1024 mb RAM: -heapsize 512000

increasing page file has certainly helped, but it's a matter of finding the right amount. mine, at 3500, is now nearly stutterless.

current solutions thread, that may or may not help

the HL2 stuttering fix, which has been more or less found to be a source engine problem, was just released by Valve. we're hoping that one for VtmB will be coming soon. anyways, word of advice, if you go visit dilapidation, please be easy on the site, it's been slammed recently because of the game and the forums may be finicky about loading.


V***V

[Ruds]

Thanks a lot to all of you for the help. My free hard drive space is around 13 gigs, but my virtual memory is only set to 4, so there shouldn't be any problems.

As it stands, I think I'm due for upgrading my video card and getting some more RAM. I've found that you can never have too much RAM.

I'll also try that -heapsize in the command line.

If anyone sees a source stutter fix for VtM:B, post it! Thanks for the tips guys.