Performance

AntiChrist · Post by **AntiChrist** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 1:50 pm

I was just wondering if anyone had any tips on improving my performance. From what I've read my computer should be handling it fine. In some areas it runs alright, but it slows down to where it's unplayable in some areas. In the peninsula district when all the prisoners come after me I have literally run and had the game basically stop for like 20 seconds. I died once because of it. Normally I just hit pause and wait for it to smooth out but it's still very annoying. Anyways, I'm on a Dell SmartStep 100N laptop with these specs:

1 Ghz Celeron
128MB RAM
32MB Intel 830 video card (I think it's on-board)
Some built-in Intel sound card

I also have all the effects turned off and I'm running in 800x600. The only thing I can see that's a bit low is the RAM, but I didn't think it would be this big of a deal. I'm going to put another 64MB in it next week anyways. Think that'll help? One other thing, I've got the 1.22 beta patch, but I didn't notice a performance difference between that and anything previous. And one more thing. The videos in between chapters are horribly skippy. I can't even watch them. Both the sound and the video skips. Any ideas what I can do to fix this? And lastly, I also have a desktop machine with these stats:

P3 500Mhz
512MB RAM
64MB Radeon 7800 (I think) DDR
SoundBlaster PCI 128

Which system do you think will run the game better? I don't have access to this machine for another week so I'm wondering if I should just wait and play on that machine or if I should just suffer through this otherwise great game.

Silur · Post by **Silur** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 3:39 pm

Originally posted by AntiChrist
P3 500Mhz
512MB RAM
64MB Radeon 7800 (I think) DDR
SoundBlaster PCI 128

I would think this system to be the better option, although Dell build pretty decent "gaming" laptops. The main issue with laptops is usually bus-speed and disk I/O. The 2.5" disks aren't all that fast. The memory on laptops tend to lag behind one or two generations, so the memory speed could also be an issue.

DaleWind · Post by **DaleWind** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 8:05 pm

I suggest running on the Desktop, since your problem w/ the labtop seem to be pretty bad

I have a Dell destop 550 with 128 RAM and a INTEL CHIP SET video memory (4mb), and a chipset sound card as well. The game runs fine in the dungeons where the area is smaller. It has problems in cities, as the dialogue box text takes forever to appear, but that's far better than not being able to play.

Eriks · Post by **Eriks** » Sun Aug 04, 2002 2:50 am

I have the same problem on a 2.0 Ghz desktop with Geforce3 so...

Izgoth · Post by **Izgoth** » Sun Aug 04, 2002 4:22 am

I have:
1.1ghz TB
256mb SDRAM
GF3 Ti200

Openig chests or boxes always cause a huge chop, the same goes for opening doors. Also just moving can first be smooth and suddenly start chopping like there is no tomorrow. I think there is something wrong with the game, because it runs smoothly about 50% of the time and chops terrribly about 50% of the time. It doesn't matter if it is a large outdoor area, or a small house.

AntiChrist · Post by **AntiChrist** » Sun Aug 04, 2002 11:00 am

Apparently version 1.21 caused some performance problems. On the official boards they've been talking about it and there's some long and complicated ways of fixing it. If it's been choppy since before you installed version 1.21 then there's probably something on your computer causing the problem.