Low FPS in Continuum

[LeRaldo]

Specs:

 

Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional (SP2)

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.4C GHz (Overclocked to 3 GHz), 800MHz FSB, 512KB CACHE

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000-G

Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 997DF 19"

GPU: Sapphire ATi Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB

Memory: Corsair Value Select Dual Channel 1GB (2x512MB) PC-3200 (DDR400)

HDD 1: Western Digital 37GB 10000RPM 8MB Buffer

HDD 2: Western Digital 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Buffer

HDD 3: Western Digital 120GB 7200RPM 2MB Buffer

Connection: Comcast Cable 4.0Mbit/384Kbit

...and some other irrelevant stuff.

 

The problem I am experiencing is low FPS in Continuum. The problem appears to be with the tiles. I get > 100 FPS with no tiles on screen, around 60-70 FPS with a small amount of tiles on screen, and 10-50 FPS with a normal ammount of tiles on screen. Example: Large safezones rape my FPS.

 

I've tried quite a few things to increase my FPS, but not much has helped.

 

I play at 1600x1200 resolution, at 70Hz refresh rate, 32bit color depth. Raising my resolution to 2048x1536 at 60Hz gives me the same exact FPS, as does lowering my resolution to 1280x1024 at 85Hz. When I start to lower my fps to 800x600 is when I start to see an actual increase in FPS.

 

I've tried different color depths (16/8bit), neither increases FPS, and I've tried different refresh rates (for instance, 60Hz at 1600x1200, instead of 70Hz and so forth), no increase there either.

 

I've unchecked everything in the "Graphics" tab of Options, no increase in FPS there either (but I still leave them unchecked cause it's easier to play without them)

 

In Advanced Options, I have "Avoid Page Flipping" and "Disable Clipping" checked, and the others unchecked. This provides a small FPS increase.

 

I've tried to force Tiles into system memory, but that gave no increase so I unchecked it.

 

As for stuff unrelated to Continuum, I'm on the ATI Catalyst 5.7 drivers (latest), no other builds give me any noticable increase or decrease in FPS. I've tried the Omega drivers, no increase/decrease there either. I have the latest drivers for everything else in my system as well.

 

On my old computer, I'm able to get 500 FPS @ 2048x1536 @ 60Hz and 32bit color depth. My old computer is a 1.3GHz Gateway, with 256MB RDRAM on a 5400RPM 20GB HDD, with an nVidia GeForce 3 Ti200 64MB card.

 

With that said, I'm going to take a guess here and say that nVidia graphics cards run Continuum better than ATI cards do, lol.

 

I've been through multiple formats and what-not, game still runs the same. Game runs the same for me on a clean XP install as it does on SP1 and SP2.

 

Any help would be appreciated

 

EDIT: I forgot to mention, I'm not really trying to get 100+ FPS or anything, I just want to have at least a solid FPS equal to my refresh rate (which would be 70, at 1600x1200)

[Paine]

Menu screen: View -> Advanced options

 

check "Avoid page flipping" and "No framerate limit".

 

Silly, not clipping

 

Don't know what the big deal is anyway, the human eye can only see speeds of around 16 fps.

[LeRaldo]

Menu screen: View -> Advanced options

 

check "Avoid page flipping" and "No framerate limit".

 

Silly, not clipping

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

As I had previously mentioned, "Avoid Page Flipping" is already checked. Having "No Framerate Limit" checked or unchecked does not stable my FPS, and it makes no difference wether it's on or off in this situation.

 

Don't know what the big deal is anyway, the human eye can only see speeds of around 16 fps.

And you're wrong, that rule doesn't apply to seeing things on a monitor screen.

[»i88gerbils]

software emulation?

[LeRaldo]

software emulation?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Tried it, just gives me (much) lower FPS.

[»SOS]

Very strange. Since you know enough to list the specs, I assume you have the latest drivers, yes?

You can try turning VSync off, it might help.

Try killing off any background programs - maybe some of them is doing something nasty.

 

And can totally confirm the nVidia > ATI thing... I miss my GeForce

[X`terrania]

I can bet you $1000 dollars that my computer is worse then yours. Yet mine can handle tiles, I can't really help you, but if you fix this problem and you begin to notice it again WHILE you play music on the computer, I recommend using Winamp 2.95, greatest version ever and you can simply minimize it into your icon tray.

[»Blocks]

Weird. I've had some FPS issues on my 900 mhz AMD Athlon with some cruddy graphics card I know nothing about, but I get 60+ in normal gameplay in 1024x768, 16 bit colors, windowed. If you're playing in windowed, you'll get higher FPS in fullscreen, but still with that computer, you should be having no problems.

 

Yeah Paine is wrong. This is something I've been wondering about for awhile, so I looked it up on Wikipedia, go down to the last paragraph on "Frame rates in video gaming."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frames_per_second

[Bargeld]

Since we are on the topic of frame rate and human vision, I will share what I know.

 

1) The human eye interprets constant motion down to 12 fps. Anything lower than that stands out as 'odd'

 

2) It's not the low frame rate (at 25 or 30 fps) that the brain has problems interpreting. It's the inconsistancy of it. It's the fact that games are rendered in real time, and the frame rates are constantly changing based on what is on screen. Basically you will have the same problem if your frame rate is jumping from 90 to 45 as you would if you were jumping from 45 to 30.

 

3) The basis of the above statement comes from the fact that film (in the theater) is at 24 fps. Television is broadcast at 29.97 fps (in the US) and at 25 fps in Europe. There are no problems with the brain interpreting it because it is a constant frame rate... there are no fluctuations, and therefore your brain never has a problem with it.

 

I don't want to get into interlacing and frame doubling, so lets just leave it at that.

 

As far as the problem which began this post... there IS a solution. Try older drivers. Try control-alt-del and kill every process that is not a critical system process. Check check check. There is a culprit somewhere, and I seriously doubt it is the fault of that specific card or the game or SP2.

 

References:

 

http://amo.net/NT/02-21-01FPS.html

http://www.macintouch.com/framerates.html

[LeRaldo]

Sorry for the late reply, wasn't getting an email notification that there were responses so I didn't think there were any heh.

 

I've tried older drivers before. I started using my ATI card since the 3.6 Catalyst drivers I believe, maybe a little earlier, and I've had the problem all the way through the latest 5.7 drivers. I've tried the Omega ATI drivers (unofficial "tweaked" drivers) and this hasn't helped either.

 

I have all the latest drivers for everything else in my system as well.

 

Also, I still have the problem even on a clean install of Windows XP. Meaning, after reformatting, installing XP, and installing the necessary drivers (No applications or anything), Continuum still gives me these issues.

 

I've also tried ending unnecessary processes (there aren't many running in the first place) but that doesn't help either.

 

Anyways, I've ran the game on my friends system a few years ago (he had a 9800XT) and it appeared he had the same problem, so while there's no proof it has anything to do with ATI, I have a strong feeling that this problem exists, at least with the 9800 cards.

 

SOS: yeah I better know the specs since I purchased it and built it hehe but yeah, I've turned vertical sync on and off, no help there. Also, in my personal opinion, nVidia > ATI only for subsapce haha, otherwise ATI > nVidia for any of the latest games

[candygirl]

You may have a bad graphics card? Do you still have a warrantiy on your PC or Graphics card? If so take it back and try a new one.

[LeRaldo]

You may have a bad graphics card? Do you still have a warrantiy on your PC or Graphics card? If so take it back and try a new one.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'm 100% sure I do not have malfunctioning hardware.

[Guest Guest]

I am experiencing exactly the same problems on an AGP RADEON 9250 128MB—just got it a few days ago and was</I> excited about how it would work with most things I was interested in.

[protoman.exe]

err , put your color depth back to 8 and your set.

[LeRaldo]

err , put your color depth back to 8 and your set.

 

lol. no.

[Silense]

i get the same problem but im on nVidia

 

Specs

Intel Pentium 4 3.6 GHZ

512 MB DDR

NvIDIA GeForce FX 5500 256 MB

17" Monitor

 

i run ss in 1280 x 1024 and get really low fps and dunno why i even get more in counter strike source