Horrible FPS - Please Help!

DearChelsey - Raging Tide
DearChelsey - Raging Tide Posts: 29 Arc User
edited May 2011 in Support Desk
My problem has been going on since January of this year, note that the game ran perfectly fine (on full graphics) for the first year I had my computer. Now the game has 1-3 FPS at all times, cities, dungeons, and unpopulated areas alike. I've basically done everything to fix this, I even submitted a ticket and posted a thread about it already. But because I still haven't solved the problem, here I am.

Here's my computer information, and according to people who have tried to help me in the past, this is quite enough to run the game on full graphics with plenty of FPS. Which was the case before this year came around.

Windows 7 Home Premium
Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard Company
Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II x4 820 Processor 2.80GHz
Installed memory (RAM): 8.00 Gb (7.75 Gb usable)
System type: 64-bit Operating System
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Post edited by DearChelsey - Raging Tide on

Comments

  • Yukkuri - Heavens Tear
    Yukkuri - Heavens Tear Posts: 624 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    The game's engine is showing it's age. It is not your computer.

    (a search on FPS should yield similar threads)
    [sigpic][/sigpic]LOVE
    Information: It is proven that the majority of the Perfect World International player base suffers from "Motorcylophobia".

    -Every single patch to an MMO causes players to cry: "They Changed It, Now It Sucks". Every. Single. Patch. -Taken from TV Tropes.
  • DearChelsey - Raging Tide
    DearChelsey - Raging Tide Posts: 29 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    So basically the game is getting too old for my computer to run it properly? I don't understand why it is only my computer having this problem since I know there are plenty of other people with new computers playing PWI with no issues, and certainly no one I have come across with the same issue as me. Is there a solution for this? If this truly is the case.
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    Thank you Silvy for my signature. b:cute
  • Yukkuri - Heavens Tear
    Yukkuri - Heavens Tear Posts: 624 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1031101

    Some people discussing this same issue 2 months ago.

    And while I couldn't find the specific post I was looking for, I found this from last year:
    One pattern I am noticing is because PWI is a single core game, some newer CPUs, the way they handle "older" single core applications isn't always the best, or they do some types of emulation process which can slow the game down.

    The older PWE games on the first version of the Angelica engine may have some more hiccups in the future if they aren't multi-threaded for multiple CPU cores. So it isn't that the game is getting to be too super tech heavy on features, it is that technology for single core stuff is being left behind by CPU manufacturers and the older engine isn't optimized for multiple cores. AMD CPUs have this issue more then Intel on the players I help.

    The Terrain setting in game has been making some noise, where if people turn it all the way off, the framerate jumps back up to normal, this is even on awesome systems. It may not look as pretty, but it works for many players.
    [sigpic][/sigpic]LOVE
    Information: It is proven that the majority of the Perfect World International player base suffers from "Motorcylophobia".

    -Every single patch to an MMO causes players to cry: "They Changed It, Now It Sucks". Every. Single. Patch. -Taken from TV Tropes.
  • SugarPrinces - Sanctuary
    SugarPrinces - Sanctuary Posts: 464 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    My problem has been going on since January of this year, note that the game ran perfectly fine (on full graphics) for the first year I had my computer. Now the game has 1-3 FPS at all times, cities, dungeons, and unpopulated areas alike. I've basically done everything to fix this, I even submitted a ticket and posted a thread about it already. But because I still haven't solved the problem, here I am.

    Here's my computer information, and according to people who have tried to help me in the past, this is quite enough to run the game on full graphics with plenty of FPS. Which was the case before this year came around.

    Windows 7 Home Premium
    Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard Company
    Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II x4 820 Processor 2.80GHz
    Installed memory (RAM): 8.00 Gb (7.75 Gb usable)
    System type: 64-bit Operating System

    i just posted a solution in a similar thread.

    also, since you're multi-core, after loading the client and logging in, bring up task manager and find elementclient.exe in the list and right-click > set affinity and pick only one cpu of the 4 (doesnt matter which one)
  • DearChelsey - Raging Tide
    DearChelsey - Raging Tide Posts: 29 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    I submitted another ticket with PWE and this time they said try turning off water and terrain, rolling back my display drivers, and using the verify on the game launcher. I did all of this, nothing helped. Also, since this problem started occurring I've been running the game in 'best performance' so the water and terrain wouldn't be affecting my FPS anyways. I also tried setting the affinity to use only one CPU and this didn't seem to make a difference either. Thanks for the solutions though.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Thank you Silvy for my signature. b:cute
  • SugarPrinces - Sanctuary
    SugarPrinces - Sanctuary Posts: 464 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    the 7.75 usable of 8.0 gb (and lack of video card info) tells me, onboard graphics, 256mb reserved for video, tho since i dont know where you pulled your specs info from i cant be positive, but if it is the case, take note that
    a) onboard graphics reeeeeally blows, ran with just onboard myself for quite a while, was good enough for windows special effects, but not so much for games or even full-screen HD video. since it actually uses a good chunk of your cpu for the gpu rendering
    b) 256mb video ram really isnt enough for anything since oh, say, quake 3.. game will be caching textures on&off disk like crazy.
    c) shared video ram will actually eat up your ram as it requires more for video, programs running in the background will actually slow down whatever is being rendered (especially messengers, dunno why but they love to hog cpu cycles)

    if you're using onboard, try your best to get a new card asap, 1gb video ram or higher preferably, windows 7 will love you more that way (its aero effects alone require 256mb vidram) in the meantime, find elementclient.exe in your pwi folder, bring up a properties box on that and in the compatibility tab, check off for disable themes and disable desktop composition, which will switch your windows to "classic" mode while the game is running and probably give you a nice boost in speed.
  • ArrowOHeaven - Lost City
    ArrowOHeaven - Lost City Posts: 132 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    DIE! I SAID DIE!
  • DearChelsey - Raging Tide
    DearChelsey - Raging Tide Posts: 29 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    the 7.75 usable of 8.0 gb (and lack of video card info) tells me, onboard graphics, 256mb reserved for video, tho since i dont know where you pulled your specs info from i cant be positive, but if it is the case, take note that
    a) onboard graphics reeeeeally blows, ran with just onboard myself for quite a while, was good enough for windows special effects, but not so much for games or even full-screen HD video. since it actually uses a good chunk of your cpu for the gpu rendering
    b) 256mb video ram really isnt enough for anything since oh, say, quake 3.. game will be caching textures on&off disk like crazy.
    c) shared video ram will actually eat up your ram as it requires more for video, programs running in the background will actually slow down whatever is being rendered (especially messengers, dunno why but they love to hog cpu cycles)

    if you're using onboard, try your best to get a new card asap, 1gb video ram or higher preferably, windows 7 will love you more that way (its aero effects alone require 256mb vidram) in the meantime, find elementclient.exe in your pwi folder, bring up a properties box on that and in the compatibility tab, check off for disable themes and disable desktop composition, which will switch your windows to "classic" mode while the game is running and probably give you a nice boost in speed.

    The information is coming from Control Panel\System and Security\System

    Here is the display information (coming from dxdiag):

    Name: NVIDIA GeForce 9100
    Manufacturer: NVIDIA
    Chip Type: GeForce 9100
    DAC Type: Integrated RAMDAC
    Approx. Total Memory: 3815 MB

    As far as changing the properties of elementclient.exe, I've tried using compatibility mode, using only one CPU processor, running in administrator, disabling themes, disabling desktop composition, and nothing boosts my speed, so...
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Thank you Silvy for my signature. b:cute
  • CroPsy - Heavens Tear
    CroPsy - Heavens Tear Posts: 476 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    U have integrated graphics card, a bad one :(
    Newer AMD/ATI integrated graphics are better (HD3200/3300 and 4250/4290).

    You need to get better discrete GPU b:victory
  • Lesthar - Heavens Tear
    Lesthar - Heavens Tear Posts: 3,045 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    I've installed AMD dual core optimizer for my Athlon X2 (gotten it from the firm itself), but I wonder if it really brings something good to the game.
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  • SugarPrinces - Sanctuary
    SugarPrinces - Sanctuary Posts: 464 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    I've installed AMD dual core optimizer for my Athlon X2 (gotten it from the firm itself), but I wonder if it really brings something good to the game.

    Depends on your OS, vista and higher have decent enough multi-core optimazation features, XP however does not as it was written for single core machines, regardless of that however, the game itself is designed for single core cpus.. there used to be a patch somewhere in the forums for a permanent affinity fix to launch on only one cpu which, in my experience, does improve game speed a bit.
    The information is coming from Control Panel\System and Security\System

    Here is the display information (coming from dxdiag):

    Name: NVIDIA GeForce 9100
    Manufacturer: NVIDIA
    Chip Type: GeForce 9100
    DAC Type: Integrated RAMDAC
    Approx. Total Memory: 3815 MB

    As far as changing the properties of elementclient.exe, I've tried using compatibility mode, using only one CPU processor, running in administrator, disabling themes, disabling desktop composition, and nothing boosts my speed, so...

    Yeah integrated/onboard, also the lowest of the video card food chain at that, thats your issue with bad fps there.. u can try dropping resolution down to about 800x600 as well as what you've mentioned you've already done but you're unlikely to get much over 15fps, that chipset just doesnt have the speed for it (processor and ram speeds are directly linked to your system's cpu and ram speed and are unchangeable even with an overclocker) i have the same onboard in my foxcon board, worked ok for a while but was slow as molasses, actually got a better framerate out of an old ATI radeon 128mb PCI card i stuck in for my dual screens. you can make your game *appear* smoother by upping, in the nvidia control panel, the pre-rendered frames, at the cost of input lag however, so it'll be a matter of playin with the different values to see what you're comfortable with. thankfully PWI isnt a time-critical game as much as say, a first person shooter or arcade fighting game, so if it takes a half-second for it to register you've clicked/pressed a skill, yer not gonna wipe the party ;). check out your local computer stores, preferably the little independant ones, i picked up my nvidia 9400gt for about $25 used and believe me, it was a HUGE improvement over the onboard, even at the lowest settings everything in pwi looks better
  • DearChelsey - Raging Tide
    DearChelsey - Raging Tide Posts: 29 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    U have integrated graphics card, a bad one :(
    Newer AMD/ATI integrated graphics are better (HD3200/3300 and 4250/4290).

    You need to get better discrete GPU b:victory

    Exactly how is it bad? And it's only 1 & 1/2 years old so I don't know why I would need an even newer one.

    What do you mean discrete GPU?
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Thank you Silvy for my signature. b:cute
  • DearChelsey - Raging Tide
    DearChelsey - Raging Tide Posts: 29 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    Yeah integrated/onboard, also the lowest of the video card food chain at that, thats your issue with bad fps there.. u can try dropping resolution down to about 800x600 as well as what you've mentioned you've already done but you're unlikely to get much over 15fps, that chipset just doesnt have the speed for it (processor and ram speeds are directly linked to your system's cpu and ram speed and are unchangeable even with an overclocker) i have the same onboard in my foxcon board, worked ok for a while but was slow as molasses, actually got a better framerate out of an old ATI radeon 128mb PCI card i stuck in for my dual screens. you can make your game *appear* smoother by upping, in the nvidia control panel, the pre-rendered frames, at the cost of input lag however, so it'll be a matter of playin with the different values to see what you're comfortable with. thankfully PWI isnt a time-critical game as much as say, a first person shooter or arcade fighting game, so if it takes a half-second for it to register you've clicked/pressed a skill, yer not gonna wipe the party ;). check out your local computer stores, preferably the little independant ones, i picked up my nvidia 9400gt for about $25 used and believe me, it was a HUGE improvement over the onboard, even at the lowest settings everything in pwi looks better


    Okay so what if I say that I cleaned the inside of my computer and now my game runs at 40-60 FPS.

    ...I do feel stupid though, if this really was the fixer.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Thank you Silvy for my signature. b:cute
  • Lainnie - Raging Tide
    Lainnie - Raging Tide Posts: 111 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    Exactly how is it bad? And it's only 1 & 1/2 years old so I don't know why I would need an even newer one.

    What do you mean discrete GPU?

    Stands for standalone Graphics Processing Unit, one of those video cards that say ATi or Nvidia in a electronics store, you better off with one since it has its own RAM so it never uses your computer's RAM and it has better performance than the one built in on the motherboard, some games benefit better on standalone than intergraded so there is some cheap ones on sale from the Geforce 400 series and Radeon 5K series for desktops, higher series than those are more costly depending on their performance.