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Possible workaround to improve the horrible framerate in the badlands.

dukedom01dukedom01 Member Posts: 462 Arc User
Someone pointed out to me that the game currently uses a couple physx dlls from 2009 and replacing them with more current versions might improve 'things'.

Three dlls to be specific:
- <yourSTOfolder>/Live/PhysXCooking.dll
- <yourSTOfolder>/Live/PhysXCore.dll
- <yourSTOfolder>/Live/PhysXLoader.dll

So I replaced them with more 'current' ones from my nvidia folder, and had a noticeable fps increase in the badlands.

Obviously it is a PINK FAIRY ARMADILLO to replace them each time I start the launcher so my question is if there is a specific reason the game uses those dlls from 2009?
Ceterum censeo Otha supplendum in praemiis.

Comments

  • trekpuppytrekpuppy Member Posts: 446 Arc User
    I hope this thread doesn't die silently and slowly. As a Linux user running STO with Wine and constantly fighting performance problems I found this info very interesting. Checking my own system I noticed that the above files were not loaded on my system but instead it used the debug versions from the same folder:

    ../Live/PhysX3CookingDEBUG_x86.dll
    ../Live/PhysX3CommonDEBUG_x86.dll
    ../Live/PhysX3DEBUG_x86.dll

    Any particular reason these are used? I assume they will have a performance penalty. The general graphics performance degradation in S11 is very noticeable.

    ---
    "-Grind is good!" --Gordon Geko
    Accolades checklist: https://bit.ly/FLUFFYS
  • zbzznzbzzn Member Posts: 221 Arc User
    dukedom01 wrote: »
    Someone pointed out to me that the game currently uses a couple physx dlls from 2009 and replacing them with more current versions might improve 'things'.

    Three dlls to be specific:
    - <yourSTOfolder>/Live/PhysXCooking.dll
    - <yourSTOfolder>/Live/PhysXCore.dll
    - <yourSTOfolder>/Live/PhysXLoader.dll

    So I replaced them with more 'current' ones from my nvidia folder, and had a noticeable fps increase in the badlands.

    Obviously it is a PINK FAIRY ARMADILLO to replace them each time I start the launcher so my question is if there is a specific reason the game uses those dlls from 2009?

    I seem to recall a similar problem and solution with the version of PhysX used in Mirror's Edge.

    I haven't experienced this issue with STO, but you could create a batch file that deletes those files from the STO directory (which should make the game automatically use the ones installed by the Nvidia driver) or copies over the appropriate files and then launches the game so you don't have to do it manually each time.

  • trek021trek021 Member Posts: 2 Arc User
    Further testing reveals that this is not a videocard issue. Forcing Physx to GPU (570GTX) had no effect on sto. Physx is CPU only for STO.

    So it means the CPU has to do all physx work. On intel CPU's seems to run just fine. Had only a Core2Duo and a Xeon to test this. On maps with alot of movement (grass, debries, these CPU's struggle to keep up with physx).
    On AMD's CPU's tho, the problem is very visible. While dual and quad cores Athlon II struggle to keep up with physx, even with those dll's replaced, FX series (8120, 8150) work well with the 2015 physx files. Even on these FX series there are some stalls, when a lot is displayed onscreen (5-10fps)

    I would pass the work on the GPU not CPU. Almost every nVidia card handles this decently.
    For ATI-AMD, I would go with Mantle to move this from CPU, Or think abit AMD to optimize coding stuff passed to physx>CPU.
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