Tweaking 0.5 for underpowered computers

[Rigwyn]

Thought it might be a good idea for have a post for how to get the 0.5 client to work on machines that do not meet the minimum requirements. I for one have a machine that isn't quite up to snuff and have had to make a few adjustments. To start, I'll list what I've changed below.

using pslaunch:

1. Lowered the resolution to 800x600
- While I could have gone much lower this was a trade-off as I didn't want to loose too much space.
- For each "Aspect Ratio" setting there is a different set of screen resolutions
ie. 4:3 has 800x600 , 640x480, 320x240,     3:2 has 720x480

2. Clicked on the "Graphics" button and turned Anti-Alaising down to 0, Anisotropic filtering down to 2x, texture quality to medium, and shaders to medium.

[Lhaa]

For old or most onboard gfx cards disable Anisotropic filtering at all.
Game isn't too ugly with shaders at Low, in fact I like it better (but some things like water won't show at all).
Disable VBO, this gave me a boost from 0.5 FPS to around 20 in Hydlaa.
Disable Background Loading, this may make it a bit more choppy at times, but overall should run much more smooth.

[Rigwyn]

A few other things that help which have been mentioned elsewhere on the forums:

1. try disabling sound ( in pslaunch / settings ) 

2. If you are tight on RAM, try closing any other open programs that are not needed while playing ( web browsers, outlook, word etc .. )

3. If you have a virus scanner, make sure its not scanning while your playing ( common sense,  but ive see this bite people in the rear numerous times )

4. check your system resources to see if you are running out of ram. ( for windows, right click the start bar and then "task manager" or else run taskmgr.exe )
-- Ignore the fact that it shows CPU %100 utilized. At time of writing this game seems to use %100 cpu for which ever core its running in ( assuming you have a multicore cpu ). I suspect this is by design to eliminate latency due to process switching ( something like a spin-lock )

5. ensure that your using a driver that takes advantage of the video care for acceleration. You want to ensure that rendering is offloaded to the gpu.
 -- for linux, check that opengl is installed and your using the right driver ( for me, its the proprietary nvidia driver ) - I get a very significant performance increase if I use this driver instead of the generic open source driver for nvidia. For windows and mac this should not be an issue all.

6. If your running on linux and are short on ram ( 1g ) try using a lightweight desktop manager - gnome and kde are seriously bloated. Try xfce, blackbox, fluxbox etc... xfce has the feel and functionality of a modern desktop while using up very little ram.

[LigH]

It is usual for games to use up to 100% of your CPU time (or at least of one core) if you don't cap your frame rate, because they will switch to the next frame as soon as possible to ensure fluid motions. If you are only into roleplaying and not much into fighting, it may be convenient for you to limit your rendering to a fraction of your monitor frame rate (e.g. for 60 Hz TFT displays, use 30 fps in the "Details" options for the slider "FPS cap:").

Consider using "Adaptive distance" in the "Details" options. This will cut off the rendering of distant objects to counter the frame rate going down in complex areas (like the plaza). You may not like the limiting of your sight range, though... - Try to find your personal optimum of min / max / cap FPS.

And in case of emergency: Look downwards!

[Rigwyn]

I don't use adaptive distance because I hate it when entire stalactites and buildings disappear in the background.
I'll tinker with the frame rate and see if that makes a noticeable difference.

[LigH]

Even if you don't like "adaptive distance", try at least reducing the maximum distance then. You may not always need to look as far as possible. May look annoying outside the cities, but may help inside.

[Rigwyn]

I keep it around 700. For new players, having landmarks like stalactites and the portals disappear makes navigation extremely difficult.

[Earowo]

i lag if mines over 200 XD

[Rigwyn]

Ligh,
Regarding your suggestion for lowering the max framerate from 72fps to 30fps, I tried it but found that the ftp indicator did not show expected results.

at 72fps, if I look down the cpu is still pegged at 100% and the fps indicator shows that Im getting 38fps
at 30fps, if I look down the cpu is at about 30% and the ftp indicator ( /fps ) shows that Im getting 58fps ?

Very nice so far but why would the ftp indicator not be pegged at 30 ?

Perhaps the fps cap refers to "rendered" frames, while the fps indicator refers to "displayed" or "blitted" frames ?

[LigH]

The miracles of multi-core CPUs?!... Threading is non-trivial.

[Earowo]

just turn distance down to like 20 when in towns, it works for me XD

[Lhaa]

Shutting the game down works just as fine.

[Sadie]

  To Rigwyn and Lhaa, thank you for those tips.  I've used most of them this morning, and it certainly helped.  I don't know what the various things do (e.g. anisotropic filtering), and don't want to know, but I can follow directions.  Can't use the 800x600 resolution, as the various windows don't shrink... and then the chat window takes over a quarter of the playing window....  But even with some hesitation still evident, it is still much better than it was.
    Kudos to you both!!