Still having performance issues!

[Zarcharien]

And I'm getting worried that it may not be getting resloved anytime soon.

I didn't want to bump my original thread since it has been sometime ago, but I'd like to bring the issue forward again. I have always ran Horizons pretty good and had no complaints, but after that patch, about a month ago, lag for me became worse, fpsbecame lower, texMem got higher and charater stuttering became frequent, and also Ineeded to use free movement to cast heals in battle. I posted here foradvice and and was advised to open a support ticket, so i did. The response was that they were aware ofthe problem and hoped to have a fix soon.

Today, all these issues still exsist for me, although texMem seems to have gotten slightly better. Any chance I/we could get an update onwhen and what is being done to correct these issues? I really enjoy this game, but these issues have kinda becomedisheartening.I have no problem waiting on a fix, but I would also like to have some kind of update on the issues. Thank you.

[Radzy]

Perhaps I can help you with some of your performance issues.

Could you tell me your system.

1) CPU type and speed
2) Video card and latest drivers
3) Memory
4) Hard drives (quantity) and pagefile size
5) TSR programs running (Terminate Stay Resident)

I will be glad to help you optimize your performance on your individual system.

[Zarcharien]

Any help I can get would be greatly appreciated. I just find it strange that everything was fine for the entire last year, until that patch in January. Few of my family members have similiar pc's and they encountered the same thing after that patch.Anyways .. here is my system specs for the most part ect.

CPU - AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (266 MHz). I know this isn't really up to par for a game like this, but I can't really afford a new processor/motherboard atm.

Video - Nvidia Fx 5200 256 Mb, 66.93 drivers.

Memory - 2 x 256 Mb Pc3200 (400MHz). I plan to upgrade to 1G, but thinking of waiting a little longer till I can get a better processor and motherboard to go along with it.

Hard Drive - Westgate 80G (24.4 used), 7200 Rpm, 8Mb cache. Virtual memory set at min 768 - max 1536 (although I'm thinking of errasing the max size and leaving it blank).

Misc. - Windows XP Pro, 800x600 screen res, 32 bit color, 60 Hz refresh rate. All programs except system critical programs are terminated while playing. I play using Hz options default settings full screen mode.

Hope that may give you atleast a general idea. And I really appreciate your response andtrying to help in anyway you can. Thanks.

[Radzy]

Okay, I have a good idea what kind of system you have and I will try to help.

The Processor is a big factor to your system at present. Though I do run Horizons on a few PCs that are only 1.8 GHz, they are Intel Processors, not AMD. There is nothing wrong with the AMD processors in general, just not my preference for many reasons. Anyway, your processor is fine, but an upgrade to something newer would definitely help. Motherboards can also make or break the performace depending on the processor you use.

The Video card that you have is a very good card. The drivers are up to date and I think that as long as it reports that you are running at 8X AGP, everything should be fine. If it states it is running in PCI mode, then there may be a problem with the driver for your motherboard. Many motherboards need to have their own AGP drivers loaded to correctly tell Windows how to operate the AGP port correctly.

Memory - This is a big factor. The memory you have is 512M, which is not bad. Though you are running PC3200, your system can't use it to its maximum potential. Upgrading the memory to 1G will help. I have seen a significant increase in all my systems that had more than 768M of RAM.

Hard drive - This is something that will definitely slow down game performance. Let me explain as briefly, yet as proficiently as I can. Most systems come with 2 IDE controllers, allowing 4 hard drives orother drives such as CDROM or DVDROM drives. If you only have one harddrive in your system, you will notice a significant improvement in speed if you add another hard drive. You will need toinstall your second hard drive on your second IDE channel. Once you have installed the second hard drive, you will want to makethis your drive foryour permanent swap file. You will want this page file to be 1.5-3.0G in size, even though Windows suggests something smaller. DoNOT let Windows manage the page file. First the reason for the 2nd drive on the 2nd channel is this: WhenWindows uses your system for a page file it becomes very hard drive intensive. With Horzons it is also very hard drive intensive. If both are competing for which takes precidence, Windows will win. Thus if you install a 2nd hard drive, the page file will use the 2nd IDE channel at the same time as using the primary channel for your game. Thus you are quasi using both IDE channels simultaneously and getting very marked improvements on transfer of data. By the way, processor type and speed will also affect the data transfer on these.

Hopefully this will help you quite a bit. If you wish for me to explain in further detail some other scenarios for your system, please feel free to ask.