Live Update (06.14.2006)

[Ophelea]

Fireclaw,

Have you tried submitting a ticket and working with Reyem?

HZ tends to be crankier with newer machines than older, so it may actually be upgrading that's causing it to appear to be worse.

But, give him the chance to work with you on settings?

[Fireclaw]

I've tried dozens of different configuration settings, video drivers and other things. My computer is home-built so Horizons has seen a variety of hard drives, motherboards, ram and videocards. Horizons runs worse than any other game I own. Even Elder Scrolls Oblivion runs much better... while looking 10x better.

I got Horizons on day 4 after it went live and I've read through all the posts on performance tweaking. Nothing helps except turning view distance to absolute minimum. And even then the game still runs slower in a town or plot than World of Warcraft does at maximum view distance. At this point I'm pretty much convinced that this game is incapable of running fast when lots of objects are on the screen.

Its very unfortunate because the awful framerate over structures destroys the suspension of disbelief. After playing games that run with high framerates playing Hz feels like I'm dunking my head in icewater. Not a good feeling.

My computer isn't the best, but it really ought to be fast enough for a game that came out 2 years ago:

Pentium IV 3.2 ghz.
2 gb PC3200 ram
Geforce 6800 GT video card

[AmonGwareth]

Fireclaw, it really all does come down to configuration (and the number of other apps you have running in the background). I have a system slightly less than yours (amd barton 3000+, 1gb pc3200, geforce fx 5600) and on highest quality/texture detail with ground clutter at 50% and view distance at between 45 and 50%, cloth simulation off, I get between 25-30 in the countryside and 8-14 in New Trismus which is a pretty busy and heavy town (lots of npcs).

Have you tried deleting your clientprefs_graphics.def and starting at the system defaults?

also, do you run in windowed or full screen?

finally, how often do you defragment your harddrive? And do you have a single HDD or mutiple? If multiple, does horizons run on the same drive (or channel) as your page file?

Oh, one other thing. What resolution do you run the game at? I run at 1440x900 but have run in the past at 1024x768 and 1280x1024. FOr obvious reasons, it runs better at the lower resolution.

[Fireclaw]

No apps running in the background. On a freshly formatted hard drive with a pristine installation of Windows XP. Only other things installed are video drivers and sound drivers and directx. Performance in HZ is still awful.

I've tried everything. Nothing will ever make Horizons have adequate performance unfortunately.

[Fireclaw]

Current setup I have McAffee virusscan running in the background. Also Razor Copperhead mouse software.

Running in full screen at 1280x1024. View distance set to 25%. Ground clutter off. Cloth Simulation off. I tried deleting the prefs and running with default prefs. The moment I crank the view distance up from the default, the game's performance falls through the floor when I am near buildings, scaffoldings or lairs. None of the other settings other than ground clutter seem to have much significance on performance (turning on ground clutter causes the framerate to drop even further). Last defrag was maybe 3 weeks ago. Though I've previously tried installing Horizons onto a freshly formatted harddrive and noticed no increase in performance.

I have 2 physical harddrives installed. Currently Hz is running on the same physical drive as the pagefile. However, with my previous installation I had Hz running on a separate drive from the pagefile and performance was the same.

Currently running at max texture and detail resolution. The difference in performance between having those 2 sliders set to max vs. at minimum is only a few fps so might as well run at max. And none of the available settings give acceptable performance in towns or over plots.

[Fireclaw]

What sound card?.................

(Fears he knows the answer)

Creative Audigy Gamer.

I've also tried completely disabling the sound in Horizons and it made no difference in performance.

[Fireclaw]

Is Horizons not compatible with Creative Audigy Gamer? What do you recommend? Should I uninstall the soundcard and drivers and try a different soundcard?

I might do that if it would solve the problem with slow performance when objects are on the screen though I don't see how that could be the issue if I disabled the sound in the game. And I only get this awful performance with Horizons. All other games run fine.

What sound card do you recommend?

[AA0]

Uninstall the soundcard and try it. I use the Turtle Beach line of sound cards. And I also defrag once a week, hz needs it.
Disable antivirus is a big must for performance. I have no clue about that mouse software.

[Fireclaw]

Well, so much for that.

I just uninstalled the soundcard and enabled my onboard AC97 sound instead. Using that instead of the Creative soundcard made zero difference to my fps.

Also tried manually deleting my graphics prefs and client prefs (I left my UI preferences intact). No improvement doing that either. If anything it seemed like it made it worse. I noticed significantly more "drawing in" where objects and terrain tiles would draw themselves in one piece at a time over a period of minutes until most of what was supposed to be visible on-screen was rendered.

Flying Over Jayne's plot at Mithril Anvil on Chaos right after a fresh boot and login I was getting 9-10 fps at 1/4 view distance with the detail and texture sliders at max performance and ground clutter off. The only way I was able to get acceptable performance was to crank view distance to absolute minimum. The problem is at that view distance I could see almost nothing and the game itself was effectively unplayable.

[Fireclaw]

Fireclaw, it really all does come down to configuration (and the number of other apps you have running in the background). I have a system slightly less than yours (amd barton 3000+, 1gb pc3200, geforce fx 5600) and on highest quality/texture detail with ground clutter at 50% and view distance at between 45 and 50%, cloth simulation off, I get between 25-30 in the countryside and 8-14 in New Trismus which is a pretty busy and heavy town (lots of npcs).

As a test I tried setting ground clutter to 50%. Doing so reduced the game to around 5 fps in the countryside. Completely unplayable.

[AA0]

And your anti virus was off?

[AmonGwareth]

Just so you can compare... here are my clientprefs_graphics.def settings (and here's my in-game options: http://www.sevenrealms.net/hz/fps.jpg):

TClientGraphicPrefs
{
int globalGraphicDetail = 4
int globalTextureDetail = 4
int screenResolution = 13
int maxFullCharacters = 20
bool displayFullRemoteCharItems = true
int maxCharLOD = 0
int mainWinSizeX = 1440
int mainWinSizeY = 840
int mainWinPosX = 2
int mainWinPosY = 53
int debugWinPosX = 200
int debugWinPosY = 200
bool fullscreen = true
float loadDist = 246.88081
float unloadDist = 296.8808
float terrainLoadDist = 646.92737
float terrainUnloadDist = 706.92737
bool terrainTimeSlice = true
bool terrainLodEnabled = true
int terrainLODTextureRes = 128
float terrainLodSwitchDist = 250
int terrainLodGeomRes = 25
int terrainTextureDetail = 32
float chunkLoadTimeStep = 0.003
bool terrainLines = false
bool plotLines = true
bool clutterEnabled = true
float clutterDistMult = 2.62725
float fogStartDist = 368.47122
float fogEndDist = 521.92737
float fieldOfView = 90
float camZoomMaxSpeed = 15
float camZoomAccel = 40
float mouseWheelZoomMaxSpeed = 60
float mouseWheelZoomAccel = 180
float mouseWheelZoomDamping = 30
float camPitchMaxSpeed = 60
float camPitchAccel = 120
float camYawMaxSpeed = 90
float camYawAccel = 360
bool turnToSidestepInMouselook = true
float keyboardFreeLookSpeedUpMult = 4
bool invertPitch = false
bool firstPersonRotationSmoothing = false
float firstPersonRotationSmoothingTension = 9.5
float firstPersonFieldOfView = 90
float firstPersonVerticalRangeOfView = 160
float firstPersonHorizontalRangeOfView = 180
bool firstPersonCombatAutoTargeting = true
float mouseLookSpeed = 1.05
int numMouseFilterPositions = 2
float yawAutoPanSpeed = 3
bool headBobbingEnabled = false
bool headBobbingInCombatOnlyEnabled = true
float thirdPersonLookAtPitchOffset = 0
float thirdPersonCameraFollowTension = 7
float thirdPersonVerticalRangeOfView = 140
float thirdPersonFieldOfView = 90
bool thirdPersonInvertYaw = false
bool enableCameraCollision = true
int currentCameraMode = 1
bool enableCameraSnapback = false
bool noRotateThirdPersonCameraWithCharacter = false
bool displayHandItemsInFirstPerson = false
bool displayHandItemsInFirstPersonCombatOnly = true
bool charCreationWithNormalCamera = false
vector fogColor = 0, 0, 0
vector lightDiffuseColor = 1, 1, 1
vector lightAmbientColor = 0.5, 0.5, 0.5
vector lightDirection = 0, 0, -1
bool backfaceCullingEnabled = true
string defaultSkyDome = "default_skydome.ent"
bool celestialLighting = false
int aghGlobalTextureReduction = 0
int aghCharacterTextureReduction = 0
float aghTextureReductionMult = 0.5
float globalMipmapBias = 0
bool enableMouseOver = true
bool selectionGlow = false
bool selectionBrackets = true
string selectionEnt = "selection_godray.ent"
bool autoSelectAttacker = true
bool gammaEnabled = true
float renderGamma = 1.3
float renderBrightness = 0
float renderOverBright = 1.3
vector defaultObjectColor = 0.3, 0.3, 0.3
bool lodEnabled = true
bool charactersEnabled = true
bool charLODEnabled = true
bool charFrameSkipEnabled = true
bool charTextureLODenabled = true
int charTextureLOD = 2
float charTextureLODdist = 10
bool visMgrEnabled = true
bool visMgrTerrainEnabled = true
bool displayWorldCoastline = true
bool renderedTexturesEnabled = true
int displayShadowDetail = 1
bool enableBackBufferCopy = false
bool consolidateDefaultAttributes = true
bool globalShareShaders = true
float hydroFadeDistance = 2
float decalFadeDistance = 30
bool decalsEnabled = true
bool clothSimEnabled = false
bool useLowestLevelShader = false
bool globalReflectMapEnabled = false
int globalReflectMapUpdateInterval = 10
bool useGlobalReflectDebugMaps = false
int maxTextureSize = 2048
int maxImageSize = 512
bool effectsOn = true
float effectMaxLoadRange = 50
bool environmentSystemLightingSystemOff = false
bool environmentSystem = true
bool environmentSystemDebug = false
bool combatFloatingNumbers = true
bool combatRegenFloatingNumbers = true
bool combatFloatingActions = true
bool combatFlashing = true
bool combatSpellEffects = true
bool combatSpellEffectsChangeStage = true
bool flipCharacterUVs = false
bool OnlyUserLight = false
bool CharacterLights = true
float floatingNameScale = 1
string floatingFont = "GaramondMed"
int floatingFontSize = 16
float nightTimeSlider = 0
int playerLightSources = 2
float effectMaxRange = 250
float effectMinRange = 75
int renderBitsAlpha = 0
int renderBitsDepth = 24
int renderBitsColor = 24
int renderBitsStencil = 0
}

[Fireclaw]

And your anti virus was off?

Actually it wasn't off. But I just tried again with the antivirus off. Made no difference.

Thanks Amon for your graphics settings. I'll try those and see how it works.

[Fireclaw]

UPDATE:

I tried cutting and pasting Amon's
TClientGraphicPrefs data over my own clientgraphicprefs file. Unfortunately, when I tried it the graphics engine failed to even load properly. I could hear the game running in the background and even had control over my character because when I pressed the button to take off I could hear my dragon's wings start to flap, but the only thing visible on my screen was my desktop with all the icons flashing. Obviously something wasn't working right.

I play in full screen mode and hadn't alt-tabbed at all after I ran the launcher. Also tried it on a fresh boot. Still no luck.

UPDATE:

The engine probably didnt load properly because Amon's graphics config file is set to a resolution my monitor doesnt support. Adjusting the resolution in the file and will try again.

UPDATE:

Nope the resolution wasn't the problem. Changing those lines in the pref file din't help. Something in Amon's pref file is making it so the game won't even load the graphics engine on my computer.

[AA0]

Remembering back a few months... oblivian post a while back.
First, how up to date are your video drivers? Attempted to uninstall and reinstall the newest?
Have you reset your driver settings to default?
I remember someone playing oblivian "fine" with their drivers, only to have it hose up hz badly.

[Fireclaw]

Running 84.43 Nivida forceware drivers. Not the latest drivers, but updated within the last couple months.

Over the years I've probably tried 20 or 30 different drivers with various different video cards. There was almost no difference in performance among the various different drivers. It really does seem that Horizons barely utilizes the graphics card anyways so its not too surprising.

[Fireclaw]

UPDATE:

By manually changing most of the options to what Amon had in his file I was able to get his options to run on my machine. Over Jayne's plot in Mithril Anvil I saw approximately 7 fps with this setup. I also saw a very large amount of drawing in where objects and terrain tiles took minutes of me hovering in the same location to completely draw in. This was not playable game performance.

[Ophelea]

Running 84.43 Nivida forceware drivers. Not the latest drivers, but updated within the last couple months.

Over the years I've probably tried 20 or 30 different drivers with various different video cards. There was almost no difference in performance among the various different drivers. It really does seem that Horizons barely utilizes the graphics card anyways so its not too surprising.

Fireclaw,

There is no doubt that you have an issue. And, I do so hope that you have filed a support ticket so that Reyem can work directly with you to find the best resolution for your problem.

But, everyone here is doing the best that they can to help you through their own experience.

Everyone here runs VERY different systems with very different hardware. I alone have 5 COMPLETELY different systems from the bottom of the barrel specs up to a screaming machine and yet I've been able to configure them all to get better FPS than even Amon. But, I worked to get there and I took into account that I had 5 completely different configurations.

BTW, I had to set different configurations for DDO, EQII and several other games I've beta tested based upon the machine.

Were those games as cranky as HZ? No, not all. But some were. Did those games have a better client at launch? Yes, most did, but not all. I take this into account.

However, I find that your comments after each time someone tries to help you indicate you don't want HZ to run well. You consistently make disparaging remarks to the very people who WORK ON THE GAME. Yet, it's their day off and here they are, posting, and doing their best to help you. And that's frustrating to each of us who is trying.

Please, if you haven't sent in a ticket, do so. Reyem will be in and he's got a serious backlog so you want to be in the queue.

And please, have some respect for the people taking the time to try and solve your problems with you and not for you. They'd like you to enjoy the game as much as they or the effort would not be made.

[AmonGwareth]

Fireclaw, you might try lowering these two numbers:

int maxTextureSize = 2048
int maxImageSize = 512

I'm not sure how much memory your video card has, but mine has 256 so maybe if yours only has 128 it needs a lower texture size.

[Fireclaw]

Thank you Amon, I will try lowering those 2 texture sizes. My videocard also has 256 mb though (Geforce 6800 gt).

I apologize if I've been a bit testy on this forum. I appreciate everyone spending time to offer suggestions to help me improve the game's performance on my machine. You've gone above and beyond the call of duty. I can think of no other game where game developers would spend so much time on the forum trying to assist someone who is having trouble. You have my sincere thanks.

As you may have noticed, I have gotten a little frustrated. Perhaps there's just something about my machine that prevents the game from running properly and we will never know what it is.

Horizons was my first MMO and I very much want to get it running with the performance that some others seem to get on their machines. My inability to get adequate performance was one of the factors that led me to put aside Horizons in favor of other games. Despite this, I never canceled my account and periodically login whenever I do a hardware upgrade, or a system reinstall or when the game is patched with an update that might improve performance. Unfortunately, in all cases I've never been able to get Horizons to run with what I would consider to be adequate performance.

The most dramatic increase in performance occurred when I upgraded my CPU/Motherboard combo. That allowed me to see smooth graphics in the countryside. Unfortunately, with all the structures around the countryside has shrunken and I no longer get adequate performance in any of the areas I'm likely to spend time in.