How to get good performance in games...

[Bill]

So you just got your self a new driver/game/laptop/desktop and want to run it at the fastest speed posible in games?

Well look no further!

*This is a guide in making so do not expect it to be complete for a while.*

The first step to getting the best speed in your game is to get some nice fast drivers. (with a modded INF if you are on a laptop)

For games like UT2004, Half Life 2, and Doom 3, and soon to be other games hopefully, there are/will be topics that recommend drivers for those games.

The next step is to change the performance settings for the driver to get that speed you want.

I was going to post a guide on this, but seeing as how Pieter already has one up you should go visit his guide here:

Performance Guide By Pieter

You should know that if you are using Pieter's mod INF, the application profile page will be disabled by default for you.

To enable the application profile pageclick here.

To disable the profile page (default in Pieter's INFs) click here.

Once you have that stuff done, you should go run your game and see if it runs fast.

If it does not run fast enough, you can try another driver, or go and adjust the games settings, the biggest things that will speed it up are lowering your resolution, and turning things down a few notches like texture detail.

I might have guides for individual games up soon.

Another thing to try is to clean out your computer, if you are on a desktop PC this should be a simple task to do, just find out how to open your PC up (which should not be too hard) and clean that dust off!

Now for a laptop, it can be much harder to do that.

You have to figure out the correct safe way to open it up.

I know that Dell has readmes on their site that tell exactly how to open some laptop models up. Once you get it open and get some of that dust off you should then get out your

compressed air and get to work!

For those of you that are having strange performance problems, this thread is proof that cleaning out your PC really does help.

Like I mentioned below I take no responsibility if you brake your laptop while cleaning it out.

The last thing you want to resort to is overclocking, I would NOT recomend it because you could break your graphics card if you do not know what you are doing, and I and everybody else at this forum take no responsibilty if you brake your computer.

To enable the overclocking page, which is default in Pieter's INF, click here.

To disable the overclocking page, which is not default inf Pieter's INF, click here.

If you are brave and/or crazy enough to overclock, you can get some noticeable speed increases in certain games.

Even though most of this has been posted before so far I thought it would be nice to put it all in one place for users to see.

I will continue to update this guide as time allows, comments are apreciated.

Bill

Edited March 18, 2006 by Bill

[Bill]

Its time I posted about 3Danalyzer, which can be found here.

A picture and link to it will appear on the above link. (homepage for it)

What you can do with that program is turn off DX9 features, if you have a DX9 card, or make a game that requires a DX8/9 card think you have one if you don't.

Also, by turning off DX9, you can force a game to think you only have a DX 8 or 7 card, making it run in DX8 or 7 mode, which is probably faster.

I did not want to make a whole new thread for this, as there are already enough pinned topics here, and since this program is related to games and for some people speed, I think that for the time being it belongs in this thread.

If there is a new version of this out, somebody please tell me... :)

Bill

[Guest Guest]

if you're on an LCD, using the native resolution, and sacrificing demanding settings like shadows/volumetric lights and anti-ailiasing helps a lot. even 2xAA can give a giant performance hit of around 30% depending on the game and video card.

[Griff]

Would you recommend using OpenGL or D3d in games. Like, for instance, I play Condition Zero. In the video settings I have OpenGL selected, with medium quality (only a medium and highest option) and 1280X800 for my resolution (going off widescreen just looks horrible). I get pretty good performance with the 82.10 driver (performance inf). I get over 200 fps when staring at a wall, and from 80-150ish when running around and being around people. And of course there are the moments when my fps will drop down to like the 50s, which sucks when you're used to being around 200.. There was a time when I had a constant 100 fps, no matter where I was or what I was doing in the game. Now it just seems to be so varying to the point where it's not fun sometimes. When I switch over to D3d and try to play, everything is multi-colored and scratchy.

I also have a problem with my mouse and keyboard lagging in the game. Half the time I'll strafe and I'll end up strafing a lot further than I wanted to, even if I just tapped the button. Moving the mouse also lags too, sometimes I'll move the mouse and it'll lag on me, making it hard to aim and crap. Or sometimes when I'm shooting, the button will "stick" and I'll end up emptying a whole clip, even if I just tapped the fire button a few times.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Bill]

As for which to use, sounds like a driver or game bug if one doesn't work correctly, or you should re-install DX9.0c....

Some games work better with one, some with the other, and then it depends on the graphics card.

Edited January 3, 2006 by Bill

[Griff]

Thanks Bill. I downloaded nvTweak and that enabled it all for me. I was reading your post on "best HL2 drivers," I might try out the 77.30 driver and see how well that works, not sure. I played with some settings and the game seemed to run a little better. Didn't help that the rate was set on 3500 as apposed to a higher setting like 7000 or so.. I don't understand how people with say an older card with less memory than mine could be running a game with a lot better performance, even with a higher res.

Do you know of any OpenGL tweaks out there that I might be able to try out?

On a side note, I've been noticing that my fan has been coming on quite a bit and my computer lagging up a little when I have a game running. I know that they use quite a bit of memory, but I would think that with over a gig of RAM and a graphics card with 128 mb would help it be a little smoother than it is now. There must be something I'm doing wrong. Could it be my processor speed maybe, since it is a 1.4 ghz Centrino?

[Bill]

I would think no matter wheather your running Doom3, HL2, FEAR, farcry, BF2, ect that fan should come on unless your CPU is running on low speed, and powermizer is on.

That thread is old though, the drivers linked to in the link in my sig or 82.10 are what I would currently recomend, if you are having problems with those then try 77.77, the super lucky 7s driver. lol

I run HL2 just fine on D3D, if that is stll broke you should re-install DX or the games afflicted.

I don't know of any OpenGL tweaks, you'll have to ask the master INF modders here about those.

[Griff]

I checked out those settings from the link to Pieter's little walk-through. The I went into the game and threw on D3d and the performance was horrible, I had about 10 fps..

[Guest Guest]

i dont understand how to use the 3D analyzer to run BF2 in DX8 mode...help?

[Bill]

Only the earlier versions of the demo could you run it on a DX8 cards, newer versions you probably have to decompile and haxxors the exe to force it.

It will not load on my computer, nor on some peoples machines who meet or exceed the min requirements.

You can blame EA for that one.

You can yell at them if you want, but remember they don't listen to their customers, they put specific checks in the game to only run on certain cards.

[cyclone93]

i had windows vista 32bit and installed crysis demo but it was quite laggy so i downgraded to windows xp. when i had windows vista i used the standard HP drivers so i wasnt sure what version they were. after i got windows xp i downloaded and installed the forceware driver version 169.09 and now crysis runs really fast for me. i can now try everytrhing on high but set objects detail to low.

for those of you that want to know the big performance impacts of crysis its these:

shader quality

objects quality

postprocessing quality

[juliejamson]

G-force 128mb card is good for all kinds of games !! :)

[Guest guest]

the link to pieters performance guide dosent work?