I think I know what's causing poor FPS for some users (no fix yet)

Bump. This thread shouldn't leave the front page.

agreed this is more useful than all corrent stickies combined

For all you guys, keep in mind latency fixes are for latency issues. Latency is not really related to bandwidth. In the simplest terms, latency is the time it takes for your request to make a round-trip from you to the server and back. Network speed is most commonly referred to how much data you can send per unit time. I could have a connection all the way to Saturn working at a speed of 300GB/sec and I would still have a 15 min latency.

So I can send the poor lonely astronaut out there an entire Hi-Def TV show in 1 sec, but I wouldn't know he got it till 15 min later.

EDIT: morale of the story, don't apply 3rd party fixes unless they specifically address a problem you have.

Ha! That's the sense I get too. Between the sporadic studdering, high reving drive, random reboots, and the occasional frozen blue screen of death, I'm worried that permanent damage will ensue.

Not entirely surprised by this and it does give more creedence to the synchronous process stalling the renderer theory. Companion information is probably not stored client-side since then you could hack it and put your lvl 10 companion in lvl 50 gear. Anyway need to load a companion? Well then do the following:

1. figure out what to load (network request)
2. actually load it (asset load)
3. build it (CPU process)
4. render it (GPU process)

If you can, a good test here might be to see how much these processes overlap (or at least the HDD load and network request processes). Theoretically, TOR could start loading assets while requesting player/companion information, but then there's the issue of loading many more assets than you'll end up needing. Obviously the other choice here is to wait for the network request before loading, but that creates too much process dependency and defeats the point of multi-threading. My best bet for TOR is the former. They attempt concurrency by loading an asset chunk while waiting on the network request.

I'm of the opinion that TOR doesn't have a prediction engine built-in. I would have expected a fall-back that if TOR can't receive a response from the network fast enough, it would fall back to extrapolating trajectories based on some history of motion vectors. I haven't seen this happen at all. In the few instances where my connection drops, all players and NPCs completely and immediately stall in place. With extrapolation, they should at least continue to move in their last direction for a few seconds?

Lastly, the companion thing surprises me a bit. My first guess would have been that TOR would cache companion information client-side and sync it up either periodically or on some gear/customization change event. But I guess there are potential security issues there, so who knows? Could probably test by summoning/dismissing companion a few times in some minimal texture area like backwater Tatooine, but not really sure how much insight this would give to anything.

EDIT: A lot of supposition above with minimal testing. Take all with a grain of salt.

I don't think latency will really play any part here. The renderer is stalling if its waiting on data, but once the data starts coming in, its fine. So even if the stream took 300ms after the request to respond, once the response comes back it should be continuous.

Unless ... do you think the requests are synchronous?

Can't you test using the tried and true "pull the plug" method.

Login, note frames, yank your ethernet. If the renderer halts, you have your answer.

I am running the game on a 1.8 mz dual Intel (below spec), 2MB memory on Vista 32 bit, a GeForce 8600 GTX with 256 MB onboard (just above min spec), and a Sata 2 Hard Drive. I had all the graphic settings on low and shadows off. The game grinded to a halt anytime I entered a new zone where data had to be load from the disk. Once the drive stopped spinning, then the game was playable and enjoyable except on the Fleet station, where it was always a pain to move around.

So I bought a 120MB SSD, reinstalled the game on it, and pointed my virtual memory file to use it exclusively. All I can say is WOW! What a difference. I can now run the game with settings on high except for shadows, and the grass settings, and the game is so much smoother. I sometimes still get a momentary pause when I enter a zone, but it’s like a second instead of 20 seconds. And loading the game, planets, and exiting the game our 4-5 times faster.

So my recommendation if you are having FPS, stuttering, or long load times, before you do anything else to upgrade your system, GET A SOLID STATE DRIVE!

It might, but you would need a quick eye. The question here isn't if it effects FPS (it does), but if after sending a network request, does TOR wait for the response before sending another one. A hard-disconnect would show if TOR continues to try and make network requests after the plug is pulled. Problem is it might be making the same request over and over again. Need a quick eye and wireshark to say for sure.

Did you reinstall the game only, or did you also move windows to the new drive?
Thanks!