Graphics Tips - NVidia & ATI (Gain FPS and Quality)

Just flip the compatibility mode on the game to Windows XP SP3, and see if that doesn't help.

It won't hurt anything.

Ya, just saying... Let me follow up to you and others...


Number 1 - Turns back on Windows 7 GPU RAM sharing to the game, offernig 1.5gb of VRAM instead locking it to 512mb.
(The Wndows WDM/WDDM is a brilliant technology that can manage the assets better than most games, and is a rather complex subject for this forum. These technologies came from the XBox 360 design, and is why it always done wel with game textures and assets on a smaller shared memory footprint. There are side effects beyond just VRAM virtualization, lke the way the OS can manage and schedule the GPU threading, which Windows is curently the only OS that has this kernel level functionality which is also being circumvented by the game/engine unless it thinks it is running under XP and doens't disable the functionality.)

Number 2 - When the GPU is 'scaling' the image to fit the monitor, it is a load on the GPU, and with this turned off and put back to the monitor, dropping to lower resolutions yeilds greater increases in FPS. This is also deceptively true of running the game at 'Native resolutions' because of how the GPU pixel table is setup.
(Again a bit technical for this forum, but a simple example: When you are running 1680x1050, the GPU is allocating 2240x1079 pixels for this 'native' resolution because allocation of Front and Sync pixels for monitor timing. - If you play with custom resolutions in the NVidia Control Panel you can see this is an simple manner.)

Number 3 - Dropping the Resolution a few pixels with #2 forced to the Display, dumps a lower resolution image to the monitor that is upscaled to provide a simple dirty anti-aliasing trick, so it gives a few less pixels to deal with and closer to 4X AA than 2X. It also drops the Front and Side load pixels, reducing the overall resolution the GPU deals with.


The main thing happening here is the 512mb VRAM not being enough for the game, and the game turning off the features of Windows 7 that can offer more Virtual VRAM to the game, and is far easier to do a newer PCIe to GPU DMA transfer of VRAM assets than to continually cache and load and unload them as teh game is doing now.


As for the 'caling Bull' on the numbers, well, that is for you to figure out.

This is something we have found consistency, and reasons behind and our group has contacted Bioware and Hero about them.

This is something to test for people.
(If you have 1GB or 2GB VRAM, this may also help you too depending on how the engine is deciding what assets to keep in VRAM.)

Go to a place like Tatoonie or Dromand Kaas, and notice the banners. Walk away from them, and notice they drop to a lower resoltuion, and even as you walk back they stay the lower resolution until you get really close to them.

Now flip on Compatibility Windows XP SP3, relaunch the game and go lood at the banners. Notice that no matter how far off they are, they appear to be higher resolution, as needed, and when you get closer to them, they stay in crisp high resoluiton. Which is beyond what a normal 512mb card can do, as the base game assets take 460mb of VRAM.
(Also take this moment to notice your FPS - even with the crisper higher resolution textures, your FPS is hgher than nomal as well.)


Side note:

What prompted our team to look into this problem was the dramatic GPU load, the game wasn't performing well, and on many NVidia cards was shoving the GPU diode temperatures beyond 100ºC. And 100ºC is is hitting the peak danger level of these GPU designs, and we even had a couple of systems dump because of GPU temperture levels.

This is when myself and our techs pulled out the tools to see why the game was doing what it was doing. One member of our group was involved with the creation of the NT kernel back in 1992, and another member was involved with the original XBox project when Microsoft designed user level shader code, and myself worked with the WDM/WDDM technologies introduced in Vista that came from the XBox 360.


I'm sure everyone here means well and should be skeptical, but these are items to try, and if they don't work. Oh well, but if they do, they can be dramatic.

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Shadows...

These are tough in game because of the dymanic lighting system the engine uses. This is why Shadows outside can sometimes run fine at full FPS, and going inside a building having shadows on will drop the FPS to a painful level. This is because they are using all light sources and not just a single world 'Sun' light source as you get outside.

Even on the 'Baseline' system in my original post, there are times tha Shadows HAVE to be turned off when you need high FPS. If you notice FPS go done, flip off Shadows completely. They are pretty, but not needed. Places I have personally noticed Shadows hitting performance even on a high end system are cantinas, imperial fleet, and some PVP zones.

(Some PVP zones are 'laggy' because of the server network jitter compensation and not everyone has a stable 15ms ping time, so not all 'lag' is video related, and is the system trying to put other players where they need to be.)

I noticed the dip in fps in Cantinas etc and for that very reason I turned shadows off. After that, I stopped crashing after a sudden fps drop in places like the fleet to.

Thank you so much for the advice and hard work that has gone into trying to help others, even if they don't appreciate it. A lot of us do.

Thanks alot, amazing that the developer cannot do this.

The only option it gives me is to run the Compatibility mode for Windows XP service pack 2

Ok, I applied the settings, and it seems to have made a large difference. I'm no longer paranoid.

I'm not seeing 45-60 fps, but I'm seeing a remarkable increase in performance and a slight bump in fps. I'm running an AMD 64 X2 Dual Core 4000+ 2.10 GHZ. I know it's the processor, and if I was to replace it, I'd have much better fps. I have heard that this processor I currently have is very good to overclock (where there isn't any bad things happening to it) but I've never overclocked before so I'm not comfortable doing that.

The current fps I have is adequate until I'm able to replace the processor in the future. The tips provided in the thread did help me.

worked for me. first time i can pvp without fps drops

thx

I tried xp service pack 3 compatibility mode earlier. Game kept crashing to desktop in the load screen.

Trying your fix-- but I only get a compatability option for xp service pack 2 (no 3). Also, (and I have the latest versions) the Nvidia control center doesn't have the option to overrride--I have it set to no scaling, perform scaling on Display--but there is not box to tic to override other programs--Any ideas?

set XP SP 3 on the launcher, and the Swtor.exe, had similar issue earlier just tried it now on both now and didnt crash to desktop.
Will test tomorrow for now I'm off to bed