Graphical errors and lag on high-end PC

[vonfrank]

So I just got a new PC and installed Bridge Commander on it as well as all of my usual mods. It works, but there are a number of graphical and frame-rate errors in the game, mainly when multiple ships are on the screen at once.
The most obvious visual issue is that textures sometimes flicker between black and normal.
On top of that, I get CRAZY lag when about 10 or more ships are visible on screen at once. Many of these ships have high quality textures (1024 or 2048), but given my computer's specs, this shouldn't be a problem.

My specs are:

Intel core i7 3770k quad core @ 3.5ghz
AMD Radeon HD 7770
16gb ram
Windows 8 <-this may be the problem

Just to put this in perspective, my old computer runs BC better than my new one 

My old PC's specs:

AMD 64x2 Dual Core 5000+
ATI Radeon x1600
4gb ram
Windows XP

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[tiqhud]

Have , you checked your, in-game settings? [as well]
 

[vonfrank]

In game settings are exactly the same on my new pc as they are on the old one, with the exception of EAX quality sound which for some reason is not available on my new one.

On a side note, is there any way to get BC to display at a widescreen resolution (1920x1080 or 1280x720)?

[007bashir]

additional res can be chosen in the nanfx mutator options as i recall (depens if you use Km oder NanoFX Mod)

I got that flickering too. Mostly prominent when im using Edit Mode for Screenshots... Never actually got a solution for that...

[vonfrank]

Yeah, the flickering is kind of annoying.... but the worst part is the lag. I refuse to believe that my graphics card is simply "unable to handle it" because, like I said, my old computer is able to handle 20+ high-quality ships with NO lag. It makes no sense that my new card can only handle 10 ships before lagging. There MUST be another reason.

[moed]

BC was originally written for WinXP.  I have it installed on 2 of my systems: one with XP and the other with Win7.  Both are running perfect but I'm getting much better frame rates on my Win7 machine as the specs are even more powerful than your new system.  However, I did get some "issues" similar to yours when I first installed BC on the Win7 PC.  I changed the graphic drivers and it fixed it completely. You might need to try doing that... just make sure you properly and completely uninstall the current graphic drivers before installing the new ones.

Also, it might help if you right click on the BC icon and select "Compatibility Mode", I think Win8 still has that feature - but don't quote me on that, then within the window, select the OS that you want BC to run in. This technique doesn't always work though but it's worth a try. 

BC is a 32bit program and your OS is 64bit.  Therefore, whether your running BC in native Win8 or in some compatibility mode - it's still running in emulation mode because 32bit apps have to run in a software emulator within a 64bit OS. That unfortunately, sometimes introduces "problems" of a myriad of unknown types.  Win7 has a much better emulator than Win8 so BC runs great on it - especially on a fast system. But, good ol' Microsoft in there "infinite wisdom" decided to modify the emulator in Win8 and "improve" upon it. I have heard in many different situations that it in fact is crap compared with Win7's. Let me just say that you couldn't pay me enough to EVER get Win8... and I'll just leave it at that.

As far as changing the resolutions of game play, you could open up the options.cfg file and change the different res that you would like to the game options menu. But this also doesn't always work. Make sure you make a backup copy of the options.cfg file before you tweak the original. It worked for me but I've heard of others that it didn't. BC is a fickle program that is pretty individual at times from system to system.

Good luck and I hope some of this helps     

[vonfrank]

One of the first things I tried was running in compatibility mode, and that changes nothing. Any mode I choose has the same poor framerate with 10+ ships, and glitchy textures.

For changing my resolution, any value I type in seems to prevent the game from starting....

As for updating my graphics card drivers, I'm just so afraid to tinker around with them....I just somehow know that something will go wrong...... To be honest, I dont really know how to properly uninstall old drivers and install the new ones (I dont even know what the newest ones would be). If i get better acquainted with how to do that I may, but there's still not even a guarantee that will help anyway.

I'ts just really disappointing when I spend almost $2000 on an amazing PC only to have my favourite game (BC) not work on it very well. 2 of my other games, (SFC3 and Armada 2) dont work on it at all. 

UPDATE

OK, so I figured out how to do it, and I updated my graphics drivers. As I suspected, the problem did not go away. I still get horrible framerate (5-10fps) when 3 or more high quality ships are on screen at once.

BC is now totally unplayable for me.... I'm not sure what the problem is, but I fear it may never be solved.... THIS SUCKS!!!!

[King Class Scout]

you know as well as the rest of us that the Bridge Commander game engine has a memory leak that crashes everything pretty hard.

if this PC is using Win 8, then there you go...BC, SFC, and Armada are probably TOO old to bother using on an 8 machine.  for example, I was gifted with a PC copy of Test Drive 4...it's unplayable outside of Win 9x.  I also lost my favorite art program for the same reason.  they call for DLL's that were removed by newer versions of windows, and that may be what has happened, here.

this is why some of us hold onto older machines.  PC's suffer from No Backward Compatibility, as well as consoles.

[vonfrank]

you know as well as the rest of us that the Bridge Commander game engine has a memory leak that crashes everything pretty hard.

if this PC is using Win 8, then there you go...BC, SFC, and Armada are probably TOO old to bother using on an 8 machine.  for example, I was gifted with a PC copy of Test Drive 4...it's unplayable outside of Win 9x.  I also lost my favorite art program for the same reason.  they call for DLL's that were removed by newer versions of windows, and that may be what has happened, here.

this is why some of us hold onto older machines.  PC's suffer from No Backward Compatibility, as well as consoles.

I figured as much....

It's really too bad because all of my other games play very well on my new PC, and some of them are even older than BC, SFC3, and A2. (ex, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Star Wars Battlefront)

[Mario]

Windows 8 is not the problem. I've recently bought a new computer myself differences between yours and mine are the procesor and graphics card mine being i5-3570 and HD 7850. Also I'm running on Windows 8 (64 bit) for the reference.

The thing here is that no matter how powerful your computer is BC will never use its full power. Have in mind that it uses only 1 core because the engine won't "recognize" more of them.

Now the 1st issue:
Texture flickering might be caused by driver settings.

2nd issue:
Unfortunately no matter how powerful your computer is BCs engine will never use its full power as I said especially if you're running many high poly ships. What you could do is switch the color resolution to low to get some more juice from the engine, this makes a big difference FYI.

Finally check out this thread, I've never tried it myself but BR says that it helps him get more juice out of the game.

[vonfrank]

Finally check out this thread, I've never tried it myself but BR says that it helps him get more juice out of the game.

WOW! It looks like that actually worked! It lags a bit with about 20 high quality ships, but not that much.
I can handle Wiley's Sovereign, Wiley's Galaxy, JLS Akira, JLS Intrepid, JLS Nova, DJ's Ambassador, and about half a dozen other ships with at least 1024x1024 textures all on screen at once with no lag. Thank you SO MUCH Mario!        ...I wonder if its possible to allocate even more than 4gigs of ram to BC? 

I still seem to have some flickering of textures though..... but one problem at a time I suppose. 

[Mario]

I wonder if its possible to allocate even more than 4gigs of ram to BC?

Nope.

I still seem to have some flickering of textures though..... but one problem at a time I suppose.

Try reverting the 3d App settings to default in the Catalyst control center or set all the values to "use application settings".

[vonfrank]

Try reverting the 3d App settings to default in the Catalyst control center or set all the values to "use application settings".

Tried that, and same thing.

It seems like this only happens if there are lots of ships on the map, and only from far away. If the ship is close to the camera, there are no problems.

[Nebula]

turn mipmaps off

[vonfrank]

turn mipmaps off

No change.

It kinda looks like the .nif model is showing through the textures, because the damage textures are showing up when a ship is far from the screen.

Another issue I've been having is the lack of EAX sound mode on my new PC. Does anyone else have this problem? The low quality sound is much worse and I'd like to go back to using EAX if possible.

[Nebula]

turn mipmaps off in your catalist program as well.

EAX was dropped when Vista came out... you need an EAX emulator... most new sound cards/drivers have a program that does this.

[vonfrank]

turn mipmaps off in your catalist program as well.

EAX was dropped when Vista came out... you need an EAX emulator... most new sound cards/drivers have a program that does this.

Could Mipmaps possibly be under a different name in my catalyst settings? Because I cant see anything like that.

As for EAX, how do I determine if my sound card has this capability? If it does, how do I activate it? If not, how can I get it?

Thanks again. 

[Nebula]

It is still called Mipmaps and it is a slider near the bottom in the 3d application settings menu.

As for EAX I don't know what you have.

[JimmyB76]

Mipmaps can be turned off in BC's Config menu...

[Nebula]

Mipmaps can be turned off in BC's Config menu...

Jimmy read up^ LOL I already suggested that first.