Bridge Commander Central
BC Forums => BC General => Topic started by: Morgan on January 25, 2010, 06:02:13 PM
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I thought it might be a good idea to have all the helpful advice I've seen to increase BC's performance in one place, so when someone asks we have a "use search button" response for improving game performance. :D
To begin I'll list the most simple and common ways to speed up BC:
1. Reduce screen resolution
2. Switch to low color depth
3. Use a non- "T&L" graphics option (recommended for integrated graphics cards or cards with less than 256mb of memory), I believe T&L is selected by default
4. Use the low damage setting or turn off visible damage all together
5. Turn off mipmaps
6. Do not use enhanced glows
7. Turn off specular highlights
Cleaning out your "Screenshots" folder can decrease BC startup time (info provided by Lionus)
Although some may come to the logical conclusion to switch the model and/or texture quality to medium or low, this is actually a bad idea since most mods aren't configured to run under these settings, so unless you know what mods do and don't I recommend against playing with those two options.
NanoFX, despite the way it revolutionized BC modding, is a big slowdown of BC. For those on lower end or older computers it may be a good idea to disable some features. The best way to improve performance with NanoFX are:
1. Turning off BridgeFX
2. Turning off ExplosionFX
3. Turning off SpecialFX (Atmosphere's, Plasma trails, etc.)
DS9FX can be a little taxing also, the manual gives some very good options on how to get the most out of the mod, but in the interest of completion I'll post the major ones here also. Note that you will need UMM to access these options:
1. Turn off planets in a few systems. The DS9 and Cardassia maps are the largest in Xtended, with 14 and 8 planets respectively. If you are in a large scale battle, this many planets in one map can cause a bit of a slow down, especially in the case of the DS9 map.
2. An alternative to turning off planets completely is to reduce their texture detail. This can be especially helpful in the DS9 and Cardassia maps.
3. Use the wormhole 7 model (selected by default in Xtended), as it is both accurate to the Bajoran wormhole we saw on TV and low poly. Those computers on the low and/or older end of the spectrum may want to avoid wormhole 8, as it is a little more high poly than the others.
4. Reduce the number of plasma storms in the Badlands. Although they are low poly, if you are on an older system, you will enjoy a small performance boost in larger battles. Additionally, you can adjust the detail of the Badlands model you are using.
DS9FX is also very beneficial to have on your current BC install(s), as it includes several game fixes. All players with DS9FX should make sure that the "Memory Cleaning" and "Model Pre-loading" features are turned on for better performance. Please see the DS9FX Xtended manual for complete details on what these features do and how they help your BC instillation.
Another thing you can do with DS9FX is to cut down DS9's textures back down to their native 256 x 256 resolution. You can do this without ANY loss in the quality of the station because the textures were simply up-converted (stretched) to their current 512 x 512, which doesn't improve quality and just taxes the graphics card un-necessarily. Understand that you'll only get a marginal performance boost at best, but for those on lower-end machines every little bit helps, and combined with taking the steps above, well, pennies add up to dollars. ;)
Disabling some features of Bridge Plugin may increase performance. Animations (for example the Intrepid bridges command console folding out at yellow and red alerts) and texture swapping (used to give the appearance of animated LCARS) are the biggest bridge slowdowns today. You will need UMM to access these options.
1. Disable Active LCARS
2. Disable Animated Maps
3. Disable Animations
4. Disable Extra Models - Only applies to Galaxy and Sovereign bridges at present. 3rd Era went through some trouble to make sure that the extra models didn't cause too many problems on PC's, even older mid-range PC's should not have to much trouble with the extra models. I recommend this option only for the oldest of the oldest (or crappiest of the crappiest :P )
There are mods that can add additional ships to the map, for example Abandon Ship, AI Shuttle Launching, MVAM, etc. These may cause slowdowns in large scale battles, but I don't personally foresee them being an issue for one on one - medium sized battles on most computer 5 years old and younger. Turn them off for performance boosts. (Thanks goes to RifleMan for the info).
Of course the single biggest (and most obvious) slowdowns affecting BC today is hands down ship models and their respective textures. High-poly models with 2048x2048 resolution textures can cause major lag on older and even some modern systems, especially with NanoFX. Models/textures like this are generally made on a "look pretty first, playable second" mentality and therefore should not be used for everyday gaming unless you have the system to power them. They make for GREAT screenshots though... :D
Also, after installing new ships, it is always a good idea to delete the vox files in the ship folder so the game will damage the model properly. However, while the game creates the new vox files, there will be a slowdown, therefore it is not a good idea to play with new ships en mass if you're creating new vox files. (Thanks goes to El for providing this info).
Adjusting your graphics card settings is of course a logical/given step when trying to increase performance not just for BC, but for any computer game. There are various ways to do this, depending on what graphics card you have, the software, and drivers installed. For complete details you'll need to go to your graphics card manufacturers website or the instruction manual that came with your card/PC and go from there.
I think those are the major BC slowdowns that are asked about the most, but please feel free to add to this topic and I'll add them to the first post for easy reference. Hope this helps all you newbies out there with older/lower end machines.
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One more major slowdown of BC: huge screenshot file. clean it up, save the pics elsewhere and suddenly your BC starts up faster.
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One more major slowdown of BC: huge screenshot file. clean it up, save the pics elsewhere and suddenly your BC starts up faster.
Added to first post.
I did not know that one...
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last time I tried reducing bits on my BC install to decrease memory usage, the whole thing crashed to the desktop. in some cases, caution may be advised.
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actually, I've found that BC runs alot better if you do not use T&L, especially on low end cards.
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actually, I've found that BC runs alot better if you do not use T&L, especially on low end cards.
That's odd I've always heard otherwise...could it be depending on the graphics card?
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Aces is right... when i had a somewhat mid-range system, i found using the non-T&L option was better indeed...
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Aces is right... when i had a somewhat mid-range system, i found using the non-T&L option was better indeed...
Hmm, that's interesting. But I'm curious, I haven't tried it yet but doesn't it look better with T&L on?
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wasn't T&L specific to ATI cards?
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uh, guys, please translate "T&L"
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First post updated with Aces & Jimmy's info on T&L usage, I'm with King on some T&L info, I looked it up but I don't quite get it...
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When I filmed my big battle videos like "The Battle of Taiga", I had a Nvidia GeForce 5500 and it lagged like crazy, since I use only the best mods and ships I can find. And to get the best battle effects, I had everything on except AI Shuttle Launch, AI Abandon ship, and AI Warp, aswell as AI Surrender. Them are still off to this date because when a ship is abandoned with escape pods, it laggs while filming. Now that I have my new computer though, I am able to create larger battles without much of a problem.
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Make sure that you have latest driver updates. I think that King Class Scout can prove the effect of this.
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As I understand it, T&L (Transform & Lighting) forces the Graphics card to take over more of the graphical memory load from the RAM, so it looks better graphically, but low to medium end cards might not be able to handle the load, which will cause some slowing.
I've found that just by picking the non-T&L, and maybe reducing color depth, I can safely push most of the rest of the settings to the max with minimal slowing, and I've only got an upper mid-range computer. But I suppose that's a matter of opinion, you should always experiment with your settings to find your optimum balance.
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uh, guys, please translate "T&L"
T&L is a feature that modern GPUs have that don't take over more of the graphical memory load from the RAM as ACES was mentioning rather, they take away more of the graphical computational processes from the CPU... so as to balance out the creation of graphics - especially 3d graphics - being rendered on the screen. The GPU "transforms" the wire meshes of objects and in a nutshell, smooths them out so that they are as realistic as possible for display. While the "lighting" part refers to the GPUs handling of 3d generated light sources on screen. This saves A LOT of data crunching from the CPU which can then concentrate more on things like AI (artificial intelligence).
Prior to T&L capable graphic cards, all the T&L and AI and other calculations were pretty much handled by the CPU... those were the days when computer graphics were no where near the level or realism they are today. One example of a none T&L graphic card were the TNT series from Nvidia. Not a bad card for its day but the graphics it generated were for lack of a better word... a lot "clunkier" than what we have today.
(jb76 edit - fixed quote tags...)
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Sorry for the double post but I must have accidentally removed one of the quotation marks in my above post and my answer to the T&L question was included in the body of the quote. :)
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Thanks to everyone who clarified T&L. In a nutshell turn them off if your computer sucks :dance
When I filmed my big battle videos like "The Battle of Taiga", I had a Nvidia GeForce 5500 and it lagged like crazy, since I use only the best mods and ships I can find. And to get the best battle effects, I had everything on except AI Shuttle Launch, AI Abandon ship, and AI Warp, aswell as AI Surrender. Them are still off to this date because when a ship is abandoned with escape pods, it laggs while filming. Now that I have my new computer though, I am able to create larger battles without much of a problem.
Mods that add stuff to the map like shuttle launching, abandon ship, even MVAM etc. slipped my mind. Thanks RifleMan. Adding to the first post for easy reference.
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lol then even i learned something today... i bought a new computer 2 months ago with alot of ram and a very decent gfx card; i suppose i should start playing BC with the T&L option on, from now on, after all; since my computer now can handle a hell of alot more than my old one could... :)
(before i only had a 2.5hgz processor, 1 gig ram, and nvidia geforce 5500fx 256mb)
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T and L applies only to dedicated seperate graphic creations chips! this one runs stock and whatever was dropped in to begin with.
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I'm sorry about the confusion. But still, if you have a low end machine you should turn it off, it may not look as good, but it will run a lot better without it.
One thing I didn't see on that list at the top was Mipmapping, a feature that is specifically designed to save on memory usage.
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Added to the list along with speculars and enhanced glows. Thanks Aces.
Also added suggestions for performance improvement through Bridge Plugin, mostly based on my own experience and just things that seem to make sense to me. Any further ideas (or corrections) are appreciated.
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please tell the non computer savvy (and those of us who's tech savvy is a couple generations behind) HOW to shut off this T&L.
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Go to Configure/Graphics. Look at the first few sets of buttons. If you see some text which has the name of your graphics card, click on it. A little menu should pop open and then select the option with your graphics card but doesnt have T&L written next to it.
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ok im confused (as always lol)
so if i understand correctly, only people with decent computers should use the T&L option for better quality?
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One with a decent graphics card should. If your graphics card doesn't have enough memory, turning on T&L will not help performance.
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One with a decent graphics card should. If your graphics card doesn't have enough memory, turning on T&L will not help performance.
Can anyone give us a range of "decent?" Say 256mb and below should leave them off, etc.
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Actually in my experience, 256mb and above are ok to leave T&L on.
I have found that the biggest hit on performance hands down is the LOD of the models in use, the sizes of their textures, and the amount of ships/objects on screen.
If any of you are like me and have a ton of different ship mods installed from the different what I call "eras" of BC modding, then depending on the ships/objects you play with will be a huge determining factor on your overall quality and playability.
For instance, whenever I play with a bunch of older p81 ships (I keep then around for nostalgia... and also for the fact that they're a great improvement over the original BC ships) I can play everything at maxed out settings and even those old ships from a distance don't look too bad.
On the other hand, when I play with a bunch of DJ, LC, CG, or any other high res models on screen at higher resolutions then I definitely start to take a hit on quality/performance... and I have a pretty powerful system.
It's all about balance.
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also include a refrence for those people that still run XP windows. not everyone has upgraded to Vista or Seven.
I find that, if an individal ship download totals more than 10 meg, it gives my 128 meg card conniption fits. so basically, pare down ships to match about 10 percent of your graphics memory size for good performance.
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using the DL size of a mod is a baaaad idea... to fix your issues just reduce the size of the textures... (that makes up the bulk of the file size anyway) so if it is a 1024x1024 texture reduce its size to 512x512...
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i did...with Baz's JJ's (which were the ones that gave me the most trouble). it didn't help.
another suggestion. make sure the graphics card is up to date. the chipset in my comp needed 17 meg worth of driver updates!
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Okay I added information provided by Moed about 256mb and up being ok for T&L. I also added a section on high-poly, massive texture-sized ships. I originally thought a section like that wouldn't be necessary (I considered it obvious to be honest) but there's a few posts here going into detail about it so I won't argue with the consensus.
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Added to the list along with speculars and enhanced glows. Thanks Aces.
Also added suggestions for performance improvement through Bridge Plugin, mostly based on my own experience and just things that seem to make sense to me. Any further ideas (or corrections) are appreciated.
actually you have mipmapping backwards, as I understand it, Mipmapping simplifies the model, so it will use less memory, I could be wrong about that part, but I'm pretty sure you want it on if you want to improve performance.
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actually you have mipmapping backwards, as I understand it, Mipmapping simplifies the model, so it will use less memory, I could be wrong about that part, but I'm pretty sure you want it on if you want to improve performance.
From the BC Instruction manual:
Click this button to turn mipmaps on or off. Turning mipmaps off will save some texture memory at the expense of rendering quality.
Of course this gives no mention about the model as you suggested (about simplifying it), so for all we know this feature may go either way performance wise...can anyone help clarify this one?
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Mipmapping does nothing to the model, only the textures.
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whoops, I guess I had that backwards all these years. I could have sworn it saved memory.
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a little experimenting on my part yeilded some interesting results. high-poly ships reduced to the original BC's maximum sized 512 textures saved me a lot of greif for 30k poly ships.
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Yeah textures are probably one of the most common slowdowns in BC. I personally won't go past 1024 (unless it's an install without NFX).
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I believe Mark, while creating the most recent version of the Intrepid bridge, did do a BC engine stress test with many of the people here to determine what was an acceptable poly count and whether polys or textures put more strain on the engine. In the end I believe the verdict was textures put far more strain on the engine.
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actually, it was the Ent-A bridge with several dozen high-poly chairs put all over the place lol
i was there at the time (with others) providing feedback on a mid-range system... it was funny; chairs sticking out of the walls, ceiling, everywhere lol
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Hi,
it is all time the whole system (CPU+GPU+GPU-RAM) and the settings that give the
performance.
If you have an old CPU that dont get the data for the graka fast enough out, then the
grake sitting in wait and doing nothing.
T&L is a good performance boost alltime ! (but remember the point with GPU-MEM ! )
If you have an cheap MoBo with an non-optimal design that basicaly runs but not all
good speed then the data com to slow to GraKa or the CPU<>RAM is to slow.
Now to the GPU-RAM:
It is simple->
To operate at full speed - ALL! data that the GPU process MUSST fit in GraKa RAM.
If it musst swap RAM with MAIN RAM (even with PCI-16) its SLOW down like hell!
(if you have a good Graka - if you have an old who the onboard ram isnt faster as the
AGP8 transfer rate then you will notice only little difference as example ...)
So the hint with T&L is normaly a bad set, this move the expansive T&L calculation
to the CPU and initiate an extra data overhead on the graka<>CPU bus.
Only if you use an old driver who is bad with T&L THEN it isa good solution,but then it is better to update the driver ...
Now to the REAL GU-MEM Eater ->
AA and Mipmap
If you have an Texture that is RAW 20MB.
With Mipmap it musst hold in different detail size in RAM (at now RAM stand for GPU-RAM) so you get with 4 level at maybe 30MB RAW - with compression
you get maybe final 3-7MB on the bigest.(depends on the texture - if he can good LOSLESS compressed)
Then you use AA - EVERY AA level musst hold the actual mipmap Texture in RAM.
So at 16x AA you get at close range with the 7MB texture an memory amount
from around 110MB.So if you have 2 ships realy close with both high-res textures
then you get with 2x 110MB + 30MB basic textures + 3D Data + shader Data very
close to 256MB ... this is optimized in different ways ... but the AA give the biggest
Memory impact.
If the RAM can hold all data T&L on is always the best (with driver that operate flawles).
Regards
R-TEAM
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This only works for those of us that are still using older AGP cards.
One way to increase graphics memory to help with higher res textures is to increase the AGP aperture size in the BIOS. If of course your BIOS is advanced enough to have that setting available.
Go into your BIOS and look for "AGP aperture size" or something similar to that and increase that to 128mb or if you have at least 1gb of RAM installed, bump up the AGP aperture size to 256mb. This RAM will be exclusively used to supplement the amount of graphics RAM on your video card and really help out with frame rates in BC as that extra memory will hold that many more textures.
My sons system has a pretty powerful AGP card and I increased the AGP aperture to the max amount allowed (usually 256mb) and now his BC is running much more smoothly with everything on high settings at 1280x1024 running on an older Athlon XP 2800+
I have a PCIx Crossfire setup so, I'm fortunate to have everything run pretty smoothly also.
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odd. I remember being told not to ever touch anything having to do with the BIOS because of insta-kill motherboard.
Edit: R-Team, a combination of Geek-speak and english as a second language makes that almost completely incomprehensible. besides, I'm the old fogey around here, i'd need setting instructions in "for Dummies" format!
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odd. I remember being told not to ever touch anything having to do with the BIOS because of insta-kill motherboard.
That's only to stop people who don't know what they are doing in there... non of the options will really kill the motherboard (if you don't overclock the damn thing over its thermal limit) if it ever did encounter an issue it just won't boot to windows and you have to reset it to stock.
This only works for those of us that are still using older AGP cards.
uhh kinda standard now... they have similar options that work for PCI-E cards as well... it is system shared memory.
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R-Team, a combination of Geek-speak and english as a second language makes that almost completely incomprehensible. besides, I'm the old fogey around here, i'd need setting instructions in "for Dummies" format!
Seconded, not trying to get on your case R-Team, I just like to be able to understand posts! :P
Anyways I'm not going to add BIOS information to the first post, mainly because this thread is about adjusting BC settings to get the best performance, not going into the deep, dark depths of the PC itself. The BIOS suggestions are welcome none the less in case someone DOES want to risk playing with them, but I'm just gonna leave them in their original authors posts as-is.
In any case there has been a lot of helpful ideas here please continue to post anything you have. Thanks for the help guys.
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odd. I remember being told not to ever touch anything having to do with the BIOS because of insta-kill motherboard.
Edit: R-Team, a combination of Geek-speak and english as a second language makes that almost completely incomprehensible. besides, I'm the old fogey around here, i'd need setting instructions in "for Dummies" format!
How "old" are you King Class Scout? I might give you a run for your money :)
Cookie for Nero for starting this valuable thread.
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he's somewhere between "mature" and "ancient" :funny
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Added a note to the first post about the option/necessity to adjust GPU settings. I didn't go into details on how to do this (since it varies from card to card), only a referral to the GPU manufacturers website/instruction manual, since that goes outside BC but is an obvious step.
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he's somewhere between "mature" and "ancient" :funny
how ancient ? Master Windu ancient or Master Yoda ancient ? :D
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Hi,
he,he - yes - my english is "suboptimal" ;)
To clarify :
The main important thing, that the GraKa only operate at full speed IF all data in the
GraKa memory is clear i hope.
(and even setting the "Apertue Size" from AGP give the graka only more motherboard (MoBo), and so slow, RAM as buffer)
With MipMap is mean the technic to store txture data in different detail and size levels
in RAM (better in GraKa ram).So that if the object at long distant, not musst rendered
from the GraphicProcessor (GPU) with a highres texture who even no one will see the nice details.
The AA is AntisotropischeFilter (here i should better writen AF - sorry ;) ), it correct the texture, by non planar view on here, to look even good.So if you like to show the side of a spaceship from all angles look good and sharp you need a high AF.The drawback is that the GraKa musst (or shold) store all the more finer calculatet pictures in here RAM - and as you see on my example this cost the most of the RAM.
Regards
R-TEAM
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Hi,
he,he - yes - my english is "suboptimal" ;)
To clarify :
The main important thing, that the GraKa only operate at full speed IF all data in the
GraKa memory is clear i hope.
(and even setting the "Apertue Size" from AGP give the graka only more motherboard (MoBo), and so slow, RAM as buffer)
With MipMap is mean the technic to store txture data in different detail and size levels
in RAM (better in GraKa ram).So that if the object at long distant, not musst rendered
from the GraphicProcessor (GPU) with a highres texture who even no one will see the nice details.
The AA is AntisotropischeFilter (here i should better writen AF - sorry ;) ), it correct the texture, by non planar view on here, to look even good.So if you like to show the side of a spaceship from all angles look good and sharp you need a high AF.The drawback is that the GraKa musst (or shold) store all the more finer calculatet pictures in here RAM - and as you see on my example this cost the most of the RAM.
Regards
R-TEAM
Ok I think I get what you're saying but I'm not 100% so bear with me and I apologize if I misunderstand you. I'm assuming "GraKa" is "Graphics Card" and your explaining memory usage a bit (please correct me if I'm wrong). MipMaps has been addressed already. Anisotropic Filtering isn't something I've gone into detail over but I know it's something that can't be adjusted from BC, you have to adjust the settings from your GPU software directly. Since ways (in some rare, crappy, cases IF you're able) to do this vary depending on your hardware and/or software you'd have to get that info from your GPU manufacturer.
Anyways I hope I'm not discouraging you from offering further imput, I'm just trying to make sure I'm clear on what you're saying. Anything you have to contribute is welcome.
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The last thing I read in the NET about T&L was that T&L has complex pipelines, which ones accelarate the graphics performance.
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Updated the first post with some additional ways to speed up BC through DS9FX, though nothing major.
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A quick note on VOX files.
If you delete VOX files due to ships not damaging properly, the next time that ship is used it will lag BC somewhat while the VOX file is rebuilt.
Obviously for battles with multiple ships where you have deleted the vox files this will cause a lot more lag.
Suggest after deleteing the vox files you play each ship one at a time to rebuild the Vox files before trying big fleet battles.
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*Added to first post*
Very good to know El.
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got a tip for MAKING them? i have some older mods that were made sans VOXes.
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you don't make the vox files....
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Yeah the game creates them along with any needed pyc's and the options.cfg. ;)
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*updated the DS9FX section of the first post to correspond with Xtended's new features and systems.*
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*Finally got around to porting this page to the BC Wiki*
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Good work *cookie*
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lol i completely forgot there was even a wiki...
it would be a good thing if more people added to it...
strange - the only thing i see on there is Foundation... how does someone navigate to the other areas of information?
isnt there some sort of "menu" or "tree"?
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I usually just hit "recent changes" and that pulls up a list of everything that's been added to the site.
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lol i completely forgot there was even a wiki...
it would be a good thing if more people added to it...
strange - the only thing i see on there is Foundation... how does someone navigate to the other areas of information?
isnt there some sort of "menu" or "tree"?
Jimmy you want to select the button on the left that says "List All Pages"
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Another thing that goes for NVidia cards (dunno if ATI has anything the likes of): Those of you who use NVidiaInspector instead of the default settings window, use 4xS AA (8xS is overkill on resolutions smaller than 2048). BTW, just so you all know, this type of AA is directx games ONLY!
EDIT: This AA type is less resource -intensive than the regular ones and looks tons better.
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Gonna add a little something here for those of us with new towers. This will run on 8.1 maxxed out on modern graphics cards. To get it to work properly you will have to right click on your desktop short cut or start menu short cut, go to properties, then compatability tab, turn on compatability mode to windows xp sp3 and you are set..This is one of those old games and old graphics engines thats just sorta happy in any OS...now if someone could just decompile the exe and fix the memory leak....
DK