Bridge Commander Central

BC Forums => BC General => Topic started by: King Class Scout on September 30, 2009, 08:16:22 AM

Title: Bumping up my PC
Post by: King Class Scout on September 30, 2009, 08:16:22 AM
my Tower is staggering under the load of BC mods.  with a tiny little amount of mods (i have mabey 10% of what most of you have added), it's struggling with anything over 1024 textures and high poly counts. 

can someone give me a pointer as to where you tweak the Graphics card, again (i've had to reinstall at least twice, and back up to previous settings), and would adding the little bit of memory I DO have handy help any?
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: tiqhud on September 30, 2009, 09:54:25 AM
it helps ALOT by keeping textures Low, turn off Motion Blur and Space dust in your Graphics [ingame], this works well for me, also uninstall Bridges-ships-stations, you don't use on a regular basis, I understand the fascination with BIG machines, but we All dont have them, and dont have the funds for a new system or graphics card.
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: King Class Scout on September 30, 2009, 10:54:23 AM
actually, i tried that.  downgrading the graphics now causes INSTANT BSOD!

motion blur and space dust have always been off, i had to kill the Skinning and Damaging tool for the SNS galaxies, i have only the stock stations, and there ARE no bridges, now.

and I'm STILL getting heavy skips and lag when running any JJverse ships.

thing is, I'm running a Celeron 440 at 2 gig speed, a gig of ram, and I'm STILL overloaded!
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: martyr on September 30, 2009, 02:19:38 PM
get more ram
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: King Class Scout on September 30, 2009, 03:41:28 PM
that's the first thing I thought of.  I just hope they haven't taken all the ram slots, though.  if there ARE any.  this comp is in a newer physical style.  everything may be built in and un-updatable
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: majormagna on September 30, 2009, 07:36:55 PM
 How much memory does your graphics card have? That's usually more of a problem than RAM.
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: King Class Scout on September 30, 2009, 08:07:48 PM
i had to have tiqhud point me at it.  128.  decent.  the only problems I seem to have are with ships with a lot of curves.
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: Kirk on September 30, 2009, 08:50:00 PM
Wow, 128mb?! That's your problem right there. You are in desperate need of a new gfx card.
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: CyAn1d3 on September 30, 2009, 09:20:31 PM
Wow, 128mb?! That's your problem right there. You are in desperate need of a new gfx card.

and i have 64, and you KNOW how much regular ram i have kirk......
does that count me in the antiques department? :D

i JUST re did my install, and it runs smooth as glass even on high(M)/medium(T)/high(D)
no specs
no MB
no space dust
no Enhanced glows

and nano fx dummed down to a laughable level.....REALLY laughable... the explosions arnt explosions anymore... just a wiley coyote poof..... O_o
(also my virtual mem paging file is MAXED)

i just ran a skirmish with 30 ships... 5 fed, 25 cardi... little bit of chugging but its a HELL of alot better than what it WAS.
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: King Class Scout on October 01, 2009, 09:43:20 AM
Kirk: this isn't a dedicated gaming PC.  we're on our third computer, now, due to the poor power supply infrastructure around here and the fact we sit in a thunderstorm alley.  they rebuilt all the supply lines running out this way when they finally updated the area to a DSL setup.  I believe we've only had a relativly high-speed connection for less than 3 years.  before that, it was a very long distance dialup setup that, after the first couple years and policy changes, dropped to a max of 24.4 and 2kps.
the graphics card is built into the motherboard.  it cannot be changed.

most of my rendering problems have ben resolved, however.  while tiqhud was walking me through a paredown and checking my Direct X settings, it turns out the direct X rendering was shut off!  i had a test last night and thismorning.  even the stock ships are crisp, clean, fast, powerfull.  they're blowing up spectacularly.  the phasers are now razor sharp with none of those weird texture gaps (and those that do show up have their onscreen time cut in half)  even the torpedoes got prettier, and the flares are rotating at proper speeds.  even Sheild damage is sharp and intense.  the only grumbles are stuff appearing highly solarized, and I can now turn off the enhanced glows (everything looks washed out).
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: candle_86 on October 01, 2009, 12:16:31 PM
you dont require a super computer to run the game even modded, just for baz's ships apperntly, honestly there the only ones that lag for me.

Athlon64 3500
1gb DDR400
Geforce 6800 256mb

everything else runs fine 1280x104, just I use on of those connie refits the whole system lags :P
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: Bones on October 02, 2009, 05:41:57 AM
I still have one of my old PCs (Celeron 2Ghz, 2 Gb ddr2, GeForce 5700 LE, 120 Gb HDD) and modded BC (KM 1.0) works fine but gets laggy when I put some pulse phasers/disruptor fire or one of the newest models with high poly count.

What really kills BC is pulse projectiles :( I just had skirmish with 2 Scimitars, 5 Siafs and 10 Katanas versus about 30 romulans (various ships) and when they opened fire from pulses I had one pretty slide show :D while I consider my PC rather up to date (Core2Duo E8400 3.0 GHz, 4 Gb DDR2 877 Ram, GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, 1 TB SATA2 HDD)
I read somewhere you need to edit pulse disruptors/phasers projectile file and edit line responsible for projectile liftime duration and shorten the time so when it miss its target it will dissapear quickly saving you a whole load of lag ;)
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: King Class Scout on October 02, 2009, 09:56:39 AM
yes.  BC and it's varients show the same kind of "sprite lag" that 8 bit carts used to on the nes.  this is due to to much memory being called for at once.

and if you want old, I'll point you to our first comp, a 660 celeron, stock graphics card, 128 k SINGLE ram, and a 10 gig hard drive you can now buy as a mem stick.  the computer before THIS one couldn't take a single tablet being installed in it with a 2.4 gig celeron.
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: tiqhud on October 02, 2009, 10:03:03 AM
What really kills BC is pulse projectiles :( I just had skirmish with 2 Scimitars, 5 Siafs and 10 Katanas versus about 30 romulans (various ships) and when they opened fire from pulses I had one pretty slide show :D while I consider my PC rather up to date (Core2Duo E8400 3.0 GHz, 4 Gb DDR2 877 Ram, GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, 1 TB SATA2 HDD)
I read somewhere you need to edit pulse disruptors/phasers projectile file and edit line responsible for projectile liftime duration and shorten the time so when it miss its target it will dissapear quickly saving you a whole load of lag ;)
Sure it [thee computer] has to figure where each projectile is, Massive torp- fire is terrible too
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: Bones on October 02, 2009, 02:02:22 PM
yes.  BC and it's varients show the same kind of "sprite lag" that 8 bit carts used to on the nes.  this is due to to much memory being called for at once.

and if you want old, I'll point you to our first comp, a 660 celeron, stock graphics card, 128 k SINGLE ram, and a 10 gig hard drive you can now buy as a mem stick.  the computer before THIS one couldn't take a single tablet being installed in it with a 2.4 gig celeron.
Lol I remember my first PC(first desktop with Windows OS) it was Celeron 433 Mhz, 256 mb SD RAM, Nvidia 8 mb graphics and 4 GB HDD :funny I remeber Quake I was laggy as hell especially in 5-6 level in all 4 acts not to mention finale LOL
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: candle_86 on October 02, 2009, 02:52:39 PM
my first desktop makes yalls look new guys. My first desktop was a Pentium 100, Voodoo Grahpics, 32mb EDO 50mhz, 800mb HD, and a 2x CD-RW, 3 1/2 Floopy and a 5 1/4 floopy, running windows 95. OVer the years I upgraded things, got a Socket 5 to Socket7 adaptor, and a PEntium MMX 200, replaced the 32mb EDO with 64mb EDO 50mhz Ram, and a Riva TNT2 M64 PCI card. That computer lasted me untill 2000, and I got it in 1996, yes I know I was rather young but it was my personal desktop. Replaced with an AMD K6-2 450, 256mb PC-100, Riva TNT2 Ultra, and an amazing to me 15gb Hard Drive.
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: Bones on October 02, 2009, 04:10:31 PM
my first desktop makes yalls look new guys. My first desktop was a Pentium 100, Voodoo Grahpics, 32mb EDO 50mhz, 800mb HD, and a 2x CD-RW, 3 1/2 Floopy and a 5 1/4 floopy, running windows 95. OVer the years I upgraded things, got a Socket 5 to Socket7 adaptor, and a PEntium MMX 200, replaced the 32mb EDO with 64mb EDO 50mhz Ram, and a Riva TNT2 M64 PCI card. That computer lasted me untill 2000, and I got it in 1996, yes I know I was rather young but it was my personal desktop. Replaced with an AMD K6-2 450, 256mb PC-100, Riva TNT2 Ultra, and an amazing to me 15gb Hard Drive.
Ya I remember I had that PC I mentioned few posts ago until 2001 but it was upgraded first with TNT2 Ultra 64 which was back then (1999) one of the best piece of hardware (there was something better called Elsa Erazor or something like that I think it was manufactured by ATi oh and I forgot about Rage ;) ) then in 2000 I've changed it to GeForce 2 MX (with NFS Porsche) and got brand new 512 mb Ram ... I bet BC wouldn't work on that monster ... although I do remember my last game I played on that rig was SW Jedi Knight 2... man that was lag :D everything on minimum yet still FPS count was droping to 1-5 frames LOL
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: candle_86 on October 02, 2009, 05:56:54 PM
lol, well my original made it awhile. I didnt get a good upgrade till 2002, when I started working when I was 15. That summer I bought an XP 1700, ASUS K7V 233 board, 512mb DDR2100, and a Geforce 3 TI 200, I loved that rig, and it made it allthe more special because I worked 10 hours 5 days a week that sumer to pay for it.
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: captain_obvious on October 02, 2009, 06:16:32 PM
actually, i tried that.  downgrading the graphics now causes INSTANT BSOD!

motion blur and space dust have always been off, i had to kill the Skinning and Damaging tool for the SNS galaxies, i have only the stock stations, and there ARE no bridges, now.

and I'm STILL getting heavy skips and lag when running any JJverse ships.

thing is, I'm running a Celeron 440 at 2 gig speed, a gig of ram, and I'm STILL overloaded!


Bin the celeron mate. A core 2 duo e8400 is a far superior cpu. 3 ghz as standard but I currently have mine sat at 3.6ghz on standard air cooler with no volt mods! runs almost as cool as it does at 3ghz too. Lovely little cpu that I heartily recommend. Another gig of ram couldn't hurt either IMO.

My first pc was a pentium 166mmx with 16mb of ram and a 4mb S3trio with windows 95. Was capable of running MDK, swiv 3d and little else life was good for 7 year old CO :)
That was 1996-2001. It was then given to my uncle Dave who still uses her to this very day!

in 2001 I prevailed on my mum who prevailed on my old man it was time to upgrade. 'twas a special rig this one. A 1ghz AMD athlon T-bird with 128mb of ram and a 32mb Geforce2 mx400 running windows ME :P
Ran MDK2 and BC just about managing 2 CG sovs and stock everything else.  Splintercell refused to install and serious sam didn't go too well. Sadly swiv3d never got that much deserved sequel. Life was okish for 12 year old CO.  :)

That thing ran until about a year ago when my parents decided to bin it and get a new one with a shiny shiny dual core E6550 and 2 gig of ram. That's all I know about that one.

About the same time I constructed my own colossus. the E8400 (O/c to 3.6ghz) with 2 gb of ram and a 512mb ATI4850.
Runs like a dream except when she crashes while running BC. Which is incredibly far more often than even the T-Bird! And I very much doubt it's down to heat issues with the pc remaining fully functional after the crash.
Life now sucks for 20 year old CO  :'(
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: King Class Scout on October 02, 2009, 07:51:53 PM
sorry, guys, after talking with candle all day, my older units are NOT upgradable (they're too old, now), and sice I share the current one...well...
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: Bones on October 03, 2009, 05:12:46 AM
actually, i tried that.  downgrading the graphics now causes INSTANT BSOD!

motion blur and space dust have always been off, i had to kill the Skinning and Damaging tool for the SNS galaxies, i have only the stock stations, and there ARE no bridges, now.

and I'm STILL getting heavy skips and lag when running any JJverse ships.

thing is, I'm running a Celeron 440 at 2 gig speed, a gig of ram, and I'm STILL overloaded!


Bin the celeron mate. A core 2 duo e8400 is a far superior cpu. 3 ghz as standard but I currently have mine sat at 3.6ghz on standard air cooler with no volt mods! runs almost as cool as it does at 3ghz too. Lovely little cpu that I heartily recommend. Another gig of ram couldn't hurt either IMO.

My first pc was a pentium 166mmx with 16mb of ram and a 4mb S3trio with windows 95. Was capable of running MDK, swiv 3d and little else life was good for 7 year old CO :)
That was 1996-2001. It was then given to my uncle Dave who still uses her to this very day!

in 2001 I prevailed on my mum who prevailed on my old man it was time to upgrade. 'twas a special rig this one. A 1ghz AMD athlon T-bird with 128mb of ram and a 32mb Geforce2 mx400 running windows ME :P
Ran MDK2 and BC just about managing 2 CG sovs and stock everything else.  Splintercell refused to install and serious sam didn't go too well. Sadly swiv3d never got that much deserved sequel. Life was okish for 12 year old CO.  :)

That thing ran until about a year ago when my parents decided to bin it and get a new one with a shiny shiny dual core E6550 and 2 gig of ram. That's all I know about that one.

About the same time I constructed my own colossus. the E8400 (O/c to 3.6ghz) with 2 gb of ram and a 512mb ATI4850.
Runs like a dream except when she crashes while running BC. Which is incredibly far more often than even the T-Bird! And I very much doubt it's down to heat issues with the pc remaining fully functional after the crash.
Life now sucks for 20 year old CO  :'(
What did you use to overclock your E8400 ??? It would be cool to get mine to 3.6 :D
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: King Class Scout on October 03, 2009, 08:57:46 AM
good greif, you people are being a little TOO serious about this :P

remember, these are not custom made machines I've had, these are mostly off-the-shelf units.  I've allready had Candle review the whole thing.  neither of my older comps could be updated in this day and age, and the, even when NEW they couldn't have, either.  and yet, i still did. 

our first comp went through three modems to to a strong tendancy to get either struck by lightning, or be victims of multiple brownouts.  our Electric service provider has a horrendous reputation, and only recently has been able to afford to physically update the lines and poles to something modern.  being stalled in returning electrical power for ten days during the big blizzard in the winter of 92/93 ruined what little was left of their reputation.  i was told the idiots came out, saw all the pole lights on out our way from farmers running generators, and thought everything was fine  :wtf

i remind the European and Britisher BCers...america can't get parts as easily and cheaply as you can.  everything we get for parts literally comes over on a slow boat from China, including automotive parts.  I also remind you that most everything in america is made to be disposable.  this attitude prevails even though we've pretty much lost all manufacturing ability to cheaper overseas costs.  this is why you poor buggers get saturated with American culture, TV, and movies...it's the ONLY thing we have left to sell :P

that said...I have allready gone over this with Candle.  unfortunately, I've been out of work since APRIL, and had to scrap EVERYTHING to get some basic living money.
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: candle_86 on October 03, 2009, 08:36:43 PM
he is right, one is a socket370/slot1 rig, one is socket 478 with Intel 845G and no AGP slot. The other with the 440 has a blow cap so the board is blown, but that board also only supports 65nm CPU's so the best it can run is a QX6800, but newegg only carries up to the Celeron 1500 in 65nm. There isnt a viable upgrade route to go here besides total system replacement
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: King Class Scout on October 03, 2009, 09:15:27 PM
geek overload!  yeah.  I'll translate.

the first dates from at least 1995, the second from no later than 2001  candle can give precise dates.
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: candle_86 on October 04, 2009, 10:24:07 AM
lol first one is from around 1998, only support 66mhz BUS. Second is from mid 2002.
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: captain_obvious on October 05, 2009, 06:44:03 AM
actually, i tried that.  downgrading the graphics now causes INSTANT BSOD!

motion blur and space dust have always been off, i had to kill the Skinning and Damaging tool for the SNS galaxies, i have only the stock stations, and there ARE no bridges, now.

and I'm STILL getting heavy skips and lag when running any JJverse ships.

thing is, I'm running a Celeron 440 at 2 gig speed, a gig of ram, and I'm STILL overloaded!


Bin the celeron mate. A core 2 duo e8400 is a far superior cpu. 3 ghz as standard but I currently have mine sat at 3.6ghz on standard air cooler with no volt mods! runs almost as cool as it does at 3ghz too. Lovely little cpu that I heartily recommend. Another gig of ram couldn't hurt either IMO.

My first pc was a pentium 166mmx with 16mb of ram and a 4mb S3trio with windows 95. Was capable of running MDK, swiv 3d and little else life was good for 7 year old CO :)
That was 1996-2001. It was then given to my uncle Dave who still uses her to this very day!

in 2001 I prevailed on my mum who prevailed on my old man it was time to upgrade. 'twas a special rig this one. A 1ghz AMD athlon T-bird with 128mb of ram and a 32mb Geforce2 mx400 running windows ME :P
Ran MDK2 and BC just about managing 2 CG sovs and stock everything else.  Splintercell refused to install and serious sam didn't go too well. Sadly swiv3d never got that much deserved sequel. Life was okish for 12 year old CO.  :)

That thing ran until about a year ago when my parents decided to bin it and get a new one with a shiny shiny dual core E6550 and 2 gig of ram. That's all I know about that one.

About the same time I constructed my own colossus. the E8400 (O/c to 3.6ghz) with 2 gb of ram and a 512mb ATI4850.
Runs like a dream except when she crashes while running BC. Which is incredibly far more often than even the T-Bird! And I very much doubt it's down to heat issues with the pc remaining fully functional after the crash.
Life now sucks for 20 year old CO  :'(
What did you use to overclock your E8400 ??? It would be cool to get mine to 3.6 :D

The bios matey ;)
And with a standard intel cooler it's as solid as a rock. Although I've kept it down to 3.5 just to be sure!
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: Bones on October 05, 2009, 07:30:35 AM
actually, i tried that.  downgrading the graphics now causes INSTANT BSOD!

motion blur and space dust have always been off, i had to kill the Skinning and Damaging tool for the SNS galaxies, i have only the stock stations, and there ARE no bridges, now.

and I'm STILL getting heavy skips and lag when running any JJverse ships.

thing is, I'm running a Celeron 440 at 2 gig speed, a gig of ram, and I'm STILL overloaded!


Bin the celeron mate. A core 2 duo e8400 is a far superior cpu. 3 ghz as standard but I currently have mine sat at 3.6ghz on standard air cooler with no volt mods! runs almost as cool as it does at 3ghz too. Lovely little cpu that I heartily recommend. Another gig of ram couldn't hurt either IMO.

My first pc was a pentium 166mmx with 16mb of ram and a 4mb S3trio with windows 95. Was capable of running MDK, swiv 3d and little else life was good for 7 year old CO :)
That was 1996-2001. It was then given to my uncle Dave who still uses her to this very day!

in 2001 I prevailed on my mum who prevailed on my old man it was time to upgrade. 'twas a special rig this one. A 1ghz AMD athlon T-bird with 128mb of ram and a 32mb Geforce2 mx400 running windows ME :P
Ran MDK2 and BC just about managing 2 CG sovs and stock everything else.  Splintercell refused to install and serious sam didn't go too well. Sadly swiv3d never got that much deserved sequel. Life was okish for 12 year old CO.  :)

That thing ran until about a year ago when my parents decided to bin it and get a new one with a shiny shiny dual core E6550 and 2 gig of ram. That's all I know about that one.

About the same time I constructed my own colossus. the E8400 (O/c to 3.6ghz) with 2 gb of ram and a 512mb ATI4850.
Runs like a dream except when she crashes while running BC. Which is incredibly far more often than even the T-Bird! And I very much doubt it's down to heat issues with the pc remaining fully functional after the crash.
Life now sucks for 20 year old CO  :'(
What did you use to overclock your E8400 ??? It would be cool to get mine to 3.6 :D

The bios matey ;)
And with a standard intel cooler it's as solid as a rock. Although I've kept it down to 3.5 just to be sure!
Thx mate, I'll check it out ASAP ;)
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: milenent on November 02, 2009, 11:56:02 AM
If you want to rub BC well you need powerful graphic card somewhere about Ati Radeon X1950 (I have ASUS AH3450 512MB) to run it smoothly. The VGA mustn't be Integrated because when you are using Integrated VGA you're wasting memory and processor power. and you'll need about 2.66GhZ Dual Core processor (I have Pentium 4 Hyper Threated)and at least 2GB RAM (I have 1GB). The next thing you need could look funny but it's very important. the HDD. You need at least SATA HDD with 4MB cache so bc will load textures faster (phasers, torpedoes, pulse). If you don't have enough money to buy new hardware you can always overclock (do not follow me cause I've already burned out 3 computers (about 130$ all).
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: King Class Scout on November 02, 2009, 12:09:45 PM
lol...

Candle gave me an extensive list of bump up items, and I believe it included what you mentioned.  i just tried to throw in a little extra memory, and found the mem i do have doesn't physically fit, by a couple millimeters difference.

I doubt I'm eve gonna get a chance to pump my PC the way I want.  my parents are coming up short on their bills.  when I get back to work, I'm probably gonna have to take over a few of them, just to give em a hand.
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: captain_obvious on November 02, 2009, 03:45:46 PM
lol...

Candle gave me an extensive list of bump up items, and I believe it included what you mentioned.  i just tried to throw in a little extra memory, and found the mem i do have doesn't physically fit, by a couple millimeters difference.

I doubt I'm eve gonna get a chance to pump my PC the way I want.  my parents are coming up short on their bills.  when I get back to work, I'm probably gonna have to take over a few of them, just to give em a hand.

Let's have a whiparound for KCS :P
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: Lionus on November 02, 2009, 04:17:28 PM
he can have my X850.  :funny
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: danthius on November 03, 2009, 05:02:12 PM
if it makes you feel any better i have a AMD Phenom(tm) 9950 Quad-Core Processor with (RAM) 5,00 GB and a NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT i set everything High in bc but if i destroyed 4 or 5 vessels in BC it crashes to desktop...... :(
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: martyr on November 04, 2009, 11:21:21 AM
thats probably a mod error rather than a hardware fault
Title: Re: Bumping up my PC
Post by: danthius on November 04, 2009, 05:39:48 PM
i dont think so when i install km i have the problem already if you want to read the history on that search all my post would appriciate a solution for this :D