Chugging along on my PC

[Ronin]

I finally got around to installing R6 Vegas on my "new" PC yesterday.

Specs: 3.2Ghz P4, 1GB DDR2-800 RAM, GeForce 7600GS (PCI-Express 16) 512MB VRAM, Intel DP965LTCK motherboard, Maxtor 320GB SATA II hard drive (7200RPM, 16MB cache).

The game installed just fine.  No problems encountered, there.  I started the game up and went through the setup then shut it down.  When I restarted the game, it wanted to download an update so  Iet it do that.  That took about 8 minutes to download and install.

I restarted the game again after installing the update.  The game looks pretty good but it suffers from the colors being somewhat washed out and being a muddy brown.  It's not as bad as GRAW but it's quite noticable.

The gameplay seems to be pretty good.  But it's hard to tell when the machine chugs at playing it.  Even with the machine specs I have, the game chugs in some places pretty bad (probably 5 to 8 frames per second).

I have not finished the first level, yet.  I got killed in the church and quit.  I had a lot of other things I needed/wanted to do yesterday.  I may have to wait until I upgrade this machine before I'm "happy" playing it.  The game does indeed need more ponies than GRAW does to run it well.

I was running the game with most video settings either turned down or off (HDR was off) at 1024x768 resolution.

One gripe about the game is that like many other games today, the control interface (gadget and weapon selection for example) seems to be geared to using a game controller.   I don't have a game controller for my PC and I'm never likely to have one.  The control interface should have been changed to fit a keyboard and mouse better.  Holding down a key and then moving the mouse around (with no pointer evident) does not feel natural when trying to select something on screen.  At least you don't have to deal with that for some things.  But selecting the silencer you have to hold down the reload key then move the mouse around.  Something that feels decidedly un-natural.

The part of the game I've played does allow for alternate routes to get to where you're going but there is really only one alternate route.  So the game play feels pretty linear, so far.  That may change later on in the game.

Overall, I like the game so far.  I'd like it better if my machine were able to do a better job of running it.  But that's not the game's fault.  Of course, the first level is really just a training level.  I'm sure it will get a lot harder as the game progresses.

[MONOLITH]

I feel almost stupid saying this to someone with a lot of PC savvy, but just trying to help....

I find that if I do not defrag after an install, and again after a patch update, the files are all over the drive and the game can run like crap. A good defrag or two can help enormously with my load times and frame rates.

A possibility for you?

I also shut down every running process that I don't need to free up RAM. (Spyware, anti-virus, etc)

[Ronin]

That's a valid suggestion, Mono.  This is a new machine and really doesn't have a bunch of "crud" on it, yet.  I haven't tried shutting down the system monitor (Intel Desktop Utilities) or the anti-virus before playing it.  That will probably help.  There isn't anything else running (or user installed) on the box, yet, apart from GRAW.  I haven't gone through the system services to see what's running that I can just turn off like I usually do.  I need to do that, too.  It always takes a while to get a box tuned up to run well.

The installation flagged my CPU as being too slow when I installed the game.  It wants a 3.5Ghz CPU and mine is a 3.2.  Turning off a few processes might not be enough.  I haven't tried running it at 800x600 instead of 1024x768.  It's been a long time since I've had to do that for a game.

I think it may just require a CPU and graphics card upgrade to run it well.  The box is a little below the recommended system specs.  I ran into this when Quake 3 Arena first came out, too.  This motherboard can handle a Intel Core 2 Duo processor and that's probably what I'll upgrade to eventually.  I'll probably step up to a GeForce 8800, too.  But I can't afford to do either of those right now.

[MONOLITH]

Your rig is better than mine. Game specs are really getting high. I'm glad I stuck with the Xbox 360 version.

[Aramis]

It's the graphics card (and possibly processor to some degree), unfortunately. The  7600 gs core speed and such isn't probably going to be able to handle Vegas with all the eye candy turned up. I'd recommend a 7900 series or an ATI 1900 series if you're in the market.

Welcome to why I just gave up on pc's for now. Games are outstripping hardware quicker than I can upgrade. It's really frustrating.

[sithdemon]

These would be my suggestions.

If I remember correctly in the nvidia control panels, there should be a few controls for how it reneders your games, from AA and AF, to the actual textures.

First make sure AA and AF are OFF, or application controlled, and turn it off in the game, a higher res means more performance compared to lower with AA and AF on, while basicly doing what AA and AF does, plus the nvidia cards struggle a little with those on.

There should also a section for 3D samples, or textures, andif I remember the slider goes from performace to quality. Turn it to performance for now, and see if that helps any.

Ohhh and Vegas looks better on my PC, due to it being displayed on a CRT. mmmmmmm colours.

[Ronin]

I'm playing Vegas on a CRT.  My wife has an LCD monitor.  But mine are CRTs.  I'm playing this on a ViewSonic G810.

I'll look at the graphics control panel and see if I can speed it up that way.  I just spent $179 on this video card.  I probably won't buy another one for a good while (probably at least a year).  By then hopefully the prices on the 8800s won't be so ridiculous.

[Ronin]

I tuned things down a little bit and the game plays okay, now.  A lot of the picture is blurry, though.  I can't tell if it's my eyes or the screen is blurry. :roll:  

I know one thing for sure.  If I was on this team, I would get killed on the first outing.  I've been playing Terrorist Hunt on "normal" setting with the enemy density set to low.  I made it through Border Town alive.  But I've gotten killed in the casino about a dozen times, now.  It's starting to get annoying.  I always get killed by some jerk who just jumps through the door and shoots me at point blank range.  The terrorist placement seems to be almost completely random, though.  I got killed on the roof about 5 times.  Each time I play it, there is a different number of tangos on the roof (between 2 and 4).

One odd thing.  Sometimes the chopper on the roof makes sound and sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes it only makes sound after the first firefight.  Weird, that. :hmm:

[MindlessOath]

its so sad this game needs so much requirements. its like they just want to get ride of all the old players who are unwilling to upgrade.  i have an x800xt pe, its a top end card and it cannot play this game because its sm3 support only, and my card doesnt support sm3.

why does this game need sm3? it doesnt - it should have just used unreal2 engine because they didnt do anything great in this game to even need the unreal3 engine.

the unreal 3 engine just makes the system specs much larger, of course this game adds some special effects, but they are really not needed to enjoy this type of game.  if they used unreal3 they should have made it more effective and have a broader amount of players with all sorts of video cards and hardware.  this does prove some aspects of myne, its sad ubisoft, its sad.

[MONOLITH]

The terrorist placement seems to be almost completely random, though.  Each time I play it, there is a different number of tangos on the roof (between 2 and 4).

This would be a good thing that every game should have.

[MindlessOath]

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36608

they say its chugging even with 7900gtx

[Ronin]

This would be a good thing that every game should have.

Agreed!  I didn't mean for it to sound like I was complaining about it [randomizing the tangos on the terrorist hunt maps].

[MONOLITH]

No worries. I just never hear about tango randomization, so when I do I get all excited.  

Actually, I thought you were lying.



Heh. no. Sorry, that was a joke.    :tongue:


Seriously, my big bitch about FPS games, is the tango placement is always scripted to be the same. Even with Vegas SP campaign, going through a level and getting killed just before the checkpoint is horribly annoying because I have to go all the way back and start over. Now, the annoying part is not playing an area over; the annoying part is I now know where every tango is, which way he is facing, etc, so it all becomes "just going through the motions".

If tango placement was random every time the level loaded, replaying an area to get to a checkpoint would still be fun everytime. And what really makes me angry, is as we all learned years ago with IGOR, setting up random tango placement is absolutely a simple thing to do. If a goofy modder like me could do it in 30 minutes time, why can't the dev teams do it in a retail game.  :hmm:

Talon, you have any insight on that?






.

[deadsanchez]

shut down nonessential services. such like indexing, bit, updates related stuff. xp loves to run windows update in the background chugging resources. you should be down to like 160mb of ram being used.

command: msconfig, or services.msc