Psych0sis on 13/2/2019 at 02:59
Hi, I'm not sure why, but any time I try to play thief 2 (FM or OM), my game FPS drops heavily and makes gameplay really choppy and just overall not fun.
I'm playing on the latest NewDark Patch (1.26). I guess it's worth nothing I only extracted the NewDark.zip and the Contrib.zip from the overall package. It also does this if I try the latest version of TafferPatcher as well, or any other version of taffer patcher for that matter.
Here's an example of what I'm dealing with.
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/lpGrnmR.pngAll fine and dandy at the cap...
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/6CxTh2q.pngThen suddenly BAM, shoots all the way down and becomes a slideshow. My only guess is it's something to do with drawing all the brushes, or perhaps the lighting? The mission is Raven Creek, which requires at least 1.25 to play, but as I said it'll even do this on OMs as well (Precious Cargo is the worst). I'm also on Windows 10.
Anyone able to help?
Unna Oertdottir on 13/2/2019 at 09:51
Not much informations, screens too dark. Post Thief2.log
There are some threads about improving performance
edit cam_ext.cfg
-de-activate multisampling "multisampletype 8".
-de-activate "d3d_disp_enable_hdr"
-de-activate Bloom "postprocessing"
-de-activate "d3d_disp_sw_cc"
-de-activate "d3d_disp_enable_distortionfx"
-activate "d3d_disp_no_rgb10_buf"
Psych0sis on 13/2/2019 at 15:18
I don't have any "thief2.log" file of any type in the rootfolder I'm playing off of. And unfortunately, most of those were already disabled except one, which disabling still didn't help :(
Unna Oertdottir on 13/2/2019 at 15:40
Thief2.log is always in the root folder. Maybe it's a hidden file in this case, so enable to see it in Windows. Raven Creek mission 2 has some fps dropdown, this also happens on other PC systems.
Psych0sis on 13/2/2019 at 16:30
Quote Posted by Unna Oertdottir
Thief2.log is always in the root folder. Maybe it's a hidden file in this case, so enable to see it in Windows. Raven Creek mission 2 has some fps dropdown, this also happens on other PC systems.
Yep, it seems to just be Raven Creek. As I said, Precious Cargo used to be really bad, but after tweaking the cam_ext for some things like anti aliasing etc, it runs perfectly fine now. It seems its just a Raven Creek issue now, which is probably understandable given all the custom things Christine chocked it up with.
Oh well, I was kinda enjoying playing it
baeuchlein on 15/2/2019 at 01:20
"Raven Creek" indeed has a few spots where FPS drops down heavily. There was, I think, a short discussion on the German TTLG forums concerning the problem, but it is unlikely that someone will be able to fix it. However, it's unlikely to get worse during the missions, and should go away as soon as the player leaves one of the "bad spots". So unless it prevents you from doing anything you need to, you should try to ignore it and go on. That worked for me.
DirkBogan on 25/2/2019 at 05:59
The issue with every FM I've played that drops below a usable framerate is primarily one of on-screen objects. In DromEd, disabling object rendering makes the framerate of many big sub-30fps offenders (Keeper of Infinity, Breaking The Stone, Raven Creek etc.) shoot back up to ~100 fps. Even multiple thousands of brushes are less of a performance issue since NewDark, although they and lighting still have an effect. So far as I can tell, these are intrinsic engine issues, resulting from memory or CPU limits. The old girl just can't make use of modern hardware to its full extent.
The onus is really on authors not to make bloated levels! One only has to look at Rose Garden to see performance need not be sacrificed on the altar of ambition or scope. Thief just isn't the platform for more modern/complex graphics... at least until some glorious utopia arrives in which NewDark is truly multi-threaded.
