Makatak on 6/10/2008 at 15:55
That wasn't a typo. I'm talking about Thief 2 performance, not Thief: DS.
Obviously system specs aren't the issue here. I have a system whose specs are several years younger than the first 2 thief games and using DDfix. Well Thief 2 still chops up a bit. Not so much in regular Thief 2, but in FMs. The moments where its most apparent is when I areas like Thief2X at the station and most of the outdoors in Calendra's Legacy. I will hit 40-50 fps instead of 75 (which, in this game, looks very choppy)
Digital Nightfall on 6/10/2008 at 16:30
Quote Posted by Makatak
I will hit 40-50 fps instead of 75 (which, in this game, looks very choppy)
what? :weird:
EvaUnit02 on 6/10/2008 at 17:10
Turn off V-sync. Else try the older version of DDfix that uses DX9 (v1.1.1? Bikerdude would know.).
Quote Posted by Digital Nightfall
what? :weird:
Yeah, a constant max of 60fps is all that's needed in any game. Morons that play Counter-Strike 1.6 and backward people whom own CRT monitors haven't got a clue.
baeuchlein on 6/10/2008 at 17:21
Quote Posted by Makatak
I have a system whose specs are several years younger than the first 2 thief games
You mean you bought this system several years
after Thief 2 came out (in 2000), right?
Quote Posted by Makatak
I will hit 40-50 fps instead of 75 (which, in this game, looks very choppy)
Erm... I can't believe this.
When I measured fps with fraps in
Thief 2 one or two years ago, anything above 25 fps was not a tiny little bit choppy. Furthermore, I was not able to go above 56-58 fps (probably due to some VSYNC thing keeping my fps below the screen's refresh rate), yet nothing seemed choppy with that.
On the other hand, the outdoor areas in
Calendra's Legacy as well as several places in newer fan missions (let's say about one or two years old) tend to need more resources (CPU and graphics) than most of the older FM's. However, even an older computer of mine, using a Duron (850 MHz) CPU, 384 MB RAM and an ATI graphics card (Rage 128 pro based) from 2000 on a malfunctioning AGP port, could deal with most of these FM's (at least when using 640x480 resolution).
Therefore, I think we need more information to determine what's wrong with your computer. How did you measure these 40-50 fps, and what resolution do you use for playing?
It is even possible that we still need to know at least your basic system spec's since in theory, the hardware you describe should not give you so much trouble with that old game. Perhaps we can at least determine what is malfunctioning in your case.
So, please, give us more info. Without that, we cannot even guess what's wrong here - it sounds totally unbelieveable.
Makatak on 6/10/2008 at 19:53
the whole concept about not being able to detect anything above 60fps (or 30...) is a MYTH. Otherwise, why am I perfectly able to see the difference between 75fps and 54fps as clearly as night vs. day?
It's probably because I've been playing Thief 1/Gold and FMs for it recently where there has NEVER been the slightest hitch in performance.
But if you want to know, I use Geforce 8800GTS, Intel C2D e6600, 2GB RAM. And I use 1280 x 1024 resolution through DDfix (for Thief Gold anyways)
And if I force Vsync off, it makes the game operate in fast motion, obviously.
As for older DDfixes, I might go and check
baeuchlein on 6/10/2008 at 22:54
Quote Posted by Makatak
the whole concept about not being able to detect anything above 60fps (or 30...) is a MYTH. Otherwise, why am I perfectly able to see the difference between 75fps and 54fps as clearly as night vs. day?
Perhaps I should have made my statement more clearly - I meant that
for me, things were anything else than choppy with 25 fps. Although I can hardly imagine anyone could see these differences, I know that I'm at the other end of the line - I could play through
Thief 3 with about 9-15 fps and noticed almost no choppieness (is that a correct english word?). On the other hand, there's a minority of people who can see lights and CRT TVs and monitors flicker even if the "flicker frequency" is said to be far above 70 Hz (or whatever is meant to be unnoticeable by the human eye). I seem to be a bit sensitive for that, too, as well as my mother.
Quote Posted by Makatak
It's probably because I've been playing Thief 1/Gold and FMs for it recently where there has NEVER been the slightest hitch in performance.
uses an older version of the Dark engine, therefore not using as much computing power as
Thief 2. So, a computer that's good enough for
Thief may run older (less resource-hungry)
Thief 2 FMs well enough, but maybe not the later
T2 FMs which feature larger views and more people in it. Basically, there's nothing one can do against that.
Quote Posted by Makatak
I use 1280 x 1024 resolution through DDfix (for Thief Gold anyways)
I think you will have to lower that resolution, for those "problematic" FMs at least. You know, with 1280x1024, your CPU and the graphics hardware have to crunch more than four times the amount of data they would have to cope with if 640x480 was used. And all that data has to pass from computer memory to the graphics card's RAM via an AGP port or the newer PCI-E port. If there's a bottleneck
somewhere in there, it might be too much, regardless of what other hardware is sitting in your computer. Or maybe there even is some kind of bottleneck inside the Dark engine? It was never designed (I think) for what FM authors throw at it these days, and then at 1280x1024 resolution.
Try 1024x768 or even 800x600. Sometimes, there's no other way to make things go smooth, although many people don't like it.
Quote Posted by Makatak
And if I force Vsync off, it makes the game operate in fast motion, obviously.
Ah yes, now I remember. That really seems to be a limit set by the Dark engine. Not sure whether it's responsible for your trouble, though.
bikerdude on 7/10/2008 at 12:34
Quote Posted by Makatak
But if you want to know, I use Geforce 8800GTS, Intel C2D e6600, 2GB RAM. And I use 1280 x 1024 resolution through DDfix (for Thief Gold anyways)
As for older DDfixes, I might go and check
Your system spec isnt far off what im running (and was running) and Thief w/DDFix was fine on my setup. Are you running other programs in the back ground while playing thief...?
biker
Hiatus on 8/10/2008 at 20:01
@Makatak:
change 2 last options in ddfix.ini to be:
UseSysMemOverlay=0
OverlayColourKey=0x0000
and report back whether it helped.
===
new graphics chipsets from both NV/ATI (DX10+ ones: GF8xxx+ and ATI HD2xxx+) have huge problems with very low fps in various older DX games due to H/W architecture changes and drivers very poorly optimized (or rather not at all) for older DX8- (using lower than DX8) games. This can result in an old game having fps like 3-5 fps on these chips where normally they should be running at 1000+ fps, given hardware power in use. It's a known issue on both NV and ATI sides, and unlikely to be fixed becase they both don't give a crap about older games :(.
Thor on 9/10/2008 at 14:17
Omg? Did some of you actually cry about 30-50 fps?
under 20 fps it's choppy, yes. 20-29 it's a bit laggy. Above 30 it's completely smooth and you couldn't tell the diffrence either it was 42fps or 10309265fps... okay maybe on the second one the computer might explode or something... lol...
Makatak on 9/10/2008 at 20:55
I'm just going by Fraps indicator. My LCD's refresh rate is 75. So I have 75 fps most of the time. And then, when things feel choppy, it reads anywhere between 40 and 56 fps. Although frankly, it looks choppier than that. Maybe it has something to do with how Vsync works because I start to feel some chop as soon as it drops in the 60s. In almost any game with vsync, I will notice when it drops; I just can't tell by how much.
And the changes to DDfix.ini didn't do much.
