[fordfanboi]

Originally Posted by Epileptick

I didn't notice your question here:

What should that setting be on? On or off?

I'm not certain. I assume if you want to use v2.0 shaders, you'd set that to true to disable 3.0.... unless it enabled 4.0 ( DirectX 10? ). heh - I guess you could try it and see.

[Swaindaddy]

Couple things you may not want to hear:

1. Your noticing a difference because Vanguard is a new game. Watch as your comp is unable to max out any new game that comes out this year - sadly we are back in the hardware upgrade cycle.

2. Please, please, please tell me you didn't use WoW as an example of what your comp can run. I have a laptop with a 1.2G processor that can run WoW on a 400 MX card lol.

I hope the Alternating deal helps your frames and that I can upgrade soon to get something better than what I have.

The biggest issue is that NEW games are here - they will demand new hardware. Yes 7000 series is getting outdated. Yes we will need more RAM than we have now.


PS - I tried the Shaders deal and it did little to nothing for improvement for me, FYI.

[fordfanboi]

Originally Posted by Swaindaddy

The biggest issue is that NEW games are here - they will demand new hardware. Yes 7000 series is getting outdated. Yes we will need more RAM than we have now.

I'm hoping that when Vanguard natively supports SLI, that it will combine the RAM so that SLI machines will have double the RAM for texture storage, etc. The way it is now with alternate frames, each card has the same textures, etc. in memory.

Should see an improvement once it's native... but at least SLI is better than not as is.

[norvak]

I am running a XFX 7600 card and I get around 26-30 fps on high settings. Now my system including vid card is overclocked, but I can run smoothly with no crash. I do "hitch" or "chunk" whatever word you want to use when I enter a new zone. This really frustrates me, cause it usually means im dead if a mob is chasing me. I hear my HD churning, and while its defragged I am thinking of running raid0 to hopefully speed up my data access.

[Nikkoli]

Originally Posted by fordfanboi

I'm at work, so it's a POS Nvidia card, but the attached image will show you how to find it. Make sure to set the View under Global Driver Settings to Advanced - then if you scroll down the list, you'll see SLI Performance mode ( probably on Auto or Single GPU mode ). Set that to Alternating Frames ( not Alternating Frames 2 ) and you should be set. Also, in the SLI enable window, you can turn on GPU loading overlay and see how much of the GPU is getting used. If the green bar is small, your CPU is likely the bottleneck. If the green bar is large - stretching almost from top to bottom, then you know your GPU's are working hard instead of the CPU.

I will have to check when I get home if I have something similar since the Control panel doesn't look like that anymore. In response to your question about my framerate, If I am on balanced I get almost 70 outdoors and 40 indoors. With max I get about 30 outdoors and 10-20 indoors. I am sure its cause my SLI is affecting it but I am not sure how to force a non SLI program to use SLI.

[fordfanboi]

Originally Posted by Nikkoli

With max I get about 30 outdoors and 10-20 indoors. I am sure its cause my SLI is affecting it but I am not sure how to force a non SLI program to use SLI.

I get 30-40 outdoors and 20-30 indoors. It could very well be that your CPU is the bottleneck since Vanguard apparently doesn't make explicit use of dual core processors. Also, it could be that you need to enable alternating frames as I mentioned earlier. You may have to dig around a bit in your control panel, but I assume it's there somewhere. Maybe you'll see a HUGE increase in frames if you find it.

[fordfanboi]

Originally Posted by norvak

I am running a XFX 7600 card and I get around 26-30 fps on high settings. Now my system including vid card is overclocked, but I can run smoothly with no crash. I do "hitch" or "chunk" whatever word you want to use when I enter a new zone. This really frustrates me, cause it usually means im dead if a mob is chasing me. I hear my HD churning, and while its defragged I am thinking of running raid0 to hopefully speed up my data access.

Raid 0 may help, but won't eliminate the problem. I have a fresh XP install on SATA II Raid 0 with a 3GB page file and still see some hitching at zone boundaries. Only long enough for a critter to get 1 extra whakk on me, but it's still there.

Some boundaries are worse than others it seems.

[szaijan]

Originally Posted by Epileptick

I'm pretty sure I don't have to buy new video cards. I think the issue here is because vanguard cuts your frames in half when you have SLI. But that is somthing they will work on, and in the mean time I just want to know what I can do to make things run smoother while I wait patiently.

I upgraded to a Athlon 64 X2 4800+ from a 4000+ single core and saw a framerate jump of about 10 fps on balanced settings. I attribute this to running Vanguard on a core with no other load (confirmed through the system monitor.) Brad once indicated in beta that there would be a multi-threaded, 64-bit client for VG, but that the current client is neither.

A week later, I upgraded from a single nVidia 7800GTX, 256 MB card (eVGA, minor stock overclock) to an SLI setup with two of that card. My frame rates in EQ2 approximately doubled in some of the higher quality settings (much more than doubled at Extreme setting), while my frame rate in Vanguard remained unchanged.

I currently average about 40 fps in balanced settings with the clip plane all the way out and HDR on. My frame rate in cities or heavily populated areas drops dramatically due to texture loading, but settles in ~20 fps. In some outdoor setting or in buildings where all the textures have already loaded, I can get 60+ fps. quite frequently. Max settings, with all features turned on) cuts my frame rates by about 10-15 fps, and is not worth the drop off, IMO.

In my experience, while the graphics card makes some difference, SLI is not supported at all and the CPU is a much larger determining factor. My friends laptop, with a 7800GTX Go 256 MB adapter and an FX57 CPU runs at about the same frame rates as my system.

When EQ2 and WoW first came out, nVidia SLI was pretty new and the game had to be supported in the nVidia nForce driver, rather than the game needing to support SLI. Has that changed? I don't recall seeing SLI support for Vanguard in the latest nForce driver notes.

[Vengeful]

Originally Posted by Epileptick

Hey guys. I love Vanguard and really really really wish my PC could use it's full potential running it.....*eg SLI compatibility, Duel Core

I have 2x SLI Geforce 7300GT
2 gigs of corsair extreem ram
Intel Duo Core 2 - 2.3
X-FI platinum sound card

When I first started playing the game last week, I had 7 frames on bottom end settings. Then I disabled Sli, and it jumped to 30. After tweaking and consuming as much info I could on forums, now I can run on second lowest and get 15 - 20 frames.....in deserted areas I can get 40 frames if im lucky.

To me this is unacceptable. I understand the game isn't completely finished, but I am now obsessed with doing everything I can to make this work.

My question: I heard from somone that there are compatibility issues with Geforce "GT" cards, being "factory overclocked". They said if I can get the card to run at it's default settings then Vangaurd will run smoother. Also I read in many places that Vanguard runs better in Pixel Shaders 2.0, which is ridiculous considering any of todays FX cards are 3.0.......

....Now I love the game enough to even switch to 2.0, but every link that is posted for the program that converts to 2.0, has a broken link.

If anyone can help me with these questions and please please please don't try to say I need to upgrade my system. I want a Geforce 8800 just as bad as the next person, but lets be realistic - this game even with settings on full should not need anywhere CLOSE to better than my machine.

Thanks guys,

- Epi

Just a little refresher course.

7300GT

The 7 refers to the series. The 7 series are the DirextX 9.0c cards so in that case you're fine.

The second number, 3, is refering to the power of the card. 1-3 is usually buisness level, 4-6 is mid range, and 7-9 is high end. So what you have is a buisness grade card...pretty much worthless for gaming. You'd probably be better off with an earlier series high end card. Like a 6800 or something.

On top of that, SLI isn't supported in Vanguard...so you're only using one card right now your performance will probably increase once they turn SLI on...but more than likely not by much. I'd suggest at least upgrading to a 7900gt

[Zakonax]

Originally Posted by fordfanboi

I get 30-40 outdoors and 20-30 indoors. It could very well be that your CPU is the bottleneck since Vanguard apparently doesn't make explicit use of dual core processors. Also, it could be that you need to enable alternating frames as I mentioned earlier. You may have to dig around a bit in your control panel, but I assume it's there somewhere. Maybe you'll see a HUGE increase in frames if you find it.

Ford - I have seen you post this on numerous occasions, and wanted to clarify. Vanguard does make use of dual core processors, it is just not optimised fully yet.

For example, when I am in game, my 2nd CPU is constantly running between 50% - 75% of the utilisation of my 1st CPU. So it's not being utilised as much as my primary CPU, but it certainly is being used to some extent.

[Raz Ealanyl]

Originally Posted by Vengeful

Just a little refresher course.

7300GT

The 7 refers to the series. The 7 series are the DirextX 9.0c cards so in that case you're fine.

The second number, 3, is refering to the power of the card. 1-3 is usually buisness level, 4-6 is mid range, and 7-9 is high end. So what you have is a buisness grade card...pretty much worthless for gaming. You'd probably be better off with an earlier series high end card. Like a 6800 or something.

I was about to post something similar Vengeful, but you beat me to it. OP, instead of angrily dismissing the folks who are poo-pooing your video card, check some published benchmarks. Even with games that have SLI support, one 7600 GS gets about 50% better FPS than two SLI'ed 7300s. (see Tom's Hardware VGA charts, for instance).

I think folks are finally realizing that SLI/Crossfire is a clever plan to sell more video cards

[Vengeful]

Originally Posted by Raz Ealanyl

I was about to post something similar Vengeful, but you beat me to it. OP, instead of angrily dismissing the folks who are poo-pooing your video card, check some published benchmarks. Even with games that have SLI support, one 7600 GS gets about 50% better FPS than two SLI'ed 7300s. (see Tom's Hardware VGA charts, for instance).

I think folks are finally realizing that SLI/Crossfire is a clever plan to sell more video cards

Yeah. The only time I would recommend an SLI setup is....well....

...SLI blows

[fordfanboi]

Originally Posted by Zakonax

Ford - I have seen you post this on numerous occasions, and wanted to clarify. Vanguard does make use of dual core processors, it is just not optimised fully yet.

For example, when I am in game, my 2nd CPU is constantly running between 50% - 75% of the utilisation of my 1st CPU. So it's not being utilised as much as my primary CPU, but it certainly is being used to some extent.

Great! I assume that's primarily the Operating System responding to requests for data, etc. Hopefully they will finish it and get things balanced between cores... but only after they balance the Rogue class and make it playable!

[fordfanboi]

Originally Posted by Vengeful

Yeah. The only time I would recommend an SLI setup is....well....

...SLI blows

SLI definitely increased my FPS in Vanguard. Already had a 7900GT, so I tossed in another ( different brand even ) and saw a > 33% improvement.

[Faite]

Originally Posted by fordfanboi

SLI definitely increased my FPS in Vanguard. Already had a 7900GT, so I tossed in another ( different brand even ) and saw a > 33% improvement.

Well it is hard to help people who won't listen. Im glad someone came up with why the 7300 isn't as good as say a 7600....but honestly I have a very low end card and its running it fine....but I just hear 'things' about the 7300 and vanguard.

I go by what I Hear around the forums and whatnot and so far the best card for people like you and I (on a budget) seems to be 7600gs/gt.

sorry if it rubs you the wrong way. Just lettign you know so if you can't get it working 'eventually' with all the other good tips here, you will know something you can upgrade to for fairly cheap.

[Vengeful]

Originally Posted by fordfanboi

SLI definitely increased my FPS in Vanguard. Already had a 7900GT, so I tossed in another ( different brand even ) and saw a > 33% improvement.

Would still rather have an 8800

[fordfanboi]

Originally Posted by Vengeful

Would still rather have an 8800

Oh yes, I would too... however it would have cost me double the cost of the additional 9700GT, so I'll wait and SLI 8800 GTX's when they are affordable. Granted, that means the 9800GTX will be available too... haha

[Epileptick]

I can't believe how many times I neeed to say that I don't want to hear I need another card - and that I want help with my current card.

You people actually think I don't believe you that my 7300GT isn't as good as a 7800? I am not sure what you guys think this forum post was even about, but im pretty sure most of you need to read my original posts as well as the others, so that you understand how much time your wasting.

I KNOW my 7300GT isn't as good as cards higher than it. I KNOW Sli isn't compatible. Whoever here wants to disregard my asking for help in a completely unrelated topic just to say that I need another video card because it's not THE BEST (which is completely irrelivant considering IF SLI WAS COMPATIBLE I WOULDN'T BE HAVING A PROBLEM), well you can go buy me one. Send me a private message and ill give you my address, and you can send me an $800 dollar 8800, and while your add it you can buy my kid some diapers, because they are starting to become expensive as well.

You know how to tell somone who is good with tech support and has a good amount of knowledge in computers from a person who doesn't? The people who know what they are talking about give solutions to people. They don't say "Go buy a better computer". That is a response from somone who doesn't know how to answer me original question.

I don't mean to be rude to you guys, but I am here looking for help and your posts pretty much ruined my chances of getting good help because your distorting the topic of the post with your garbage.

PLEASE don't waste everyones time by posting if you don't know any answers.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fordfanboi: Sorry for the big ugly post before I addressed you, I appricate you being the only person here actually trying to help me. Also that screen shot was great help, thank you for going out of your way like that.

Only I am not sure I have the same drivers as you. Or perhaps the wording of that setting is different. I have the options of setting "Single GPU rendering, Multi GPU rendering, or Antialiasing Rendering" - I tried all those settings and still the game runs better on single with SLI totally off.

I got theses cards and the driver CD's in November, so they are the most recent, and I downloaded the most recent on the NVIDIA website just to be sure....but no avail.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again people please don't waste my time and ruin this thread anymore. If you people even read my posts you would see that your telling me to get a new videocard when I have the same frames as everyone else. This post is about getting MOOOOOOORE frames. There is no way you people are going to change my mind, and buy a new card any faster than I already would. Don't post unless you know how to give me more frames with what I have.

Jesus Christ....

[Ryngard]

http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/po...45&topic_id=16

I am in the same boat.

I have a Pentium D 3.0, 2 gig of DDR2 533 ram, GeForce 7600 512mg PCI-e card, X-fi soundcard and I have two options to play...

High Performance with sound on - Outdoors avg 30 FPS, Cities avg 10-15 FPS (at best, it can fluctuate 5 FPS either way)

Balanced with sound off - Outdoors 25-45 FPS (depends on where), Cities avg 10-20 FPS (again, depends on where.

I find this outrageous! The game is playable and I LOVE the game itself. The problem is that while I don't expect to be on maxed settings I would find the following acceptable:

Balanced w/ Sound - Field 40-50 FPS, Cities 20-30 FPS.

I don't think that is asking too much. Additionally my wife has a similar system (though mine is better... for instance she has an AGP card while mine is PCI-e, etc) and we have IDENTICAL FPS. I should be ahead but I'm not.

I've done ALL the tweaks. I've done EVERYTHING suggested and the ONLY thing that changes FPS is turning off sound and/or going to HIGHEST performance.

[fordfanboi]

Originally Posted by Epileptick

Only I am not sure I have the same drivers as you. Or perhaps the wording of that setting is different. I have the options of setting "Single GPU rendering, Multi GPU rendering, or Antialiasing Rendering" - I tried all those settings and still the game runs better on single with SLI totally off.

I got theses cards and the driver CD's in November, so they are the most recent, and I downloaded the most recent on the NVIDIA website just to be sure....but no avail.

You know, I saw those same options once - was when I flip-flopped the cards. One of mine is an XFX, and the other is an EVga, and I swapped their slots to see if one was faster than the other and I saw the same options. When I switched them back, the Multi GPU Rendering option / Antialiasing options were gone and the Alternate Frame Rendering, etc. were listed.

I've posted a question on how to get those settings over on SLI Zone. Here's the link to the thread: http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?showtopic=1444 We'll see what they have to say.