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PoN recommended hardware?

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 1:21 am
by Mistmatz
I tried PoN on my private laptop, a three year old machine with external graphics and dedicated memory - the game was basically unplayable.
Just scrolling the screen had a lag of at least a second (per scroll), not to mention the time it took to redraw the landscape. Tested with lowest graphics settings in the options menu.

I then tried it on my business laptop, a Dell Latitude with I7 processor lots of RAM (6 or GB), but no dedicated graphics processor. The scrolling and pop-up of menus was _much_ better. But as I came from basically unplayable I wasn't surprised that much. Nevertheless it is still not as smooth and enjoyable as I would expect for that kind of hardware.

I wonder if there is some kind of setting or command line option that would improve the performance of the game. Any suggestions?

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 2:57 pm
by ERISS
Mistmatz wrote: machine with external graphics and dedicated memory - the game was basically unplayable.
Just scrolling the screen had a lag of at least a second (per scroll), not to mention the time it took to redraw the landscape.

my business laptop, a Dell Latitude with I7 processor lots of RAM (6 or GB), but no dedicated graphics processor. The scrolling and pop-up of menus was _much_ better. Nevertheless it is still not as smooth and enjoyable as I would expect for that kind of hardware.

External graphic card are usually made for 3D, and are not the best for 2D drawing.. I think what's important here is having huge video memory too (at least 2Go!). Devs should tell better.

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 3:49 pm
by Ilitarist
Mistmatz wrote:I wonder if there is some kind of setting or command line option that would improve the performance of the game. Any suggestions?


VGN\Settings\Display.opt - find "D3D9FullScreen = 0" and change it to 1. If you don't care about borders change them to 0. Some people say it helped them.

Your GPU doesn't really matter.

It really works!

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 12:09 am
by Cohnman5
Ilitarist wrote:VGN\Settings\Display.opt - find "D3D9FullScreen = 0" and change it to 1. If you don't care about borders change them to 0. Some people say it helped them.

Your GPU doesn't really matter.


This really improved my game and SO FAR as stopped CTD's and heavy duty video flicker and video instability. :thumbsup:

VIVA LA FRANCE!

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 6:19 am
by Ilitarist
Cohnman5 wrote:This really improved my game and SO FAR as stopped CTD's and heavy duty video flicker and video instability. :thumbsup:

VIVA LA FRANCE!


Good for you. This hasn't helped me though. So it's not universal solution in case someone else wants to try.

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 10:30 pm
by Mistmatz
Thanks for the advice all. I'll try it out tomorrow evening and see what happens. Would be a bummer if I couldn't play the game and new hardware is currently out of reach.

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 2:30 pm
by Czert
Hmm - changed D3D9FullScreen = 0 to 1, it improved scooling to some degree (still not fully smooth) - have 1GB GK + 4 GB of RAM, but created another - I cant longer alt-tab during turn procesing to browse on net just to kill long time before turn is procesed.

Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 2:29 pm
by Ilitarist
Czert wrote:Hmm - changed D3D9FullScreen = 0 to 1, it improved scooling to some degree (still not fully smooth) - have 1GB GK + 4 GB of RAM, but created another - I cant longer alt-tab during turn procesing to browse on net just to kill long time before turn is procesed.


May depend on screen mode. Try to experiment with fullscreen/windowed (optimized)

Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 7:52 am
by Mistmatz
Ilitarist wrote:VGN\Settings\Display.opt - find "D3D9FullScreen = 0" and change it to 1. If you don't care about borders change them to 0. Some people say it helped them.

Your GPU doesn't really matter.



Thanks Ilitarist, that really helped. I haven't had much time to play but so far it's a tremendous improvement!

Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 6:41 pm
by Jim-NC
I have a question.

The messages at the end of the turn "bleed" outside the box where they are supposed to be seen. For example, it says "You have gained x PP for your colonial possessions, Britian gained the most ......" or "Prussia has refused your offer of a commerical agreement as they don't ...."

Is there a setting that changes this, or do I need to change my screen resolution? I also notice that when I give move orders to units, the destination gets buried behind icons (entrenchment, supply, etc).