Serious performance problems

[Hoser]

Hi there, this is my first post but I've been lurking for at least a couple weeks now. Unfortunately my first post has to be a (slight) complaint, regarding my laptop's performance with the game. In order to get a good grasp of exactly what the situation is, I like to zoom out to see more of the map. Unfortunately this makes the game unplayable for me. There's lots of lag and jerkiness and the only way I can alleviate it is to completely zoom in to the closest view. I cannot play the game with only that basic view though so I'm feeling a bit disappointed.

Not only that but it seems that this game is causing a serious RAM leak for my system. I find that long after I've quit the game, 600 megs of my RAM is still being used (only about 225 is used on startup).
Anyway this can be cleared up? I'd love to get into this game but it's not really my genre as I'm more of a WWII guy and I bought it mostly to help support small wargame makers. I would however like to get at least a couple of decent hours of gaming time for by 40 bucks.

The reason why it's so upsetting is that I really don't think I should have a problem with my system.

I run a laptop that is:

1.6Ghz Pentium M
1 Gig Ram
128 MB x700 Radeon Mobile
80 Gig HD

I can run HL2, Day of Defeat and Oblivion on this baby so I can't understand why a simple wargame has so much trouble. Any help would be much appreciated.

[Hoser]

No help here? Am I the only one who encounters serious choppiness when I zoom out? Is there no way to....oh wait. I installed that updated map thingie. Was it a lot more resource intensive than the original map? Should I uninstall and reinstall with the original map?

[Hoser]

Here's a question. I converted one of the regions to JPEG and I can really see no discernable difference. I assume that I converted all the regions to jpeg I would see an exceptional performance boost. Is there something that I'm missing here? Some catch?

[Hoser]

Hmm ok that didn't work unfortunately. I just assumed that since jpegs and bmps look alike then they would be compatible.

[Pocus]

oops sorry, I missed your posts somehow.

Well first its a common assumption that because a wargame look 2D, it needs less processing power than the latest beast in 3D... Except for the fact that a wargame make very detailed calculations that eat as much processing power, if not more, than a 3D model to display.

Ok back to topic. Given your spec, its true you should not have no problem. I for one run the game on a old 800 mhz laptop without worries. So if you want, you can send me your dxdiag file at support@ageod.com, perhaps something can be spotted in it.

What is the screen res you use by the way?

[Hoser]

I use the desktop resolution which is 1400x1050. I just sent you an email! Thanks!

[Hoser]

By the way, why exactly can the game not use jpegs instead of bmp's? Is there something special about them? I converted one to jpeg and it looked practically exactly the same. I would be happy to suffer a slight loss in visuals for the huge performance boost that would be gotten from using a file that is 1/10th the size. Of course I know nothing at all about programming so more than likely I don't know what im talking about!

[Pocus]

just replied to you by mail too.

Size don't matter

Long explaination: the size of the file, on your disk, is not the memory usage that your RAM will need. The memory usage needed is a function of the color depth of the image to display. So, for a given color depth (= display quality), a bitmap that weights 250 kb and a png/jpg that weight 30 kb will use the same amount.

Sorry, this is already optimized (this aspect at least!)

[Hoser]

Well I changed the resolution and that helped...maybe. But on the farthest zoom setting it's still jerky as heck. If I can't scroll amount a map with complete smoothness then I just cant play it. One option would be to make it so that I can't zoom out to that level at all-if I don't know that it's not there then I wont miss it Is there an ini file or something somewhere that I can edit to lower the zoom range?

[Pocus]

no such option...

have you switched to hardware cursor?
in game now, options window, system, check pre cache region and texture at start also.

[sparkin50]

This is my first post, and I am experiencing the same problem. Judging by the specs of others, I should fly through this game without worry.

I am running:

3.4 P4 HT
X850Pro ATI Radeon (Latest drivers)
1 GHZ ram

Scrolling gets on my nerves even at the shortest level, and ive experimented with the only settings I see that would alter performance. Any help would be highly appriciated, thanks.

[Pocus]

is your computer a laptop?

are you using official ATI drivers or Omega ones?

I would like to peruse into your dxdiag, please send it to support@ageod.com

[sparkin50]

Its a desktop, and they are the ATI drivers. Which dxdiag do you want to see? .DLL or a .txt or the actual .exe itsself?

Edit: Ill send them all.. lol

[Pocus]

Hi,

I would need the diagnostic file, ie a text file generated by dxdiag when you do Start Menu|Execute|dxdiag

thanks in advances

[sparkin50]

Which file would that be? I sent you a couple, but could not find a txt file as you were describing. I did a full system search for any file named dxdiag while dxdiag was up.

[Pocus]

when you run DxDiag, there is a button to save the result into a file. This is the one I need.

[sparkin50]

Oh, ok.. its in the mail, thanks in advance.

[McGlu]

I've been following this same issue for a while and was hoping for a fix to eventually come. It appears that this issue has something to do with the ATI graphics drivers and the way the BoA renders the screen each frame.

When I install BoA on my laptop (3.4Ghz P4 HT, 1Gb RAM, Radeon 9800 Mobility 256Mb) the game runs VERY slow. Not just moving around and loading the tiles, but even moving the mouse pointer, dragging units, etc. It's very annoying to play and I'd basically given up trying to play on my laptop - which is unfortunate, because it's the computer I use the most.

The thing that I noticed is if I run BoA using the stock video drivers that shipped with the laptop over a year ago, BoA runs like lightning. Everything is smooth smooth smooth. Even zooming in and out is perfect. So, it's not the specs of that machine, but something with the drivers.

If I install the latest mobility drivers out from ATI, the game goes back to being very slow and choppy.

The problem is that I need to run the latest drivers for all the other games and programs that I use. I have no similiar issues with any other game and I have at least 20 games installed on this laptop - both 2D and 3D.

My other nVidia machines do not have this issue. So, there is definitely an issue with the combo of ATI drivers and BoA.

Hope this helps, Pocus.

[Primasprit]

Hi McGlu!

The thing that I noticed is if I run BoA using the stock video drivers that shipped with the laptop over a year ago, BoA runs like lightning. Everything is smooth smooth smooth. Even zooming in and out is perfect. So, it's not the specs of that machine, but something with the drivers.

If I install the latest mobility drivers out from ATI, the game goes back to being very slow and choppy.
The problem is that I need to run the latest drivers for all the other games and programs that I use. I have no similiar issues with any other game and I have at least 20 games installed on this laptop - both 2D and 3D.

Yes this driver problem is a known issue. It only affects some ATI9800 and ATI9600 cards.
I think it is no problem to use older drivers with the ATI 9XXX cards as I doubt that the newer drivers include any new optimizations for these old GPUs (At least I newer read anything about in the change logs.).

Cheers
Norbert

[McGlu]

Ah, thanks for the info. I didn't realize this had already been identified.

Yeah, I would run the older drivers, but I actually have other games that will not launch using the older ones (Heroes of Annihilated Empires refuses to run). Also. I've noticed some serious performance increases with the newer ones (HOMM V runs WAY better on the newer drivers for example).

Guess it's no BoA for my laptop. leure: Sad though, as I play A LOT of games and have no issues with anything else. I was considering picking up AACW, but think I'll pass as I rarely play 2D games on my desktop computer. AACW uses the same graphics engine correct?

[Primasprit]

Guess it's no BoA for my laptop. Sad though, as I play A LOT of games and have no issues with anything else. I was considering picking up AACW, but think I'll pass as I rarely play 2D games on my desktop computer. AACW uses the same graphics engine correct?

Yes, but this may change in the future as (AFAIK) for the next game a new graphic engine is planed which may also be implemented in AACW.

[Pocus]

yes, within at most 3 months, AACW will use a new graphic library which will handle differently the display.

[McGlu]

Awesome. I'll keep a watch for it.

[McGlu]

Just wanted to give an update on the performance issue I was having with my Radeon 9800 laptop.

I noticed that the new 7.6 Catalyst Mobility drivers were recently released, so I thought I would install them in hopes that they might improve things. After installing them and checking BoA I saw no difference. Things were still sluggish and basically unplayable.

So, I browsed around your forums and noticed another thread that mentioned hyper-threading as a culprit on someone's machine. So, I decided to try disabling hyper-threading (my laptop has a 3.4Ghz HT processor).

Guess what? Things are running awesome in BoA now! Right back to lightning speed just like the original drivers from Dell - except now I am running the latest drivers from ATI.

Looks like I can now dig deep into BoA on my laptop.

[Primasprit]

Just wanted to give an update on the performance issue I was having with my Radeon 9800 laptop.

I noticed that the new 7.6 Catalyst Mobility drivers were recently released, so I thought I would install them in hopes that they might improve things. After installing them and checking BoA I saw no difference. Things were still sluggish and basically unplayable.

So, I browsed around your forums and noticed another thread that mentioned hyper-threading as a culprit on someone's machine. So, I decided to try disabling hyper-threading (my laptop has a 3.4Ghz HT processor).

Guess what? Things are running awesome in BoA now! Right back to lightning speed just like the original drivers from Dell - except now I am running the latest drivers from ATI.

Looks like I can now dig deep into BoA on my laptop.

Thanks for the information. Seems quite strange to me... on the other hand I have a rather old computer and no idea what the issues with hyper-threading and friends are.
But it's good to hear that you are able to play at last. Have fun!

Cheers
Norbert

[Stwa]

I too had some initial problems with BoA video stability. For instance, the text would flicker and wavering of the map when shaded white. I was able to solve everything with diffent AGP Window size, and timings, and using a DVI interface.

My machine specs which now works wonderfully with BoA.

1. MSI system board Via chipset

2. Athalon 2000 CPU

3. ATI 9600 GPU, Catalyst Control Center and driver v 7.6

4. I have also used driver v 5.9 with Contol Panel (i.e. not CCC).

5. Samsung 32" LCD monitor. (using DVI interface).

[Pocus]

You set the aperture to what size?

[Stwa]

You set the aperture to what size?

128

1. I have to tell you Pocus, this game looks great. I still get some hitching when I scroll after first entering the game, but once all the textures are cached, it's smooth as silk.

2. It could be that some of the notebook computers that provide ATI graphics like mobility 9800, etc, are just not providing a digital interface, which removed most of the annoying flickering and waves running through the image.

3. Forgot to mention that I have 1GB memory.

[Pocus]

thanks for the report. For ATI mobility serie, we recommand using the Omega Drivers.