Framerate issues

[Knolleke]

From the Tractrion control topic:

I turn the track detail down all the way. All you lose is grass but it smooths it out a lot for me and I can peg 100 FPS all the time that way. I still get that strange slo-mo effect now and then, but the actual frame rate is solid. By slo-mo, I do not mean the slow motion effect when you are ejected and holding the throttle, I mean during the race there are "hot spots" on the tracks that it seems like the video card (BFG 6800GT) is having trouble with. My money says this is directly related to the nvidia hard lock problem that's been talked about on the official forum a lot.

I don't gain any fps if I turn off the track detail (maybe 5 fps, but that is hardly noticeable). The slowmotion is almost gone with turning off Vsync. But I think it's not normal that I have to play it at 800x600 for a playable framerate (30-40). In 1024x768 I only get 20-30. I have a geforce fx 5200 (128 mb), I know, it's not a supercard, but I've read about people with gf4 that can even play it better than me.

I'm using the latest nforce drivers (nforce 2, 5.10) and the 61.77 drivers for my graphics card. AMD athlon xp 3000+ and 512 mb ram, so that shouldn't be a problem.

[Elvin_Presler]

If I turn off V-Sync and/or Tripple Buffering, the game hard locks/BSOD's my system. I HAVE to leave it on. Tried nvida drivers 6177, 6677, and 6681. Same results with all. My Radeon 9800 Pro with Cat 4.10 has no such problem.

I think I gain about 10 FPS by killing track detail, but mostly it just feels a lot smoother. Your FX5200 is your problem, sorry. You're doing good to get 30 FPS in this game with it at any resolution! A GeForce 4 Ti4200, 4400 or 4600 is much faster than an FX5200. I have a GF4 Ti4400 and an FX5600XT (faster than a 5200) and the Ti4400 destroys it in the exact same PC with same drivers.

See this thread for results of my tests with 6800GT vs Ti4400 vs 5600XT.
Your card would be close to, but a bit slower than the 5600XT.
Warning: It's going to make you very sad about owning an FX5200.
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=36983

*yes, i know, i have a lot of hardware. I even had an FX5200 for a while, I gave it away. My old GF2 GTS is as good or better so I just gave it away*

[Knolleke]

Mmh.. ok, I assumed that a fx-card would be faster than the older ones.. Anyway, the game is playable, I should be happy with that. :) I actualy have a hp, so I didn't compose the system myself. Everything is really good, except the graphics card. Maybe I wait a bit with upgrading, as my motherboard only supports agp 8x, and not the new pci-express cards (which are a lot cheaper than the agp-equivalents).

Edit: I just realised that I haven't try to turn track detail off with Vsync disabled. Now I get 30-60 fps, which plays very good. :)