Tweaks For Better Performance With Older/Slower Computers

[jbodin]

===============================================
GTR2 (P&G) .PLR FILE OPTIMIZATIONS

GENERAL OPTIMIZATIONS FOR BETTER FRAMERATES:
===============================================

None of these will be necessary in the current day and age of computers but, for those of you with an old/slow computer, here are some general optimizations that should help give you better FPS with your GTR2-PnG installation -- many of these tweaks were originally taken from various postings indicating tweaks that worked well for GTL, but these apply to GTR2 as well (and thus the PnG mod). Thanks to DucFreak for a lot of these details (most of them, in fact):

Open the "Your-Player-Name".PLR file with notepad (the file is located at "...\UserData\your-player-name" folder), search the following lines and change their values (please note that they were not written in order here).

If you're curious about what we're doing for these values, for all the following lines/parameters that are placed as a single "0" (zero) or "1" (one), they respectively mean "no" and "yes".

----------------------------------------------
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS:
----------------------------------------------

Make sure your video card is sufficient to support DX9.0 shaders -- if you're struggling with lower framerates, try switching to DX8.0 shaders; this is a good option on lower-end systems and you don't give up much in the way of eye candy. Having a newer video card doesn't necessarily mean you're set to run DX9.0 -- a GeForce 6800 will offer you much better performance than a 7300GT or a 7600GS card, for example, and an ATI X800XL or X800XT will give you stellar performance in DX9.0.


---------------------------------------------------
OPTIMIZING IN-GAME SETTINGS:
---------------------------------------------------

Most of these settings can be found in the Options - Video and Options - Advanced menu sections (these can also be set in the .PLR file, but it's easier to make sure you've got them selected properly by checking the selections in-game):

DRAW DISTANCE -- using “Very Far” draw distance is not much of a FPS killer but better use "Normal" draw distance, it's more than enough and definitely keeps FPS much more stabilized (less variation of FPS around the track -- recommend NORMAL)

TRACK DETAIL -- can be a FPS killer if it's on FULL, decrease it to HIGH or even MEDIUM.

SHADOWS -- using shadows in MAX is perhaps the biggest FPS killer, HIGH or MEDIUM is the best option.(recommend MEDIUM)

SPECIAL EFFECTS -- big FPS killer in HIGH or FULL . . . reduce to MEDIUM or even LOW

VEHICLE DETAIL (both settings) -- recommend setting to FULL or HIGH in own car, HIGH or MEDIUM for other cars.

MAX VISIBLE VEHICLES -- "16" is usually the best choice, you'll see all the cars around you, without having your PC on its knees due to too many rendered cars on screen.

TRACKSIDE CHARACTERS -- de-select (so, no 'check' mark)

PITCREW DETAIL -- set to PLAYER-ONLY

===============================

Using these settings, I get between 85 - 100 FPS or greater on my system, which is a pretty low-end system these days: Socket 754 Athlon 3000+ @ 2.45 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 256 MB ATI Radeon X800XT (stock frequencies, not overclocked). Those of you with higher-end systems might be able to set things a bit higher, but things like "Swaying Trees" and "Character Anims" can cause things like stuttering and framerate dips, both of which can be especially bad when racing online.

[DucFreak]

heheh... I knew it wouldn't take you too long to do it, JB.
Similar thread you done for GTL helped a lot of people that were struggling with framerate issues, hopefully this one will too help the guys using GTR2/PnG.

PS: making it a sticky post.

[jbodin]

Hey, nice sticky -- thanks!

[jbodin]

Wanted to add this in, as I just discovered it myself -- I'm not sure if this applies to GeForce users, but this does apply to ATI users (at least on my system with my Radeon X800XT All-In-Wonder card):

Make sure you have the refresh rate for your monitor (Display Properties --> Advanced--> Monitor --> Refresh Rate) set to the same frequency used in your GTR2 Configuration (GTR2Config.exe) application. I had my monitor refresh rate in the Display Properties set to 75Hz, but I had 60Hz selected in my GTR2Config.exe application and I was starting to see jerky/stuttering behavior at some add-on tracks. It was something I hadn't experienced with my X800XT card, and it was happening even with solid, reasonably-high framerates (rock-solid at 60fps at Pau 2001, for example).

I hadn't been having a problem before, but it started all at once after I had done some tweaking -- one tweak I did was to change my display resolution in the GTR2Config.exe application from 1280 x 1024 to 1280 x 960 to better fit my monitor aspect ratio. I didn't change ANYTHING else, but I started seeing odd/weird behaviors, including the stuttering/jerky behavior as well as odd stuff like flashing trees and scenery.

Setting my refresh rates to match (both set to 75Hz) solved the problem.

Just something else to make sure you check if you're having performance issues with GTR2.

[montoyafan]

Good Stuff! Any chance you might know what the equivalent settings in rFactor might be? I looked for similar entries in the .plr file but didn't see any that matched.

Thanks, this has improved my fps. BTW does turning off vertex damage mean that there just won't be any visible damage?

Thanks again

[jbodin]

Originally Posted by montoyafan

Good Stuff! Any chance you might know what the equivalent settings in rFactor might be? I looked for similar entries in the .plr file but didn't see any that matched.

Thanks, this has improved my fps. BTW does turning off vertex damage mean that there just won't be any visible damage?

Thanks again

Glad this helps!



No ideas about equivalents in rFactor . . . still need to add that game to my personal inventory.



You are correct: Turning off vertex damage only turns off the VISIBLE damage you see -- the car still accumulates damage, but you don't get a framerate hit from displaying all those changing polygons.

[hansje]

Without the arms (PLR) you get a more steady FPS during a race

At the start you see no FPS difference, but thats normal !!

If you have the ALT-TAB bug (8800-card) ..its worth to read this thread:
http://forum.racesimcentral.com/show...294692&page=11

With the file mentioned you may gain some FPS, you never know.
In Race07 NO STUTTERS anymore, and rFactor I gained a lot of FPS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In GTR2 some people got a few FPS more

Hans

[Drake34]

Turning off the other cars animated drivers made a huge difference on my machine. Things are tons smoother.

[Tyger]

Originally Posted by hansje

Without the arms (PLR) you get a more steady FPS during a race

At the start you see no FPS difference, but thats normal !!

If you have the ALT-TAB bug (8800-card) ..its worth to read this thread:
http://forum.racesimcentral.com/show...294692&page=11

With the file mentioned you may gain some FPS, you never know.
In Race07 NO STUTTERS anymore, and rFactor I gained a lot of FPS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In GTR2 some people got a few FPS more

Hans

Since racesimcentral is currently down, does anyone remember what the thread linked to says about fixing the problem?

[DucFreak]

Originally Posted by Tyger

Since racesimcentral is currently down, does anyone remember what the thread linked to says about fixing the problem?

...try here: http://www.virtualr.net/nvidia-fps-fix-03-released/

[Tyger]

Originally Posted by DucFreak

...try here: http://www.virtualr.net/nvidia-fps-fix-03-released/

Thanks for the link.
Though it doesn't seem to help me
I keep constantly getting sutten "unexplained" drops in FPS in Gtr2. I can usually race along with 100+ FPS even with plenty of AI cars in front of me, but sometimes the FPS suddenly drops to less than 10 even if a have a clar track in front of me. Sometimes the alt-tab trick helps, but not always.
I run the game on low graphic settings, closed all other apps, run with direct X 7 mode and tried all tricks I've read about to gain better performance, but nothing helps - I have done all the edits to the .PLR file mentioned here too...
Im running on a dual processor (2x 3.20 Ghz), with Geforce 6600 GT and 1 GB ram. I know the system is a bit low end, but shouldn't it be possible to run the game smothly on this system when I have lowest possible graphics?

[DucFreak]

Originally Posted by Tyger

Thanks for the link.
Though it doesn't seem to help me
I keep constantly getting sutten "unexplained" drops in FPS in Gtr2. I can usually race along with 100+ FPS even with plenty of AI cars in front of me, but sometimes the FPS suddenly drops to less than 10 even if a have a clar track in front of me. Sometimes the alt-tab trick helps, but not always.
I run the game on low graphic settings, closed all other apps, run with direct X 7 mode and tried all tricks I've read about to gain better performance, but nothing helps - I have done all the edits to the .PLR file mentioned here too...
Im running on a dual processor (2x 3.20 Ghz), with Geforce 6600 GT and 1 GB ram. I know the system is a bit low end, but shouldn't it be possible to run the game smothly on this system when I have lowest possible graphics?

TBH we can only guess what could be going wrong there...

Your processor seems more than good enough, the ram is "enough" at 1GB (although more would be welcome, like 2GB and above, to load the game screens faster).
The graphics-card is just "OK" but it's certainly enough to run GTR2 at medium-settings (just don't expect it to be a phenomenal performer).

Bottom line... yes, you should be able to run the game perfectly at medium settings in DX9 (probably ideally at 1280x1024 or equivalent resolution?), with +16 cars grid and all.


If you're following the tips on the first post of this thread (btw, we updated it here), and nothing seems to work, then there's some other things that you could try anyway, see if it has any major influences:

1)- Get the latest Nvidia drivers for your graphics card (see here)

2)- Try a simple test, by running the game at a lower resolution (run the GTR2Config.exe to change it), see if there's a noticeable increase in framerates.

3)- Disable the Anti-Virus while you play... or simply disable the "realtime scanner" on the A.V. while you play (this is in case your A.V. supports this feature), many times this is the culprit.


One other thing that could be happening is your graphics-card getting very hot after some minutes of intense gaming, making frames decrease (and game stuttering), so make sure you install the software/monitor to check temps on your card (comes with the CD provided with the graphics-card), and alert when a limit is reached (95ºC is very hot for that card, for instances), could be a faulty fan/heatsink which, in that case, would need to be replaced (it's cheap and easy).

...you should also check your PSU wattage, if there's really enough juice to provide energy to the PC components at use.

As you see, there are many things that could be affecting the game performance, either one thing all by itself or many of them combined provoquing issues, so you'll need to find which one(s) of these is the culprit for such poor gaming performance.

...good luck!

[Tyger]

Originally Posted by DucFreak

TBH we can only guess what could be going wrong there...

Your processor seems more than good enough, the ram is "enough" at 1GB (although more would be welcome, like 2GB and above, to load the game screens faster).
The graphics-card is just "OK" but it's certainly enough to run GTR2 at medium-settings (just don't expect it to be a phenomenal performer).

Bottom line... yes, you should be able to run the game perfectly at medium settings in DX9 (probably ideally at 1280x1024 or equivalent resolution?), with +16 cars grid and all.


If you're following the tips on the first post of this thread (btw, we updated it here), and nothing seems to work, then there's some other things that you could try anyway, see if it has any major influences:

1)- Get the latest Nvidia drivers for your graphics card (see here)

2)- Try a simple test, by running the game at a lower resolution (run the GTR2Config.exe to change it), see if there's a noticeable increase in framerates.

3)- Disable the Anti-Virus while you play... or simply disable the "realtime scanner" on the A.V. while you play (this is in case your A.V. supports this feature), many times this is the culprit.


One other thing that could be happening is your graphics-card getting very hot after some minutes of intense gaming, making frames decrease (and game stuttering), so make sure you install the software/monitor to check temps on your card (comes with the CD provided with the graphics-card), and alert when a limit is reached (95ºC is very hot for that card, for instances), could be a faulty fan/heatsink which, in that case, would need to be replaced (it's cheap and easy).

...you should also check your PSU wattage, if there's really enough juice to provide energy to the PC components at use.

As you see, there are many things that could be affecting the game performance, either one thing all by itself or many of them combined provoquing issues, so you'll need to find which one(s) of these is the culprit for such poor gaming performance.

...good luck!

Thanks! I went through the .PLR file again and corrected everything, and now the game runs much better. I also updated my sound card drivers which seemed to help a bit.
The only thing I'm struggeling with are some of the addon tracks (I have yet to find a Le Mans and Nordschleife that runs smooth on my system) but I assume that is because those tracks aran't made for low end systems such as mine. I did manager to get through a 6 hour race at Le Mans though, and what a blast it was! I haven't enjoyed sim racing so much for ages.

[Zieman]

Great info here

But this part puzzles me:

Originally Posted by jbodin

Disable All Character Anims="1" // recommend set to "0" for most systems (BIG framerate hog)

Doesn't this recommendation mean that you enable character animations?
I'd think that leaving character animations disabled would boost your FPS...

[Scorpyo]

Here's my experience with stuttering.

If I start 24H Spa with 50 something cars on grid (maximum that track allows) using only cars that came with GTR2 I have no stuttering at all. But if I make grid from addon cars (WSGT, Gallardo and ALMS 2007 mods) it is allmost unplayable...

[HR186S]

what about P&G, do 50 car grids stutter?

[Scorpyo]

Originally Posted by HR186S

what about P&G, do 50 car grids stutter?

I don't play P&G so don't know...

[dartguy]

I just did a test. Standard cars, 61 at Spa, at the start I saw 46 FPS, PnG cars, 61 @ Spa, at start I saw 51 FPS.