Oolite Bulletins

I've been playing on this laptop that, to be honest, isn't really meant for gaming. It still has simple shader support, which is great, and it can run Griffs shipset, which is also great. But then after that if I put any more system-intensive OXPs in the frame rate crashes and it becomes un-playable.

Step 1 - play full-screen, I don't really know why, but it helps loads. (+10 FPS)
Step 2 - play it in reduced detail, not entirely neccessary but it gets a few more FPS (+5 FPS)
Step 3 - download gamebooster (version 2.4, not 3.1) massive FPS increase when in "boost mode" (+25 FPS)

N.B. High end computers don't benifit very much from Gamebooster and windows7 doesn't really benifit at all (due to some clever RAM saving thingys that it has)

I'd be interested to know if anyone else has any FPS increasing tactics

(I went from 18 FPS to 60 FPS in a 150 entity system)

More FPS? Maximum FPS is generally tied to the display frame refresh rate. At a 60hz refresh, you'll top out at 60fps. The screen can't update the graphics display information faster. The engine code may be capable of updating game display data at 100fps but the physical display can't do it ... the additional information is discarded ...

Other than updating to a display with a higher refresh rate, the only other thing to do is rewrite engine code where there are processing bottlenecks. Refactoring and optimizing the code is usually the approach taken. No slight against the developer btw ...

Cheers.

Staer9 wrote:

I'd be interested to know if anyone else has any FPS increasing tactics 8)

Sure. Reduce the number of custom-shaders, use smaller textures and optimize scripts.

I've seen that the amount of custom shaders and setting up detailed models while spawning are the biggest FPS eaters. This is even more valid on older machines with OGL1.x/2.x cards, because shader swapping will kick your performance. This is the reason why Eric and I have reduced the number of custom-shaders in buoyRepair.

Shut down unwanted background processes/apps/programs.
If you're worried about virus infections WHILE running Oolite, there's a better way to prevent them than running realtime scanning of everything -- Oolite is a single player game, pull the plug to the internet!

More complexity generally doesn't make a computer safer -- it instead creates potential for more intentional programmer-added backdoors as well as program bugs that can be used as security bypasses.

Make sure your drivers and core OS are up-to-date. Most patches tend to fix security holes and may also have code-tweaks for more speed.

If your computer has this capability, try changing your display mode from "True Color" to "High Color". On my XP machine this is done by right clicking on the desktop and choosing the appropriate item. I get about 300% improvement in frame rate. This is without the need to reduce detail in game settings. There is a small price to pay in the detail of in-game objects.

SiriusCG wrote:

More FPS? Maximum FPS is generally tied to the display frame refresh rate. At a 60hz refresh, you'll top out at 60fps. The screen can't update the graphics display information faster. The engine code may be capable of updating game display data at 100fps but the physical display can't do it ... the additional information is discarded ...

Other than updating to a display with a higher refresh rate, the only other thing to do is rewrite engine code where there are processing bottlenecks. Refactoring and optimizing the code is usually the approach taken. No slight against the developer btw ...

Cheers.

These results are from a laptop which really isn't meant for games, thus making the standard average FPS around 20, which of course makes it all jumpy as soon as you come into scanner range with other ships, I understand that high end graphics cards will run around 60 FPS, just because there is no point running any faster.

On someone elses computer I ran a special FPS increasing emulator (which makes your computer think it can run something that it actually can't) and got the FPS to about 130, which.... is utterly pointless.

Staer9 wrote:

I understand that high end graphics cards will run around 60 FPS, just because there is no point running any faster.

On someone elses computer I ran a special FPS increasing emulator (which makes your computer think it can run something that it actually can't) and got the FPS to about 130, which.... is utterly pointless.

On my computer I normally around 60 FPS when in windowed mode and up to 100 FPS in full screen mode. For window updating, there is no reason to go faster than the screen refresh rate, but when checking ships positions, it might well be worth it to do additional calculations in between. Take for instance the railgun. Those bullets fly so fast that it can happen that on frame x the bullet has not impacted yet and on frame x+1 the bullet has already passed the target. When calculating a frame in between you than can detect the point of impact. So, not only visuals benefit from a high framerate. I think it is maximised at 60 in windowed mode to allow time for background programmes and allowed to run faster in full screen were normally no important background processes are going on. When yes, better play in windowed mode .

EDIT: I seemed to be short of memory: In full screen I get 60 FPS and in windowed mode up to 100 FPS.

The SDL builds are set to V-sync in fullscreen mode (instruct the video card to not do anything on the display memory until the monitor has finished with its current refresh cycle). The reason for that is to avoid a nasty visual effect called "tearing", which typically occurs when the number of FPS of the application exceeds the number of refreshes per second of the monitor.