Game menu extremely choppy

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Magrath
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Game menu extremely choppy

Postby Magrath » Thu Sep 25, 2008 12:13 am

The game menu is extremely choppy and badly responsive. I can get in-game and it runs perfectly smooth in the game but it's just not worth going through the trouble of the menu to play. Can anyone help me with this.

I have the demo and I certainly won't be buying the game if the full version will do anything like this.

My system specs are as follows:
Pentium 4 2.6GHz
Nvidia 5200 FX
1.5GB RAM
Realtek AC97 Audio
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allen
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Postby allen » Thu Sep 25, 2008 1:35 am

Well maybe you need to update your drivers and upgrade to the latest directx9 version (wait, does MW use directx? couldn't hurt to update it anyways)

I have no idea what else to tell ya, I know that "update your drivers" bit gets old but sometimes people forget.
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Postby LazyBuhdaBelly » Thu Sep 25, 2008 1:39 am

my specs are like yours:
nvida 5500 fx
512 mb ram

i also get choppy menus. when i press back it lags or like 2 secs with looping sounds.
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cheesemoo0
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Postby cheesemoo0 » Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:41 am

I don't think there is really any fix for this yet as I have Nvidia GeForce FX 5500, 512 MB ram, and 1.8 ghz CPU. The OP seems to have a fairly good computer, but has a really old graphics card. I suggest an upgrade. If you can't handle that the Omega drivers work better for me then the official ones and are the best bet. Maybe in the future IV will offer a less resource intensive menu. If you only have a problem in the menu I think if you really like the game it is not a problem.
Magrath
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Postby Magrath » Thu Sep 25, 2008 5:07 am

I have updated my drivers and installed the Omega driver and it's still choppy for me.
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Pox
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Postby Pox » Thu Sep 25, 2008 5:22 am

That's very odd, it's not just a performance issue, there must be something intrinsic to the menu only that has trouble on the geforce 5... because the menus run perfectly smoothly on a gma950, but the game itself is unplayably choppy.
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allen
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Postby allen » Thu Sep 25, 2008 8:00 am

hm perhaps a developer would explain how the menu is rendered in comparison to the actual game?

I do remember that Deus Ex had an option (for slower computers) where you could make the background menu either 3D or 2D. Made a lot of difference to me back with my 500 mhz p3 or whatever it is I had back then.

you can even do it in Half Life 2 with some tinkering. I did it because it helped the initial load time when the game started.

I doubt IV would implement that though.
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Shwart!!
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Postby Shwart!! » Fri Sep 26, 2008 12:09 am

Pox wrote:That's very odd, it's not just a performance issue, there must be something intrinsic to the menu only that has trouble on the geforce 5... because the menus run perfectly smoothly on a gma950, but the game itself is unplayably choppy.


I think that's it.
My bad computer gets about 0.7 FPS in menus, and uses a 5700VE (or something like that).
And yet the game runs all right. Generally about 20,25 FPS, unless a game goes for too long.

Shwart!!
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Postby postrodent » Sat Sep 27, 2008 7:20 am

I have the choppy-menu program too. It's so choppy I can't even activate any of the menu items. My DX and vid drivers are up to date, although I only have a Radeon 9600. Would really appreciate any thoughts people might have.
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bert_the_turtle
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Postby bert_the_turtle » Sat Sep 27, 2008 9:21 am

The menu background rendering is unusually costy, it uses several alpha blended layers and uses more fillrate than the game graphics in normal situations. A "low detail menu" switch would definitely be of help here.
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zach
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Postby zach » Sat Sep 27, 2008 2:52 pm

EVE Online has an option, Render station environment. Unticking this can really help, as that is a very heavy part of rendering (whatwith all the lights, I suppose)
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tabasco boy
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Postby tabasco boy » Sat Sep 27, 2008 5:28 pm

Magrath wrote:I have updated my drivers and installed the Omega driver and it's still choppy for me.


as i got the same graphics card as yours try changing your graphics settings in-game to low as this help and probably the resolution aswell (in-game).

but in my case if i go multiplayer i just use my laptop anyway.
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Postby postrodent » Sun Oct 05, 2008 5:17 am

This issue doesn't seem to have been resolved. My experience post-patch is the same as before the patch: menu is super-choppy even at a low screen rez, even with details all set to low, and when I start a game, I get turfed back to the desktop with the message that MultiwiniaSupport.exe has run into a problem and needs to close.

I have a Radeon 9600 with the latest drivers, and 512mb of ram on an Athlon 64 3500+ cpu. Here's the debug and dxdiag files. Anyone from Introversion want to chime in here? I can't wait to actually play this. ;)

[ Edit: Instead of spamming the thread I've put the debug and dxdiag info here: http://pixels.furiousbees.com/debug-dxdiag.txt ]
Last edited by postrodent on Sun Oct 05, 2008 7:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Shwart!!
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Postby Shwart!! » Sun Oct 05, 2008 6:10 am

Tip: link to the files, host them elsewhere. ;)

Its happening on an ATI 9600? Odd...
I'm using a 9200 now, from the old Geforce 5700. My switch fixed the issue for me; it seems, though, that the issue is not tied solely to NVidia vs ATI, but rather to that generation of cards as a whole, perhaps...

My advice? Swap your video card out for another. At the moment, there's nothing that can be done about the problem.
Try onboard video, if you have it. If it doesn't work, tell us; the more info we have, the better.

Shwart!!
postrodent
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Postby postrodent » Sun Oct 05, 2008 7:36 am

Put all the debug junk in a file. I suppose it is annoying to have to scroll past all that. Anyway, I'm kind of hoping they patch this in a few months, because for the most part my vid card does what it needs to; I don't have and would rather not buy another. Thanks for the tip, though.

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