Vista and ATI

[wwarnick]

I was holding off speaking up, thinking that someone else would first.

I installed Vista about a month and a half ago. I bought the new Vista version of Darwinia after hearing that the original ran slow on Vista. Unfortunately, my framerate was down to 20. It wasn't much higher when I disabled the new effects. And the cursor moved "choppily" (the best word I could think of). Even when the settings were rock bottom, the input response was slower than it was before Vista. About a week later, Steam updated Darwinia with the new Vista patch (20 bucks wasted) with the same symptoms.

I have an ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 with the latest drivers. 1.6 Core Duo, Gig of RAM.

Does anyone else have the same problem?

wwarnick

[wwarnick]

Anybody?

wwarnick

[BT14]

have you tried installing the new vista patch? look at the news page

[wwarnick]

Yes. In fact, I was speaking of the Vista-only version sold by Microsoft and the Steam version, which is updated with the Vista patch.

I'm curious whether or not this is unique to my hardware.

wwarnick

[wwarnick]

I assume that no one has any idea why this might be happening? Has no one else experienced similar problems?

wwarnick

[Atrac]

Yeah, this game eats a ton of memory on my Vista. I too have an X1400 Radeon mobility card, but I have 2 gigs of DDR2 ram(which is why I am guessing this game runs a bit faster for me). Try running the game on a single core if you have a duo processor. It runs around 30-40 FPS with everything on high in a lower resolution.

I have a new problem though with the patch. It turns my full game into the demo ver. only. Anyone know how I can fix this problem.

[wwarnick]

Before Vista and the patch, it ran silky smooth. The only time the game ever slowed down was when the camera was in the middle of a tree. But now all of a sudden, the game always runs that slow unless I turn all graphics down all the way. But even then the framerate is still a little slower than it was.

Changing the affinity didn't fix it. And it's not memory that's the problem.

I don't want to keep nagging, but does anybody at all have any ideas why this might be happening?

wwarnick

[wwarnick]

Can I at least hear a no?

wwarnick

[xander]

Can I at least hear a no?

I think not.

xander

[KingAl]

Before Vista and the patch, it ran silky smooth. The only time the game ever slowed down was when the camera was in the middle of a tree. But now all of a sudden, the game always runs that slow unless I turn all graphics down all the way. But even then the framerate is still a little slower than it was.

Changing the affinity didn't fix it. And it's not memory that's the problem.

I don't want to keep nagging, but does anybody at all have any ideas why this might be happening?

wwarnick

Your video card handling OpenGL better than DirectX? Perhaps some greater inefficiency in the new rendering system? Hrm, your situation does seem a little awkward, though. One thought, try copying the Vista version files to a new folder, deleting the .exe, and then applying the 1.42 patch to the folder. That might successfully revert you to a previous version, though I don't really know the specifics on the MSN Games version.
Keep in mind that Perdition, the mod that comes with that version, will not work with 1.42 as it uses modding features only implemented for the Vista version.

[wwarnick]

LIFE! It worked! Thanks KingAl, I appreciate it. I haven't completed an entire level in Darwinia since I installed Vista because of the problem. I'd heard that the original version ran terribly in Vista, but it's vice-versa on my machine. I have a solid 60 fps now. I wonder how difficult it would be for IV to allow the player to toggle between DX and GL in-game (at the expense of the shader effects).

Anyway, sorry for continually bumping the topic, but I guess it paid off. Thanks KingAl.

wwarnick

[KingAl]

Haha, no, it's alright. I've seen the topic multiple times, I don't know why I didn't think of that earlier You've probably missed the worst of the OpenGL compatibility issues now, thankfully.