3 FPS? There's no excuse. This is not Crysis.

Problems with the Windows version of Darwinia

Moderators: jelco, bert_the_turtle, Chris, andy, John

Do you think Darwinia is sloppily coded and poorly updated?

Yes
1
3%
Yes
0
No votes
Hell yes
4
11%
No.
30
86%
 
Total votes: 35
EXTREMELYDISAPPOINTED
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3 FPS? There's no excuse. This is not Crysis.

Postby EXTREMELYDISAPPOINTED » Thu Feb 21, 2008 4:52 pm

This game is a complete waste of time and money.

- Dual Core Pentium D930, 3 Ghz
- 2 Gb RAM
- TWO ATI Radeon X1950 XTX

There's no excuse whatsoever for this game not to run like dry silk off a baby's ass on a machine like mine. I can't play for even a full minute on the FIRST LEVEL before it slows down to 3 fps and becomes completely uncontrollable. EVEN WITH the ridiculous quality reductions and idiotic "shut off one core" workarounds. Why the hell should I jump through flaming hoops just to get a framerate above 5 fps?

Bottom line: Refunds are in order. This is no more a game than a calculator is a gameboy. If I can play WoW, if I can play TF2 (at full quality, no less), if I can play fricking QUAKE, I should be able to play this.

TOTAL RIP OFF. RELEASE A PROPER PATCH AND GET YOUR CRAP TOGETHER.
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two?

Postby NeatNit » Thu Feb 21, 2008 5:13 pm

I read somewhere in these forums that darwinia and two somethings don't go together so well... if I could only remember what that something was...

read this and see if it helps you (it's a sticky, you have to read all stickies first before posting!!!) http://forums.introversion.co.uk/darwin ... php?t=2935
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Postby EXTREMELYDISAPPOINTED » Thu Feb 21, 2008 5:22 pm

I read that too, and followed the workarounds (which shouldn't be necessary), and still I end up with an unplayable mess. It's bad enough that this game doesn't run properly in the first place, but the fact that it's TWO YEARS since release and they haven't fixed the single most pressing issue - WHICH MAKES THE GAME UNPLAYABLE OUT OF THE BOX - is a complete embarrassment. The time I waste on games should be spent actually playing them, not working around crappy programming.
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works fine for me

Postby NeatNit » Thu Feb 21, 2008 5:27 pm

it works fine for me, and I have a crappy computer! what version of darwinia do you have? if you have a blackbox file it should be there, if not then in the game go to options and other options and it should show you there

fake edit (just remembered didn't submit yet :P): I remember it happened to me too! that was when I downloaded illegally and didn't know I could download updates (don't worry, I bought it two or three days later, didn't even get to finish the game).
after I bought it through steam, since I knew steam updates automatically, it worked just fine.

real edit: link to update - http://www.darwinia.co.uk/support/index.html
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Postby xander » Thu Feb 21, 2008 5:32 pm

Yeah, and the fact that the game is a critical darling and has sold quite well is all despite the fact that it runs like shit on every computer out there. I know for a fact that the Mac version runs slower than the Windows version. Yet it runs at 25-30 FPS on my 5 year old PowerBook. The fact that it does not run smoothly on your machine is likely a problem with your hardware, and the way that it interacts with Darwinia.

As stated before, Darwinia does not play nice with dual procs. It also doesn't seem to play nice with 64 bit procs (though I don't know if that applies to you). I don't think that anyone has posted about how well it plays with dual video cards. That means that you are in a situation that IV didn't have the ability to test for.

On the other hand, there is a demo version available. Are you familiar with the phrase caveat emptor? It means "buyer beware." You had the opportunity to demo the game, and see what it was like. Instead, you bought the game without first seeing if it worked. That is your own damn fault. While it is possible that, because IV is a nice group of people, they might give you your money back, though I wouldn't hold my breath. Especially because you have barged onto their forums, insulted them, and acted like a petulant child.

Grow up, act like a reasonable human being, and people might actually feel like helping you out. Continue to act as you are, and I doubt that much is going to happen in your favor, vis-a-vis the current situation.

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Postby EXTREMELYDISAPPOINTED » Thu Feb 21, 2008 5:45 pm

Bought it through Steam in the bundle. All updates applied.

If "caveat emptor" is the best you can do to challenge the idea that a game should be patched and maintained properly, then you're really reaching. I'm not some gaming grandpa- I BUILD computers, I know what I'm doing. I know that sometimes a game has to be managed a bit under certain configurations, and I've certainly played many games that I had to tweak a bit. Darwinia is far and away the LEAST workable game I've ever bought. You don't have to look too hard on these forums to find people that have massive problems getting their Darwinia to work the way it should, and when that many people come to the forums to complain, it represents a pretty significant degree of failure (especially since there are quite a few more people that DON'T post for every one that DOES).

I've been MORE than reasonable. I've read the stickies. I've done the patches, and the workarounds, and the absurd quality scalebacks (most of which should be completely unnecessary). The fact that I'm here represents the absolute last avenue of recourse for someone in this position. I've paid for the game. I've done the due diligence. I've still got nothing. I'm sure the IV people are very nice, but the fact that a game works for "most" people and is a "critical darling" doesn't mean a damn thing as long as there are people with completely valid, up-to-date systems and software who still can't play the game.

If Valve's release of HL2 works fine on my machine, IV's two-year-old game should be SCREAMING. Period.
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Postby NeoThermic » Thu Feb 21, 2008 6:12 pm

Have you tried to disable crossfire? It could be that ATi's drivers do not work with Darwinia when cards are in crossfire mode (we've all seen this kind of bug before with SLI and other games).

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Postby martin » Thu Feb 21, 2008 6:14 pm

So, my config is quite similar to yours (I can't remember the exact specs but):

Dual ATi ~5500+
3Gb RAM
single X1900XT

and darwinia runs fine, and when I say runs fine I mean it runs my mods fine, which have 10zillion times more units/souls on screen than the campaign. I shall go and try out the campaign later on this new hardware but I bet you it'll run "smooth as silk off a babies bottom"

If you build computers I suspect you have some older hardware around, maybe try running it on that since it seems that darwinia may not like dual Cores?
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try restarting a lot?

Postby NeatNit » Thu Feb 21, 2008 6:19 pm

when it happened to me, sometimes restarting (maybe even the whole computer?) helped, but if I quit and re-enter the game it happened again.. that was one of the reasons I bought it instead of playing the illegal
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Postby Montyphy » Thu Feb 21, 2008 6:22 pm

Since you have the Steam version, have you sought help on their forums?
Uplink help: Check out the Guide or FAQ.
Latest Uplink patch is v1.55.
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Postby Feud » Thu Feb 21, 2008 6:40 pm

My desktop is an AMD 64 with 1 gig ram and an ATI X800 graphics card. It's three years old now, and it runs Darwinia just fine (heck, I can get 20 fps running Darwinia off a flash drive on every computer I've tried it on).

Are you running Vista and if so, did you install the Vista patch?
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Postby NeatNit » Thu Feb 21, 2008 8:23 pm

Feud wrote:Are you running Vista and if so, did you install the Vista patch?
why didn't I think of asking that? oh yeah, because I suck
I just thought of something.
the top sticky :D wrote:0 - uses Vertex Arrays. This was found to be slightly faster on some ATi hardware, and thus should be considered when testing out which setting to use

1 - uses Display Lists. This setting emulates the way Darwinia rendered in 1.0

2 - uses Vertex Buffer Objects. This is the default setting that Darwinia uses in v1.2 onward.9

maybe you should try all 3? because for me it worked super slow in 1.0, the illegal, when it was set to one, but in the steam since it's higher than 1.2 it was set to two and it works much faster now! try it, I hope it works (but after reading what xander said, I don't, you really aren't the best person in the world :P)
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Postby xander » Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:16 pm

EXTREMELYDISAPPOINTED wrote:If "caveat emptor" is the best you can do to challenge the idea that a game should be patched and maintained properly, then you're really reaching.

Clearly, you did not read my post. First off, I suggested that the game runs fine on other systems (and, as some have pointed out, even other systems with similar configurations to yours). That being the case, that means that there is something special about your system that is causing Darwinia to crawl. This is not IV's fault, as they cannot possibly test every machine out there.

I then pointed out that you had the opportunity to demo the game. Given that opportunity, it is your own damn fault for not knowing that it wouldn't work. This point was secondary.

I also have a new point to add: you bought the game from Valve, via Steam. Thus, Valve is the company that you need to be whining at for a refund.


EXTREMELYDISAPPOINTED wrote:IYou don't have to look too hard on these forums to find people that have massive problems getting their Darwinia to work the way it should, and when that many people come to the forums to complain, it represents a pretty significant degree of failure (especially since there are quite a few more people that DON'T post for every one that DOES).

What you fail to take into account is reporting bias. People with problems are more likely to report that they have problems than people with no problems are to report the lack thereof. Also couple that with the fact that IV is a small company, and does not have the beta testing resources of bigger companies, and you get people with esoteric hardware (like yours) that have problems. IV does everything it can to fix errors, but they have limited time and resources to do so. I should also point out that the Darwinia boards are very slow -- there is maybe one post per month reporting a problem, and most of them are dealt with quickly.

We would love to help you with your problem, but you are being such an asshole about it that I am inclined to ignore you. Again, grow the fuck up.

xander
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Postby KingAl » Fri Feb 22, 2008 1:58 am

xander wrote: This is not IV's fault, as they cannot possibly test every machine out there.

But they can test ones from the future!


EXTREMELYDISAPPOINTED, it's clear your situation sucks, and I feel for you. Attacking people when things don't go your way, however, is not going to help.

What operating system are you using? Do you have the latest video and sound card drivers?
I presume, if you're using Steam, that you've got the latest update and thus have the DirectX 'Vista' patch.
I take it you've set the game to single core affinity, from your first post. It's looking suspiciously as if the issue has to do with your Crossfire set-up. However, given the fact that the graphics API is entirely different with the latest patch, it's possible it will work fine with an earlier patch.
xander wrote:From your Darwinia directory in your Steam directory [C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\Darwinia], copy sounds.dat and main.dat to another directory. Apply the [earlier patch -1.42] to that. I think that should work.


If the OpenGL version will work better, then that may be a solution. As the patch will create a new .exe in the new directory, keep in mind you may have to apply single core affinity again; the game will be no longer launched via Steam, so you probably want to create a shortcut somewhere to the .exe in the new directory.
Last edited by KingAl on Fri Feb 22, 2008 2:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby wwarnick » Fri Feb 22, 2008 2:00 am

You seem to think that low-budget games should run smoother than mainstream games. In theory, a game with worse graphics should run smoother, but it doesn't always work that way. Large companies can afford to hire experienced people whose sole responsibility is to ensure the game's stability. IV has no professional testers. Plus, besides general CS, IV is essentially self-taught. They learned the in's and out's of networking with Defcon. Each project will likely be more stable than the last as they gain experience. When Valve needs to utilize new technology they've never used before, they don't research it. They hire somebody. A mainstream company has years and years of cumulative specialized experience on their side while an indie company like IV has much less.

When you buy an indie game, you can't hold it to mainstream standards. You have to understand the risk involved.

EDIT:
KingAl wrote:If the OpenGL version will work better, then that may be a solution.

That's what worked for me.

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