The lag problem...

[JRD]

... is over  ;D

not sure if it will help with your problem, but have noticed lag in performance on my PC when there is alot (30+) saves in the Save folder, so have got into habit of moving all but most recent 2/3 saves to a seperate folder. was suprised at how big saves can get, between 1 - 8 mb, and if you hit quick save often like me it soon adds up to alot.

I've been playing GTA for a while to fix my daily gaming need and to forget about the frustrating lag issue I was having in FC2.
I tried everything to solve it, but nothing worked and I was afraid I was going to let FC2 go off  :(

Thanks dke58  :-X, the simplest solution to my gaming problem........ funny is I had moved most of my save files to a backup folder before but never realised the lag could be due to the excess of files in the original folder.
As soon as the problem appears again, I'll check how many files I have in the folder and emty it.

More about what happened HERE

[Art Blade]

Great! You have FC2 up and running, and the lag is gone... EXCELLENT  :-X

funny is I had moved most of my save files to a backup folder before but never realised the lag could be due to the excess of files in the original folder.
As soon as the problem appears again, I'll check how many files I have in the folder and emty it.

Now, that is me here and now realising my current lag is the same... just checked: 216 saves in the original folder ARGH! I'll instantly move most of them!

Cheers JRD for reminding me, and dke58 for the tip  :-X

[Ricamundo]

Do you mean lag as in in game stuttering, or of the time spent waiting for the saves to refreash and load the latest save?

I use F5/F9, and even with hundreds of saves, it loads the last save in a few seconds after i hit F9. I do, however, delete the entire save folder after every playthru, as i like to start fresh.

[Art Blade]

I think JRD meant a general lag, else he wouldn't have described the entire game as being unplayable. At least on my side it is true that F9 (or start menue "continue") works fine, but with hundreds of saves it can take quite some time and stuttering, if you want to select a specific savegame, to load the list. I notice a general lag lately but that only occurred after getting nVidia's latest driver from MS update. Removing the majority of the savegames helps the list refresh, and apparently helped JRD get rid of the general lag.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Just curious, those of you seeing general lag during game play (not during game save/load or refresh of the save game list) and you did have a lot of save games - is the disk you have FC2 installed on FAT32 or NTFS? Though i would think FAT32 couldn't even support the large files that you need to even install FC2, so that question might be irrelevant.

I noticed lag only while refreshing the save game list, while having a lot of save games. I moved all the previous save games to another folder and renamed them with a different extension so that the game wouldn't recognise them.

Helpful hint: You can create a new folder under the main save game folder to put your other saves in, but the game will still "see" them unless you rename them with a new extension. I keep my save games sorted that way, and you can still access the ones you want from the game by just putting the correct extension back on.

[Art Blade]

NFTS here.

I moved my saves to a different disk, I don't think FC2 scans your machine for that. At least they don't show up in the saves list. Moving them to a different disk (or away from the FC2 game folder) saves you from renaming the extensions.

[Dweller_Benthos]

I did that at first, too, but didn't want to bother finding them again, so a quick rename of the extension with a handy little tool called Multiple File Rename does the trick.

Of course, if you're DOS proficient, you can always use

ren *.sav *.oldsav

LOL

Oh yeah, if you have a particular save game that you want to use again, like it's at a certain point in the game or something, you can rename them and the game won't care, so erase the stupid name the game gives it like 8731064412116.sav and change it to Warren 30% at safe house.sav. Actually, I haven't tried one with spaces in it yet, so if it don't w@&k, take the spaces out.

[Art Blade]

wow, that is cool about renaming the files (not the extensions)  :-X

if you want to rename the files, you can abuse some programs that have batch abilities, such as irfanView. You can open your games folder, select "all files (*.*)" and start a batch conversion that renames files, extensions, keep old names if you like, hehe :)

[PZ]

ahhh... the command window and DOS syntax... brings back fond old memories, like of the time one of my colleagues wanted to help the boss by cleaning up his computer (wanted to impress him with his knowledge...  He called me for assistance a short while later because this is what he typed while in the boss' c:\windows directory:

del *.*

Don't try these DOS commands at home kids...  ;D

[Art Blade]

haha :) Oh man, clean up business PCs... brings back some memories... I was called for help once (actually pre-286, some genuine IBM PC) and I remember my disbelief when I checked "C:\*.*" Every possible document of every secretary who ever worked for that company had left gazillions of templates and copies of business letters in the bloody root LOL

[JRD]

My lag problem was in game.
For example: I'm on foot, running and let go the mouse and keyboard. Still, my character continues moving for half a second.... sometimes even one second of delay between my command and the action performed.
My FPS was good as always, no stuttering, only that annoying lag during the whole gaming session. Imposible to play cos you can't aim or nothing (fell over the cliff hundreds of times till I gave up FCS for a few weeks)

One remark: nVidia driver.
When I first installed FC2 it said "old driver, update it". I ignored and played a few days with the old driver... all ok then.
I decided to install a new driver because that warning everytime I fired FC2 was a bit annoying... the game presented stuttering and freezing  :D..... so, revert to the old driver and all was well again.
After my time off Africa. I installed GTA, which made me look for a nVidia drive, don't know if its the same as the one above, but GTA performance increased and now, as I play FC2, no stutering, no lag, no freezing and no "old driver" warning at lauch......
May be it, may be what dke58 described...... whatever... I'M BACK TO AFRICA BABY  ;D ;D ;D

[Art Blade]

good :)

Maybe I revert to an older version of my nvidia driver too, since the newer driver I have stut-stut-stutters.

[PZ]

That's excellent news, JRD!   :-X

There's nothing like FC2 to start off the day!  :)

[Art Blade]

That could be a motto :) so true...  :-X

[JRD]

or
"One FC2 shooting a day, keeps the doc away"  :P

[Art Blade]

throw the apple at the doctor, that keeps him away, too :)

[Art Blade]

Maybe I revert to an older version of my nvidia driver too, since the newer driver I have stut-stut-stutters.

Done that, stutters stopped :) for me, the working driver is nvidia 181.22 (GTX260)

[Ricamundo]

I may have posted this before, but im still using a year old nVidia driver(may '08)for  my 9800GTX. I get a msg every time i fire up FC2 saying to update my driver, but why should i, when it runs and looks fab?

[Art Blade]

so true! what's the saying, "never change a running system" unless you know how to fix it, that is  ;)

[JRD]

I may have posted this before, but im still using a year old nVidia driver(may '08)for  my 9800GTX. I get a msg every time i fire up FC2 saying to update my driver, but why should i, when it runs and looks fab?

Thats the message I had. When I updated the driver it all went so bad I reverted to the old driver.
The one I'm using now (haven't checked wich one yet) was meant to fix low FPS on GTA, but worked fine for FC2 too!!

[Art Blade]

strange, isn't it... but cool you got a working driver that serves both games well, JRD :)

With my old driver I actually went a step farther back than I thought, and now I have optimized the driver towards maximum quality, and have every display setting in the game maxed out, HDR and Bloom on, but AntiAliasing off. I then set the game V-Sync to "off" but the in the vid driver settings V-Sync on (the reason: I read that in-game V-Sync was confused with H-Sync, so I let the driver do it, to make sure). Res: 1900x1200

Most of the time I see about 30-45 frames per second (FPS), sometimes more, sometimes less. But: SMOOooooth  ;D

[JRD]

Yeah... I forgot to mention... I'm now playing with AA 4x and V-Sync on, all on ultra high and 1680 x 1050... SSSMMMOOOOTTTTHHHHHH.
Was playing with ultra high but no AA or VSync.
FPS are somwhat above 25, but seems much more fluid than GTA, which I managed to play with 22 FPS in average, with some nasty drops sometimes (downtown at night and raining, traffic and action, lots of action)