Strange Performance Issues

[Rifle_001]

I have just recently downloaded the UTIII Demo (to make sure I can run the game before I buy it) and whenever I start it I get some major lag, and not just lag in the gameplay, it goes at around 20 fps in the menus and it's even worse in gameplay. I have tried turning everything down and its not quite as bad but still unplayable. This is strange because I don't have a particularly low end system, in fact, I can run Crysis on all medium settings and it plays smoothly. Is this a problem restricted to the demo or did I get a bad copy or something such as that? Any help is appreciated and my system specs are below.


Windows Vista Home Premium SP1
2.0 GB RAM
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4000+ 2.10 GHz
PNY GeForce 8600 GT 256 MB

[Sincreator]

I dont think the demo is patched.(not 100% sure) Also the 8600gt 256 card could be dragging you down alot. I recommend a Ati4850 $170, or 8800gt $150, or a 9600gt $130. All of these cards give you alot for your money. The 4850 is probally what I would recommend the most, although you will have to tweak the fans a little to get a more desired temperture.

If upgrading is a problem then you can try a few of the tweak guides that are around.

UT3 tweaker http://www.brad-g.com/unreal-tournam...r-v5-0-t2.html
Ultrons guide http://utforums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=586697
Fulmtl's tweaks http://utforums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=605240

These should help you alot.

[kiko]

Dont know what yopu problem could be really more than likely its drivers thats the problem i run on 8600gt 512 at 3 / 3 details just fine justthe usually annoying slow downs here and there but everything runs great tbh and custom maps i can run aat 5 /5 no problem so id check your system and gfx drivers

[oldkawman1]

I have just recently downloaded the UTIII Demo (to make sure I can run the game before I buy it) and whenever I start it I get some major lag, and not just lag in the gameplay, it goes at around 20 fps in the menus and it's even worse in gameplay. I have tried turning everything down and its not quite as bad but still unplayable. This is strange because I don't have a particularly low end system, in fact, I can run Crysis on all medium settings and it plays smoothly. Is this a problem restricted to the demo or did I get a bad copy or something such as that? Any help is appreciated and my system specs are below.


Windows Vista Home Premium SP1
2.0 GB RAM
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4000+ 2.10 GHz
PNY GeForce 8600 GT 256 MB

Since you did not list at what settings your getting 20 fps at, I will assume you have them all set too high for your system. Lower your screen resolution, try 1024x768 and see if that helps. Also try lowering your video quality settings to 2-2.

Crysis is a video card intensive game. UT3 is video card and cpu intensive as well. Your AMD AM2 EE cpu will struggle with UT3. Your video card only has 256MB memory, so you cannot run above 1280x1024.

Make sure all your drivers are up to date as well. Switching back to XP will also give you a performance boost.

[RoadKillGrill]

Your video card only has 256MB memory, so you cannot run above 1280x1024.

The memory shouldn't denote the max res, most games still don't use much memory past 256 anyway.

[oldkawman1]

The memory shouldn't denote the max res, most games still don't use much memory past 256 anyway.

Benchmarks show a big drop in fps between 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 on the 8600GT.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3128&p=3

This chart shows the 8600GT in all flavors, 512MB and 256Mb does not like being above 1280x1024. It also shows the 25% better fps on the 512Mb DDR3 vs the 256MB DDR3. Too bad it's not a UT3 benchmark, but it's pretty typical of all the benchmarks.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/d...%2C1565%2C1584

[Kinnison]

*OK IMPORTANT EDIT: I thought I read you had win XP. You can ignore the part about the service packs :P Although, to be honest, it could run better on XP cause its less memory intesive.*

My recomendations - worked for me:

Do the following in this order (you might want to write it down).

Uninstall all and any utilities that concern your video card or display. Anything at all whatever it is, it must go.

uninstall your display drivers completely. If there is a control panel or something (been long since I had nvidia card) uninstall BOTH that and the actual display driver.

Restart. Dont skip the restart.

Go to the Nvidia website to get the latest graphics driver for your card.

Install them and then restart again. Don't skip the restart.

Now, whatever you do, do not change anything at all in the display or video card settings. Make sure you dont touch any settings at ALL. Leave everything to the driver defaults.

Get Service Pack 2 and perhaps sp 3 too if you wish... although SP by itself might not help you, it is HIGHLY recomended to always put on the service packs in xp.

Before you run the game, DEFRAG. If you have partitions or multiple drives defrag all of them. Particularly the drive where WINDOWS is and the drive you have the game installed to. Also the drive where your "My Documents" are cause ut3 places maps over there.

Also, you just might accidentaly have ended up with a fragmented Pagefile (or swapfile). It is a system file on disk that is used as virtual ram, to write there when youre out of ram. I can tell you how to fix that for XP, not sure if this is the same for Vista. Should be more or less as deep down they are based on the same core technology:

Find (via control panel, system settings) the settings that affect where and how big your swapfile is. probably its on "let windows choose" or something. Set this to NOT USE any pagefile at all. Restart and windows will remove the current pagefile.

Now you'll set the pagefile again. IF UT3 is stored on a hard disk and windows on another, put the pagefile at the windows disk. IF Windows and Unreal are all installed on same disk (this is default-program files) and you have another disk, put the swapfile on the other disk. If you are going to put the swapfile on a disk with partitions, always use the first partition.

If you have windows and Unreal in the same drive and you are forced to put the swapfile in that drive also, just make sure to put it in that drives FIRST partition. Its faster. It dont matter if the other partition is empty: the disk still will have to work for both unreal files and swapfile. And the vital swapfile will be on the slowest area of the disk. So use the first partition.

When you know where you are going to put it, DEFRAG that drive. Make sure it has enough free space (4GB should do). Now go on the windows settings via control panel and set your swapfile size. Dont set it to "Let windows decide", instead select to type in your own size. If it has max and min settings put the same value to both so that its stable and unchanged. Put in 2048MB both in max and min. If you have a ton of free space (like more than 5 or 6GB) you could put it to 3GB (3072MB) but you might not see any difference, actually.

This will create the swapfile a-new and if you have defraged it will be one consistent contigious file. That means it is accessed and writen and read a lot faster. Like 100% faster. If this is done right it will stay defraged unless if you mess with its size in the control panel.

Additionaly, you might want to look into "Diskeeper 2008". Apart from defraging even windows "unmovable" files and defraging your FATs (file alocation table) and MFT (master file table) and folder structure, it also makes sure that *the most frequently used files are moved to the begining of your hard drive*. That means they load quite faster. Yes, where the file is writen affects the time to load it. This isnt free but there is a free 30 day trial so I recommend you check it out.

Also get ERUNT. Available here:
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

Use it to first backup your registry (make sure you dont skip this whatever you do).
Then have it defrag your registry (yes thats right...) depending on how long you've used your current windows installation and how often you remove/install stuff and the quality of that stuff, you might discover that you registery had become a mess over time.

After all that, try running UT3 again. Doing all these my UT3 that was unplayble in maps like deck even on 640x480 with all graphics on lowest (like 7 fps unplayable), now can run it on MAXED details with just a bit low framerates on the heavier maps (like 15-18 momentarily and in specific heavy-to-procces areas, while usually its around 25-40).

TRY IT! (you can thank me later... after you ve had some matches lol... )