Framerate (from the official Morrowind boards)

[Dreamer128]

I was still waiting for the game to come out when I read this on the official boards, is it really this bad?

Ok, I have a mid-ranged system which is more than capable of running anything else out there without a glitch. Still the performance I'm encountering in Morrowind is making the game unplayable. I'm trying to be as detailed as possible about by specs and would love to see similar posts by others having severe performance problems, as I'm not really sure if these problems relate that much to the hardware as to something in the Morrowind software. Perhaps this might help Bethesda to home in on the problem that so many of us seem to suffer from (provided it *is* a single, common problem). == System Specification ========================================= OS: Windows 2000 sp2 DirectX: 8.1 (4.08.01.0881) CPU: 1 GHz Athlon Thunderbird Memory: 640MB SDRAM Motherboard: Via KT133 (with the 4in1 drivers to fix agp) Gfx card: Geforce 3 Ti200 (Detonator XP 28.32 WHQL certified) Sound card: Creative Soundblaster Live (Latest drivers) Other: - Graphics card set to use AGPx4, AA=off, MipMap=Best picture Quality, Vertical sync=Automatic. - All non-essential services and processes terminated (i.e. all except the windows core). - Display bit depth set to 32 bits of color information. == Bench mark ================================================== = Location of FPS measurement in the game: Just outside the door of the captain (where the game actually begins) and facing the town square. Performance: 8-11 fps Resolution: 1024*768 Game configuration: Pixel Shader=on, AI distance=minimum, View distance=far, Shadows=off, Music=off. Performance: 9-11 fps Resolution: 1024*768 Game configuration: Pixel Shader=on, AI distance=minimum, View distance=far, Shadows=off, Music=off. Performance: 9-12 fps Resolution: 1024*768 Game configuration: Pixel Shader=on, AI distance=minimum, View distance=middle, Shadows=off, Music=off. * Performance: 9-12 fps Resolution: 1024*768 Game configuration: Pixel Shader=off, AI distance=minimum, View distance=middle, Shadows=off, Music=off. Performance: 12-15 fps Resolution: 1024*768 Game configuration: Pixel Shader=on, AI distance=minimum, View distance=minimum, Shadows=off, Music=off. Performance: 9-11 fps Resolution: 640*480 Game configuration: Pixel Shader=on, AI distance=minimum, View distance=far, Shadows=off, Music=off. Performance: 10-12 fps Resolution: 640*480 Game configuration: Pixel Shader=on, AI distance=minimum, View distance=middle, Shadows=off, Music=off. Performance: 13-16 fps Resolution: 640*480 Game configuration: Pixel Shader=on, AI distance=minimum, View distance=minimum, Shadows=off, Music=off. * To check the impact of not using pixel shader, which appeared to be none other than ugly water. No performance impact.

SystemSpecification=============================== ====== OS: Windows XP Pro DirectX: 8.1 CPU: 1.4 GHz Athlon Thunderbird Memory: 512 MB SDRAM Motherboard: ECS K7S5A with v1.09f agp driver Gfx card: Geforce 2 GTS with v23.83 drivers (latest offical ones form website) Sound card: Soundblaster Live (latest drivers from website) Other: - Graphics card set to use AGPx4, AA=off, MipMap=Best picture Quality, Vertical sync=Automatic. - Display bit depth set to 32 bits of color information. Bench mark ================================================== Location of FPS measurement in the game: Just outside the door of the captain (where the game actually begins) and facing the town square. Morrowind.ini has the following setting to enable fps counter Show FPS=1 1024x768/no shadows/half view distance/one-thrid AI slider/no pixel shader/music high quality 13-16 FPS

1.2 ghz Athlon 1024 MB SDRAM (PC 133) Abit KT-133A (latest bios) WinXP with everything shut down Geforce 3 Ti 500 28.32 Det, AGP 4x, No AA, VSync Auto, Best Mipmap (changing mipmap settings doesn't change framerate, only image quality) 32 bit color depth I did two location: Where you start up and on top of the lighthouse looking toward the tradepost. 1024x768 View distance far, shadows full: 8-12 at lighthouse, 13-16 at start View distance half, shadows half: 16-17 lighthouse, 19-21 start View distance near, shadows none: 28-33 lighthouse, 26-29 start 800x600 Same order as above 11-12, 13-14 16-18, 17-19 29-34, 27-30 640x480 Same order as above 11-12, 12-14 17-18, 16-19 31-36, 25-27

I am having similar performance based problems. In buildings my framerate is 40-60. Outside it stays around 30. In the first town, my fps is 10-20. My system can run Jedi Knight II in 1600x1200 with Quincunx Anti-Aliasing and 8xAnisotropic filtering at 40-60 fps at all times. Something is wrong here. At first I thought it was supposed to be that slow, but after hearing of people with lesser cards getting much greater performance, something must be very wrong. OS: Windows XP Professional, all updates via Windows Update Motherboard: Shuttle AK31, VIA VT8366/VT8233 Proc: Athlon Xp 1800 1.0GB DDR Ram Gainward Geforce 4 ti4600 Detonator 28.32 Drivers Sound: Creative Soundblaster Live! 5.1 The game is playable, yes, but I spent 600$ upgrading for this game, and I have to run it with shadows almost off and draw distance at 75% to even get the numbers listed above. I get 9900 3DMarks, for Godsakes! I hope that the devs find out what is going on soon, unless this is normal, but I can't believe that. No engine is that clunky. Of course, the worst thought is if I never find out what is going on...upgrade for nothing...but I know the devs will do their best.

I'd love to see a dev comment on this. After turning on the FPS counter and realizing that in populated areas my FPS always drops below 10, I decided it was time to search around for some info on this. Looks like a lot of other people with solid, mid-ranged systems such as mine, are experiencing the same problem -- 60+ FPS indoors, decent FPS (30ish) in the wilderness, but in populated towns, it's virtually unplayable. Either this is a significant shortcoming of the engine, or it's a bug of some sort. My system: Athlon 1.4 Ghz 512 MB of DDR RAM GeForce 3 DirectX 8.1 Detonator 28.32 with hacked refresh rate fix SBLive! 5.1 Windows XP The only thing I can think of is sound. Sometimes sound is the culprit of bizarro frame rate problems. Who knows? I'm grasping at straws here -- I've tried tweaking everything: hardware settings, graphics settings, driver versions, etc. Oh, here's what I'm running Morrowind at: 1024x768x32 Anti-Aliasing 2x Real Time Shadows: 0% View Distance: 100% AI Updates: 75%

Just to remedy my curiousity on this subject, I stopped in at the local gw2k store the other day to test out how the game would run on a top of the line system. I used the following setup: p4 2.4 ghz,ti 4600, and 1204 mb rdram. I then set all the options to max, and was shocked when there were noticeable hiccups in the game. Even at the setting above 1024x768, with distance turned down a bit, the game was jumpy. I think a patch might be in order or something. Just my 2 cents

These are just the first posts, the list just goes on and on and on...

[Himura]

My roomate has some major framerate/Video issues with Morrowing on a 1ghz AMD/Voodoo3 box. We are getting a GeForce3 Ti200 to see if that helps. I think Windows 2000 in general aren't well liked in this game though... just a guess. If we come up with any tweak I will post it here.

I have a AMD 1700XP+ with GeForce3 200Ti. It works fine, the frame rate is about 20-30 fps at 1024x768

Although I haven't done an actual framerate test, as I'm clueless as to how.... Here's my specs and what it feels like:
Windows '98
PIII 700
ABIT BH6 mb
256 meg
SB Live Platinum
GeForce 4 Ti 4600

Res 800x600
Pixel shading on
AI near
Shadows off
Vsync on @ 75 mhz

I haven't encountered any major slowing, for the most part it is silky smooth, although there is an occasional dip in very crowded areas, which I attribute to cpu time usage for AI. For those with the 1 ghz and above machines, it would seem to point to either a graphics card or sound issue...

[ 05-07-2002, 03:22 PM: Message edited by: Absynthe ]

[vesselle]

i don't know about framerate either. to me, there's 2 kinds. stutters and smooth.

i have:
P4 1.6
512mb RAM
ATI 7500 32 mb
Soundblaster live
Win ME, 1024x768x32

everything set to mid range except AI, all the way up, and sound set on low.
smooth, except once every 20 mins or so i freeze for about 10 sec.
...latest official driver release from 4/11/02

alienware majestic 12
P4 1.8
512mb RAM
GeForce3 ti500 64mb
Win XP, 1024x768x32

everything set to high.
smooth as silk. no hitches, no freezing, sound quality high.
...28.32 drivers released 4/26/02

overall, i'm pleased. i'm more than pleased. i'm ecstatic over it. i'm gonna be sleeping, eating and drinking this game for a long time to come.

but, i'm sorry to hear so many peeps having problems. i certainly hope bethsoft gets on that asap. it won't do for so many gamers to miss out on this great game!

V***V

[Silverthornne]

Yikes, there seem to be a lot of folks with problems =/
I'd say my PC performs pretty good on it. It's nowhere near as smooth as a shooter or EQ for me (I admit it, EQ junkie here.. well, that may change thanks to Morrowind ), but it is pretty good. I get about an average of 25 fps outside and 65 inside. You can check your fps by opening the console (press the ` key) and using the command "tdt" (without the quotes). I have an Athlon xp 1800 on an ECS K7S5A mobo, 512 mb DDR ram, and a new Geforce Ti 4600. I'm playing it with 4xs anti-aliasing on since I didn't notice performer to be better with it off so may as well enjoy the aa graphics.

[ 05-08-2002, 07:17 PM: Message edited by: Silverthornne ]

Silverthornne, thanks for the console command, I'll get to find out where I'm at tonight. Now I can do some tweaking and actually measure the results. Way cool.