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2010 Ice & Blood Behaviour


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I got this topic idea last night, and I'd like everyone who's playing Ice & Blood to help me on this one :

 

I'd like to make a topic that tells everyone's experience with Ice & Blood, so people will know what software/hardware is good or not to play Sacred 2.

Right now I'm interested in buying a computer, but after hearing several people experiences with the game (both good and bad), I'd like everyone to share how well their game is running in this topic, so everyone who really wants to fully enjoy this game will know what to look for and what to avoid.

 

I made some kind of template for the information needed (you can copy/paste the following template in your post) :

 

Processor : Type your processor name and speed here and write how many you have

RAM : Type how much RAM you have and what type it is (DDR2, DDR3, etc.)

Video Card : Type here the manufacturer of your card and the model (example : Nvidia GTX 280)

Operating System : Type here your operating system and if it is 32-bit, 64-bit or whateveramount-bit.

General Experience : Type here your general experience with the game in a few sentences. Tell us : Does the game crashes/freezes often? How many fps do you have? What game settings do you use? Feel free to share any other useful information.

 

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I'll most likely update the first post when people will answer this topic, so everyone's information will be available here.

I know some people have several computers, so feel free to post the information about each computer, so people will have access to a wider kind of different hardware/software.

 

Let me start off :

Processor : Intel Centrino Duo @ 1.60Ghz, 2 Processors

RAM : 2GB 667mhz DDR2

Video Card : Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 256MB (I'm on a laptop)

Operating System : Windows XP SP3 32-bit

General Experience : Black screen after ~2 hours of play, rare random crashes, I'm having 10-35 fps depending on where I'm playing @ lowest settings on 1280x800 in a window.

 

Schot :

Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00Ghz 3.00 Ghz

RAM : 8GB 800mhz DDR2 (4 x Kingston PC2-6400)

Video Card : ATI Saphire Radeon 4890 1GB DDR5 (Desktop)

Operating System : Windows 7 and Vista 64 bit partitions

General Experience : Playability is good. Normally play at Medium settings. Can run 2 instances of Sacred easily enough at low settings. I generally don't crash much at all.

Anti-Virus and Spyware : Always completely turned off when playing. Using Windows Security Essentials.

 

Knuckles :

Processor: Intel i7 920 2.67ghz

RAM: 6GB 1600 DDR3 (Corsair 3x2GB)

GFX: Gigabyte GTX285 1792MB

OS: Dual-Boot Win 7 and XP-64 bit

Win 7 Experience: Crashing every 10 minutes. Tried numerous different settings without success

XP 64 Experience: Plays almost flawlessly at highest settings. 4AA will cause stuttering if in a server with 2 or more people. Crash rarely. Typically once in 3-4 hours of play.

 

Spunky :

Processor : Pentium® Dual-Core CPU T4200 @ 2.00GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.0GHz

RAM : 3066MB RAM (says that I have 4GB in the system information, but in the DxDiag file it's only says 3GB.)

Video Card : ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500 Series 512MB

Operating System : Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1

General Experience : Freezes after around 2 hours played and get some black screens if changing servers to often, playing on medium settings and usually have 30-50 FPS.

 

Chareos Rantras :

Processor : Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU E8600 @ 3.33GHz (2 CPUs)

RAM : 3068MB RAM DDR2 (if I recall correctly)

Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT

Operating System : XP 32bit

General Experience :

-settings:

-- FULLSCREEN: Everything on high, grass on highest distance, 1680*1050 resolution

-- WINDOWED: same but I think the ground textures are on medium, maybe some others tuned back a little for better performance

-crashes: very rare

 

nomad13 :

CPU : Intel Core duo T9400 @2.53 Ghz

RAM : 3 Gb

Graphics: Nvidia 9600GT Mobile

OS: Vista 32 Bits SP1

General Experience : Crashes randomly, sometimes I can play straight hours without crashing but after awhile it stutters a bit. I play without grass or shadows and I use V-Sync turned on ingame with settings on Medium mostly on 1280x800 Resolution @ 60Hz. My graphics control panel is on default without Physics.

 

locolagarto :

Processor : Intel i5 750 Quad Core base 2.67Ghz overclocked to 3.4Ghz

RAM : 8Gb DDR3-1600 PC3-12800(Gskill) 4 x 2Gb * no- HDD pagefile.sys

Video Card : Nvidia GTX260 896Mb and 448-bit chipset

Operating System : Windows 7 64-bit

General Experience : I don't wanna Steal the general intent of this thread away to optimization steps but, at first the game ran o.k with only occasional crashes. as time went on and I experimented with various settings and parameters like the optionCustom.txt settings, PhysX settings etc the game experience got worse and worse. until finally I uninstalled and re-installed both my graphics card and Sacred2. with a very particular point to disable PhysX in the control panel and Configure 3D setting to use hardware as much as possible. Zero pre-renderd frames from CPU. AA X 4 is configured in hardware. in-game I avoid PhysX completely. Quality is maxed very high with exception of Shadows=0. I run ingame settings of AA off and weather off. vsync on.

I have Run as Administrator checked and I also added -nocpubinding to my sacred2.exe shortcut. This was suggested by Dobster and it was an amazing boost to performance, especially if running more than 1 account or having messenger, Chrome, and ASRock OC tuner(shows me Mobo and CPU Temps) all running at the same time.

Since doing this Optimization I get 50 -90 FPS depending on where I am. Caves it has even spiked to 120FPS for long periods while running windowed at 1920X1080. I can run 2 accounts at the same time with little change in performance. And today I was running 3 accounts for a while.

 

Dragon Brother :

CPU: Intel Core2Duo P8400 @2.26GHz (2 cores)

RAM: 4GB

Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 - 512MB

OS: Windows 7 64Bit

Settings: Low - Medium

General Experience : Game runs with ~30fps, bit lower when it gets a little intensive on screen, game runs for a 2-3 hours usually without crashing and sometimes more. All in all no real issues with the running of the game.

 

candesco :

Processor : Intel Pentium 4 2,66 Ghz Northwood (I know, an old one, but it still works)

Motherboard: ASUS P4B533-E

RAM : 2 GB DDRAM (2x Corsair Valueselect VS1GB400C3 DDR 1)

Video Card : ASUS HD3650 silent agp

Operating System : Windows XP Professional SP3 32-bit

General Experience : The game runs normal. no real problems and no crashes. I run the game on medium settings. Only the fps drops sometimes.

Anti-Virus and Spyware : I use Avira Antivir personal edition and the firewall I use is Agnitum Outpost firewall pro. I also have a router. When I start gaming I always turn the firewall and virusscanner off.

Since Ice & Blood I experienced that the game starts to shock when the anti-virus tries to update. The updating process is done on the background and should normally not intervene a program.

 

Woody :

HP Pavilion dv7 Notebook PC

Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo CPU P7450 - 2.13Ghz

RAM : 4Gb ram

Video Card : ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650 1Gb

Operating System : Windows 7 64

General Experience : Runing permanently 2 accounts in medium settings [Running more don't change anything to the gameplay]. One in 1024x768 and one in 1600x900. Windowed Mode. I can play 5-6 hours without any problems. I crash 1 time per day, sometimes 2 crashes but never more. 50 fps.

Anti-Virus and Spyware : Avira Antivir Personnal. Maximum security settings, even when playing.

 

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Tips to make Ice & Blood run better :

 

1 - It looks like adding "-nocpubinding" (without the quotes) in the game's shortcut make the game run better. As tested by locolagarto, the addition of this little command after the Target of your Sacred 2 shortcut tells the game to separate the game's tasks on all the processors instead of running all the tasks on the same processor.

 

2 - Try adding the "-skipopenal" command in the game's shortcut.

 

3 - If you have the EU version of the game, try opening ports 6800 and 7011 in your router.

 

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What to look for and what to avoid :

 

What to look for :

-...

-...

 

What to avoid (if you're crahsing a lot) :

-If you're running Ice & Blood under Windows 7 : PhysX

-If you're running Ice & Blood under Windows 7 : Elite Graphics

 

 

Max

Edited by metal_max64
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Great idea Max. I'll see about adding my spare system to this list. :P

 

Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00Ghz 3.00 Ghz

RAM : 8GB 800mhz DDR2 (4 x Kingston PC2-6400)

Video Card : ATI Saphire Radeon 4890 1GB DDR5 (Desktop)

Operating System : Windows 7 and Vista 64 bit partitions

General Experience : Playability is good. Normally play at Medium settings. Can run 2 instances of Sacred easily enough at low settings. I generally don't crash much at all.

Anti-Virus and Spyware : Always completely turned off when playing. Using Windows Security Essentials.

 

 

P.s.

Added Anti-Virus and Spyware. I think this is an important point.

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Processor: Intel i7 920 2.67ghz

RAM: 6GB 1600 DDR3 (Corsair 3x2GB)

GFX: Gigabyte GTX285 1792MB

OS: Win 7 and XP-64 bit

 

Win 7 Experience: Crashing every 10 minutes. Tried numerous different settings without success

 

XP 64 Experience: Plays almost flawlessly at highest settings. 4AA will cause stuttering if in a server with 2 or more people. Crash rarely. Typically once in 3-4 hours of play.

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Processor : Pentium® Dual-Core CPU T4200 @ 2.00GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.0GHz

RAM : 3066MB RAM (says that I have 4GB in the system information, but in the DxDiag file it's only says 3GB.)

Video Card : ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500 Series 512MB

Operating System : Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1

General Experience : Freezes after around 2 hours played and get some black screens if changing servers to often, playing on medium settings and usually have 30-50 FPS.

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Processor : Intel® Core2 Duo CPU E8600 @ 3.33GHz (2 CPUs)

 

RAM : 3068MB RAM DDR2 (if I recall correctly)

 

Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT

 

Operating System : XP 32bit

 

General Experience :

-settings:

-- FULLSCREEN: Everything on high, grass on highest distance, 1680*1050 resolution

-- WINDOWED: same but I think the ground textures are on medium, maybe some others tuned back a little for better performance

-crashes: very rare

 

Overall it runs rather smoothly on my pc.

 

 

cheers!

Chareos Rantras

Edited by Chareos Rantras
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CPU: Intel Core duo T9400 @2.53 Ghz

 

Ram: 3 Gb

 

Graphics: Nvidia 9600GT Mobile

 

OS: Vista 32 Bits SP1

 

Crashes randomly, sometimes I can play straight hours without crashing but after awhile it stutters a bit. I play without grass or shadows and I use V-Sync turned on ingame with settings on Medium mostly on 1280x800 Resolution @ 60Hz. My graphics control panel is on default without Physics.

Edited by nomad13
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Max you've bee reading my mind as this is a thread I have had on my list to do today

 

 

Processor : Intel i5 750 Quad Core base 2.67Ghz overclocked to 3.4Ghz

RAM : 8Gb DDR3-1600 PC3-12800(Gskill) 4 x 2Gb * no- HDD pagefile.sys

Video Card : Nvidia GTX260 896Mb and 448-bit chipset

Operating System : Windows 7 64-bit

General Experience : I don't wanna Steal the general intent of this thread away to optimization steps but, at first the game ran o.k with only occasional crashes. as time went on and I experimented with various settings and parameters like the optionCustom.txt settings, PhysX settings etc the game experience got worse and worse. until finally I uninstalled and re-installed both my graphics card and Sacred2. with a very particular point to disable PhysX in the control panel and Configure 3D setting to use hardware as much as possible. Zero pre-renderd frames from CPU. AA X 4 is configured in hardware. in-game I avoid PhysX completely. Quality is maxed very high with exception of Shadows=0. I run ingame settings of AA off and weather off. vsync on.

 

I have Run as Administrator checked and I also added -nocpubinding to my sacred2.exe shortcut. This was suggested by Dobster and it was an amazing boost to performance, especially if running more than 1 account or having messenger, Chrome, and ASRock OC tuner(shows me Mobo and CPU Temps) all running at the same time.

 

Since doing this Optimization I get 50 -90 FPS depending on where I am. Caves it has even spiked to 120FPS for long periods while running windowed at 1920X1080. I can run 2 accounts at the same time with little change in performance. And today I was running 3 accounts for a while.

 

I have not had 1 single crash since (other than me being silly and trying to tweak my O.C. setting while in game. oops! she got a little unstable at 4.0 Ghz, but holy cow, I had 3 Sacred2 accounts running and still had 60 FPS). And the picture quality is amazing

 

Thanks for the thread Max. can we sticky this one up top where people will see it, as I see a lot of post here as well as on SIF for this very topic.

 

 

Edit: I posted one thing wrong. Vsync will max your FPS at the monitors refresh rate. There are 2 schools on this. if you only get 75Hz refresh why waste the FPS on frames the Monitor drops? or let the dogs loose and let if run free. the monitor will jump frames to keep up. since we are talking performance I am favoring the let em run idea. Vsync will throttle FPS back and that just seems the opposite of what I want to do.

Edited by locolagarto
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CPU: Intel Core2Duo P8400 @2.26GHz (2 cores)

 

Ram: 4GB

 

Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 - 512MB

 

OS: Windows 7 64Bit

 

Settings: Low - Medium

 

Game runs with ~30fps, bit lower when it gets a little intensive on screen, game runs for a 2-3 hours usually without crashing and sometimes more. All in all no real issues with the running of the game.

 

However...I would like to upgrade, seeing some of knuckles pics...I want a PC to be running this on instead of my laptop.

Edited by Dragon Brother
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CPU: Intel Core2Duo P8400 @2.26GHz (2 cores)

 

Ram: 4GB

 

Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 - 512MB

 

OS: Windows 7 64Bit

 

Settings: Low - Medium

 

Game runs with ~30fps, bit lower when it gets a little intensive on screen, game runs for a 2-3 hours usually without crashing and sometimes more. All in all no real issues with the running of the game.

 

However...I would like to upgrade, seeing some of knuckles pics...I want a PC to be running this on instead of my laptop.

 

Knuckles definitely invested in some quality gear. His choices in components were chosen for best quality and durability and compatibility with current and future technology and is way above mine, and the expandability and overall capacity is better, but good game performance can be had much cheaper.

 

If you want we could put some recommendations together for you that won't break the bank, but still get you the FPS and Quality textures your craving.

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Thanks for all your replies everyone. I hope everyone will see this topic and post their specs here.

I'm with loco, a lot of people will come for this topic, could it be stickied please?

 

I updated the first post with the replies people made. I also added a tips section, where everyone can share all the tips (whatever they can be) they use to make Ice & Blood run better.

 

I'd like to know if some of you could share your experience with the "-nocpubinding" command or any other command.

 

Max

Edited by metal_max64
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Tips to make Ice & Blood run better :

 

1 - It looks like adding "-nocpubinding" (without the quotes) make the game run better. As tested by locolagarto, the addition of this little command after the Target of your Sacred 2 shortcut tells the game to separate the game's tasks on all the processors instead of running all the tasks on the same processor.

 

***Some testing would be required. I tested with my 2 processors and the game crashed in a loading screen. I don't know if this command only works if you have 4 processors.***

 

Max

 

Ouch sorry on the crash. In my testing here Crash testing and using -nocpubinding My 6 year old Dell XPS 400 did not respond to the -nocpubinding variable at all it runs XP32. I think Furian67 is using the variable on his Vista with E8400 Dual core. Didn't repeat the test steps with Performance Monitor up yet. I'll ask him to do that tonight when he gets home.

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Knuckles definitely invested in some quality gear. His choices in components were chosen for best quality and durability and compatibility with current and future technology and is way above mine, and the expandability and overall capacity is better, but good game performance can be had much cheaper.

 

If you want we could put some recommendations together for you that won't break the bank, but still get you the FPS and Quality textures your craving.

 

Yeah, would be nice :) However, im most likely gonna wait til the end of next year before I go forkin out...mainly cos I dont wanna get a brand new toy like this at the start of the uni year...BIG distractor and I dont need any more help getting distraced...still...a rough idea of price and parts would be nice so I know what im getting into.

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Processor : 2.8 Ghz Pentium D 1-physical 2-logical processors (that's what the called em before Core2Duo came along)

RAM : 2 Gb DDR2 PC4200 Ram

Video Card : Nvidia 9800 GT 1 Gb Ram

Operating System : Windows XP 32-bit

General Experience : Very stable gaming. a few crashes but never really noticed any troubles. FPS really depends on how you configure 3D setting in Nvidia. Using the template for my Gamer PC I Get about 1/2 the FPS at identical settings

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Processor : Intel Pentium 4 2,66 Ghz Northwood (I know, an old one, but it still works)

Motherboard: ASUS P4B533-E

RAM : 2 GB DDRAM (2x Corsair Valueselect VS1GB400C3 DDR 1)

Video Card : ASUS HD3650 silent agp

Operating System : Windows XP Professional SP3 32-bit

General Experience : The game runs normal. no real problems and no crashes. I run the game on medium settings. Only the fps drops sometimes.

Anti-Virus and Spyware : I use Avira Antivir personal edition and the firewall I use is Agnitum Outpost firewall pro. I also have a router. When I start gaming I always turn the firewall and virusscanner off.

Since Ice & Blood I experienced that the game starts to shock when the anti-virus tries to update. The updating process is done on the background and should normally not intervene a program.

Link to comment

Hey,

 

HP Pavilion dv7 Notebook PC

Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo CPU P7450 - 2.13Ghz

RAM : 4Gb ram

Video Card : ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650 1Gb

Operating System : Windows 7 64

General Experience : Runing permanently 2 accounts in medium settings [Running more don't change anything to the gameplay]. One in 1024x768 and one in 1600x900. Windowed Mode. I can play 5-6 hours without any problems. I crash 1 time per day, sometimes 2 crashes but never more. 50 fps.

Anti-Virus and Spyware : Avira Antivir Personnal. Maximum security settings, even when playing.

Edited by Woody
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First post updated.

 

Thanks for your replies, but we still need more replies.

 

Oh and by the way, I just read HERE on the SIF that the "-skipopenal" command would make the game run better. Anyone tried this and would like to share their experience. I'll go and try it right now to test.

 

EDIT : For the test, I changed my resolution to 1440x900 Fullscreen. I didn't notice any "real" gain of performance; however, half of the Loading Screens didn't show up while I test the "-skipopenal" thing.

 

Max

Edited by metal_max64
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Little update to mine: it seems that the shocking (or shaking) also appear without being disrupt by the antivirus update process.

The screen starts to shake at a random time a couple of times. Very annoying.

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Speaking of testing for your tips section max... I made an adjutment to my system which after doing so seemed to speed up the initialization of Sacred noticeably. I opened the ports through my router. Not sure if I'm imagining it but it did seem to increase startup speed a lot. I'd be curious to read the results of someone else's experience with this. UDP / TCP 6800 and UDP / TCP 7011 for the UK servers.

 

As for sticking I'm thinking about it but I'd like to see how the topic progresses. This is a technical forum so stickying something here is much more significant than in some other areas. :hugs:

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Speaking of testing for your tips section max... I made an adjutment to my system which after doing so seemed to speed up the initialization of Sacred noticeably. I opened the ports through my router. Not sure if I'm imagining it but it did seem to increase startup speed a lot. I'd be curious to read the results of someone else's experience with this. UDP / TCP 6800 and UDP / TCP 7011 for the UK servers.

 

As for sticking I'm thinking about it but I'd like to see how the topic progresses. This is a technical forum so stickying something here is much more significant than in some other areas. :hugs:

 

I'll try to open the ports as you did and edit this post to tell if something changed or not.

 

EDIT : Opened the ports, and didn't notice any initilization speed up or less ping/lag on the servers. Someone else will have to test this on his/her side.

EDIT2:Added the ports to the tips section.

 

Max

Edited by metal_max64
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Speaking of testing for your tips section max... I made an adjutment to my system which after doing so seemed to speed up the initialization of Sacred noticeably. I opened the ports through my router. Not sure if I'm imagining it but it did seem to increase startup speed a lot. I'd be curious to read the results of someone else's experience with this. UDP / TCP 6800 and UDP / TCP 7011 for the UK servers.

 

As for sticking I'm thinking about it but I'd like to see how the topic progresses. This is a technical forum so stickying something here is much more significant than in some other areas. :hugs:

 

 

I was looking at that also Schot by I am not sure were or how as I haven't messed with my router much since I set it up. I have a Linksys. is it in the port forwarding section?

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I was looking at that also Schot by I am not sure were or how as I haven't messed with my router much since I set it up. I have a Linksys. is it in the port forwarding section?

 

Yup. They might ask you to open a range of ports (that was my case). So you need to open from port 6800 to 6801 and from 7011 to 7012.

 

 

Max

Edited by metal_max64
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I was looking at that also Schot by I am not sure were or how as I haven't messed with my router much since I set it up. I have a Linksys. is it in the port forwarding section?

 

Yup. They might ask you to open a range of ports (that was my case). So you need to open from port 6800 to 6801 and from 7011 to 7012.

 

 

Max

 

I see that these port mappings get directed to a single ip address on the network. so I need to do them twice right? once for me and once for furian67?

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