Tech Tip - How to get S2 running with a crappy CG Board

[Nihilith 0]

Hi there.

 

Even if it's not purely Sacred 2-related, here's a lil tip to help you increase the performance (read FPS) if you're running Sacred 2 with a crappy CG Card. I doesn't do any miracle regarding the cpu or the memory usage, but can make you gain some FPS, getting from unplayable to almost playable (and by the way, more enjoyable).

 

Why... why in the hell would I write such a guide. First of all, because everybody here can't afford a GTX285, or because sometimes (my case) your CG Card burns out and you must use a spare one (you know that ol' crappy one you saved from your previous PC) because it takes forever to have it fixed.

 

Well now, into the tip, and you'll see the intro is almost longer than the tip itself, but that's because I got italian roots, and by the way, I just can't stop chatting. Hopefully, as I type this tip on my keyboard, I can't move my arms and hands as every italian do when speaking lol.

 

BEWARE, HERE COMES THE BIG BAD TRIP... TIP !

 

So, you want to play Sacred 2 on your nice E8400 dual core with a nice set of CORSAIR RAM. You got that wonderful 700W Power supply, your Blu-Ray drive awaiting you, nice fans emitting that soft blue light you love in a wonderful sound, like a feline animal being hugged.

And, last but not least, all these "dream settings of the gods" (any S1 veterans here ?) are assisted by that crappy RADEON X300 CG Board... that sucks. Best you can do is running 10 FPS, ordering you not to go out of sloeford cause more than 5 kobolds results in instant freeze and death.

 

PART 0 : Sacred 2 Settings

 

Of course you already turned all the graphical options to the minimum. Deactivated all the bonus options (meteo, anti-aliasing...). Turning off the sound may help, but I haven't tested it yet, but set the comments to the rarest possible setting (don't know if they can be turned off). How will sound options increase the frame rate. Crappy card = more cpu and ram used to handle graphics so Disabling sound increase frame rate !

Well what's next. VIDEO CARD DRIVER FTW !

 

PART 1 : CG Card Driver

 

For ATI cards, have a look at the systray (near the clock), and right-click the ATI Icon. Go to the Expert settings and shoot all the sliders to the performance level. Check if antialiasing is off (or switch it to "match application setting", as Sacred 2 anti aliasing is off...). Disable every video (DVD/Movie playback) optimization. In a few words. Go for all performance in Sacred 2 Settings AND in the driver settings.

 

You can apply this tip to NVidia cards of course, even if I don't know right now how to reach the driver settings. My memory suggests that there's an icon in the systray, and AFAIR, you can access via the NVidia icon in the Control Panel.

What else ? (kicks George's butt away)

 

PART 2 : Resident... no not evil... resident processes.

 

Go to the systray again, expand it if needed and check for the resident tools/progs/buggers. Open Office quick launch, office quick launch, quicktime tray, daemon tools tray, webcam tray, hp background updater, java updater, adobe updater... right-click --> close.

Not enough ? ok ! CTRL-ALT-DEL-->Task manager--> Processes Kill every unneeded process (beware not to kill the system processes like explorer svchost...). If you have a HP Scan/printer/MFP (multi function printer), the driver loads a lot of processes into the memory (almost always hp<something>.exe I.E. hp04upd.exe).

 

PART 3 : Ghost in the .... shell... no in the kernel

 

Some progs tends to stay in memory even after closing them. Outlook is the all-time winner , followed by... Firefox in the lastest versions. kill the processes in the task manager as well (outlook.exe, firefox.exe, winword.exe cause it's automatically launched with outlook if you checked the "use word as editor" option in outlook).

 

PART 4 : And what else ?

 

If, after doing that all, you still can't play, there're 2 last tricks depending on the reason you had to follow this tip.

 

Trick 1 - Your card is gone fishing at the local pond, hoping to get some food for tonight's dinner : PATIENCE. It'll be back soon. Get yourself a life while waiting. You may meet some new friends you could borrow the high-end PC from !

Trick 2 - Your X300 is your only card, you're not waiting for a better one to get back : TELEPHONE. Well, 2 numbers available : 555-SANTACLAUS or 555-OLDTAUNT. Just follow the perfect nephew rules for the second one :

- soft lovely perfect boy/girl voice.

- take news of the 3 cats, 7 dogs, 11 birds and optionnally of her.

- promise you'll go shopping for her so that she can stay at home relaxing a bit, saving her back, knees and everything. Don't forget to keep a part of the change...

- kiss goodbye even if she hasn't shaved her beard !

 

- repeat the process one or two weeks long, alternating between phone calls and visits.

 

Once done : ask for some bucks pretending you'll need it for your PC to be powerful enough for the college/university or to make a wonderful video of the last family dinner. In case she doesn't know what a computer is, pretend you need the money to get your car fixed or something that suits your taunt's psychology.

Once the money in your wallet : go buy your CG Card, install, run Sacred 2, close your room's door, get epileptic thanks to lightning meteo effects, forget your old taunt, and your social life !

If you need a brand new whole PC, two options : more visits for a bigger pouch or even more visits and hope for a good rank when she'll leave her will. (how cynical I can be... @MODS : delete if not suitable lol)

 

DONE

 

That's how I manage to have Sacred 2 playable, with some pain to handle big mobs, but playable enough to kill some foes and do shopping sessions. Any time spent even at the shop is time that isn't lost.

 

AHAHAHAHAH A TIP IN THE TIP

 

If you don't want to start the process killing process over and over, make a command file. This works for XP, haven't tried it on Vista.

What's a command file ? It's a plain text file named with a .cmd extension instead of .txt. In this .cmd file you'll add the following commands.

 

taskkill /f /im <processname>
exit

 

for example, to kill firefox, outlook and winword type :

 

taskkill /f /im firefox.exe
taskkill /f /im outlook.exe
taskkill /f /im winword.exe
exit

 

Right click on the desktop, new --> text file --> type code --> save as "prockill.cmd" (type the " in the file name input field so that notepad gets rid of the .txt extension and only call it prockill.cmd instead of prockill.cmd.txt). The icon will now look like a window with a gear in it, instead of a written paper sheet, meaning the extension is good. If it is not, you'll have to rename the file by suppressing the .txt extension and leaving only the .cmd extension. If the .txt extension doesn't show up, you'll have to look into the display options of windows. Open an explorer window (for example My Docs) go to tools --> folder options --> display tab --> uncheck "hide known extensions" (may some english windows user check if the path I gave is right, this sounds like the best match regarding to my french version of XP)

 

If one of these programs is not in the running processes, the matching "taskkill" command will run but with no effect, so don't worry about that.

"exit" command automatically close the command prompt window at the end of the execution of the command file.

 

 

 

Thanks for reading........

 

[edited for typos]

[edited : added cmd file tip]

[edited : added some stuff here and there, corrected some typos, got some coffee and a cigarette, face-palmed myself reading how stupid I was]

[edited : thanks for moving to the right section]

Edited September 12, 2009 by Nihilith