Optimizations for Win7

[locolagarto 15]

Gonna Post here cause its related but Schot this may make a thread all on it's own and I have no idea where to sticky it.

 

I did some testing with the -nocpubinding mod for the Sacred2.exe short cut.

 

First on my XP 32bit system. it is an older, actually one of the first Dual Core Pentium D CPUs. a Dell XPS 400 2.8Ghz pentium D with 2 GB of ram.

 

1. First Started 1 window in Sacred2.exe and noticed in Task manager the CPU usage of 1 processor spike to almost max and the other was almost idle.

 

2. I started a second instance of Sacred2.exe and noticed the 1st CPU stay pegged at max and the second remained almost idle.

 

This seems consistant with what we have heard, that Sacred2 doesn't make use of multi core systems.

 

3. then I restarted and added the -nocpubinding variable to the shortcut of Sacred2 and reran steps 1 and 2. The results were Identical! Huh, didn't seem to have any affect on the older system with 32bit OS

 

So then I moved out to my new i5 Quad running a 3.4Ghz with 8 Gb Ram on Win7 64 and repeated the test.

 

1. First I started without the variable to Sacred2.exe. The first instance of the game took CPU 1 to about 50% and 2,3,4 remain idle. So no suprise here.

 

2. I loaded a second instance of Sacred2.exe and CPU 1 went to 75% with 2,3,4 remaining more or less idle. ok looks consistant with my kids PC.

 

3. I restarted and added -nocpubinding to the shortcut for Sacred2.exe. this time when I started the first window it split the load between CPU1 and CPU3. about 25% load on each while 2,4 remained idle.

 

4. Next I started the second instance of Sacred2.exe and it then took CPU 2,4 to 25%. so now I have 2 windows open and running at 60FPS with only 25% CPU load spread across all 4 CPUs.

 

 

So now if anyone is interested, I would like to have somebody continue testing on their equipment. Vista 32, Vista 64, XP 64, Win7 32. dual core, quad core. Just to confirm what my observations are so far.

 

 

Questions\conclusions that this creates?

 

Is the -nocpubinding mod a MS Windows variable or Sacred2 variable?

 

Does this mean there are other variables that we don't know about that would help benefit stability and performance?

 

What does this mean to a intermediate computer gamer like me? or any other PC user for that matter?

 

It seems that on my 64 bit Quad this makes running sacred solo or as a dual account very much more stable and with much better performance. I tend to have Sacred2, Google Chrome, ASRocks tuner, and Live Messenger all running at the same time and I Alt-Tab between them constantly. the -nocpubinding mod has me hooked and I think I will need to use it everywhere

Edited January 2, 2010 by locolagarto

[Knuckles 904]

I can test out Xp64 easily enough. But not tonight, too late

[Schot 407]

Been a while since I've visited this topic but now that you are a mod loco you can feel free to split this topic and place it in the "Technical Help and Troubleshooting" forum.

 

In the meantime I'm going to test the -nocpubinding on my dual core.

[locolagarto 15]

Been a while since I've visited this topic but now that you are a mod loco you can feel free to split this topic and place it in the "Technical Help and Troubleshooting" forum.

 

In the meantime I'm going to test the -nocpubinding on my dual core.

 

 

ooooooh oh! this is a test huh, here goooes *flips switch*

[Schot 407]

lol, well done! Nothing blew up!

 

By the way. What's the full line of code to place in the shrotcut loco? I can't remember if it's inside the quotes or after... Granted I could easily look up the info but thought it might be a good thing to add to your initial post as well.

[locolagarto 15]

lol, well done! Nothing blew up!

 

By the way. What's the full line of code to place in the shrotcut loco? I can't remember if it's inside the quotes or after... Granted I could easily look up the info but thought it might be a good thing to add to your initial post as well.

 

 

 

This is mine, yours will very depending on drive installed in and the Pragram files(x86) may not have the" (x86) " on all sytems

 

"D:\Program Files (x86)\Deep Silver\Sacred 2 - Fallen Angel\system\sacred2.exe" -nocpubinding 

[Schot 407]

Cheers loco. I'll I've added it to my shortcut and I'll also be testing out the 4GB sacred.exe patch that someone posted. Oh and a slew of optionsCostum variables. Eh heh...

[locolagarto 15]

Cheers loco. I'll I've added it to my shortcut and I'll also be testing out the 4GB sacred.exe patch that someone posted. Oh and a slew of optionsCostum variables. Eh heh...

 

didn't see that patch. gotta link?

[Dragon Brother 619]

Cheers loco. I'll I've added it to my shortcut and I'll also be testing out the 4GB sacred.exe patch that someone posted. Oh and a slew of optionsCostum variables. Eh heh...

 

didn't see that patch. gotta link?

 

 

Its in this post here on the sif:

 

http://forum.sacredeng.ascaron-net.com/sho...amp;postcount=5

[Schot 407]

Thanx Dragon. I was certain someone here posted about it but I just couldn't find it...

[Dragon Brother 619]

Yeah, it was in the Ice and Blood behaviour thread somewhere. Im actually off to test the 4gb patch myself before work if I have time.

 

Edit: Just a brief note before I go to work, but I tested the patch and initiall thought it was bogus because I dropped from 40-45 fps on the start island to 30-35 so im like Holy Hannah!? However when I went and had a quick run around in the swamps with my HE there was a noticeable difference. Framerates which had been 35-38 whilst surrounded by undead jumped up to 40-45 and even 50 in some cases and while running around zapping them with cobalt strike the frame rate was sitiing on 50+ A huge difference considering before that I had never even seen my fps go over 48. It didnt make a difference to my fps when expulse killed all the undead at once but I think thats more of a limitation of my graphics card...useless mobile laptop card thing! lol but anyway I might write some more later, off to work now

Edited January 10, 2010 by Dragon Brother

[locolagarto 15]

Yeah, it was in the Ice and Blood behaviour thread somewhere. Im actually off to test the 4gb patch myself before work if I have time.

 

Edit: Just a brief note before I go to work, but I tested the patch and initiall thought it was bogus because I dropped from 40-45 fps on the start island to 30-35 so im like Holy Hannah!? However when I went and had a quick run around in the swamps with my HE there was a noticeable difference. Framerates which had been 35-38 whilst surrounded by undead jumped up to 40-45 and even 50 in some cases and while running around zapping them with cobalt strike the frame rate was sitiing on 50+ A huge difference considering before that I had never even seen my fps go over 48. It didnt make a difference to my fps when expulse killed all the undead at once but I think thats more of a limitation of my graphics card...useless mobile laptop card thing! lol but anyway I might write some more later, off to work now

 

 

I tryed the "patch" and seamed promising based on the read it have along with it. But with Elite on in crashed shortly after leaving sloeford. I was watching the MEM and Sacred2.exe peaked at about 1180 Mb. then crashed. with out elite it seems to be running at about 900 MB. witn Default Textures and Very High video settings.

[locolagarto 15]

I am befuddled, confuddled, and every other type of fuddled. I was experimenting with the -skipopenal variable today to see what if any affect it had. I ran with "...sacred2.exe"-nocpubinding -skipopenal. notice little to no difference. so I decided to take out the -nocpubinding. I noticed little to no difference. I also noticed that the CPU loading seemed to remain split across 2 Cores. so I ran a test with no variable. still noticed no significant change in game or CPU load(still split between 2 cores)

 

 

So somebody *hint hint to Schot* help with this. I am now wondering is this variable stays resident and You need to restart your PC for the changes to take affect. also wondering where these variable come from.

 

Lastly I noticed on my last Nvidia Control panel software update a new option in the 3D settings to use thread optimization. Supposedly to help spread the Graphics processing across multi cores. Could it be that this option is overriding the -nocpubinding. I will test later with this option off.

[Dragon Brother 619]

I was testing both of those commands to but I didnt notice any differences either in my fps with the addition of only -nocpubinding, only 'skipopenal or the two of them together...maybe +1 in high action parts...but that could just be random so meh...the biggest help for me was the 4gb patch which you said didnt help you so...odd.

Edited January 10, 2010 by Dragon Brother

[BleachFan 3]

-skipopenal only fixes loading/stability problems as far as I know.

 

 

How I get good performance in Sacred 2.4x on Windows 7:

 

1. Add the following to optionsCustom.txt:

 

--
-- MEMORY
--
manager.animMem = 53554432
manager.grannyMem = 97108864
manager.pmsMem = 28388608
manager.secMem = 53554432
manager.sptMem = 28388608
manager.texMem = 409715200
--
-- SOUND MEMORY
--
sound.memorybudget = 160

 

2. Download RivaTuner and run its D3D overrider app to force triple buffering.

 

3. In Sacred 2's options menu, enable vsync; disable Weather and UI Scaling.

 

4. Reduce AA to 2x or off, if applicable.

 

Note that this is with default textures, 1680x1050, everything on high and grass at 2/3. YMMV

 

After a few minutes performance stabilizes to around 60 fps on my computer. The game will skip a few frames when it needs to load new content. Performance will plummet around any fog/smoke/fountain/blizzard effects as the particle system is very taxing.

 

 

While digging around in the game's files, I noticed that many of the FX are defined in text files. Maybe someone with modding experience could reduce the complexity of certain performance-hogging effects like the High Elf's Blizzard spell and the smoke/fountains in towns like near the Gar'Colossus.

[locolagarto 15]

-skipopenal only fixes loading/stability problems as far as I know.

 

 

How I get good performance in Sacred 2.4x on Windows 7:

 

1. Add the following to optionsCustom.txt:

 

--
-- MEMORY
--
manager.animMem = 53554432
manager.grannyMem = 97108864
manager.pmsMem = 28388608
manager.secMem = 53554432
manager.sptMem = 28388608
manager.texMem = 409715200
--
-- SOUND MEMORY
--
sound.memorybudget = 160

 

2. Download RivaTuner and run its D3D overrider app to force triple buffering.

 

3. In Sacred 2's options menu, enable vsync; disable Weather and UI Scaling.

 

4. Reduce AA to 2x or off, if applicable.

 

Note that this is with default textures, 1680x1050, everything on high and grass at 2/3. YMMV

 

After a few minutes performance stabilizes to around 60 fps on my computer. The game will skip a few frames when it needs to load new content. Performance will plummet around any fog/smoke/fountain/blizzard effects as the particle system is very taxing.

 

 

While digging around in the game's files, I noticed that many of the FX are defined in text files. Maybe someone with modding experience could reduce the complexity of certain performance-hogging effects like the High Elf's Blizzard spell and the smoke/fountains in towns like near the Gar'Colossus.

 

I just saw this post, don't know how I missed it.

 

what is the significacne of the mem manager parameters in optionsCustom.txt is this upping the allowed mem usage or ?

[Avliden 0]

Didn't appear to have any noticable effect for me. I'm seriously considering a dual boot of XP and 7. Can you or anyone garentee I'll be able to play for hours without it crashing? On XP That is

[Ryanrocker 200]

Hey there loco, I read through the thread a few times and can't seem to figure out how to edit the sacred2.exe. I'm assuming that your talking about the Sacred 2 application shortcut found in the deepsilver files, but I am clueless on how to add the -nocpubinding to the end of the shortcut. Thanks

[locolagarto 15]

Hey there loco, I read through the thread a few times and can't seem to figure out how to edit the sacred2.exe. I'm assuming that your talking about the Sacred 2 application shortcut found in the deepsilver files, but I am clueless on how to add the -nocpubinding to the end of the shortcut. Thanks

 

C:\Program Files\Deep Silver\Sacred 2 - Fallen Angel\system or where ever your game is installed/ and right click on sacred2.exe click send to desktop as a short cut.

 

The on your desktop right click the sacred2 shortcut and click properties

 

in the target box should be the path as described above. in this path add the -nocpubinding to the end of the path "C:\Program Files\Deep Silver\Sacred 2 - Fallen Angel\system\sacred2.exe" -nocpubinding