Age of Conan

I've had enormous problems getting AoC to run and be stable.  However I think I have actually managed to resolve most of my problems.  Last night I played for a couple hours without crashing and was able to log in 3 times without freezing, crashing, or other problems.

These are specific to my configuration but you might find they help.  I'm running Windows XP sp2, on a quad intel cpu, 4gb ram, and 8800gtx. 

So here are some tips, read them all carefully. You might not need to do them all.  At this point I'd start with number 2 and then number 7.  For me number 7 has been amazing!

1. If you crash delete the directory C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Funcom username is your username or maybe default name.  This directory is hidden so you need to turn on hidden files.  This is where all your configuration is stored so this will reset everything to stock.  If this is corrupted which has happen to me several times the game will crash and have all sorts of problems.  Reinstalling doesn't fix this.

2. Run in windowed mode.  Go into settings in the patcher and select video, windows mode.  This will fix the black screen startup which will most likely be a problem.

3. use nvidia beta drivers 169.44.  You can get them from www.guru3d.com.  169.21 work but have graphic glitches, 174.93 work but have crashed on me several times.  Other versions I've tried like 174.74 just crash on load up.  169.44 are the only drivers I've tried that have no problems.  I have not tested but I think these drivers will also work in full screen mode. 

4. Whenever you start the game and it asks to verify the db always say yes.

5. Keep your installation files handy in case things really get bad.  To reinstall always uninstall the game and they delete the directory in step 1.

6. Sometimes AoC when you exit it leaves your video drivers in a messed up state.  You may want to reboot your computer if you crash trying to get into AoC after AoC has crashed.

 7. This is a fix for the cache files that really worked a miracle for me and others.  Read carefully.

a. Go into the aoc install directory

b. delete shader.cache.temp, local and any other shader files you see their might be 3 of them.

c. Now run simpleconfig and make sure you are running in windowed mode.

***Do NOT run the regular AoC startup this will redownload the shader files.***

d. Look for the AgeOfConan.exe file.  Run this file.  This will start up AoC without the patcher.  For me this improved performance hugely and it also made the initial loading screen much faster.

Thats it... And if you really want to be amazed go into your installation directory and after running the game look for a file called AgeofConan.  Open this file with wordpad.  (Notepad won't work properly).  This file is a list of all the errors that occured while you run AoC.  After looking at this you will be amazed the game works at all :P

Anyway hopefully this will save people who are having problems countless hours which I spent tracking all this down.

Great tips, unfortunately I use a gaming laptop to play and don't have the flexibility to load video drivers at will.  Right now I'm waiting for Gateway to make an update to the nvidia drivers for it.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Great tips, unfortunately I use a gaming laptop to play and don't have the flexibility to load video drivers at will.  Right now I'm waiting for Gateway to make an update to the nvidia drivers for it.

 

 

Yeah the game is WAY to sensitive to driver differences.   I think 90% of the problems with this game are issues with the graphics and drivers.  Course after looking at that log I mentioned I think the game has a crap load of broken stuff beneath the surface but as long as it works I'm fine.

One of the big things on a notebook is making sure you are running in a window.  You can set that setting in the patcher settings button.  Set the resolution to smallest setting and set the game to run in a window.

the latest drivers 169.21 did work but had some issues loading wrong textures, doing the graphics gliches with all the triangles and junk.  Doing /instanceselect and switching instances would reload things and usually cleared up graphic problems.

thanks for the beta driver advice - I was using the latest beta driver before

for me,

the biggest stability boost came from setting AOC to single core

by unchecking Processor zero in Task Manager

- tho I've heard this only helps some people with mutlicore

The other huge tip I can give is to check under advanced video options which shader model you are running. If' it's 3.0 switch it down to 2.0. There are currently some severe shader model 3.0 compiling issues which causes major performance loss on higher end vid cards. With it set to 2.0 my loadtimes are under 30 seconds and I get about 40-50 fps with settings on medium running on a E6870, 2 gigs ram xpsp2 and a 8800GT 512MB card.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Great tips, unfortunately I use a gaming laptop to play and don't have the flexibility to load video drivers at will.  Right now I'm waiting for Gateway to make an update to the nvidia drivers for it.

 

 

Laptop Drivers

I actually have used Version 174.74 drivers for XP with 100% succes..

Also of note, this driver has the "Render Frames Ahead" option which is a big boon.

This option controls how much communication is happening between the vid card and the cpu and standard ram (not vid ram)

By changing this to 1 render ahead, it stops the system from being overloaded, and helps with stuttering issues

Good luck

Originally posted by Nadia

thanks for the beta driver advice - I was using the latest beta driver before

 

for me,

the biggest stability boost came from setting AOC to single core

by unchecking Processor zero in Task Manager

- tho I've heard this only helps some people with mutlicore

Interesting.  It might also be a combination of things.  For me I have XP with a quad core intel cpu and I have no problems with multicore.  Last night I was able to play for around 2+ hours and didn't have any problems at all.  I did several instances and night and day city.  I think I went from lvl 7 to lvl 13 on a character in a single session. 

This is hugely different then my past performance so after all my mucking around I believe I have achieved a very stable configuration.  Course who knows what will happen tonight when I log in :P  Maybe I'll be back here fuming and bitching....

One thing that boosted me from an average of 15-20 FPS to around 50 FPS was turning off the Bloom Effects in the video setting and I'm on an old computer.

bumping this so people can find it.  This isn't about making it perform well it's mostly about just making the game run without crashing :)