Hi,

This is just a hint by me for those who might have the same issue. Earlier in another thread I complained how i suffer a MASSIVE FPS drop whenever I'm driving through shrubs in the game while using external FSAA, from my GPU (HD4890).

I tried to use ingame FSAA, but it didn't work either.

Solution: switching off advanced post-FX in the game, while using ingame FSAA works!! I have everything at max settings, except for the Advanced Post-FX, and now there are no jaggies (ingame FSAA works :D), and framerates are blazing (70-80 outside, 30-40 towns at worse).

Maybe this helps someone else too :D

DB

Thanks DB, I'll definately try this when i get home! :)

Could you solve the CPU gorging too..? ;)

Will give this a shot now!

UPDATE: Strange. In towns I lose 5-10 FPS if I turn Advanced Post-FX off...

Tested it a few time, exact same place, restarting each time. Game runs better for me with Advanced Post-FX on...

Originally posted by majinant

Will give this a shot now!

UPDATE: Strange. In towns I lose 5-10 FPS if I turn Advanced Post-FX off...

Tested it a few time, exact same place, restarting each time. Game runs better for me with Advanced Post-FX on...

This is misleading here.
 

Advanced Post-FX made practically no difference on framerate in my game, regardless of any other settings.

It is the fact, that ingame FSAA does not work when APFX is turned on, is the only reason why I had to switch APFX  off, because I prefer smooth edges :)

- and I can only use ingame FSAA, since when external FSAA was forced, the game dragged at low framerates with or without APFX or any other effects, even at the very minimum settings!

It looked like somehow my GPU wants to force antialiasing on every single leaf of grass/shrub in the game, and that was a bit too much for it :D

DB

I am using a single NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB. Guess it is just different for different cards...

Originally posted by majinant

I am using a single NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB. Guess it is just different for different cards...

 It would be interesting to know how Nvidia cards work when external FSAA is forced with them on FE....

My guess is that advanced-post FX is probably HDR. Thus, HDR and FSAA do not work together in many games (just like Oblivion), in DX9.

Maybe FE engine is DX9 only, cause in DX10 it should be ok for HDR and FSAA work from a game engine simultaneously... just an idea?

I remember I could force external FSAA on Oblivion from my GPU as well (with ingame HDR), and there the framerates were not bad either. They were not bad in FE either at all - before I hit S2, where the shrubs are really abundant... :D

DB

Well, at least with my card, AA does nothing to the game, be it FE's AA or forces AA of any x. The FPS doesn't drop and the AA doesn't do a thing. This is with both Post-FX on and off.

Originally posted by majinant

Well, at least with my card, AA does nothing to the game, be it FE's AA or forces AA of any x. The FPS doesn't drop and the AA doesn't do a thing. This is with both Post-FX on and off.

Are you in S2 yet? Where there is a lot of grass/shrubs?

In S1 I had no issues anywhere, ever.

DB

Originally posted by majinant

UPDATE: Strange. In towns I lose 5-10 FPS if I turn Advanced Post-FX off...

Tested it a few time, exact same place, restarting each time. Game runs better for me with Advanced Post-FX on...

A few patches ago , they did an optimization that increased in town FPS, but only when advanced post effects are on. They said they will incorporate that same fix for when advanced post effects are disabled, at a later date.
 

And yes, in game AA does not work when Advanced Post effects are enabled (some people claim it does, but not for me and many others.) Also, the post effects dull all the colors in the game and gives them an almost Sepia tone. Disabling the post effects makes the game's colors much more vibrant.

As for forcing AA from the Nvidia driver, it does not work for me with either advanced post effects on or off, but the in game AA seems to work well enough.

Oh good god, I never really actually looked before. The game does look so much better with Adv Post-FX and Post-FX off. Playing with both of them off, I now find that AA is working aswell.

I am so happy :)

Thanks

Yes that's how i play it too.

Post-FX and Advanced post FX are always off, AA forced from nvidia panel.

Everything on highest including most of the important sliders at 100%, some at 80%

GTX 275.

That's the graphics setup I like the most, I don't care about frames much they are 60 most of the time  (vertical sync forced too) except in towns of course, it drops to 20-25.

Not sure if its me being lucky but 2 patches ago I have had amazing performance ever since.  60 FPS outside of towns but now I am getting around 30 FPS in packed towns.  I have the same set up as you but I run a 8800GT card and its handling it pretty well.  They are definitely working hard...probably the 4 semi major patches in month one.

I'm playing with an older card so please be kind as I only wanted to post my personal experience in case it matters to anyone else. I have an nVidia 7600 GT 256mb with v190.62 drivers (8-21-09) & I only have a single-core Intel P4 2.6 CPU with 2 gigs of RAM:

With Advanced Post Effects enabled neither in-game nor GPU AA works.

With APE disabled the GPU AA still doesn't  work but in-game AA works great.

I played in Beta and my chief complaint was performance related. However, considering that my system doesn't meet the minimum requirements I didn't feel that I had the right to express my discontent. I decided to try the trial since so many people were talking up all the changes to performance since launch and I must say that I am highly impressed (so far). I can run with a steady minimum of 30 fps outside of town and a steady minimum of 20 fps in town with tons of people running around. Since I no longer experience the random, rapid drops in frame-rate (ie: 30 down to 5 in the blink of an eye) the fps that I get is highly acceptable by my standards. I have all settings at medium (no shadows of course) and the game runs very smooth.

I am a graphics whore but performance and gameplay are top of my list so I can currently deal with the fact that I'm not all that impressed with the graphics. If the game continues to run smoothly and I find myself enjoying the gameplay, I think that the graphics are good enough for me to learn to live with. Besides, I already feel as if I'm getting more than I could possible expect from my system in regards to what the game actually calls for. It is funny though that during beta when I couldn't get anything but crappy performance the graphics bothered me more than they do now that I'm getting decent performance. Interesting how that works :)

Yea Flafringe, you are getting good value out of that system.  TBH I am really surprised it works but 30fps outside of towns on that rig is pretty good and playable.  I believe Sci-fi games are much better as MMO's since they get away with less terrain such as forest, jungle, waterfalls etc.  With space games and post apoc games they can seriously reduce the eye candy, but still have great graphics.   On max settings FE is actually quite good and the detail on guns, armour etc is pretty full on. 

So I put off FE for the Champions Online free trial weekend and I have to say that I'm ready to dive back into FE again. Content not-withstanding, only talking about performance, I was was hugely surprised to find that CO ran like crap. Although I could get the game to run extremely smooth at only 20 FPS (I expected more but smoothness is all that is important, not the actual number) the game suffers from a memory leak that was causing me to crash every 10 minutes.

Having been in beta for both I would have guessed that FE wouldn't have been the one giving me trouble and not the other way around. Wow, was I shocked.

At any rate, now that CO is out of the picture and I have FE set up to run smoothly, it's time to jump back in with one week left on my free trial. Now it's time to start paying attention to gameplay and content. Something that I really couldn't do with CO.