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[Barrow Roll]

While modding the first Mass Effect earlier today, I had to download this program to make it use more RAM.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112556

Is this something that could be applied to other games? Like Arkham City, for instance?

Just wondering, do I still need to keep LAA open after I hit save? I'm using the exact same texture mods for Mass Effect 1 (which look fuckin great) so it would be good to know.

I gotta say, console gaming may be easier what with just popping in a disk and playing, but learning about all these tweaks and mods and programs is so much fun on it's own and makes everything just so much more rewarding.

 

[Sethos]

Just wondering, do I still need to keep LAA open after I hit save?

No, it should change the flag on the .exe and that's it, no need to have it running.

 

[Barrow Roll]

No, it should change the flag on the .exe and that's it, no need to have it running.

Phew, your post pre-edit had me really confused. Excellent, so after applying it to MassEffect.exe I should be good to go. Sweet.

 

[Sethos]

Phew, your post pre-edit had me really confused. Excellent, so after applying it to MassEffect.exe I should be good to go. Sweet.

Yeah, re-read that and decided to change it a bit

 

[jokkir]

Question about using SMAA from this post:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=36076132&postcount=280

When playing online, will it detect it as a cheat/hack? I want to use it on CoD/CS or whatever but afraid i it might be detected as a cheat/hack

EDIT - nvm. Downloaded it, unzipped it and read the readme. It might detect it as a cheat

 

[MBison]

Sorry theres a better thread for my post

 

[Lingitiz]

Posted in SR thread but figured I'd give it a try here.

Is there known performance issues with this Saints Row The Third? I'm running 720p maxed out and the framerate is fine until I start driving. It constantly dips below 30 and sometimes gets into single digits. I was running on a weaker card before and never had this problem with driving.

Amd Athlon X3 455
460 GTX 1GB Superclocked

 

[kamspy]

Try the adaptive v sync option in the new drivers. It's the most wonderful thing to come to the control panel in a long time.

 

[Lingitiz]

Try the adaptive v sync option in the new drivers. It's the most wonderful thing to come to the control panel in a long time.

I'll give this a try. Haven't considered upgrading to the new beta drivers.

 

[LabouredSubterfuge]

I've noticed SGSSAA no longer works properly with Batman AC with these new Nvidia drivers. You get a red sheen over everything.

 

[Shaneus]

Posted in SR thread but figured I'd give it a try here.

Is there known performance issues with this Saints Row The Third? I'm running 720p maxed out and the framerate is fine until I start driving. It constantly dips below 30 and sometimes gets into single digits. I was running on a weaker card before and never had this problem with driving.

Amd Athlon X3 455
460 GTX 1GB Superclocked

I can't speak for nVidia cards, but for AMD the performance is pathetic. Moreso when you consider it's one of those "AMD Gaming Evolved" titles.

 

[Ploid 3.0]

Is there som trick to making GTA4 run good? I don't have the enb stuff installed and it's basically a fresh install. I installed up to the 1.0.4 or whatever patch since that's what most mods use, but first I want it to run good.

GTX 460
Athlon II x4 640
4 gigs ddr3

I was hoping there was a community patch or something that optimize things like they do with the Bethesda games.

Edit: SR3 just gets worse when you start driving. Single digits seem like a bug, but frames shall drop when you start driving.

 

[I H8 Memes]

Is there som trick to making GTA4 run good? I don't have the enb stuff installed and it's basically a fresh install. I installed up to the 1.0.4 or whatever patch since that's what most mods use, but first I want it to run good.

GTX 460
Athlon II x4 640
4 gigs ddr3

I was hoping there was a community patch or something that optimize things like they do with the Bethesda games.

Edit: SR3 just gets worse when you start driving. Single digits seem like a bug, but frames shall drop when you start driving.

What setting are you running it at? Most of the sliders settings would be in the teens to match consoles, so in the 30's and 40's on the sliders is pretty high. And it takes a pretty beefy rig to max out water reflections, night time shadows, textures etc.

 

[Lingitiz]

Is there som trick to making GTA4 run good? I don't have the enb stuff installed and it's basically a fresh install. I installed up to the 1.0.4 or whatever patch since that's what most mods use, but first I want it to run good.

GTX 460
Athlon II x4 640
4 gigs ddr3

I was hoping there was a community patch or something that optimize things like they do with the Bethesda games.

Edit: SR3 just gets worse when you start driving. Single digits seem like a bug, but frames shall drop when you start driving.

The thing that's confusing me about SR3 is that I was running a 6670 DDR3 prior to getting a GTX 460. Granted, that's not a huge upgrade, but it seems odd that the driving framerate actually got worse than before.

 

[Barrow Roll]

I know this is probably the wrong place to ask since my question isn't really hardware related, but what the hell, maybe someone knows.

Does anyone know how to remove the level 50 cap in Mass Effect? I started a new character and used the console commands to unlock every achievement - including "Medal of Honor" which should unlock 51-60, but apparently that doesn't take into effect until you start a new character after unlocking it. I didn't know that, now my character hit 50 and I'm not about to start all over again, especially since I've played this game a dozen times on Xbox. I just want to be able to bring a level 60 character into ME2.

 

[Ploid 3.0]

What setting are you running it at? Most of the sliders settings would be in the teens to match consoles, so in the 30's and 40's on the sliders is pretty high. And it takes a pretty beefy rig to max out water reflections, night time shadows, textures etc.

I keep them very low. Recently I turned everything down to low/off and the bars down to as low as they go, seem to run better but there's a lot of pop in and stuff. I think I'll just leave it at that, start messing with trainers and crazy mods again until the new SR3 mod pack is released.

The thing that's confusing me about SR3 is that I was running a 6670 DDR3 prior to getting a GTX 460. Granted, that's not a huge upgrade, but it seems odd that the driving framerate actually got worse than before.

I guess its a GTX 460 thing then. I've always played it on 460 so I thought the framedrop during driving was just the engine or nvidia. Though in single digit on driving even while a ton of stuff is going on, I haven't had that.

 

[MBison]

I tried D3D overrider with my Radeon 5950 and Fallout New Vegas crashed a lot. Is there certain games that it's better for in regards to enabling triple buffering and vsync?

 

[RedSwirl]

Trying to find a good config for New Vegas on an AMD HD6850. I don't know what to do with the settings in that game. The only graphics mod I use is one of the realistic lighting mods.

 

[MBison]

The Nevada Skies is worth it.

 

[Silly.Mikey]

Does anyone have problems with Halo2 PC on 64bit 7 home?

 

[Ploid 3.0]

I tried D3D overrider with my Radeon 5950 and Fallout New Vegas crashed a lot. Is there certain games that it's better for in regards to enabling triple buffering and vsync?

Some games just don't like things like D3D overrider. I used to use it all the time, then started running into problems with games not launching because of it (or Afterburner even). It sucks because sometimes I would go crazy trying to figure out what was wrong, even redownloading games and trying to see if something was wrong with my pc all while D3D overrider was chilling laughing at me.

 

[I H8 Memes]

Does anyone have problems with Halo2 PC on 64bit 7 home?

What kind of problem?

 

[Lingitiz]

This is probably a dumb question but I followed the basic downsampling guide to get 1080p even though my monitor only supports 720p. Things look pretty good in game and the resolution increase is apparent. When I eventually upgrade to a true 1080p monitor is the performance I'm getting now what I should expect? Thanks to anyone who answers this bad question.

 

[Barrow Roll]

How are the stock settings for Mass Effect 2? Any tweak guides I should know about?

 

[Silly.Mikey]

What kind of problem?

Its odd, i patched it, i have the latest nvidia drivers and when i start up the game, the background in the menu thats just the city and the camera moving through it is now moving super fast, much faster than usual, then when i go in a game it feels choppy.

I have a i5, Nvidia 570gtx, 16 gig of ram, it should run smooth as silk.

 

[Corky]

This is probably a dumb question but I followed the basic downsampling guide to get 1080p even though my monitor only supports 720p. Things look pretty good in game and the resolution increase is apparent. When I eventually upgrade to a true 1080p monitor is the performance I'm getting now what I should expect? Thanks to anyone who answers this bad question.

Yeap, you're still rendering the game at 1080p. Going from a 720p monitor to a 1080p one you'll notice :

- more jaggies since the effect of downsampling is gone now that you're running at native
- less inputlag since the gpu doesn't have to downsample the image
- same performance

 

[shinobi602]

So what kind of games can I run with this kind of setup?

Phenom II X4 965 3.4GHz
GTX 570HD 1280mb
8GB RAM

Witcher 2? BF3 at highest settings?

 

[Dice]

So this may be dumb but I am playing Jedi Academy and I have a couple questions.

First off, is there any way to extend the boundary of this magical appearing grass to say... infinity?

Also, I'm fairly ignorant of ancient graphics buzzwords but if I set shadows to volumetric I get these self shadows that are weird and glitchy, so it doesn't have as much shadowing on normal but it's consistent and looks way better. Here is a comparison:

Spoiler

Yes, I had to zoom up the ass to get a good look at the shadows. Model chosen for your pleasure.

I'm not sure if this is correct or if I'm missing some long-gone drivers (RTCW recently needed some such thing to run stable) or if it was some nVidia exclusive bullshit.

 

[Ledsen]

So this may be dumb but I am playing Jedi Academy and I have a couple questions.

First off, is there any way to extend the boundary of this magical appearing grass to say... infinity?

[IG]http://i.minus.com/ibnewxBpBecsoB.gif[G]

Also, I'm fairly ignorant of ancient graphics buzzwords but if I set shadows to volumetric I get these self shadows that are weird and glitchy, so it doesn't have as much shadowing on normal but it's consistent and looks way better. Here is a comparison:

[IG]http://i.minus.com/iPGZnXwfzYpaW.png[/IG] [IG]http://i.minus.com/iuSY3qvTPlSLz.png[G]

Spoiler

Yes, I had to zoom up the ass to get a good look at the shadows. Model chosen for your pleasure.

I'm not sure if this is correct or if I'm missing some long-gone drivers (RTCW recently needed some such thing to run stable) or if it was some nVidia exclusive bullshit.

I remember self-shadowing looking like shit in most or all older games, it wasn't until a few years ago they started getting it right.

Edit: on second thought those don't really look like self-shadowing.

 

[Dice]

It is self-shadowing. This dude's ears cast shadows on him:

 

[QueenOfThorns]

So recently I've started to notice that AA isn't really working that well for any of my games. At first I thought it was just for The Witcher 2, but then I noticed it's a jaggy mess with Dead Space 2 as well. For some reason, it seems like none of my games listen to my AA settings no matter what I put. I even tried making my AA setting for TW2 something silly like 32X and it's exactly the same like the settings aren't applying. Yesterday I even tried completely reinstalling Windows and installing the Nvidia drivers from scratch, but that didn't change anything either.

Here's a video of what I'm talking about. It looks this way no matter what AA setting I put. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3325737/Witchernormal.mp4 (Sorry for the file size)

And Dead Space 2: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3325737/Untitled.mp4

Graphics card is a 560ti and the CPU is corei5-2500k. I've had the computer since December but I'm only now getting to playing games where I really notice how the AA isn't working the way it's supposed to.

Any ideas? It's been driving me mad trying to get it to work.

 

[LabouredSubterfuge]

Can't speak for Witcher 2, but you're not going to get DS2 with MSAA without compromise on the dynamic shadows. Try a post process AA like SMAA or FXAA.

 

[therealminime]

So recently I've started to notice that AA isn't really working that well for any of my games. At first I thought it was just for The Witcher 2, but then I noticed it's a jaggy mess with Dead Space 2 as well. For some reason, it seems like none of my games listen to my AA settings no matter what I put. I even tried making my AA setting for TW2 something silly like 32X and it's exactly the same like the settings aren't applying. Yesterday I even tried completely reinstalling Windows and installing the Nvidia drivers from scratch, but that didn't change anything either.

Here's a video of what I'm talking about. It looks this way no matter what AA setting I put. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3325737/Witchernormal.mp4 (Sorry for the file size)

And Dead Space 2: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3325737/Untitled.mp4

Graphics card is a 560ti and the CPU is corei5-2500k. I've had the computer since December but I'm only now getting to playing games where I really notice how the AA isn't working the way it's supposed to.

Any ideas? It's been driving me mad trying to get it to work.

FXAA and SMAA are the only forced AA solutions for both Dead Space 2 and The Witcher 2.

 

[QueenOfThorns]

I haven't had any luck using FXAA--both in the NVIDIA control panel or with the injector. Same with MSAA. Both of them don't have any effect on the game whatsoever.

Edit: Actually, after messing about with FXAA a bit more and disabling in game anti-aliasing, it goes from completely awful http://img.skitch.com/20120530-1c5tnm4uu733x2uw6xh962am6s.jpg to subpar: http://img.skitch.com/20120530-dbib2xjmcgsstycmjaq5br96wg.jpg

So that's something, I guess.

 

[Broseybrose]

Do you Nvidia guys get an improvement in lag reduction by switching your max prerendered frames to 0 in control panel?

I remember reading that this is recommended.

I have it set to 0 for Tribes: Ascend but I can't really tell if it helps.

 

[faceless007]

Might as well ask here, anyone know of a good article that explains the various types of AA in a not-too-technical way? Hard to keep all those acronyms straight.

 

[John Rabbit]

so i'm having some confusion regarding OC'ing my processor.

for starters, i did the easy-method of using OC Tuner in the BIOS, i've got an asus P8Z68-v pro gen 3. it returned these settings: (sorry for crappy pic, couldn't find my jump drive to take a direct screenshot)

now CPU-Z normally shows me this:

which i understand comes from the fact that i'm letting the mobo change the voltage to lower power use and heat.

but occasionally (more often when under load obviously but it still jumps between speeds) it shows this:

however, running the unigine demo gives me this result:

where if i'm not mistaken "CPU Flags" should represent the actual clock speed of the processor, i've seen others results showing stock speed under "CPU Model" and OC speed under "Flags".

PC Wizard also does not seem to recognize the supposedly higher OC'ed speed.

is this a result of the voltage being fluctuated or am i not "actually" overclocked?

any assistance is very much appreciated.

 

[Barrow Roll]

I posted this in the Mass Effect 3 PC thread, but it seems to be dead so I'll try my luck here.

Everything I've read about SGSSAA has suggested using Negative LOD bias, but I'm getting better AA when I just leave it on Clamp instead of Allow. Took some screens in FRAPS to help illustrate my point. Using 0x000010C1 compatibility bit.

2x MSAA, 2x SGSSAA, Negative LOD Bias -0.500

2x MSAA, 2x SGSSAA, Negative LOD Bias Clamp

The horizontal lines on the wall directly across from Shepard are smoother in the bottom shot and if there's any blurring going on then I certainly can't see, and I've compared the two shots several times over. Is there any reason I should be using a Negative LOD bias if it's giving me poorer AA?

 

[Dice]

Those little lines are the sort of thing that make me die inside. Dropping $500 on a new videocard would primarily be for the purpose of making 8xSSAA playable on many games.

 

[Barrow Roll]

Those little lines are the sort of thing that make me die inside. Dropping $500 on a new videocard would primarily be for the purpose of making 8xSSAA playable on many games.

Were it so easy. I just upgraded for the first time in a very long time in March and already this 560ti isn't enough for me.

 

[Dice]

Were it so easy. I just upgraded for the first time in a very long time in March and already this 560ti isn't enough for me.

Well, yeah. That's not much better than this 5850 I got 2 1/2 years ago. Though, even a GTX 680 will be having rough times with Metro 2033 maxed out with that kind of AA.

I'm not ready to upgrade yet (I need a job -___- rough times), but even when I do I'll probably need to compromise to some extent because I'm not going to get a whole new computer before I finish the rest of the music studio I got this one for, and my current power source and case size have limits.

 

[goodfella]

New Nvidia Beta Drivers. - 304.48

GeForce GTX 680:

Up to 18% in Batman: Arkham City
Up to 15% in Dragon Age II
Up to 10% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
Up to 60% in Total War: Shogun 2 (fixes performance issue with latest game patch)

GeForce GTX 560:
Up to 14% in Batman: Arkham City
Up to 5% in Battlefield 3 with SLI
Up to 4% in Dragon Age II
Up to 8% in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings with SLI
Up to 7% in Lost Planet 2

Key Fixes
Fixes an intermittent vsync stuttering issue with GeForce GTX 600-series GPUs.
Fixes an issue where some manufacturer's factory overclocked cards default to and run at lower clocks.
Fixes a performance issue in Total War: Shogun 2 with the latest game patch.

NVIDIA SLI Technology – Adds or updates the following SLI profiles:
Spec Ops: The Line
PlanetSide 2
F1 2011 – updated profile
Final Fantasy XIV – updated profile
Saints Row: The Third – updated profile
Torchlight II
Tribes: Ascend

NVIDIA 3D Vision – Adds or updates the following 3D Vision profiles:
Alan Wake's American Nightmare – rated Poor
Borderlands 2 – updated profile with new convergence settings
Depth Hunter – updated rating to 3D Vision Ready
Mass Effect 3 – updated in-game compatibility message and profile to be more compatible with community 3D mods
Max Payne 3 – updated rating to Excellent and updated in-game compatibility message to inform users to use DirectX 11, disable MSAA and use SSA0.
Street Fighter X Tekken – rated 3D Vision Ready
Tiger Woods PGA 12: The Masters – rated Good
Tribes: Ascend – rated Fair
The Walking Dead – rating Good

Other Profile Updates
Added NVIDIA Control Panel antialiasing support for Diablo III
Added NVIDIA Control Panel antialiasing support for L.A. Noire
Added NVIDIA Control Panel antialiasing support for Rayman Origins
Added NVIDIA Control Panel antialiasing support The Secret World
Added NVIDIA Control Panel ambient occlusion support for Star Wars: The Old Republic
Disabled FXAA for several Windows programs like Media Player and Movie Maker.

 

[SuperBonk]

Hey guys, I accidentally posted this in Off-Topic but someone there told me you guys might be able to help with this issue:

Hey guys, I'm relatively new to PC gaming so you'll have to excuse my ignorance here.

I recently bought a new laptop with an NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M video card. The problem is, I can't seem to get any game to run better than 30fps. I know it's a problem with the video card because once I switch to integrated graphics (Intel HD 4000), I am able to get better frame rates albeit at low settings.

For example, I recently bought Super Street Fighter IV AE for PC which contains a benchmark tool that allows you to test the fps. I ran the game at max and min settings and the difference was negligible. I took screencaps of the results:

With my integrated card, I was able to get a smooth 60fps at medium settings. Even a game like Star Wars Battlefront (released in 2005) gets over 100fps with my integrated card but is still locked at 30fps with the 650M.

I tried going into the NVIDIA Control Panel and setting it to prioritize performance (it said this would increase frame rate), but everything I've played so far (Deus Ex, FIFA 2012, Alice Madness Returns, Borderlands, etc.) still won't go past 30fps. I don't really mind with those games, but for Street Fighter I really need that 60fps. Please help.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

You sure vsync isn't on in-game? Street Fighter is known for 30fps-ness.

1. Get FRAPS. Monitor fps in game if it fluctuates or not. If it doesn't fluctuate even a single FPS then V-Sync is definitely on whether on the NVIDIA drivers or some other third party drivers.

2. Try Heaven Benchmark and let me know what the result is: http://unigine.com/products/heaven/

3. Update drivers.

Good luck!

 

[Reseil]

Hey guys, I accidentally posted this in Off-Topic but someone there told me you guys might be able to help with this issue:

Hey guys, I'm relatively new to PC gaming so you'll have to excuse my ignorance here.

I recently bought a new laptop with an NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M video card. The problem is, I can't seem to get any game to run better than 30fps. I know it's a problem with the video card because once I switch to integrated graphics (Intel HD 4000), I am able to get better frame rates albeit at low settings.

For example, I recently bought Super Street Fighter IV AE for PC which contains a benchmark tool that allows you to test the fps. I ran the game at max and min settings and the difference was negligible. I took screencaps of the results:



With my integrated card, I was able to get a smooth 60fps at medium settings. Even a game like Star Wars Battlefront (released in 2005) gets over 100fps with my integrated card but is still locked at 30fps with the 650M.

I tried going into the NVIDIA Control Panel and setting it to prioritize performance (it said this would increase frame rate), but everything I've played so far (Deus Ex, FIFA 2012, Alice Madness Returns, Borderlands, etc.) still won't go past 30fps. I don't really mind with those games, but for Street Fighter I really need that 60fps. Please help.

So is this an HP with dual GPUs?

 

[SuperBonk]

You sure vsync isn't on in-game? Street Fighter is known for 30fps-ness.

1. Get FRAPS. Monitor fps in game if it fluctuates or not. If it doesn't fluctuate even a single FPS then V-Sync is definitely on whether on the NVIDIA drivers or some other third party drivers.

2. Try Heaven Benchmark and let me know what the result is: http://unigine.com/products/heaven/

3. Update drivers.

Good luck!

Thanks. Vsync is definitely set to off, both in the NVIDIA Control Panel and the game itself. FRAPS shows the fps varies about 2-3 frames. Running Heaven Benchmark right now.

So is this an HP with dual GPUs?

Well, it's a Sager laptop with Ivy Bridge which comes with an integrated card but it also has a discrete GPU in the 650M.

 

[Reseil]

Well, it's a Sager laptop with Ivy Bridge which comes with an integrated card but it also has a discrete GPU in the 650M.

Ok, sounds like the same thing I went through then. While it may say that it's using the 650, it may not be actually. If you have the same setup as mine, if you right click on your desktop, you will see an option for configuring switchable graphics:

Hit this and you get the option to change/add programs:

You add the exe of the program (or just run it and it will show up as recently opened) and set it to high performance mode.

Ideally, you're all set at that point. You just need to do this again for any other app or game that doesn't actually "use" the GT.

 

[SuperBonk]

Ok, sounds like the same thing I went through then. While it may say that it's using the 650, it may not be actually. If you have the same setup as mine, if you right click on your desktop, you will see an option for configuring switchable graphics:

Hit this and you get the option to change/add programs:

You add the exe of the program (or just run it and it will show up as recently opened) and set it to high performance mode.

Ideally, you're all set at that point. You just need to do this again for any other app or game that doesn't actually "use" the GT.

I don't have the "Switchable Graphics" option on the desktop. Regardless, when I switch to integrated graphics, I can actually get better frame rates. Here is a screencap of the SFIV benchmark with the Intel HD graphics.

And here is the Heaven Benchmark

 

[SuperBonk]

I fixed it! Apparently I had to download NVIDIA Inspector and adjust some obscure setting to dealing with refresh rate. I changed it to "highest possible" and everything seems fine. I appreciate all the help guys.

 

[Dice]

Is there a way to force AA on LA Noire with ATI?