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Archives des forums MMO/MMORPG > World War 2 Online > WWIIOL - Chez Francis et Günther > Message des Dev en Anglais sur le materiel informatique supporter et quelques astuces
Message des Dev en Anglais sur le materiel informatique supporter et quelques astuces
Par Lindir le 5/11/2002 à 10:43:33 (#2484268)
Please read over this and make any comments you feel might be helpful.
Performance FAQ
World War II Online is a computer-intensive massively multiplayer online game. It requires the bulk of your computers CPU, video, and audio capabilities (not to mention bandwidth) to fully create, render, and maintain on your system the world you move around in.
Consequently increasing performance for World War II Online (and in many instances for your machine in general) relies on several factors.
DirectX
The most important and easy-to-use tool for discovering your systems current state is a diagnostic utility that comes with Microsoft operating systems called the DirectX Diagnostic Tool or dxdiag.exe more specifically it comes with DirectX, Microsofts core of multimedia application programming interfaces (APIs). Dxdiag.exe will allow you to view detailed information about the DirectX components and drivers installed on your system, as well as other information.
To run the DirectX Diagnostic Tool, find the Run command by going to the Start Menu. Put in dxdiag.exe (without the quotes) in the text box and click OK.
You can click on the tabs to move between the different sections of the tool, such as view what kind of graphics card and driver version you use, among other things. You can also save all of the information the Diagnostic Tool generates by clicking on the Save All Information button at the bottom of the Tool screen. You can then choose where to save the file (which is labeled dxdiag.txt).
What version of DirectX do I have?
You can find out what version of DirectX you have by running the DirectX Diagnostic Tool. On the opening screen is a box of System Information with a list of general information about your machine. The last entry is entitled DirectX Version and should give a version number.
Where do I download DirectX from?
One of the things we require is that you have the latest version of DirectX installed. At the present time this is version 8.1b. You can download the latest version for your appropriate language and operating system from this address:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/downloads
/drx81.asp
Note that we do not provide support for beta or unreleased versions of DirectX (DirectX 9.0 is in testing currently).
Gophur
Assistant Producer
Game Manager
World War II Online
"Internet Shortbus 8.0 just shipped." - Jbrady
Gophur
Posts: 1424
posted Fri, Nov 1 6:18pm
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Video Drivers
A video driver is software that tells the video card, through the operating system, how to use the card to display graphics on the monitor. In theory, video drivers should use the hardware efficiently to give you the best results in reality theres always room for improvement, though frequently this improvement comes months, even years after the video card has been released. Because newer and better video drivers can enhance system performance tremendously, we encourage all users to upgrade to the newest approved drivers available.
You can find out which version you have by running the DirectX Diagnostic Tool (described above) and clicking on the Display tab. Driver information is on the upper left. If you happen to know that the version number is old (by comparing it to the current driver version on the manufacturers website) you should probably upgrade. Unfortunately the Tool doesnt directly show you when the drivers were created (which is another useful way of telling if you need an upgrade), but you can discern this by saving the information to a text file (the Save All Information button at the bottom) and reading the text file (dxdiag.txt) with Notepad. Scroll down until you see the video card driver information it should tell you the date the driver was created. Anything more than 4-6 months old should be replaced if a new version is available.
Video cards are actually created by two different manufacturers/developers: one company, frequently a chipmaker, produces video cards most important part, the cards video chipset (sometimes called the GPU or graphics processing unit) while the card manufacturer actually designs and builds the video board itself with all of its constituent parts (like memory chips, heat sinks, etc.). In many instances these two companies are different, though some major chipset makers make video cards as well (as well as license the chipset to other board manufacturers).
Chipset manufacturers are the ones that develop the video drivers, and typically the newest versions of their drivers are available on their website (video card manufacturers also carry drivers for the chipsets on their own websites as well). If you dont know who created the video chip, you can easily find out by running the DirectX Diagnostic Tool, clicking on the Display tab, and searching under the Device section.
Gophur
Posts: 1425
posted Fri, Nov 1 6:19pm
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Here well list what the common chipset manufacturers, what they build, and where to go:
NVIDIA NVIDIA-brand chipsets are pretty widespread. They develop a line of chipsets called Geforce and TNT. You can find them at www.nvidia.com. They build only chipsets.
ATI ATI chipsets are found in many machines, laptops, and are used for video editing as well as gaming. You can find them at www.ati.com. They produce a number of chipsets, like the Rage and Radeon. Note that ATI also makes video cards with their own chipsets, and sell their chipsets to other video card manufacturers (like Hercules).
Gophur
Posts: 1426
posted Fri, Nov 1 6:19pm
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3dfx 3dfx used to be the reigning king of 3D cards, but has now been out of business for some time. Their cards are still around we recommend you do not use a 3dfx card to play World War II Online. However, the last original drivers as well as a fair variety of third-party after-market drivers exists at www.voodoofiles.com (most 3dfx cards produced used the Voodoo moniker as a brand).
Matrox Matrox cards have been in and out of gaming, though you may have one. Usually the gaming models have a three-digit number following the letter G (G400 for instance). You can download their drivers from www.matrox.com.
Kyro Kyro is a relatively new chipset and can be found in cards built by Hercules among other companies. Unlike other chipset manufacturers, the drivers are most commonly found on the video card manufacturers website rather than the chipset maker. Common manfufacturers include Hercules (www.hercules.com) and VideoLogic (www.videologic.com).
SiS SiS (Silicon Integrated Systems) makes a large number of video chipsets, frequently for use in embedded systems or motherboards with built-in video cards. They are frequently identified with an SiS label followed by a 2 or 3 digit number. You can download drivers from www.sis.com.
Intel The CPU company builds video chipsets for some video cards and built-in motherboards. You can find drivers at www.intel.com.
Audio Cards
Another thing you should do is upgrade to the latest drivers for your sound card. You can check to see what version you use through the dxdiag.txt or the DirectX Diagnostic Tool as described above, except the information is kept under the Sound tab. If the driver appears old (or if it doesnt say anything at all), youll probably need to upgrade.
We also recommend you turn off DirectX Hardware Sound Acceleration. You can do this within the Tool on the Sound tab find the box in the middle called DirectX Features. Inside is a slider bar with the label Hardware Sound Acceleration Level. Move the slider all the way to the left the heading should read No acceleration above the slider.
Common sound card manufacturers include Creative Labs Sound Blaster series of cards (www.creativelabs.com), SiS (www.sis.com), Hercules (www.hercules.com), Turtle Beach (www.turtlebeach.com), Philips (www.consumer.philips.com), and Intel (www.intel.com).
Gophur
Assistant Producer
Game Manager
World War II Online
"Internet Shortbus 8.0 just shipped." - Jbrady
Gophur
Posts: 1427
posted Fri, Nov 1 6:19pm
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In-game
There are a number of things you can do to help speed up general performance in the game:
Run settings.exe in the WW2OL directory (or wherever you have the game installed). Click on the Video tab. You can lower the graphics resolution to a more acceptable level (the last number is the color bit depth; 16 is much less intensive than 32) such as 800x600x16, the lowest possible level.
On the Sound tab, you can try dropping the number of Maximum Sounds to 16.
At the Special FX tab, you can try bringing in the visual distance, though you can also do this on-the-fly in the game with the F4 key. You can also turn off elements of the Heads Up Display (labeled Visibility, underneath the Visual Distance pull-down menu) you can also do this in-game with the Y key. Finally, at the lower left, you can check the two buttons for LOD Field of View and LOD Limit Per Frame to help performance.
Finally, on the Texture tab, you can turn off (or make sure some things are turned off) various graphical features. For instance, you can try turning on texture resolution or disabling textures altogether, or you can turn off (leave unchecked) such things as specular lighting, multi-texturing, and mipmapping. Make sure that the anti-aliasing box is not checked.
Look to the settings help file (settings.hlp) for much more detail on the function of all features within the settings application.
Virtual Memory
You can also increase the amount of virtual memory on the system to help performance. VM is typically used by programs to swap files in and out of memory but keep them easily available at all times. WW2OL is typically very processor and memory intensive, so there's going to be a lot of swapping. Typically Windows' virtual memory settings are allocated one of two ways: automatically determined by how much hard drive space on the Windows drive (typically C:\ drive) is left, or by Windows automatically managing the virtual memory size on the fly.
You can tell what the Virtual Memory settings are by (again) visiting the dxdiag.txt you previously generated or just by running the DirectX Diagnostic Tool. Under the System tab there will be an entry for Page file. Subtract the amount of space available from that used (make sure you turn off all un-needed applications). If this amount is under 800MB or so, you either need to stop running some things in the background (like ICQ or your favorite MP3 player) or increase your total amount of virtual memory.
Gophur
Assistant Producer
Game Manager
World War II Online
"Internet Shortbus 8.0 just shipped." - Jbrady
Gophur
Posts: 1428
posted Fri, Nov 1 6:20pm
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Both settings are dependent on how much hard drive space is really left, so the easiest way to increase the settings is to free up the amount of free drive space on your Windows drive. You *should* have 600-800MB free at the very least. You should also check the Virtual Memory settings directly (Control Panel --> System --> Performance) and make sure that after the disk space is freed that Windows makes optimum use of the free space. You will probably have to manually tell Windows how big you want the space (called a swap file). If theres no space left to increase, youll need to increase the amount of free hard drive space left on the hard drive you use for file swapping.
Gophur
Assistant Producer
Game Manager
World War II Online
"Internet Shortbus 8.0 just shipped." - Jbrady
Gophur
Posts: 1429
posted Fri, Nov 1 6:21pm
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Many thansk to Monty for puttoing this togeather even if it is a bit long winded =]
Gophur
Assistant Producer
Game Manager
World War II Online
Par sab le 5/11/2002 à 15:20:14 (#2486430)
Que dirais tu de le traduire puis de le poster sur FF ?
Par Lindir le 5/11/2002 à 15:40:55 (#2486588)
Par Pachy le 5/11/2002 à 16:22:13 (#2486881)
Par Lindir le 5/11/2002 à 16:24:46 (#2486912)
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