Dark Messiah Demo...

[Caecus Veritas]

all eye candies maxed out (woohoo! finally HDR + AA... i think) @ 1920X1200 with HQAF... man, this game looks impressive (missed out on oblivion so can't compare).

anyhow, so i'm happily chugging along in the first part of the demo (indoor dungeon) and frame rates are great - 60 to 70 and then high 30's to 40's during fights... i'm thinking damn i love my 1900s...

and then.. on the second portion of the demo, when you finally leave the cavern and look up upon the building and outdoor sunlight (the scene looks stunning btw), the game just brings the CF setup to its knees.. framerate drops to the teens (maybe it's just bad optimazation on the game's part) and it's just laggy as hell from that point on.

it seems that when the AA is reduced from 6x to 2x the game becomes much more playable with framerates around high 20's to 40's.. (btw, there seems to be a bug when changing the AA in-game - when you lower it it's fine but moving it up seems to have no effect until the game is restarted) seems like 2x to 4x AA with other settings maxed out seems to be the limit for x1900CF setup (at least stock CPU/GPU settings).

how are you guys - both reds & greens - faring in this demo? (especially interested in what the 7950 is capable of)

p.s. this game looks to be very interesting - especially how you can kick em in ass and drop em off cliffs or chop off their heads..


EDIT: anyone know how to take screenshots in this game? i tried forcing 14x AA through CCC but can't tell if it's working or not cuz i'm probably blind and there seems to be minimal difference in framerates...

 

[SpeedZealot369]

Originally posted by: Caecus Veritas
all eye candies maxed out (woohoo! finally HDR + AA... i think) @ 1920X1200 with HQAF... man, this game looks impressive (missed out on oblivion so can't compare).

anyhow, so i'm happily chugging along in the first part of the demo (indoor dungeon) and frame rates are great - 60 to 70 and then high 30's to 40's during fights... i'm thinking damn i love my 1900s...

and then.. on the second portion of the demo, when you finally leave the cavern and look up upon the building and outdoor sunlight (the scene looks stunning btw), the game just brings the CF setup to its knees.. framerate drops to the teens (maybe it's just bad optimazation on the game's part) and it's just laggy as hell from that point on.

it seems that when the AA is reduced from 6x to 2x the game becomes much more playable with framerates around high 20's to 40's.. (btw, there seems to be a bug when changing the AA in-game - when you lower it it's fine but moving it up seems to have no effect until the game is restarted) seems like 2x to 4x AA with other settings maxed out seems to be the limit for x1900CF setup (at least stock CPU/GPU settings).

how are you guys - both reds & greens - faring in this demo? (especially interested in what the 7950 is capable of)

p.s. this game looks to be very interesting - especially how you can kick em in ass and drop em off cliffs or chop off their heads..


EDIT: anyone know how to take screenshots in this game? i tried forcing 14x AA through CCC but can't tell if it's working or not cuz i'm probably blind and there seems to be minimal difference in framerates...

Sometimes you need to do something special to the .exe file or something like that to enable CF, it might not be working for you.

 

[Ackmed]

The large hit in frames is due to the different landscapes. Inside, its mostly smaller rooms, dark, with little action. Outside, its huge, lots of water, which puts a hurting on frames. A huge hit depending on what reflection you have set. There are lots of birds flying, etc. Every game out there, going from inside, to a large outside enviroment, is going to hurt frames. Especially when there is lots of water.

For your 14xAA, turn of Cat A.I., should work then.

edit, here is a pic of the outside to illustrate my point, http://home.comcast.net/~dfall/Gamescreens/MM.JPG

The water is down below, cant see it from there. I moved up some from when you first go outside, and the water is a large part of the screen. As you can see, that is much more demanding than some dungeon.

 

[Wreckage]

Not to start a flame war.....

A profile update from ATI may help. So a driver release or 2 could give you a big boost in CF.

 

[Ackmed]

Of course you ment to start one. You cant be helpful, you have to try and start something.

BTW, you dont have to rename exe's anymore, or wait for a driver release, you can force AFR thru the drivers. Good try though?

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
. . .
A profile update from ATI may help. So a driver release or 2 could give you a big boost in CF.

agreed
:Q

remember this is a DEMO . . . . expect further optimizations by the time the game is released.

 

[Gstanfor]

No, I think Wreckage was actually trying to help. It says in the 6.7 release notes that forcing AFR may not work in all cases, if thats the case for a given game then waiting for ATi to encrypt a new profile into their dll file is about the only option left other than trying a rename of the exe. Because of the wacky dll profile storage (funny how ATi's driver team and fanboy "crossfire doesn't need dll's" claim still rings in my ears...) a driver update is the only reasonable way to deliver a profile update.

 

[Crescent13]

I think my 7800GT is feeling weak, after seeing that this can bring 2 x1900's down.


I need a couple 7950GX2's. Anyone want to donate?

EDIT: Actually fvck the 7950's, get me about 8 of theese in a rackmount setup and I'll be happy.

 

[Ackmed]

You give him far, far too much credit. If that was the case, he would have said you can force AFR, but it may not work in all cases. The only suggestion he gave, was wait 2-3 months for drivers. Sorry, thats not trying to help.

You can either force AFR, or rename the exe. Both are easy to do. Renaming the exe takes 10 seconds, and does what creating a profile does, getting the drivers to recognize the game. No, its not as good as a user created profile, but the end result does about the same thing.

They are working on user created profiles, but thats months off, due to Vista. According to Terry.

 

[Gstanfor]

People on nvidia cards are reporting that switching from a 16:10 aspect ratio to a 16:9 ratio gives a large performance increase (1920x1200 to 1920x1080 for example), so try that and see if it helps things.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
You give him far, far too much credit. If that was the case, he would have said you can force AFR, but it may not work in all cases. The only suggestion he gave, was wait 2-3 months for drivers. Sorry, thats not trying to help.

You can either force AFR, or rename the exe. Both are easy to do. Renaming the exe takes 10 seconds, and does what creating a profile does, getting the drivers to recognize the game. No, its not as good as a user created profile, but the end result does about the same thing.

They are working on user created profiles, but thats months off, due to Vista. According to Terry.

I have to agree that wreckage wasnt trying to start a flame war here... Also remember x1950's are coming at the end of August, im sure Ati will bring out Cats 6.8 by then, which might have a profile for that game... But if you say renaming the exe will do just about the same, then I assume you are 100% sure crossfire is working?

 

[Ika]

Here's an idea. Why not disable one of the cards in CF, then try the game again using just a single card (assuming this is possible)? If CF really wasn't working, your FPS should be about the same as it was before.

 

[Caecus Veritas]

Ackmed: turning off Cat AI will actually force 14x in-game? does that mean that when Cat AI is on - even though the 14x is selected - that it will not actually produce 14x? what's the reason for that? i will try that when i get home tonight. also, what's the magic button to take screenshots

gstanfor: thanks for that info - i will also try the 16:9 resolution and see how performance is effected.

anyone else with any benchmarks?

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: Caecus Veritas

Ackmed: turning off Cat AI will actually force 14x in-game? does that mean that when Cat AI is on - even though the 14x is selected - that it will not actually produce 14x? what's the reason for that? i will try that when i get home tonight. also, what's the magic button to take screenshots

Thats how you have to get 14x (or any above 4x for that matter in BF2) because the game over rides the drivers. Disabling Cat A.I., allowed your to force it thru the CP. I thought it may work in this demo, havent tried it myself yet.

edit, didnt see this part of the post;

Originally posted by: ShadowOfMyself
But if you say renaming the exe will do just about the same, then I assume you are 100% sure crossfire is working?

Yes, its 100% working for me. I just renamed it to hl2, instead of mm. Simple, and took 10 seconds. I could have forced it thru the CP, just didnt. I did just check it though, and that worked too.

Caecus Veritas, I just took some pics, with and without CF working. There is a large jump in performance, when having CF working (duh). Ill try to up them real fast, have to go get my girl from school..

 

[Ackmed]

Ok, here are some pics, with and without CF working. Only the first one is in the exact same spot (save spot). I didnt care enough to try and get the others in the same, sorry. You'll ge the idea.

Inside with CF
Inside without CF

87, down to 46.

Outside with CF
Outside without CF

39, down to 26.

Outside with CF
Outside without CF

55, down to 29.

I didnt catch the fire in the last pic without CF, like I did with CF, so frames would likely be a few lower. Anyways, as you can see, CF works fine. You dont have to wait 2-3 months for anything. You can either simply rename the exe that takes 10 seconds, or force AFR thru the drivers. Either worked for me, I prefer to rename the exe, so thats what Im using.

These pics suck compraed to how it really looks. I ran the game at 1920x1200, with every single setting in the game set to max quality 6xAA, HDR, reflect all for water detail, high everything. As I said, maxed out totally. Driver quality is set to highest as well, with HQ AF. The only option thats not turned on, is AAA in the drivers, I forgot to. It would help to clean up those dang chains... Anyways, as with all source games, it runs pretty dang good. I expect most anyone to be able to run this game with a decent machine.

 

[Drayvn]

Ive just played the game with a single measly 7800GTX

My frame rates werent particularly anything to write home about but i didnt get any stuttering or slowdown and it seemed smooth to me, probably averging around 40FPS or something.

HAd everything on high except 2xAA and had my resolution at 1600x900, will try later with 1680x1050 at 4xAA and get something on fraps.

 

[OBCT]

Originally posted by: Caecus Veritas
also, what's the magic button to take screenshots

Print Screen. Located to the right of the function keys. That only copies it to the clipboard, so for multiple screenshots without the need to alt+tab to save it, use a program like Fraps.

 

[TrunKKs]

This happens to me also. I am currently running athlon 3200xp, 2gb of ram, geforce 6800gt unlocked/overclocked. I get almost identical performance in dark messiah as I do in HL2 or CS Source. However this framerate drop happens for me also. Doesn't seem to matter where I am but the frame rate will suddenly come to a screeching halt. I'm talkin sound stuttering, less than 5 fps peformance. If I change any settings, sound or video, it will go back to normal for about 15-60seconds then the same thing happens and it becomes unplayabe.

I have a feeling the game needs a lot of optimization because something just isnt being done properly in the game engine imo.

 

[thilanliyan]

Since this is a Source based game shouldn't it run well??

 

[Drayvn]

Is it me or did anyone feel for 1.4Gb worth of demo, this demo lasted oh all of 10 to 15 minutes.

I finished it in no time at all.... and i waited ages for it to download and just run through it like i was sleeping.

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: Drayvn
Is it me or did anyone feel for 1.4Gb worth of demo, this demo lasted oh all of 10 to 15 minutes.

I finished it in no time at all.... and i waited ages for it to download and just run through it like i was sleeping.

So then I take it you don't think it's worth downloading?

 

[nitromullet]

This thing runs fine on my rig 4XAA/16XAF (not AAA, just regular AA), v-sync @ 1680x1050.

Pretty fun too...

 

[Caecus Veritas]

hrm... tried taking screenshots using FRAPS by pressing the default F10... but doesn't seem to be working (when pressed in the game, the FPS indicator changes to red for a sec) am i missing something?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: thilan29
Since this is a Source based game shouldn't it run well??

Not necessarily when you're running 1920x1200 and extreme IQ enhancements (HDR+AA)

 

[Drayvn]

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: Drayvn
Is it me or did anyone feel for 1.4Gb worth of demo, this demo lasted oh all of 10 to 15 minutes.

I finished it in no time at all.... and i waited ages for it to download and just run through it like i was sleeping.

So then I take it you don't think it's worth downloading?

Well its definitly worth downloading. I just wish it was a ickle bit longer.