[MOD] [TC/AP] X3 Rebalance Mod (XRM) - Total conversion - v1.30d (02.12.13)

[Teleth]

Related to the performance issues above:

I experienced quite a large slowdown after installing XRM. It seems to me like it would pause every time something new had to be loaded, especially in combat. I'd probably point the finger at my lack of RAM combined with all the additional effects/models flying around. It's a pity plain old CMOD isn't in development anymore, because thaty really helped.

Specs:

E8400 3.0 dual core
4gb ram
3870 oc

While I can understand XRM being sluggish with all the action going on, I find it hard to believe it is having trouble with 4GB ram; I have a GB of tabs running in firefox alongside XRM+AP and it seems fine.

I'd love to do something about large-scale battle FPS but I think it is more to do with the engine limitations and less about what XRM is doing.

My frame rate hovers around 20 in object-heavy systems (though using low poly asteroids doesn't change anything), so I'm really CPU bound on my X2 550. It is sadly quite happy to dip into sub-10 frame rates in large battles on lowest view distance. I doubt there is anything I can do about this.

It's tempting to boot XRM on my i7 laptop but I suspect I will end up with the reverse situation, not quite enough graphics power! (r6770, runs BF3 on low/med reasonably)

[dougeye]

Related to the performance issues above:

I experienced quite a large slowdown after installing XRM. It seems to me like it would pause every time something new had to be loaded, especially in combat. I'd probably point the finger at my lack of RAM combined with all the additional effects/models flying around. It's a pity plain old CMOD isn't in development anymore, because thaty really helped.

Specs:

E8400 3.0 dual core
4gb ram
3870 oc

While I can understand XRM being sluggish with all the action going on, I find it hard to believe it is having trouble with 4GB ram; I have a GB of tabs running in firefox alongside XRM+AP and it seems fine.

I'd love to do something about large-scale battle FPS but I think it is more to do with the engine limitations and less about what XRM is doing.

My frame rate hovers around 20 in object-heavy systems (though using low poly asteroids doesn't change anything), so I'm really CPU bound on my X2 550. It is sadly quite happy to dip into sub-10 frame rates in large battles on lowest view distance. I doubt there is anything I can do about this.

It's tempting to boot XRM on my i7 laptop but I suspect I will end up with the reverse situation, not quite enough graphics power! (r6770, runs BF3 on low/med reasonably)

Its Expobodys ships when they jump into a sector, i get slight pauses on my rig when they jump in. As paul said they are resourse hogs as they are not properly optimised. Problem if they are copy and pasted out of ieces of ego's and cadius's ships with not alot of consideration for how many extra polys are lingering about inside the model unseen, Its a real shame because from an artistic standpoint they are great ships!

[paulwheeler]

If youre running Firefox at the same time then of course you are going to get problems! Especially with loads of tabs!

Windows manages the memory allocation. If you have two processes running then Windows will divide available memory between the two. It will also reserve memory for itself.

I strongly suspect that those having problems have a lot of background tasks going on or are running other programs simultaneously.

As i said, when i was runing a 4gb core 2 duo system, i did not have major performance issues.

Also, think about it. Youre comparing xrm to vanilla. Vanilla has over fifty less sectors and a lot less ships. You dont get something for nothing.

I could remove all this extra stuff, all the effects etc, but then you might as well play the SRM and CMod combination. Why should I tailor the xrm to systems which are frankly out of date? I think 8gb and a 64bit os are the norm for gaming PCs these days. But as i said, there are plenty of people here with 4gb systems (including me up until recently) who are perfectly happy with the performance.

[nankura]

my installation has ALOT of .cat/dat files, and i thought that when you rename the .cat/dat files, you rename them to whatever number comes next to whats already there

so basically. i downloaded both partys, extracted them both to my installation folder. and renamed the 4 dat files to 17 and 18 since my last number was 16 ( the no fog removal patch )

they have to be in the AP folder as 03 and 04 all the other dats im assuming are mods etc. because my AP folder only have 2 in it.



ok that folder XRM-AP RRF FIX, it has 2 folders in it. which one do you install. i ask because i may be using the wrong one.

is it original RRF or XRM modded RRF?

i downloaded 1.0rrfscripts and seem to have got an fps increase

the argon shipyard is huge it looks alot like a military spacedock with 2 or 3 huge arms. the one im used to seeing is more long and looked like a stick insect for want of another description lol.

for AP 2.0, did you just download the RRF 1.0 scripts, or did you use the XRM/original version and addon the 1.0 scripts as a sort of patch

ive recently tried out AP and didnt realise what im missing ! . so mostly i just want RRF, and i heard RRF is broken as of patch 2.0, so im wondering if that rrf1.0 scripts is like a fix

[Ragemaster9999]

I have a core i7 2500k 8 gigs of ram and a gtx 560 card, game still chugs at around 20 fps in big battles between numerous capital ships, then again, i play with everything maxed on settings with 1920 by 1080 resolution. I believe the game engine itself is simply unoptimized and very old and simply wasnt built for todays hardware that didnt exist back then. Xrm adds some pretty spiffy effects, though flak close up seems to cause the most lag, which by the way, seems to be the closest thing to an aimbot in this mod. I admit i have not played vanilla much so my view may be skewed on performance related stuff..

[paulwheeler]

Vanilla flak is far worse than xrm flak, which is a straight port from the cmod.

With that kind of system you should have no problems at all. Its almost identical to mine and x3 is as smooth as anything.

But - youre running at a very high resolution. When x3 was designed, probably 1024x768 was the norm.

[Ragemaster9999]

Yeah ill try lowering the res a bit, see if it helps. But whoa is me, feels like timewarp back to 1999 with that res still trying to get my fighters to work, unsure if its a modding conflict or me being dumb, anyone else get codea workin with par fighters. Assuming it is not compatable, what scripts do you use paul for carrier management. Or do you use egosoft default?

[paulwheeler]

Egosoft default. Im actually running a pure xrm game at the moment and im not really missing much.

[nankura]

paul, could you help on the rrf situation man

[LordGaara]

Regarding performance issues.
I have a AMD Phenom II x4 955, AMD HD5770, 8GB ram, Windows7 x64 UE.
I never use background apps when playing, max is a single IE page, single tab (Da X-Forums!!).

And I realised that a very hard thing on performance is... FOG. I dont have FPS on, but when I removed fog things are running awesome. Maybe you guys should consider that option.

Cheers

[Teleth]

If youre running Firefox at the same time then of course you are going to get problems! Especially with loads of tabs!

It doesn't make much of a difference if I have firefox loaded or not to XRM combat FPS, which was my point: XRM is fine on 4GB systems, and most likely runs quite happily on 3GB systems.
Naturally I don't go out of my way to keep firefox loaded when I am playing X3, because I'll take as much ram and cpu as I can get.

Lowering the resolution will only help if your graphics card is not up to scratch; you won't claim a single cpu cycle from the reducing the resolution otherwise.

8GB gaming systems are not quite the norm, not that they are hard to obtain in this age. You can see that here: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

[nankura]

Regarding performance issues.
I have a AMD Phenom II x4 955, AMD HD5770, 8GB ram, Windows7 x64 UE.
I never use background apps when playing, max is a single IE page, single tab (Da X-Forums!!).

And I realised that a very hard thing on performance is... FOG. I dont have FPS on, but when I removed fog things are running awesome. Maybe you guys should consider that option.

Cheers

well not to turn this into a graphics discussion and go off topic about the actual mod. ive also got a similiar setup, same processor, same amount of ram here, accept im using an nvidia GTX 460 which is on pair with the 5770. prob abit better, and i get the exact same issues with fog, and during extremely large battles i can drop to about 20 fps in X3TC

though in vanilla AP. with the new view distance setting and fog removal, ive had little issues. AP even though it uses the same game files generally as tc. seems to run better for me

Now if i could just get RRF working x.x

[Mizuchi]

If you have an ATI card, also make sure that the ATI Control Panel isn't trying to run X3TC in Power Saver mode.

I got an Asus laptop last month with an ATI card inside (which is heresy, because I'm an nVidia man) and it took me two weeks to figure out why everything was running so badly.

If you're running at higher resolutions than 1024x768 (which is probably everyone), you can also turn Anti-Aliasing off completely without any real hit in graphical quality.

Because everything is so angular in X3TC, and because the pixel density is so high with higher resolutions, there isn't a great deal of difference between AA on and AA off.

If you MUST have it on, I'd say x2 is all you need.

Also, be sure to FORCE AA through your hardware's control panel rather than using the X3 launcher. The hardware can do a better job of things than X3TC in-built stuff can.

There will usually be a pause the first time an asset is loaded into RAM, too (likely depending on how new your RAM is, rather than how much you have).

I thought this was a bug back when we were developing XRM because the first explosion of a new game would also come with a pause for a second or two.

nVidia cards should have "Maximum Number of Pre-Rendered Frames" for X3TC set to "0" as well, otherwise you run afoul of the "Enter A New System, Everything Slide-Shows, HUD Vanishes" bug.

[LordGaara]

If you're running at higher resolutions than 1024x768 (which is probably everyone), you can also turn Anti-Aliasing off completely without any real hit in graphical quality.

Because everything is so angular in X3TC, and because the pixel density is so high with higher resolutions, there isn't a great deal of difference between AA on and AA off.

If you MUST have it on, I'd say x2 is all you need.

I forgot to clarify. I am using 1920x1080 resolution and have ALL graphic setting at MAX. AA is x4 I think. Viewing distance is maxed. Still have to check the FPS nubmers tho, and I dont know how to switch that on yet.

[Mizuchi]

I forgot to clarify. I am using 1920x1080 resolution and have ALL graphic setting at MAX. AA is x4 I think. Viewing distance is maxed. Still have to check the FPS nubmers tho, and I dont know how to switch that on yet.

FRAPS (www.fraps.com) is the easiest way to go about it. You lose 1 or 2 FPS while running it by sheer virtue of having something running in the background, but it's great for practical testing if you're not interested in waving your... um... M7 around about FPS counts.

AA is going to hit your FPS to some degree no matter what you do - as will higher resolutions. It depends on your system.

(Incidentally, one thing I will never do is suggest that someone buys a better system, or new hardware. If that was an option, you wouldn't be trying to make the best of what you have available.)

[nankura]

Hm maybe im missing something with RRF, even after the installation of XRM. ( all worked fine ) and following the RRF instructions. i still cant tell if its working or not because

in X3TC you had a menu, you could check wars in sectors, and thats really what im after. a way to be notified of wars, who hates who, like IR 2.0 had, and how it effects my status

[Teleth]

Hm maybe im missing something with RRF, even after the installation of XRM. ( all worked fine ) and following the RRF instructions. i still cant tell if its working or not because

in X3TC you had a menu, you could check wars in sectors, and thats really what im after. a way to be notified of wars, who hates who, like IR 2.0 had, and how it effects my status

Hmm? can't you bring up the bounty system and check invasion sector status?

[nankura]

nope

[Gishank]

Nankura, you refering to the military intelligence network? YOu need to bind that to a key under Interface.


As for XRM, I may be misunderstanding something but I have two issues.


1) Why does it seem that literally no station other than the occassional one is enterable (In the AP version) regardless of the craft I'm in? I used Crycrow's cheat script to set my noterity to high with the terran to test if it was related to that but to no avail.

2) With regards to the 'war', why does the Terran fleet never seem to progress further than Circle of Hope even when the sector has literally been cleared of all Argon stations and fleets?

My clanmate also experienced the same issue (1). Which takes alot of fun out of the game, because if you can't dock then you can't get the "in-space" trading extension and in turn can't buy stations, ships, etc.

[nankura]

ah binding a key worked.

But its still not what im talking about. ok basically, in X3TC both RFF and Improved races 2.0, have options like. showing the war, invading sectors. etc

And like, if your friends with lets argon, and they attack the paranids often, that effects your friendship with them. you really choose your side and they choose you

and you had menu options to see that effect

and the ships had renames like "response fleet" Tyr. etc, i dont see any of that so im not sure its working