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

[TrixX]

He saw the 12MB free and didn't notice the 1750MB available above it. Win 7 memory management works differently to XP so the 'FREE' section isn't technically accurate any more, anything in the available section is free as far as primary application needs are concerned.

As far as I can see your Windows is only running 48 processes, though I don't know if you have show all processes ticked. That's pretty exceptional for Windows 7 I must say as on avg I'm around 100 processes and most normal users are around 70-80 without any issues of malware or viruses.

[paulwheeler]

I wasnt aware you were running 64bit os. As i said, im looking on my phone (and cooking dinner for five at the same time) so it was difficult to view the vids properly.

I have no idea why you are having problems - but it is not the xrm.

If there was a problem with the mod - everyone would be seeing the same thing.

They dont.

I dont.

Look at the spec i mentioned above - i had perfectly respectable performance on that system which was far from cutting edge. On my current i7 system XRM doesnt break a sweat.

As you suspect, your GPU should not be saying no activity. There is clearly a problem somewhere - XRM cannot influence this.

There are many, many, many users who are perfectly happy with the XRM.

As I said, all i can do to improve performance is start cutting things out - i will not lobotomise the xrm to help the minority with these issues.

[Gungy]

I strippedall non essential stuff back to try get this to work and its had 0 effect. It's nuts but the only difference between vanilla and this is the fps, and gpu activity. Both use same amount of ram, CPU just some how XRM refuses to use my gpu.

[TrixX]

I strippedall non essential stuff back to try get this to work and its had 0 effect. It's nuts but the only difference between vanilla and this is the fps, and gpu activity. Both use same amount of ram, CPU just some how XRM refuses to use my gpu.

CCC sometimes doesn't report information correctly in a DirectX environment. Download GPU-Z and use the Sensors tab to get a more accurate read of GPU activity for both the GPU's core and memory usage.

Also are you running FRAPS? An FPS count would be very useful in helping to diagnose any issues if it is GPU related.

[Mizuchi]

An FPS count would be very useful in helping to diagnose any issues if it is GPU related.

As would moving this discussion to the Technical Support forum, now that we have established that XRM cannot be the cause of hardware misbehaviours, and before the next three pages become a back-and-forth of FPS counts and DirectX Diagnostics and Driver Update Links and Catalyst Tweaks and Registry Edits and Lions and Tigers and Bears.

[swatti]

Thats not a bug.

It is deliberate. The "last known location" is not always acurate, especially in hostile sectors. Check in the surrounding sectors. I don't want to make it easy - it is supposed to be bounty "hunting".

Soooo... Its supposed to say its allways in the sector i just jumped FROM?

I'd say THAT part is a bug. It basicly made me jump between TWO sectors, never actually containing the ship. I jumped about fifteen times, re-checking "last seen in" and it allways was the sector i was just in.

I had adv.sats in EVERY nearby sectors and M1 has very few docks to hide in.

BUG: station def M2s

At higher rank station def missions can spawn Yaki Akumas, so far they have ALL spawned armed with HEPTs...
Its quite pointless for such ship to be even able to mount HEPT, Frag-Bs or PACs.


QUESTION:

Can sertain ship, ship-class(M1&M2) or ship-extension modify the range and/or damage of a weapon mounted in the ship?

Many capital-ships can mount fighter-weapons. Most usefull only in missile-defence or at OOS-combat.

If it were possible to boost power and range of those said weapons in certain class OR by purchacable "booster" (xxl in size ofc) it would make for some "interesting" loadouts.

[TrixX]

An FPS count would be very useful in helping to diagnose any issues if it is GPU related.

As would moving this discussion to the Technical Support forum, now that we have established that XRM cannot be the cause of hardware misbehaviours, and before the next three pages become a back-and-forth of FPS counts and DirectX Diagnostics and Driver Update Links and Catalyst Tweaks and Registry Edits and Lions and Tigers and Bears.

Well it hasn't been determined to be a hardware issue. The discussion had already moved to PM's regarding hardware anyway, so no real need to point that out is there.

XRM however hasn't been found as liable or not liable for the FPS issues so it's still relevant after further testing.

[Argonaught.]

@ Paulwheeler or any of the XRM team in the know.

I've updated my Menagerie Shipyard and wonder could one of you take a look to see if it'll be compatable with XRM.

The shipyard I used is Argon Large Shipyard, same one as in my sig link.
The ships and upgrades the station sells can be viewed here [MD]X3AP Menagerie Shipyard v1.0 (16 Apr 2012)

Race is Generic friendly so I imagine it's fine on the race side.

All info greatly recieved.

Argo.

[dougeye]

apart from the khaak vessels you can buy all those ships in XRM already

[paulwheeler]

@ Paulwheeler or any of the XRM team in the know.

I've updated my Menagerie Shipyard and wonder could one of you take a look to see if it'll be compatable with XRM.

The shipyard I used is Argon Large Shipyard, same one as in my sig link.
The ships and upgrades the station sells can be viewed here [MD]X3AP Menagerie Shipyard v1.0 (16 Apr 2012)

Race is Generic friendly so I imagine it's fine on the race side.

All info greatly recieved.

Argo.

I think it will be fine. I certainly don't see any reason why there would be any problems.

[Argonaught.]

Much thanks for the quick reply, I'll add a note to mine that it's okie dokie then.

I was asked if it would work together with XRM, but since I'm playing Vanilla, until i do the plots at least, I couldn't check myself.

Muchos gracias

Argo.

[greypanther]

I will add a question regarding Argo's shipyard mod if I may.
He is using vannila ware sizes, I realize you have made the jumpdrive larger in XRM, Argo's shipyard uses the vannila ware size, will this be a problem?

@ dougeye: the vannila Khaak vessels are what I want. If I cannot have a Khaak start at the moment; I will find a way to get what I want! Argo's shipyard is the smallest; easiest infrastructure available to gain what I want.
There is also the role playing aspect, which I like.

[yarrick5]

HEy all, was on deployment for the past few months, got a new computer (!) and a copy of albio prelude, but its a steam version.

How do I install XRM on the steam version? Or is it impossible? Im sure this has been covered, but I seem to have missed about 400 pages of content, and I dont think IM gonna be able to go through all of it.

Help would be awesome, Thx

[InFlamesForEver]

HEy all, was on deployment for the past few months, got a new computer (!) and a copy of albio prelude, but its a steam version.

How do I install XRM on the steam version? Or is it impossible? Im sure this has been covered, but I seem to have missed about 400 pages of content, and I dont think IM gonna be able to go through all of it.

Help would be awesome, Thx

Just install it as you would on X3:TC just in the addon folder in the X3:TC folder in your steam folder. If that makes sense, so find where your AP is, and install it in there as you would normally, just make sure you back it up so you don't have to re-download it again in case you muck it up.

[dougeye]

typical location is c:\programfiles\steam\steamapps\common\x3terranconflict

Albion prelude is installed within the x3terranconflict directory in a folder called addon. simply follow the XRM installation instructions making sure you put the xrm files in the addon folder versions. If an update comes through for AP though steam may overwrite some of the scripts XRM changes so keep an eye on that as it may require re-copying the files across.

[greypanther]

Or just download the no steam exe. and take the game anywhere!

[InFlamesForEver]

Or just download the no steam exe. and take the game anywhere!

Well, that's the first I've heard of that...

[yarrick5]

Thx for the quick answers all, problem solved. Was looking for the files in the wrong place.

[paulwheeler]

REGARDING THE XRM AND PERFORMANCE
-------------------------------------------------------

After all the discussions recently regarding this subject, I thought I would put my thoughts down so we can finally put it to bed.


FACTS:

- The XRM has many, many tweaks to enhance performance. I could list them but this post would get rather long.

- The XRM does much, much, much more than vanilla.

- The XRM has some "eye-candy" which will negatively affect performance.



I have endeavoured to create a mod that strikes a balance between performance, playability and "eye-candy".

With the original TC release of the XRM, I think the performance between vanilla and XRM was pretty close and most people actually reported a fps improvement.

With the release of AP, the playing field has changed as AP has improved performance across the board so the performance saving features I introduced make less of an impact, hence the extra features of the XRM make more of an impact.

It is clear from the moment you fire the mod up that fancy effects are an important part of the XRM - I spent a lot of time on ship lensflares for example.

I could get rid of all the effects, new ships etc. and have blinding fps - but then thats just dull isn't it?



NEW SHIPS:

As you know the XRM adds lots of new ships from various modellers on this forum. Some of the best looking have come from Expnobody. However, his modelling style does not create the most fps-friendly ships. In fact, some of them have quite a large performance hit (I have not included the worst offenders). For example, his Bragi model has more than double the memory footprint than the Tyr. There is nothing whatsoever I can do about that except remove the ships from the XRM. I believe more people would complain about me removing the ships than there are people complaining about performance...



TRAILS:

By far the biggest effects performance hit comes from engine trails. Why did I add them? Because I deemed the hit to not be that huge and they look COOL!

Vanilla X3 has trails anyway on all fighters. The XRM has a larger number of trails as they are added to M6s, TSs etc. However, I have clawed back performance in other areas (in trails too: vanilla missile trails frequently cause fps hits due to speed related trail corruption - this is fixed in the XRM) so why not add more of an effect which I personally like?




MODULAR DEV HELL!

The XRM is an evolution from the SRM. With the SRM I tried to make it modular - I had packs to add trails, packs to add cockpits, packs for TWareT changes etc. etc. It was a logistical nightmare and just made releasing patches a major hassle.

I deliberately did not want to go down this path with the XRM. I wanted to make it as all-in-one as possible.

All I can do is make this mod as I see it should be made. I don't want to get into the hassle of having extra packs to remove things like trails - every time I release a patch I will have to run off another set of "performace" tships - not just for the base mod, but for every hull pack too!

For TC and AP that is 16 different TShips!!!!

I could remove trails simply by getting rid of the Particles3 entries as well - that would only be four versions of Particles3 - but again its a hassle if I want to make changes.

Its just way too much hassle, will cause support issues with people forgetting to update the performance patch and will put me back in the situation I had with the SRM.

Many mod developers have opted to have only support for either TC or AP. I am supporting both games which instantly doubles the number of types files I have to deal with.




ACTUAL PERFORMANCE

The number of people with performance issues is relatively small. If everyone was complaining I would do something, but they are not. Most people are running a system that should handle the XRM perfectly happily - if not, something is not right with their system.

My original test system:

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz
Asus P5B motherboard
4GB RAM (3GB usable)
NVidia GTX560ti graphics cars
Vista 32bit

The performance on my old system was fairly adequate - ~30-40 fps most of the time, only dropping to maybe 15-20 in the largest of battles (the main war and that was mainly when new cap ships jumped in). Of course running on SETA made performace drop - but since all you can do on SETA is fly in a straight line - whats the problem?

On my new core i7 system, with 8GB RAM and Win7 64bit and the same GPU it is outstanding and I never experience jerkyness at all - even on 6x SETA.

You are free to mod the XRM as you wish on your system. Getting rid of trails is a very simple tweak to TShips. But I will not release any kind of addon pack that removes effects as then I will be responsible for managing updates and the inevitable support issues that will crop up. I certainly won't be removing features from the main mod.


Removing new ships, trails or other effects will improve your fps no doubt - but in my eyes it is compromising the vision I have for the mod.


The fps gain from removing such things is also very subjective and will totally depend on your hardware, graphics settings etc. Someone may get a large increase, others may not.





WHAT CAN I DO TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE?

Now there is a lot more you can do to help performance before you start hacking away at the mod. Optimising Windows itself is well worth doing and you'll be suprised at the difference it makes.

Here is a thread written by a friend of mine from back when i was developing for Microsoft Flight Sim which deals with optimising win7 64bit for playing the sim. FSX is similarly cpu and ram bound, running an old dx9 engine, so its very valid for x3 as well.

Its an interesting read and might help you squeeze a frame or two out.

http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_p ... 187#198187





FINAL THOUGHTS

I have had a lot of "advice" from various forum members on what I should or shouldn't do to "sort out" the XRM performance. However, every single solution has involved removing a feature of the mod.

If someone comes up with a performance saving idea which will not compromise the vision of the mod, then please PM me and I will try it out.

To those who are experiencing performance issues - I encourage them to look at their system to see if there are any issues there. If after that you are still not satisfied, then maybe the XRM is not for you.

I do not get paid to develop the XRM. I am a one man team now that Mizuchi is no longer actively developing for the XRM. I am not duty bound to support anyone's techinical issues whatsoever.

Having said that, those who have been using the XRM for a while know that I am commited to supporting this mod. I try and sort out bugs as quickly as possible. I also do everything I can to make this mod fun to play - I play it myself!




Ultimately I can't please everyone, so all I can do is please myself (no giggling in the back...).

[greypanther]

@ InFlamesForEver: since 8th of march:
http://www.egosoft.com/download/x3ap/bonus_en.php
and:
http://www.egosoft.com/support/faq/faq_ ... nswer=2150


Have I said before that Egosoft are a great company?