Game Performance&Hardware

[Struggle_Cat]

So i created this topic because of 2 reasons, first one is to get to know the exact way of how to possibly improve the game perfrormance, from what i understand you need to set com_affinity to 0, then go to task manager and set affinity of mbii.x86.exe to use all cores? And second question is how do you run this game and with wich settings? When i'm putting everything on max excepet enhanced effects my fps drops (usually when im using jedi/sith sense force, which is a good benchmark btw) to mid 30's and its annoying, so i'm playing on everything off with medius settings for textures and quality. My hardware is FX 6350, GTX 650, 8 gigs of ram.
I want to apologize to all the grammar nazi here, since English is not my native, thank you.

 

[SeV]

It's a matter of your CPU performance, not really the graphics card. I found that I get better performance with com_affinity 1, but then that may just be me. Perhaps you can unpark your cores and pop affinity to test if that helps you? The only other option would be to make your CPU more powerful Ghz wise not core-number wise, so either a tweak or buy a new and powerful CPU.

Afaik there aren't many tweaks to be performed since it's a shitty old engine. I know that things like dynamic glow and dynamic lighting can suck FPS out. Also, the more ppl there are the lower the FPS. Also viewdistance wise. FPS also depends on the map. Jedi Academy and MBII in particular are strange about this. I can run games like the Witcher 3 no problem, then sometimes MBII will have a lower FPS than I get in a modern game like Witcher 3, simply because there are many ppl in one place fighting (like dotf hangar on a duel server with 16 ppl, fps can get atrocious).

Here are some things to try
FPS/ping guide

 

[Struggle_Cat]

It's a matter of your CPU performance, not really the graphics card. I found that I get better performance with com_affinity 1, but then that may just be me. Perhaps you can unpark your cores and pop affinity to test if that helps you? The only other option would be to make your CPU more powerful Ghz wise not core-number wise, so either a tweak or buy a new and powerful CPU.

Afaik there aren't many tweaks to be performed since it's a shitty old engine. I know that things like dynamic glow and dynamic lighting can suck FPS out. Also, the more ppl there are the lower the FPS. Also viewdistance wise. FPS also depends on the map. Jedi Academy and MBII in particular are strange about this. I can run games like the Witcher 3 no problem, then sometimes MBII will have a lower FPS than I get in a modern game like Witcher 3, simply because there are many ppl in one place fighting (like dotf hangar on a duel server with 16 ppl, fps can get atrocious).

Here are some things to try
FPS/ping guide

Since OC on my current motherboard is not the best idea, i may concider to buy a new pc or at least CPU+MB combo.
Right now testing the affinity set, nah its pretty much the same drops to 30+ fps with more 1,3,5 cores usage, i guess ill stick to med settings with everything off for now.
But when i turned the max setting, man, it looks amazing for the game this old =)
Hopefully one day ill get a decent CPU and will enjoy graphics aswell as gameplay.

 

[Struggle_Cat]

Guys tell me what's your pc specs and how the game runs in most demanding scenarios?

 

[Supa]

Intel i7-3770k
NVIDIA GTX 970
32GB RAM
480GB PCI-e SSD

I get FPS drops. Not sure why, don't really care either, hasn't impacted my play enough.

 

[Struggle_Cat]

Intel i7-3770k
NVIDIA GTX 970
32GB RAM
480GB PCI-e SSD

I get FPS drops. Not sure why, don't really care either, hasn't impacted my play enough.

Thanks for reply though.
Hm, i asked ppl on server, one guy responded also with i7 and 970-980 card, seems like good piece of budget just for games, especially because i dont do any kind of work but play games on pc =/

 

[Supa]

970 is currently the highest I would go for a new video card, unless you plan on keeping it for a while. NVIDIA will be releasing their newest architecture sometime in Q1 or Q2 of 2016, so I had planned on waiting and picking up whatever scores the highest on benchmarks whenever they come out.

If you're looking for a card just for MB2, I wouldn't bother with anything that powerful, though. It's an old title, and a lot of performance flaws can be attributed to the engine, not your hardware.

 

[ent]

The game is single threaded and most stuff is done by CPU. So the best you can achieve is to force to use one core per game process - com_affinity 1.
Getting CPU with higher frequency is also an option.

 

[Struggle_Cat]

The game is single threaded and most stuff is done by CPU. So the best you can achieve is to force to use one core per game process - com_affinity 1.
Getting CPU with higher frequency is also an option.

I get it, powerful singe-core performance CPU and high frequency do the job, btw im just curious MBII work better with hyper threading on or off? =)

 

[Subaru]

That CPU should be fine.

 

[Supa]

Don't overthink the CPU when it comes to older games. JKA came out during Pentium 4's reign, and those only clocked at 2.4GHz, so as long as you have a modern CPU, it should be enough to handle a game like JKA.

 

[Lervish]

In addition to enhanced effects, another heavy setting is Dynamic Glow which you can find under Options -> More Video. While I really like how the game looks with the cheap wannabe bloom that is Dynamic Glow, it sometimes brings the FPS down. Especially if you get drops with sense on DG might have something to do with it due to the glow it adds to all sensed players.

Even though JA is an old game that ran well on Pentium 4s like Supa said, it was partly because it was optimized to the max by Raven Software. All the basejka models have LODs and the usage of textures is smart. MB2 uses a hundred custom-made player models and majority of modders haven't really done the optimizing part too well. Lots of our models tend to have way more polygons than the ones by Raven Software and these polygons are all drawn no matter the distance. Combined with the old-ass CPU heavy rendering, this brings many computers to their knees when the hangar and gen doors on DOTF are opened for example.

Personally I'm so used to the sudden drops to 40 FPS that I don't really mind it anymore (as long as it doesn't go even lower), but optimizing all player models might increase FPS greatly. That's my theory, at least. Problem is it's VERY time-consuming to do by hand. Anyone familiar with MAXScript here?

 

[Struggle_Cat]

In addition to enhanced effects, another heavy setting is Dynamic Glow which you can find under Options -> More Video. While I really like how the game looks with the cheap wannabe bloom that is Dynamic Glow, it sometimes brings the FPS down. Especially if you get drops with sense on DG might have something to do with it due to the glow it adds to all sensed players.

Even though JA is an old game that ran well on Pentium 4s like Supa said, it was partly because it was optimized to the max by Raven Software. All the basejka models have LODs and the usage of textures is smart. MB2 uses a hundred custom-made player models and majority of modders haven't really done the optimizing part too well. Lots of our models tend to have way more polygons than the ones by Raven Software and these polygons are all drawn no matter the distance. Combined with the old-ass CPU heavy rendering, this brings many computers to their knees when the hangar and gen doors on DOTF are opened for example.

Personally I'm so used to the sudden drops to 40 FPS that I don't really mind it anymore (as long as it doesn't go even lower), but optimizing all player models might increase FPS greatly. That's my theory, at least. Problem is it's VERY time-consuming to do by hand. Anyone familiar with MAXScript here?

I've tested with each setting off and dynamic glow didnt take much, same 35~ fps drops, i think you're right about polygons since only when i lower my video quality & textures to medium i'm getting 100+ fps but i lock it on 90 since on server full of people it may drop to 70-80. Maybe problem is when you're using force sense player models also render isntead of just backlight them.
FX are great processors in optimized games, but when it comes to good old ass games its suffer, maybe good OC would help (to 4,7-4,8 Ghz), but good MB and cooling system would cost a lot more than CPU.
About MAXScript i can only guess from the title And its probably very difficult.

 

[ent]

If you see a lot of players in game then it's the issue. Models are rather detailed and maybe you also have volumetric shadow enabled.
Also lower effects amount with fx_vfps (1000 is max, try 100 or something). Many effects use physics so they bounce from objects and it also eats much fps.

 

[Struggle_Cat]

If you see a lot of players in game then it's the issue. Models are rather detailed and maybe you also have volumetric shadow enabled.
Also lower effects amount with fx_vfps (1000 is max, try 100 or something). Many effects use physics so they bounce from objects and it also eats much fps.

Thanks, i'll keep that in mind, so far i managed to get 40 fps as lowest with hight quality and some options off, with affinity 0. I hope it wont get any lower.

 

[ent]

Set affinity to 1. -_-

 

[Struggle_Cat]

Set affinity to 1. -_-

With affinity 1 i have lower fps drops if my browser is working.