Low FPS in Thief: DS

[Mewgen1]

Ever since this game came out I have been having trouble with it. At the time I attributed the low FPS to an aging video card. After getting a GeForce 6800 GT I donÂ’t think I should have any trouble with this game, or any other for that matter. However, the last time I used fraps to count the frame rate I got 7 FPS on the main menus and around 3 in the game itself. A while ago it was suggested that my old DDR266 ram was bottlenecking my cards performance, so I upgraded to the fastest that my motherboard can support: DDR400. Still it causes the same problems. Other things I have tried doing include:

Defragmenting my drive
Disabling extra services with he instructions at www.Blackviper.com
Using Spybot-Search and Destroy to remove adware and spyware
Using Norton to remove any viruses then disabling it
Over clocking my CPU and Video card
Formatting my hard drive and reinstalling windows
Buying a new hard drive

None of these things have had the slightest difference in the games performance. Does anyone have any idea what might be the problem?

 

[jono199]

Your system is similar to mine, except I use an AMD64 3500 and have the my 6800 GT's in SLI mode.

But before I upgraded the system I used a P4 2.8 and had no problems at all.

How do other games run and have you cheaked for game patches or issues with your current graphics drivers or settings?

 

[Mewgen1]

Atm the game is patched to the latest version, and as far as I have been able to discern the drivers don’t have a conflict. Just to be safe I got the newer 78.01 drivers. There wasn’t any change.

Older games run just fine. I’ve been using the Freespace2 Source Code Project executables and the extra graphics .vps without any trouble, save that I have Vsync turned on because I can’t stand the tearing with it off. With the Vsync FS2 runs at a constant 60 FPS, without Vsync it runs at between 70 and 120 FPS.

The newest game I have tried to run, Doom 3, runs at 30.4 FPS according to the time demo. That’s with the usecache command enabled.

 

[killians45]

try forcing the hardware redetection in Thief 3 (by the way, AWESOME game... if you haven't played it through yet play the level 'The Cradle' at night, in the dark. Eerie as hell.... Anyhow, Thief 3 is known to have issues with overclocking. May want to set those back to normal and see if that helps. Check your graphics card's Antialiasing and Anisotropic Filtering settings (not the IN game settings). Disable them as this slows it down ALOT. Set both AA and AF to 0x or "Application Controlled" in the cards driver control panel. Maybe disabling the Bloom effect???

Big thing is to run a dxdiag and make sure AGP accel is enabled, and everything looks right there.

 

[Mewgen1]

I used powerstrip to remove the overclock settings on the video card setting back to the default for the regular cards(350/800 IIRC). Also the AA and AF were disabled. Image quality is set to performance if that makes any difference. None of it seems ot have done any good. What do you mean by ofrcing thief to redetect my hardware?

 

[killians45]

I'm trying to remember, but I believe its like unreal where the hardware is detected during the initial start??? 'Course, you've done a clean install so forget that. A few other things to try, and this may sound funny. If you have the most recent mouse drive, use a generic driver and disable 'pointer' if its in the running config. Also, run the dxdiag. As far as AA and AF being disabled, if it is enabled via you DRIVERS, it will be enabled even if the game is disabled. You MUST set the vid card software to be 'controled by software', otherwise it will always be on. Do a screen shot of the dxdiag and lets see what it says (what the AGP setting is at and if accel is enabled) also install the latest mbd chipset drivers. The drivers also contain important minagp software. When you resinatlled windows, was it a clean install or just a repair? If clean install, did you install ANYTHING else before Thief (like anti virus, spyware, etc)??? Always install the problemed program first to make sure it isn't some other software aside from the o/s or driver causing problems. Well, back to work!

 

[Mewgen1]

My mouse is one of the USB Microsoft Intellimouse opticals. I havent installed any drivers for it recently, so I assume its just using a generic driver. I dont see any pointer running. I have disabled the AA and AF in the drivers, both are set to application controlled. I must admit that I forgot to installt he mobo drivers, Ill go get them and do that right away.

Edit: I got the Hyperion Pro drivers for my motherboard. They dont seem to have had any effect.

When I reinstalled windows I removed the partitions and reformatted. And I did actually install my anticirus before running thief. I have an internet connection thats always on so I feel the need to do so. Ill see if I cant track down an extra harddisk and install another clean install there to test if its the problem.

A couple questions. First, is it possible that there is some part of the motherboard that is bottlenecking the communications between the video card and cpu/ram? Second, is there a reason that there are 7 instances of svchost.exe running in processes?

Oh, and thanks to everyone who has and will offer some assistance here. Im getting a bit discouraged with this game.

Anyways, heres the display portion of my DxDiag file:

---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce 6800 GT
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0045&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_A1
Display Memory: 256.0 MB
Current Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: LG FLATRON L1720P(Digital)
Monitor Max Res: 1280,1024
Driver Name: nv4_disp.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.7801 (English)
DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 8/2/2005 16:35:00, 3908864 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
WHQL Date Stamp: n/a
VDD: n/a
Mini VDD: nv4_mini.sys
Mini VDD Date: 8/2/2005 16:35:00, 3198560 bytes
Device Identifier: {D7B71E3E-4305-11CF-C97D-0A2000C2CB35}
Vendor ID: 0x10DE
Device ID: 0x0045
SubSys ID: 0x00000000
Revision ID: 0x00A1
Revision ID: 0x00A1
Video Accel: ModeMPEG2_A ModeMPEG2_B ModeMPEG2_C ModeMPEG2_D
Deinterlace Caps: {212DC724-3235-44A4-BD29-E1652BBCC71C}: Format(In/Out)=(YUY2,YUY2) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,1) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive
{335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(YUY2,YUY2) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_BOBVerticalStretch
{212DC724-3235-44A4-BD29-E1652BBCC71C}: Format(In/Out)=(UYVY,UYVY) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,1) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive
{335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(UYVY,UYVY) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_BOBVerticalStretch
{212DC724-3235-44A4-BD29-E1652BBCC71C}: Format(In/Out)=(YV12,0x32315659) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,1) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive
{335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(YV12,0x32315659) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_BOBVerticalStretch
{212DC724-3235-44A4-BD29-E1652BBCC71C}: Format(In/Out)=(NV12,0x3231564e) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,1) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive
{335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(NV12,0x3231564e) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_BOBVerticalStretch
Registry: OK
DDraw Status: Enabled
D3D Status: Enabled
AGP Status: Enabled
DDraw Test Result: All tests were successful.
D3D7 Test Result: All tests were successful.
D3D8 Test Result: All tests were successful.
D3D9 Test Result: All tests were successful.

 

[killians45]

well, multiple svchost is fine. This is truelly strange. With your config there shouldn't be any bottlenecking. If you use another hard drive make sure of the following. Do NOT install any other software but barebones (drivers os and game), no anti virus and NO patches (windows SP patches) and test it. Not to say to not have an antivirus, but this will at least tell us if that is the problem. Also, this may help a little in the mean time. go into task manager and under the process tab highlight the thief executable running file and in the priority set it to highest (do NOT set it to real time). It'll give a stability warning, ignore it. See if it runs better.

 

[Mewgen1]

ok, I have used a second harddrive to install the following:
Windows XP w/sp1(its integrated)
Nvidia drivers 78.01
SB audigy 2 drivers
Fraps
Thief: DS

The game now runs at between 15 and 30 FPS ingame and 60 FPS on the menus. That is with all the graphics options turned to their best though. Is this a fairly normal framerate?

 

[uber]

This should be obvious to anyone whos ever built a gaming rig.
256 ram is absolutely NOT ACCEPTABLE for any games that are very graphics intensive, like Half life 2 or F.E.A.R.. ThiefS is a very graphics intensive game, I would reccomend getting at least a total of one gig of ram. If you can't afford that much at one time, get at least 512. It will run slow even under 512, but it will help.