This thread is intended to be a progression of posts, to avoid any innaccurate data. What I intend to do is to play PS2 as-is: Which has been installed since launch, on my computer's Windows 7 OS, which has been installed for about 2 years; And I will benchmark portions of it to show my performance. Then, later tonight or possibly tomorrow, I intend to perform a clean install of my Windows OS, thus reinstalling all of my games as well. And once again I'll attempt to benchmark my performance in game. I may or may not choose to use gameplay videos as an 'easier' medium to read along with benchmarks. I intend to use FRAPS' benchmark feature to show performance, and will do my best to find similar situations (I intend to use warpgate as a neutral testing zone.) The purpose of all this is to see what ACTUAL performance gains can be had in this game by performing a clean install of Windows 7 and of the game itself. To see what (if any) effect on performance a generally bloated system may suffer. I apologize in advance as this is not going to be done in a matter of minutes, and probably not a few hours either. You may choose to watch this thread so you can be notified of new responses by me as they are posted. For anyone who's considering reinstalling Windows to get a little performance boost, well this is the thread for you.
*Notes and answers to expected concerns regarding accuracy* 1- My computer IS overclocked, every component that can be. I will maintain exact same clocks between both sets of tests. 2- I will install the same graphics drivers that I have now. Nvidia 310.60 beta driver is what I currently have installed, and what I will install once my OS has been clean installed. 3- My computer's hardware specifications are as follows: AMD Phenom II X3 B55 @4,155MHz (reduced from 4.6GHz recently due to noise of fans.) 8GB RAM: 4GB CORSAIR XMS3 DDR3 1600, 4GB CORSAIR VENGEANCE DDR3 1600, both at 7-8-7 timings. Nvidia GTX 560 Ti 1GB w/ Twin Frozr II: 1,000-2,400-1,200MHz (Core- Shader-Memory.) ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO USB3 Motherboard COUGAR CMX750 PSU ASUS Xonar DG Sound Card w/ Creative Fatal1ty Gaming Headset NZXT Phantom Full Tower Chassis, custom modifications and aftermarket cooling. 4- My graphics driver settings relevant to testing are as follows: Pre-Rendered Frames limited to 1. Dual Monitor, Playing game at 1920x1080, with secondary non-gaming monitor at 1440x900. Both @60Hz. Nvidia Control Panel set to allow PS2 to decide all settings beyond Pre-Rendered Frames. 5- My UserOptions.ini is as follows: [Rendering] GraphicsQuality=5 TextureQuality=0 ShadowQuality=5 RenderDistance=9999 Gamma=0.000000 MaximumFPS=60 UseLod0a=1 OverallQuality=-1 LightingQuality=5 EffectsQuality=5 TerrainQuality=5 FloraQuality=5 ModelQuality=5 VerticalFOV=74 ParticleLOD=5 ParticleDistanceScale=0.650000 FogShadowsEnable=1 MotionBlur=0 VSync=0 AO=1 GpuPhysics=0 6- Benchmark duration will be 5 minutes, to give time for sudden spikes of FPS, which often happen during large encounters or while rendering certain effects over others. This is to allow the test to be as accurate to actual gameplay as possible. 7- I will actually be playing the game as usual during all benchmarks with the exception of a 60 second benchmark idle at warpgate during initial spawn.
No, Ultra. It's higher than the drop-down bars support. Thread's been around about "Ultra Graphics Mod" since beta, should still be up.
TEST SET 1A- Pre-Clean Install Time: 300,000 (5 Minutes) Frames: 10,336 Min: 7 Max: 63 Avg: 34.453 TEST SET 1B- Pre-Clean Install (ShadowQuality=1) (This would be 'low' on the drop-down down bar, all else remained the same.) Time: 300,000 (5 Minutes) Frames: 18,105 Min: 7 MAx: 63 Avg: 60.35 This is all for the pre-Clean Install test set values. I am including a recorded video via FRAPS momentarily, once processed and uploaded.
Video For Test Set 1A (Ultra, ShadowQuality=5) (All Ultra, basically.) Video for Test Set 1B (Ultra, ShadowQuality=1). To display graphical settings.
I am now going to reinstall Windows 7. I haven't slept all night. It's my birthday, yesterday was Christmas.. So I'm going to bed. Will post the rest of the data and videos, and consolidate all of it into one simplified comparison in the morning. Check out the current videos if you'd like and the benchmark stats, perhaps you're getting about the same as me. In which case you can expect the same changes I will be seeing tomorrow.
Windows has been reinstalled. Both my OS drive and my secondary have been reformatted.My tertiary drive has NOT been reformatted, as it's a dedicated media drive used only for streaming movies and music to the TV, and therefor has no affect on these tests. Currently working on installing drivers and updating Windows. Will be a few more hours until I can play the game and finish this thread up.
I have Windows 8...and games on windows 8 feel a lot faster than on 7. Try upgrading to windows 8. It's only, what, $30 now?
No thanks, I'm perfectly happy with my current performance. As you saw in the one post, I'm averaging a fraction above 60FPS, which is my monitor's maximum. I just wanted to do a clean install since I have new hardware on the way, ad figured I'd make a forums post for anyone who isn't happy with their performance atm to see what the difference can be. As well, brief video about the thread itself:
Post-Clean Install: Benchmark Set 1A (All Ultra) Time: 300,000 (5 minutes) Frames: 11,199 Min: 7 Max: 58 Average: 37.33 Benchmark Set 1B (Ultra, ShadowQuality=1) Time: 300,000 Frames: 13,073 Min: 7 Max: 63 Average: 43.577 So there was actually a decline in my framerate with shadows removed. Now this could be because of two things: I was unable to find the 310.60 Beta driver on Nvidia's website, it has been replaced with the 310.61 WHQL driver. Didn't think it would make much difference, but could be the cause. Also, I experienced the flashing glitch (teleporting to the sky) during the second benchmark (which was also recorded a moment later on video medium. So as far as I can tell so far.. Clean installs of Windows don't seem to receive much of a boost. If you're like me, and you tend to keep everything optimized, it's probably not worth your time to do a fresh install. Will post videos shortly, just to finish up this thread. But they haven't actually been rendered into uploadable sizes yet. One note: Over the course of several months I had made a million tiny tweaks to my OS and many other files on my computer in order to optimize it's performance. I am now trying to attempt to do this all over again, what I can remember off the top of my head anyways. I will attempt a benchmark again when I have some optimizations. If the results are greatly changed, I will update the previous post with the new information. If they are roughly the same, I probably won't bother.
Reserved for post-tweak posts. Found a few differences in my graphic driver's settings that probably affected my gameplay greatly.
Well I've found a few differences in my previous and current installs, working to fix them now. So expect this to keep going for a little while longer. As I said, it's a progression, and I'll keep posting as I get new info and tests. Eventually, I'll just post it all in one shorter post: Potentially even a new thread entirely to make sure more people can see the final results. And you're welcome, I needed a clean install for my new CPU+Hard drive coming in. Figured I'd make some use of the change for others.
I was actually planning on doing this over the weekend. Tried overclocking my processor (Phenom 2 x4) and all of a sudden things seem to be running a bit slower in windows, but the performance boost I got in planetside 2 was pretty astonishing. Not going to derail your thread or steal it, and im glad someone is doing this. Ill make a similar thread with what ive done. Actually already have it started on my forums.
Yeah mine did that at first, too. Problem was my RAM wasn't properly overclocked. I bumped the power up a teensy bit and it's working fine now. Had the same overclock for God knows how long and it works wonders. Just a slow as **** hard drive, hence buying myself a new one for Xmas.. Slowest component in my PC. CPU is a gift from my wife, I don't know what kind of boost I should expect as this current one has been overclocked more than you'd usually get out of it. I might even just have her return it if it's a small boost, save the money.
Rendering videos now. Sorry, it took me FOREVER to get everything tweaked and get a program installed to render videos. Once they're both done rendering I will upload them, and then restart my computer to make sure everything's working fine. Then I'll see about re-doing those benchmarks. THEN I'm going to have some fun, because I'm missing out on a lot of double XP doing this
