My Performance

from Demigod Forums

Okay...so a lot of you don't know how your PC will handle Demigod.  Well my laptop is by no means designed for gaming in any way, so here are my specs and my performance.

 

Specs:

Dell Vostro 1400

Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit

Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.60 GHz (2 CPUs)

2 GB RAM (with a temporary 8 GB stick running on ReadyBoost)

DirectX 10

NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS with 128 MB dedicated video memory (ForceWare version 169.09)

Sigmatel HighDefinition Audio Speakers

 

So reading this, you will probably think that my video card and speakers suck ballz and why on earth am I using Vista Ultimate.  Well you'd be right about the hardware, and I got Ultimate for free and just haven't cared either way enough to downgrade.  I using the 169.09 drivers cause they seemed to give good performance, but I haven't tried any newer ones, so I can't say they are the best.  I don't overclock my card at all (I happen to like longevity), but I read that OCing is the best way to improve performance of a card.

 

In-game performance:

Note - Anything bad I may say about performance is due to my computer and not Demigod itself.  The game itself is wonderful.

The game installed, updated, and started just fine, but I did notice slightly long-ish load times.  Nevertheless, the menus worked well and effects looked smooth.  I started with a single-player tournament as the Rook.  Again, long load times, though they seemed to get better as the tournament progressed.  As I started playing I noticed right away I'd have lag and that it'd get worse and worse the more units were in the screen.  First thing I did then was what the manual said: I turned fidelity and shadow fidelity to 'low' (anti-aliasing was default 'off').  I noticed an improvement, but my Rook didn't look so cool.  I played a bit more and found I was having audio issues such as garbled static and the lag was still there.  So I took it one step at a time, lowering the audio quality all the way down to 'low' and with the 'Reverb' setting to 'off'.  That solved my audio issue, and to be honest, I didn't notice that much of a difference anyway.  I still found the sound fx and announcements to sound great.  I was running pretty good then, so I upped fidelity back to 'medium' to make my Rook look prettier (shadow fidelity apparently must be 'low' if sound quality is 'low').  I didn't notice much of a change, so I figured I had found a good combo of settings.  The game still slows down at points and speeds up at others but it runs quite well overall, even in large crowds at the end of a match.  Occassionally (about every 10 - 15 minutes or so), the game will hang for about 5 - 10 seconds, but other than that there isn't any major lag issues.

 

I don't know where my video card ranks in terms of crappiness, especially with comparison to the minimum and recommended requirements, but I definitely am able to get the game to run while having an enjoying scope of gameplay (given my aforementioned tweaks).  I am sure I could get it to run much smoother with overclocking, but I don't know enough about it to feel safe doing it (I can't just afford to drop a few hundred dollars to fix my laptop or get a new computer).  My main regret is that my system is not good enough to get the best experience that this game has to offer.

demigod
4,552 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Demigod Forums Top

Can you tell me how many frames per second you are getting at the lowest setting?  I really like to know how an 8400m performs.  It also depends on which map, some maps have better fps.   The 5-10 lag you are getting should go away once Stardock servers are updated even for single player game i think.

To find out your frames per second, hit / on the numpad when you are playing the game.

Reply #2 from Demigod Forums Top

Okay, I'll let you know.

 

In terms of the lag though, it seemed to be the same for each map.  Idk if u mean that the maps have different levels of detail, but if you're talking about size I can't say since in the tournament its always 4 on 4 (I also have yet to play Prison, The Two Brothers, or that really big circular one).

CursorFX - Customize your Windows cursor
Reply #3 from Demigod Forums Top

you'll get different fps on different maps.  So on prison, the smallest fastest map, you might get 30fps.   On Two brothers, the biggest map, you might only get 15fps.  

Reply #4 from Demigod Forums Top

Alright, updates:

 

I did another tourney playthrough, this time with Oak and showing the fps.  With the settings in my original post, I was getting an average of 15 fps.  I then turned everything down to "low" and got it to go as high as 30 fps.  I finally settled on all 'lows' and the two texture options on "medium", and I got an average of probably in the low 20s.  Everything was going well.  Then the Two Brothers map comes on, and everything went kaput.  All the movement was going extremely slow, like half the speed as it normally does.  There weren't any hangs or anything, it was just stuck in slow-mo or something.  The weird thing tho is that my fps didn't go down very much (still averaged around 15).  Weirder still, it didn't seem to matter how far in I was zoomed, or what my graphic settings were (cause I messed with them all again).  And weirder still still, is that if happened for each map for the rest of the tourney, even on smaller maps.  The one in space with the snakes ran fine my last playthrough, but this time it did this slow-mo thing for pretty much the whole time.  Didn't matter whether there were a bunch of units on the screen or not.  Oak by himself with nothing around him was in slow-mo.

 

Like I said the fps didn't drop much, but the number above it with the 'ms' units was hovering around 60 ms.  Idk what that number is or whether it has anything to do with my problem, but I figured I'd mention it.  Basically the only difference between this time and the first time was I was using Oak instead of Rook.

Reply #5 from Demigod Forums Top

Thanks.  A game needs to get 24+ fps for the game to look smooth.  I'm glad you got near 30fps with an 8400m but only on small maps. 

As for playing big maps and getting slow fps, it's normal.  You probably need to restart Demigod after playing a big map so your fps will go back to normal.  A big map has 3 times as many towers and minions.  So it needs to calculate and draw each one regardless of your zoom.

Reply #6 from Demigod Forums Top

ya after i restarted my comp everything went back to normal.  i was even able to run two brothers rather well.  there are still stutters here and there, and the settings are all low, but other than that everything works fine

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Well, I am able to run it at max settings ("High" on every detail option, plus 16x anti-aliasing with my configuration.  And the game looks (and plays) awesome!  Noticed only two spots it slows down, and those are spots that to be honest I'm not surprised it did that for.  Config is as follows:

Custom-built
Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit
Intel Core 2 Quad @ 2.33GHz (4 cores)
4GB Corsair Dominator 1066MHz memory
DirectX 10
Nvidia Geforce GTX260 with 768MB dedicated DDR3 memory (ForceWare version haven't updated in 6 months)
Onboard audio with a couple of Logitech speakers and a sub.

I know I'm not using top of the line stuff, so if you are... turn up those options!  (If you're not, you can probably still get pretty darn close to this performance using Medium - no need for Low!)

Reply #8 from Demigod Forums Top

It may be interesting to see which process are runing when experiencing slowdown.

Reply #9 from Demigod Forums Top

i've checked and the only major things i had running were impulse (which is supposed to run), my spybot S&D teatimer, and my antivirus.  the slow down happened again, and im theorizing it only happens after i run demigod a second time before a reboot, cause so far the first time i run it everything is fine.