ChuckB
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Very low framerate (FPS) when playing AGEOD games

Sun Nov 22, 2015 1:04 am

I know that the issue I'm describing here is caused by my computer setup but hope that someone might have an idea on how to fix this.

The issue is that I'm getting very low FPS (frames per second) when playing AGEOD games, meaning that my system only shows less than 8 FPS(!) on average when playing Alea Jacta Est, Civil War 2 and To End All Wars. While FPS are very important when playing fast-moving games like simulations or shooters, having low FPS within the AGEOD games makes them overall very sluggish when moving around on the map and it gets painful when scrolling around on higher zoom levels.

I'm playing on a quite powerful laptop http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade that comes with two video cards: (1) a very poweful NVIDIA Geforce GTX 970M for high-end graphic and (2) Intel Integrated Graphics that use less energy when using basic Windows applications. I'm generally using high screen resolutions (min. 2560x1440, sometimes 3200x1800) but the GeForce is powerful enough to handle this, in fact, it runs most of the latest graphic-intense games on "very high" or "ultra" settings on these resolutions.

I'm pretty sure that the problem comes from the AGEOD engine not using the GeForce but the Intel Integrated Graphics. My guess is that my system "thinks" that the AGEOD games are "standard" 2D Windows application and therefore routes the video processing and output to the Integrated Graphics.
The NVIDIA drivers allow to define which executables use which card and I tried all the different executables within the respective AGEOD game folders but to no avail.

Does anyone have any idea what else to try or which other executables to include? (Example: I found people discussing this problem with other games and for them, including the Java executable within the NVIDIA drivers resolved the problems). Does the AGEOD engine rely on some other executables that could be important?
Some additional information: I have exactly the same problem with War in the East (WitE) from Matrix Games. I hope it's ok that I post this in both the AJE and the CW2 forums.

Any feedback/idea/solution is highly appreciated!

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Pocus
Posts: 25659
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Location: Lyon (France)

Mon Nov 23, 2015 7:37 am

Sorry for these troubles. Try contacting the Slitherine Helpdesk here: support@slitherine.co.uk, asking how to reroute a game to a specific GPU. The Ageod game only uses their own executable and a directX DLL.
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Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law."

Hister
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Joined: Tue Apr 02, 2013 5:38 pm

Fri Nov 27, 2015 9:42 pm

ChuckB, I have exactly the same issue with Alea Jacta Est and Civil War II games.

Were you able to solve your problems and how?

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Emx77
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Location: Sarajevo, BiH
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Fri Nov 27, 2015 10:21 pm

Hi guys. Have you tried to turn off borders? Who knows why, but with borders on map scrolling is very sluggish.

Image

Don't forget to restart game after unselecting this option.

Hister
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Joined: Tue Apr 02, 2013 5:38 pm

Sun Nov 29, 2015 11:20 pm

Yes I did. It only ads 1 or two frame (so the game is not playable yet, far from it) while taking away a lot from the map-reading element. A definite no-go.

Rivaz
Civilian
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 1:32 pm

Thu Dec 17, 2015 8:21 pm

The slow scrolling is a pest, I must admit.... I have the same NVIDIA / Intel configuration as ChuckB. Did you get any brilliant advice from Slitherine?

alwaysfish
Conscript
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2011 11:12 pm

Sat Dec 19, 2015 8:15 pm

I have an Optimus laptop (NVIDIA 750M + Intel HD4400). Even though i forced the game (or any other AGEOD game) to use NVIDIA card, it still was running on Intel graphics card. Then i found out about DirectX 8 to DirectX9 wrapper, which translates DirectX8 function calls to DirectX9 function calls, and which could be downloaded from here http://enbdev.com/enbconvertor_dx8_dx9_v0035.zip . When i dropped the included DLL file into AGOED install folder, the game started to run on NVIDIA card and with much higher FPS. You could try the same.

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Pocus
Posts: 25659
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Location: Lyon (France)

Mon Dec 21, 2015 11:44 am

interesting, I'll pass the information to support. Do you have the zip around, the website is not proposing it. And I'm not talking about their 'bot trap', the main page has no download link.
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Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law."

QuanticWarrior
Civilian
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Nov 22, 2008 1:48 pm

Mon Dec 21, 2015 12:31 pm

I'd post the link to the download page but I cannot as I have not enough posts.

Here is the truncated url of the discussion I had with someone from Slitherine about this very same matter last year on Steam :
/app /313660/discussions/0/613941122573006517/ on the steam community site.

and to access the enb page from the site discussed in both threads, add this to the site download_convertor_dx8todx9.htm

If a real fix could be figured for Optimus user instead of jumping through all those dll in dll loops, I'd be most grateful as well!

ChuckB
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Posts: 26
Joined: Tue Apr 25, 2006 6:40 pm

Mon Jan 04, 2016 8:08 am

alwaysfish wrote:I have an Optimus laptop (NVIDIA 750M + Intel HD4400). Even though i forced the game (or any other AGEOD game) to use NVIDIA card, it still was running on Intel graphics card. Then i found out about DirectX 8 to DirectX9 wrapper, which translates DirectX8 function calls to DirectX9 function calls, and which could be downloaded from here http://enbdev.com/enbconvertor_dx8_dx9_v0035.zip . When i dropped the included DLL file into AGOED install folder, the game started to run on NVIDIA card and with much higher FPS. You could try the same.


Great - I just came back to this thread, tried your suggestion and it works fantastic, I'm back to 25fps! I do not see any difference in graphic quality (in the Steam discussion linked by QuanticWarrior below the person experienced blurry graphics with the wrapper I don't have this issue). I also tried this with the new "Wars of Napoleon" game that also had horribly stuttering and that is also very smooth now.
Thanks again, this was a great suggestion!

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ERISS
AGEod Guard of Honor
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Wed Jan 06, 2016 12:45 am

The good link is http://enbdev.com/download_convertor_dx8todx9.htm
Then you see there was an update (v0036)...
Pocus wrote:Do you have the zip around, the website is not proposing it. , the main page has no download link.

On next page (the 036 one), the link is at the start,
before ENBSeries DX8 to DX9 Convertor text title, a square with an arrow.
(here http://enbdev.com/convertor_dx8_dx9_v0036.htm, but will change with next version..)

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Pocus
Posts: 25659
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 7:37 am
Location: Lyon (France)

Wed Jan 06, 2016 9:38 am

Thanks, I got the file. I'm unsure if it works with all video cards though. I would say yes.
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Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law."

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