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Lemon_King

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Posts posted by Lemon_King

    [HOWTO - RAMDRIVE] Increasing SWTOR System Performance

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Guys if you just open any quite detailed File monitor program and play with SWTOR for sometime in areas with FPS drops like Fleet, Ilum, Warzones you will see that main_art_fx_1.tor isnt so heavy used file and DiscCacheArena usage is quite small.

     

    Wanna proof? Here it is. For example i'm using ProcessMonitor utility from Microsoft website and there are alot of data gathered about file system activity and about each used file. I think there 2 most important parameters affecting FPS drops - seconds spent working with each file and how much megabytes read working with each file.

    I'm not gone yet, but we've have and other have covered this already.

    Just one problem, not everyone has enough ram to cover it.

    But I have included a bit of it in my OP with a link to some posts.

    [HOWTO - RAMDRIVE] Increasing SWTOR System Performance

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Lemon_King

    All right, looks like people I know have stopped playing and I really haven't logged in awhile.

    So I'm tossing the reigns of the thread to Ocmer.

     

     

    No hard feelings. :jawa_frown:

     

     

    my swtor told me i didnt have the required amount of cpu but i later found out i needed more ram my ram is 896mb and im running a emachines xp so im buying more ram this weekend 2gb but my problem is i cant move i load up my game (takes 30 min) and then i get in and i cant move. This is my first mmo and i dont know alot about computers plz help!!!!!
    Ouch, yeah it looks like your machine is a good bit out of date.

    More ram may help, but not knowing your Graphics Card or CPU the gain is unknown.

     

    The difference is its 2012 now, DOS is done with. if we were still using DOS I could understand.
    Its still used. >_>

    [HOWTO - RAMDRIVE] Increasing SWTOR System Performance

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Thanks for the tip, I've searched around and didn't came across this easy implementation.

    Added to my new script.

     

     

    ALL-IN-ONE VERSION 3 IS UP.

    I'll add instructions how to change the settings during the day, but it is actually also written in the comment sections of the script under the head user settings.

     

    • 2012-02-27; New ALL-IN-ONE (version 3)
      • Added option for dynamic asset files.
      • Added option to override installpath of SWTOR.
      • Added check for correct found/given installpath of SWTOR.
      • Added check for Windows 64-bit.
      • Added check for NTFS filesystem.
      • Added a single errormessage for missing asset files.
      • Allot of comments ( :: comment )

     

    edit; A mountscript will follow soon aswell.

    edit; done with writing the instructions, hope they are clear :o

    Welp, thats a large number of system checks.

    [HOWTO - RAMDRIVE] Increasing SWTOR System Performance

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Lemon_King

    After seeing all of this yesterday, I got pretty interested. Been seeing some great performance increases, particularly since I have 16GB of RAM and can put essentially everything that's been mentioned so far onto a ramdisk(I'm using 6GB, but 5GB would probably work - I just wanted the extra gig just in case). To that end, I went ahead and modified Ocmer_'s all-in-one batch file so that it has an option to include the dynamic character asset files, as well. Ocmer_, I stuck to your general style, and didn't change anything other than what I added. Here's the new code:

     

    Yes, it is rather significantly longer.

     

    Added it to the OP, extremely nice work. :D

    Any further updates, just edit the post you made.

    [HOWTO - RAMDRIVE] Increasing SWTOR System Performance

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Lemon_King

    I don't know if you read the OP's "experimental stuff" but you might add the dynamic character look into the ram aswell. Experimental suff from Lemon_King.

    Woo late posts, lost my ME2 save so replaying it again.

    Anywho, Ocmer is correct.

     

    Can someone please post a dumbed down version of this. I do not get how to put in the coding or to change the batch file. I'm sorry if it was posted before but I do not have time to cipher through 50+ pages to hopefully find the answer to this. If it was posted before could someone tell me the page number. I am not having horrible fps but I want to increase load times and also reduce the number of lag spikes(ill go from 110fps to 50fps and back up to 110fps in the matter of seconds for no apparent reason).
    err, the guide is the easy way. :jawa_redface:

    The auto-batch files are the really easy way.

     

    All the Info is linked in the OP in some form so you don't have to go through 50 pages of misc discussion or troubleshooting.

     

    Well, everything went well for the most part, though for some reason every time I load the game it replays the theatrical trailer, and resets my preferences. How do I address this issue?

     

    Thanks in advance

    You didn't copy your settings folder over properly.

     

    None of this coding ******** works.
    Could you please explain where you are having issues?

    Posting no information expect mindless rage doesn't help, and most people would skip your post.

    Seriously, I understand why devs ignore rage posts that give zero information.

    [HOWTO - RAMDRIVE] Increasing SWTOR System Performance

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Thnx, was just playing a bit now in batch (been a while ;p) so I ended up with having a menu.

    Added some extra checks and handling so files won't get lost by different user input.

     

    Might aswell remove the 2 other links from the OP as those are obsolete now. Maybe also mention in the line that it can remove the setup aswell for those interested.

     

    Cheers.

     

    Done, removed the 3rd once as it was no longer updated and was a bit redundant due to your new one.

    [HOWTO - RAMDRIVE] Increasing SWTOR System Performance

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Lemon_King

    That would work, if you want it to point to SWTOR_Original\swtor\settings.

    Changes no performance and is only cosmetic when it comes to sorting files.

     

    If you want, you can write a batch to copy the subfolder back into SWTOR_Original letting it overwrite the outdated data.

     

    i understand the risks of data corruption, specially as it's beta.

    however i just adquired a SSD disk too and i think fancy cache defer writing will make my SSD life longer.

     

    my question would be:

    with all the scripts for the ramdisk in this thread, will they improve my SSD lifespan? or are this scripts not affecting the files that swtor is WRITING all the time?

    While it would, the amount of data it would take before heavy wear kicks in would be years from now.

    And yes the scripts for the RamDrive affect the files being written to all the time.

    The search for "a very unique Czerka invention" (2 exist atm)

    in Crew Skills

    Posted

    Originally posted by:

    There are some very rare items in the game.

     

    The rarest one of all, at this point, being a very unique Czerka invention that, so far, only two players (out of 1.85 billion loot checks at that level) have looted since the game launched.

     

    That said, I can confirm that there are currently no Legendary armor pieces in the game. But that may change.

     

    So does anyone know any other players with one of these items?

    [HOWTO - RAMDRIVE] Increasing SWTOR System Performance

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    One thing I noticed. Upon exiting and reloading the game. Some of my primary settings were not saving. Ex: The fact I already watched the opening cut-scene. Graphics / mouse settings all revert to default, same with sound / mouse settings. Keybinds and UI layout are fine.

     

    Thoughts?

     

    Did you rename SWTOR in Local to SWTOR_Original, after you made a copy of it?

    If you didn't your settings for each boot will become temp.

     

    Steps 3 - 5.

    3: Scrolling down you should see a folder called SWTOR, open it and Copy the settings folder to <SWTOR Install Location>\Star Wars-The Old Republic\SWTOR\retailclient\

    4: Delete DiskCacheArena if it exists in <SWTOR Install Location>\Star Wars - The Old Republic\SWTOR\

    5: RENAME the SWTOR folder in Local to SWTOR_Original

    [HOWTO - RAMDRIVE] Increasing SWTOR System Performance

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Lemon_King

    Advanced ramdisk with fx asset file
    Not bad, Linked it in the OP.

     

    so, what's better, the ramdisk or fancycache? any suggested settings for fancycache?

    i am trying it now, don't really notice much improvement while loading the game, tho once inside the rest of loading screens seem to be a bit faster.

    It caches data once loaded, so any data access beyond first pull will be faster - better for some applications than others, depending on disk access.

     

    Optimal settings for my system is a Read Only 2gig cache for the drive with SWTOR on it.

    I wouldn't have Write enabled on any system without some form of battery backup, secondly users using Fancy Cache with Write enabled have encountered some corruption to data, you're fine if its set to Read Only.

     

    e: Added Superspeed 5 as its not Beta Software.

    [HOWTO - RAMDRIVE] Increasing SWTOR System Performance

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Lemon_King

    It's only the assets file which contains the particle effects which is causing the problem. So why are people copying the whole of assets directory and claiming to need several GB.

     

    The culprit file is about 200MB. So you can rename the original and create a symbolic link to the file which you've copied over to the ramdrive (note 200MB is sufficient). NTFS file system supports symbolic links, so you should be able to use this hack even on a 32 bit system with 4GB.

    On lower end systems it can kill framerate because particle effects have no LOD or settings in the menu for controlling density, max count, etc.

     

    And its not the *only* thing causing issues, anyways I've already mentioned the file and its in the OP - via a link to the thread that brought it up.

     

     

    **a ramdisk image of 1.5GB with only the fx.tor is compressed to 159MB for me. I must note mounting compressed images are not any slower as uncompressed. These can be even faster than creating a fresh ramdive as it wont have to format anymore!
    From instant (quick format) to maybe instant.

    [HOWTO - RAMDRIVE] Increasing SWTOR System Performance

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Because that's like selling me a new car and telling me I got to go under the hood and start fiddling with components to get it to run right. That's not my job, it's theirs. I'm not a mechanic, nor a computer geek and neither are the majority of the people who purchased the game. :rolleyes:

     

    I guess you never heard of Aftermarket Oil Filter mods for some truck models to improve performance.

    [HOWTO - RAMDRIVE] Increasing SWTOR System Performance

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Lemon_King

    Thanks for confirming it, I could not see any performance difference between using FancyCache vs the suggested imdisk method either.

    Also found that a 4GB read/write cache is enough, no benefits by setting it higher.

     

    Another thing worth mentioning is, that it suggests block size per automatic, it can be fine tuned for more performance thou.

    Volume edition is for raid arrays and disks that are broken up into several partitions.

    Although, I use the disk edition without problems for an Intel Raid 1 array since Windows sees that one as a disk.

     

    Lets hope the price won't be as crazy high as SuperCache.

    And another thing is, that even if you got a 32bit OS with more RAM than it can use, all that additional hidden RAM can be used for disk/volume caching.

     

    One more thing :D

    Careful with defer write, it's best not to use it while the application is still beta.

    Sorry about the long delay on the response to FancyCache, but there is one strong reason why I haven't placed it in the OP right now.

    Future versions (outside of Beta) will have a cost tied to it.

     

    I'll make a reference for it, but not going to make it a mandated portion of the setup.

    [HOWTO - RAMDRIVE] Increasing SWTOR System Performance

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\BioWare\Star Wars-The Old Republic\SWTOR\retailclient\

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\BioWare\Star Wars - The Old Republic\launcher.exe

     

    Find the difference, I guess you lack the 2 spaces around '-' between 'wars' and 'the', in the mklink code.

    Looks like the beta installer had no spaces between Wars-The at the time.

    Corrected in the OP.

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