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How i fixed PvP on my computer.

Vakyoom

By Vakyoom
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Vakyoom

Vakyoom

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So this is my adventure of how i created a Ram drive file, moved a few nasty art files to the ram drive and made ilum/warzones smoother than butter on a tuesday. And this is without a high end video card (i have a Nvidia gt8800, i'll be getting a 550ti soon), on a AMD dual core 2.6Ghz running Windows 7. I also have 5.5g of RAM. This should take about 30 minutes if you don't screw up, plus 15min to watch the video.

 

Here are my graphical settings in game:

 

I turn everything on Low except for Character detail, 0% grass/tree detail, 60 refresh rate, 1440x900 res, Fullscreen(windowed) mode, bloom/conversion depth/vert sync are all cut off and anti-aliasing is also off.

 

First off, lets talk about what we're trying to accomplish here. This thread (http://www.swtor.com/fr/community/showthread.php?t=249030&page=23) clued me in to a way to make a seperate "hard drive" using the spare RAM on your computer. Since swtor doesn't use more than a few gigs of ram, as long as you have some extra space you'll be happier than a pickle on sunday.

 

So go to this website (memory.dataram.com) and you'll see that it looks all shiny. This is a website that loads a RAMdrive on your computer for free up to 4G of RAM space(which is much less than we'll need to accomplish our goals) click on "products & services" near the top. When the new page load, look at the menu on the right and find "software" and click on that, then click on RAMDISK. The new page will have a few buttons across the middle, click the yellow download button and run the program. You barely have to install anything... Use this youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrecoX2nsOM) for the rest of your set-up and preparation for the RAMdrive. It doesn't matter if you download and install the RAMdrive before changing your paging files, just don't turn START the ramdrive until you've changed the way your computer pages files. (I will not be explaining how to change the paging files, WATCH THE VIDEO)

 

 

 

You watched the video right?! And you know how to mess with the paging files and all that nonsense? If not, watch the video again... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrecoX2nsOM). [Not my video btw]

 

 

 

Moving on then, Now that you've effectively eliminated all the Paging files on your C: drive you need to add some more if SWTOR won't run properly. Go back into computer properties, advanced, all that and give about 3-4G of paging file limit (depending on your system/RAM levels). If you're confused, watch the video again and choose C: file instead of E: when you add RAM again. If you don't need to add paging files to your C: drive then good for you, it'll free up even more space on your computer and help it run a bit faster. Also, since we're still running the game off our harddrive, you can remove any paging files from your E: drive, it's not going to be used.

 

 

Ok here's the tricky part...

 

Now that thread earlier spoke about a few art files in the Assets folder of the SW:ToR program folder that are seriously holding the game back. The most important of these files is the one labeled something like "art_fx_1". You can put Art_fx in the search box, it's the only file that'll come up in the assets folder. Choose a few more files that you think would be helpful if loaded from the RAM instead. To get to your assets folder open Computer, Program files (possibly "program files x86"), Electronic Arts folder and so on.

 

Now, once you're inside your assets folder you need to COPY the art_fx file and any other files you'd rather run from the RAM drive, copy and paste the files into your flashy new E: drive. (**** REMEMBER TO BACK UP ANY FILES YOU MOVE, SERIOUSLY YOU THINK I'M KIDDING?!) Once you've backed those files up 2 times or so (i even stored the art-fx file on my portable so i wouldn't have to re-download again) we move on to the new and much improved final steps.

 

Once you've got your E: drive full of any number of those nasty files that make your hard drive cry, you go to this website (http://dirlinker.codeplex.com/) and use the 2.1.1 Dirlink program to create a Symbolic Link for said "nasty files" so that SW:ToR can still use those files appropriately even though they're in their new location.

 

Once you open the dirlink program (no download required) first thing's first, change the pull down tab at the top from "folder symbolic link" to "file symbolic link". Then for the 1st slot where it says "Link location:" you should explore and find the assets folder in your EA folder inside your C: drive, select your original file (in my case it was the art_fx file). As for "Link to:" you select the art_fx file from your E: drive. Switch the buttons at the bottom for "if the link location exists" to the "Delete it" option, this will replace the original art_fx file with a dummy 0mb file which links to the E: drive file. Do this again for each file you have in your E: drive now.

 

Voila!

 

This should make the game access those files using your spare RAM instead of from your hard drive, making the game run way smoother. Glad i figured out (with lots of help) how to do this, and i hope it helps you all enjoy ilum and PvP more than before. A slight increase in load times (barely noticable with my graphix card) and a decent fps increase, around 10-15fps in ilum. Less in 60 group kill-fests, but that's to be expected without a better graphics card.

Edited by Vakyoom
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Vakyoom

Vakyoom

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It appears that every time i turn my computer off and back on my E: drive is emptied, i'm giong to figure out how to rectify this... til then i keep the backed up file on my desktop to transfer when i need to restart. And the symlink system file link on my desktop too, so i dont have to search for it online or bookmark it...

 

Will update this more tomorrow, i'm sleepy.

 

edit - Ok so i've figured out what was wrong with everything before hand and fixed my original post. The problem with the Ram drive is that i still can't figure out how to save the files so they're always there so i just drag and drop from my desktop folder into my E: drive when i turn my pc on. No big deal, i can deal with that...

 

I was using a linux symbolic link program before instead of a windows link tool, that's all fixed in the original post. Enjoy!

Edited by Vakyoom
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Vakyoom

Vakyoom

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Original post updated, i've got everything running smoothly now. Ilum assets and other misc art and area assets have been moved to my RAMdrive and are functioning phenomenally.

 

hope this can help other people too, i'm glad i did this :D

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Jadolerr

Jadolerr

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Sorry,

 

Your not going to be able to save anything into the RAM, unless you leave your PC running all the time. When you shut down everything in RAM goes. Thats why we have Hard drives which are non volatile. The RAM is volatile, with out the power it goes up in smoke.

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Owsley

Owsley

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Sorry,

 

Your not going to be able to save anything into the RAM, unless you leave your PC running all the time. When you shut down everything in RAM goes. Thats why we have Hard drives which are non volatile. The RAM is volatile, with out the power it goes up in smoke.

 

FYI I believe the ramdisk software can be configured to create and save a disk image when it starts up and normally shuts down. The only data loss would be any updates that occured before a normal shutdown (i.e. system crash)

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Vakyoom

Vakyoom

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Yea i tried saving the disk image but it didn't work properly, i don't really care. I'm fine with just moving them to the ramdrive every time after i boot up.

 

It's working better in almost every situation. will be even nicer once i get my vid card.

Edited by Vakyoom
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Vakyoom

Vakyoom

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fps increase on ilum when not in a group of 60 players is about 10 higher than normal, i'm up to 35fps in ilum but bringing up the character window still clips me by a lot for about 2 sec. In most areas i'm up past 45-50fps with my decent graphics card.

 

Maybe moving those "head_slot" "chest_slot" art files to the ramdrive would help too... i'll test that later...

 

Here are my graphical settings:

 

I turn everything on Low except for Character detail, 0% grass/tree detail, 60 refresh rate, 1440x900 res, Fullscreen(windowed) mode, bloom/conversion depth/vert sync are all cut off and anti-aliasing is also off.

 

Hope that gives you good idea.

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kyamazuki

kyamazuki

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My computer specs are

 

8GB Ram DDR2

5870 Radeon 1GB Vid Card

Win 7 64 Bit

2x X5365 @ 3.00GHz

 

I only tried it for warzones and nothing happened. I personally found a great FPS increase when I installed direct x 9. Simply because you're actually seeing graphics that were meant to be there in the first place. Direct x 10 and 11 don't have some assets that are needed to see it. In example, the sorc knockback ability that movement impairs you have a graphic look where it seems your feet are purple magnetize to the ground. I started seeing this effect after installing direct x 9. If you haven't installed this yet I strongly recommend you do.

 

Again let me say this, I didn't not try this method for Ilum(No one was on at the times I tried it). Only tried in warzones and I haven't seen any changes.

Edited by kyamazuki
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