What I did to improve my video performanceFollow

Hi all,

After some digging around I found a few tricks that you can do to keep your frame rate acceptable in normal and pvp situations.


First, make sure your drivers are up to date. Go to http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

If needed, use their 'have disk' method for installing the latest driver. This is explained here:

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=11997

I had to do this because I have a nvidia 8800M GTS and the latest driver isn't 'approved' for my gateway laptop. But it still works.




Also, there are a few things that I did in addition to this.

1) downloaded and installed the 'buffthrottle' addon. This can be found here:

http://war.curse.com/downloads/war-addons/details/buffthrottle.aspx




To install an addon read here:

http://www.regularsexpressions.com/gaming/warhammer-online-gaming/warhammer-online-how-to-install-addons/




2) In video settings, I turned grass off. From what I read, this has been known to give a 20 fps increase. 20fps is a big trade off for a small feature.




3) I use a macro that turns off my combat log. I use another macro to turn it back on (by using true instead of false). Here is the macro:

/script TextLogSetEnabled("Combat", false)

For NVIDIA USERS:

Be sure you have the latest drivers, again check out laptopvideotogo.com for the latest ones (on the right side of screen).



Have the latest drivers? Great, now go to your control panel and pick manage 3d settings.

In the program settings tab, choose ADD. Now locate your warhammer main directory, and choose war.exe.

This creates a profile for warhammer. For many users, this alone has increased performance.




Anyway, these are all the various things that I have done and I can now run my game on highest quality settings.

Enjoy!



Edited, Sep 27th 2008 10:58pm by Webjunky

Edited, Sep 28th 2008 1:47am by Webjunky

Thanks for the heads up! Fixed.

Very nice additions to performance tweaking! Be sure to review my performance guide, as it goes into detail on other performance tweaks you can make, as well as suggesting upgrades to components in case you're ready to add a little bit more horsepower in your system:

http://www.allakhazam.com/wiki/System_Performance_Guide

Warhammer Online isn't a very demanding game, however, it is definitely more demanding than say WoW due to its graphics. You shouldn't need to go all-out in upgrading a system if you do need to look at the hardware end of things. Every Sunday I release a weekly update to this guide, which is going to go up in ... 5... 4... :).

FRAPS works fine if the game doesn't have any built-in tools.

It is likely your 6800GS, which is probably limited to 256MB of RAM (there are some 512MB versions). The game goes over this at times. You could get a MUCH faster video card for even under $100 these days:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127383&nm_mc=AFC-Techreport&cm_mmc=AFC-Techreport-_-NA-_-NA-_-NA

Although I personally swear by this card if you can spend the extra $40:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814261027

The only catch with these video cards is that they are PCI-express. Does your motherboard have a PCI-express slot? Most 6800gs variants are AGP. If it only supports AGP, then your best alternative would be:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131090

Edited, Sep 28th 2008 2:39pm by Berek

So you a big fan of Radeons? My stupid intel board only supports CrossFire and not SLI so I think about giving Radeon a try again but I seem to have had much better luck with Nvidia.

I tried all of the tricks in the OP and I can tell a good amount of difference in fps.
I didn't try each one individually and see which one's worked the best but overall good tricks to use.

I know this is off topic, but I was wondering how well this video card would be able to run Warhammer.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?nm_mc=AFC-SlickDeals&cm_mmc=AFC-SlickDeals-_-NA-_-NA-_-NA&Item=N82E16814130364

I know the 384mb ram isn't that big of a boost to 256mb ram, so just wanted your opinions on it. It is a fairly low value video card.

Says it's a deactivated product now.

I have an 8800GTS that (I think) had 320MB and seems to do well. I've heard that the 8800 is better than a single 9600 but if you have two 9600s in SLI they are better. I don't really know either way. Something I've heard. You may want to check up and make sure the 9600 is the way to go.

I'm not a fan of Radeons, no, but they are the best deals right now in a lot of cases, which is why I recommended them. There are certain noteworthy Nvidia cards out there right now and I can recommend a few if you like. Just that the best "bang for your buck" right now is the Radeon 4850.

First off, thanks for the tips!

I have one question though, I can't find a setting to turn grass off
in the video menu. Arg, please help!

Would you also suggest someone start off with their basic settings tuned to "maximum fps" or whatever setting is on the main graphics page? That's what I did to try to reduce lag originally, and it helped somewhat but, ultimately, not enough.

I'm going to try these tips in addition to seeing if the changes Mythic made will make the game playable for me. Here's hoping!

Awesome tips. I've really noticed some performance lag recently and will try these to help.