GFX bug (right hand portion of screen flashes into a window frame)

[AishaLove]

I notice some times, when I move the mouse yo the right, that the right edge of the screen flashes a frame of a normal window (minimize button close button ext...). I have no other windows open so it's not a window showing from underneath, It's as if the game thinks it's running in a window for a second.

I'm running at 640x480 on low GFX settings.

Also I'd like to mention that as many complain I get bad slowdowns on complex levels, and I believe it is all the special effects. It would be nice to have an option to use very low quality special effects for those of us that experience these slow downs.

Another issue may be all the calculations the game must make while all the towers are targetting and doing damage and what not. I hope you are working to clean up that code as much as possible and hopefully stream line it to help make the game run smoother, the game is simple enough that thier should be no reason it can't run smoothly even when things get super complex.

It would also be nice to be able to have allot more control over the individual settings that control GFX quality.

I would even welcome an option to turn off special effects all together (maybe switching to simple place holders) based on fps.

I realize the game is new and I'm sure your working on smoothing out the gameplay.

[jeff]

My concern from your post is that you are running the game on a PC that has less than the minimum system requirements.





There are actually 3 graphical settings and the "low" setting does use lower graphical quality and allow the video card to run much faster.





The particle effects actually do reduce in number as the framerate drops - this is done automatically.





What is your system specification?* Also, have you updated to the latest video and audio drivers and made sure you have the latest DirectX as well.* Each of these can impact performance fairly significantly.





Jeff

[AishaLove]

1.9 ghz amd dual core, 4 gigs ddr2 677mhz nvidia gfx at 400mhz clock with 256mb ddr gfx card is an nvidia gforce 8200m g

That should be above the min specs by a small margin

I am using the latest GFX drivers, I am uncertain how to or if it's possible to update my audio drivers, as I am using a usb to stereo adaptor (speakers and sterio jack on my laptop are broken)

[jeff]

Ok, looking up the hardware you list, the largest concern here is the GeForce 8200M G on board card on the laptop.** It doesn't appear to have it's own graphical memory and appears to share the much slower main system memory for the computer.* You say that it has 256 DDR memory on board, but I can't find an indication that this chip is used that way.* Are you sure about that?* Do you have a link to the manufacturer of the laptop?





According to Nvidia the graphics chip*has a 3GTexels/second fill rate which is also*fairly low for today's video cards, but it does have 19GFlops in processing power for the shaders and a 16GB/s transfer rate to memory both of which are pretty good.





(http://www.nvidia.com/object/product...g_mgpu_us.html)





That all said, at 640x480 on the medium or low setting, I would think you would be getting much better performance than you are saying you are getting.*





Things to investigate:





- other programs running in the background competing for computing resources.* Windows or Google's desktop search is a prime candidate, this can be a very strong resource hog.





- antivirus programs.* Try disabling the antivirus and running the game to see if it makes a significant difference





- Outlook, MS*office applications or anything like that, it's best to*close them down before*launching the game*





- other applications running in the system tray to the bottom right of the screen.








As for updating the audio drivers, we're talking about the drivers for the sound hardware inside your laptop, so even if the speakers aren't working, there is a chip inside that is generating the audio data that is being played to your headphones.* The laptop manufacturer website should have an audio driver update one would expect.





As for the flashing window, I haven't heard from anyone before about that.* One thing to verify is that you aren't running two versions of the game.* I might try running the game in a window rather than in full screen to ensure that it is the only thing running.





It would also be valuable to know if you still get that window flashing experience when the game is running in a window.





To adjust the graphical fidelity or whether the game is showing up in a window or full screen, go to the help and options button off of the main menu, then go to the settings button, and then choose the video tab.* You can adjust the resolution (which you want to keep at 640x480 because of your fill rate), the graphical quality*(low, medium or high - these are different shader paths that affect how strongly the graphics card features are used if available), and whether the game is windowed or full-screen.





If none of these issues seem to make a performance difference, let me know and we can try exploring your issues further.





Jeff

[AishaLove]

Well I don't have any info directly about the card's memory specs, but when using a program called "GPU-Z" that scans your gfx card and tells you it's specs, it lists it as having 256 ddr (note not ddr2 like the rest of my laptop) so that lead me to believe that it had 256 dedicated.

My laptop is a compaq presario cq50-107nr (made by HP as they are now the same thing) http://search.hp.com/query.html?char...7nr&oc=3758066

I suppose it's possible the utility is wrong, if the memory is shared, are you aware of any way I can increase the amount of system memory available to the card? I know on many cards like this it is possible. (there is no option in my laptop's bios)

I have yet to run the game in a window and try closing my anti virus, but when I do I will reply here with what I find.


[edit] so my usb device still makes use of my sound card?

[edit edit] I set the game exe to disable windows aero on launch, that made a marginal difference (pretty much delays the inevitable horrid lag), and I saw no significant change when disabling my anti virus. I am sure nothing else is running but steam and the game. I also updated my sound drivers with no change at all (I'm pretty sure my usb device makes no use of my sound card as it is seen by my system as it's own sound card, and it disables my sound card.) As stated before, the stereo jack on my latop is also broken, so I use a usb to stereo adaptor. http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...ductId=3082767 None oss this fixed the problem with the right hand side of the screen, still need to try windowed to see if that fixes it.

[jeff]

Hi,





So in looking at the web site for the laptop it would appear that yes the video card does use shared memory and I am not aware of any way to change that or upgrade that.* So, that's what it is.*





As for the audio driver update.* You are correct, I misunderstood you, your Gigaware USB audio device is its own audio device, and the updated drivers that I think you might need are for that device itself.* I can't find them*after a quick search online, but I may not have looked at the right location.





I'm not sure I understand what you were saying about something fixing the window issue on the right hand side of the screen.* Could you explain that better.





Otherwise, all I can say at this point is that the game is pretty demanding in what resources it needs and I'd further investigate what programs may be running in the background to see if you can get more speed out of the hardware you have.





Jeff

[AishaLove]

What I meant to say was nothing solved the problem with the right hand side of the screen showing close, minimize ect... buttons.

this does only seem to start happening later in a level, I've also never seen the bug when the game is not lagging. Also I'm perplexed, in the nvidia contol panel it says it has 256 dedicated and a total of 1407 megs available to gfx.

[AishaLove]

this is what the nvidia system info says NVIDIA System Information report created on: 05/13/2009 13:46:48
System name: YIFF

[Display]
Processor: AMD Athlon Dual-Core QL-60 (1900 MHz)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista (Service Pack 1)
DirectX version: 10.0
GPU processor: GeForce 8200M G
ForceWare version: 175.66
Total available graphics memory: 1407 MB
Dedicated video memory: 256 MB
System video memory: 0 MB
Shared system memory: 1151 MB
Video BIOS version: 62.77.2f.00.07
IRQ: 23
Bus: FPCI

[Components]

nvCplUIR.dll 1.5.650.00 NVIDIA Control Panel
nvCpl.cpl 1.5.650.00 NVIDIA Control Panel Applet
nvExpBar.dll 1.5.650.00 NVIDIA Control Panel
nvCplUI.exe 1.5.650.00 NVIDIA Control Panel
nvViTvSR.dll 7.15.11.7566 NVIDIA Video and TV Server
nvViTvS.dll 7.15.11.7566 NVIDIA Video and TV Server
nvDispSR.dll 7.15.11.7566 NVIDIA Display Server
NVMCTRAY.DLL 7.15.11.7566 NVIDIA Media Center Library
nvDispS.dll 7.15.11.7566 NVIDIA Display Server
NVCPL.DLL 7.15.11.7566 NVIDIA Compatible Windows Vista Display driver, Version 175.66
nvGameSR.dll 7.15.11.7566 NVIDIA 3D Settings Server
nvGameS.dll 7.15.11.7566 NVIDIA 3D Settings Server

[jeff]

I am confused as well.* I sadly don't know about the window issue, but it wouldn't surprise me if some other program is fighting for the "focus" and that other program is also causing you to run slowly.* I'm not sure how to help you further.





Jeff

[AishaLove]

it's ok, and to stress again I am certain nothing else is running other then the game, this is the only game I see such slow downs in and I am able to run games like HL2 (eppisode 2) on near max gfx settings with no lag at all.

thanks for all the help and info though.