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Heroes of Might and Magic seriesHoMM4: Slow Animations on 1280x1024(42 posts)solved(42 posts)solved
(42 posts)solved
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This is my favourite topic
Posted November 11, 2013
Thanks for the input Darucas. Greatly appreciated.

I downloaded D3D Windower, but when I tried to run the h4mod.exe with it, it simply did nothing. There were some incomprehensible letters below the screen. So, I deleted it..

I tried DxWnd next, but as you have said, I think I need to test with it for a fairly long time before I get it to run as it should. At the moment, I get a weird windowed screen as you can see from the attachment..

If I can get it to work normally, I will try fullscreenizer as you suggested..

Edit: Just saw your addition to your post. My laptop is very similar to yours, MSI, with GTX 680M Nvidia card, the only thing different from yours. You say you don't have lag? Lucky for you.. :)

Can you try and see if there is no lag with 7v7 stacks? (or 7v4 and so on)
Attachments:
dxwnd11.jpg (108 Kb)
dxwnd2.jpg (157 Kb)
Post edited November 11, 2013 by Excolion
Posted November 11, 2013
I got exactly the same thing, I also managed to get a black screen which ran at 150fps (!), but well, it was a bit dark there ^^ You can try changing things under DxWnd DirectX tab for example.

D3D Windower is the "ancestor" of DxWnd, it's an old Japanese software only partially translated in English, which may explain the odd letters. If your game can't run once added, just close and re-open the app.

Note that both softwares here need to be set in Admin mode if the game is launched with it otherwise you get nothing. You can still try to fiddle with both of them, however, you may as well wait for a fix from the DxWnd team.

I've also tried forcing ddraw emulation (it worked wonders under Windows 7, on which I had issues with this game), with what is named the Application Compatibility Toolkit, some days ago. It's even worse under Windows 8 (it already forces emulation by default, so it's not surprising either).

So, yeah, to me, keep trying this window mode from time to time, with fullsceenizer on top of it as a last touch. Maybe other people will give advice concerning a normal fullcreen mode.

Good luck!

Edit: just saw your edit! I'll try and keep you informed here.
Post edited November 11, 2013 by Darucas
Posted November 11, 2013
As a side note, I chose the default preferred graphics processor as High Performance Nvidia. So that everything would run using it.

Another GoG, Divine Divinity started being "slower" too, after I chose this option. Isn't it weird that I get lower performance with Nvidia while playing older games? Is it because the old games like lower performance hardware (for today's standards) ?

I guess, to be able to continue playing these games, I'll have to use Intel as default. Sadly..

Waiting for your test with 7vX stacks Darucas :)
Posted November 11, 2013
Ok, I've tried a fight with 7vs7 units, and then the game indeed slowed down - every animations felt slowish, and projectiles were definitely easier to see. So, there we are!

However, this happens mainly when I'm using Intel HD. With nVidia, performance is indeed uneven, but this fight is almost fine (or maybe 100% fine, it may be an impression). So there may be something else at work too for you, you should try again after a fresh PC restart to see if it wasn't "bad luck", or check if you haven't something like Antialiasing or VSync or other forced in your nVidia settings (global, or for HoMM).

Anyway, this may be a leftover of some technical oddity, as the game really runs great with lower resolutions on both cards. I do remember having some performance issues when I first tried HoMM IV around 2005 though, but... can't say if it was because of 1280x1024.
Given that the game was rushed by the end, I wouldn't be surprised if it completely lacks optimization with the highest resolution in bigger fights. When you were playing it during childhood, what resolution did you use? It's quite important I think - if the game has slowdowns in these conditions from the start, well, maybe nothing (easy) can be done about it :/ If not... back to "try some things while waiting for somthing".

As to the fact that this game and others show lower performance with nVidia, I guess it depends on your config, your nVidia parameters, what you run while playing, and on the fact that nVidia has drivers optimized for newer games. This means that sometimes, they break something on old ones, while Intel seems to have "simpler" drivers and has different issues. I noticed if and old game is 2D only, or isn't "unsual" technically, Intel has a chance of running it well; in this case having Optimus does help, for a change. Still, you can change a lot of parameters under nVidia, and use other tools which will run better with it, and most tips are thought out for gamer GPUs, so I tend to set it as a default setting, then "track back" if I really have an issue. To sum up: I tend to behave as a desktop PC user by default ^^

As to Divine Divinity, change its graphic mode to Software with the setup utility located in its folder. It has some small bugs (but D3D too, so...) and you lose smoothing on fog and line of sight, but it plays waaaaaaaaaaaaay better than Direct3D under Windows 8.1 (or even 7?). It's what I would call a "basic" software mode, that is it's your CPU which should do everything, so no GPU related bugs! By the way, I've understood Windows 8 does something similar by default (emulation?) with old versions of DirectX and old colour palettes, that's why you get slowdowns at times, but no other kind of bugs in most cases once you find a way to counter this (kind of a tradeoff, which can be profitable).

Ok, enough writing!
Post edited November 11, 2013 by Darucas
Posted November 12, 2013
All the options are default in the Nvidia Control panel. I did not change anything after a fresh install of the driver. I'm at work now so I can't double check, but if I remember right, everything was "Let the application modify this setting". I'll check and see if enabling / disabling is available for those settings you mentioned.

Since you get the 7v7 slowdown, you can understand how frustrating it is after a while. But I couldn't fully get it, did you say that the slowdown is reduced while you use Nvidia as default?

Well I don't remember any slowdowns while playing this game in the past, and I generally chose the best available options while playing games, even if I had lower performance. I liked to push my old desktop to its limits (I used Windows XP by then). It was a long time ago but I believe it was 1280x1024.

About setting Nvidia as default and fiddling with settings, I also would like to do that but as you can see from one of the attachments above, Nvidia menu has very few options available for me to try different things. On my old desktop, I remember having too many options there for me to test on. I do not know why they reduced the available options in time so much..

And about divine divinity, I already chose SW mode from the beginning because the game was painfully slow with D3D. I did this after looking for solutions here on the forum. I also use Widescreen and bigger text mods (included in my post below).

http://www.gog.com/forum/divine_divinity_series/dd_is_the_music_still_broken/post20

Thank you for all the time you've spent for solving the issue. I wish I could mark one of your posts as solution but I fear that it would mislead others having the same issue (and reduce the possible attention of other users here :p )
Post edited November 12, 2013 by Excolion
Posted November 12, 2013
Progress!

As you suggested, I set Nvidia as default processor. I went to the Nvidia control panel, and disabled every one of the 3D settings. After that, I loaded my Lag test save (the one with the wolves in the screenshots above :) ) and guess what? Everything was smooth as hell and no performance drops at all.

That means it was indeed caused by some of the forced settings in the Nvidia control panel. I think you should try that and see if the performance skyrockets Darucas :)

And I think this makes your last advice "the solution". My thanks for the time you've spent Darucas, my friend.

Sadly, this did not improve Divine Divinity's performance. Indeed, made it a little worse. I guess I'll create a profile for HoMM4 only and disable all the options in the control panel. I'll enable them one by one to see which one causes the slowdown in the battles.

Hope this helps others who love this great game.

EDIT: Well, I'm confused now. As I enabled every 3D graphics sub-option one by one in the profile I created for HoMM4, I did not experience any of the previous slowdown in the battle. Even after setting all the options to the maximum limits, the game did not show any performance drops at all. It seems creating a special profile for the game in the Nvidia Control Panel was enough to make the game run properly. Weird huh? I'll edit this post if I encounter any new results I get from my tests.

EDIT 2: After playing for a while, I've seen that only 7v7 battles showed a little slowdown. But not as bad and continuous as before, so I think that's OK to live with..
Post edited November 13, 2013 by Excolion
Posted November 14, 2013
You're welcome, glad you found something working!

I've tested disabling everything (well, anything graphic related anyway) in the 3D settings, and it does improve performance this way!

As for Divine Divinity and the nVidia oddities, I've got no more ideas to share... It's a bit odd to me that changing anything to the nVidia settings affects Divine when run in software mode, I think it should not, if this mode indeed relies on the CPU at 100%. As to a HoMM IV specific profile, this may help, if the driver was applying something on its own by default??

I don't have anymore slowdowns on my side (I didn't turn back on any 3D settings though, it's not like the game really needs them), but who knows, the game seems glitchy enough to decrease its performance a bit according to something like the state of your savegame, or, whatever!

Well, time to play HoMM IV then! Enjoy!
Post edited November 14, 2013 by Darucas
Posted January 15, 2014
I just want to say that this solution worked for me as well. Thank you for both your efforts!
Posted July 12, 2014
FYI, my solution I found today was to disable all kinds of frame limiters (but keep Vsync on). Now the game doesn't slow down at all and I have no tearing. I'll have to read this thread though to see if you can get it work even better.
Posted January 09, 2015
avatar
Excolion: Progress!

As you suggested, I set Nvidia as default processor. I went to the Nvidia control panel, and disabled every one of the 3D settings. After that, I loaded my Lag test save (the one with the wolves in the screenshots above :) ) and guess what? Everything was smooth as hell and no performance drops at all.

That means it was indeed caused by some of the forced settings in the Nvidia control panel. I think you should try that and see if the performance skyrockets Darucas :)

And I think this makes your last advice "the solution". My thanks for the time you've spent Darucas, my friend.

Sadly, this did not improve Divine Divinity's performance. Indeed, made it a little worse. I guess I'll create a profile for HoMM4 only and disable all the options in the control panel. I'll enable them one by one to see which one causes the slowdown in the battles.

Hope this helps others who love this great game.

EDIT: Well, I'm confused now. As I enabled every 3D graphics sub-option one by one in the profile I created for HoMM4, I did not experience any of the previous slowdown in the battle. Even after setting all the options to the maximum limits, the game did not show any performance drops at all. It seems creating a special profile for the game in the Nvidia Control Panel was enough to make the game run properly. Weird huh? I'll edit this post if I encounter any new results I get from my tests.

EDIT 2: After playing for a while, I've seen that only 7v7 battles showed a little slowdown. But not as bad and continuous as before, so I think that's OK to live with..
Hello, can you show me how to turn of the 3D settings in Nvidia ? My game is slow as hell in battles.
Posted January 09, 2015
pekute, it's fairly easy actually, just right click on desktop, choose NVidia Control Panel. After that, you go to Management of 3D settings from the list on the left and create a profile for your game. Try to play the game with disabling some or all of the sub-options there.

I've not been testing the game for a long time now, but if I remember right, I could not solve the problem completely. I just gave up.

Maybe Nirth can give us a hint?
Posted January 10, 2015
avatar
Excolion: pekute, it's fairly easy actually, just right click on desktop, choose NVidia Control Panel. After that, you go to Management of 3D settings from the list on the left and create a profile for your game. Try to play the game with disabling some or all of the sub-options there.

I've not been testing the game for a long time now, but if I remember right, I could not solve the problem completely. I just gave up.

Maybe Nirth can give us a hint?
Hi, I turned off all the 3D settings but the game is still slow.
Posted April 11, 2015
Same here turned off all the 3d settings still very slow in battles
Posted May 27, 2015
If you've got an Nvidia card, go to the control panel and set "Power management mode" to "Prefer maximum performance". Your card is simply being underutilized. The more powerful, the more likely this will be an issue with old games.
Posted November 01, 2015
Windows 8.1 64bit, Core i7, Radeon card.
Any suggestions didn't work for me, but then I tried DXWnd programme.
In Video tab I have "simulate 16BPP desktop", "Set 16BPP RGB565 encoding" and "Monitor native modes".
Heroes 4 runs very smoothly both in adventure and battle modes. In fullscreen.
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Heroes of Might and Magic seriesHoMM4: Slow Animations on 1280x1024(42 posts)solved(42 posts)solved
(42 posts)solved