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korell: I only half agree here. Old games often used hardware timers for physics and such (just look at Interstate '76) and so really, to keep them running as intended, the framerate should be limited to what the game was designed for.

Any thoughts about providing an Nvidia profile for I76, by the way - the profile with SotE was the first time I've seen you do this, and it's a great idea.

With Shadows of the Empire, though, I've not noticed any issues with 60 FPS yet, but I've not played at 30 FPS to compare, so I can't say what the correct framerate should be for the game.
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Thiev: I think we already locked I76 down to 15-20FPS long time ago (not through profiles though)
SOTE isn't the first game with NVidia profile, Ultima iX has one and Fallout Tactics might have one as well.

As for 30FPS lock for Shadows - our QA completed the game at 60FPS and I'm reluctant to limit it further based on a few forum posts. Mind you, with enough proof that the game is still too fast for majority of users, this can of course change. :)
One level that shows the difference between 60 and 30 fps is the gall spaceport. Platforming gets very hard, and sometimes the character walks by itself... There should be a frame limiter for amd users as well.

Apart from this, the game runs perfectly, and the gog team did a great job once again
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korell: I only half agree here. Old games often used hardware timers for physics and such (just look at Interstate '76) and so really, to keep them running as intended, the framerate should be limited to what the game was designed for.

Any thoughts about providing an Nvidia profile for I76, by the way - the profile with SotE was the first time I've seen you do this, and it's a great idea.

With Shadows of the Empire, though, I've not noticed any issues with 60 FPS yet, but I've not played at 30 FPS to compare, so I can't say what the correct framerate should be for the game.
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Thiev: I think we already locked I76 down to 15-20FPS long time ago (not through profiles though)
SOTE isn't the first game with NVidia profile, Ultima iX has one and Fallout Tactics might have one as well.

As for 30FPS lock for Shadows - our QA completed the game at 60FPS and I'm reluctant to limit it further based on a few forum posts. Mind you, with enough proof that the game is still too fast for majority of users, this can of course change. :)
I'd like to echo what jojapupo said in that the Gall Spaceport seems to have a physics glitch in which the character will slide uncontrollably while moving often to your doom which makes the level borderline unplayable. I think the higher frame rate is causing this. Is there maybe a game config file you could provide that would allow us to select our own frame rate for the game?
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korell: If you think this needs changing then you need to raise this with GOG support and if they agree (or you provide evidence proving that it needs to be changed) then they may then release a new installer version with a new profile set at a 30 FPS limit.
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Thiev: ...and the moment we do that, we'll get people complaining that the game is locked at 30 and should be 60 FPS instead. ;)
Profile changes are easy to do and I'd think that it would be better to leave 30/60 FPS decision to users themselves.
Uh, how do we change it ourselves?
Post edited May 06, 2016 by haydenaurion
Managed to make it to the speeder level and now the game IS unplayable at this frame rate. Gog needs to provide an optional 30 fps version.
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haydenaurion: Managed to make it to the speeder level and now the game IS unplayable at this frame rate. Gog needs to provide an optional 30 fps version.
I managed to finish it at 60FPS.
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haydenaurion: Uh, how do we change it ourselves?
launch Profile Inspector found in <Shadows_folder>\NVI\
in drop down menu with profile names find 'Shadows of the Empire'
under '2 - Sync and Refresh' there is a Frame Limiter setting - change it to desired value and hit 'Apply'
Attachments:
nvi.jpg (172 Kb)
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haydenaurion: Uh, how do we change it ourselves?
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Thiev: launch Profile Inspector found in <Shadows_folder>\NVI\
in drop down menu with profile names find 'Shadows of the Empire'
under '2 - Sync and Refresh' there is a Frame Limiter setting - change it to desired value and hit 'Apply'
Much thanks, that fixed the speeder level and the broken sliding physics in Gall Spaceport. That tells me the game wasn't originally intended to run at 60 fps, at least not without problems imo. I would seriously consider updating the installer to a lower frame rate.
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haydenaurion: Managed to make it to the speeder level and now the game IS unplayable at this frame rate. Gog needs to provide an optional 30 fps version.
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Venita: I managed to finish it at 60FPS.
You must be superhuman, and that's saying something considering how good I was at the original N64 version and its lower frame rate. :P
Post edited May 06, 2016 by haydenaurion
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haydenaurion: Uh, how do we change it ourselves?
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Thiev: launch Profile Inspector found in <Shadows_folder>\NVI\
in drop down menu with profile names find 'Shadows of the Empire'
under '2 - Sync and Refresh' there is a Frame Limiter setting - change it to desired value and hit 'Apply'
Just a thought, what would non-nvidia users need to do? Does Catalyst have a similar setting/profiles or would they need to use a third party application to limit the framerate? I ask not for myself, as I've been an nvidia user for many years now, but for other players as this information would be useful here in this one thread.
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Thiev: launch Profile Inspector found in <Shadows_folder>\NVI\
in drop down menu with profile names find 'Shadows of the Empire'
under '2 - Sync and Refresh' there is a Frame Limiter setting - change it to desired value and hit 'Apply'
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korell: Just a thought, what would non-nvidia users need to do? Does Catalyst have a similar setting/profiles or would they need to use a third party application to limit the framerate? I ask not for myself, as I've been an nvidia user for many years now, but for other players as this information would be useful here in this one thread.
I have another thought, I wonder if Thiev's fix would work with the long standing physics issues in Interstate 76? I'll have to try that later.
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korell: Just a thought, what would non-nvidia users need to do? Does Catalyst have a similar setting/profiles or would they need to use a third party application to limit the framerate? I ask not for myself, as I've been an nvidia user for many years now, but for other players as this information would be useful here in this one thread.
Catalyst doesn't have it, which is a source of problems for a long time now.
There are some third-party tools like FPS Limiter but I don't think we can add them at the moment.
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haydenaurion: Much thanks, that fixed the speeder level and the broken sliding physics in Gall Spaceport. That tells me the game wasn't originally intended to run at 60 fps, at least not without problems imo. I would seriously consider updating the installer to a lower frame rate.
Very interesting. I did the Gall Spaceport level last night and somehow managed to complete it with all the sliding around. That level cost me 5 lives, though. I might just try replaying that level with a 30 FPS limit in place instead. I did think, for the age of the game, that the limit should be 30 FPS, so if that works for me then I will agree that the GOG provided nvidia profile should be changed. I need to give it a try first, though.
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haydenaurion: I have another thought, I wonder if Thiev's fix would work with the long standing physics issues in Interstate 76? I'll have to try that later.
I already asked about that (see previous comments in this thread). I would work as it is exactly how I fixed I'76 when I played it a couple of years ago, using a limit of 30 FPS in Nvidia Inspector. However, Thiev says that they updated the game to use a framerate limit of 15-20 FPS already.
Post edited May 06, 2016 by korell
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haydenaurion: Much thanks, that fixed the speeder level and the broken sliding physics in Gall Spaceport. That tells me the game wasn't originally intended to run at 60 fps, at least not without problems imo. I would seriously consider updating the installer to a lower frame rate.
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korell: Very interesting. I did the Gall Spaceport level last night and somehow managed to complete it with all the sliding around. That level cost me 5 lives, though. I might just try replaying that level with a 30 FPS limit in place instead. I did think, for the age of the game, that the limit should be 30 FPS, so if that works for me then I will agree that the GOG provided nvidia profile should be changed. I need to give it a try first, though.
The original N64 version ran at a lower frame rate, my guess is that the PC version's physics or whatever didn't take higher frame rates into account.
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haydenaurion: Much thanks, that fixed the speeder level and the broken sliding physics in Gall Spaceport. That tells me the game wasn't originally intended to run at 60 fps, at least not without problems imo. I would seriously consider updating the installer to a lower frame rate.
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korell: Very interesting. I did the Gall Spaceport level last night and somehow managed to complete it with all the sliding around. That level cost me 5 lives, though. I might just try replaying that level with a 30 FPS limit in place instead. I did think, for the age of the game, that the limit should be 30 FPS, so if that works for me then I will agree that the GOG provided nvidia profile should be changed. I need to give it a try first, though.
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haydenaurion: I have another thought, I wonder if Thiev's fix would work with the long standing physics issues in Interstate 76? I'll have to try that later.
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korell: I already asked about that (see previous comments in this thread). I would work as it is exactly how I fixed I'76 when I played it a couple of years ago, using a limit of 30 FPS in Nvidia Inspector. However, Thiev says that they updated the game to use a framerate limit of 15-20 FPS already.
That's odd, could have sworn I tried Interstate 76 recently and it was running at or above 60 fps. I'll have to give it another shot, but I better not drift off topic anymore, lol.

Edit: Okay i'm stupid, last time I tried I'76 was before they split the base and expansion apart. :P The updated installers might fix it.
Post edited May 06, 2016 by haydenaurion
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Thiev: As for 30FPS lock for Shadows - our QA completed the game at 60FPS and I'm reluctant to limit it further based on a few forum posts. Mind you, with enough proof that the game is still too fast for majority of users, this can of course change. :)
Could you please explain me why the droids are hopping up and down like crazy at the first level if it's not because 60fps are too fast? And isn't it possible to offer two downloads for the game - one based on 30, the other on 60 fps? Or would that be too much effort?
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haydenaurion: Uh, how do we change it ourselves?
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Thiev: launch Profile Inspector found in <Shadows_folder>\NVI\
in drop down menu with profile names find 'Shadows of the Empire'
under '2 - Sync and Refresh' there is a Frame Limiter setting - change it to desired value and hit 'Apply'
Should that be 29.5 or 30.5 for 30 FPS? I have vsync always on and the monitor at 59.7Hz.
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sndwv: Should that be 29.5 or 30.5 for 30 FPS? I have vsync always on and the monitor at 59.7Hz.
Shouldn't make that much difference. Start with the first one and see if game speed is to your liking.
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Thiev: Shouldn't make that much difference. Start with the first one and see if game speed is to your liking.
Ok, tried both and 30.5 'felt' better, 29.5 seemed less stable, but honestly it is nearly impossible to tell. Either solves the overcaffeinated Probe Droids and makes their speed similar to footage from the N64 version, so I'm sticking with 30.5 for now.

Would still be interested in the official word about the 'intended' frame rate. Back in the day, was this just limited by and calibrated for the hardware of the time, so 'most PC's' would run it at 30ish frames per second? Or was some kind of framerate limit / synching lost with modern hard and software?