Big performance drop problem (RF:G)

[Selvator]

Hello,

I have a big problem with Red Faction Guerrilla.
Whenever I play I usually have constant FPS of 60-70.
However every 5-10 seconds my FPS drops to a lagging 15-20 for a few seconds then it turns back to normal for 10 seconds and does it again.
It doesn't matter if I stand still or move or even destroy a building it keeps dropping on FPS massively.

Things I already tried:
1. Checking drivers and there all up to date.
2. Forcing Dx9 instead of 10.
3. all settings to lowest which results in 80-90 fps but still drops to 15-20.
4. Reinstalling the game.
5. Running windowed mode, changing setting for setting to see if it helped.
6. Turned off Firewall Anti-virus etc.
7. Changed priority.
8. Changed compatible to Windows XP sp3.

After some performance testing I can see that only up to 25-30% of my cpu is used so no problem there.
45-50% of my total Physical memory so no worries there.
This is also the only game I am having problems with, all my other games installed run perfectly fine.

My system specs are:
OS: Windows 7 64bit
Vid: Radeon 5870
CPU: Intel core I7 860
RAM: 4 Gig DDR3

Any help would be much appreciated.
If you need any more information just ask away.

[MIK3K]

I know in WinXP I had to alt-tab, open task manager, and set the priority to low and it smoothed right out.

I recently upgraded to Windows 7 and at first could not set priority to low until I checked the button at the bottom of task manager that said something like "show all user processes" and then I could drop the priority by right clicking the rfg.exe process and dropping priority to low.

It seems to lag for me more on Windows 7 - but Bad Company 2 and Rise of Flight I have to dual boot to WinXP to even be able to play because of the constant stuttering or low fps.

I am running an AMD 64 X2 4800+ at stock 2.5 ghz, 4 gb RAM, Nvidia 9600gt, so it is understandable for me that Windows 7 does not want to run the most demanding games very well. Guess I need quad core and a little more RAM.

Hope that helps.

Edit - Check this thread - http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1260611.

I am trying to figure out if it is partially a hard drive (which is slower than RAM) issue with these more demanding games. I dual boot WinXP and Windows 7, so looks like Bad Company 2, Rise of Flight, and maybe Red Faction Guerilla I will have to play on WinXP until I upgrade my RAM to 6 gb (and quad core would probably help tremendously in my case).

[Selvator]

I tried messing around with the priority settings like you said but unfortunately it doesn't help for me.
I doubt the RAM is a problem with either you or me, when I run the game it goes from using 1.66GB of memory to 2.32 GB which leaves me more then enough free RAM.
Another thing to note is that in my case it only lags ingame, not in the menu.

BFBC2 runs perfect on my system as well, just like all other games I have ranging from games from 5 years up to the latest games recently released.
For me it seems that the engine is badly optimized for a wide variety of systems.
I will not give up however, I have just send a message to there support team and hope to receive an answer soon.

[MIK3K]

Edit - Removed this. I take it all back. Running Rise of Flight my memory usage is only a total of 2 Gb with another 2 Gb free according to the resource monitor in task manager.

Maybe video, sound, or other drivers causing performance hits. I know on Rise of Flight with dual core and Windows 7 some people are having problems when their joysticks are plugged in. I am experiencing this same problem with a Saitek x52 and smooth play when I unplug my joystick. Too bad it is kind of required to have a joystick to run that game.

As far as Red Faction Guerrilla - The only trick that worked for me (in WinXP) was changing the priorty.

The good thing is that a couple of years from now most of these problems will be worked out and we will be gaming with minimal problems - Just in time for another operating system. Sigh.

[Selvator]

Well like I said before changing priority in Windows 7 does not work and im sure as hell not going to install XP again just for one game ^^
I got a reply from Red Faction support team but they want me to send my Msinfo file first.
To bad I am at work right now so I can't send it to them right now but when I can will see what they have to say about this.

I could mess around with my sound driver once more, maybe try and see if I can disable the sound card and then start the game, but I can't do anything about my Video driver, I can only reinstall which I already did and it did not help.

If anyway else has another suggestion, shoot away! :)

[Selvator]

Holy hell, I just got a reply from the THQ made me go ROFL and got me a feeling that I got pwned pretty hard, check it out:


Hello,

Unfortunately we will not be able to continue support with your computer in its current state. This is due to your MSinfo report highlighting several installations of pirated software, including some of the software that we publish, Metro 2033.

The methods used to gain access to this software will compromise the integrity of your system, as many of the channels you would have to go through would expose your system to various different types of malware which your AV software may or may not pick-up.

If you wish to continue support we would request that you remove this pirated software and the tools required to use it. A reinstallation of Windows would be preferable as this would be the only way to ensure that you were then running on a clean system.

Alternatively I can only suggest that you seek assistance on the games community website.

Unbelievable, I didn't even know you could "find" that kind of information from the Msinfo file, darn im gonna check that file every time I have to upload it somewhere from now on.

At least THQ doesn't have to worry about helping people this way since almost every gamer has at least some "illegal" software laying around, if I did I would be broke like ♥♥♥♥

[milkyjoe]

I think i might because your using windows 64bit version.

[Hankhendrix]

"This is due to your MSinfo report highlighting several installations of pirated software, including some of the software that we publish, Metro 2033." Rofl, thats gotta be a slap in the face to the Dev. Love that game :P