Framerate drop...

First off why does it happen?
I'll have 38 fps one moment, and then 1.9 fps the next. I've tried everything from lowering graphic settings to minimum to raising the priority of newview.exe.
So far none of these work, it's strange but others nearby say they never lose framerate.
I'm on a brand new Dell Laptop, Radeon Mobility 9000 64MB ram, 1.6ghz Centrino, 1GB System Ram, and before newview starts I have 2% CPU usage Idle and 145MB Ram Idle.
I have a Gigabit Network adapter, connected to a 10MBps Fiber Optic Connection.

So network shouldn't be a problem, nor should being able to run the game.

Any comments are welcome. As well as any suggestions.

FYI, graphics settings are at bare minimum, yes the game looks VERY blocky.

Christian,

At one time frame rate used to be pretty steady, but recently I have noticed the same kind of fluctuations you mention.

OK, here is my take on it after spending some time with sucky frame rates. I started this game about a week ago and found consistent frame rates of 1-3 fps no matter where I went. The hit was always the hardest when at any activity where a lot of people where present and moving around.

Did some tweaks to SL and my card and now have fps of 25-45 in non populated areas and 7-15 in heavily populated areas. These tweaks come from (1) SL support (2) a increasing bandwidth write up I found in a library in SL. Don't ask me who wrote it. Don't remember. But some good stuff in it.

Some of the things to try;

Preference / display
Turn off all performance options
Turn off running in Windows mode
Reduce Avatar Bumpmapping to normal (this can be turned up to bump map & clothing but expect a 1-2fps hit. If you can live with that fine.
Reduce terrain detail to Some
Turn the display setting down. (If running in 1024x768 then reduce to 800x600)

Preference / Network
Set network bandwidth to to 1/2 whatever your ISP provides (then test and adjust)
Example: My ISP has me set at 600mb download so I started it set at 300mb bandwidth then adjusted from there
Set Disk Cache to 200 (anything higher may slow you down due to unessary rewrites)

Preference / Options
Set Draw Distance to 64
Fog Ratio = 1.2
Drop Draw = 0 (taken care of by reducing Draw Distance)
Bumpy = 0 (taken care of by reducing Draw Distance)

Preference / Audio
Turn off audio (That was suggested but who would want to do that?)


MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE LATEST DRIVERS FOR YOUR VIDEO CARD!!!
Not sure go check the website for Nvidia (www.nvidia.com) or ATI (www.ati.com) and find out.

Once you have changed these options then see if it helps. If you do get a increase that you are happy with then you can look over the options you changed and see what you might want to turn up / turn on. I have found that any setting for populated areas with fps hitting above 5 is ok, 10 or above good. In the outside non populated area 20-30 should be normal. 30 fps is the norm as a gaming reference mark. Anything above is great.

One other thing. If you ARE in a populated area like a club. Turning your camera away from the crowd will increase your fps. This is due to the fact that is most basic about fps. The more objects on the screen and moving will have a direct impact on performance. So turn away and it should help.

Hope all this helps a little!

By the way my PC configuration is:
AMD 2800+
Gigabyte K7 Triton Mainboard
1.5 mb of DDR 400
Soundblaster Audigy 2
(1) 160gb harddrive (Primary) (1) 120gb harddrive (Secondary)
(1) 48x CD Burner (1) 4x DVD
(1) ATI Radeon 9500 with 8x AGP video card (Yes it's a ATI)
19" Viewsonic A90f monitor
Logitech 700 wireless mouse


"Isee a AMD 64fx in my future"

cnyreject