Games runs VERY slowly

[vecuccio]

It's a beautiful games, i'm not complaining about that, it really is fantastic.

But, it seems to be caching to disk all the time when playing outdoor levels - especially the areas where the Sol Bar and World Corps HQ are located. Move the mouse a little and the display pauses whilst it caches stuff to and from the HD.

And the loading times for the big levels are horrific - 8 minutes to load the initial outside area, so long that I couldn't bare to go back inside to find the free subway ticket.

Looking at the MS Process Explorer, TNM.exe never uses more than 60mb of RAM, so I am wondering what causes the problem ?
I have an old machine for sure, but its specs are around 4x the minimum for Deus Ex - which runs like a dream on its own.


What causes the caching problem ? Is it that the levels are too big for the Unreal engine ? The number of objects (trees etc) and AI on a level ? Or is it specific to my PC, and other users don't notice it because they use the brute force of their modern PC's to overcome this ?

Is it because of this new special OpenGL ? Maybe this is too new for my old GFX card ? Does the game run on this by default ? If so how do I switch back to DirectX ? Are are there OGL settings I can change in my Graphics Card OpenGL settings ?

I tried changing the texture and detail levels to lower settings and it DOES help a little, but the game looks truly hideous on anything but HIGH settings.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks again for a great great game.


EDIT - just a thought, when I initially installed it it insisted on opening in a Window rather than fullscreen. I edited the INI to force windowed mode to be the same as the fullscreen. Do you think this did not work and it is just running in a fullscreensized WINDOW ??

[Jaedar]

Try changing renderer, instruction's in the Troubleshooting part of the manual.

[vecuccio]

Wow, thanks for the fast reply !!
I will check my Hard Disk for the manual tomorrow, thanks alot.

[Trestkon]

It's definitely not a prevelant issue, so hopefully we can solve it for you

What exactly are the specs of your machine?

Also, what values did you change in the .ini to make it full screen?

[vecuccio]

Damn, I thought I was going to get away without the hu-mil-i-ation of listing my specs

Here goes:-

Intel P3 850Mhz, 192mb RAM, 64mb Hercules Prophet 4000XT PCI GFX card (Kyro II)
Windows XP Pro.
TNM patched to v1.02
Clean install of Deus Ex GOTY edition.


I changed the (i'm on my laptop now, the pc it's installed on is switched off, so this is probably not exactly right...)
'windowsize' x and y depths were inistally set to 640 and 480 and 'fullscreensize' x and y were set to 1024 and 768.

Regardless of this TNM started in a Window. So I changed both sizes to be 1024 and 768 which seemed to fix the problem, but it could still be running in a window that just appears to be fullscreen for all I know.

A weird thing, if I change the world textures to anything but 'High' then I have textures of human faces flashing up quickly as building or floor textures in big open areas. They disappear quickly and are replaced with the correct textures though.

[Jonas]

Changing those settings will not be enough. You need to find the true/false variable that defines whether to play windowed or full screen. I forget what it's called, something like "UseFullScreen".

However, your video card does look pretty feeble, I'm sorry to say

[Trestkon]

I'm in agreement with Jonas, unfortunately

You might try running it proper full screen, though. Just changing the window sizes means that it is indeed still running in a window. Look for a line that contains "fullscreen" and set it to True. I don't recall the exact name, but it's right near the window size lines.

[vecuccio]

OK. Thanks. I'll check it out tomorrow because i'm in China and it's late here now.

Yeah, the video drivers stopped being updated at least 5 years ago.

[vecuccio]

Is this the INI in the deusex/system folder, or in the tnm/system folder ?

I have to admit I had been editing the ones in the deusex/system folder. Should I be looking in the TNM/system INI instead ?

[vecuccio]

Damn. They BOTH have 'startupfullscreen=TRUE' and 'usefullscreen=TRUE' in them.

[Kee715]

So maybe the engine is doing BOTH and the computer is going WTF OW MY HEAD!!!!!

[vecuccio]

The only one I altered was the one in the DeusEx System folder, so I guess that is the one that loads when you play vanilla Deus Ex ???

I seem to have got round the problem somewhat by forcing DeusEx to load using the OPENGL drivers, it is fast now - but that could be because when you switch modes you are forced back in 16bit mode ? Maybe it will still be slow in 32bit mode ?
The only graphical difference I have noticed is that the shadows are absolutely black.

Speaking of shadows, are the AI in TNM like the AI in Thief, in that you can avoid being seen by hiding in the shadows ?

I wish I hadn't read on here that cheats still work, now I won't be able to help myself with the 'opensesame' command

[vecuccio]

Hmmmm, okay, after a while playing in OPEN GL mode I have come to the conclusion that it is too much trouble, it keeps crashing or freezing. Back to DirectX. Pity.

[Jonas]

You'll want to edit TNM.ini and TNMUser.ini in the TNM\System directory, the other one isn't used at all.

And yes, you can hide in the shadows.

[vecuccio]

Thanks for all your help guys, but I gave up on that PC's copy of TNM and instead installed it on my Quad Core (and ported the save game over). It runs lightening fast, and loads levels almost immediately - although Deus Ex doesn't seem to like Vista much as it crashes often.

Weird thing. I went to switch off the computers and trap the AI in the last one etc etc, but the first PC I logged into after arriving at the computer complex ticked off the entire quest and said I had defeated the AI and that I should return to base(!) I didn't even upload him to my brain !