Help me Computer Hope! You're my only hope!

[LennM24]

Yeah that topic title was intended to resemble Episode 4.

I'm big on the game Star Wars: The Old Republic. It's an mmo which, before anyone else says it, runs a very poor engine (Hero Engine). My problem is that despite the current hardware I have and all the things I've tried to fix this, I still maintain a low 11-15 fps when engaging in PvP. Now I have tried a bunch of different things but none of them truly helped.

My Current Rig:

Motherboard: GA-970A-D3 (AM3 Socket)
CPU: AMD FX-8120 3.12 GHz (8 Cores)
RAM: 12 GB
GPU: GeForce GTX 760 4GB
Direct X Version: 11 (though I also have installed Direct X 9 on it's own folder, game is supposed to run better with it)
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium

After many suggestions, videos, guides, and links. I'm almost sure that my computer's poor game performance is linked to my CPU. If I remember correctly, there's something within it's design and Windows 7 that prevents it from properly distributing it's resources among the cores during a load, which the game would qualify. I have already gone into the registry and disabled it's core parking, so that all 8 cores are active all the time, however this has only increased my fps slightly. I have also gone into the BIOS and changed the way the cores ad used, so that it's running 4 cores (really but using 2 cores as 1, if that makes sense. And so far it's been better, but it's still not what it should be from a 8 core processor. The problem isn't that I'm always in bad fps, it's that when I engage in any form of game play that involves interaction beyond my end and the game mechanics: PvP, the game has random fps drops and it's usually very sluggish.

I don't have a big enough budget to purchase a new machine, but I do have a 200-400 range to upgrade in terms of CPU, sadly since the motherboard has AM3 sockets, I'm stuck with AMD. So I have to the best I can with what I have.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or solutions you have!

[DaveLembke]

I ran into a problem with UT99 where I was getting low frames rates and my CPU was a Athlon x2 4450B  2300Mhz which is plenty of processing power for this game designed for Pentium 3 era which is running Windows 7 on 4GB RAM with 3GB usable with 32-bit Win 7. I set the CPU Affinity for the game to a single core of the 2 cores and frame rate was immediately 80 fps vs like 10 to 15 fps.

Here is how to set it up, you can specify cores to lock the game to: http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/how-to-set-processor-affinity-to-an-application-in-windows/

[LennM24]

I ran into a problem with UT99 where I was getting low frames rates and my CPU was a Athlon x2 4450B  2300Mhz which is plenty of processing power for this game designed for Pentium 3 era which is running Windows 7 on 4GB RAM with 3GB usable with 32-bit Win 7. I set the CPU Affinity for the game to a single core of the 2 cores and frame rate was immediately 80 fps vs like 10 to 15 fps.

Here is how to set it up, you can specify cores to lock the game to: http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/how-to-set-processor-affinity-to-an-application-in-windows/

So wait, are you saying I should assaign the entire thing to 1 core? I have 8 available (checked in) 0- 7

[DaveLembke]

Its worth a try to see if it fixes this... and this problem is more prone to AMD multicore CPUs also vs Intel, which someone here told me a short while back. Their solution for me was to set affinity and it fixed the issue for UT99. The setting is also not permenent, so the test will prove it either fixes or doesnt fix the issue without permanent change to the system.

BTW I soon will be upgrading to the AMD FX 8350 8-core for my new computer build and might run into the same issue your having now, however I dont play SWTOR. Tried the free play weekend of it and it didnt snag me as a game I had to have. Lots of confusion at the start of the game and what to do etc, and my friends pulled me back to WoW.

[LennM24]

Yeah, I'm well aware of AMD vs Intel. I should have gone with Intel, but now it's a little too late. I tried disabling all but 1 and I 0.9 fps lol so I tried splitting it up. Leaving 0, 2, 4, 6 active. And disabling 1,3,5,7. It runs smoother, but still not ideally. I'll keep tweaking it. Realistically speaking, if I can this to +20 fps during PvP I'm set, because i can still bear it. And yeah I feel you on the whole Swtor thing. Funny thing is I can run WoW on ultra, and do 40 vs 40 cast aoes like crazy: perfect 60 fps. I know part of it is the game, but i do have friends who run it on their Intel i5's and i7's and get perfect 60 fps regardless of anything else. I know my system won't reach that but just enough to not limit my actual performance in the game is what I'm looking for.

[DaveLembke]

Yup... same here, other games I do not need to tweak cpu core affinity and they run sweet such as WoW is 30 to 60 fps depending on what I am doing in the game with a $30 PCIe 16x ATI Radeon HD5450 video card with 512MB DDR2. I havent run into any other games that require the affinity selection other than Unreal Tournament 99.

Other games that play fine on it are Aion, Rift, Tera, Allods, GTA 4, Driver SF, GTA SA, and a bunch of others.

[LennM24]

Yeah. Anything else that I can do improve the performance? Or Would you say it's case closed?

[DaveLembke]

You could also open up a support ticket with the makers of the game and see what they suggest, as for while UT99 is beyond the end of its intended life cycle, SWTOR is still active and others out there may have similar issues with the game to where the game support may have answers on a patch for the game (bugfix) or special config beyond core affinity which is a part of the game client settings and may be as simple as a checkbox or slider bar.

[LennM24]

lol i'm sorry but that's just too funny. Swtor's customer support is terrible. The way it works is simple: Are you a subscriber? No? ---Line Cut--- Yes? Give us a copy of your DXDIAG. They analyze it for 2 days and then get back to you with: "We'd like to assure you that everything that can be done, is being done". 2 weeks pass. new patch comes out. Fixes or performance boost: 0; introducing a useless pet to stare while you do PvE: 3. Literally Swtor's support system consist of the forum and players who may have a little more knowledge about computers. And I've already tried that and nothing really came out of it. That's why my topic's subject is what it is.

On another note, if there's nothing else that can be done, I want to thank you for all the time and effort you spent helping me out. I really appreciate it

[DaveLembke]

SWTOR support from the sounds of it is reminding me of what Blizzard Support is becoming. I can swear that they got rid of to many tech support game specialists. I use to have support tickets handled quickly sometimes within the same hour that it was submitted for a problem, and now its 2 days or so and for stuff they have been able to assist with in the past, when the same problem happens now, sorry we cant help you as was the case in a character deletion that was recovered once 3 years ago with no troubles and just recently I tried to get a druid recovered and they said sorry its been deleted for too long 18 months, when the prior character recovery was one that was recovered from almost 3 years prior.

Sorry to say this, but yah I think that there isnt much more to do on this.