I want to make my AoC game look even more awesome, with more FPS!

Okay. I'm pretty lucky, in that I updated my computer right before AoC launched. As a result, I can play with almost all settings on "high" with FPS fairly consistently in the 25-65 range.

However, I still want to maximize my game a bit more. I'd like to run with full shadowing (I currently use "from characters only" or "disabled"), and crank my AA up from 2x to 16x. Additionally, I'd like to use Bloom lighting. I'd also like to see my FPS stabilize around 40. So I'm curious as to how I can upgrade my system to do this in an efficient way. (Without spending another huge wad of cash to do it.)

Specs are as follows:
Win XP sp2
E8400 dual-core processor (3.0GHz)
500gb hard drive @7200RPM and a 32mb cache
4GB RAM (which Windows only recognizes as 3GB, the bastards)
nVidia 8800GT 512mb graphics card

I also have a cable connection that's supposedly pretty damn fast. 8 or 16 somethings-per-second.

Now, I really don't think my CPU is the bottleneck, as it's rather nice and easily exceeds spec. Likewise, I imagine my HD isn't an issue, as it's fairly fast and the on-disk cache (assuming everything works properly) should help load speeds. So that probably leaves me with two areas I could improve: RAM, and video card. I'm kinda screwed on RAM unless I upgrade to Vista, which I'm reluctant to do. And from what I read (from Probie's linked guide and other sites) the 8800GT is an excellent card for AoC. My mobo supports SLI, but I hear that SLI isn't all it's cracked up to be in AoC.

So what could I do to squeeze a little more performance from my system without stepping down graphics or sacrificing FPS?

You have an e8400, like myself. You could overclock that badboy and get a few more FPS.

As for as SLI goes, you can see on the forums that its somewhat questionable whether or not AoC supports it.

Other than that you might just keep in mind that the devs are working to optimize the game and its likely you will get some FPS improvements as teh memory leaks get fixed and the game gets locked down.

You have a nice system Dao, not much you need to do that I can tell.

I am running an AMD 64-FX55
I have 2 8800GT's for SLI, but when I use SLI in game, barf. One runs it better right now.

Vista 64 4 gb RAM.

Here is what I did that really improved my game performance, load times, I have my graphics maxed out in game, and am usually around 40fps, except when I go into a busy city, and then it craps down to 15-25.

I had a 7200RPM hard drive, previously, and ran pretty much at what you are right now. I just purchased one of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136011

and Praise Jesus can I get a hallelujah? Saw a huge difference, which really helped the game run better, faster, smoother.

I hope this helps out, maybe we have some other peeps on here that have done the same thing and can relate any improvements to you. .

Yeah - I have a secret fear that I picked the wrong hard drive. I wanted a lot of space, and the 32MB cache was supposedly great for decreasing seek times, but I think what is killing that drive is that it's a single 500GB plate, which means having to spin the whole thing to find anything. There was another drive that only had a 16MB cache, but it was a 640GB drive split into two 320GB plates. Supposedly it moves pretty fast because it's searching only half the total possible space at any one time.

I'm thinking that maybe I need a second hard drive that is just dedicated to gaming apps, and keep the big drive for my system software and normal stuff.

As to Virgil's comment: I want to believe that the devs are slowly improving the system, but as many people (myself among them) are noticing, with every new release of this game our client is getting LESS, not MORE stable. I never had "out of memory" crashes until a week ago, and after Monday's big patch I now find that AoC thinks it is still "running" even after I quit out, and the only way to relaunch it is to completely reboot my system.

Okay. So the SLI thing is iffy, and a new HD may be a good investment. I wish there was a way to up my RAM without swapping to Vista. Only using 75% of my installed RAM is frustrating.

I have 8 gig vista 64 sp1 machine with sli 8800gts (g80) with a 74gb 10k raptor, 3g core 2.

Bumping up to 8 gigs and vista will only get you very minimal gains if any. One way to get a gain with that much ram is to turn your windows caching off (which i do). No more windows writing to your hard drive! yay!

Switching to a raptor will improve load times, but not fps, which is nice.

The only option you have is to either go sli, which will probably get you 10-30% performance from what I've read (need to try this with my cards. Or get a better video card (8800gts (g92), 8800 ultra, or 9800gtx)(single or sli'ed). Or wait until the next line of nvidia cards come out. The 8800gts and 9800gtx are similar for performance in dx9 with the 8800 ultra a little better. The 9800gtx is a little better in dx10, but conan doesn't do 10 or shaders v4 yet anyway.

Overclocking your video card and cpu/ram will give you a few more fps here and there, but at the risk of you blowing it up.

To turn on bloom lighting you'll need to reduce other settings or run it at a crap resolution as it's a hog and doesn't run very well. The AA is also a hog and doesn't offer as much as a higher resolution does. I'd focus on not using AA or bloom and putting the rest of the settings up like shadows and shaders to 3.0 if not already. The [H]Enthusiast link mentioned earlier should be a good indicator of what's possible as the machine they used to test conan was similar to what you and I have http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUxNiwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

I think your stuck unless you fork over $$$ for the best video card (possibly sli'ed), and even then max settings might not be possible depending on the resolution your running.

I run with shaders at 2.0 and shadows off with my system cache set to 512 without any hickups at all. If I turn shaders to 3.0 (looks much better), and shadows to everything, the game is playable, but I get slowdowns when lots of animations are on the screen (like spells) or in large cities with tons of details (tarantia).

Ggood luck. I'm also searching for what I can do that doesn't cost an arm and leg since my car seems to suck up my money and I wish it was just the gas. Evo's require moola to own.

Just so you know, running at Shaders 2.0 turns off grass, so far as I've seen. Obviously, this is a huge bump to FPS, but a huge downturn to appearance. I actually found that running with shaders 3.0 worked better for me than 2.0, as that was what my system was built to run on.

I could live without Bloom, but I really need AA. My crap-ass monitor only runs up to 1280x1024 resolution, and at that size the game still looks too choppy for my tastes.

I vote for you getting a new monitor then. The game looks amazing in 1920x1200. You can find nice big lcd's for 350ish on newegg that run that resolution.

I'd get that vs getting an extra expensive video card (or sli yours), which is what you really need to get more speed. You'd be amazed what higher resolutions does to the gaming experience. I went from 1280x1200 to 1920x1200 and it's awesome.

Good luck Dao. I agree that the performance has decreased over the time since launch. It has for me. I remember when I first installed and logged on. I called my friend to say how well the game played even on medium settings. Went so far as to say that the people who programmed the game were genius. It literally played THAT good! Not Alienware spend all my money on monster pc GOOD, but still rather impressive for my standards. And the graphics were better too. However, at this point, no matter what my settings, the game is nearly unplayable. My fps spikes like crazy and then drops badly.