Use FRAPS to tweak game performance

[opkoad]

There is a program called FRAPS (www.fraps.com) which will give you a framerate counter in-game (it can also give you an average framerate between a start and end time of your choosing). The framerate counter will appear in a corner of the screen.

This is a very handy, easy-to-use utility (in other words, you won't regret installing it ). You can use this program to help guide your choice of settings in the Options menu. For my own system, this didn't actually help much, because I have a graphics card that far exceeds the rest of my system's capabilities (so I can set everything in the Graphics tab to max, and the framerate never goes down).

But it should be useful to many of you. Basically you want as high a framerate as possible, without sacrificing too much visual quality -- and this program gives you hard numbers to go on while you experiment with each setting (resolution, antialiasing, etc).

Attached is a screenshot of FRAPS in action (framerate counter is in upper-right corner)

 

[seregost]

Aye, FRAPS is a cool tool. I use it all the time. Good post.

Can I ask what average framerate you get with your optimal settings? I realize this is somewhat relative to the state the game is in, but I seem to be getting about 30-40 fps on a map with similar complexity to yours. The world map on the Desert War scenario drops my framerate to < 10 fps.

Just making sure others are not getting framerates exceptionally higher than this, as my system is not extremely light-weight (i have a 6600gt, AMD64 3000+, etc).

Given the number of models on screen at once, its probably unreasonable to expect 60fps or more from this game.

 

[opkoad]

Can I ask what average framerate you get with your optimal settings? I realize this is somewhat relative to the state the game is in, but I seem to be getting about 30-40 fps on a map with similar complexity to yours. The world map on the Desert War scenario drops my framerate to < 10 fps.

I've attached three more images w/ framerate counter at various zoom levels centered on my capital city. This is with vsync off, Forceware 81.85, 7800 GTX. Image quality settings do not change the framerate at all.