Lagtastic!

[Pel]

lol so i got in finaly, and i went on beta server 3 cause it had the least amount of people, and with the high performance setting, i was still experiancing great deals of lag, i was wondering if any1 knew an easy way to fine tune prefrances on my compu or in game to get the glitchyness down, or do i just need to buy a new machine? my computer was the best buy special for like 700 bucks, my dad is pretty computer savvy and said it was a decent buy for games, i ran FFXI, and WoW on it really well.

[Solution0]

Wow and FFXI are really low requirements games compared to VSOH. Can't tell if it's hopeless case before knowing what pc you got though

[Pel]

well i wish i knew more of what was inside it, but all i can tell you is its a Compaq presario with 250 gb HD and i could prolly figure out what else it has if i checked around the settings...

[TheWizza]

Reposted from other forums.... I take absolutely no credit, I use some of theses tweaks and they really saved this game.

Ok guys, here they are. If you have previously played Vanguard and think it is laggy/system hog/unplayable, these tweaks are especially for you! Read them carefully and only do the ones that apply to your video card/system.
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One day I was lucky enough to stumble upon this thread. For me, Vanguard was beautiful but laggy as hell! Almost unbearable to play! After I followed these tweaks to the letter (there were more, but these are the ones I used and they worked like a charm) I logged into Vanguard, crossed my fingers, and HOLY CRAP! NO LAG! Well, it lags sometimes but the difference was like playing Horizons to playing WoW, no contest!
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Special thanks to Petit_Mort from the official forums. He didn't make the tweaks, but he made the thread and took the time to put them all in once place. Thanks Mort, you truly rock!
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Well, without further ado, here they are! Trust me, if you have played before without them and hated Vanguard, try again with them, you will be blown away!
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Well I've been digging through the forums for close to two days now and thought I'd save everyone a TON of time by posting everything mentioned so far in a clear "guide"

Important to note that while this WILL work for many of you, it won't work for ALL of you (I'm rolling back my drivers and then defragging after this, but if that doesn't work, it certainly didn't work for me yet)

Also, I don't think that ANY of these tweaks are "supported" so before you do ANYTHING, make a copy of the file you are about to change and save it somewhere in the event that you need to revert back to basics.

I'll try to make this as clear and easy to follow as I can.

General Tweaks

• FIRST, be sure to defragment after install. Seriously, this has a HUGE impact on the game's performance.
• Turn off your AV program and/or Firewall. I know you hate the idea of it but try it, if it doesn't help then you know you can leave it on.
• Google the program RivaTuner 2.0 and set the card to force shading at 2.0. if anyone else figures this out please let me know. personally I think this program stinks. THIS IS AN ADVANCED TWEAK don't mess with anything else unless you know what you're doing!!! (NOTE from anarchyart: I did not do this tweak, dont bother unless you're sure you know what you are doing)
• In the in-game settings, change sound settings to "Hardware"
• In the in-game settings, set the resolution to 1024x768
• In the in-game settings, turn off HDR
• NVidia 6xxx series users, Tru using the older "71" series drivers. Linky goodness (Link en francais)
• ATI users (I'm one myself) by far, ATI users with AMD proc's tend to be having the most problems aside from the Nvidia 6xxx users. I've been told to try the catylist 6.8 drivers (which can be found Here) I am currently using these drivers and still have the older 6.7 driver install program, I can't find it on the web, but I haven't really searched for too long. the original filename is : 6-7_xp-2k_dd_ccc_wdm_enu_34826 so for those who want to try a driver rollback, there you go.
• Also for ATI peeps, Rumor has it that the Omega drivers (www.omegadrivers.net) give some folks SIGNIFICANT increases in quality and speed. UPDATE!!! My personal test shows only a ~1 FPS gain and what's worse is that the Omega drivers don't support OC'ing for the 1300+ series of cards. DOUBLE worse is that reverting back to the Catalyst 6.8 drivers no longer allow ATI tool to OC my ATI 1300pro and deleted my openGL drivers which the ATI installer didn't like re-installing (I know, weak card. Give it a rest already)
• Someone previously suggested starting the client and then Alt+Tabbing to desktop, bringing up the Task Manager, Going to processes, selecting the VGClient.exe file and setting the priority to high. might work for some.
• TURN OFF Hardware Occulsion while in the field and TURN IT BACK ON in town. The FPS gain in the field (for me) is close to 10!!!

Vgclient.ini Tweaks

go to: [install drive]:\ProgramFiles\Sony\Vanguard\bin\vgclient.ini

Open it using notepad and make the following changes:

• AnisotropicFiltering=off (which supposedly works for NVidia folks VERY well) Side Note: ALSO go into your card's propertied and change this there as well
• UseJoystick=False (I don't know why but this did give me an extra 3-5 FPS)
• UsePrecaching=True (For NVidia folks and some ATI folks, this is the holy grail)
• UseTrilinear=False (For some folks this was an incredible boost)
• UseCubemaps=False (I only noticed an ugly load screen, the game still looks fine to me)
• ReduceMouseLag=False (this has worked for a few folks as well)
• UseTripleBuffering=True (Only do this if you also set the vsync)
• UseVSync=True (it gave me a few extra FPS)
• UseSound=False (You lose the sound but can pick up nearly 5-10 FPS!!!)
  Side note: instead of turning sound off you CAN set LowQualitySound=True instead!
• GlobalHardwareSkinning=True (gave me a noticable bump 2-5FPS-ish)
• TextureDetailWorld=5 (this controls the texture details, raising this to 5-7ish can save you a significant amount of memory and reduce stuttering. This can range from 0-7, 0 being the most detailed textures to 7 being lowest texture detail)
• RenderQuality=5 (Setting this to 5 sets the game into "very high" mode but coupled with a higher TextureDetailWorld setting, it will give you the special effects of very high with the memory requirements/stuttering of a low or medium settings)

(NOTE: Changing the in-game drop-down graphics settings to Medium or High (or whatever you change it to) changes BOTH RenderQuality and TextureDetailWorld to their default settings. The trick is to adjust all the in-game settings FIRST, THEN mess with the .ini settings for these two and don't flip between low/med at all in-game since that would reset this change)

Now look for the [Engine.NullRenderDevice] Heading.
There add the line: CacheSizeMegs=64
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Well, that's it guys. This thread was what saved Vanguard for me. I went from playing an hour a week to 2 and 3 hours a day. Vanguard is an amazing experience. The detail in it is just unprecedented and the artists, programmers and developers at Sigil have TRULY outdone themselves. It is a world unto itself, and it is beautiful.

[Pel]

oooh so trying that stuff, thanks so much!

[Solution0]

Go download Systemspec it will show you many usefull information about your pc.

Once the software open, go to file and save to CSV. Then post it here.

[Pirotess]

Thanks for the repost Wizza. I went through and spruced up the post to make it a little easier to read.

[Kiril]

Link for the drivers, 71 series
I also heard that the 84 Series was good for vanguard

The Ati Catalyst 6.7 driver isn't linked in the origanal post. Just a note of warning on the 6.7 is that its from july of last year, so if your card was realised after that it might have problems.

All above links are for XP

[Solution0]

Here is a tweak guide posted by ten ton hammer that explain all what it does and it works great.

[TheWizza]

Thanx for cleaning it up, I threw it up last night, quick copy and paste job for the most part. I know it took me awhile to find this post, and the info inside really does help, I netted avg. 15 fps from tweaking my .ini I now play at 1440x900 at an avg. of 20-30 fps (more underground) on my old ati readeon 9800 pro (OC'ed to 335 core, 300 mem).