Bloodlines: The Source Engine is bending my computer over like a prison *****. HELP!

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

For various reasons, Source Engine games seem to be performing abnormally far below average. With HL2 I was able to get the game to run pretty sweetly after some effort, with tolerable minimized skippage, but Vampire Bloodlines is raping my machine and I can find no tweaks for it whatsoever to assist me.

I did some of the naturally assumed things, like set the -heapsize and -refresh options at the game's shortcut, for example. Turning on a setting called mat_picmip didn't help performance much but it made all of the little visual things like newspapers and such unreadably blurred so I had to turn it back on. CL_smooth 0 made the hub in downtown turn into a slide show.

My performance is notably worse in the hubs. I recall shutting off the 3d skyboxes (stupid ****ing piece of technology right there..."let's add needless polygons to the most visually demanding part of the engine instead of just making some ****ing tall buildings!") At any rate it seems the game has rewritten it's old config file because there IS a 3d skybox in the game hub I'm at now (downtown).

Here's the thing--my logic is that I should be able to run this game at least comparably as well as HL2. That ain't happening. :0\

I disabled the rain in the hubs but it doesn't help. The skipping is almost absurd at points, mostly outside though. "Instanced" areas perform wildly better, even clubs full of NPCs.

A quick look int he console reveals that Vampire takes the cake as having the most terrible setup ever. There are literally dozens and dozens of errors that occur as I walk through certain areas--missing sound files, missing textures, preload flush things, all kinds of retarded stuff. I believe that it is these issues that are choking the machine. Regardless of the cause, though, I need some help tweaking the damn thing so that it can be more enjoyable to play. Any suggestions for tweaks?

My specs are in my sig; I know I don't have a lot of ram, but I shouldn't need that much, especially if I was able to run D3 on high with tweaks, and HL2 on high with tweaks. So if you plan on replying with "get more ram" let it slide, 'cause I already know I need more.

 

[-JLN-]

Yeah, I don't think there's much you can do to help performance. It ran terribly on my PC aswell, while HL2 was running fine. The hubs, especially when it was raining, were almost unplayable, and I returned the game because of it. It just smells like terribly poor optimisation to me, and since the patch Troika released didn't fix any performance problems, I wouldn't count on them doing it any time soon. The tragedy of it is, that it actually seems like a very good game when it's working fine.

 

[Pain]

Only thing I can say is, when the Source engine was first upon us it had all of the same problems. Steam patched some of them, has Bloodlines? I have no idea, I don't have the game.

My best suggestion would be to try checking the site for any patches that may have come about if you haven't already. Perhaps there is a thread about it in the Steam or Half-Life 2 forums? Afterall it is using the same engine, you may be able to find something there. Good luck.

 

[jp]

wow, if the sourche engine gives so much trouble in other games, i wonder how the doom3 engine will fare on other games...

 

[Navanax]

Half-Life 2 ran fine on my machine, Bloodlines became unplayable the moment there were 4 enemies in sight.

So the problem probably isn't the Source engine

 

[Phatslugga]

Never had any problems in Bloodlines, but there are a few patches that have come out, official and unofficial.

Can't find the official at the moment but give this a try.

www.planetvampire.com/bloodlines/files/patches/+Bloodlines+patch&hl=en

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

That is pretty sad that some random dude put out not one but TWO patches before Troika's people did, and his at least actually fixed stuff. I got the official patch and there is literally no discernable difference in performance. If anything, it's worse!

As for this other garbage on this engine vs. engine crap...I'm really not getting it, dude.

It's common knowledge that my machine doesn't play nice with Valve's allegedly super versatile engine. So why the **** is it that every time I talk about my performance problem some ******* shows up yammering about flashlights and doom3?

I'm making a decree, right here, right frigging now, okay? I'M REALLY SICK AND TIRED OF PEOPLE MENTIONING DOOM IN EVERY GOD DAMN THREAD I PARTICIPATE IN REGARDING HALF-LIFE 2. PLEASE ****ING STOP.

That being said, if anyone else wants to post and offer no poignant commentary on this thread's topic, kindly shove your head up your voodoo2-sporting jabroni ass and get to stepping.

To answer discussion--it appears that Vampire is just a poorly put together game. I'm not so sure it's the source engine (though I am REALLY ****ing tired of this skipping audio bull****. A quick glance in the console after most major framerate drops shows tens of dozens of random errors; missing audio or texture files, missing physics models, objects not having any physical properties, etc. It's just a mess.

 

[Barney's Soul]

That is pretty sad that some random dude put out not one but TWO patches before Troika's people did, and his at least actually fixed stuff. I got the official patch and there is literally no discernable difference in performance. If anything, it's worse!

As for this other garbage on this engine vs. engine crap...I'm really not getting it, dude.

It's common knowledge that my machine doesn't play nice with Valve's allegedly super versatile engine. So why the **** is it that every time I talk about my performance problem some ******* shows up yammering about flashlights and doom3?

I'm making a decree, right here, right frigging now, okay? I'M REALLY SICK AND TIRED OF PEOPLE MENTIONING DOOM IN EVERY GOD DAMN THREAD I PARTICIPATE IN REGARDING HALF-LIFE 2. PLEASE ****ING STOP.

That being said, if anyone else wants to post and offer no poignant commentary on this thread's topic, kindly shove your head up your voodoo2-sporting jabroni ass and get to stepping.

To answer discussion--it appears that Vampire is just a poorly put together game. I'm not so sure it's the source engine (though I am REALLY ****ing tired of this skipping audio bull****. A quick glance in the console after most major framerate drops shows tens of dozens of random errors; missing audio or texture files, missing physics models, objects not having any physical properties, etc. It's just a mess.

hmm, i'v never heared of anything but hl2 on the source engine...

try lowing graphics details, and tweak stuff, and if the config.cfg file rewrites your settings ever time you restart, make it read-only.

also instead of console put your tweaks at the bottom of your config.cfg, that'll make it apply them, but dont forget to make it read only after or itl all be eraced as itl get rewritten.

 

[-JLN-]

Adjusting graphics settings didn't do jack for me when I had it. It was still unplayable even at the lowest resolution and settings. Do these unofficial patches do anything to help performance? I really want to get this game again, but I'm not until I know that the performance has been fixed

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

I don't know what the unofficial patches do, because I got the official one and I think the new ones don't work if you get the official one.

I think they are mostly minor cosmetic fixes, like typos in dialog, etc.

 

[jp]

I'm making a decree, right here, right frigging now, okay? I'M REALLY SICK AND TIRED OF PEOPLE MENTIONING DOOM IN EVERY GOD DAMN THREAD I PARTICIPATE IN REGARDING HALF-LIFE 2. PLEASE ****ING STOP.

If you get so mad of something i said about "wordicannotsayelseguygetsmad", then i sugest you or ignore it or not play that fricking game... clearly it makes you mad and unstable.

 

[-JLN-]

He's right though. In every HL2 thread I've seen, someone has to compare it to doom 3.
It basically go's something like this;
"OMG, HL2's stuttering sucks, is there a way to fix it?", "Well Doom 3 stuttered every time I open a door, so obviously you don't have a valid complaint". I honestly don't get it.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

That's true. But people are just mad because I overly promoted Doom 3, and people still are upset about it apparently. Every time I talk about how busted HL2 and Source stuff is for me, (except CS, because apparently only having two models and levels well below hl1's limitations in terms of size is what the source engine needs to work optimally), somebody invariably has something to say about my overpoliticked opinion about Doom.

I'm just getting really ****ing tired of people answering my "[Insert Source engine game here] is running like ****, what can I do?" threads or questions with dumb **** like "turn on your flashlight" or "disable the AI." So if it could stop, I'd like to avoid it from here on out.

 

[Optional]

I started play WoW over the break (my cousin had it and came over). When playing, I noticed that every five seconds the game would skip even if the area was practically empty. My cousin then doubled my maximium page file load, which immediately allievated the problem. I don't know how he did it, but you can probably Google it - it might work for you (I have 512 Mb of RAM).

 

[jp]

He's right though. In every HL2 thread I've seen, someone has to compare it to doom 3.
It basically go's something like this;
"OMG, HL2's stuttering sucks, is there a way to fix it?", "Well Doom 3 stuttered every time I open a door, so obviously you don't have a valid complaint". I honestly don't get it.

No no no... i mean, if the source engine in hl2, that runs smooth, goes crazy in another game, then i wonder if a game with doom3 engine will run good. since d3 was heavy..

I am sorry if it made you nuts and stuff, not my intention,

I'm just getting really ****ing tired of people answering my "[Insert Source engine game here] is running like ****, what can I do?" threads or questions with dumb **** like "turn on your flashlight" or "disable the AI." So if it could stop, I'd like to avoid it from here on out.

Sure, sorry if i offended you...

Okay i don't have the game but...


If i am right the textures are sharper of that game, and the characters are allot different, and imo they got allot more polygones then in hl2... so maybe that is why it is running like ****.

Just my 2 cents,

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

Well, they DO say that the page file needs to be some absurd size (1400 megs) for the game to run well. Either way Opti, thanks for the tip--I have WoW and haven't played it yet because I'm trying to beat all these other games of mine before I play. I bet the page file would definitely help.

@JP: sorry man, I just take that stuff personally sometimes. You are right, the game has no options for low res textures...which is amusing to me, because neither did HL2, and yet, they didn't really use these phenomenal textures either way.

 

[SoulStriker]

Increasing the page file might work, since you have such "low" RAM (512 is actually pretty close to being the standard right now. You probably only consider it low because your running high end games). If the page file size is low, then your computer dosn't have the memory to keep the game going. If you change it and it works, you should probably look into getting more RAM, because more RAM would help it even more, since the ratio between a page file and RAM is 1:10,000 or so, RAM obviously being the faster of the two.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

Well scratch that idea. My page file was nearly half the recommended page file size (1400, mine was at roughly 750ish). I cranked it to 2048, and added a second page file on my external drive per recommendation of another site. Total available paging file space was four times the requested number on the frigging box...and the game still ran like absolute garbage.

Gabe must've helped code this POS himself.

 

[jp]

@JP: sorry man, I just take that stuff personally sometimes. You are right, the game has no options for low res textures...which is amusing to me, because neither did HL2, and yet, they didn't really use these phenomenal textures either way.

No biggies, heh happens to everybody once in a while,

Hmm.... yeah that is odd, since HL2 does have he option to get higher quality of textures, or at least i think so,

I just think you need to wait for a patch that gives you the abilty to turn of high textures... or maybe you can find it in a text file...

I think its ridiculous to spend so much time to make a freaking game running, i mean, if they publish a game you would expect it to run like it should.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

What's sad is that it's not even all that impressive a game. Even the hubs, polygonally speaking, aren't all that complicated. For such an advanced engine to have so much choking and errors (my console is filled CONSTANTLY with messages of errors on objects and characters) is just...sad.