Is Morrowind supposed to be this slow?

Vampyromaniac · Aug 4, 2003, 12:04 AM

OK, last night I fired up the Morrowind CD that came with my card, and it seems to be running kinda slow . . .
I wonder if it's just a slow game, or it is very CPU dependent, or what?
It's mainly when I'm outdoors, here's a shot from the beginning of the game:

Note the 23fps in the bottom-right corner

AND, this is with these settings!:
Resolution = 1024x768
Pixel Shaders = Off
View Distance = slider set to half-way
Shadows = Off
AI Distance = slider at ~20% (under the 'n' in Distance

)

The D3D Control Panel setting is at "Balanced" (no AA, no AF, Truform is off)

And it's running on:
9700 Pro, Catalyst 3.5
AthlonXP 1800
Windows 2000 (SP2)

So, what's going on?

jeuda · Aug 4, 2003, 12:43 AM

Sometimes I wonder too. What so great about 9700pro? I still cannot enable AA or truform to play games at all. All sux. Sigh....

eyeguy616 · Aug 4, 2003, 01:31 AM

In a fashion: yes. Morrowind's game engine is really bad and will bring even the best systems to their knees if you put the viewing distance to max and turn on shadows.... It also doesn't matter what resolution you put it at, they'll all play at around the same fps.
Some advice: put the viewing distance about 2/3 the way and turn off shadows. Your frame rate will be low outside so you'll have to get used to it. Anything above 20 is good enough with this game since it's not fast paced what-so-ever (I mean it. I've beaten the main quest of this game twice as well as played through and with the gazillion mods already out there.) Also, since you have the 9700pro you can turn on the pixelshading in the game for some very nice looking water effects at close to no fps cost. Hell, even with low AA/AF there's not much of a hit so try some things. Here's a link to my first character and all the junk I collected. I'm serious; it's a ton of junk!

jeuda: Trueform only works in games that have it hardcoded, and even then there's a fps hit. If anything either your games don't support it, you're not enabling it in the control panel, or something didn't install correctly (it happens). have you tried installing Omega's or are you on a different card already?

~eyeguy616

Edit: forgot to say: This game eats video cards for breakfast! If you're in a field the fps should go up, but in towns, and some are real big, the fps will drop.

~~craig588~~ · Aug 4, 2003, 01:31 AM

I was able to run it at like 40FPS with almost every settting maxed. Do you have the newest patch? Did you make sure all of the obvious settings are optimized in your system?

We have almost identical systems other than mine being overclocked a bit.

UZ7 · Aug 4, 2003, 02:22 AM

yeah this is very much cpu dependent and you must have 512 ram along with a decent-good card, but many people still have problems even if they have one of the best cards ie: (9800Pro not working right) now on this game having a good card will only improve image quality, and less on performance

ive always said this but you can have the worst computer and this game will run fine, or one of the best in the world and will run crappy, its a very picky game towards hardware, outside 10-25fps should be right, 30-50 indoors, can get even up to 100 for the matter

the differences in fps varies by big towns, inside buildings, outside terrain, environment (storms, rain, etc...), also AI Distance and such

basically people with low fps tend to have no choice but either upgrade everything to the latest drivers or tweak out the game itself, there are a few settings in the morrowind.ini file that you can modify, and can be found here

Vampyromaniac · Aug 4, 2003, 02:53 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by eyeguy616
Anything above 20 is good enough with this game since it's not fast paced what-so-ever (I mean it. I've beaten the main quest of this game twice as well as played through and with the gazillion mods already out there.)

I guess that's good to know, at least. It's just annoying to have such a low framerate when I'm looking around at stuff

I'll play around with the driver settings and game res, to see what I can make do with.

Quote:

Originally posted by craig588
I was able to run it at like 40FPS with almost every settting maxed. Do you have the newest patch? Did you make sure all of the obvious settings are optimized in your system?

We have almost identical systems other than mine being overclocked a bit.

Yes, I have the lastest version, and all the settings are as how I said in the first post.
What resolution were running in? Was it over 40fps everywhere?

Vampyromaniac · Aug 4, 2003, 02:55 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by UZ7
basically people with low fps tend to have no choice but either upgrade everything to the latest drivers or tweak out the game itself, there are a few settings in the morrowind.ini file that you can modify, and can be found here

Thanks for that, I'll check it out

jeuda · Aug 4, 2003, 04:53 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by eyeguy616

jeuda: Trueform only works in games that have it hardcoded, and even then there's a fps hit. If anything either your games don't support it, you're not enabling it in the control panel, or something didn't install correctly (it happens). have you tried installing Omega's or are you on a different card already?

Still with the card. Tired of changing to another. Probably give me the same problems. Sorry, think I am gonna explode with complaints about the AA performance of games and CAD.

9700pro? King of the hill? What is CPU dependent? With T&L, GPU taking off the load from CPU. Quite crappy as it turn out to be. Life becomes groomy when I tried to render a 130 3mm diameter depression on my inventor software last night. It takes about 1 min to generate and it stutters to hang when I rotate the view.

GTA doesn't work well when i enable AA and start at high setting at 1024x768. I have a 17inch LCD with native 1280x1024. And I have already compromise to run at 1024x768. The game still get jerky when fast motion is required. I am tired of these stuttering. Why can't people games or software like they did for consoles? Liquid like motion and performance. Argh.... am i dying or what.....

jeuda · Aug 4, 2003, 04:58 AM

Sorry guys, I dun usually whine like that. Just the combined frustrations at work and gaming is eroding my patience. Please ignore this if you think I am unreasonable. Just wanna voice them out. Now I felt much better.

eyeguy616 · Aug 4, 2003, 05:16 AM

No problem, jeuda. That's what the forums are for, right?

Is GTA: Vice City the only game you have problems with? Remember, VC is much more graphics intensive than the older GTA3, so there might other limiting factors. Also, I think the newest drivers help the game some.. try downloading the newest Omega drivers and give 'em a try. Be sure to use driver cleaner to make sure all the older driver files are gone.
As far as CAD goes, a normal 9700Pro is not a professional grade graphics workstation card like a FireGL card is, so performance in CAD programs can vary. Perhaps it's rendering on final or best instead of draft or low quality. While you're editing you don't need all the kind of rendering precision.

Another thing: most games on the PS/PS2/GC/XBOX are coded to run at 320x240 or 640x480 and are made to work on one set of hardware at a time. Since PCs can have millions of combonations, they have to write code in such a manor that it'll run within certain levels of hardware. I don't think you could run Vice City on a 486DX with 4mb PCI Trident video card, right?

I'm sure if you turn you're resolution down that far and have your system set up to use a normal TV as a moniter, you'll get a similar gaming experience to those of consoles.... but once you go 1280x1024 and beyond you can't go back.

~eyeguy616

jeuda · Aug 4, 2003, 05:57 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by eyeguy616
No problem, jeuda. That's what the forums are for, right?

~eyeguy616

Thanks eyeguy616.

I understood what you are trying to tell me. I should known better to ask those questions.
The thing is that it is never enough. Recently I have gone back to play MechWarrior 4. Graphics is smooth. One way to re-appreciate what you have again. when one start to complain about her/his system, maybe it is high time to upgrade... haha..

Yeap. every console is made the same. Performance is guaranteed on every console unless u mod it.

i always got the latest drivers, the latest bios and tweaks and more. End of the day, i want things to be simple. Smooth, fast, and stable.

Yawn.....

~~craig588~~ · Aug 4, 2003, 05:01 PM

I was running it in 1024x768. I usually got speeds like that in towns and buildings, but if I went outside to where I could see really far then my FPS would drop to like 15.

Alistair · Aug 4, 2003, 05:11 PM

if your worried about your framerate just go to http://www.morrowind.nm.ru and download his framerate optimizer. It will automatically adjust your view distance and the likes if your fps goes below a certain level. It can also extend your view distance if the fps is above a certain level. However, my favoprite feature with the n-patch tab that allows the use of TRUFORM, though its very buggy on any card other than a R8500.

UZ7 · Aug 4, 2003, 05:23 PM

yeah i use to use that, but i didnt like it much cause it was "unstable" at some points and i would crash to desktop (CTD) for no apparent reason, though not a lot, also i didnt like how i couldnt see the background when i went to inventory because it auto changes the view distance to 0 (yes advance settings would be better)

all in all its a good program, but some people may not like it (like me

) considering it may/maynot crash and how it auto changes when you dont want it to (though you can change some of the settings to your liking) the best part of the program is probably how you can make the quality much higher and use n-patch which makes the graphics smoother, also make the mouse sensitivity much higher and set morrowind's priority to high w/o having to get out of the game

if you're not running a lot of programs, you can make your morrowind run faster by putting the cpu priority to Above Normal, or High (dont do RealTime hehe)

Vampyromaniac · Aug 4, 2003, 07:56 PM

Thanks, guys, for all the replies

I've read a couple guides, and played the game for a few hours yesterday, and I think it's all right now. I was just worried that something was wrong, but now I understand. And the low framerate doesn't bug me too much anymore, since the guy walks so damn slow!

Aug 4, 2003, 12:04 AM	#1
Vampyromaniac confutatis maledictis Join Date: May 2002 Location: somewhere dark Posts: 5,974 Rep Power: 77 System Specs	Is Morrowind supposed to be this slow? OK, last night I fired up the Morrowind CD that came with my card, and it seems to be running kinda slow . . . I wonder if it's just a slow game, or it is very CPU dependent, or what? It's mainly when I'm outdoors, here's a shot from the beginning of the game: Note the 23fps in the bottom-right corner AND, this is with these settings!: Resolution = 1024x768 Pixel Shaders = Off View Distance = slider set to half-way Shadows = Off AI Distance = slider at ~20% (under the 'n' in Distance ) The D3D Control Panel setting is at "Balanced" (no AA, no AF, Truform is off) And it's running on: 9700 Pro, Catalyst 3.5 AthlonXP 1800 Windows 2000 (SP2) So, what's going on? __________________ *Digitalis 3.3* Athlon 64 3000 // ASUS K8V SE Deluxe // 1024MB PC3200 (2-2-2-10 1T) ATI All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro // 20" Dell 2005FPW (DVI) M-Audio Revo 7.1 + Philips Acoustic Edge // Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 320/16 Western Digital WD3200KS + 120/8 Seagate 7200.7 NEC ND-3550A 16x DVD±RW + Lite-On 52x24x CD-RW Antec Sonata case // 480W Antec TruePower personal bests \|\| Aq'3: 46796 \| 3D'01: 20461 \| 3D'03: 6336 \| 3D'05: 2677 \| PC'04: 4605 \| PC'02: 7691,9092,1250

Aug 4, 2003, 12:43 AM	#2
jeuda DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: May 2003 Location: Singapore Posts: 169 Rep Power: 0	Sometimes I wonder too. What so great about 9700pro? I still cannot enable AA or truform to play games at all. All sux. Sigh.... __________________ [color=gray] [color=sienna]:: A64 3000 \| Abit KV8 Pro \| 2x512 PC3200 [/color] [color=sienna]:: Galaxy N6600GT DDVI \| Audigy 2 ZS \| [/color][color=sienna]WD-Raptor 36GB[/color] [/color]

Aug 4, 2003, 01:31 AM	#3
eyeguy616 ZZzzzzzzzzzz........... Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Texas Posts: 324 Rep Power: 0	In a fashion: yes. Morrowind's game engine is really bad and will bring even the best systems to their knees if you put the viewing distance to max and turn on shadows.... It also doesn't matter what resolution you put it at, they'll all play at around the same fps. Some advice: put the viewing distance about 2/3 the way and turn off shadows. Your frame rate will be low outside so you'll have to get used to it. Anything above 20 is good enough with this game since it's not fast paced what-so-ever (I mean it. I've beaten the main quest of this game twice as well as played through and with the gazillion mods already out there.) Also, since you have the 9700pro you can turn on the pixelshading in the game for some very nice looking water effects at close to no fps cost. Hell, even with low AA/AF there's not much of a hit so try some things. Here's a link to my first character and all the junk I collected. I'm serious; it's a ton of junk! jeuda: Trueform only works in games that have it hardcoded, and even then there's a fps hit. If anything either your games don't support it, you're not enabling it in the control panel, or something didn't install correctly (it happens). have you tried installing Omega's or are you on a different card already? ~eyeguy616 Edit: forgot to say: This game eats video cards for breakfast! If you're in a field the fps should go up, but in towns, and some are real big, the fps will drop. Last edited by eyeguy616; Aug 4, 2003 at 01:37 AM.

Aug 4, 2003, 02:22 AM	#5
UZ7 7th's Specialist Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Florida Posts: 162 Rep Power: 0	yeah this is very much cpu dependent and you must have 512 ram along with a decent-good card, but many people still have problems even if they have one of the best cards ie: (9800Pro not working right) now on this game having a good card will only improve image quality, and less on performance ive always said this but you can have the worst computer and this game will run fine, or one of the best in the world and will run crappy, its a very picky game towards hardware, outside 10-25fps should be right, 30-50 indoors, can get even up to 100 for the matter the differences in fps varies by big towns, inside buildings, outside terrain, environment (storms, rain, etc...), also AI Distance and such basically people with low fps tend to have no choice but either upgrade everything to the latest drivers or tweak out the game itself, there are a few settings in the morrowind.ini file that you can modify, and can be found here __________________ Cold and Silent Blue. Seven and the Angel.

Aug 4, 2003, 04:58 AM	#9
jeuda DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: May 2003 Location: Singapore Posts: 169 Rep Power: 0	Sorry guys, I dun usually whine like that. Just the combined frustrations at work and gaming is eroding my patience. Please ignore this if you think I am unreasonable. Just wanna voice them out. Now I felt much better. __________________ [color=gray] [color=sienna]:: A64 3000 \| Abit KV8 Pro \| 2x512 PC3200 [/color] [color=sienna]:: Galaxy N6600GT DDVI \| Audigy 2 ZS \| [/color][color=sienna]WD-Raptor 36GB[/color] [/color]

Aug 4, 2003, 01:31 AM	#4
~~craig588~~ Banned Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: In clothing Posts: 3,510 Rep Power: 0	I was able to run it at like 40FPS with almost every settting maxed. Do you have the newest patch? Did you make sure all of the obvious settings are optimized in your system? We have almost identical systems other than mine being overclocked a bit.

Aug 4, 2003, 05:16 AM	#10
eyeguy616 ZZzzzzzzzzzz........... Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Texas Posts: 324 Rep Power: 0	No problem, jeuda. That's what the forums are for, right? Is GTA: Vice City the only game you have problems with? Remember, VC is much more graphics intensive than the older GTA3, so there might other limiting factors. Also, I think the newest drivers help the game some.. try downloading the newest Omega drivers and give 'em a try. Be sure to use driver cleaner to make sure all the older driver files are gone. As far as CAD goes, a normal 9700Pro is not a professional grade graphics workstation card like a FireGL card is, so performance in CAD programs can vary. Perhaps it's rendering on final or best instead of draft or low quality. While you're editing you don't need all the kind of rendering precision. Another thing: most games on the PS/PS2/GC/XBOX are coded to run at 320x240 or 640x480 and are made to work on one set of hardware at a time. Since PCs can have millions of combonations, they have to write code in such a manor that it'll run within certain levels of hardware. I don't think you could run Vice City on a 486DX with 4mb PCI Trident video card, right? I'm sure if you turn you're resolution down that far and have your system set up to use a normal TV as a moniter, you'll get a similar gaming experience to those of consoles.... but once you go 1280x1024 and beyond you can't go back. ~eyeguy616

Aug 4, 2003, 05:01 PM	#12
~~craig588~~ Banned Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: In clothing Posts: 3,510 Rep Power: 0	I was running it in 1024x768. I usually got speeds like that in towns and buildings, but if I went outside to where I could see really far then my FPS would drop to like 15.

Aug 4, 2003, 05:11 PM	#13
Alistair Spoos Join Date: May 2002 Location: State College, PA, USA Posts: 435 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	if your worried about your framerate just go to http://www.morrowind.nm.ru and download his framerate optimizer. It will automatically adjust your view distance and the likes if your fps goes below a certain level. It can also extend your view distance if the fps is above a certain level. However, my favoprite feature with the n-patch tab that allows the use of TRUFORM, though its very buggy on any card other than a R8500. __________________ - Alistair

Aug 4, 2003, 05:23 PM	#14
UZ7 7th's Specialist Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Florida Posts: 162 Rep Power: 0	yeah i use to use that, but i didnt like it much cause it was "unstable" at some points and i would crash to desktop (CTD) for no apparent reason, though not a lot, also i didnt like how i couldnt see the background when i went to inventory because it auto changes the view distance to 0 (yes advance settings would be better) all in all its a good program, but some people may not like it (like me ) considering it may/maynot crash and how it auto changes when you dont want it to (though you can change some of the settings to your liking) the best part of the program is probably how you can make the quality much higher and use n-patch which makes the graphics smoother, also make the mouse sensitivity much higher and set morrowind's priority to high w/o having to get out of the game if you're not running a lot of programs, you can make your morrowind run faster by putting the cpu priority to Above Normal, or High (dont do RealTime hehe) __________________ Cold and Silent Blue. Seven and the Angel.

Aug 4, 2003, 07:56 PM	Thread Starter #15
Vampyromaniac confutatis maledictis Join Date: May 2002 Location: somewhere dark Posts: 5,974 Rep Power: 77 System Specs	Thanks, guys, for all the replies I've read a couple guides, and played the game for a few hours yesterday, and I think it's all right now. I was just worried that something was wrong, but now I understand. And the low framerate doesn't bug me too much anymore, since the guy walks so damn slow! __________________ *Digitalis 3.3* Athlon 64 3000 // ASUS K8V SE Deluxe // 1024MB PC3200 (2-2-2-10 1T) ATI All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro // 20" Dell 2005FPW (DVI) M-Audio Revo 7.1 + Philips Acoustic Edge // Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 320/16 Western Digital WD3200KS + 120/8 Seagate 7200.7 NEC ND-3550A 16x DVD±RW + Lite-On 52x24x CD-RW Antec Sonata case // 480W Antec TruePower personal bests \|\| Aq'3: 46796 \| 3D'01: 20461 \| 3D'03: 6336 \| 3D'05: 2677 \| PC'04: 4605 \| PC'02: 7691,9092,1250