SB running slow? Fix it here

I was tweaking with a lot of the settings to try and maximize my frame rate. Just some background, my computer is:

WinXP
512MB DDR Ram
Geforce4 Ti4600
Soundblaster Live!

I was getting average 20 to 30 fps in Shadowbane and now I'm getting about 30 to 60, 40 being the average.

Here is what I changed:

Resolution
----------
Mine is set at 1024x768. I havn't tried 800x600 at all and
so I don't have any information regarding any performance
increases you would gain be lowering it. Since I got my
GF4 though I don't bother going to anything less than 1024.
Your choice really.

View Angle
----------
I set this to 80 degrees. Any smaller and the view
is too tight for my tastes and any larger and frame
rates start to suffer.

Color Depth
-----------
Mine is set at 32bpp. This is default and I have noticed
no performance gains be decreasing it.

Z-Buffer Depth
--------------
Once again set at 32bpp by default and there seems to be no
performance gain by lowering it.

Use Multidraw Arrays
--------------------
I have this checked. This is on by default and I recommend keeping
it checked.

Generate Mipmaps in Hardware
----------------------------
This is checked by default. If you uncheck this, mipmaps will still
be done but in software, which will be much much slower then having
the card do it.

Cache Meshes in Hardware
------------------------
This one is sketchy. Here is the deal. This is on by default for everyone but currently only non-Nvidia users are going to see any benefit from this setting. Nvidia card users: keep this checked but currently the game is ignoring this setting for us because the mesh caching is bugged in the implementation that Wolfpack is using. Here is a quote from a developer about the mesh caching settings:

Actually with NVidia cards the mesh cache is disabled even if it is enabled in your pref file. So that setting shouldn't affect you either way. Long story behind this... but that's the short answer. We will be changing this at some point, but for now the mesh cache setting is ignored for NVidia users.

How do we tune the meshing?
Here's my "unofficial" what I would personally do:

Video Memory (Mb) --> Mesh Size (Kb)
32 (or less) --> 1024
64 --> 2048
128 (or more) --> 4096

Once you hit a certain point adding more memory to the mesh cache buys you nothing really. Making it too large can actually slow you down as it forces textures to get swapped more often.

Also, NVidia users should go ahead and set this, but know that with the current live client these settings aren't used for NVidia cards. At some point (when we have an NVidia implementation that is actually worth using) we'll change this -- so go ahead and set it up so when we do get that going you will benefit from it.

Our current NVidia mesh cache implementation doesn't yield significant performance increases and it has the potential to actually cause stalls -- hence we disable it by default regardless of the pref file settings. I expect this to change with upcoming drivers from NVidia, at which point we will silently start using the mesh cache settings on NVidia cards too.

Click to expand...

Shadows
-------
I have all of them turned off. Doing this will increase your framerates by a lot, especially when you get into areas with a lot of people and objects.

Personal Light Source
---------------------
I have this off, doesn't matter really.

Terrain Size
------------
Turn this all the way up. Yes, you heard me.

Terrain Detail
--------------
Turn this all the way down to the lowest setting. Yes, you heard me.
Doing this combined with the terrain size will actually net you frames. Of course you could always turn down the terrain size but then you can't see as far..

Use Terrain LOD
---------------
Turn this off. Having this on actually slows the game down in certain places.

Texture Detail
--------------
I have mine all the way on high. I recommend doing this if you have a Geforce 3 or higher. If you are on a Geforce 2 I highly recommend turning this down. With this completely on high the textures use around 80 to 90mbs of video memory on my Geforce 4. No way in heck a Geforce 2 user is going to fit all of that on the card.

Compress Textures
-----------------
Even though my card can compress textures I have this turned off. Your personal preference, I actually seem to see an increase of a few frames with this turned off though. Your mileage may vary.

Dynamic Lighting
---------------
I have this all the way up. Probably better if Geforce 2 users or below turn this setting down.

Particle Density
----------------
I have it all the way up. I don't really notice any performance gains by lowering it unless I turn it all the way down.

Terrain Object Refinement Range
-------------------------------
I have mine set at 700 units. The hgiher the setting the sooner the game starts to lower the level of detail on objects.

Character Level of Detail Threshold
-----------------------------------
Mine is set at 50pixels. The higher the setting the sooner the game starts to lower the level of detail on characters.

Some handy tips in there, its annoying since my gf2 would lag HARD everytime there was a bunch of casting going on (which made it hard for my scout to pull properly since i locked when i'd hit my group for about 5 seconds) and one of those settings (particle effects?) turned them off. Now the bloody game is smooth, even with the view distance all the way up!

upped dyn light
1 for detail terrain
max view terrain

and everything worked great
50ish fps

I will be attempting to make SB work on a Duron 900 and an Athlon 1GHz in the next week or two ... hopefully this works there or I'll have some rather disappointed sons.