Newer laptops and mir chronicles

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WhyPk

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Feb 2, 2012
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As of late most laptops come with an integrated graphics processor built into the CPU to save power when performance is not needed and a separate discrete graphics card (be it NVIDIA or AMD) that is meant to be used by more demanding 3d applications.

While mir chronicles is not exactly a very demanding 3d application, it actually makes the integrated graphics card look like it comes from the 90's. If I run mir on any of the latest notebooks and the game runs off the integrated graphics card, frames per second go all the way down to 40/30 once there is some action, or even sitting in bichon wall, which automatically makes everyone else that is running mir at 60fps 2x faster.

Both amd and nvidia give the opportunity in their respective control panels to force so or so application to use the external graphics card. This works for about every game and application under the sun, be it from 1994 or 2014. All but mir chronicles. The game runs off the integrated and doesn't give a crap what the user sets it to.

This was tested and replicated on 3 different tier HP notebooks, 3 different tier Asus notebooks, 1 Alienware notebook and 1 Acer notebook, all of which either had NVIDIA or AMD/ATI external graphics.

Only one of the systems was able to run mir off the external graphics card, and it did so merely because the integrated graphics card could be DISABLED in the notebooks BIOS, so that only the external would be switched on in the system. It was the only system where such thing was allowed. It was one of the HP notebooks by the way.

It seems like mir runs off whatever the operating system is running off, disregarding what is set in the nvidia/amd control panel.

Can this be addressed in some way, devs?
 

ILovePie:D

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I get the same problem with my Alienware laptop, not matter how much you change it to the NVIDIA gfx, it switches back to the integrated graphics.
 

Chriz

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I have Intel's hd4600 integrated graphic on my laptop and mir chronicles never drops below 55fps , mostly sticks to 60fps o.O

I have a GTX 670 in my desktop that I never bother to use for chronicles because the laptops integrated is more than enough..

Just out of interest, which integrated chips did you test? And what o/s?
 

Hazuki

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I have laptop with integrated Intel HD4400 card and a GTX 780m.

Mir will not run on the GTX due to Chron being Directx 7 I believe, could be the same issue here?
 

WhyPk

LOMCN Member
Feb 2, 2012
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I have Intel's hd4600 integrated graphic on my laptop and mir chronicles never drops below 55fps , mostly sticks to 60fps o.O

I have a GTX 670 in my desktop that I never bother to use for chronicles because the laptops integrated is more than enough..

Just out of interest, which integrated chips did you test? And what o/s?
On my current laptop (HP 650 G1) the integrated is an Intel HD4600. I suggest you go BW safezone and look at FPS. You'll be very lucky to see 50. Same thing when there's more than 10 players on the screen and spells are being casted.

I tested hd3000/hd4000/hd4400/hd4600. Windows 7/8/8.1.

The point is I should be able to play the game on the external graphics card, since it is not there to waste space in the case.

---------- Post Merged at 05:29 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 05:25 PM ----------

I have laptop with integrated Intel HD4400 card and a GTX 780m.

Mir will not run on the GTX due to Chron being Directx 7 I believe, could be the same issue here?
I don't think the API used to render has anything to do with the fact the game runs on the integrated even when set to run on the external.

It should get fixed with a few lines of code in the client.

If a dev could reply it would be most welcome.
 

Koriban

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Excuse me?

Any coder/programmer knows that "its fixed in a few lines of code" means pretty much jack ****, because absolutely nothing is ever that simple when fixing a bug in code. You fix one bug and 10more turn up, lol. Just the way it is really. Even if something seems very simple to change, the task to change it and make it working isn't usually very simple.
 

WhyPk

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Feb 2, 2012
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Any coder/programmer knows that "its fixed in a few lines of code" means pretty much jack ****, because absolutely nothing is ever that simple when fixing a bug in code. You fix one bug and 10more turn up, lol. Just the way it is really. Even if something seems very simple to change, the task to change it and make it working isn't usually very simple.
Nobody said it's a quick task. The fact it should only take a few lines of code stands. Note, SHOULD. I have never opened a mir client source file. Hence why I'm asking devs.

---------- Post Merged at 12:06 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 12:04 PM ----------

I think it's more asking for the code to be changed / updated for newer graphics cards etc. That's the part that made me giggle atleast.
If they were my files and I made money out of them, and the more people left my game the less I gained money, I'd keep them up to date.
 

WhyPk

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Feb 2, 2012
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You do know that anythign recording your FPS, does tend to take a chunk off of performance.

/Mark
Yes, and even though the loss of performance is negligible with the latest releases of the aforementioned pieces of software, the fact everyone starts skipping on your screen as big fights break out/many spells are casted/alot of players are on your screen is indicative of the fact the integrated card can't keep up with what's going on at full framerate.

---------- Post Merged on 10-10-2014 at 07:12 PM ---------- Previous Post was on 07-10-2014 at 02:44 PM ----------

Bump
 

Phawk

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Its pointless bumping this. The problem is that a lot of modern integrated graphics processors, just cant render older DX versions properly. They often use a form of emulation in the newer DivX structure, to replace the deprecated D3D classes.

The only way to fix this with mir would be to completely rewrite its rendering, to use at least DX9 if not 10+. And that's just not going to happen. Either get yourself a dedicated gfix card that can properly handle legacy DX stuff (most of them tbh), or choose a game other than Mir.

/Mark
 

Hazuki

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Its pointless bumping this. The problem is that a lot of modern integrated graphics processors, just cant render older DX versions properly. They often use a form of emulation in the newer DivX structure, to replace the deprecated D3D classes.

The only way to fix this with mir would be to completely rewrite its rendering, to use at least DX9 if not 10+. And that's just not going to happen. Either get yourself a dedicated gfix card that can properly handle legacy DX stuff (most of them tbh), or choose a game other than Mir.

/Mark

Thats just a few lines of code, the lazy coders! /sarcasm
 

Phawk

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Thats just a few lines of code, the lazy coders! /sarcasm

Hahaha, glad you included the /sarcasm comment :D For part of my Degree I needed to port an old DX5 game engine to be DX9 (the latest at the time) compliant, without usinf deprecated classes. It took me many many hours before I stopped trying to alter current code - and just coded an entirely new rendering library, and replaced any calls to that.

Its not quick, its not fun, and it does break a LOT of things.

/mark
 

Jamie

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The issue isn't the amount of lines that's required to fix it but rather, finding the correct lines/location that fix it without breaking anything else thats the problem.