Prey

[jojo man]

Hey there all, I was hoping you could help me with a problem. I've just recently bought a copy of Prey for the pc and i'm having framerate issues, nothing i try has improved the FR even slightly and my "bag of tricks" has run dry. PLEASE HELP ME!!! :thanks:

 

 

My system:

Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT 512mb (AGP)

 

2 gigs of PC3200 Kingston RAM

 

Pentium 4 3.0ghz w/ ht

 

250 gig Western Digital harddrive (7200 rpm)

 

(not fantastic i know, but it should still run Prey fairly well)

 

What I've tried:

 

Setting every graphics option to the absolute minimum

 

Reinstalling the Game

 

Defraging my hardrive(after re-installation of course)

 

Closing all background programs in Task Manager

 

Updating and Downgrading my video drivers

 

Beating on the keyboard and swearing at the screen

 

None of this has produced even the slightest increase in Frame rate. As it stands, i'm averaging a meager 15-20 FPS (and i'm pretty sure with my system that should be higher) when i'm standing still. When i get into a gun-fight the frame rate drops into the single digits (were talkin' less than 5 here). As i said, I'm stumped.

[TheTerminator2004]

I don't know the requirements for Prey, but your PC should probably be able to run it fine... what version of Windows are you using? If it's Vista, that could be part of the problem.

[jojo man]

I'm using Windows XP home edition w/ SP2.

[MRG]

JoJo,

 

System Requirements

 

Minimum

 

CPU Speed: Intel Pentium 4 2.0Ghz / AMD Athlon XP 2000+ processor

RAM: 512MB system RAM

Video Card: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible 64MB video card with latest manufacturer drivers (see supported chipsets below)

Drive: 8X CD-ROM (standard edition), DVD-ROM (Limited Collector’s Edition)

Hard Drive: 2.2GB of uncompressed free hard drive space

Sound Card: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible 16-bit sound card

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP with latest service pack installed

DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (included on disc)

 

Recommended

 

CPU Speed: Intel Pentium 4 2.5Ghz / AMD Athlon XP 2500+ processor

RAM: 1GB system RAM

Video Card: ATI Radeon X800 series or higher video card with latest manufacturer drivers

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi series sound card

Internet: Broadband internet connection or LAN required for multiplayer

 

Supported Video Card Chipsets

 

ATI:

ATI Radeon 9600 series, ATI Radeon 9700 series, ATI Radeon 9800 series, ATI Radeon X300 series, ATI Radeon X550 series, ATI Radeon X600 series, ATI Radeon X700 series, ATI Radeon X800 series, ATI Radeon X1300 series, ATI Radeon X1600 series, ATI Radeon X1800 series, ATI Radeon X1900 series, or better with latest manufacturer drivers.

 

NVIDIA:

NVIDIA GeForce3/Ti series, NVIDIA GeForce4/Ti, NVIDIA GeForce FX 5800 series, NVIDIA GeForce 5900 series, NVIDIA GeForce 6200 series, NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series, NVIDIA GeForce 7300 series, NVIDIA GeForce 7600 series, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 series, NVIDIA GeForce 7900 series, or better with latest manufacturer drivers.

 

PREY takes full advantage of the Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ sound card. PREY supports OpenAL hardware acceleration, EAX® ADVANCED HD™ 5.0 features of 4 reverberation effects at once, and uses Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XRAM feature to load audio samples on the cards with 64 megs of RAM. For more information on the benefits of having one of the Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ series, you can go to: http://soundblaster.com.

 

Prey is a decent game & from the specs of your PC, you should have pretty much ZERO problems running it well, as I had a similar system to yours, except for only 1GB of RAM at the time & a 9800 Pro video card & I had very good performce.

 

1) Is your RAM running in Dual Channel mode?

2) Do you have your PC overclocked any?

3) When you installed the newest drivers, did you first run Driver Cleaner Pro to remove older driver files? They can cause conflicts & thus lower your performance. http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745

4) When was the last time you reinstalled Windows?

5) Are you using onboard audio or do you have a dedicated sound card? If you are using onboard, it can be killing your performance.

6) Do you have cool bits installed for your video card? Try setting the render frames ahead option to 1 or 0.

7) Try using the tweaks found here in the Prey Tweaks Guide. http://www.tweakguides.com/Prey_2.html

8) Turn off AGP Fast Writes in your Bios.

 

-MRG

[jojo man]

Problem Fixed!!! And to MRG, to answer your questions:

1)Yes

2)No

3)No. Slipped my mind, but the added link was insanely useful :thanks:

4)Exactly 13 days prior to installing Prey

5)Dedicated sound,(Sound Blaster Audigy SE SB0570LPVP)

6)No. Again, a very useful suggestion :thanks:

7)Very handy, much appreciated

8)took me some time to figure it out, but really worth it

 

After doing this, i'm now getting about 40-45 FPS in even the most chaotic of gun battles. To boot, i've noticed jumps in the framerate of other games as well. Thanks a ton.

[MRG]

Thats Awesome! :thumbsup:

 

I'm stoked to hear that you are getting better performance. Nothing sucks more than having your PC perform in a manner that you know it shouldn't. I'm currently going through that myself, as my primary HDD is almost dead & I can't afford to buy another one. So my in game performance is becoming more & more spotty as well.

 

How are you enjoying Prey? I found it be an interesting game. I like how they had an American Indian as the main character. The more so because I am part American Indian myself.

 

If you like Prey, have you played Quake 4?

 

-MRG