To Enhance Performance on Low-End Computers While Preserving Graphic/T

[DoriSai]

So, I'm currently looking around at various mods and I see many mods that will reduce or eliminate small things like weapon trails, persistent spell effects, magic weapon auras, and the like. The Personal Annoyance Remover is an excellent example of this. I was looking for these mods to attempt to improve the performance of the game on my computer, which is a pretty low-end computer (in fact, I'm still surprised it runs Dragon Age Origins at all, let alone as well as it does in low settings). The variance of these mods got me to thinking about a few issues...

 

> How well might some of these mods interact with other large-scale mods such as Improved Atmosphere?

-> Random side-note, somewhat off-topic though: Would Improved Atmosphere help or hurt the low-end tech users?

> How well would these and similar mods mesh with some of the other mods out there?

> Just how many of these mods would be required to effectively make gameplay smooth without destroying the textures of most of the game?

 

These all got me to thinking about making a mod like this myself, something where it can customize the various effects all over Ferelden (in other words, in the OC and all the DLC and expansions). A mod that would in essence be best implemented LAST, after you've incorporated all the other mods you want to incorporate (or at least with various patch files for each respective mod you might want to put in, more likely I'll go the patch method)

 

Essentially this project would attempt to keep high graphic quality in the game while reducing or eliminating the relatively low interest performance hampers such as ambient effects (animated fires, mist, rain, fog, wind effects if present), persistent spell/skill effects (auras and etc), weapon trails, magic weapon effects (not so much glow, but I might include a patch for glow as well), reduce the definition of background areas (areas the player can't actually access or get close to, and are essentially only there for the "great view" effect), perhaps reduce the definition of distant objects if possible (so they wouldn't be fully rendered until you neared them, low priority and likely something I'll look at last since I have a few doubts whether it'll even help), as well as anything else I can think of that might reduce the load on the computer while still allowing the game to be run in higher Graphic and Texture settings.

 

I'm not sure how popular a mod like this would be on here, or where to begin with a mod like this. Especially if it's meant to be implemented after multiple mods (or with the expectation that the mod will be present) I'm not sure whether I should focus on just doing it with my desired mods in place already, or start working on it with a vanilla game and then incorporate patches and considerations for each mod I download afterward.

 

Any thoughts on this? Or has someone already done something like this and might be able to offer tips or advice? Does anyone think a mod like this should be submitted to the Nexus or should it be pretty much left to my own personal use due to the likelihood of heavy personal taste customization? If it can help someone else also I'd love that, but since most of the mods on here have a good chance of interacting with something like this, it would be easy to break this or other mods depending on what's used and in what order it's installed.

 

Figured I'd make a forum post to discuss this before I actually began working on it, especially since this is quite an ambitious project for a newb DAO modder to be seriously considering lol

Edited April 5, 2013 by DoriSai

[Thandal]

Interesting idea. Not sure how practical it is, but never know until you try, right?

Two things I'd point out:

1 Dragon Age does not use a "load order" concept. There's no such thing as "the last mod". Well there is, but only sort of... (And even then, it's "the first mod" that matters!)

The game can only use a single version of any given file. But if there are multiple possibilities, the result will depend on how you, the player, organized your mod files and on what the individual files are called.

The way it works is that the game engine will look in a series of locations, (starting with the user's "\override" folder) and when it finds the relevant file it uses that one and stops looking for any others. The search is by-name in (for some unknown reason) reverse alpha-numeric order. So in the case of two (or more) mods that contain changes to the same file, it's the file/folder naming (partially under the control of the player) that determines which one will actually be implememented in-game.

2. (Once you've got 4GB of system RAM...) the single most cost-effective way to improve performance on a "low-end" machine is getting a better graphics adapter. While this may be impossible on a laptop, even the oldest desktop that can actually run the game can take much better PCI card than when it was new. If space and power are limited (as they are in my 7 year-old case) then the nVidia GT640 is one of the better, truly single-slot, cards around ($60 on Amazon.)

With a decent card, the issues it appears this mod is designed to address would go away!

 

Good Luck!

[mcgoy]

A few of the mods that you've mentioned....

Improved Atmosphere adds (for me) a lot of lag to my 'medium end tech' PC. I don't think the problem is the graphics/texture it seems to be the amount of interaction that it causes. It definitely HURTS the low end tech - sorry, but appears to be true.

 

For the overall concept, I'm not sure what the final pay out would be for the low end tech player. Does it take 'more' to display the talent/spell effects than it does to overwrite the talent/spell effects? I'm not sure.

[LadyHonor]

I have a very low end pc that I use. It wasn't designed for video games and it's primary function is for business accounting. I can load it at the highest settings but it has serious lag. It has been my experiene with mods that the bigger they are the greater the lag. Mods like karma's companions and improved atmosphere seriously lag my system. Plus the more mods I have the more lag as well. A project like you're suggesting may cause lag to be worse because you'd basically have to override almost everything. At least that's what I think. Things like fire, smoke, fog, etc are placed in the level editor. So you would have to go into the actual level (not the area) and remove all that. Then you would have to include the exported levels as well as the areas in the mod. (I think). I'm working on a standalone with custom levels and at least that's how I have to get them to show up when testing it on another account. So the levels alone would be a lot of lag.