| Author |
How to get DarkSpace running at its best. |
BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
|  Posted: 2005-01-02 17:30
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A ping of 120 is generaly good on DarkSpace, most players can play with a ping of up to and including 300.
PING is the term used to time how long it takes a packet of information to send from your computer to the host computer (in this case the MetaVerse), and then recieve it back again.
LAG is the brief pause that is experienced ingame sometimes, this can because of a certain number of factors. A)Network Congestion, B)DarkSpace problem, C)ISP problem.
Lag in DarkSpace can be caused by many things, and sometimes this cannot be helped as there is lots of data being sent from the server, to you, and back. Sometimes when you log in, its better to wait a few minutes before moving, and click on a few planets in the nav map, in the system you are in, to get rid of any possible loading when playing later on.
Turning off the connection autodetect in the DarkSpace Setup can help greatly. To do this, click the Red Setup diamond when in the DarkSpace lobby. Click on the last tab and set your connection to the one you have. It is also a good idea to set the MAX FPS you want here, but I will explain this in the next part.
Places such as http://www.speedguide.net can help you get the most out of your connection. There is a handy tool from there called TCP Optimizer, try it here.
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Most graphics cards and computers can run DarkSpace as it is not a graphicly intence game. However, sometimes the game draws lots of particles and so the machine can slow down. This is seen when Torpedo's, IT missiles and ships explode. To increase your graphics cards performance, try some of the following:
Update your drivers. You can usualy find your graphics card make by going to the System in Control Panel, clicking on the Hardware tab and then Device Manager. Clicking on the + next to the Display Adapters will show you what graphics card you have.
For ATI cards such as Radeon etc, go to http://www.ati.com and browse for driver updates.
For Nvidia cards such as Geforce etc, go to http://www.nvidia.com and browse for the driver updates.
Updating the graphics drivers can have a dramatic effect on performance, as Windows default ones and old drivers are generaly not as good as ones produced today.
If you have the latest drivers and are still experiencing graphical pauses or slow downs try the display properties.
To do this, enter Control Panel, then click on Display Properties, click on the Settings tab and then Advanced. This will enter the graphics card properties page.
Nvidia cards will normal display their card name as one tab, click on that and browse to performance/quality, and set the slider to performance. For
ATI it will usualy have the tab as 3D, set the DirectX option off custom, and change the slider to performance. Click ok till you are back to desktop.
This will usualy give a boost of performance at the sacrifice of quality.
For a last boost in FPS, set the particle level in DarkSpace setup, to a lower percentage.
It is also good practice to set the max level of FPS you want ingame. This can help CPU usage, and often will increase the speed of DarkSpace. As in the last section, enter setup and change the MAX FPS limit to the maximum your pc will reach. So for example, if your machine can only do 65 FPS, its practical to set it to 60. To display the FPS you get ingame, hold ALT and press P ingame, this will load the debug window. Near the bottom on the last few lines it will display the FPS.
DarkSpace requires directx 8.0, but with every release of DirectX, it gets stable and usualy faster. To download the latest version (9.0c). Go to http://www.microsoft.com/directx and download the latest version.
There is also a handy program called TUNEXP (for windows XP users only) which can help performance, PLEASE read the readme file, it explains a lot in the program. Download it here
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Where these are not direcly related to DarkSpace, they can effect its performance. To combat this, is pretty simple. Download and run a anti-virus and spyware removal tool. For these task I recommend:
AVG from http://www.grisoft.com
Adware from http://www.lavasoftusa.com
Spybot S&D from http://www.safer-networking.org - $witch
After installing these programs do a full system scan and remove any spyware and virus's. This will not only most probably speed up your system if there are lots on there, but it will make it safer.
I recommend this whole heartedly as even if your machine doesnt have a virus, it may have spyware. My PC had a new hard drive 2 days ago and it already had 50 spyware entries. So I really recommend this.
If you want to see how to make DarkSpace run better in a certain area, I will try to help, just /send backslash and I will post it here  .
Hope this helps some of you.
[ This Message was edited by: BackSlash *Jack* {R33} on 2006-03-06 19:17 ]
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Fatal Command (CO)
Chief Marshal
Fatal Squadron
Joined: November 27, 2002
Posts: 1159
From: Back in Texas and noticing some ppl are like canoes.....they need to be paddled.
| Posted: 2005-01-03 00:28
thanks for the info backy
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Xilaratu
Cadet
Joined: May 06, 2004
Posts: 745
From: Florida
| Posted: 2005-01-03 21:50
Wow! This stuff really works people! Complain of lag no more (except serverside)!
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Move like water.
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Dempster
Grand Admiral
Joined: August 03, 2003
Posts: 668
| Posted: 2005-01-03 22:56
lol
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Forseth (Ret)
Fleet Admiral
Joined: June 01, 2003
Posts: 828
From: Forseth
| Posted: 2005-01-04 13:12
Quote:
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On 2005-01-03 21:50, Darkspacian wrote:
Wow! This stuff really works people! Complain of lag no more (except serverside)!
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ohhh if only it were true...how i miss you non laggy Darkspace, HOW I MISS YOU!! *fading echo*
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2005-01-04 13:15
How about we dont spam this topic.
Im trying to help people who are having problems running DarkSpace, or perhaps it doesnt run so well for them. So take your unwanted comments to another topic please :/.
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Fatal Rocko Willis
Fleet Admiral
Fatal Squadron
Joined: March 01, 2003
Posts: 1336
From: Kentucky
| Posted: 2005-01-04 19:12
Amen Backie.... I actually gave the whole video card speech to a few new players that were having a problem back before I deployed. I also agree with the Settings...
If your computer can only handle a certain graphics level turn down the graphics in game. Don't kill your gaming experiance by trying to force it to see to much stuff... I turned it down on my first computer and alot of my problems cleared up. The other problems where from having a POS dial up ISP.
Rocko
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Lord DowneyBUM (UK)
Fleet Admiral
Joined: January 13, 2003
Posts: 437
From: London England
| Posted: 2005-01-05 11:18
Fully concur, i have reset my setup, fiddled with my settings, upgraded my direct x and now have dropped 80 off of my ping.
The netspeed thingy didnt seem to achieve anything though.
oh and i have managed to get a sig, took me two years but hey im old
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Drajka (The λ Snark)
Cadet
Joined: December 01, 2004
Posts: 21
| Posted: 2005-01-05 11:25
Ahh yes, true true.
I can also help with your problems, as I am a network technician o.O
But you can send a message to Backy, and if he can't help you, or if he isn't online, you can /send Drajka , and I'll try to help.
If what Backy said fails, and you are still having a big problem with lag, so much so that you cannot play the game somewhat comfortably, let me know, I'm a tweaker at heart.
But I can't be held responsible for what they do to your computer!
Not that they will. ;]
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\"Instill the new order, fear is freedom.\"
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2005-01-05 12:39
The Network patches from speedguide tend to allow your connection to send bigger packets, and if they fail to send it drops them quicker. This is ussualy helpful if its taking too long for a certain packet to get there, it has a property called "TTL" (Time To Live), which is I think how long the packet lasts if it doesnt reach its destination. Lowering this can help if your connection isnt dealing with droped packets or failed packets very well.
Also it generaly allows for better, and smoother connection. I recieved a boost in Counter-Strike after installing the WXP ones.
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Pakhos[+R]
Chief Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: May 31, 2002
Posts: 1352
From: Clean room lab
| Posted: 2005-01-05 20:59
spaming...
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[-GTN-]BackSlash: "Azreal is a master of showing me what is horribly broken in the game."
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2005-01-29 17:33
Just the slightest of bumps. Been noticing people want to know how to get the game working or make it work better as of late.
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2005-05-07 16:14
I see another reason to bump this (see's the lag topic pile up)
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2005-08-22 17:25
tiny bump, lots of people wanting help lately
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Ramius
Fleet Admiral
Agents
Joined: January 12, 2002
Posts: 894
From: Ramius
| Posted: 2005-08-22 21:27
21 ms baby. 21 ms.
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