Hi,

Specs:
Pentium D (2.8ghz) O'Cd at 3.36ghz
3gb ram pc 800
250gb hdd
XFX xxx 8600gt /256mb DDR3 vid memory - pcie
4mbps cablemodem.

runs really slow, when I first ran the game I checked the vid settings everything was set to medium. Changed the display settings to 1280*1024 @ 60mhz which is what I have as my desktop settings. I have the latest nvidia drivers (installed via yum kmod-nvidia). Also changed everything to high (as per website the minimum requierements mine should have no problems at full high), noticed it got slightly better, but still very laggy/slow. and this is before logging in. any ideas.
thanks
Eric

Is it laggy in a network way (i.e., ships are jumping about), or in a framerate way (only rendering a couple of frames per second)? You can check framerate with /fps ingame.

If it's a network way, you might want to turn off any torrents you have in the background, as they happily monopolize 100% of your connection. Ditto for other peer-to-peer or large file transfers.

If it's a framerate way, check that you have hardware acceleration properly set up with a `glxinfo | grep direct` from a terminal.

You should be able to get it to run as well as mine does. (which is consistently 45 FPS on a 1.5Mmps connection)

1.5GHz G4 processor
512MB Ram
100GB hdd
128MB VRAM
(4 year old mac)

Best of luck!

Putting every thing on the max setting doesn't necessarily mean it will run faster, the 8600 may be able to render 8x Anti-Aliasing but having it on 8x is like telling a someone to run 8 miles in 10 minutes, it's better to keep it on 3x or 4x. VSync (Vertical Synchronization) slows down frame rates as well. Also having other resource hungry applications say another game or several web pages open.

I'm running:
AMD Athlon 64 3200 2.31gHz
DDR 400 2gB
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mB
Seagate 250gB ATA-133 HDD
2mb cable connection

I have every thing on high except for VSync, Space Junk Detail (not on), Anti-Aliasing is on 2x (can go up to 3x), and I'm using 1024x768 32bpp full screen. My average frame rate looking at stations or large roid fields are 40-80fps, ships with no background objects are +110fps, and loading screens can go 250-5000fps.

eric_18, try turning off the Glow effect that is in the Graphics settings.

Just because our minimum requirements are low, doesn't mean that putting everything at the max is going to be "fast" on your machine. The game scales fairly well, but can still push modern hardware, especially in certain sectors and conditions.

My work machine is an Athlon XP 2500+ with a gig of ram and a GeForce FX 5900 Ultra, and it runs great, but not with everything turned up to the highest settings.

If you have a 3D-enabled window manager, that could also be a problem, as the wm will take up a lot of resources (similar to running on a Mac in windowed mode).

That is strange that it would run slow on that machine eric. I realize you have the latest nVidia drivers for your 8600GT, but the latest drivers don't always equate to better performance......although nVidia usually has been a lot better than ATI about the quality of their drivers. You might try an older version of the driver, maybe one or two versions back or even a third party driver. I use omega drivers for my ATI card, just because the ATI drivers for my card seem to have issues. Another possibility could be your IP or you could have some applications running in the back ground eating up your system resources. Worth checking into IMHO. Hope you get in worked out. Let us know your progress with your problem. :)

I play with everything turned on to the highest setting with all the "eye candy" on as well at 1280 X 1024 resolution, and I never fall below 60 fps even admist a major bot and player battle amongst roids with swarms going off all over the place.

System Specs:

CPU: AMD socket754 Athlon64 3000+ @ 2.0ghz
Memory: 1gb of DDR400 PC3200 RAM
Video Card: HIS ATI Radeon 512mb Ice Q Turbo X1650GT (8xAGP)
Hard Drives: Two 74gb WD 10K Raptor HDs
IP: ATT DSL

Ahhh lucky you, you have the HIS card
Im stuck with a saphire 1600 pro that crashes my computer when i try to play TF2. :(

CPU: SocketA AMD Athlon XP (130nm Thoroughbred core) 1.5Ghz 1.8+ OCed to 2.1Ghz 2.5+
Ram: 768megs of DDR333 PC2100
Video Card: 512meg Saphire 1600 pro on AGP 8x
HDD: two seagate 80 gig and one WD 160gig on IDE
ISP: Bell/Aliant DSL

Running at 1024x768, maxed settings with 3xAA and normal quality FSG setting.
40-120 FPS in large stations or very large asteroid fields
130-170 Sedina B-8
170-200 empty sector.

63~67 ping when my brother isn't bittorenting,
250~500 when he is...

damn, even spidey gets better fps than me..

I need a new vid card

Athlon XP 2000+
2GB DDR333
GeForce 5200FX 128M AGP4x

Comcast 6M/1M cablemodem (ugh, i want my mediacom 20M back dammit)
BT or not, I get about 100ms ping times. QoS ftw

And I thought my system was a pile of crap! Oh wait it is...

P4 2.4Ghz
2GB DDR 400
GeForce 6200 256MB AGP 8x
20M Cable modem, and QoS (or any form of packet shaping) is evil.
120-160 ping, depending upon time of day.

I run VO at 1280x1024 with no AA, and the only thing I do not have maxed is distance LOD, I leave this on half. I use VSync, but my frame rate is usually stable at 60FPS. The only time it drops is at a station sector with a lot of activity (swarms, or loads of NPC's warping)

[edit]

I did a little botting recently, and it still looks like this for me, but with better? lighting.

Intel Mac 2.1 Ghz
2GB of Ram
Intel GMA950 representin'
with
Comcrap cable

I get a good 35-60 FPS at max settings. Woo.

you might want to try reducing the overclock on your cpu, their could be alot of small errors that the game can still work through, just more slowley than it should.

also, if you're running an ide hdd make sure it's not on the same channel as a cd rom drive, alot of cd rom drive have the nasty habit of forceing the ide channel into dma33 instead of 133

I hadn't thought about the overclock on the cpu looknohands. Good call. I would second reducing the overclock. I have had my Athlon64 overclocked before, and with certain games, it just causes issues. Some examples would be Oblivion and BF2142. I hadn't tried to oc my cpu with VO, but there really is no need too as it runs fine at stock speed.