I know Incarnate already knows about this, but I wanted to post this because we did NOT fix the problem as I originally thought.

If I'm in a heavy roid field of specific types, my fps can drop to 1 permanently, and this is with the lowest possible settings across the board with 800x600 resolution.

To give a good example, Itan J-11 is completely unplayable to me now, and it used to be perfectly smooth sailing on 256MB settings just a few days ago.

Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.2GHz
Memory: 2048MB RAM
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2
Card name: RADEON 9800 XT
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Display Memory: 256.0 MB
Current Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: ViewSonic VG900
Monitor Max Res: 1280,1024

Do you have shaders on?

Shaders were off.

I've found the problem, which makes me hope Incarnate sees this, as it had nothing to do with the graphics or the roid textures whatsoever. The timing with the roid patch was merely coincidence.

iry was right that it was the targetless plugin causing the fps freezes. Without targetless running, I can run through Itan J-11 flawlessly with every visual setting maxed at 1280x1024.

I'm a little irked about that, as it means I have to write my own custom targeting plugin to keep the game playable, but that's not Guild Software's fault.

I am still having FPS problems since the update. Mine seems especially connected to stations. I have reduced my settings from super high to low, but it doesn't seem to help. Inc even walked me through changing about every option. I'm not using targetless or any other plugin. Now even the main login screen is extremely glitchy. I can't understand it, but I am hesitant to say it is my computer considering the immediate onset of effects after the textures update. Does seem to be getting worse.

Macbook Pro
2.2 GHz core 2 duo
2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Leopard
GeForce 8600M GT Graphics card.

Appreciate any suggestions. I have turned all the settings down, resolutions and everything.c

hmmm...I'll postpone my distress for now. I flew far away from a heavily roided sector and messed with my settings until I could move the roid cluster and imbedded station around without getting down to ridiculous FPS levels. I guess the textures just got sooo über that my little old laptop couldn't handle it. Had to go way down, but got some stuff up a little. Do the textures not become lower resolution as you move away from them? I will be the first to admit that I don't know much about computers, but it doesn't seem like they need to be amazingly detailed when you are 10,000 meters away. I mean, if the texture dropped to the old levels at that distance I think I'd be fine at higher settings. Maybe it does. Alas, I know nothing. Thanks for the help Inc.!

John, there is actually a slider where you can control the level of detail at a distance

might be worth a look

yeah, that's what I played with, actually. It helped. I guess I didn't understand exactly what the slider did. I thought it just limited how far away items were displayed, like in Battlefield 2 or whatever. A lot of games will just not display graphics at a certain distance. I guess this does exactly what I wanted. It was the only thing I hadn't played with before I got VO to work yesterday, so maybe that's what did it! Thanks for the info zamzx.

Goodman: we just reworked the new-install configs for MacBook Pros the other day, and tested it on one. Try deleting your wgaf.cfg and config.ini (or backing them up somewhere else, just in case) and then letting it auto-configure the defaults, and see how that works.

I reinstalled for a reason other than this on friday, and it seemed fine on the default settings. I didn't fly around or anything, but it seemed okay in the station with much higher settings. Thanks for the help!