Running it smoothly

[Lagomorph01]

Hi everybody,

I bought A Vampyre Story last week. It looks great and all, but it doesn't run quit as smoothly as I'd like it to.
It's a pretty strange thing really, I've got a pretty new laptop (bought it last May).

The system specs are:
Intel Pentium Dual Core processor T2370 @ 1.73 Ghz
3 GB work memory
Intel GMA X3100 with 358 MB Shared

Has anyone got a way to run A Vampyre Story more smoothly.
It's a game with 2D backgrounds and 3D characters, it shouldn't take that much memory right?

[Haggis]

I'm not very technical, but there's one thing that I can think of right now: have you tried lowering the graphical settings in the main menu?

[Lagomorph01]

Yeah, the aa is set to 0, and changing the lighting settings doesn't change a thing.

[Sven_Q45]

On my PC it works fine.

Or you´ve the problem I had with SWKOTOR! Do you also have ATI Raedon?

[Lagomorph01]

Nope, it's a SIS Mirage 3 Graphics card.

[neon_git]

Hmmm, I can't say I've heard of SIS before - if it is a no name brand (I'm not terribly up on these things so I wouldn't really know) you may find it's just a dodgy make.

The only thing I can suggest is to make sure your drivers are up to date if you haven't already done so.

[Lagomorph01]

Thanks!
I updated my drivers and it runs more smoothly allready!
Not as smoothly as I'd like it to though, but like this I can actually enjoy the animation a little.

[s-island]

You're running it on a laptop, right? SiS Mirage 3 is a graphics adapter that's integrated into the motherboard. They're usually not made to run any graphics intensive stuff, such as any games from the last 5 years.

[Lagomorph01]

Hmmm... The guy at the store said it was just the thing for graphical use.
And I must say, the video editing and 3D programmes run a lot better than on our home pc.

[Thrik]

SiS is far from a no-name brand, so I wouldn't expect an actual dodgy card based on that alone. With that said, graphics cards are far from their main niche so it's possible it's just not too well optimised for a lot of games and is better suited to more business-like graphics card use (Windows Vista, Photoshop, etc).

Drivers are pretty much the only thing I can imagine making a significant difference, as well as making sure superfluous effects like anti-aliasing aren't enabled anywhere. If it still runs badly, it might just be a limitation you have to live with.

In future I'd make a note of aiming for an NVIDIA or ATI GPU if possible. While other manufacturers do decent laptop cards and such, they don't aggressively optimise their drivers for each new game that comes out like the big two do. That is also why keeping your drivers completely up to date is vital.

[Gabez]

I can never work out how to update my drivers, so I've never done it. I tried once and it was nightmarish.

[neon_git]

Well Gabez, if you weren't still using Windows 3.1

[Thrik]

Nothing to it nowadays Gabez if you have an NVIDIA or ATI card, although it was harder in the past. Now all you literally need to do is go to Add/Remove Programs, uninstall the drivers, reboot, and install the new ones via their installer.

Well worth it if you do play modern games as it can literally be a case of going from 'slideshow' to 'smooth as a girl's bum'!

[s-island]

Hmm! I've never uninstalled the old ones first.

[Gabez]

Well my laptop has a sticker on it that says "ATI Mobility Radeon 9100 IGP," though according to my control panel hardware thingummy, I actually have an ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 IGP. We are not off to a good start!

Also, I think they stopped supporting these cards back in '94.