Extreme lag issue, is there a workaround?

[adrian52]

Hi,

I started playing this game again recently, the original version worked perfectly fine on my old computer which ran on Windows Vista. Recently I upgraded to Windows 8.1, and now (after downloading the update) I am experiencing horrible performance as the mouse and the characters both move very slowly making the game unplayable.

I tried fiddling with all the options in the game settings to no avail. My computer specifications are:

AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core Processor 2.50 GHz
ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series (The specific model is HD 4850, also the drivers are updated)
4 GB Memory
64-bit operating system, Windows 8.1

I'm not sure what else to add, but if anyone wants me to run something I'd be happy to.

This game seems very simple. I mean the animations and combat are rudimentary; so I'm wondering whether there are any other ways to play this? Could I run it on Dosbox maybe? If I bought this game from GOG instead of using the Steam version, would it make a difference?

Well..thanks for any help.

[Matthew]

The trouble is that ATI completely abandoned support for all cards from the HD 4000 line and earlier, so there are no competent drivers for Windows 8 (much less 8.1 as far as I'm aware). That said, *usually* people are still able to play. Can you email me (techsupport@ftlgame.com) a dxdiag dump?

[adrian52]

Sure thing...also I'm very new to tech related things, so hopefully I'm doing this right. I went to 'run' after right clicking the start 'icon', then typed in "dxdiag.exe" and once it finished I saved all the information to a text file.

So assuming that's all ok, I sent that text file to you from my e-mail with "adrian52 FTL tech support" in the subject line.

Its interesting to hear about ATI and the HD 4000 line, I never knew that. I guess my card is older than I thought.

*edit:
So I also bought Amnesia: A machine for pigs, but that crashed on startup because it turns out that my video card isn't advanced enough in terms of "Open GL" capabilities. When I looked into it more, the Amnesia tech support FAQ page said that if I read the following items in their 'hpl' text file:

Renderer: GDI Generic
Version: 1.1.0

Then that means that either no driver is installed on my computer or the installation is corrupted. I tried reinstalling the AMD catalyst control software twice (on their forums I found a sticky for 4000 series users linking to this download), but each time near the end there was some kind of warning. In the logs it said that some driver failed to install. I'm not sure how to fix this as this happened after I used their utility to completely wipe my computer of any previously installed drivers and related software like catalyst control. I'm going to try uninstalling the driver directly, using a driver cleaner that the people on the Amnesia FAQ suggested, and then try installing the driver directly using a general download helper on AMD's homepage. We'll see how it goes...

edit 2: Ok I did it, got my drivers back. Looks like it didn't really work, and the same warning is there when I was installing the Catalyst control software. Oh well...I think my computer is just messed up somehow. Probably need to just buy a new video card. Hopefully that's it

[Matthew]

It sounds like you've already tried everything I would have suggested based on the information you emailed me. FTL also uses OpenGL, so it's getting hit by the same problem that Amnesia suffers from. And your video card really is not that old, it's just the AMD and abandoned their cards and their customers. If you do buy a new card, I'd highly recommend you avoid anything made by AMD. After doing tech support on FTL for nearly 2 years now, 99% of video card driver problems are from AMD customers.

I'd offer you a refund, but GOG controls sales from their website and I think it's unlikely you'd get one now. Really terribly sorry about this, it's a frustrating situation. I'm glad you were able to play the game at one point.

[adrian52]

Oh that's ok, actually I wouldn't request a refund at all, I think I'll be upgrading my computer soon so then I should be able to play both games! I was going to do it anyway so its not that big of a deal.

But its good that we got it all sorted out as being an OpenGL issue (most likely). For the moment FTL is more something to enjoy once in a while as most of my time will be devoted to job searching. But anyway thanks for the help, I look forward to playing this game when I upgrade!

edit: I just upgraded recently, and now the game works silky smooth. yayy