Graphics Settings for Low-End Machines

[vision]

I finally had time to install this game and holy crap it’s amazing.

However, I’m having a rough go of it because I have a low-end computer. Can anyone give be solid advice on what all the Advanced Graphic options do and what settings are ideal for weak graphics cards? My fist inclination is to turn everything down or off, but I know is some cases that makes things worse.

EDIT: Also, there is significant input lag. Any suggestions?

[TwoCables]

What do you have for a CPU, memory, video card, and which resolution are you trying to use?

Edit: Also, is this in MP or SP?

Prepare for Overload…

[vision]

Single-Player. I have a mini desktop with 8GB of RAM an integrated GPU: AMD 7th Gen A6 9500 APU (Radeon R5 chipset)

My operating system is Kubuntu 18.04 and the highest resolution I can play on is 1024 x 768. The framerate is low, which I expected, but the input lag is the biggest problem. It’s like several milliseconds and bad enough that I can really only play on Rookie, which is a bummer since I’m an Insane level Descent player.

Overload was the reason I bought a new computer. I’m not a gamer and have no need for an expensive gaming rig, so guess I’m a little disappointed the performance isn’t better. Do you know of any command line options to reduce the graphics load more than the menu options?

I mean, the game looks amazing. It’s super fun and everything I wanted out of a Descent remake. It’s just so heavy.

[TwoCables]

I think you should have invested in a system that has a decent video card for gaming.

Prepare for Overload…

[vision]

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This reply has been reported for inappropriate content.

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TwoCables wrote:

I think you should have invested in a system that has a decent video card for gaming.

That’s kind of a bullshit response. I don’t mean to dive into a rant on the sad state of gaming, but what’s the fucking point of bundling up an absurdly huge prefabricated engige to make a game if only “gamers” can play it? I was able to play Descent I and II with computers that were considered low-end consumer machines at the time. The fact that Descent ran on weak hardware surely contributed to it’s success and popularity. Today’s game market is even more competitive, so why exclude people? Is this the best business model for a potential franchise?

I did weeks of research before buying this computer (way more research than I wanted to). My system exceeds the system requirements on the Overload FAQ page:

Overload will have detail settings that should make the game playable on any relatively modern hardware. To get the best experience we recommend:

Graphics card with Shader 3.0 support (1GB+ VRAM recommended)
2GHz Dual core processor or higher (i3 or higher recommended)
4GB of memory
10GB of HD space (rough estimate, could be higher)

“Buy a better computer” is all you got? Thanks for nothing. I’ll go back to playing games on my phone.

[Hunter]

Just turn everything off. That’s what I do, and my system is kinda mid-range (underpowered GPU but good spec). The game still looks passable but all I care about is performance, not shine and fancy graphics. Btw the integrated card is the real bottleneck, as with my underpowered GPU, at some point you can add a mid-range video card and you’ll receive a noticeable improvement. For now, if at the lowest resolution with everything turned off still doesn’t work, you should grab a cheap GPU at least.

Your point about D1 and D2 is fine and all but those games didn’t require hardware rendering, and you’re forgetting about D3 which for the time was *really* sluggish unless you had a top of the line system and vid card. Heck, I wasn’t able to play D3 in full quality until about 2003. I even have a laptop from 2008 that can barely run D3 on low settings, simply because it’s using integrated graphics.

[vision]

Thanks Hunter. I turned everything off and turned down the resolution and it’s a little more playable (there are no slots on my motherboard for an additional video card). I’ll be able to play the game on easy settings, but multiplayer is out of the question with the additional input lag. Oh well. Maybe people will still play Overload online when I upgrade in a few years.

[sfischer]

In addition to what Hunter said, we have a patch that should be dropping today/tonight. It has a second page of Advanced Graphics Settings that were basically added to help get the framerate better for Consoles, and less powerful machines. If you mess with those options, you should be able to get additional gains. (ETA, about 2 hours after posting this for Steam – GoG takes a bit longer as they have to release it on their side…hopefully a day or 2 at most, but not sure)

As a side note, I realize that it came across as insulting/dismissive, but our community is generally pretty nice/helpful, and TwoCables was trying to help 😉 . He’s generally one of the guys that tries to help a lot, but isn’t always great at nuance and can be easily misread. (He actually PM’d me on the side, as he was genuinely confused as to why you ‘attacked’ him – I see this as a misunderstanding, and that everyone could use some help in communicating at times, especially on the internet. If possible please do give our forum-goers the benefit of the doubt – most ‘negative’ things they say tend to sound much worse than they mean).

Anyway, I hope that with the new options that’ll be out shortly, you’ll be able to get some more frames and have fun with our game.

[vision]

Thanks sfischer, I saw the upgrade notice on Discord last night and I’m excited to try it out. I also apologize for my hostility, I was frustrated about the input lag. I know TwoCables is generally helpful. The game is amazing. Like, I can’t imagine changing anything to make it better.

[Hunter]

And now you’ll be able to play those D3 mods properly.. assuming you’ve got it setup right 🙂

[Slyli]

Hi Vision,

In addition to what everyone else already said, I would like to focus on the resolution issue.

What FPS are you actually getting? At what resolution? What is your monitor’s native resolution?

I don’t know how games are actually run under linux, but at least in Windows there is possibility to run the game in so-called Exclusive Fullscreen mode or in Windowed mode. In addition, in the Windows version of the game, it is not possible (at least in the UI) to choose a lower than 800*600 resolution. However, it is possible to use Windowed mode, stretch the game window to almost whatever resolution you want (e.g. 640*480, 640*400) and then, hit “FullScreen” from the graphics settings UI (so you will get a borderless window of 640*480 pixels stretched over your entire screen space regardless of your desktop resolution).

Why am I mentioning all of the above? In windowed mode, it makes a big difference what is your current deksktop resolution VS in game resolution. For example, I run some tests with my laptop which has an 840M GPU.

Test 1:
Desktop Resolution=2560*1440
Game screen mode=Windowed mode
Graphics settings=all lowest settings / reduced / etc.
V-Sync=OFF
Game “window” resolution=640*400 stretching to cover the whole screen
Average FPS=55 (Caverns CM)

Test 2:
Desktop Resolution=1280*720
Other settings same as Test 1
Average FPS=110 (Caverns CM)

TL:DR, try 640*480 resolution (if you have 4:3 screen, otherwise use 640*400). If you cannot set this resolution from in-game, try windowed mode (if such mode exists in linux) and if doing so, try to match your desktop resolution and in-game resolution (e.g. both at 640*480). If you still get input lag, then it could be CPU bottleneck or something else. And yes, game is perfectly playable and enjoyable in 640*400, even the UI text is ‘almost’ readable. It looks like a mid 90’s game at this resolution of course, but it gets the job done.

Hope this helps!

[vision]

Hunter wrote:

And now you’ll be able to play those D3 mods properly…

Sure, as soon as I get D3 running on Linux! I hope to try your newest mod on my old Win7 laptop in the next few weeks.

@Slyli:

How do I show FPS? I’m definitely getting lower FPS than my refresh rate, but I don’t know how much lower. Sometimes it’s really low, I’m guessing below 20fps based on experience.

My monitor is 4:3, 1600×1200. I’m running the game at 800×600 (lowest possible I can find in-game) and stretching it to full screen like you said. The input lag is still there, but I can almost play on Hotshot this way. I’m still over-correcting a lot because of the delay, but I’m getting though the campaign well enough to enjoy it.

Thanks for the help. Hopefully the update will improve performance enough that I can fumble through a little multi-player.

[Slyli]

Not sure about FPS showing in linux, but quick search brought this up: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/2z36kq/recommend_the_tool_to_display_the_fps_on_linux/

Also, could you try lowering your desktop / monitor resolution to 800*600 before running the game? That might help, if it is running in non-exclusive screen mode.

Good luck!

[vision]

Update 1854 helps noticeably, thanks. There are still a few areas in the campaign that my FPS drops really low, but I’m able to get through the levels. Will consider getting a stronger system next year if the economy hasn’t tanked.

[Hunter]

With regards to D3 on Linux, for me the GOG installer runs perfectly under WINE. The GOG version has been updated (*customized 1.4 patch and a few other tweaks) so that it should run without any problems. I couldn’t get the CD version to work at all. Simply place the installer in the WINE drive. PlayOnLinux is probably best avoided, I couldn’t get it to setup properly with that.

I config WINE to run in a Window, so that D3 too sits in a box and doesn’t mess with the desktop layout. I use OpenGL most of the time as that seems to cooperate with Wine better than the others and I set my command line to use the same resolution as the wine window.

[Author]

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