Just a suggestion here, since turn everything down = best frame rate really is a fairly simple concept, maybe something that would be more helpful to people trying to make STO run on lower systems would be a guide to what options give the best visual benefits with the smallest performance impact.

Lets face it, if you have to turn every setting to mnimum to play, you really shoudn't be playing on your PC in the first place. (For example, if you need hald rez option enabled to get a playable framerate, your PC just shouldn't be running the game) Overall a blend of settings that give decent visual quality without a huge performance hit would likely be far more useful. (Drag all slides to left, select off for everything really works just about as well for a guide to absolute max FPS) :p

Thanks, but that's incorrect. Not everything affects framerate, and certainly not everything affects framerate the same. Options can affect video and system memory usage, and CPU processing rather than GPU processing.

The OP put this guide up there to help people determine which options to turn down to improve performance without sacrificing everything visually.

I am so glad I found this.

Just one thing:

"Reduced File Streaming - I believe this lowers how much the game streams and/or loads a zone information to you as you move area to area. I personally don't use it. RS: Off"

As the description says, this keeps some of the objects in memory so you don't need to load them again from the server. It only lowers the amount the game streams if the setting is actually On. So basically, you want to stream in (Redownload) all those random graphics each time you load and not keep them in memory if they can be reused? I am not sure how that improves system performance.....


Other than that, good thread.

Edit: I just saw some of the dates on the posts. Apologies for trolling an old thread.

I guess most people reading this thread are doing so because they feel the need to improve performance, that's why I started reading.

No one here has actually said what is a "good frame rate". I thought mine was OK but the /showfps thing says its at about 10-15 fps. If I put everything down to minimum I can peak to 60fps in space and 35fps on my bridge..that's including the half resolution thing on.

On marginal systems, like mine,I think it really depends on what you are doing. be prepared to change your setting to suit the event. I find space battles are fine down to 10fps, but ground pvp needs fps as high as I can get it.

Because of my pc performance I use different settings for ground and space and whether its pvp or pve. Things like ground PVP, and "rock climbing" are harder on the lower FPS settings I get but I can do well just by dropping my settings when I need to.

I am able to play the game perfectly happily with these restrictions. Just experiment with it and see what works well for you.

I've played with the advanced setting quite a lot, to my mind most of them make a very small incremental changes to looks and speed and I No longer bother with them.

My conclusion after reading all this:
FPS do not matter at all. Play with the micro settings if you wish - its fun, so why not. But if they confuse/bore you turn advance settings off, use the big SPEED / QUALITY slide bar.
It works great and can not be simpler. KISS - "Keep It Simple Stupid"

Move the slider towards Speed when you need some Pvp fast reactions or things look a bit too jerky. Slide it towards quality if you want it to look great.

That's partly because what looks good to one person might not look so good to the next. In general, you can't go wrong with 60 FPS, which is what most LCD monitors are limited to for their refresh rate (Hz is cycles per second, similar to frames per second even if different). In general 30+ is enjoyable to most, but 60 should always be your target.

...And FPS goes up and down depending upon different scenes' graphical processing requirements.

I think I'll just buy a new Computer , when the next Cores come out ect.

FPS does matter. Can you play with 10 FPS? Sure. Would anyone advise it? No.

Case in point, lets say you are in combat. Whichever one gives you the least FPS. Now, lets say you need to rotate your camera around or turn your ship in a rapid speed to kill something before it kills you. Someone with a higher FPS, will have no issues with this. Someone with a much lower FPS will see the game chug along trying to achieve the commands you are giving it (i.e. pan camera here, rotate ship there, etc). It boils down to a higher frame rate, lets you improve how well you play. Now if you're playing something, lets say in space, that doesn't need a lot of fast camera switches or target rotations, it won't be as big an issue. But myself? I play an Escort. I fight at full speed, with all my energy diverted into weapons. I make "attack runs" on a target, I'll keep firing until the target is out of my line of fire or I can't hit it, then I will swoop around in as tight of a circle as I can to get them in the "crosshairs" again and repeat. If I had 5 or 10 FPS, this would be extremely hard.

The guide is here to help performance. You end up choosing one of three things; speed, eye candy or a balance between the two. Do you want shiny pretty things? Or those 5 extra frames you can squeak out to help you improve your playstyle? I did aim the guide for lower FPS players such as myself. I play with pretty much all settings on low / off and depending upon the action on screen, I get anywhere from 20 fps to 45 fps. Little low but playable.

Trust me, I've been playing MMORPG's for a long time now, I've played some MMO's with 5 FPS (every setting on low). And while I could "play" with 5 FPS, if you had given me another 10 or 15 FPS? I could have rocked at playing those mmo's.

Hell if anything, the guide teaches you how to really optimize your Windows install. Clean out clutter, keeping away viruses and spyware, etc That right there is a benefit of itself. If the 11 million people that played WoW followed just that section of the guide? There'd be virtually no accounts stolen, let alone performance increase

nice thread guys! But damn, just saw their last movie on the site and it's all soo smooth and fast. How the hell do they do this? Do they change something to the gamespeed?

Easy. They either use a powerful gaming rig or they render each frame in advance. My guess is the later so that they can adjust it to their 29.97 (drop frame), 30, or higher framerate for video editing.

can we do this too? In way of gaming?