My Jedi Sage’s turn to hit 50, now to get me some delicious healing gear.
Category Archives: Gaming
A better way to improve your Star Wars: The Old Republic performance?
So recently I recommended using Game Booster to improve your performance, but for those who do not want to run a third party app just to be able to play, I found something else!
I read yesterday that a GM posted on the German Star Wars: The Old Republic community forums in reply to a person who had low frame rate issues. It was posted by “J3-H1″ in German, now my German isn’t too great but thanks to my “Google Translate Fu” I was able to loosely translate it:
Basically J3-H1 is suggesting that the user having low FPS issues in Star Wars: The Old Republic should try and install DirectX 9.0c and report back if they had any luck with that.
So the proposed theory is that Star Wars: The Old Republic wants to use DirectX 9 drivers, and people with later versions such as DirectX 10, DirectX 11 don’t have those particular drivers, which cause their installations to emulate/mimic these older drivers if they are missing them, thus resulting in poor performance.
Some people on reddit went from 5-10 fps to 25 fps in the hustle and bustle of the PVP battles on Ilum.
So, how do I test this?
- Go to http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/confirmation.aspx?id=8109
- Download the file
- Once it’s downloaded, run the file and it will ask you to extract it to a folder. Extract it where you can later find and install it, as it comes with a setup executable. Pro-tip: Don’t extract it straight out to your desktop you’ll end up with a lot of files everywhere, it does not make it’s own directory, you have to make one for the installation.
- Run DXSETUP.exe and let it install
- Once installed, start up Star Wars: The Old Republic and see if it helped improve your frame rate
The installation will handle itself, it won’t “downgrade” your current DirectX version, so if you have DirectX 11 installed and install the DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010), it’ll only install the files that you are missing.
Also, please note: You do not need to uninstall anything before installing the DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010).
According to the thread on reddit, some people are reporting huge increases on the Republic and Imperial fleets plus on Ilum, while some people aren’t seeing any improvements in their frame rate performance.
People trying this out but noticing no improvement in their frame rate might already have these files installed from other games and thus are running it already in a better shape they would have been without the drivers.
I will try this on my other machine later on to see if it helps the wife’s Star Wars: The Old Republic performance and report back later.
Reporting back: Turns out before I tried this I was averaging ~19-20 fps on my lesser machine, but after installing the drivers I went up to ~25 fps. Not a significant difference, but higher is definitely better than lower!
I noticed that when I record videos with Fraps I’m getting almost no lag, while before I used to have a huge lag spike every 50 seconds while recording.
Zoryal Doesn’t Care About Nautolans
My Jedi Sage Zoryal ran into yet another insane Nautolan, hilarity and awkward moments ensued. Is it just me or are all Nautolans just crazy? I recall a broken hearted Nautolan in Coruscant desperate to get his mate back, sheesh!
Star Wars The Old Republic (SWTOR) Running Slow?
Please see my other post if you’re looking for a solution without using a third-party application
If you’re having performance issues with SWTOR, have you tried running Game Booster by IObit?
I’ve had great experiences with this application in the past increasing my Frames Per Second (FPS). Just trying to help people out – I am not getting paid for this endorsement. Please note that this application wants to install additional software + stealthily installs a browser toolbar.
It’s basically a freeware application that runs in the background, once you click the “Start Boost” or “Gaming Mode” button it automatically disables any unnecessary services and any other applications that you don’t need to have running while you’re playing. Exactly what it disables is all customizable by you in the application interface.
Once you’re done playing, just click the restore button or “switch to normal mode” and you’re back to where you were before you boosted your system.
As a side note: Some people are reporting FPS issues within Warzones, I don’t know if this app will help with that or not, it might be a software issue with SWTOR itself.
This application is freeware, try it and if you don’t like it uninstall it.
Just trying to lend a helping hand! :)
Please be aware (if you decide to install this app) that the second window in the setup/installer pops up with a question if you wish to install additional software from IObit (My wife is a notorious next-next-next speed clicker) as you might not be interested in a new defragger or malware fighter at this particular time.
Also, I noticed that IObit installs a browser toolbar – Once you’ve installed Game Booster, you can remove it via Add/remove programs in the Control Panel, the toolbar is called something along the lines of “IObit Browser Toolbar”. This used to not be the case with this application, IObit - I am disapoint! ಠ_ಠ
O’mi Dings 50
Status
Jedi Knight Doomsday Quest Bug
Please note: This post contains spoilers to the Doomsday Quest (Jedi Knight class quest line) in Star Wars: The Old Republic – Spoilers are marked with RED and you have to click them in order to reveal them.
!! The comments of this post may contain visible spoilers !!
So there I was, minding my own business, solving this puzzle when all of a sudden a wild graphics glitch appeared. For the record, the machine I was on had an ATI card in it. It was like the lasers / glyphs were completely random (please see the video below). In order to solve the puzzle, I had to log out and log back in on another of my machines with an Nvidia card. The “lasers” were still bugging and jumping around a bit, but I could at least make out the shapes of the puzzle.
Here’s a better video I took more recently when a friend of mine did the Doomsday quest:
After I went to each and every post in that room and solved the puzzle, there was a lot of shaking and rumbling going on, and music played, but I didn’t understand why. Expecting some epic boss to spawn or something, I was looking around the room for something to have appeared and found a strange looking chest I didn’t notice before.
Solving the Doomsday Puzzle
In order to solve the puzzle you have to make the shape of an imperial insignia on the floor, change all the shapes to the squarish looking shapes and the floor will turn into an imperial insignia. The symbol you need to set on every pillar looks like this: Link to awesome mspaint modded gamescreenshot since my lazors are bugging out.
I tried opening what looked like a chest inside a bigger chest, now I had to click the chest that was clipping out of the larger chest in order to attempt to open it.
After trying to open it, I got the usual “Opening…” action bar in the bottom-middle of the screen.
Once the bar filled all the way up 100% nothing happened, and of course like any other sensible human, I clicked that chest with all the might my mouse had to give it, but it wouldn’t open no matter what angle or clicking combo I used.
I have no clue what was in that chest but I’m curious.
Did anyone out there successfully get this chest open? If so, how did you do it?
Opening the Ancient Chest
In order to get the chest open, you need to solve the laser glyph symbol puzzle (the solution is above) but here’s the caveat: Once you’ve solved it, you will have to run all the way out of the instance (where you initially landed your ship, not the Emperors dropship — I mean your own Jedi Defender ship) and Reset the phase. This will make all the mobs/NPCs respawn but rumor has it that once you’ve cleared your way back to the ancient chest you’ll be able to open it. I am sure that this was of course not intended to be this way, but somehow made it past the beta testing. If you try this, please send me a comment and let me know if this worked!
Some are saying that the solution above is the only way you can open the chest for the bug, and some are saying they are not successful in opening the chest even though they tried it, please let me know if it works for you.
I’ve had multiple comments on my YouTube videos that the Warzone trick (enter a War Zone while in the instance and then when you’re done you’ll spawn back in and you will be able to open the chest) does work. If all else fails, please try it!
What did the mysterious chest contain?
The “Ancient Chest” contains gear for T7, according to the comment Lehnert made on my YouTube video. More specifically, it contains 5 pieces of gear for T7, Item Level 102 – Thanks Katari!
Please leave me a comment, the internetz must know!
Countdown to SWTOR
Status
Only 53 days. 8 hours and 28 minutes left until Star Wars: The Old Republic is released!
Source: this nifty Star Wars: The Old Republic Countdown Timer I found.
I’ve recently got some messages from my old Star Wars Galaxies friends: Shylar, Slefe and Fepe and it looks like we are all going to get together again and play.
It’s going to be awesome!
Does anyone have a number to a cryogenics lab that will freeze a person for 53 days?
I am in the Star Wars Old Republic Beta!
Just got invited to the Star Wars Old Republic Beta :)
\o/ Woot!
Pre-Ordered Star Wars: The Old Republic
A week ago I pre-ordered Star Wars: The Old Republic and I can’t wait to try it. I joined my friend’s (Cavalien’s) guild he created called Sith’ari Pathfinders and I took the role of a Sith Inquisitor, I can’t wait for the Early Access and I’m checking my e-mail inbox like a crack addict waiting for the beta invite to come in so I can try the game.
SWTOR, Y U NO INVITE ME YET!? *begs*
No doubt about it, I’m rolling Twi’lek again — It’s the best race ever!





