1. #1
    sebastianaalton's Avatar Trials Developer
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    Mar 2014
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    Troubleshooting and performance improvement FAQ

    This is the Trials 2 Second Edition troubleshooting and performance improvement FAQ. In this thread are listed all the most common problems in running Trials 2 and most common causes of bad framerate in the game, and tips how to improve the game performance. If you are having a problem, please check out all the relevant sections. If these tips do not fix your problem, please post on the Technical Support forum.

    If you are uncertain if your computer meets the minimum requirement of Trials 2 Second Edition, please see this thread first:
    http://www.redlynxtrials.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27


    Update:
    v1.08 patch fixes all the timing issues with the Windows XP + Athlon 64 X2 combination. You no longer need to install the AMD dual core driver pack to get smooth play experience on this combination. Also the new version fully supports shared texture memory of the low end integrated chips. This allows you to run the game on laptops that can access only 64 MB of memory. All Intel GMA 900 and GMA 950 configurations run the game now with factory settings.


    Common tips

    1. Install the newest display drivers
    Both NVidia and ATI release new display drivers every month. New drivers improve both stability and performance.

    Graphics driver issues are the most common cause of crashes and bad performance in the game. If your drivers are more than a half year old, I recommend updating them before playing Trials 2. Also the performance gains can be signifigant: Installation of new drivers improved Trials 2 SE framerate over 60% on one of our test computers. Driver upgrade is especially important if you are running Windows Vista, as Vista drivers are not yet matured, and new drivers deliver constant speed improvements every month.

    Driver download links:
    Nvidia GeForce: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
    AMD/ATI Radeon: http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html
    If you have a laptop, visit your laptop manufacturers website to download newest drivers (http://www.dell.com, http://www.acer.com, etc).


    2. Install the newest sound card/codec drivers
    While the majority of sound card drivers are working perfectly fine with Trials 2, we have encountered problems with some older drivers. Updating sound drivers is especially important if you are running Windows Vista, as the operating system is brand new and many manufacturers had big problems with their first drivers for the OS.

    IMPORTANT: Older Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi drivers had serious problems in games utilizing OpenAL sound API. Trials 2 uses OpenAL sound API, so it's very important that you update your sound drivers if your computer has a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi sound card. The old X-Fi drivers can cause the game to hang, and some users have even reported blue screens (in Trials 2 and many other new games). More information about this issue can be found around the internet (http://www.google.fi/search?hl=fi&q=...nAL+bluescreen).

    Driver download links:
    Creative Soundblaster & X-Fi: http://www.creative.com/support/downloads/
    Realtek: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...&GetDown=false


    3. Hardware problems and overheating
    Trials 2 utilizes your graphics card pixel shaders much more intensively than most other games. Problems like computer case cooling fan misfunctions, underpowered PSU (power supply unit) or too high graphics card overclocking are much more visible on Trials 2. Most graphics cards have termal sensors and the card automatically downclocks itself if problems like this occur. The visible symptom of this is poor fluctuating framerate in longer play sessions, and occasional hangs and blue screens if the problem is serious enough.

    If Trials 2 runs smoothly for couple of minutes and then starts to lag heavily, it's likely that you are having a hardware problem like this. First thing to check is that all your case fans, PSU fans and graphics chip fans are spinning properly. If you have overclocked parts of your system, return the default clocks and see if this fixes the problem. If you are suspecting that your PSU doesn't have enough power to run your system, the best way to test is to remove all unnecessary add on cards and USB devices.



    Performance optimization tips

    1. Check your Trials 2 settings
    Open up the settings menu in Trials 2 SE (found in main menu). Here you can find settings concerning various graphics effects.

    First one to check is "HQ Ambient Lighting". This feature is designed for the highest end graphics cards, and consumes vast amount of processing power. Disabling this feature alone, can double your framerate. If this doesn't help enough, try to disable "Depth of Field", "Light Bloom", "Shadows" and "Volumetric Particles". I recommend keeping "Motion Blur" active, as it improves the smoothness of the game. With proper motion blur you do not need that much high framerate to get the impression of smooth movement (24 frame films depend very much on motion blur).


    2. Check your resolution
    Running Trials 2 on the best resolution your monitor supports brings you the best graphical impression. However large resolutions such as 1650x1080, 1600x1200 and 1920x1200 consume around 2-3 times more raw graphics power than modest resolutions like 1024x768 and 1280x720. By lowering your resolution 1-2 steps, you can improve your framerate considerably, while the graphics quality doesn't suffer that much.


    3. Check other programs you are running
    Some programs installed in your computer might use your graphics card resources when they run at the background, and cause major slowdowns and repeating lag spikes in the game. Many content creation programs (Adobe Photoshop, Autodesk 3d studio MAX, Macromedia Flash, etc) cause problems like this when they are open (even if whe window is minimized). We recommend closing all unneeded programs when you run Trials 2 if you want the absolutely best gameplay experience.


    4. Turn off forced antialiasing from your graphics card control panel
    Trials 2 SE uses a very high end graphics engine utilising new deferred rendering technique. Many new and fortcoming AAA games are utilizing the same technique or a variation of it (Unreal 3 engine games, Killzone 2, etc). Deferred rendering engines do not support forced MSAA antialiasing found from your graphics card control panel. MSAA antialiasing does not improve the image quality at all, but still degrades the game performance if forced on.

    If you play Trials 2 Second Edition using normal graphics settings be sure that your graphics card control panel antialiasing settings are always set to "Application Controlled". Low and very low graphics modes support hardware MSAA antialiasing normally.
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  2. #2
    Here are some not so easy tips to make Trials 2 run more smoothly on your computer:

    Warning, only do this if you know what you are doing, please!

    Another great way to improve performance in games is to install another copy of your operative system, so you have for example two windows installations on your computer.

    When you install your second OS, try to minimize the amount of extra features to be installed with it.

    After you are done, start up your shining new OS, and start updating drivers.

    Only install programs that you will use while gaming, like steam and all that. Of course you should install firefox, maybe winamp and any other handy small programs for every day use, but not big programs like video editing, image editing, dvd burning, antivirus programs....you understand right?

    Especially not antivirus programs, since they often take up huge amounts of system resources. There are some AV programs that are made for gaming, but I rather not use them anyway. I have been without AV programs on my gaming OS for months without any viruses creeping in. You should not visit any websites you don't trust while you are on it. You can always check your hard drives for viruses from your other OS installation where you should have good protection.

    A good firewall program is good to have though, since you don't want to be too unprotected.

    Set up your OS to maximize performance, I mean who needs lots of fancy effects taking up system resources in the background while you play? Not me anyway. You can find guides for doing this on almost any search engine.

    There are so many things you can fiddle with that you will feel like you are drowning in information if you haven't tried this before, but I promise you, it is worth it! The difference between a clean optimized OS and one you have been doing all kinds of stuff on for months is like comparing an old rusty car to a brand new sports car. Everything will go faster and the response time when you start programs and games will make you drool.

    I have used this system for a long time, whenever I work with my computer I use the one where I have all good programs and all extra features are on. But as soon as I want a good gaming session I just reboot and start my gaming OS, it just takes a minute or two and the difference this makes to your gaming experience can't be told too many times

    If you really want to have a good OS to play on you should have a partition or hard drive that you can reformat often without loosing any important data. One very handy tool here is using a ghost software, which makes an exact copy of your hard drive. When you have installed your gaming OS and it is perfect, you make a ghost backup of it. When you feel that your gaming OS starts clogging up with unnecessary programs and errors, you just take that ghost backup and voila, it is fresh again! If you have to update something after you have used the ghost backup, you can just make a new ghost backup of your updated OS, and delete the old one. This way you don't have to sit for hours and fiddle with all the settings and installing programs.

    If you don't know how to do this yourself, maybe you have some nerdy friend that can help you

    Play safe! And play optimized
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  3. #3
    nice idea never though of this
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  4. #4

    Re: How to make Trials 2 run more smoothly

    Originally Posted by sebbbi
    2. Check your Trials 2 settings
    Open up the settings menu in Trials 2 SE (found in main menu). Here you can find settings concerning various graphics effects.

    First one to check is "HQ Ambient Lighting". This feature is designed for the highest end graphics cards, and consumes vast amount of processing power. Disabling this feature alone, can double your framerate. If this doesn't help enough, try to disable "Depth of Field", "Light Bloom", "Shadows" and "Volumetric Particles". I recommend keeping "Motion Blur" active, as it improves the smoothness of the game. With proper motion blur you do not need that much high framerate to get the impression of smooth movement (24 frame films depend very much on motion blur).
    Slight problem - These options aren't available...
    Clicking the "settings" option on the title screen simply allows me to change the audio volume and camera mode, nothing more.

    Trials 2 SE is running poorly on my brother's laptop, and I need to play with things to get it to work well, but the option isn't there

    Any suggestions?
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  5. #5
    sebastianaalton's Avatar Trials Developer
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    Re: How to make Trials 2 run more smoothly

    Originally Posted by Bird
    Trials 2 SE is running poorly on my brother's laptop, and I need to play with things to get it to work well, but the option isn't there

    Any suggestions?
    The ingame graphics effect options are only available in ultra high graphics mode. All extra graphics options are off in default (low) graphics mode.

    If the low graphics mode runs slowly, the best way to improve performance is to downgrade the resolution you use. I also suggest visiting the laptop manufacturer's website and downloading the newest display drivers from there. Laptops usually come with pretty old drivers, and updating the drivers can improve your framerate considerably.
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  6. #6
    Ah, that would explain why I saw them before and not since (as I run normal graphics for best gameplay)!

    We've triad updating display drivers etc, all with no joy
    The laptop we're trying to run on isn't all that new, but I would have expected a bit more from it to be honest (2.2Ghz AMD Turion, 2Gb RAM, 128Mb dedicated NVidia GeForce etc...)

    Will keep trying things I guess, thanks for your help
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  7. #7

    Re: Troubleshooting and performance improvement FAQ

    Nice post here in this thread...
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