Slow Frames Per Second

[Whitellama]

I will first apologize about posting this topic again, but I have searched the forums, and both the FAQ and the older topics have not provided any help to me. I play lots of games on this computer and its fairly fast. When I play the Platinum Arts Sandbox I have an incredibly low FPS, and I don't know what to do. I lowered my resolution, turned off shaders and water reflections, lowered the texture quality, and I'm afraid to tamper with the other options because I don't have a clue what they'll do. I also spent half an hour updating my drivers. (It took me a while to learn how.) I usually play this game with no other windows open and no major programs in the background.

I was searching the website and the wiki and I couldn't find any of the system requirements for Platinum Arts Sandbox. Could somebody please direct me to them? Since almost all of my other games don't lag, I am surprised this one does.

My computer is a Windows XP Professional, my graphics card is a RADEON X300 SE 128MB HyperMemory, I've got about 1GB of RAM. I am unsure whether these meet the system requirements but they're not that bad. If anyone can tell me how to attach a file in these forums, (if it's possible), I'll attach my DxDiag (DirectX Diagnostics) so you can see all of my system info.

Please help me out,
-Whitellama

[Hirato]

basically anything made in this century (2000 onwards) should be able to run sandbox acceptably.
and we don't really offer any support beyond telling users to upgrade their drivers. Since you claim to have updated yours, I assume you're using this one http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/w ... ng=English

unfortunately, if it doesn't help, you'd have to consider getting a new graphics card

[Obsidian]

Hmm. I used to have the same issues myself, but I have a Intel Mobile 4 Series GPU; in the end, solved the problem by updating my drivers to the latest.

What's more important is that the problem itself (on my end) was caused by poor OpenGL support within my own drivers; I suspect it's the same for you. If that is the case, then unless you get a new graphics card or wait for better drivers to be released you are out of options.

[Whitellama]

Well, I did use that link to upgrade my drivers, and I also found a list of my drivers and I used windows update as well. Since a new graphics card is not within my budget, I will have to live without Platinum Arts Sandbox.

Is there a way to double check that my drivers have updated? When I updated the rest of them on my list of drivers, windows update told me they were fully updated and it couldn't find newer versions. Is there a way to double check that my graphic card's drivers updated as well? The version it should be at is 10.2 right? How do I check my version?

[Obsidian]

The version of your drivers should be available under here:

Control Panel->System->Device Manager

Choose your GPU within the "Display adaptors" section, right click it, and select properties.

Now, go to the driver tab, and the version of your driver would be beside "Driver Version".


Also, as an FYI, don't trust Windows update to keep your drivers up-to-date. Most frequently out of date drivers are what Microsoft distributes through Windows update, so it doesn't do anybody much good in the end; if you want something recent you've got to check to see if your manufacturer has released new drivers on their own site.

[Whitellama]

Thanks Obsidian that was helpful. The Device manager was where I found the list of drivers, and I updated more than just the display adapters too. I'll check the website too.