Dragon Age Origins Performance Issues

[Eggmayonaise]

Playing DA:O on my new PC, and I'm getting some seriously poor performance. It isn't even occuring during large battles, which I know tends to happen, but this is a seperate issue.

While playing through the Human Noble origin, my framerate was fine, but upon arriving at Ostagar it worsened. I saved and quit, knowing that if you play for upwards of 2/3 hours then performance starts dropping pretty quick (at least for me), but after playing again the next day (shortly after booting up my computer), and playing DA:O, my framerate was absolutely atrocious. I played DA:O on a less-powerful setup involving Vista 32 bit, a 2.2 GHz processor, a ~560mb graphics card.

My specs are as follows:
Windows 7 64 Bit
Intel Pentium 4 CPU (3.4 GHz)
6 gigs of RAM
ATI RADEON HD 5850 Graphics Card (1gb V-RAM)

I am currently running the game as:


I don't have anything else on this computer aside from steam, google chrome, avast, and win.rar, I started using it roughly two and a half months ago.

1920x1080 (16:9 widescreen)
Very High Graphics Detail
4x AA
High texture Detail
V-Sync turned off, Frame Buffer Effects on.

Essentially, max settings aside from anti-aliasing.

Does anybody have any fixes, or at least some ideas as to what may be causing the problem?

[Eggmayonaise]

I meant to say I played it on a less powerful computer setup before, and didn't have any real problems with framerate.

[Amarae Morti]

Start with Force DX9 and run as admin in XP compatibity mode. You're dealing with an old engine and best make things as native to the engine as possible. Note that your old vista was 32 bit and your new win 7 is 64 bit.

Also being that you have 6Gb memory, there is the possibility that your particular configuration hinders the game. I'm guessing you have a 4Gb and a 2Gb chip to make the 5 GB. Try swapping the physical position of the memory chips on the motherboard. It's generally recommended to have matching pairs of memory chips as it can cause issues with older software. You might try removing the 2Gb chip completely for testing purposes.

In addition, there is the 4+ Gb patch/workaround, which can help performance by allowing the game to use some of that extra memory.

[Eggmayonaise]

Originally posted by Amarae Morti:

Start with Force DX9 and run as admin in XP compatibity mode. You're dealing with an old engine and best make things as native to the engine as possible. Note that your old vista was 32 bit and your new win 7 is 64 bit.

Also being that you have 6Gb memory, there is the possibility that your particular configuration hinders the game. I'm guessing you have a 4Gb and a 2Gb chip to make the 5 GB. Try swapping the physical position of the memory chips on the motherboard. It's generally recommended to have matching pairs of memory chips as it can cause issues with older software. You might try removing the 2Gb chip completely for testing purposes.

In addition, there is the 4+ Gb patch/workaround, which can help performance by allowing the game to use some of that extra memory.

I've looked into the 4 GB Patch, but I've gathered it doesn't work on the Steam version of DA:O-UE (causes an error code 51 after launch due to steam detecting the LAA-flagged file as corrupted) I've forced it to run in DX9, have yet to launch it yet because I've been looking into the 4GB thing. I'll tell you how it goes.

[Eggmayonaise]

Forcing it to run in DX9 helped a little, but framerate is still a problem, and now I'm having problems getting it to run in compatiblity mode. Setting the properties to run as administrator and run in compatiblity mode (XP:SP3) just leads to me getting an error that DA:O-UE is already running (when I know for a fact that it isn't via Task Manager's processes tab).

If I return properties to normal, i.e. not running as admin and not forcing compatiblity mode, it launches fine, but framerate still sucks.

As for the memory upgrades I had a 2gb motherboard and a pair of 2gb chips. I actually had a previous problem while setting this rig up that the memory upgrade wasn't being recongized and had to shuffle the chips around in the motherboard's slots until they were being consistently detected and utilized, so I'd rather avoid moving the chips around and playing that game of roulette again.

[BrokenKingpin]

You really need to consider upgrading your PC. P4 is just way to old, even for general computing tasks these days (on Windows anyway).

[Eggmayonaise]

It hasn't caused me any problems with anything else I run (Metro Last Light, for example)... I've been considering it but I don't think it's the source of my problems with DA:O.

[Bobby Digital™]

i would say it is the source of your problem. i have an i7 and the game uses 70% of its computing power. like you already know, some games are cpu ♥♥♥♥♥♥ and this game ranks near the top.

[Eggmayonaise]

That could explain it, although I had better luck on a system with a weaker CPU (an intel duo core, don't remember the exact series but it was a dual core 2.2 ghz.)

[AmpleNickel4262]

Honestly, it's probably your CPU. Like the guy said above it's just not that good of a CPU even for running basic programs nowadays on modern, 64 bit Windows. Out of curiousity what is your average , idle CPU usage? And what is usage in game? I know you said you played on a lesser system and it ran better but it may just end up being how the cpu works within a 64 bit, Windows 7 format/system. It's much more demanding in general. I mean honestly I'd also turn down your anti aliasing. That's pretty hardcore to be running on such a weak system. Even for a pretty low demanding game like Dragon Age Origins. Possibly just inject some MLAA through AMD Catalyst Control Center or download RadeonPro and inject SMAA instead of using the in game MSAA? If your familiar with CCC also make sure you didn't set up a profile injecting supersampling or something by accident? I guarantee if you turn that 2x you'll get 30-50% better performance and turning it off may double your performance. Possibly try to force High Affinity and/or higher priority through the task manager? Just right click on said program in the "processes" tab and experiment with setting higher priorities and affinities. If you're not familiar with this just do a Google search. It won't hurt your system. Worst case may be a restart needed if it crashes. But all you may simply need to do is turn down your anti aliasing to 2x or OFF. That's a quick, guaranteed fix. It's also possible with previous RAM errors you said you've had that that may be an underlying issue. You really shouldn't use miss matched RAM. They come in "packages and bundles" for a reason. They are silicon made at the same time in the same batch and have consistency. It's rather important (though not critical) when it comes to RAM. Possibly just buy an 8 gb (2x4GB modules) kit?

[Eggmayonaise]

Originally posted by AmpleNickel4262:

Honestly, it's probably your CPU. Like the guy said above it's just not that good of a CPU even for running basic programs nowadays on modern, 64 bit Windows. Out of curiousity what is your average , idle CPU usage? And what is usage in game? I know you said you played on a lesser system and it ran better but it may just end up being how the cpu works within a 64 bit, Windows 7 format/system. It's much more demanding in general. I mean honestly I'd also turn down your anti aliasing. That's pretty hardcore to be running on such a weak system. Even for a pretty low demanding game like Dragon Age Origins. Possibly just inject some MLAA through AMD Catalyst Control Center or download RadeonPro and inject SMAA instead of using the in game MSAA? If your familiar with CCC also make sure you didn't set up a profile injecting supersampling or something by accident? I guarantee if you turn that 2x you'll get 30-50% better performance and turning it off may double your performance. Possibly try to force High Affinity and/or higher priority through the task manager? Just right click on said program in the "processes" tab and experiment with setting higher priorities and affinities. If you're not familiar with this just do a Google search. It won't hurt your system. Worst case may be a restart needed if it crashes. But all you may simply need to do is turn down your anti aliasing to 2x or OFF. That's a quick, guaranteed fix. It's also possible with previous RAM errors you said you've had that that may be an underlying issue. You really shouldn't use miss matched RAM. They come in "packages and bundles" for a reason. They are silicon made at the same time in the same batch and have consistency. It's rather important (though not critical) when it comes to RAM. Possibly just buy an 8 gb (2x4GB modules) kit?

I appreciate the reply, but I posted that over a year ago, and I've since upgraded my processor and I haven't had any issues with the game.

[-3xA'Lu©κy the disappearing act]

There's a LAA guide for the Steam version in-fact although I suspect you're already done with the game :) I'll post it here in any event:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=233222451