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Tanarus introduces a
number of special effects that could potentially slow down the framerate
of your system. Most of these effects are more than just eye candy; they
serve as visual cues as to what's going on in the game. For example, smoke
trails from shells allow you to see where cannon fire is coming from, along
with visible shockwaves showing where the shells are landing. But certain
special effects can take their toll on a system. This document will help
you tune your system for optimum performance.
First of all, there are
two modes of view in Tanarus. -- fullscreen versus console view. If you've
set your display to full screen in the options menu, under graphics, you
can always switch it back, or press F6 while in the game to toggle between
the two views. Although fullscreen view gives you a much larger viewing
area, it takes its toll on framerate. Console view is almost twice as fast
as fullscreen view. Many players actually will switch on the fly between
the two views during gameplay.
You can
further tweak your framerate by going to the options menu and choosing graphics.
The slider at the bottom labeled "Particle Density" can be set by moving
the slider left or right. Particles are graphical effects associated with
smoke and missile trails. If the slider is all the way to the right, maximum
particle density will be displayed during the game, which can potentially
cause slowdown, especially during large fights.
Here are other options
available that you can turn off in order to improve framerate. Note that
not all of these options are available, depending on the type of display
you've selected under Select 3D Hardware.
Shells Generate Smoke
- Especially when there's an abundance of incoming shells, turning this
off can improve your system speed.
Use 3D Sprites -
Turning this off will cause Satellites and Recon Guns to be replaced with
2D bitmaps, improving system speed.
Parallax Sky - The
parallax sky effect can tax a system heavily. Switching this to the off
position can improve system speed.
To restore your system to
version .91 performance (sans the extra effects, of course), turn off
the following options under Graphics:
Shockwaves (under Additive
Translucency)
Sun Beams (under Additive Translucency)
Shells Generate Smoke
Use 3D Sprites
Set the Particle Density slider to about 1/4 from the left (all the way
left will turn off particles)
Some
players experience excessive harddrive accessing during gameplay, which
has a notable effect on framerate. Admittedly, Tanarus is not thoroughly
optimized for memory performance, and memory "leaks" may occur. We're working
to fix this, but in the meantime, here are some steps you can take to reduce
the effect of harddrive accessing on your system. First, de-frag your harddrive.
Utilities such as Norton Speed Disk and Microsoft's Disk Defragmenter (found
under Accessories/System Tools) can improve system performance both in Tanarus
and Windows. If you haven't defragged your harddrive in a while, or this
is the first you've heard of this, do it now. Just specify the drive letter
where Tanarus is installed (usually c:) and start defragging. Depending
on the size of your harddrive and system speed, defragging might take a
while.
We also recommend that
you check out your Virtual Memory settings to make sure that you're letting
Windows manage this for you. If you are unsure about this, right click your
My Computer icon on the desktop and choose Properties. Select the Performance
tab and click the Virtual Memory button at the bottom right. Make sure that
the first selection "Let Windows manage my virtual memory settings (recommended)"
is checked. You also want to free up harddrive space on your system. Notice
the box labeled "Hard Disk" and a drive letter/number next to it. This represents
how much space you have left on the drive that's being used for Virtual
Memory purposes. You'll want at least a couple hundred megs free here. The
more you have free, the better off you'll be.
© 1997-2007 Sony Online Entertainment LLC. Tanarus, SOE and the SOE logo are registered trademarks of Sony Online Entertainment LLC. The software platform logo (™ and ©) IEMA 2004. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
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