Help Maximising FPS on an old Laptop

[DSQ]

Hello all,

I am wondering if anyone has any tips or tricks to maximise FPS on RBR. I have an old laptop, specs below:

• Lenovo 64bit Windows 10
• AMD A4-6210 APU with AMD Radeon R3 Graphics, 1800 Mhz, 4 Core Processor
• 8gb Ram
• SSD Hard Disk
• wondering if anyone has any tips or tricks to maximise FPS on RBR. I have an old laptop, specs

So, not very fast.

I am using the latest RBRHU Rallysimfans plug in installation and I have already tweaked the settings to the best of my knowledge to max out the FPS on my humble system.

My in-game settings are:

1366 x 768
VSync : Off
Cubic environment maps: Off
Render quality: high (you have to set this or some add-on tracks road disappears)
Particle quality: low
Shadows and particle effects off
Disable shaking cockpit camera
Wipers and windscreen: Hidden

For the most part I get framerates that are quite playable around 50-80 but there are some add on stages that sit down at 20 and are hard to drive.

I have the Vulkan dxvk disabled, though it is claimed to increase FPS I seem to get 20 fps lower everywhere when I have it set 'on', perhaps I am not implementing it correctly.

I read somewhere there is a way to turn off the suicidal photographers but didn't work out how to do that.

If someone knows of any other tweak I can use to increase fps that would be much appreciated.

 

[sptp]

I read somewhere there is a way to turn off the suicidal photographers but didn't work out how to do that.

The no marshall mod is here:

No Marshall Mod

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

www.mediafire.com

I don't know if it is allowed to use online, though.

In this folder there is also a "people v1.0" mod, but I don't know what it does. Maybe remove all spectators?

https://uloz.to/folder/GBSd2MUf4zap/name/Richard-Burns-Rally

About peformance:

When I had an old computer with a 17 inch monitor I used to drive from the bumper view (so no need to draw the car) and with reduced vertical resolution. RBR is pretty flexible, you can set a big horizontal resolution and any vertical resolution >= 480, so I would drive at 1280x480 in borderless window mode, you could drive at 1366x480 and see if there is a noticeable improvement. I take advantage of the fact that vertical resolution is not really useful for driving.Even if you drive from the interior you don't need to see the ceiling of the car or the ceiling. I remember in 1998's Grand Prix Legends this was the default.

You can set the values in RichardBurnsRally.ini

Fullscreen = false

XRes = 1366
YRes = 480

Then adjust views and digital dash positions with Pacenote plugin (double right click anywhere in the car to bring up the menu).

If you want the borderless window repositioned you can use this Autohotkey script. Here it is configured to center the window on the screen, but you can edit the coordinates. (e.g. Winmove, , 50). Install autohotkey and save this text as whatheveryoulike.ahk, then doubleclick before or while running RBR.

WinWait, Richard Burns Rally - DirectX9
winGetPos, x, y, Width, Height
Winmove, (A_ScreenWidth - Width) / 2, (A_ScreenHeight - Height) / 2

However...

There are two kinds of add-on stages: "original format" and BTB. Some of the original work as fast vanilla ones, some are more demanding and a few are poorly optimized (Verklai). With those you may have a satisfactory result with the above tricks. On the other hand, the BTB stages (the ones listed in a different color in RBR HU) are noticeably more CPU demanding and I'm afraid you can't do much but avoid the rallies that use them if the CPU is not up to the task. By the way, the CZ plugin doesn't have and won't have BTB stages so any rally is guaranteed FPS friendly there unlike HU.

Another trick that may help, if not with FPS, with microstutters is disabling HPET in windows (but enabling in BIOS).

 

[DSQ]

Thanks for the suggestions SPTP,

I'll give the resolution change a try, I ran GPL for many years and the top and bottom borders never bothered me so that will definitely give a boost.

I see what you mean about the BTB tracks not having as good FPS as other tracks. They don't seem any more detailed but there is a huge drop in performance with some tracks.

Regards,

 

[mufcaleksi]

Adaptive FFB is off? With your specs and those settings it should run just fine. Vulkan unfortunately only helps with good GPUs

 

[sptp]

Now that mufcaleksi mentions it... Does RBR HU have vertical sync on by default? I don't remember but I think so. If that is the case it could be contributing here because if FPS drop below the monitor refresh rate (e.g. 60 Hz: 60 fps) the result is effective FPS drop to 30 fps at most if memory serves. Even if CPU manages 58 fps you will see 30, so it's very dramatic.

Besides, vsync introduces a lot of input lag. For me it's a no-no.

 

[mufcaleksi]

Now that mufcaleksi mentions it... Does RBR HU have vertical sync on by default? I don't remember but I think so. If that is the case it could be contributing here because if FPS drop below the monitor refresh rate (e.g. 60 Hz: 60 fps) the result is effective FPS drop to 30 fps at most if memory serves. Even if CPU manages 58 fps you will see 30, so it's very dramatic.

Besides, vsync introduces a lot of input lag. For me it's a no-no.

yes, it's on by default, but one click to switch off in the Launcher (like all of the other settings talked about in this thread)

 

[DSQ]

Thanks both for the suggestions. I,m on a controller only so no FFB for me. I did read somewhere that it could cause a drain on fps.

I also noticed that vsync was also a big hit on fps too so I can confirm what you have suggested.

It looks like I have done most of the things I can to improve fps on my machine and to be honest it's very good in 90% of the tracks so I can't complain too much.

I think for anyone looking for a good rally sim that will run on an old pc or laptop RBR is a great option.

I hope this thread and your responses helps other people trying to get RBR running on their own older computers too.

Thanks again for the replies.

 

[maciejk]

VERY IMPORTANT I noticed different CARS will give you different FPS some cars lower some higher running the same stage, also different camera view of the car will have different FPS, hood view has the most FPS internal lowers FPS

make sure you UNCHECK show car exterior in your camera views
richarburnsrally.ini WaitRetrace = false Fullscreen =false
vsync ON
anisotropic filter 2x
tripple buffering ON
texture filtering - neg bias - clamp
texture filtering anisotropic - ON
trilinear op ON
shader cache - on
image sharpening - off
threaded optimazation - AUTO
low latency OFF
max framerate OFF

 

[sptp]

VERY IMPORTANT I noticed different CARS will give you different FPS some cars lower some higher running the same stage, also different camera view of the car will have different FPS, hood view has the most FPS internal lowers FPS

make sure you UNCHECK show car exterior in your camera views
richarburnsrally.ini WaitRetrace = false Fullscreen =false
vsync ON
anisotropic filter 2x
tripple buffering ON
texture filtering - neg bias - clamp
texture filtering anisotropic - ON
trilinear op ON
shader cache - on
image sharpening - off
threaded optimazation - AUTO
low latency OFF
max framerate OFF

Yes. Now that you mention it, bumper view has better FPS than internal (shaky) view, even if you set the same parameters for the camera, i.e. if you move camera coordinates to be where internal cam is. Camera wont' shake and get somewhat better fps. I noticed this in Versme stage. The difference was noticeable.