ok i have experimented fa lot and i have come up with some conclusions.  the most important being the frame rates have almost nothing to do with my video card.  the matrix application is just really poorly written.  to improve my fps i did the following.

in nVidia ctrl panel, set everyting to what it should be to favor performance over quality -- except i can't handle no vsynch so i leave that and triple-buffering on.  the matrix app seems to like "pre-rendered frames" to be at 2 for some reason -- at least for me.

after you run the matrix app and get to the loading area, ctrl-tab out and open up your task manager.  go to oroceses and find the matrix.exe app.  right-click it and select "Set Priority" then "Realtime" -- though if you don't have a multi-core or multi-processor system, this could be dangerous.  then right-click the matrix.exe app again and select "Set Affinity".  i change it so it doesn't use "CPU 0" but uses CPUs 1-3.  it doesn't appear to be a multi-threaded app but giving it 3 processors and leaving the first one free for the system seems to help for me.  it may just make me feel more in control, though, hehe.

and with that, when i first jack in, i get a gorgeous 60fps -- it looks surreal.  then, of course, over time the engine gets bogged-down somehow and i end up going back to the way it used to be.

hope that helps someone...

dedic

PS thanks for the /netstats info, MUCH appreciated!

new player here too (syntax.dedic) and i have to say i feel a bit behind the curve, but there does seem to be a slight resurge in new joins.  there are definitely a lot of lvl50 players who feel that they are better than you (and make sure you know it), but there are also plenty of kind players who are very supportive of us noobs.

as far as meeting the right people...  well, it is a matter of serendipity, but it will happen.  in my experience, you'll probably find more people willing to help you in various ways on the zion side of the equation -- i'm sure there are nice mechs and mervs, but in general people seem to gravitate towards their org based on their actual personality.  just a personal observation, tho (don't mean to stereotype anyone).

i'm loving the archived missions.  it can get a bit hairy and (at times) annoying doing them alone, but it is possible (with an occasional retreat to the "white halls", that is).  contact missions are fun too.  just don't be in a rush to level; soak in the mythos and ethos of the matrix, read the story text, and don't let it become a matter of how fast you can bang out a mission.  though for that last bar til your next level, running tiny/hard standard missions isn't so bad.

as far as video performance, i posted in the tech forum on this very subject (noone has responded as of yet).  i have a pretty badass system and i can't seem to get past 30fps outside.  i guess it's just the way it is.  that and a load of glitches make me think the developers were more concerned with content than bugfixing and technical improvements over the years, but oh well, i can deal with it.

so yeah, it's definitely worth it, despite mxo being a bit over-the-hill and all but abandoned by the developers who made it a complete blast (from what i hear, and read on this forum).

right now i'm lvl27 and my faction has players of all level-ranges, so feel free to look me up if you want to run missions or have questions -- we have some very helpful 50s.

good luck to you,

dedic

syntax (zion)

ok so i have a pretty good gaming pc:

Intel Quad 9400 2.67GHz

2GB RAM

nVidia GTX 280

1TB 32MB/s SATA2 HDD

other games i play have shown a massive improvement in FPS from my last system, so i know this system is as good as it seems.

so why does my mxo appear to be running at like 30FPS?  i don't know how to get a real FPS value out of the game (is there a way?) so i can't say for sure, but i've written video codecs from scratch so my eyes are pretty attuned to fps, and it's 30 at best.  other more modern and more graphics intensive games run faster than mxo, so i'm a bit confused and i hope there is a solution.

so whats the deal? is this the way it is for everyone?

and i have the latest drivers; they just came out a few days ago.

regards,

dedic

ok thanks.  i had assumed that international would be higher level than westview -- good to know.  i don't know which agents are killing me but i do know i get one-shotted for thousands of hp.  and yeah, escorting anyone out there is insanity.  just getting around is a pain -- those baddies are on every street and every rooftop!  ok i'm off to international then.  thanks so much!

regards,

dedic

thanks, i did try a macro.  it does work but that just brought up another issue that i also posted about -- i want to see the ability icon image where my macro icon is.  i don't want two icons clogging up the first two slots of my hotbar, and don't like switching between hotbars, so there's no solution that satisfies me.  i will just deal with turning kung fu on after it gets switched out.

regards,

dedic

i don't know what the deal is but i can't spend 5 minutes in any west. zone without getting offed by an agent.  i'm the appropriate level for the given zone and i have hacked the access node.  i know that being zion means there's always a chance an agent will show up -- even with the access node hacked -- but i thought it was a small enough chance that i could go 5 minutes without getting killed.  this has happened 7 times in a row already and i don't know what to do.  the zion missions (archived or standard) always send me out there, and i've done every contact mission in the safe zone.  so i don't see how i can level any further except grinding on gang members -- but i'll never play this game again if that's the case...

just when i was really liking this game and getting into the groove with it, now i'm totally stuck.  anything i'm missing or is the honeymoon over?

thanks,

dedic

Vesuveus wrote:

As a solution, I suggest putting Kung Fu on your hotbar and everytime you use an ability that is not KF, let the system change your style, but then tap KF on your hotbar and switch it back immediately.

yes, this is what i do.  i've pretty much developed an autonomic response to seeing the self defense icon show up.

it just kinda sucks to start playing a game that's been around for so many years and see all these things that should have transparent solutions and not require manual workarounds.  until now i never truly appreciated the open lua ui in another mmo that shall remain nameless, hehe.

thanks all,

dedic

i didn't think it was possible -- guess i'm just a bit spoiled from the robust nature of wow.  thanks for the info.  oh and i don't use caps for anything unless i have to -- if you couldn't tell.

(too bad you can't add the polish of wow with the badass-ness of mxo)

regards,

dedic

thanks guys; you put reason behind it.  it still kinda sucks to have to manually change it back tho...

ok i have a good question -- i think...

is there any way to change the image displayed for the macro in the hotbar?  for example, i set up a macro to /invoke CheapShot then have it do some other stuff.  the macro on the hotbar is just a box with the macro name but i want it to have the cheap shot image -- and do the thing where it turns grey/color and counts down to the next time it can be used.

am i asking too much?  there's not a lot of room in the hotbars, so having my macro and cheap shot takes up two slots when it could just be one.  (edit) let me be clear -- there's not a lot of room in the VISIBLE hotbars.  i do not like switching between hotbars.  there isn't a way to have more than two visible at a time afaik.

regards,

dedic

(please read entirety of post before responding)

ok so i select kung fu for close combat (cc) and set guns for free fire (ff).  sometimes using guns slams my fighting style out of kung fu and into basic self defense.

now, i tried what was suggested to me in-game (use kung fu for both cc and ff), but hey, i want to shoot from ff.  even so, i DID set it up this way to try it out.  even then, whenever i use head-butt or cheap shot, they put me back to self defense style.

so anyway, i'm going to see about setting up some macros -- it looks like i can do that.  but is there an easier way to fix this?  plus, this game has been around for a while now, so i find it hard to believe this is a bug and not a feature that i just don't understand...

regards,

dedic