Are there any ways to speed up Sonic Heroes? My laptop only has the 945GM mobile graphics chipset for graphics, and even setting the smallest resolution possible, disabling all pretty features in the launcher, and selecting 15fps still sees my framerate drop sometimes. It's irritating but if it can't be helped, that's alright. My second problem is more annoying, however. When Sonic Heroes runs full screen, it actually only displays in a small box in the middle of an otherwise black screen, with a size that matches the resolution I've set. I don't know what happened, but my bios and Windows booting screens started doing the same thing a week or so ago as well. Any idea how to remedy this? I figured it out and yes, it was exceedingly obvious.
Can you find a program to see how much RAM your video card actually has? That's the thing with the Intel chipsets, the RAM always varies; it depends on your computer. I personally use SIW, but it's your call. Apparently, you only need a minimum 16MB of VRAM to play Heroes. I'm going to assume you have a laptop from 2006-2008? With the research I've done (and by research, I mean Wikipedia), it seems to fit within that time frame. If you don't customize your computer or don't check everything before you buy it, they usually throw in the Intel chipsets. I'm not saying it's your fault, but it's something I've noticed.
My father sent this to me. He's not fond of laptops and this is the one he got after much urging from his job before they caved and gave him a Vaio. It's a Dell Latitude D430. CPU-Z tells me it has 224MB of memory. It has a weak CPU, though, and it's hardware 3D acceleration simply isn't that great.
That's shared memory. That's actually why I switched from CPU-Z to SIW for things like this. This desktop has a G45/43 Express Chipset. It has 1631MB of shared memory, and 64MB that's dedicated. If I really had 1.6GB of VRAM, I'd be able to play Generations with almost no slowdown (my CPU's just a bit slow, even for the minimum.) In reality, I can barely play the demo with everything turned down or off. I really recommend you check with SIW. It's not the most accurate, either, but it has much more than CPU-Z. I promise it's not infected. Retro doesn't need any more of that. EDIT: Get the 2011 version. It's free and not a 30-day trial.
SIW tells me the same thing. 224MB. Unless I'm looking in the wrong place. I hit "Video" and every field labelled "Memory" says 224MB.
The thing about video memory is either you have enough, or you don't, in a majority of cases. If he had too little, and the application were aware of it, it wouldn't run... If it weren't, it would either crash as soon as it tried to access non-existant memory, or it would fill the frame buffer with grabage. Yeah, the 945GM just doesn't have any bang whatsoever; it's in many ways just a GPU for the sake of having a GPU... Running the desktop, some application suites, and video playback, but that's all you should ever try to make it do. And, like most games made within the last 15 years, Heroes is mostly GPU intensive. You can easily run it on a mid-range, single-core Pentium 4. Methinks you're just screwed, and I'll assume you've done atleast some Googling on further optimizations/speedhacks for the game.
Huh. It must be your CPU, then. This'd be a lot easier if you had a desktop, because those are infinitely easier to upgrade than laptops. Unless you're able to afford a new computer (virtually anything would be better than your current one), there's else nothing I can really do. I'm not super-proficient in hardware, anyway, much less Sonic Heroes for PC. I don't know if you have a GameCube or a PS3, because these three versions (GC, PC and the downloadable one on European PSN) are the best. The PS2 version is, well... the PS2 version, and I've heard that the Xbox version has terrible controls.
I have a desktop, but it's stuck in NY. This laptop is all I have till I can get it. Or get another PC, which is more likely. I'll probably just arrange for the HDDs to be sent down, since the rest of the PC isn't all that hot either. Googling didn't help. Just shitty recolor hacks and the No Gloss hack which I couldn't even find a download for. Not that it'd do much good.
Just a heads up: the vanilla GPU with most Pentium-based notebooks has trouble running Heroes as well, from what I've seen... You don't need a dedicated GPU or anything, but the Intel HD 3000 runs it 'real nice at 1024x768, with only occasional and minor slowdowns. If you can, though, you might just want a dedicated card for the sake of any games that aren't several years old.
Yea, my build that I'm waiting for money to buy has all that. Guess I'm SoL on speeding up Heroes on this PC, besides hacking the game to use lower resolution textures and stuff.
