Optimizing Performance in Vindictus

[sakraycore]

In order to get 4 or 5 bars in Vindictus, you need a good connection and a good computer.

In this guide, I will cover what you need in order to have a smooth playing experience in the game.

Part A) Latency Optimization:

1) Open your ports for Vindictus:

Requirements: A router, a brain.

*If you already know how to port forward, skip to Step 5*

Step 1: Go to Start > Search/Run and type CMD.

Step 2: Type in ipconfig. Copy down your Default Gateway and your IPv4

Step 3: Open your web browser and put your Default Gateway in the address bar (it may ask for a password, if you don't know it then Google "Default Password [insert router type here]" If the default password doesn't work, then ask your family if they know it. As a last resort, hold down the small reset button on the router with a pen for a minute. Reconnect then try the default password again.)

Step 4: Go to the Application(or similar) tab and find Port Forward(or Port Range Forward).

Step 5: You are going to forward 2 ports. Name them both Vindictus as a reminder of what they're for.

1) Start: 27000
End: 27025
Protocol: TCP & UDP
IP Address: Type in your IPv4

2) Start: 47611
End: 47611
Protocol: TCP & UDP
IP Address: Do the same as above
Enable them and save.

Source = http://forum.nexon.net/Vindictus/for...d/6377726.aspx

Tool to check whether your ports are opened properly: http://portforward.com/help/portcheck.htm

2) Make sure your connection is fast enough and the latency is low. If you don't host your own games, latency is more important. Your latency should be under 30ms to a close server. For hosting, you'll want at least 1Mbit upload for hosting 8 player rooms, and at least 512Kbit upload for hosting 4 player rooms. Although if you want to be a good host, then aim for 1Mbit+ for 4 players and 2Mbit+ for 8 players. This will ensure good connection for everyone.
http://www.speedtest.net/
http://www.pingtest.net/

3) Play in the correct server:

If you're in East then play in the east server, likewise if you're in West. If you play in the wrong server, then your latency may be worse. Furthermore, usage of any kind of proxy will make your latency much worse for not only yourself, but possibly your party members as well.

For those who are not in Continental United States or Canada (minus Nunavut), then you can not play this game. There is a version of Vindictus EU currently in the works for those who are in Europe.



Part B) Frame rate optimization:

1) System requirements:

Minimum Requirements:
OS: Windows XP
CPU: Single Core 2.4 GHZ
RAM: 512 MB
HDD: 5 GB
Graphics Card: GeForce 5600

Recommended Specification:
OS: Windows XP / Vista / 7
CPU: 2.5 GHz Dual Core or better
RAM: 1024 MB (1GB)
HDD: 6 GB
Graphics Card: GeForce 7600+

Source = http://mmohut.com/review/vindictus

We can see that you will need something slightly better than integrated graphics card to play this game. But if by chance you are using integrated, you should play at low settings and in a low resolution to optimize your frame rate.

If you don't meet the minimum requirements for the RAM, you should close as many background programs as you can.

As for CPU, even though they recommend a dual core for recommended, this game doesn't really use more than a single core in my experience. So if you have a phenom i quad core @ 2.0GHz, you may be in trouble.

For those with high end computers, know that the game is CPU bottlenecked, so bringing settings such as debris down to medium will improve your performance by a lot. So if you have an i7 and are still having frame rate problems, try this.

CPU Intensive Tasks:
Physics
Sound
Animation & Animation Interpolation
Particles
Decals
Polygons
Dynamic Lighting/Shadows
Water reflection

GPU intensive Tasks:
Textures & Bumpmaps
AA & AF
HDR & Bloom
Resolution

source: http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...t-1405896.html

If you have a strong CPU but weak GPU then try to turn down some of the GPU intensive effects and vice versa.

The official page has some explanation on which options do what. http://vindictus.nexon.net/News/Cont...ontentNo=009VN

Let's take a look at the CPU bound settings:

1) Water detail
2) Shadow Detail - on medium it only renders shadows for your own character. On high it renders shadows for everyone.
3) Debris
4) Cloth Physics detail
5) Particle detail
6) Other player details
7) Sound quality (should be minimal impact though)
8) Decals
9) High dynamic range
10) Model detail

These settings should be all the CPU bound ones in vindictus. Setting these settings to low should improve performance substantially when you host boats. (especially 8 player raids)

2) Upgrades

If you're looking to build or buy a new computer here are my recommendations:

CPU: i5-2500K
GPU: GTX 460 1GB
Ram: 8GB DDR3

Otherwise, if you have a decent dual core such as Core 2 Duo, most of the time, upgrading just the video card is enough. But you must also make sure that you have a good enough power supply to power it as well.

Here are two great resources for knowing what parts to purchase:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...i-x4,2826.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...rade,2803.html

I hope this guide helps and I'll add more if I think of anything else.

Changelog:

1/1/2011: Removed de-nagle algorithm from list of fixes. Thanks hengsheng.
1/10/2011: Minor fixes (excluded Nunavut, changed i5-760 to i5-2500k)
9/4/2011: Added CPU/GPU bound analysis

[Papa]

All core talk is thrown out the window until they fix multi core support. Just fyi.

Also, Nexon recently upgraded their servers, and the output has been reported to be favorable to nearly every player now. Seeing 4-5 bars for everyone is rather common nowadays.

[sakraycore]

All core talk is thrown out the window until they fix multi core support. Just fyi.

Also, Nexon recently upgraded their servers, and the output has been reported to be favorable to nearly every player now. Seeing 4-5 bars for everyone is rather common nowadays.

Yes, I will be revising the thing about multi core support if they get around to fixing it. But currently it doesn't really work.

Yes, I know 4-5 bars is getting very common place now. Whereas before, if you didn't get 4-5 bars you can blame on Nexon servers, nowadays the problem tends to be on the client side. I still see numerous people with 1-2 bars but they should be able to get 4-5 bars as well with some fixes.

[Zid]

Vindictus doesn't automatically disable Nagle Algorithm upon client startup? (Haven't noticed)

Is devCAT still unable to let go of this? It's basically a requirement for most online games today.

Also, what about MTU?

[sakraycore]

Vindictus doesn't automatically disable Nagle Algorithm upon client startup? (Haven't noticed)

Honestly, I'm not so sure about this. I included it just in case since I know that mabinogi requires this. If anyone could verify for sure that would help.

Also, what about MTU?

I'm not quite so sure about MTU. But I think an MTU of 1500 for Vindictus is ideal. The latency lag in Vindictus is different from Mabinogi. In vindictus you experience a sort of jerkiness and teleportation as opposed to the skill delay in mabinogi. Because it is Peer to peer, in consideration to your host, you should probably not make your MTU so small so as to increase the burden on your host.

Further clarification on MTU would help as well, but it likely does not play a large part for this game and may actually make it worse especially for hosting.

[Zid]

I'm not quite so sure about MTU. But I think an MTU of 1500 for Vindictus is ideal. The latency lag in Vindictus is different from Mabinogi. In vindictus you experience a sort of jerkiness and teleportation as opposed to the skill delay in mabinogi. Because it is Peer to peer, in consideration to your host, you should probably not make your MTU so small so as to increase the burden on your host.

Further clarification on MTU would help as well, but it likely does not play a large part for this game and may actually make it worse especially for hosting.

Got it, thanks.

[hengsheng120]

mtu and nagle doesn't help in vindictus, bandwidth matters much more
i know this because i'm in new york connecting to west server and I mostly get either 1-2 bars to west hosts or 3-4 bars to central and east hosts, so i still lag half the time; the same frequency as before no matter what i do

[heretic304]

For those who are not in Continental United States or Canada, then you can not play this game. There is a version of Vindictus EU currently in the works for those who are in Europe.

I'd just like to point out that Continental United States is used to refer to the 48 Contiguous States, so the use of that term is a bit incorrect, since players from Alaska and Hawaii are allowed to play.

[sakraycore]

since players from Alaska and Hawaii are allowed to play.

You sure about this? Last I heard territories can't play.

[TA]

If I'm not mistaken, "territories" refers to US owned territories (not State in the Federation), like Puerto Rico. The others are, ahem... let's see...

• American Samoa
• Guam
• Northern Mariana Islands
• U.S. Virgin Islands
• Minor Outlying Islands
  • Bajo Nuevo Bank
  • Baker Island
  • Howland Island
  • Jarvis Island
  • Johnston Atoll
  • Kingman Reef
  • Midway Islands
  • Navassa Island
  • Palmyra Atoll

There's a full list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territo..._United_States