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/forums/thread/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.
[Image: http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd268/deetz15/281854-KDPHJJW.png]
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/forums/archive/index.php/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/best-cpu-overclocking-phenom-ii-x4,2826.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-recommendation-upgrade,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