I bought Alpha Protocol on Steam recently and have just gone to try it out only to be halted by the extremely bad performance that casuses the game to stutter and lag even when just idling at the main menu (It's even worse in game). Now you might think I just have a bad computer, well here is some information: 
 
Intel Core i7 Processor 
ATi HD5870 Graphics Card 
6GB RAM  
Windows 7 64 bit
 
This game should NOT be lagging at all on this machine! I've even turned down all the graphics options to low and set the resolution to 1024 x 768 windowed to no avail. I am pretty annoyed about this since I really wanna try this game out. Anyone have any suggestions?

Dude. Its Alpha Protocol. ALL the versions are terrible. (Performance wise)

" Dude. Its Alpha Protocol. ALL the versions are terrible. (Performance wise) "

You'd be best of getting RadeonPro, locking the framerate to 30 frames, and playing with a controller from 6 feet away.

Sometimes it IS your computer. I just go through and update all of my firmware and drivers, and sometimes it significantly helps games run better. I went through the same thing with Far Cry 2 on my computer. 

" I bought Alpha Protocol on Steam recently and have just gone to try it out only to be halted by the extremely bad performance that casuses the game to stutter and lag even when just idling at the main menu (It's even worse in game). Now you might think I just have a bad computer, well here is some information:  Intel Core i7 Processor ATi HD5870 Graphics Card 6GB RAM  Windows 7 64 bit This game should NOT be lagging at all on this machine! I've even turned down all the graphics options to low and set the resolution to 1024 x 768 windowed to no avail. I am pretty annoyed about this since I really wanna try this game out. Anyone have any suggestions? "

" Dude. Its Alpha Protocol. ALL the versions are terrible. (Performance wise) "

" @AlexW00d said:

" Dude. Its Alpha Protocol. ALL the versions are terrible. (Performance wise) "

Ehm, it ran great on my 360? According to your achievements, you haven't even played the game. So just stop hating a game for the sake of hating it. "

"Also, if Alpha Protocol is stuttering and running very slow, here are some tips to optimize the game’s performance:

1. Find the APEngine.ini file in the My Documents folder (C:\Users\<user>\Documents\Alpha Protocol\APGame\Config) and make the following changes:

MinSmoothedFrameRate=20
MaxSmoothedFrameRate=30
"

Sounds like a driver issue to me. Same thing happened to me in Empire: Total War. Apparently i got a month old driver, so i downloaded the new CCC 10.12 ( I think) for ATI cards and it worked like a charm afterwards.

" @Azteck said:

" @AlexW00d said:

" Dude. Its Alpha Protocol. ALL the versions are terrible. (Performance wise) "

Ehm, it ran great on my 360? According to your achievements, you haven't even played the game. So just stop hating a game for the sake of hating it. "

Dude you're an idiot, this game was on my frigging GOTY list. It ran fine on my PS3 too, but with noted issues, issues I have heard of on all systems. "

Update to latest drivers? Game runs fine, just like all other UE3 games on the PC. Your hardware should be sufficient. 

"Dude. Its Alpha Protocol. ALL the versions are terrible. (Performance wise) "

" @AlexW00d said:

" @Azteck said:

" @AlexW00d said:

" Dude. Its Alpha Protocol. ALL the versions are terrible. (Performance wise) "

Ehm, it ran great on my 360? According to your achievements, you haven't even played the game. So just stop hating a game for the sake of hating it. "

Dude you're an idiot, this game was on my frigging GOTY list. It ran fine on my PS3 too, but with noted issues, issues I have heard of on all systems. "

You said performance wise though. Bugs =/= performance problems. "

I played it on this computer:
 
Intel i7 860
ATI 5850 512mb
16 gigs ram (no kill like overkill) 
win7 64bit
 
I ran the game at 1920x1080 with all settings 'high' and it ran trouble free.  I bought it from the holiday steam sale, beat it twice and got halfway through a third playthrough before switching games.  Throughout my play I had nearly no problems - other than the janky mouse controls which would get a little jacked up when the game set a checkpoint.
 
There was also some cosmetic clipping wierdness on Michael and other high-detail character models (SIE, mostly) when shown at medium distance their eyes and necks would be visible through layers that should cover them.  This was a trivial issue during some cutscenes.
 
All I can say is check your drivers, maybe you have bad luck, but my computer and yours sound very similar and I had no serious trouble playing the game for more than 35 hours.

Would just like to add that I've had no problems with this game whatsoever, not even the clipping or mouse hitching issues mentioned by others. The only issue that I can name is how dialogue text disappears when supersampling is forced, but that's not really an issue with the base game (and I tend to always pick the left option anyway). Liking it so far, it's like Mass Effect 2 set in a modern day espionage yarn. 

 A little surprised that I just inserted the 360 version and it booted without even trying to install a patch. Not exactly dogs and cats living together but a little odd.     

Just go through this thread, it sorted all of my problems. Made it look better, and made it run a lot smoother. There's a couple of pages, and not all of the fixes are necesarry (for example the ones regarding the way he walks), but when you're done, it should give you a much better experience.  
 
Oh, and remember to use Notepad++ when editing the .ini files. 

Well I figured out the issue I was having. Due to having done some DirectX 9 development not too long ago I had DirectX 9 set to full debugging and validation mode which causes the graphics libraries to run incredibly slowly. I just had to switch it back to retail mode >.<. Oops.