An Old but still annoying problem EVERYONE has

(RECON) #1

Ok in concern with Wolfenstein ET this is what ive noticed feel free to jump in here anyone with help and or advice.

Ive have been told that my cpu 1.0 gig is NOT enough to to run the game with good frames. Somehow I fail to believe this. Its more than the system min requirements. For the record my specs are pretty basic but not low end.

1.0 Gig Pent 3
640 megs of ram
3 hard drives (one for the games, OS and last for misc files like mp3’s)
64 Meg Geforce 2 AGP card

The whole system is tweaked for maximum performance. All services in windows xp are turned off. You name it ive probably done it to try and increase the frame rates on this game.

The game itself is also tweaked for maximum performance almost bordering on cvar violations lol. No matter if i run it in 640 x 480 or higher I get ridiculous frame rates for my system. All drivers are current. The drives are defragged almost daily with o&o defrag utility.

Ad and spyware is also checked for almost daily as well as system virus scans. This could not be a healthier computer. To top it off im not a total noob at tweaking hardware or software but this is bugging the hell out of me as its the ONLY game that does this.

Now naturally at first I thougth it was just my system. However reports from various gamers ive met and talked with have this same problem with only this game.

My question is. What exactly does one have to do that i havnt already done to at least get better frame rates. It looks like a slide show sometimes when playing. Keep in mind ive tried EVERYTHING I bet.

(SCDS_reyalP) #2

When have you ever played a game where the minimum specs gave you a decent gameplay experience ?

I started playing ET on a 1.4ghz Athlon XP and a gf2, both tweaked and OCed. 800x600x16 was the highest res which gave me decent gameplay (30-76 fps) I now have a GF3, which lets me play 1024x768x32 with about the same frame rate. A P3 with SDR will be significantly slower than an Athlon XP with DDR.

Many, many other players have reported the similar performance.

The bottom line is the ET is a CPU and memory bandwidth hog. This is directly tied to the high r_speeds on the maps.

In light of the clear evidence that your system is marginal for ET, why refuse to believe it ?

:moo:

(Akilae) #3

I’m running WolfET on a Duron800 with 512 MB and a GeForce2 MX (first Series) and it’s working just fine. I’ve capped the framerate at 43 but is usially hang around 30-43fps.

Note that i run Windows 98 which gently idles at 8% CPU cycles leaving a whooping 92% to WolfET. I understand ths might sound nuts, but since you already have 3 HDs, I’d advice you to install Win98 somewhere to play ET or anygame you have performance issues with.
Rebooting to a screwy OS to play games may sound laborious but it’s the only solution I have figured out.

Cheers

(Sick Boy) #4

I get about 15-20 fps on my old pc which is an athlon 800 with 640MB ram and a TNT2 @ 800*600 on winXP. How many fps you got?

(petameta) #5

I don’t want to start an OS war, but for god’s sake, use Linux instead of Win98. Win98 is horrible, believe me I used it before I used Linux. Linux on the other hand ist known to perform better in games, especially compared to the latest Windows-versions. Also, don’t put XP on such a “slow” machine (I know it’s not really slow, I started on a 486DX40/DOS/Win 3.11, which actually was slow). XP is a ressource-hog, I would say it’s made for new and fast PCs.

Some “top” output from my Linux:

Cpu(s): 0.3% user, 0.7% system, 0.0% nice, 99.0% idle

Look at the number on the right side: 99% idle ! That means 99% CPU power for ET/Wolf/Quake. Beat that with Windows !

There are many free Linux-distributions, like Knoppix ( www.knoppix.net ). You can find more at www.distrowatch.com. Just try it, you can leave your Windows untouched and install Linux to it’s own partition. You only need about 2-3 GB free space.

If you want to switch from Windows to Linux, Tom’s hardware guide features a nice article: http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20040329/index.html

(SCDS_reyalP) #6

I agree that linux would be a better choice than win98, but idle CPU usage means essentailly nothing. Especially if you are comparing wildly different OSes, like linux and win98.

For arguments sake suppose that CPU overhead accounts for 10% of your CPU time when your are playing (highly unlikely IMO, I would guess it is closer to 1%) Now assume OS A is twice as good as OS B. You still have only gained 5%.

If you were low on memory (which the original poster is not) then something less bloated that XP could be a clear advantage. Otherwise, assuming you don’t have a lot of stuff running the background, the difference should be very minimal, because 90+% of your time is going to be spent in the game and opengl drivers. No matter what you do with the other 10% is, it ain’t gonna be a big change. The opengl drivers might vary, but for the Nvidia ones at least, the benchmarks I have seen do not show much difference.

(CM..Punk) #7

An Old but still annoying problem EVERYONE has

Sorry, no. Not EVERYONE is still using a PC from 1995 and not EVERYONE has difficulty running a Quake3 engine game. Upgrade you cheap bastad, surely that’s just your second PC? Why don’t you run ET on your main computer?

(pgh) #8

Knoppix > Unbootable from CD OS’s.

Upgrade?

Even with double your systems spec I still sit between 20-40 :] - Also capped at 43 now. Just buying a new GFX card when I cba…

(evilsock) #9

Hmm, well I have an AMD Thunderbird 1.2Gig, 1Gb pc133 ram, Ti4200, Maxtor 40gb (yak). I started out with a GeForce2 card which was fine for RtCW but struggled (apparantly) with ET, so I upgraded to the Ti4200 - didn’t make a great deal of difference tbh - I’d concur with what ppl here are saying about CPU and memory requirements for the game - RtCW works fine but ET no matter what never really gets a steady framerate and never gets above 60-80fps mark - I really do think this is just down to the speed of FSB, memory and CPU.

Finally - wtf are ppl doing trying to run XP on sub 1ghz machines? Are you stupid? It only barely runs ‘properly’ on a 2ghz machine! Flame me if you want (don’t care tbh), but I would say stick with WIndows 2000 for games released in the last couple of years - you get all the stability (if such a thing can be said about M$ things) without the massive O/S overhead - failing that, be a cheap bastard and download a free copy of the latest Linux distro - bit of a headfuck if you’re not ofay with *nix, but I’m sure there are peeps here who can help :wink:

(pgh) #10

Thats funny. Had XP Pro for nearly a year now running on my P2 400 with an uptime of over 4 months tops twice. This includes god knows how many compiles of Maps or Avis. Then theres the DVD Ripping, CD Ripping, CD - ISO dumps, and CD/VCD Burning… fuck knows what your doing with it if its struggling to run on a 2GHZ machine.

If anything, XP Pro is better than Windows 2000 Pro as it basically is just 2K fixed a bit with some new nifty features and an OSX wannabe stylee shell. (I dont use explorer but a modified LiteStep and IE/Outlook = Firefox/Thunderbird :x ) Sounds to me your jumping on the fanboy/anti-xp bandwagon and havn’t actually tested or fully used XP for all its worth AND potential.

(evilsock) #11

wow, a whole four months - and I suppose you’re proud of that… I don’t run it fullstop - it’s not really very good for machines that don’t have DDR RAM or don’t have fast FSB’s (333 or better). Are you mad btw? How could you possibly compare XP or W2K to Mac OS/X? One is bloated crap, labelled as an ‘OS’ (XP) - it’s slow, shite and needs alot of memory if you are to have any hope of avoiding those big ramdisk hits. W2K is NT5, patched with USB support along with the original interface (which is fast on modest hardware), the other is a full blown version of BSD *nix - runs different hardware also - you do know that pgh?

pgh - XP is designed in part to ‘persuade’ you to upgrade - ok it’ll do a job on older hardware but I don’t believe it can perform as well as W2K on said hardware. I won’t participate in an OS war based on shitty M$ stuff, all their stuff is ripped off from other companies. XP, W2K, NT = OS/2 imo anyway so this is a 0.02 story - take it or leave it.

(Sick Boy) #12

XP runs fine on any machine above 500Mhz as long as you have at least 256 MB ram (preferrably 512MB if you want to game on it). With less ram it won’t run smooth on any cpu . If you have those specs and it doesn’t run smooth and you can’t find the answer why, try to reinstall.

Linux will run great on any machine, but for gaming it’s not that suitable just because there aren’t many linux games. Tnx to ID for being the exception.

(pgh) #13

Well, the p2 400 uses a 64mb Gf2 and has 356mb RAM. 4 months is decent for any MS operating system next to NT/W2K. I was getting at the fact you claim it barely works on anything less than 2GHZ which quite obviously is just yourself talkin shit.

I was talking about the shell… basically the way it looks and acts. OSX hit there first with the style and element and MS’s attempt at having an Aesthetic OS was and is XP.

Another typical anti-ms/xp fanboy comment. Couldve placed a bet you’d make a statement like this. But yeh I cba saying no more cause all I was trying to do was show that XP runs fine on < 2GHZ box’s unlike which was stated.

(evilsock) #14

‘fine’ is not the same as ‘fast’ - ‘ok’ is not ‘reliable’ - W2K is better suited to running on older hardware - it’s got the drivers for a kick-off. This isn’t about something running ‘ok’ - it’s about something running ‘very well’.

Linux is fine if you either work in a *nix environment, are a developer or have some other professional interest in *nix - as a gaming platform you’d need to use WINE and look to some kernel patches to reduce audio latency to get decent performance out of windows only games on Linux.

(petameta) #15

I think too that 2k is better thank XP, it is less ressource-intensive.

My reason to change from M$ to Linux was that XP needs to be registered. That’s just not acceptable, it’s an invasion of privacy. I know there are some more or less illegal ways to avoid registration, but I don’t want to mess around with the OS before I can use it ! Well, that’s a different story, back to ressource usage.

I know the idle time doesn’t say that much, 99% are something different on 1,8 GHz compared to 1 GHz. All I wanted to say is that it gives you an idea how few ressources Linux need, compared to Windows.
Anyway, you can’t expect miracles from changing OS. Get a hardware-upgrade, your hardware won’t run the latest games fast.

A word about Linux: It’s not anymore hard to use or hard to Install. Why not just try it ? Grab a Knoppix-Image, burn it and boot the CD. Open a console Windows and type “sudo knoppix-installer”. After selecting a partition, it will copy all necessary files, install a boot manager (allowing to boot Linux and Windows), that’s it. Reboot and have fun !

Of course any other Distro will do fine too, it’s just that I use Knoppix. I used SuSE for a long time, and it did fine too.

(chr0nicles) #16

FFS… Just update your GFX card. 64 Meg Geforce 2 AGP card <-- Is just not enough!

yes you can run the game (i’ve been there), but that’s about it for some decent gaming just upgrade your card.

  • Don’t give me this crap that you can TWEAK it down and still play perfectly, that’s fucking bull, just install that new GFX and see how you can play it now.

If you wait one more month the 9600XT will drop in price.

(Sauron|EFG) #17

With that CPU I wouldn’t expect any significant performance difference if he got a new GFX card. Sure he would be able to play at a higher resolution, but “ridiculous frame rates” are ridiculous regardless of resolution. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

(Fusen) #18

damn your all cheap bastards go crazy and get a nice A64 cpu with a 9800XT, 1 gig pc3700 and you will be sorted then you wont have to worry about silly little things liek fps as you can just cap it at 125 =P or if you cant afford it get a loan tbh :confused: because your computer should be your life so it deserves abit of money spent on it =X

(chr0nicles) #19

should be able to update his system further for the upcoming games like DOOM III/HL2 etc

I tested it with my AMD 1300MHz, I do get decent FPS when i replace my GF2 Ultra with an 9800XT.

Just a quick budget system enough for some decent gaming for a decent price.

Asus Motherboard: 75EURO
AMD XP: 2800XP 120EURO
Corsair Memory: 256MB Cas2 70EURO / TWINX 512MB 130EURO
9600XT: 130EURO

Total: 395 <— WTF are you all doing with GF MXes!!!

(RECON) #20

Well I didnt mean to start an OS debate lol. However this IS the upgraded version of the computer. It was just 2 hdd’s on a 500 mhz cpu with a Voodoo 3 card.

As for Linux : I hear it is great as you say. However shouldnt I learn a whole new OS for something else other than just to get a game running?

Windows 98 : Ive also thought about that but as much as 98 was notorious for the blue screen crashes I didnt do it once again JUST for a game. Had I still had it on here such as in a dual boot I would do that when I play as I play ET for hours.

CPU / RAM : This answer sounds to be the closest so far. I use ET minimizer to minize the game when I play sometimes. Then I bring up the task manager. While the game is running the cpu icon is totally green runnin at 100%. So thats a lil bit closer to a solution for me.

Thanks for all your inputs.

Minimum Specs debate : Well ok Ill agree with the guys that said I dont have enough BUT shouldnt developers STOP lying then when they make these games? I thought the point of minimum specs was to do just that, run the program with those specs lol.