low framerate in open areas

(urdum) #1

hello.
i get 100+ fps in buildings/small corridors (though com_maxfps is set to 72), unless there’s some sort of big fight going on. when i get outside my framerate drops drastically:\ standing near the allied command post on oasis adn looking at the long stairs near the first axis spawn, i get 40-50fps on an empty server. when there’s a few people sitting on the roofs, shooting etc. it’s even worse, 30-40, which makes it really hard to aim:\ same for radar and, especially, railgun (drops below 30fps sometimes)…

my specs: athlon xp1700+, gf4ti4200 (omega 44.03), 512ddr ram, sblive5.1, winxp pro.
my et cfg: r_subdivisions 90, r_picmip 2, r_lodbias 2, r_mode 6 (1024x768) etc. etc. everything is set to low. lowering texture resolution or screen resolution doesn’t help… lowering the sound detail doesn’t help, either. i think i’ve tried everything to boost the performance a bit, but nothing really works:< turning off sound gives minimal performance boosts, i turned off all ununsed services, removed all unneeded application from the star menu (*.inis, registry etc.), plus, i turn off everything i can to reduce the processor load every time i play the game…

i did a series of video drivers test, 44.03 give me the best performance. i’ve tried 45.23, 44.67, 53.03, 52.16, 43.something… i even tried overclocking the video card, but to my surprise, it lowered the framerate even further:\ my friend told me it’s the processor and that overclocking it would help, but i’m not sure i wanna risk killing my computer for this game :\

(evilsock) #2

Sounds like you need to start from scratch. Have you done all the basic stuff? What chipset does you mobo use? How have you configured your BIOS settings? For example, I had to flash my BIOS to enable 4xAGP - what AGP settings are set? There are a number of settings to enable performance on VIA boards that I’m familiar with so if yours is VIA I could maybe help. I don’t know what other ppl’s opinon of XP is, but I’m sticking with 2000 for as long as it’s kept patched and up-to-date - for me it’s more reliable and alot faster than XP for the hardware I use (similar to your’s, slightly slower).

Again, I have to use the VIA example 'cause thats what I have. There are some 4in1drivers available that you should install - they give performance boosts for your harddrive and also AGP - check your mobo’s site and see if they provide an alike set of drivers.

I don’t think XP has OpenGL by default (it’s still supported in 2000) - I’ve heard this cause ppl problems before but I’m not familiar with the issue - maybe someone else with experience of this can comment?

If you haven’t already, google for NHardpage - install it - it will enable overclocking possibilities in your display control panel - just remember, the harder you push the GPU, the more heat gets generated and I’ve discovered that heat as much as anything can have a dramatic effect on the performance of your machine - I use VCool also now to make sure that my CPU and mobo don’t get too hot. There are also some performance enhancing settings for the control of AGP that are enabled also - check them out.

I know in Quake and RtCW, it is normal to run a demo in test mode - you can use this to benchmark your fps and see trully what your fps settings are. Then it’s the long road of tweaking within PB’s limits.

You don’t say, but do you notice any differences between vanilla ET servers and ET Pro? It’s just that with ETPro server admins can alter the default graphical complexity of a map by removing fps heavy effects - I don’t know of an ETPro server that does this off the top-of-my-head - again, maybe someone else who knows of a server configured in this way can help.

I don’t know if these guys are still active or what, but when I went through all this with RtCW I found that a combination of the ‘RtCW for Newbies’ and ‘The Upset Chaps’ Quake3 tweaking guides to be both excellent and useful.

http://www.planetwolfenstein.com/4newbies/tweaking.htm <- The reference links at the bottom of that page should give you everything you need to start tweaking the graphicals side of things.

Not a definitive answer, maybe a start - HTH :slight_smile:

(Lekdevil.NL) #3

Reading the original post my thoughts were: “So what’s the problem?” Those frame rates seem to be par for an XP1700+ with a Ti4200. They are similar to what I got with my previous system (XP1700+ with Ti4400). You’ve got a low- to mid-range system by today’s standards, so you can’t expect stellar performance from it. If you really want to boost performance with your current system, I guess you’ll have to play at 800x600.

HTH.

(squadjot) #4

Lekdevil> yep…same thought here… i got a p4 2.533mhz - radeon9700pro …and i get about same output …+15 - 20 fps… which sounds fair comparing the hardware

E.T. is maybe the “heaviest” game ive tried…really sucks out power of my com :stuck_out_tongue: …which is a shame i think…

The funny thing…it seems to have nothing to do with the textures or the visual finish, because even if u tweak massively and dumps down textures/geometric quality to almost worst possible… still!!, theres no or very little difference in FPS gain…

(Lekdevil.NL) #5

…that’s because geometry calculations in ET are almost entirely done by the CPU. If you’re looking at a big map with many objects in it, the CPU will usually be the limiting factor.

(urdum) #6

evilsock, i have a soltek mobo (via chipset) with the newest via hyperion 4in1 drivers :\ my agp is set to x4. the opengl driver you refered to in your post comes in driver package for your video card. besides winxp has some sort of detonator drivers built in afair… i’ve read all the guides available you mentioned too.

lekdevil, you’re right im running a mid-range system but we’re talking about a game running on a 4-year old engine:\ in bf1942 for example my framerate never drops below 60…

(Lekdevil.NL) #7

No, you’re running a game that uses a brand new engine that is based on a 4-year old engine. ET != Quake3.

(thelastname) #8

You kidding squadjot, i have a p4 1.6 with a radon 9700 pro and it runs beetween 50 - 100 with full detail and 1024*768, you must have somthing not quite right. The best way to get more fps is to turn off AA and AFand in the game disable dynamic lighting.

(evilsock) #9

My advice would be to investigate your OpenGL settings - like I originally said, I’m not so familiar with XP and it’s issues to offer advice, but I would certainly look to downgrade the default settings until you reach an acceptable compromise between fps and graphical quality - use NVHardpage to do this. VSync and AA are two important things to check.

What does ET play like in a window (800x600)?

If your saying that you’ve already been through the process of tweaking and still can’t get an acceptable game then either you’ve missed something or there’s a serious issue with integrated hardware on your mobo. What kind of soundcard do you have - is it built-in? I disabled my onboard SB thing in favour of a proper SB5.1 Live PCI card that doesn’t steal so many CPU cycles - maybe that’s your next step - have you setup event monitoring? Might be an idea to get a feel for what your PC is spending time doing.

*edit: There is a project called ‘Kx Project’ with free replacement WDM ASIO and MME drivers for your SB card for Windows/x86- the latency is pretty good - better than native Creative drivers - you might try that also (and knocking your sample rate down to 11Khz)

(SPo0n) #10

i’m having the same problem. Tried various drivers from nvidia and the omega drivers.

p4 2.53ghz, 512mb ram, gf4 ti4200, windows 2000 pro

it was running fine in XP, but due to stop errors (which randomly started for reasons i can’t work out) i’ve had to go to 2k pro. all my other games are perfectly fine, quake 3, nascar 2003, bf1942/desert combat, americas army, etc etc

disabled all on board hardware that’s not needed, done everything i can think of. and still no solution

(RECON) #11

…that’s because geometry calculations in ET are almost entirely done by the CPU. If you’re looking at a big map with many objects in it, the CPU will usually be the limiting factor.

Personally I dont think that was very good of them to make the calculations almost entirely done by the cpu. As you can see various systems and configs etc have no effect on your framerate. Perhaps the marketing strategy was to get people to upgrade to better hardware? Who knows. puts on flame retardant suit

(pgh) #12

Playing with different res’s and window’d doesnt really help at all. My fps = capped at 43 constant and was always the same values no matter which res and screen I played on… shite. :]

(Domipheus) #13

As has been said before, this engine is based on q3, when there were no ‘elite’ graphics cards as they are today. And rewriting all that code would be quite a task.

It may be modified, but its no hl2 (which is just a bump up from hl1).

(pgh) #14

Funny tho how an engine written for low end cards at the time struggles still with latest cards even tho nothing really that major has changed.

(Domipheus) #15

Major things have changed, and hance the difference, and why they had to modify the engine in the first place.

(pgh) #16

Sif, looking at the UT direct port over for example it is just Q3 with a few ET hud changes. Deeper in the engine yeh of course but graphically wise I still hold that q3f has showed off along side the RTCW mod (cant mind name) what is/was possible with the engine.

(Domipheus) #17

Et maps have like a 5-7 time increase in detail, and tbh, i dont have a 5-7 time drop in performace from q3, its much lower, so progress has been made.

And just remember, mods are the game code, and q3-based mods can be ported pretty easily just because they use the same syscall structure to the engine. It doesnt do anything for/against performance (unless the engine has new features you can use to your advantage, or, exploit :stuck_out_tongue: ).

(Kipper) #18

Granted, the modified Quake 3 engine is drawing a lot more detail then what Quake 3 ever had (ie. grass, rain, etc etc). But it’s not these things that are causing the major decrease in performance. The biggest performance killer in this game is the fact that the Quake 3 engine was never designed for large open areas, it was designed mainly for indoor worlds. That is why when you go into buildings that have corridors you get really good performance and as soon as you step outside it falls to peices.

Another big killer of performance is airstrikes/artillery strikes/explosions. This was something that I noticed a lot when playing RTCW on mp_assault. Get out onto the airstrip and drop a load of airstrike cannisters and watch the frame rate drop.

(Domipheus) #19

there is no distinction between inside and outside, the only difference is that outside there are alot more things to draw, this has always been the case, even in vanilla q3.

(RECON) #20

Well all I gotta say is if you want to play ET and actually enjoy good frames better be packin something more than 1 gig cpu. Now I gotta go get another mobo and chip because I like the damn game too much now lol.