Low framerate with ET on a relatively high-end system...

(psychosanity) #1

HI, I need help bad…

Im running XP pro on a Pentium 4 w/ 3.xx Ghz
2 Gigs of Ram
and a factory overclocked GeForce 5500 w/ 256 Megs

My framerate in Enemy Territory fluctuates anywhere from 200 fps (if Im looking straight at the sky with fastsky=1 or a wall from a foot away) all the way down to SINGLE DIGITS (for instance, from the allied spawn on battery lookin up at the cliff).

Note that changing the video settings, resolution, etc. ( in the game and/or the card drivers ) has NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on my framerate, no matter to which extreme they are set.

Surely I have more than enough power to maintain a somewhat low, but steady framerate of at least 43 no matter what I’m lookin at. But it wont.

Niether Dell’s “Award-winning” Service and support, nor BFG’s tech support ( maker of the $120 card ) have been much help; none in fact…

Sorry if I left any specs out…not sure what else, if anything, is relevant.

PLEASE HELP ME!! Thanks in advance…

(p0ny*) #2

installed latest chipset drivers for your mobo, other drivers?
performance in other games or benchmarks?
any background apps?

(Snoman) #3

YOUR NOT ALONE!!! I gave up and decided to lock my frames at 43 and deal with single digit fps. As above still have a mid system p4 1.6 (blah) 1 gig ddr and an fx 5900 with 256ddr on board and the 'latest drivers". Nothing, full antialiasing fun everything, bairly sits at 43 usualy hovers at about 17-25 no mater what setting I give it, gfx all the way up or gfx all the way down, same low crappy frame rate.

(psychosanity) #4

All the latest drivers are on, and the not-so-latest drivers tested: no effect

Antivirus running/not running (or other BG apps):no effect

Not sure what you mean by benchmarks, but other games seem to run just fine. I play Need for Speed Underground, also online, with antivirus running, and all the GFX settings maxed, and I can do 200mph and everything looks smooth as cream. Dont know how to get an fps counter up in that game, but trust me: no problem there. And like I said, this is with settings MAXED, and the gfx in that game are far more sophisticated…

P.S. Thanks for your prompt reply(s), I need all the help I can get… :banghead:

P.S.S. Ohh, I forgot to mention that I’ve been all through the config tweaks, they seem to have no effect either. I’ll post my config if u want…it’s all nice and organized alphabetically. :banana:

(Nail) #5

try with a default cfg, no scripts, binds, tweaks and check your FPS

(EB) #6

there are alot of threads on this…have you searched the forums ?

(psychosanity) #7

Well, I guess there’s plenty I left out…

I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled ET many times. Tried the default config, my config, 3 or 4 others’ configs : No effect whatsoever on framerate.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled my GeForce card many times as well. Tried my onboard display adapter ( 82915G/GV/910GL chipset ) and my card with new and older drivers : All to no avail

I have been thru every forum I have been able to find. That is the step I am in now, in fact, and this is the last one on the list…my final hope. You’re right, there are LOTS of posts on the subject. The ones that closely match my system and specific problem (found 12 or 13 of them) never seem to get answered. Just more questions until the thread poops out…The solutions that DO crop up are invariably simple, and ancient history in my quest for framerate.

Please understand this is something I have been struggling to solve for a good while, every day almost, and please assume I am a reasonably intelligent human being and have tried my hardest to solve this problem without bothering any of you, and tried ALL the little things, and most of the medium stuff.

This is something deeper than that.

(sorry if I sound frustrated :bored: )

(squadjot) #8

umm, its not your config…

start menu > run : (put in " dxdiag " in the dialog box to see the directX window… clcik on the “display” tab when its loaded… all the of the AGP features should read “enabled”

if not… then something is wrong… and i’d suggest reinstall you drivers.

(NuRv) #9

Same problem, I running a
P4 3.6GHz,
1GB of DDR2,
800GB of Hard Drive,
ATI Redeon x700 pro.

and i’m getting 80-100 fps. not sure what wrong!

(squadjot) #10

note2 NuRv : 80-100 fps is not really concidered bad performance… u might be able to tweak it to highre perfromance… but i guess nothing is “wrong”

(Gimpsta) #11

… maybe something to do with your mobo settings ?
Try updating BIOS to latest revision and checking stuff like AGP aperture and Fast write.

What version od DirectX are you running ?

(psychosanity) #12

OK, I will check the DXdiag stuff…Yes I KNOW its not my config thats what Ive been trying to say…and I have already checked I had the latest BIOS (another forgotten item), but my bios setup has NO options such as AGP aperature or ANYthing video related. This amazed the card people too…oh Im using Direct X 9.0c (brand new, like everything else I have…)

P.S. Thanks for rubbin’ it in Nurv: Id LOVE to get 80-100 fps. I’d be happy with a steady 43!! Why in the world would 80 fps be a problem? Try playing with less than 20…THAT is a problem…

(psychosanity) #13

All ONE of the AGP settings in DxDiag are enabled…and I have reinstalled drivers once already. I saved my DxDiag output (that huge file) in case anyone wants to see that…

Im losing hope here…

Anyone wanna come over and look? I’ll bake a cake!

(Lekdevil.NL) #14

Problems of this sort are sometimes caused by bad or wrong chipset drivers (as noted above), resulting in the AGP bus to run in PCI mode. Even though other games are running normally, which makes this theory not very likely, it can’t hurt to check. Download SiSoftware Sandra 2005 Lite, run it, and select “Video System Information”. Check inder “AGP Capabilities” if the Current Transfer Rate is set to 4x or 8x (whatever your card/system is supposed to support).

You might want to check other OpenGL-based games as well. It might be a driver bug that only occurs with OpenGL titles and not with DirectX games (note: ET is OpenGL-based, as are almost all games using an id engine).

Finally, your GFX card might just be defective. Taking your PC to a store to check if swapping the card for an equivalent model solves the problem may be a good idea.

HTH.

(NuRv) #15

Oh then I’m good, Thx I though that was bad. I saw your guys map on your site, where can I download them from?

(psychosanity) #16

that program did not even work. SiSandra failed to initialize database. and I keep hearing about AGP … now hearing PCI like its bad. Its a freakin’ PCI card. Its in my PCI slot…right where its designed to go. Im starting to think everybody is just playing with my head. I dont know what games are OpenGL and which ar DirectX…youre really losin me here…and my card provides a MARKED improvement in all other games over my onboard chipset (which still have the newest drivers, old ones have been checked…) so I doubt the card is defective.

Perhaps there is a little green man inside my PC case, wreaking havoc.

Thanks for everybody’s help, and I’m sorry I’m so frustrated, but this is all the same stuff I got from a dozen other forums. Right about here is where everybody just gives up on me, and Im left with 10 fps.

Perhaps someone could suggest an OpenGL based game (whatever that is), free for download, with an fps counter, that I can test with?
Other things I could use to test?

P.S. If I see you in the game, breathe easy. It’s not like I can actually HIT anything…

(hurben) #17

erm… you’re using a PCI graphics card?

wtf… Are you crazy? :???:

Maybe that has something to do with it. Just a thought. :wink:

(Sauron|EFG) #18

There are demo versions of e.g. Quake 3, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Call of Duty. they all use slightly different versions of the same engine. Google for a gazillion download links.

(Nail) #19

and you would suggest, what ??

(mortis) #20

Basic Lesson in graphics cards:

PCI graphics (the suckiest) 33 MHz bus speed. Complete crap.

Integrated graphics (even if they say ‘AGP’ they usually have super crappy chipsets)

AGP 66Mhz-533Mhz (AGP 1x - 8x) adequate to excellent performance when equipped with decent 3d chipsets

PCI-E (PCI Express) not to be confused with regular PCI! In some cases, the best / fastest currently available.

I personally get a lot more more frames per second than many so-called high end systems sold today, and my computer is two years old.

1800+ 1.53 GHZ 266 FSB Athlon
Radeon 8500 64MB DDR AGP x 4
768MB of PC2100 RAM
Windows XP Pro

80-120 fps on Oasis

never dips below 60 fps.

All wolfy settings stock, except 800x600 resolution and ‘sync every frame’ disabled.

–Mortis