Processor Detection

(Captain Hair) #1

I’m currently encoutering some lag issues and graphic issues, of which a number of posts have been made by others already. I’ve tried several adjustments (console commands and such) with some success.

However, I noticed something unusual when I start ET, and I’m trying to figure out if this is normal.

When I fire it up, that grey console appears for a second, and I catch the message stating, roughly, that a Pentium III processor has been detected. I’m running a Pentium 4 1.8ghz machine though.

Has anyone else caught this message and/or noticed it reporting a different processor type? I’ve tried to do screen caps of it, but to no avail. And, I’m beginning to suspect this is the source of the low frame rate I’m experiencing in ET.

I’m running a Geforce 2 MX/400 card, with 32 Mb. Also 256 Mb on board. AND, I had far less graphic issues when running the ET test… :???:

(weasel) #2

After et starts, open the console and type ‘/condump et.log’ then close et. There’ll be a file called et.log in the etmain subdirectory of your et installation. Find the exact message you’re seeing and post that. I’m looking at mine right now, and there seems to be no CPU detected. It looks like this:

PIXELFORMAT: color(16-bits) Z(16-bit) stencil(0-bits)
MODE: 4, 800 x 600 fullscreen hz:N/A
GAMMA: hardware w/ 0 overbright bits
CPU:
rendering primitives: single glDrawElements
texturemode: GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_NEAREST

CPU line is just blank. I’m not quite sure what this means, but apparently CPU detection isn’t very important. Quake 3 and RTCW do the same thing. My guess is that it’s normal.

(=*EppO*=) #3

Well, my CPU is a pentium IV but this is what my et.log looks like:

PIXELFORMAT: color(32-bits) Z(24-bit) stencil(0-bits)
MODE: 6, 1024 x 768 fullscreen hz:N/A
GAMMA: hardware w/ 0 overbright bits
CPU: Intel Pentium III
rendering primitives: single glDrawElements
texturemode: GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_NEAREST

Must be some little bug, nothing to worry about! :cool:

(Captain Hair) #4

Thanks. I gave the /condump bit a shot, and came up with the following

Hunk_Clear: reset the hunk ok
…detecting CPU, found Intel Pentium III
Bypassing CD checks
----- Client Initialization -----
----- Initializing Renderer ----

I found that at the beginning of the file, and towards the end. Maybe it doesn’t mean much in the overall scheme, but I’m just trying to figure out why it’s running so ragged on my machine, especially compared to the Test and to the RTCW demo.

:banghead:

Gonna try playing with my video driver settings next…

(Sombee) #5

If you can budget it, you should look into upgrading your video card. Your system sounds plenty strong… but that video card is just not in spec with the rest of your system. You can get a Geforce 3 or 4 relatively cheap nowadays.

As for how your processor is being detected… the real “meat and potatoes” of ET is the Quake 3 engine, which was started before P4s were available so…

(=*EppO*=) #6

Thats what it is, Sombee.
Why didn’t I think about that!
:nod:

(Captain Hair) #7

Yeah, I realize the video card is outdated… was just wondering if the CPU message had some influence on the poor framerate/lag.

I tweaked some video settings and picked up a slightly better framerate, but time to go shopping for a new video card…