A Doom 3 question

[MisterChief]

So, I was playing D3 on my brothers computer, which is a few steps below mine on the tech tree. Here are his specs:

MSI 865PE Neo2-PLS
Celeron D 2.4
512 DDR 400
ATI Radeon 9200 128MB (non-SE)

He was playing D3 at 640-480/low quality, and I noticed that the game wasn't getting very playable FPS. I ran Fraps at the Enpro facility for about 400 seconds and recieved a rating of 23fps average.

This is probably expected by anyone reading. But here's the wierd part. I pressed the "auto-configure" button, and the game set itself to medium quality. I know, not a big difference. But when I ran Fraps again in the same level, I got 38fps average! I noticed a huge increase in playability, and I didn't even have to turn off the eye candy!

Anybody have any idea how that's possible?:Q It goes against everything I know.

EDIT Third time around, and he's getting 44fps in Enpro! Has anyone else expierenced an increase in playabilty the second or third time around? What could be causing such dramatic changes?

 

[Fern]

I can't remember the vidoe options available under D3, its been too long since I played. But I'm thinking it changed something else as well. AA, decals whatever.

 

[MisterChief]

Decals are set to off, AA is set to none.

 

[Fern]

Aside from my thoughts that some other featuer was afjusted downwar..

I remember running the bench within D3. The first run through was always way slower than the second. Something about caching in mem IIRC. Perhaps something similar ocured?

 

[MisterChief]

That's probably true. The first time my brother and I played D3, it was pretty slow (at least on his comp). But the second time around, the performance seemed to jump up, for no apparent reason. It's not possible for data to be left in memory when the power is off, so I have no idea what caused that, either.

 

[BFG10K]

I ran Fraps

com_showfps 1

 

[MisterChief]

Anyone else expierience a fps-jump the second or third time around?