Extremely low FPS in Quake 2

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R

rawbert

Junior Member
Aug 21, 2004
18
0
0
I just recently got a new Dell that has a 128 mb Radeon X300 SE PCIE card in it. Everything like Quake3 and other games are working properly but for some reason with Quake 2 I'm only getting 31 FPS on a /timerefresh running at 1024x768.

Has anyone seen this problem before?

System Specs:
P4 3.2 Ghz
1GB 533 Mhz DDR
128 MB ATI Radeon X300 SE
Windows XP Professional SP2

Oh, and I've tried every version out there of drivers for a Q3 related problem that I corrected but the best performing drivers are surprisingly the ones directly from Dell. Since my performance in Q3 is excellent with these drivers, I'd be surprised if it's the drivers but I'm willing to experiment. :)

Thanks,

raw
 
D

drag

Elite Member
Jul 4, 2002
8,708
0
0
You either have the FPS capped or your running in software rendering mode. Go into video settings and make sure that it's on opengl.
 
R

rawbert

Junior Member
Aug 21, 2004
18
0
0
It's defninitely on OpenGL mode. I know better than to run in software rendering mode. My cfg hasn't changed in 2 years and on my old P3 1 Ghz with a GeForce 3 Ti 200 I was getting 450+ FPS on /timerefresh.
 
R

rawbert

Junior Member
Aug 21, 2004
18
0
0
Yeah. I didn't reinstall Q2 I just merely copied the directory off my old PC across the network like I have been doing for years when I reinstall (the OS). I've done nothing different so I know it's driver or hardware related. For all I know there's a tweak. *shrug*
 
warcrow

warcrow

Lifer
Jan 12, 2004
11,078
11
81
Originally posted by: aswedc
Originally posted by: warcrow
Originally posted by: malak
Try defragging?
Click to expand...

wtf? How could this effect 3D rendering? :confused:
Click to expand...
It would in a game like Half Life 2. But I don't see it making a difference in Quake II.
Click to expand...

That would only depend on the amount of system memory in the machine. If their rig is dependant off of virtual memory (IE: low amount of available RAM), then I can see some disk thrashing when going into new areas or loading up some textures. But, you cannot say, without a doubt that a game like HL2 would deffinitly run better when defragging....come on now.
 
BFG10K

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,709
3,000
126
What settings are you running the game at? You aren't running 6xAA by any chance are you? Is vsync & truform off?

Maybe the new patch has some kind of rendering cap now?
Click to expand...
Absolutely not.

It would in a game like Half Life 2.
Click to expand...
If it does you have far too little RAM.
 
Malak

Malak

Lifer
Dec 4, 2004
14,696
2
0
Originally posted by: warcrow
Originally posted by: malak
Try defragging?
Click to expand...

wtf? How could this effect 3D rendering? :confused:
Click to expand...

When a game is heavily fragmented, it can suffer poor performance. I once had an install that was heavily fragmented, and everytime a tooltip popped up in the game I dropped to 1fps. This was because of the fragmentation. Once I defragged, the game ran much smoother. I've noticed a performance boost in other games defragging, and even popular defrag software says it will increase performance. Diskkeeper even tells you by how much.
 
D

drag

Elite Member
Jul 4, 2002
8,708
0
0
Originally posted by: warcrow
Originally posted by: aswedc
Originally posted by: warcrow
Originally posted by: malak
Try defragging?
Click to expand...

wtf? How could this effect 3D rendering? :confused:
Click to expand...
It would in a game like Half Life 2. But I don't see it making a difference in Quake II.
Click to expand...

That would only depend on the amount of system memory in the machine. If their rig is dependant off of virtual memory (IE: low amount of available RAM), then I can see some disk thrashing when going into new areas or loading up some textures. But, you cannot say, without a doubt that a game like HL2 would deffinitly run better when defragging....come on now.
Click to expand...

Virtual Memory isn't what you think it is. Don't worry, I understand you learned the term from Microsoft GUI tools for adjusting swap space, but the person who made that tool was a moron.

Virtual memeory isn't "pretend" memory, it's a layer of abstraction so that all programs have to deal with is memory address ranges and don't have to worry about what paticular form of computer memory they are using. On a 32bit Intel-type (amd, too) x86 computer you have a maximum amount of 4 gigs of Virtual Memory, you also have a minimal amount of 4 gigs of Virtual Memory. You can't change it. Nothing in Windows can change it, nothing in any other OS can change it. It is what it is.

What your talking about is 'swap file'. Defragging the harddrive can improve swap file performance in Windows....


As for the Quake2 craziness.


If you think that the quake2 version you are using is screwed up, try a different version. You can get 3.14 at ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com.

But I doubt that is what is the problem.

So I suppose you checked and made sure that you were running OpenGL mode, instead of just assuming it.

Does changing your maximum Frames per second do anything?
Does runnng it at different resolutions do anything?


To show current fps cap:

in the console go:
cl_maxfps

To set max fps:
set cl_maxfps 90


Also when you do benchmarking you want to disable your sound....

 
R

rawbert

Junior Member
Aug 21, 2004
18
0
0
Thanks for the reply. I'll check the maxfps settings when I get home but yeah, I know for a fact I'm in openGL mode and when I change resolutions the frame rate inreases but minimally. I'm not even clearing 100 FPS no matter what setting which is wrong for my hardware specs. I've had lesser machines come close to 500 FPS with my identical Q2 directory setup (as I mentioned before it is a direct directory copy of my Q2 folder from my old machine so I know nothing on the Q2 config has changed).

When I get home, I'll let you know the maxfps settings.
 
D

drag

Elite Member
Jul 4, 2002
8,708
0
0
Ya. that stuff is tough.

I know with Linux enthusiests have been making sure that the quake2 (and quake1) keep up with modern hardware. But I doubt driver testers worry about keeping compatability with binaries that are 4-7 years old.

Also I remember a setting that would lock the fps to the refresh rate of the screen...

Remember that for online gaming you don't want 200+ fps because the more fps you run the more times you poll the server and thus bandwidth increases. Also with above 60 fps or so it makes it very difficult to do deathmatch tricks like spin jumping, double hopping (like you would use to grab the edge of a ledge to launch you up to ledges and such) and bunny hop. If you were running dialup most people locked it at 30 or less for competative reasons.

So I figure you may have had it capped to 30 and forgotten about it?

 
R

rawbert

Junior Member
Aug 21, 2004
18
0
0
The setting to lock it to the refresh rate of the screen is in the console menu under Video "Sync every frame" and it's set to off.

I haven't checked it yet but I will be shortly as soon as I connect to my home machine. I won't know if it's fixed until later though because I'm not going to attempt to fire up Q2 through RDP lol.
 
R

rawbert

Junior Member
Aug 21, 2004
18
0
0
Nope, no kind of maxfps set. I should explain that I am the head forum administrator at www.quake3world.com (forums are down right now for upgrades) and have been for years. I'm not a typical quake newb but am new to owning an ATI card which is the only difference I can see right now in my system since I ran XP Pro on my old rig but it had an Nvidia card.

Thanks for all the replies. :)
 
D

drag

Elite Member
Jul 4, 2002
8,708
0
0
that stuff doesn't make a whole lot of sense... It has the be the drivers for your video card. If everything else is the same, that has to be it.. doesn't it?

What is your CPU usage when you run timedemo?
 
R

rawbert

Junior Member
Aug 21, 2004
18
0
0
Oh, I'm barely tapping out the resources of my machine. I'm thinking drivers too but the only problem with that is I've tried every drived out there which include the latest ATI Catylyst drivers, the latest Omega drivers, and the Dell drivers. Surprisingly, the Dell drivers perform the best for Quake 3 by almost 100 frames on timedemo (four.dm_68) which I can't overlook. I guess I could open a support case with Dell in hopes they fix the driver *shrug*
 
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