Extremely low FPS in Quake 2

[HardcoreRobot]

Originally posted by: malak

Originally posted by: warcrow

Originally posted by: malak
Try defragging?

wtf? How could this effect 3D rendering?

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.

Defragging will only speed up the time it takes for game data to get into memory. Quake 2 recommends 24 MB of RAM. Maybe in some of todays games that have multiple gigabytes of game material, I could see how hard drive access could become an issue, but not for Quake 2. If you defrag your hdd for this problem, you are just wasting your time.

And to contribute my own advice, have you tried reinstalling the game on the new machine instead of just copying it over?

 

[drag]

Well you could also try some of the moded engines for Quake2. (since it's a open source game and all that)

This is the one I generally use:
http://icculus.org/quake2/

But it may be *nix only. At least in binary form. I don't know if they offer a Windows version, but you could compile a custom version yourself, it's all cross-platform stuff. I suppose that you windows guys aren't used to doing that stuff though.

Also there are others, like quake2 nocheat.
But the guy's website in under construction. i know they have both Linux and Windows versions.

They may be better then using old Windows binaries. There are many others, too. I haven't kept up on the quake2 stuff for a few years now. Most of the real hacking goes into Quake 1 sources. Quite a few nice engines have been made.

 

[cKGunslinger]

I've had the same problems with my Quake 2 upgrades. I've had the game installed since it first came out and just keep copying over to new hardware, as is. I like to see how my new hardware affects the performance of it. But ever since my last two ATi video card upgrades, I'm not getting any kind of Q2 performance out of them. I seem to be stuck at about ~45 FPS, no matter what my resolution.

*shrug*

 

[warcrow]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: warcrow

Originally posted by: aswedc

Originally posted by: warcrow

Originally posted by: malak
Try defragging?

wtf? How could this effect 3D rendering?

It would in a game like Half Life 2. But I don't see it making a difference in Quake II.

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.

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 <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com"><a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com">ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com</a></a>.

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....

Actually, Virtual Memory is exactly what I think it is, and I understand that windows uses a swap file for it. Its pseudo RAM, and I get that its a layer of abstraction. I understand that applications do not care whether or not its system memory or a swap file and that its addressing, and treats it the all the same same way.

But you say that defragging a HDD will improve swap file perforance?


This program here and Diskkeeper are the only programs that I know will do what you're talking about.

*edit* After some more thought, really the only way defragging your HDD will effect a swap file is if you defrag outside of windows.

 

[NeoV]

were any of the prior machines that you had this on running 3dfx cards? I think your Open GL driver may not be the correct one - and I'd erase your Q2 cfg file and let the game write a new one the next time you start it up - backup/rename if you need to