minimum q3 fps to stay smooth in most complex scenes?

[dpopiz]

what's the minimum average fps I should try to get on a timedemo in q3, so that I'll be guaranteed at least 45fps in the most complex scenes that come up occaisionally?

 

[EdipisReks]

what resolution and settings are you running at? frankly, quake 3 isn't very complex anymore. any modern video card should give you very very very good speeds.

 

[ScrewFace]

I've found thru months of testing that a minimum frame rate of 113 fps in your benchmarking will guarantee smooth sailing even in the most cluttered, complex areas of a game.

 

[Goi]

Around 100FPS I guess. The most demanding scenes are usually in q3tourney4(within the central building with the jump pads) or q3dm12(where both the red and yellow armor are, especially if you look out through both the doors there) so try them out there.

 

[IBdaMac]

The human eye's can only handle 30hz which is the same as 30fps so anyhting above that will run smooth. That's why TV is only 24fps. As long as you're above 30fps all the time then you're ok.

 

[dpopiz]

thanks screwface
IBdaMac: fyi the human eye can detect motion much higher than 30hz, most studies say around 60-75hz...that's why games look very noticeably smoother at 60fps than 30

 

[dpopiz]

hey does anybody know of a mod or something for q3 that will keep a record of the low, high, and average fps during the game, or at least one that will do that when playing a demo?

 

[Goi]

Originally posted by: dpopiz
hey does anybody know of a mod or something for q3 that will keep a record of the low, high, and average fps during the game, or at least one that will do that when playing a demo?

fraps? Or is that only for D3D?

 

[Goi]

Originally posted by: IBdaMac
The human eye's can only handle 30hz which is the same as 30fps so anyhting above that will run smooth. That's why TV is only 24fps. As long as you're above 30fps all the time then you're ok.

Try switching your refresh rate to 30Hz and tell me you can live with that
30Hz != 30fps either.

 

[EdipisReks]

Originally posted by: IBdaMac
The human eye's can only handle 30hz which is the same as 30fps so anyhting above that will run smooth. That's why TV is only 24fps. As long as you're above 30fps all the time then you're ok.

GACK! people still believe this garbage? tv's run very differently from computers. they have this thing called motion blur. computers don't. in fact, the human eye can "handle" frame rates in the multiple hundreds and thousands. do some research.

 

[rogue1979]

Oh no, not this again. Well, I am not an expert in human eye science, but I do love gaming. My opinion for first person shooters is, if the minimum fps stays above 60 during intense scenes, this should be smooth enough for the most demanding gamer. This usually means running an average fps of 100 or more.

 

[IBdaMac]

sorry about the wrong information. I had read somewhere that it was only 30hz but it is above 100hz. Sorry I'm an idiot for trusting info on the web.

 

[BFG10K]

Good question - it shows at least one other person understands the concept of an average framerate and what it really means.

In my extensive testing I've that around 120 FPS - 150 FPS average will yield at least 45 FPS in most of the demanding situations. And if you score 200 FPS average or more you're usually guaranteed at least 60 FPS in most situations.

The latter is what I aim for.

 

[dpopiz]

hmm ok I guess I still have to stay at 640x480 on my old radeon. I get about 140 average on that.

 

[Goi]

Actually you can just load a few bots in q3tourney4 or q3dm12 and see how the framerates are at those scenes that I mentioned earlier...they're the most demanding from what I've experienced. You can't really tell that they're demanding if you have a fast system, but when I was on my Celeron 850 & V3 3000, I'd get timedemos of around 80fps but during those scenes my framerates would fall below 30FPS even without bots.

 

[BFG10K]

One of the best levels to test your system is the Dredwerkz map (I forget the map name, Q3DM11 I think). Fill all of the slots with bots, stick them on nightmare difficulty and monitor the framerate during the big battles, especially the ones where yourself and the bots are in the outside area with the large pool.

hmm ok I guess I still have to stay at 640x480 on my old radeon. I get about 140 average on that.

If you turn on texture compression you can usually gain around 10% performance (especially on 32 MB boards) for a negligable reduction in image quality. Also make sure you're running the latest version of Quake3 as the performance gain over the CD version is massive. Also turning off dynamic lighting and shadows will also produce large performance gains. Keep everything else on maximum though and the game will still look very pretty.

 

[Goi]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
One of the best levels to test your system is the Dredwerkz map (I forget the map name, Q3DM11 I think). Fill all of the slots with bots, stick them on nightmare difficulty and monitor the framerate during the big battles, especially the ones where yourself and the bots are in the outside area with the large pool.

hmm ok I guess I still have to stay at 640x480 on my old radeon. I get about 140 average on that.

If you turn on texture compression you can usually gain around 10% performance (especially on 32 MB boards) for a negligable reduction in image quality. Also make sure you're running the latest version of Quake3 as the performance gain over the CD version is massive. Also turning off dynamic lighting and shadows will also produce large performance gains. Keep everything else on maximum though and the game will still look very pretty.

The Dredwerkz is q3dm12 as I mentioned