QUAKE3 IS A WORTHLESS BENCHMARK. WHY IS IT STILL BEING USED

[rms]

Its now almost 2004, and sites are *still* using this 3-year old game to benchmark.

FACT: Both 3DNOW and SSE are non-functional in Quake3 on AthlonXP cpus (and probably disabled as well on the Athlon64, no data there as yet), but SSE is *enabled* on all Intel cpus. Not a big surprise there; The XP didn't exist when Q3 was programmed. But I *still* see reviewers 'shocked' at how much an P4 outperforms an AthlonXP in Quake3. Helloooo? Time to smell the coffee guys !! What's worse is this same Intel-biased behaviour extends to other Q3-based games.

Talk to this guy for more info, he's quite knowledgable about the history of Quake3 and AMD support. http://speedycpu.dyndns.org/opt/


FACT: Quake3 benchmarks are now hitting the 400-500 fps range. DO THESE KINDS OF SCORES HAVE ANY RELATION TO REALITY. A gamer cannot distinguish the difference between 450 and 500 fps onscreen, and these kinds of scores, not to mention that few people play Q3 anymore, make Q3 irrelevant as a gaming benchmark on modern machines, in particular when comparing modern cpus.


THE POINT IS: Quake3 is a old, biased and irrelevant benchmark. Its use should be DISCONTINUED in reviews, and in particular Intel vs AMD cpu reviews.

rms

 

[classy]

While what you say is true. The Quake engine is used in other games, so while the game itself is long in the tooth, the actual numbers give some insight as to what other games based on the engine might do.

 

[batmang]

its still being used because alot of people play it. why benchmark games that people dont even play. theres a lot of games that are way more intense then quake 3 that they could use, but they dont because those benchmarks wouldnt relate to what people ar playing. so thats why you see quake 3/unreal 2k3. (ut2k3 really sucks, but i guess people play it?)

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Thugsrook posted this over@bleedinedge

First, adjust all settings to High Quality in the menu options of Quake 3 Arena, and then set Geometry Detail to High and Texture Detail to the extreme right hand side.

The following settings were suggested by John Carmack in order to make the best use of the latest high speed vid cards - type them in the console: (or modify your q3config.cfg file)

/r_lodBias -2 (no low detail models)
/r_subdivisions 1 (more triangles in curves)
/r_lodCurveError 10000 (extended curve rows)
/vid_restart

If you want to undo these settings, just select a geometry detail level inside the game.


even more extreme.....

/r_stencilbits 8 (enable 8 bit stencil buffer)
/cg_shadows 2 (enable stencil shadows)
/vid_restart

Using a FX5900 and a P4@3.4ghz it brought his avg. FPS under 200. I also here there is a optimization available for AMD CPUs now and that it makes a huge difference when going-head-to-head with Intel CPUs.

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: rms
Its now almost 2004, and sites are *still* using this 3-year old game to benchmark.

FACT: Both 3DNOW and SSE are non-functional in Quake3 on AthlonXP cpus (and probably disabled as well on the Athlon64, no data there as yet), but SSE is *enabled* on all Intel cpus. Not a big surprise there; The XP didn't exist when Q3 was programmed. But I *still* see reviewers 'shocked' at how much an P4 outperforms an AthlonXP in Quake3. Helloooo? Time to smell the coffee guys !! What's worse is this same Intel-biased behaviour extends to other Q3-based games.

Talk to this guy for more info, he's quite knowledgable about the history of Quake3 and AMD support. http://speedycpu.dyndns.org/opt/

He offers no proof whatsoever that Quake 3 is biased in any way against the Athlons. His optimized DLLs are merely recompiled from the Quake 3 source code, using the latest VS or Intel compiler to gain performance for all processors.

 

[rommelrommel]

I'd rather see Q3 than aquanox and all the other games they use that no one has ever played.

I've found C&C Generals to be an absolute pig, I'd love to see some benchmarking with that.

 

[Noid]

the Q3A engine forces 3DNow

I obtained some DLL's recently,,, that force it to use OGL,,,, that gave me significant performance
(like I needed more ,,, ,,, but anyway ,,, these DLL's give a new 'feel' to the game also)

PB still works,,, and everything else for that matter

info

 

[Wingznut]

Why are you reposting a thread of your own? Link

Like I said in that thread, It's about the memory bandwidth not SSE. Otherwise, if it were soley due to SS3, then the P3 would outperform the Athlon of the same relative speed.

Not only that, but I have no doubt that there's something not right about that .dll... Both 68GTX and Accord99 showed the same frame rate gains when using that .dll with their P4. Personally, I think the guy is full of crap.