G400MAX + Quake3 = low FPS

[Darek]

I'm getting very low FPS when running Quake3 - 13 FPS . I know, I should get more. Quake2 seems to run ok 62 FPS

Quake3 Settings:
Q3Demo1
32-bit colour
32-bit texture
maximum texure quality
high geometric detail
trilinear filtering

My system:
P3-450
Matrox G400MAX
Abit BE6
196MB PC100

[Frank]

That texture quality slider really kills it.
I experience the same slowdown.
However if you select the high quality option and let it change the settings for you and get around 40 odd fps then your system is performing fine.
Frank.

[freezie]

hmmm i have a p3 550 and im gettin around 23fps.i wouldnt think going from a 450-550 would make much difference.oh well its better than my banshee was gettin.

[Chamelespoon]

It was odd - I was getting 30-40 FPS average on my Celeron 333 (128MB RAM) with the supplied PD5.11. I did the old "uninstall then install" thingy up to PD5.25 and my framerate dropped to around 10 FPS. Went back to PD5.11 and it was _still_ at 10 FPS. Then installed PD5.25 _over_the_top_ and the framerate went back up to 35-45 FPS.

I guess play around with the drivers - you _should_ be able to get around 30 FPS(ish).

HTH.

[Chamelespoon]

Addendum to last post (oops!): every time I tried it I had _everything_ maxed out in Q3 (texture detail, effects, etc) and was running at 1024x768 in 32-bit colour (with a 32-bit Z-buffer). Knocking the Z-buffer down to 16-bit made no difference, nor did lowering the texture detail.

[Darek]

Things are back to normal. Couple days ago I reinstalled 5.25 drivers and forgot to re-install OpenGL Beta. This means that I was running old OpenGL driver. Now I'm getting 28 FPS.

Chamelespoon, your FPS are too high. Did you run Timedemo?

Timedemo 1
demo Q3demo1

Thanks all of you.

[This message has been edited by Darek (edited 09-24-1999).]

[Chamelespoon]

Oops! I think I must've been on drugs or something when I wrote those framerates!! <LOL> You're right, Darek, they're way too high. I haven't run a timedemo, yet, but working on the cg_showfps numbers (yes, I _know_ they're going to lie a bit!) during few net games I'm getting around 25FPS average. Not sure where the 35-40FPS came from, must've been talking about something else. :]

[student]

turn geometry detail to low, you don't notice a difference, turn the texture quality down 1 click, you don't notice a difference...that will buy you at least 20 fps...turn off dynamic lights and you'll get another 7 or 8


------------------
-student-

[Chamelespoon]

Well, to be honest it works fine as it is. I have to turn off dynamic lighting and a couple of other bits like ejecting brass to reduce net lag, but other than that not a glitch. I can play it on a LAN with everything up and running and it doesn't jerk or splutter once during a DM - but then I don't play against that many people.

OTOH, if you're going low-geom you'd be better off just knocking it down a res or so and keeping the geometry on high detail. AFAICS the FPS gain is about the same, and high geom looks a lot nicer.