UT

[Pathogen]

I would be grateful for any tips on improving gfx / fps performance for UT with a G400 . I know UT favours 3dfx but having shelled out for a G400 i thought id like to try and use it

Ath 600
G400 sh 32mb + latest power desk , drivers etc
128 mb RAM

Some configs would be appreciated .

Thanks

[Strider]

With your setup I would expect very good performance in UT. Are your frame rates too low or just looking for a boost?

[Scytale]

Try this one. You may still want to change texture detail to medium for online play. You can add the 960x720 res using the PD Resolution Manager (get it from murc):

[WinDrv.WindowsClient]
WindowedViewportX=640
WindowedViewportY=480
WindowedColorBits=16
FullscreenViewportX=960
FullscreenViewportY=720
FullscreenColorBits=16
Brightness=0.700000
MipFactor=1.000000
UseDirectDraw=True
UseJoystick=False
CaptureMouse=True
StartupFullscreen=True
CurvedSurfaces=False
LowDetailTextures=False
ScreenFlashes=True
NoLighting=False
SlowVideoBuffering=True
DeadZoneXYZ=True
DeadZoneRUV=False
InvertVertical=False
ScaleXYZ=1000.000000
ScaleRUV=2000.000000
MinDesiredFrameRate=34.000000
Decals=True
NoDynamicLights=False
UseDirectInput=True
SkinDetail=High
TextureDetail=High
NoFractalAnim=False

[D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice]
Translucency=True
VolumetricLighting=False
ShinySurfaces=True
Coronas=True
HighDetailActors=True
UseMipmapping=True
UseTrilinear=False
UseMultitexture=True
UsePageFlipping=True
UsePalettes=True
UseFullscreen=True
UseGammaCorrection=True
DetailTextures=False
Use3dfx=False
UseTripleBuffering=False
UsePrecache=True
Use32BitTextures=False
DescFlags=1
dwDeviceId=1317
dwVendorId=4139
UseVSync=False
Description=Matrox Millennium G400 DualHead - English

[gobrob]

I do 1024x768-32bit with everything on except world detail set to med.Celeron300@450,128megs ram,g400 16meg sh.
I get about35-40fps

[Strider]

gobrob,

I am planning to add 64 megs ram to have 128 total. I also have a cel 400 at 450. I can hit the same numbers as you right now, the problem is have alot of hitching. It was running a lot smoother, and I am thinking I need to defrag the HD.

With your setup, are you experiencing any hitching or does game play stay smooth?

I have also noticed that I got the same fps using 640x480, everything low, and 1024x768x32, medium details, 3d audio on. Either way, the game is not very playable.

[elmes]

I play it at 1024x768x16 (all other options default) & Use DirectX7.
I've an Athlon650/G400 32MB 5.30 drivers and it's unreal (hoho) between 70 and 100fps

[Wombat]

I suspect that the hitching is cache misses. This be greatly reduced (if not go away) with the extra RAM.

[Marcelo]

Strider,

I have the same system as you got but I have 128 Mb RAM, UT runs fine for me with average 35 fps with high detail and everythings are on in sound option. NO harddisk swapping at all.

[Marcelo]

just to add, I had 64 Mb RAM before and the game is unplayable, the precache time took ages and with lots of hard disk swapping.

[gobrob]

Ram is the KEY to running any new games smoothly,I had 64 up until about a month ago and going to 128 was the biggest performance boost my machine has seen.UT runs very close to smooth on my machine @32bit,if I drop to 16bit its smooth as silk.It ran quite choppy even in 16bit before the ram upgrade,I could tell it was hitting the hard drive swap file hard,thats when I decided to dish out the $130cdn and not wait any longer.......
gobrob

[Strider]

Thanks for the input guys!

I just wanted to be certain that the extra ram would do the trick.

What's strange is that the demo and the game ran fine at 800x600x32, med details, 3d sound on (35-40 fps). It took awhile to precache everything, and the game was chunky for the first couple of minutes, but then would run smooth. Now it chugs continously. I suspect that defraging the HD would improve things, but more ram is the way to go (in addition to the defrag).

gobrob, when did you buy the ram? I checked a couple of online stores and they are listing 64 meg PC100 at 120 cnd. If I recall correctly, the low price during the summer was around $90, so the cost is not that far off.

[Beezer]

Strider- You might also want to check what your cache size is set at -- I'm not exactly sure how to do this with the full version, but in Unreal and the UT Demo, it was in "advanced options". I think in the full version you need to go to the console and type "preferances". Anyway, the cache size is typically set at 4 meg by default. The rule of thumb should be to set it at approx 75% of your total system RAM. It helped the hitching quite a bit when I did this in Unreal and the UT demo on my older system that had 64MB RAM.
My new system has a lot more horse power for UT so I haven't really checked what the cache size is yet.

[Strider]

Beezer

I was quite happy the way UT was running, until one day I load it up and I'm hit with crappy performance (no changes were made anywhere). My frames dropped from near 40 to low 30 and beyond. That's when I started tweaking, including changing the cache size (I modified the ini file directly as going thru the advanced menu was prone to crashing). It improved, then crap out again.

The only settings that had noticable impact were setting details to high (worse performance) and disalbling volumetric lighting (improved performance).

If I add more ram, clean up the system, and make some modifications, I am sure I can run at 1024x32.

[Beezer]

Sounds like you're on the right path.

If I'm not mistaken, you did quite fine on the Matrox server the other night.

[Strider]

As long as the game doesn't completely chug, I can do alright.

I defraged the system and sure enough that got me back to a playable level. The new 405B patch also boosted the fps. The ram is still the biggest drawback.

Increasing the cache size actually made performace worse. It probably depends on the interaction between the various settings, agp aperture size, etc.

Hope to see you all on the server next weekend (if its back up and running).