PD6.0 beta with Drakan game

[John Rambo]

I noticed horrible slowdowns with the new win98 beta drivers. The game runs noticeably slower with bump mapping enabled compared with previous released drivers.

has anybody the same experiences?

run drakan.exe +fpstest

drakan game+patch 445,win98,PD6.0 beta,P2 450Mhz,G400DH32MB,128MB ram,ABitbh6.

[Kruzin]

What other options are you using in the game engine options?
res/color depth?
bilinear/trilinear?
detailed texturing?
shadows?
fixed texture coordinates?
texture quality?

All of these settings will have an impact on your perfomance. To compare, we would need to know more info on how you are running the game.

And what are your results when you run the fps test, and what where they with the older drivers?

I just re-installed the game, and patched it to 4.45. If you can give more input, I can give you my results with PD6.0...

[John Rambo]

Hi Kruzin

I knew it, this is the game, we like the most, absolutely my loveliest.

Okay, some numbers you requested (benchmark settings)
**********************

25.4fps with
PD6.0,dx7,win98, drakan+patch 445, G400 not o/c

1024x768/32bit
Vsync off
Bumpmapping ON
dithering enabled
detail textures enabled
fix texture coordinates enabled
texture filtering -bilinear
texture quality-high no limit
sound off
in game settings are all default
max fog distance 80%
real shadow quality Ryn&arokh only
amount of dynamic light Most lights
weather effect enabled
lens flare effect enabled
Amount of particles Many
**************************************

27.3 fps with
PD5.41,dx7,win98,drakan+patch 445, G400 not o/c

1024x768/32bit
Vsync off
Bumpmapping ON
dithering enabled
detail textures enabled
fix texture coordinates enabled
texture filtering -bilinear
texture quality-high no limit
sound off
in game settings are all default
max fog distance 80%
real shadow quality Ryn&arokh only
amount of dynamic light Most lights
weather effect enabled
lens flare effect enabled
Amount of particles Many
*****************************

In the close combat with flying dragons and other enemies (e.g. wartok canyons level,etc) I'm getting very low FPS numbers, drakan is unplayable, just a slide show. With the old PD 5.41 is all fluid, good framerates.


Something is wrong, but what? have you the same slowdowns in the game?

[Kruzin]

I played last night from the begining through the end of the canyons. With the fps counter on, I never saw it go below 27fps, even in battles in the canyons with 2 black dragons, 2 catapults, and several wartocks on the ground in the scene. The majority of the time it was in the 40-50 range, often going up to and over 100fps (over 200fps in the static cut scenes ).

I was running all of the same options you listed, except I was doing it in 16bit color.

A couple possible tips...
Make sure your desktop color depth and game color depth are the same (both 16bit or both 32bit. 16bit will give a noticable boost).

If you are running 32bit z-buffer, try with it off (although that might affect your shadows...without 32bitZ, I don't think the game can do the nice stencil buffered shadows, which I find at least as impressive as the games EMBM).

I'll run the fps test tonight on PD6.0. I don't have any recorded results for older drivers, but your scores where only a couple fps apart between the versions...

------------------
P3-450(112*4.5=504), Asus P2B (1010), 128meg pc133, MillenniumG400 32meg DH (6.??), 3com 3c905b-tx, SB Live!value, Dual USR 56k Sporsters, Maxtor 30gig 7200rpm, WD 8.4gig, CL PC-DVD, Mitsumi CD-RW

[Kruzin]

OK...I'm confused.
What does the +fpstest do?
It seemed to just let me select a level to play from....?
Should it do some sort of timedemo type test?

[John Rambo]

The Drakan patch includes a new feature that allows you to benchmark 3D hardware using Drakan. Simply run Drakan using the +fpstest command-line option which will cause Drakan to run through the first cut-scene in the game, then output the average frames per second to a file called FPS.TXT which can be read by benchmarking utilities such as 3D GameGuage. Be sure to run Drakan Engine Options from the Windows Start menu first to set the Display driver, resolution, and color depth for the test. You can also disable the Sound to further limit the benchmarking to only the 3D rendering performance. Keep in mind that any variation in graphics options such as the current fog distance setting will also affect performance.

I hope this clears things up, it`s from "Readme_Patch.txt" file )

[This message has been edited by John Rambo (edited 22 June 2000).]

[John Rambo]

I`ve done some serious benchmarks with PD5.41, PD5.52 and PD6.0 beta and came to the conclusion, that drivers PD5.52 and PD6.0 beta are a bit slower (about 2.5fps) when I compared with the old PD5.41.
Last night I played wartok canyons map too, with fog distance maxed to 100% and in game fps engine counter show me a range of numbers 11-50fps, sometimes in the close hallway 70fps.

[John Rambo]

Bumpmapping errors I found, when I played wartok canyon map. They appear on all tested drivers. Please take a look on my screenshots. I sent them to "kruzin_kenny@hotmail.com".

Screenshots are vastly compressed with ACDsee.

best regards
JohnR


[This message has been edited by John Rambo (edited 22 June 2000).]

[This message has been edited by John Rambo (edited 23 June 2000).]

[John Rambo]

grrr.., sorry I forgot, I`m using 16bit z-buffer.

[Kruzin]

Well, something is funky.
When I run the game with the +fpstest switch, it does not run the intro level. It takes me straight to the game menu. If I select "new game" I am given a list of levels to choose from. If I select the Intro Level, it plays through, but does not write an fps.txt file...

hmmmmm.

Have you tried 32bit z-buffer?
If you are using shadows, it could make a difference, as the game uses stencil buffered shadows. That stencil buffer comes from the z-buffer (32bitZbuffer takes 8bits and dedicates them to stencil buffering). At 16bitZbuffer, it may be causing more of a slowdown with those spiffy shadows....

[Kruzin]

OK....I figured it out.
I had the game in developer mode, and apparently that won't run the fpstest...

Anyway, with the same in-game settings you listed, except with 16bit color and 32bit z-buffer I get ~30.5fps. Not bad, concidering the amount of action in that intro (you never see that many wartocks or villagers at once in the actual game)...

[Kruzin]

Re-ran the test a couple of different ways.

1024x768x16x32bitZ = 30.5
1024x768x32x32bitZ = 28.4
1024x768x32x16bitz = 28.6

As I said, I never ran these tests on older drivers, so I have no comparison to offer there...

------------------
P3-450(112*4.5=504), Asus P2B (1010), 128meg pc133, MillenniumG400 32meg DH (6.??), 3com 3c905b-tx, SB Live!value, Dual USR 56k Sporsters, Maxtor 30gig 7200rpm, WD 8.4gig, CL PC-DVD, Mitsumi CD-RW

[Kruzin]

I just viewed the screenshots you sent me.
Odd looking glitches. I've not seen that on my end before...
I don't think they are anything to do with EMBM though, because on that particular map, the water is not EMBM'd (and judging by the Arok looks there, I don't think EMBM was on, was it?).

[John Rambo]

YEEEEES !!! ), screenshots are bumpmapped, water and dragon are EMBM`d too, look at the textures on the dragon, they shine like fire. ) Just I re-run the wartok level with EMBM off and no weird EMBM`d textures at all. You must fly around the river (near grimstone mine entrance-rune of poison), with EMBM ON and you will see it!!!.

update:

P.S. in all drakan levels, water is bumpmapped, but with different bump patterns on each water. In some levels with bumpmapping disabled ) the water looks better, especially in the wartok cannyon. )

[This message has been edited by John Rambo (edited 23 June 2000).]

[This message has been edited by John Rambo (edited 23 June 2000).]

[John Rambo]

Next I`ll test drakan with 32bit Z-buffer option enabled.