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**Strider** · 26 July 2000, 09:14

What resolution is the game running at? If its 800x600 or less, the cpu speed boost should be visible. Also, what drivers are you using (sorry if that info was in your system specs and I was just too lazy to read it).

**WarFlail** · 26 July 2000, 09:24

I should have clarified: by default High Quality, I mean 800x600 resolution. At 800x600, I get a score of 46fps.

The framerate drops to a little above 30fps if I switch to 1024x768, which is way too big a performance hit for the image quality gain!

I am using PD5.55, which comes with PKY's driver pack v1.5. Q3A is v1.17.

Thanks!

-=W=-

**Darin** · 26 July 2000, 13:30

Doesn't HQ default to trilinear in addition to 24 bit color? I think you've simply hit the cards limit. I play at 1024x768, but 16 bit, bilinear, medium geometry, low/medium detail. With a Celeron @ 490 I got 47.5 fps. I recently upgraded to a P3 @ 933, a MUCH larger processor gain compared to yours), and only saw the fps increase to 49.9. This is all with demo001. If memory servers me correctly, I only got somewhere around 20 fps with the quaver demo on the C490, but now get 32 - obviously more things going on & more cpu dependant than demo001. Also, I've gotten a pretty decent increase by turning off the blood - 53.3 fps in demo001, and mid 40's (!) in quaver. I've also upgraded my cooling on my vanilla card, and am now able to run a couple mhz over max speed (vs. a couple mhz under), and now I'm at 54.3 (no blood).

I think speaking in rough terms, the G400 starts maxing out at 800x600 high quality, or 1024x768 low quality when you get a P3 above 600MHz or better. G400 overlcocking is your best bet now.

**WarFlail** · 27 July 2000, 07:24

Darin:

I bet you were mightily disappointed at the paltry gain in framerate from upgrading from a Celeron 490MHz to a P3 933MHz! I had suspected that I was bumping the ceiling of the G400's performance capabilities, so what you wrote confirms my suspicions.

I am seeing more performance gain from tweaking up the G400's speed. I think I will try cranking up the speed some more and see where that will take me...

Thanks,

-=W=-

**Darin** · 27 July 2000, 10:07

Maybe a little disapointed, but in reality, I probably spend less than 10% of my computer time gaming, and I certainly have top notch performance everywhere else now. My cpu is really a P3 700 that is overclocked to 933 (maybe more with better cooling), and I paid less than $200 for it, so I can't complain too much.

As far as Q3 goes, the important thing to me is the MINIMUM framerate, and I think the upgrade has helped that more than the numbers indicate. There's a command (can't remember off hand what it is) that causes a fps counter to show on your display. If you watch that, you can see how much it really varies depending on what is going on. My fps was getting in the teens on demo001 during some of the big blood splat portions, (which is why I turned the blood off). A benchmark increase of a couple of fps doesn't sound like much, but it does feel a bit smoother during the rough spots (where it really matters). The big fps increase in the Q3crush demo (I said quaver before, meant q3crush) shows that the new cpu is certainly helping the tough spots.

With the cost of the high end gaming cards being what they are, I'm sticking with the G400 for now. I can't justify an upgrade until I can at least get =>60 fps (which is probably close to where I need to be to ensure the minimum stays above 30 fps), 1280x1024x32, all goodies on + anti aliasing, while not giving up my 2d quality, and for less than $200. I bet I'll be where I am until the G800 has been on the market for a while.

**Strider** · 28 July 2000, 09:41

Its strange that the card would max out at 800x600. I would expect to see more of a performance jump with the powerful processor. Sounds like there is something that is limiting the g400.

I assume you are not using TurboGL, although the optimization should work nicely with a PIII. Of course most claim that the new drivers (PD5.4 and up I think) have OpenGL equal to TurboGL.

I'll let you know what I discovered when fiddling with Q3 on my system, and maybe something will help you.

I'm using a cel400 at 450, TurboGL, 256 ram, 256 aperture size, with a g400 32 DH. Frame rates of high 40's is where I need to be for smooth gameplay (by my standards). I use 800x600x32, 16 bit textures (32 bit textures are a performance killer big time). Trilinear filtering, lightmap lighting, max texture detail (they just look too sweet not to have them on). Geometric detail is medium, but with your processor power you should be able to run at max without a hit (or less than a frame). Vsync is off (make sure to disable this one), as are decals. I have left the blood and dynamic lighting on.
Sound takes up CPU power, so you should be able to set that to max quality with a hit as well. I think it was with these settings that I get around 48 fps.

Since your are limited by video card regardless of cpu power, it is a graphics setting thats holding you back (check the vsync and 32 bit textures first). The other option is a bit of overclocking on the video card.

**Darin** · 28 July 2000, 11:04

Personally, I don't think turning off vsync is going to do anything positive to gameplay. All that does is allow your card to pump out a framerate higher than your monitors refresh rate. I play at 1024x768x16 (see more details above), and depending on what's in my field of view, how big the map is, how much action is going on, etc., it's not unusual for my frame counter to be at 90 fps (my monitor refresh is 120hz, so I'm not really limited by it). But the fact of the matter is, I can't see a difference between 90 & 60fps, much less 90 & 85 (the most common refresh rate). I can definately tell when it dips to 30, but that wouldn't be affected by vsync, as that is much lower than the refresh rate of ANY setup.

If you watch the frame counter, you will see how much the framerate varies during gameplay. The times when it starts getting choppy and the framerate is low enough to notice, it's at a point that is WELL below your refresh, so the part that needs the help would get no boost from turning off vsync. On top of that, turning off vsync WILL have a negative impact on visual quality, as it allows the frame to change partway through a screen refresh, which introduces texture tears.

**Alec** · 28 July 2000, 11:12

Strange, I get 23-50 fps with this system:

Celeron 433@459Mhz
Intel Atlanta 440LX motherboard @70.7 FSB (Bios 14)
Soundblaster PCI 128
128 Mb SDRAM 100 Mhz
Matrox G200 8Mb SDRAM AGP @103/137Mhz (Bios 2.7.20)
4.3 Gb Western Digital Caviar EIDE
Iomega internal 100Mb Zip drive
Sony HMD-A200 17" Trinitron

Windows 98 + Service pack 1 + Y2K Patch
DirectX 7a
AGP aperture size 256
Triple Buffering
16-bit Z-buffer
Powerdesk 6.0 beta

Quake 3:
800x600 16-bit color and textures
Maximum quality textures
High geometry detail
Low sound quality

I guess it´s not bad comparing to you, you G400 people...

**Alec** · 28 July 2000, 11:14

Oh, and bilinear filtering, of course, trilinear reduces speed to 60-70%... looks better, though.

**Strider** · 29 July 2000, 12:52

Vsync does make a difference when you are below 60 fps ave. Of course if you are getting high frame rates and have a monitor refresh at over 100Hz, vsync might not do much. Regarding picture tearing with vsync disabled, I found this depends on the monitor refresh. Using 60Hz the tearing was real bad, going to 85Hz with the exact same Q3 set-up the tearing is virtually unnoticable. Perhaps my peak frame rate is no longer exceeding the monitor refresh.

**WarFlail** · 30 July 2000, 09:01

Excuse me, but where can I download the QUAVER demo? People keep referring to it as a heavy-duty benchmarking Timedemo for Q3A but I can't seem to find it.

I would like to see how I score on that.

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Overclocking makes no difference to Q3A?

Overclocking makes no difference to Q3A?

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