Unreasonable FPS in RTCW w/5900

[chad_n]

Hi All,

The question: Are my FPS rates reasonable for RTCW. I've seen numbers for 'demo modes' but I'm not sure how they stack up to 'real playing'.

44.03 Driver Settings: quality mode, 4x FSAA, 8x Aniso, Vsync off. Most other settings defualt. In Game: All details high on first 'system' screen, aniso on, 1280x1024x32

system: 2800+,A7n8x deluxe, 1G 3200LL, GF 5900.

Example FPS ranges: Depot - 60-90(locked)
DAM - 28-50
Chateau - 35-60

Now granted I leave some stuff running like anitivirus and whatnot..no other major apps. I just expected better based on the numbers I've seen around the web. I've got the latest bios, drivers, etc. Are these numbers too low?

Thanks for any input.



<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by chad_n on 08/04/03 11:58 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[jiffy]

Gee, I don’t know I’ll have to try with the same settings, but with a 9800 P. Off hand I can’t remember all the detail settings in the game, but 4x 8x 1280x1024x32 is a little demanding. Last I new the FX drop considerable once AA/AF was enabled. I’d say yes stuff running in the back ground isn’t going to help at all. If you using WinXP it’s a must to shut off as many services and eye candy as possible for the best performance. And if you’re not satisfied with the gaming performance then you’ll have to lower some settings, assuming your system is running at its best.

 

[SPAM]

Do you have any other Quake 3 engine powered games? How do they compare?
Have you tried a different video driver?

 

[dhlucke]

how does it do when you turn the 4x FSAA, 8x Aniso off?

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<font color=red><b>STEP AWAY FROM THE CHEESE!

 

[SHARKMEAT]

I think 60-90 is pretty good with what setting you have applied.as the other said turn off 4X and see for your self,at 1200+ jaggies don't reaaly show up that much unless you are 8inches away from your monitor .

TREAD SLOWLY IN DANGEROUS WATERS

 

[simwiz2]

I saw a review where the 5900 was a bit slow in RTCW, but not THAT slow, especially at 1280. Have you checked for spyware?

 

[jiffy]

Have you set up the refresh rate in the Nvidia driver?
I tried the same settings with my 9800 P and it seems to be locked at 60fps. I check my refresh rate and it was also at 60, so I think if I up my refresh rate that would up the fps. I believe I’m also running the game in OpenGL, I don’t know if that’s default or what the story is, since I just loaded the game. I’m having a little trouble setting up my key controls, so I’m kinda thinking it is in OpenGL, since I heard it can be buggy at times. Also, heard OpenGL should give you a few more fps.

 

[chad_n]

Thanks for the good comments! Here's some replies.

1) Do you have any other Quake 3 engine powered games? How do they compare?

---I ran Q3 today at the same settings and the fps thing was going between about 150 and 300 with about 10 bots in the game. Hard to tell it was changing rapidly so could only make out the first two digits.
2) Have you tried a different video driver
-- I tried to go to the 43.35 or whatever drivers but they only supported up to the 5800, so i had to use the 44.03s.

3) how does it do when you turn the 4x FSAA, 8x Aniso off?
--- haven't tried yet but i expect it will lock near 90 like my ti4600 did without those settings on. I bought the 5900 because I though I *could* have this stuff on with that card (according to #s on the websites).
4) I saw a review where the 5900 was a bit slow in RTCW, but not THAT slow, especially at 1280. Have you checked for spyware?
--- exactly I didn't think it should be this slow. I'll have to try with all aps shutdown. I run spybot and adware on occasion. guess its time to run it again.
5) Have you set up the refresh rate in the Nvidia driver?
---Sounds like you are running with 'vsync' on. It locks the framerate to 1x or 0.5x your screen refresh rate. Try turning it off in the driver controls.

Guess the question still is, are the #s commonly found on review sights really 'normal playing' #s, or are the 'demo mode' #s always higher than real ones you can expect to get.

Thanks!

 

[xeenrecoil]

heya chad;

One thing alot of people overlook for some odd reason is that gaming is not 100% Graphics Card, your CPU does alot of work also, it does everything else that your GPU doesnt.

The CPU runs the AI, keeps track of environment data, object positioning, oreintation, statistics, etc etc... There are so many things that the CPU has to do that more times then not its at 100%.

Games are extremely demanding and depending on how advanced your Computer Core is you may not even have enough resources to even play the game at optimal levels, reguardless of what Graphics Card you may have.

That puts an extreme amount of stress on your Graphics Card to pick up the slack, and since your Graphics Card can only do so much, it will hit its limit and your overall gaming performance will suffer.

You cant expect your Graphics Card to solve all your gaming performance problems, in otherwords you cant run a NV5900 on a pIII 1Ghz with SDR and expect it to dramatically increase frames when your CPU is choking on the game your running.

Just changing out your graphics Card isnt enough, you have to have a sufficient Core too.

Now you might say "dude thats obvious!" well apparently it isnt because its not emphasized nearly enough in the gaming world, people talk about how their graphics card is bomb, but thats only half of the deal if their core sucks their gaming performance is gonna be bad.

You may also say "dude i have one of the fastest cores there is" well unfortunately in many cases it still isnt enough.

Without a CPU capable of running multiple threads at once your software is suffering because it has to complete one task before it can move on to the next and this causes poor performance.

Which is one reason why Intels Hyper-threading CPU is so powerful, because it can work with multiple threads at the same time, doing more then one task at a time, there by increasing overall efficency in the program, and as by product the game runs faster, and it is able to get more things done in a shorter amount of time.

Games that arent capable of multi-threading are limited to pure speed of the CPU, they rely on the CPUs ability to get things done rapidly, and when the CPU cant accomidate this high demand the game slows down because it has too many requests and the CPU cant keep up.

So if your getting poor gaming performance with the most advanced graphics card available, most likely its not your graphics card at fault, its probably your computer cores fault instead.

XeeN

 

[Ganache]

FSAA is sooo overrated, disable all that ressource consuming stuff and play in 1280+, modern games already look good enough at high res. FPS is more impoartant in FPS anyway....

my .02$

 

[simwiz2]

I disagree. After trying out FSAA in Tribes 2, I could never go back to playing without it. Not only does it look awful at 1024 without AA, but the jaggies moving around the screen can be incredibly distracting. Even 2X AA @ 800x600 looks better than no AA @ 1024x768 IMO.

 

[SHARKMEAT]

LOL where you get the time to look at graphic to see jaggies in Tribes LOL,hell I barely can keep up with the players let alone see a jaggie if I did i,d shoot it .
BTW I agree with Ganache on the sttings of 1200+


TREAD SLOWLY IN DANGEROUS WATERS<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by SHARKMEAT on 08/05/03 03:00 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[chad_n]

>>> One thing alot of people overlook for some odd reason is that gaming is not 100% Graphics Card, your CPU does alot of work also, it does everything else that your GPU doesnt.

I agree with and understand your post. But perhaps I'm not knowledgable enough about the information transfer from memory to vid card. I was under the assumption that the textures are delivered to the vid card all the same, and it's up to the vid card to perform AA and ANISO on the image within it's own memory/gpu??? So I assume that if my GF4ti4600 could run say 70 without FSAA and ANISO, does that not mean the transfer rate is high enough? Another point, the numbers i've seen on review sights were with lesser or equal system specs (2800+,A7n8x deluxe, 1G 3200LL) to mine...

>>>FSAA is sooo overrated, disable all that ressource consuming stuff and play in 1280+, modern games already look good enough at high res. FPS is more impoartant in FPS anyway....

Yeah i know it becomes a point of diminishing returns.. But I'm a nerd I can't tolerate owning a vid card thats 5x slower than what's now on the market I also don't think one should have to end-task (small) background apps every time one wants to play a game