Improve Your Fps
DarkFrost
Join Date: 2003-04-03 Member: 15154Members, NS1 Playtester, Constellation
Join Date: 2003-04-03 Member: 15154Members, NS1 Playtester, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Possible sollutions for nVidia users</div> Firstly, I apologise to ATi users, I have not owned one since roughly 1997, so I can't say much about the new cards. Sorry, although I will look into it, and update this if I find out whats what about them =])
This guide has been compiled by knowledge found in my own efforts to improve my graphics card performance. Just now I own a GeForce FX 5500, and for all the put downs it gets, after doing all this I manage an FPS of 120 from HL2, with timerefresh scores of upto 260. Not bad for a crap card in my opinion. (Its on stock clocks @ 270Mhz/400Mhz) Before this I was lucky to get 60. This is on High settings, only shader is low, of course Anti Aliasing is off and texture compression is trilinear, but its in DX9 mode.
Firstly, you need to find the best drivers for your hardware, this is not the newest by any means.
<!--QuoteBegin-guru3d forums+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (guru3d forums)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
GeForce 6 Series: 71.84, 67.03, 66.93, 66.81, 66.31, 66.00, 65.73, 62.20, 61.77, 61.76, 61.71, 61.34.
GeForce FX Series: 66.93, 66.00, 61.77, 61.71, 61.34, 61.12, 61.11, 60.72, 56.72, 56.64, 53.03.
GeForce 4 Ti Series: 56,72, 53.03, 44.67, 45.23, 44.03, 43.51, 43.45, 41.09, 40.72, 30.82.
GeForce 3 Series: 56.72, 44.03, 43.51, 43.45, 40.72, 30.82.
TNT2 & GeForce 2 & 4MX Series: 56.72, 45.32, 45.23, 43.51, 43.45, 30.82, 22.50.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Using this as a guide I found that the 56.64 drivers gave me the best performance, and not to much less image quality.
You should then go and get a set of drivers for your motherboard, its manufacturers web page will either link you to them, or have its own set there, again, newest may not necessarily mean best.
I noticed some performance boost at this point, but I wanted more, I was fed up with ~ 60 FPS in base once the PG activated, and Aliens poured in.
I turned to rivatuner, a nice little program, that can change a hell of alot of options.
One that caught my eye was this.
<img src='http://img274.echo.cx/img274/6264/compatability4lf.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
The checked one that is. A simple command that allows rivatuner to force your detonator/forceware drivers to comply as much as possible with your motherboards hardware.
Three Bios tweaks I used are:
Enable AGP fastwrites.
Enable Sideband addressing.
AGP aperture size 128.
Lastly I found a nice program that alters the PCI latency of my peripherals (APG falls under PCI in this case), due to a motherboard bios flash, the PCI latency option had vanished from system bios, but I wanted to keep some other setting that the flash enabled, so I lived with the GFX card taking upto 8x as much PCI time as the soundcard (causing sound and minor FPS issues).
I ran this and set my PCI latency to 64 for my GeForce.
And now on this "very poor" gaming card, I can get very nice FPS from HL2 and Doom 3.
I hope this can fix some of your problems too. Good Luck.
*Software used:
<a href='http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=951' target='_blank'>PCI latency tool</a>
<a href='http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/index.html?dir=dload&location=sware_dl_3264&langx=en&a=' target='_blank'>SiSoft Sandra</a> (Find out motherboard chipset, for finding drivers for it)
<a href='http://www.guru3d.com/rivatuner/' target='_blank'>RivaTuner</a>
*MotherBoard Chip Manufacturers. (Most common, I might miss yours.)
<a href='http://www.via.com.tw' target='_blank'>For VIA Chitsets.</a>
<a href='http://www.sis.com' target='_blank'>For SIS Chipsets.</a>
<a href='http://www.intel.com' target='_blank'>For Intel Chipsets.</a>
<a href='http://www.ali.com.tw' target='_blank'>For ALi Chipsets.</a>
<a href='http://www.amd.com' target='_blank'>For AMD Chipsets.</a>
<a href='http://www.nvidia.com' target='_blank'>For nVidia Chipsets.</a>
This guide has been compiled by knowledge found in my own efforts to improve my graphics card performance. Just now I own a GeForce FX 5500, and for all the put downs it gets, after doing all this I manage an FPS of 120 from HL2, with timerefresh scores of upto 260. Not bad for a crap card in my opinion. (Its on stock clocks @ 270Mhz/400Mhz) Before this I was lucky to get 60. This is on High settings, only shader is low, of course Anti Aliasing is off and texture compression is trilinear, but its in DX9 mode.
Firstly, you need to find the best drivers for your hardware, this is not the newest by any means.
<!--QuoteBegin-guru3d forums+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (guru3d forums)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
GeForce 6 Series: 71.84, 67.03, 66.93, 66.81, 66.31, 66.00, 65.73, 62.20, 61.77, 61.76, 61.71, 61.34.
GeForce FX Series: 66.93, 66.00, 61.77, 61.71, 61.34, 61.12, 61.11, 60.72, 56.72, 56.64, 53.03.
GeForce 4 Ti Series: 56,72, 53.03, 44.67, 45.23, 44.03, 43.51, 43.45, 41.09, 40.72, 30.82.
GeForce 3 Series: 56.72, 44.03, 43.51, 43.45, 40.72, 30.82.
TNT2 & GeForce 2 & 4MX Series: 56.72, 45.32, 45.23, 43.51, 43.45, 30.82, 22.50.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Using this as a guide I found that the 56.64 drivers gave me the best performance, and not to much less image quality.
You should then go and get a set of drivers for your motherboard, its manufacturers web page will either link you to them, or have its own set there, again, newest may not necessarily mean best.
I noticed some performance boost at this point, but I wanted more, I was fed up with ~ 60 FPS in base once the PG activated, and Aliens poured in.
I turned to rivatuner, a nice little program, that can change a hell of alot of options.
One that caught my eye was this.
<img src='http://img274.echo.cx/img274/6264/compatability4lf.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
The checked one that is. A simple command that allows rivatuner to force your detonator/forceware drivers to comply as much as possible with your motherboards hardware.
Three Bios tweaks I used are:
Enable AGP fastwrites.
Enable Sideband addressing.
AGP aperture size 128.
Lastly I found a nice program that alters the PCI latency of my peripherals (APG falls under PCI in this case), due to a motherboard bios flash, the PCI latency option had vanished from system bios, but I wanted to keep some other setting that the flash enabled, so I lived with the GFX card taking upto 8x as much PCI time as the soundcard (causing sound and minor FPS issues).
I ran this and set my PCI latency to 64 for my GeForce.
And now on this "very poor" gaming card, I can get very nice FPS from HL2 and Doom 3.
I hope this can fix some of your problems too. Good Luck.
*Software used:
<a href='http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=951' target='_blank'>PCI latency tool</a>
<a href='http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/index.html?dir=dload&location=sware_dl_3264&langx=en&a=' target='_blank'>SiSoft Sandra</a> (Find out motherboard chipset, for finding drivers for it)
<a href='http://www.guru3d.com/rivatuner/' target='_blank'>RivaTuner</a>
*MotherBoard Chip Manufacturers. (Most common, I might miss yours.)
<a href='http://www.via.com.tw' target='_blank'>For VIA Chitsets.</a>
<a href='http://www.sis.com' target='_blank'>For SIS Chipsets.</a>
<a href='http://www.intel.com' target='_blank'>For Intel Chipsets.</a>
<a href='http://www.ali.com.tw' target='_blank'>For ALi Chipsets.</a>
<a href='http://www.amd.com' target='_blank'>For AMD Chipsets.</a>
<a href='http://www.nvidia.com' target='_blank'>For nVidia Chipsets.</a>
Comments
MINE: a true crap, nVIDIA GeForce4 MX440 64 MB!
<!--emo&::fade::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/fade.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='fade.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pudgy.gif' /><!--endemo-->
"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Die you bastard aliens!"
How will this improve on my 190fps in the HL engine?
Or my 100fps average in HL2?
Remember kids, that the human eye can't normally see anything faster than 24-27fps.
How will this improve on my 190fps in the HL engine?
Or my 100fps average in HL2?
Remember kids, that the human eye can't normally see anything faster than 24-27fps. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
You CANNOT get more than 100 FPS in the HL1 Engine. developer 1 justs calculates what you WOULD get.
How will this improve on my 190fps in the HL engine?
Or my 100fps average in HL2?
Remember kids, that the human eye can't normally see anything faster than 24-27fps. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
While it is true that you can't see more than about 28.6fps, when your framerate approaches this lower limit, you are more apt to see skipping, and even though you don't notice the skipping, it can cause headaches when viewed on CRT monitors (like the ones many of use still use, myself included).
<a href='http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm</a>
Good guide DarkFrost, although I'm a die-hard ATi user.
People can easily perceive the difference between 100 fps and 80 fps, the same as People can perceive the difference between 40 fps and 20 fps.
In the same way people can hear a bat calling on another, even although officially we shouldn't be able to hear their calls.
Thats the beauty of animals, every one is different, there is no standardisation. All our sense limitations are theoretical limitations, as what is one persons limit is not someone elses.
They say dogs can only see in black and white, I say the dog they used as this test as colour blind, I know many dogs who can differentiate between cubes who's only difference is their colour.
Perhaps you fall into the category of not being able to see past 30fps, but unfortunately I don't, I cannot play any game at that frame rate, as it makes me feel unbelievably ill, and the feeling lasts a few days from 30 minutes of playing.
But unfortunate as it sounds, we don't actually see in frames per second. Our eyes can see as much information as is entered into them, its how individual brains handle the information that changes.
All these species based limitations on the senses were done many years ago. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they were tested on one individual per species.
Lets not turn this into biology class though.
Bluenovember: Do you have a low/mid/high range card? Would it be possible for you to add the ATi possible sollutions? I can't try out sollutions as I don't have a low end radeon to try things out on.
MINE: a true crap, nVIDIA GeForce4 MX440 64 MB!
<!--emo&::fade::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/fade.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='fade.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pudgy.gif' /><!--endemo-->
"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Die you bastard aliens!" <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
how can you call that crap? i hawe 35895389 year old geforce 2 and thats even crappier
You lucky bastards... You have atleast some good cards...
MINE: a true crap, nVIDIA GeForce4 MX440 64 MB!
how can you call that crap? i hawe 35895389 year old geforce 2 and thats even crappier <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Cause the GeForce4 MX series is infact the same as the GF2 series, with a new name! I can't even play CS:S or HL2 without crashing due to GFX errors and lack of gfx power.