Frame drops on decent system.

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Carbon
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Re: Frame drops on decent system.

Post by Carbon »

Well, I don't want to criticize your detective work, but I also noted from the original thread that your testbed was this configuration:
SYS RAM 1GB, DDR 400
GFX RAM 512MB, DDR 640
This is pretty archaic hardware mate (AGP card?). Also, I think we need to know which drivers you are using and it looks also like you are either running Win98 or XP in no VRAM (ugly) mode. I think all of this may be too old to really be meaningful on modern systems.

I just ran UT:

GPU-Z peaked out my 280x video memory at 732MB in UT (dynamic: always between 518 ~ 732MB, compared to 160MB in Windows) with OGL, extreme textures, etc. 1920x1200 resolution, 24xAA, 16xAF, 16 bots in DM2019 by Angelheart, whose maps are usually quite demanding. I think that VRAM is indeed used by UT with AMD cards.
sn260591
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Re: Frame drops on decent system.

Post by sn260591 »

I use D3D9 1.3 and OpenGL 3.6.
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Phuckphucker
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Re: Frame drops on decent system.

Post by Phuckphucker »

Don't want to interrupt anything. But whats the best choice for a AMD gpu then?
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Re: Frame drops on decent system.

Post by sn260591 »

Phuckphucker wrote:Don't want to interrupt anything. But whats the best choice for a AMD gpu then?
D3D9, but you better try both.
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Dr.Flay
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Re: Frame drops on decent system.

Post by Dr.Flay »

@Carbon
I agree not relevant to a modern system, and based on 1 (highly optimised) PC, but until now nobody has ever bothered to reply with their own tests.
Until we can get people with a mix of CPUs, MoBo chipsets (v.important) and GFX cards to submit results, it is still not very scientific.
Ask people to test their internet speeds and they are all over it, but this is taking f***ing years !

The tests were on my old indestructible Asus MoBo. Still the most responsive, robust and reliable PC I've had.
Executive paging was disabled in XP. That is the only change to RAM usage, so it only writes to disk when it actually runs out of RAM.

No changes were made to the OS or drivers, between swapping renderers, and both renderers were set with the same options.

The major issue that PC has with GFX card incompatibility is using an ATI card and drivers, with an nForce chipset and drivers.
nVidia and ATI do not play happily together.
I should get round to doing some tests on this new completely AMD / ATI Win 7 system, which has been tweaked almost the same as the XP box.
Executive paging is disabled again, but more because it is using an SSD so I don't want excessive disk-writes.

Generally I tend to find that the DX modes are happier with overlay so I can see my Trillian chat or the raptr interface ingame, and capturing / streaming is more reliable.
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Carbon
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Re: Frame drops on decent system.

Post by Carbon »

Dr.Flay wrote:@Carbon
I agree not relevant to a modern system, and based on 1 (highly optimised) PC, but until now nobody has ever bothered to reply with their own tests.
Until we can get people with a mix of CPUs, MoBo chipsets (v.important) and GFX cards to submit results, it is still not very scientific.
Ask people to test their internet speeds and they are all over it, but this is taking f***ing years !

The tests were on my old indestructible Asus MoBo. Still the most responsive, robust and reliable PC I've had.
Executive paging was disabled in XP. That is the only change to RAM usage, so it only writes to disk when it actually runs out of RAM.

No changes were made to the OS or drivers, between swapping renderers, and both renderers were set with the same options.

The major issue that PC has with GFX card incompatibility is using an ATI card and drivers, with an nForce chipset and drivers.
nVidia and ATI do not play happily together.
I should get round to doing some tests on this new completely AMD / ATI Win 7 system, which has been tweaked almost the same as the XP box.
Executive paging is disabled again, but more because it is using an SSD so I don't want excessive disk-writes.

Generally I tend to find that the DX modes are happier with overlay so I can see my Trillian chat or the raptr interface ingame, and capturing / streaming is more reliable.
Well, for what it's worth, I put up my numbers, though without screenshots, on a fairly new and powerful system: Win7 Ult x64, 4770K, Asus-Z87-Pro, 8GB 1866, Asus R9 280x TOP 3GB (14.6 Cats), Samsung Evo 256GB SSD. The GFX card is certainly being used typically around 500MB.

My page file is not disabled; not that it would matter as the page file is not utilized with UT given the RAM and GRAM avaliable. As for the writes to an SSD, I know this drive will last longer than I will want it to, so I am not really concerned. SSD prices are falling daily as well, as size is increasing. Besides, they are proving much more robust than were initially given credit. Frankly, tweaking the page file is very XP and really won't show much benefit in Win 7. One can alternately move it off the SSD, but maintain it without worry, though this seems a bit silly; the page file, if used, benefits greatly from being on an SSD.

Anyhow, I think it is safe to say that UT uses VRAM on AMD cards, except on perhaps very old systems.
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Re: Frame drops on decent system.

Post by Phuckphucker »

if anyone is interessted. I did some small research. I used fraps together with "frafs" and tested both d3d9 1.3 and opengl 3.7 for FPS and Frame Latency. I ran the Intro several times on both renderer. On my end d3d9 (HD7950) performs slightly better. However I don't know how big the impact will be on a real server.
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Carbon
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Re: Frame drops on decent system.

Post by Carbon »

Phuckphucker wrote:if anyone is interessted. I did some small research. I used fraps together with "frafs" and tested both d3d9 1.3 and opengl 3.7 for FPS and Frame Latency. I ran the Intro several times on both renderer. On my end d3d9 (HD7950) performs slightly better. However I don't know how big the impact will be on a real server.
I think you might be mixing things up a bit mate. Frame latency is about how long it takes to draw each successive frame, quite different from Frames Per Second (FPS) in that it doesn't count the number of frames in a given time period, but times the interval between successive frames being rendered. Nothing to do with online gaming or servers; that would be lag or just 'latency', reflected in one's 'ping' output.

Frame latency will have an impact on gaming, but not in the sense you are thinking. The effect is localized to one's computer and has no effects outside of the graphics subsystem. If your system is running with low FPS (or high frame latency which typically results in 'stuttering'), that will affect the experience but again, quite separate from anything to do with the networking or online influence.
Phuckphucker
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Re: Frame drops on decent system.

Post by Phuckphucker »

I know the difference. I checked both, fps and frame latency. And D3D9 gives me the better results. It's minor, but it's better on my end.
From what i tested all i can say is that D3d9 gives me higher minimum FPS and lower frame latency. But tbh it's nothing worth to be discussed because the difference is so small at least on my end.
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