[ShePearl]

After seeing many benchmarks based on those new nVIDIA GeForce 6800Ultra, and ATI X800XT (and Pro), I'd like to figure out what aspects of UT2004 make *more* CPU bound compared to Far Cry ??

I understand that both ATI, and nVIDIA cards are very fast, and unless they're run at very high resolutions such as 1600x1200 with max image quality settings, these cards are always *almost* bottlenecked by mainstream CPUs currently available in the market.

But, it seems to me that those new cards are bottlenecked more in UT2004 by CPUs than they're bottlenecked by CPUs in Far Cry.

What are the aspects of UT2004 which makes it more CPU dependent than Far Cry ?

CHeers.

[hovz]

well in far cry theres alot of physics and geometry. for whatever reason all polygons are still proccesed on the cpu, and then the details are added in the gpu. ud think by this point in time the gpu would be able to do more of the work but :/.

ut2k4 is just badly programmed. epics programmers have never been particularly good. the fact that on a top end cpu ur fps will still frequently drop to the 30s regardless of how low you put the settings is a testament to epics lack of programming knowledge. i could see if this was cutting edge technology, but come on, the fucking game is direct x 7 for the most part. very few scenes are over 75000 polys per frame....and theres virtually no advanced physics except for karma.

[poly-gone]

ut2k4 is just badly programmed. epics programmers have never been particularly good.

Ah, so that's why we've seen so many games based on the Unreal Engine !

the fact that on a top end cpu ur fps will still frequently drop to the 30s regardless of how low you put the settings is a testament to epics lack of programming knowledge.

I'm quite sure that I've never seen the fps drop below 30 in any of the levels, and that's on an AMD Athlon XP 2600+!

[Diplo]

Originally Posted by ShePearl

What are the aspects of UT2004 which makes it more CPU dependent than Far Cry ?

I think you are approaching this the wrong way. Your question should be:

What are the aspects of Far Cry that make it more GPU dependent than UT 2004?

[Chalnoth]

Originally Posted by ShePearl

What are the aspects of UT2004 which makes it more CPU dependent than Far Cry ?

CHeers.

I'd say it's because UT2k4 makes less use of pixel shader techniques and makes heavy use of a scripting language. Basically, the Unreal engine, while its performance is pretty good for the visuals, does still suffer because one of the largest motivating factors in designing the engine is ease of content creation.

[Diplo]

Originally Posted by hovz

ut2k4 is just badly programmed. epics programmers have never been particularly good.

Ignorant idiot. I do hope Vogel reads this, though, should give him a good laugh.

[hovz]

no its true, my fps low on ut is always lower than my low on far cry. there is NO excuse for that.

heres a little summary of the ut experience

cruising along at 85 fps, oops an enemy starts shooting at you, fps begins to flucuate rapidly between 60 and 85 making it harder to aim. uh oh now theres 3 people on ur screen shooting, fps hovers from 40 to the 60s. lots of fluctuation making it seem choppier than it is. uh oh ur in an open part of the map and theres 8 people on screen now ur fps is hopping down into the 20s and 30s frequently, which causes mouse lag. oh i know ill just turn on reduce mouse lag, uh oh cant do that as it drops ur fps an additional 10 to 20.

[Heathen]

So hovz, because your machine can't run UT2K4 well, it's a badly programmed engine?

[hovz]

because everyone i know who doesnt extreme overclock their system has the same problems?

[hovz]

the fact that on such a relativly simple game technically speaking your cpu bottlenecked on an athlon 64? u get what, 50 fps average? that means the lows are around 30? explain to me again how good this engine is!!!!

[poly-gone]

because everyone i know who doesnt extreme overclock their system has the same problems?

One million against a couple of people you know is a very small percentage !

Why don't you check out the Unreal Engine 3 videos and then comment on how good Epic programmers are?

[mastermind]

Have to agree with hovz 100%, this is one of the things that infuriates me the most about PC games. No matter how many dollars you throw at the minimum fps problem you can never quite eradicate it.

Carmacks engines far best, which is why I expect doom3 to maintain a consistent frame rate, unlike HL2 which looks like a great game, but if you watch any of the bink videos you can observe the same seemingly "random" and downright annoying frame rate drops, particularly when the screen turning. Even on the X800 demonstrations of Hl2 I can observe this.

Engine programmers should concentrate the most on making their fps counter consistent throughout all eventualities in their game. Instead they pile on the effects (HDR this pixel shader that) with complete disregard for the inevitability that their engine will slow to a crawl in certain situations even when run on bleeding edge hardware.

[hovz]

but unreal doesnt even have any effects, and the fps still jumps all over the place on the best of systems. i dont care about unreal 3, in 2006 then we can talk about it. im talking about 2k4 and 2k3 engine. its 2004, the game doesnt even have abive average graohics anymore and the fps cant even stay consistently above 60. again my fps is much steadie ron far crhy then on 2k4. far cry looks far far better than 2k4, is doing far far more work also. plz explain to me again how good epics engine is

[Heathen]

because everyone i know who doesnt extreme overclock their system has the same problems?

Sorry can't help that you and 'everyone' you know can't set up their PCs or the game correctly.

Carmacks engines far best, which is why I expect doom3 to maintain a consistent frame rate

Being locked to 60fps should help.

Engine programmers should concentrate the most on making their fps counter consistent throughout all eventualities in their game. Instead they pile on the effects (HDR this pixel shader that) with complete disregard for the inevitability that their engine will slow to a crawl in certain situations even when run on bleeding edge hardware.

Oooh games slow down when lots is occurring, Wow I wonder what could be causing that?

[Chalnoth]

Originally Posted by hovz

but unreal doesnt even have any effects,

Riiight. Try playing the game.

[hovz]

Originally Posted by Heathen

Sorry can't help that you and 'everyone' you know can't set up their PCs or the game correctly.

yes thats why i can run eveyr other game without constant random fluctuation. thats alo why every review states that ut2004 is completely cpu limited even on an athlon 64 3400+. i guess those hardware sites could learn alot about setting up systems? morons

[Ostsol]

Originally Posted by hovz

well in far cry theres alot of physics and geometry. for whatever reason all polygons are still proccesed on the cpu, and then the details are added in the gpu. ud think by this point in time the gpu would be able to do more of the work but :/.

What do you mean, exactly, by "all polygons are still processed on the CPU"?

Originally Posted by hovz

the fact that on such a relativly simple game technically speaking your cpu bottlenecked on an athlon 64? u get what, 50 fps average? that means the lows are around 30? explain to me again how good this engine is!!!!

Consider what's happening in-game when the framerate drops so low. There's alot of AI and physics algorithms in action, ya know. Also you must realize that virtually all gameplay and game content is coded not in C++, but in UnrealScript. UnrealScript, like Java, is probably compiled down to byte-code of some type and run on a virtual machine -- almost like a CPU in software. This makes it faster than interpretted high-level code, but always much slower than compiled C++ code. As such, I don't find it at all surprising that the Unreal Engine gets CPU bound.

[hovz]

Originally Posted by Chalnoth

Riiight. Try playing the game.

im referring to advanced effects used in recent games, not basic alpha blending and primitive smoke and fire effects. and ugly fake reflections

[hovz]

Originally Posted by Ostsol

What do you mean, exactly, by "all polygons are still processed on the CPU"?

Consider what's happening in-game when the framerate drops so low. There's alot of AI and physics algorithms in action, ya know. Also you must realize that virtually all gameplay and game content is coded not in C++, but in UnrealScript. UnrealScript, like Java, is probably compiled down to byte-code of some type and run on a virtual machine -- almost like a CPU in software. This makes it faster than interpretted high-level code, but always much slower than compiled C++ code. As such, I don't find it at all surprising that the Unreal Engine gets CPU bound.

all polys are first rendered on cpu, they are sent to the gpu to be textured, lit, and everything else.

theres no ai in multiplayer, and karma is only applied to player deaths and vehicles. so again where is all the physics work?

that also doesnt explain why far cry never stutters and drops like unreal does.

[poly-gone]

so again where is all the physics work?

I believe there's something called collision detection !

[hovz]

Originally Posted by poly-gone

I believe there's something called collision detection !

well every game has that? and the collision detection in 2k4 is VERY simplfied.

[see colon]

Carmacks engines far best, which is why I expect doom3 to maintain a consistent frame rate...

"Carmacks engines" seam to be simpler than the Unreal engine. he tends to make engines that concentrate on one or two features and accomplish them very quickly. games based on "Carmacks engines" tend to run slower, with "random" slowdown and hitches. just look at enemy territory or even jedi knight 2, huge fluxuations in framerate.
c:

[mastermind]

Oooh games slow down when lots is occurring, Wow I wonder what could be causing that?

Exactly they would know damn well what is causing the slow down, maybe then they should try and make it do less instead of creating something that they know will struggle on top end hardware. Its just that most PC games don't have the same attention/testing put into them to make sure insanely large frame rate drops don't occure.

If you look at panzer dragoon orta on the Xbox you will see that the game maintains a liquid smooth appearance throughout no matter how packed the screen gets. Sega have obviously taken the most intensive scene possible within the game, and made sure that engine is adjusted in such a way that it doesn't slow to a crawl at that point.

Its ok to make sacrifices in the visual department to maintain a smooth gameplay experience in my book. Instead of going overboard with the DX feature set they should instead invest the same time and effort into optimizations. Its too easy to think that the problem will go away when newer hardware comes out.

I'm not talking about unreal tournament here.

[Chalnoth]

With all of these complaints, you still haven't told us what your system is, hovz.

[Ostsol]

Originally Posted by hovz

all polys are first rendered on cpu, they are sent to the gpu to be textured, lit, and everything else.

That still doesn't make any sense at all. I can imagine vertices being transformed on the CPU -- in the days before T&L, but not any more. There's simply no point. Also, polygons cannot simply be set up on the CPU and then sent to the GPU to be texture, lit, etc. The video card processes vertices and performs triangle setup itself. Do you have a link or document to support your claim?

theres no ai in multiplayer, and karma is only applied to player deaths and vehicles. so again where is all the physics work?

Karma and vehicles do not make up for all the the physics in the game. Physics is always in action. Every move you make, every jump, every flak shard. The path of each bullet you fire from a chaingun, lance from a shock rifle, and bolt from the lightning gun must be traced across the geometry, checking for collisions. Assuming the use of octrees, the engine must iterate down through to the smallest octree nodes to find out where an object is and then test against all polygons and collision hulls to test for collision. Unless everyone is standing still and not doing anything, physics is always a big thing.

that also doesnt explain why far cry never stutters and drops like unreal does.

The only time I get stuttering in the UT2004 is when I have a bunch of stuff running in the back ground, taking up CPU cycles and memory. Actually, even then it's more of a general loss in framerate, but how can that not be expected?