Triplebuffering

[WaltC]

For what it's worth UT2003 also seems to suffer from noticeable mouse lag when triplebuffering is enabled. Although my reducemouselag setting is set to false as well.

I get no mouselag under UT2 with triplebuffering enabled and mouselag = true. What I don't see at all is a performance boost from TripleB, so I keep it disabled.

I'd still like to know just what the "mouselag" setting actually does, though, as when I disable it I get a jump in frame rate--but I also skip frames every so often, too. I don't see a mouselag with the control disabled, though.

It's just hard for me to accept that this game is as cpu-limited as it appears as I've never known even a severely cpu-limited game to get perfectly flat fps rates up and down the resolution ladder, all the way to 1600x1200 with my 9700. It almost seems like there's something artificial going on to govern frame rates that isn't immediately apparent. No idea what it might be, though... (I thought Dungeon Siege was very cpu limited when I played through it with my 4600...but playing through again with the 9700--it's amazing to see some of the detail I missed with the 4600--I'm averaging over 2x the fps I got with the Ti4600 up to 76 fps in some areas of the game.)

 

[Reverend]

MSAA should fix that too.

Not MSAA alone but number of samples.

 

[Ollo]

Please forgive a silly question:

How do I enable/disable tripple buffering on a 9700 Pro? I seem to remember having that option on my old vooodoos and geforce cards on a driver tab. I cant find anything similar on my ATI. Perhaps I got it all wrong and it is only up to the app/game to turn it on/off.

 

[Randell]

Its app dependant on ATI cards and current driver sets.

 

[KimB]

Having just come off a Ti4600 for the 9700, I wouldn't characterize the visual differences as "small."

Visual differences do not equate to engineering differences.

That is, just because something looks tons better visually doesn't mean it was extremely hard to implement in hardware.

Aside: Has anybody else not been getting e-mail notification since Beyond3D experienced some downtime a short time ago?

 

[Grall]

I see people mentioning things about UT2 being CPU limited... How could that be?!

It's a simple run-around-and-shoot game for cripes sakes! What in that engine could POSSIBLY make it CPU limited on 2+ GHz CPUs?!?!? Other than simply farked-up coding, that is?


*G*

 

[Randell]

two things - whjich mean you obviously havent been following any discussion on UT2003 at all

i) Off line - AI for the bots
ii) the Karma physics engine for the Rag-doll effects.

Out of the 2 benchmark types - flybys are gpu limited, bot matchs are cpu limited.

 

[Grall]

Don't insult my intelligence, Randell.

Botmatch AI only applies to when bots are being used, which they AREN'T on the majority of servers on the web. And bots don't run on the client anyway. Besides, I really don't count bot AI as being an integral part of the 3D rendering engine itself. Do you?

Karma physics? Pah. Don't see any evidence of superior physics in the game, sorry. Anyway, I hardly doubt even if it had super-duper-nirvana-karma physics it would make the game CPU-limited on a 2GHz+ CPU. A 2GHz+ CPU is pretty damn fast as you know, and most of the time you really don't see any advanced physics going on anyway apart from MAYBE flakshots richocheting around, and I don't know if they even react to the full level geometry detail (like the individually modelled stones in some walls etc). Haven't checked that. Does such a simple thing as setting off explosives in water increase shock damage in that game?

It's not as if we got any particle smoke or fire effects or such going on you know. Bouncing gibs we've seen in games for decades soon. *Not* impressed!

Tired of game programmers schlepping together code that runs like ass even on the fastest hardware out there. There's simply NO justification for that!


*G*

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Don't insult the games physics
God knows how much work they placed into their physics engine.

 

[jb]

Grall,

I will be more than happy to post an email reply I got back from the Epic folks on why they toned down their effects like the water effects. At the UT mod summit they showed us how that buy just walking through water you can see the ripples/waves. However when we got the retial game I noticed that effect was removed (CliffyB refer to it in the Intel video as the Flubber Effect). Warren's reply was that these effects were removed do to the frame rate hit the physic that had to calculate the movements in the water. Same thing with the static object. I had a chance to play a DM SlaughtHouse level there where you could move the slabs of meat knock around cleavers and all sorts of lights. Once again that was toned way down for frame rate.

You have not seen the rag doll effect yet? If you watch the bot matches you can see the effects when a bot dies and falls to the ground (or tumbles over on things). Even better if you can set the mutator that slows down the falling corspes [/quote]

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Don't insult my intelligence, Randell....

...Tired of game programmers schlepping together code that runs like ass even on the fastest hardware out there. There's simply NO justification for that!

Well, Grall,

Perhaps you and your intelligence will see fit to ship your own on-line networked, fully cusomizable, 'rag-doll physics' enhanced, BOT AI capable, runs stably on a wide variety of windows and Liunx PC hardware configs, and is arguably the best (visually) "simple run-around-and-shoot" game.

Then, assuming it doesn't run like ass, there may be justification for your "outrage."

 

[Grall]

Joe,

What in my post made you feel personally insulted?
Just curious...

(Note I did not say UT was schlepped together, I just spoke in general. Try engaging brain before engaging flamethrower next time you respond to one of my posts!)

edit:
jb,
"Rag doll" physics. *yawn* I'd rather see they spent that CPU power on things like movable elements in the levels, things you say they actually took out. Yes, I've seen the rag doll physics, and been amazed by the fact a corpse never seems to stop moving after dying... Most impressive! I mean, really. In a kill-game like UT, you don't hang around watch corpses tumble about. Pointless, gimmicky feature.


*G*

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Grall,

Note I did not say UT was schlepped together...

Are we going to start playing these games?

If you are going to tell me that you were not implying UT was schlepped together (looking at your past two posts), then I can quite easily tell you that I did not accuse you of saying any such thing. I was speaking in "general" as well.

In short: as soon as YOU can ship a "simple" (and COMPARABLE in terms of features and visual quality to todays standards on PCs) FPS shooter that doesn't run "like ass", then maybe you wouldn't be so harsh to judge the overall quality of the code these titles are built on.

Try engaging brain before engaging flamethrower next time you respond to one of my posts!!

Those who live in glass houses....

Perhaps the next time you accuse someone of "insluting your intelligence" by merely making suggestions of what types of things eat CPU cycles, you would facilitate the more "brain engaging" conversation that you seek.

I mean, really. In a kill-game like UT, you don't hang around watch corpses tumble about. Pointless, gimmicky feature.

And this appears to be yet another case of "be careful what you wish for." How many times have "gamers" said things like "why do dead people "hang" off of ledges like there's an invisible floor? Why do dead people stick through walls, and don't "lie down stairs" like they 'should'?"

I personally think the 'rag doll' physics is a good thing. No, it's not "needed" for good gameplay, but it's simply one of those little things that helps to "suspend disbelief" when playing a game.

Face it. We don't "need" pretty graphics either. All we "really need" in a FPS is very basic architecure to move around, and "moving targets" to shoot at. We don't even "need" texcturing. We don't "need" complex models that look like humans, aliens, etc.

But all these things add to the "experience." And that's a good thing.

 

[Randell]

sigh,

if you dont like the answer...

It's only the botmatches that are soo CPU dependant, ie the built in benchmarks and offline/single player mode.

So my botmatch score is 50 and my flyby score is 100. Where did 50 fps go?

hmm extra geometry on bots, AI and physics.

Online, with broadband connection, it is more overall system dependant.

And yes the Karma physics may be only utilised in a gimmicky way at the moment. Maybe thats all current (recommended settings ie 1gig cpu's) are capable of.

 

[antlers]

It's not as if we got any particle smoke or fire effects or such going on you know. Bouncing gibs we've seen in games for decades soon. *Not* impressed!

In another thread there was a discussion on some smoke effects. Evidently there is one level with steam that will react/billow according to the action going on around it/shots fired through it.

Worth the CPU cycles it eats up? I don't know. But it's cool to see.

 

[Luminescent]

For simple particle effects and vertex animation, couldn't epic simply accelerate the effects through vertex shaders, which are supposedly enabled by default in the options menu. Does UT2 even use vertex shaders to any extent?

 

[Humus]

One thing not to forget is that the Unreal engine is very scriptable, and most levels have loads of scripts running for various effects. Half the game is more or less written in UnrealScript rather than C++.
The scripting language is a quite flexible object oriented language, but it's interpreted, thus eating quite some cpu cycles.

 

[jb]

jb,
"Rag doll" physics. *yawn* I'd rather see they spent that CPU power on things like movable elements in the levels, things you say they actually took out. Yes, I've seen the rag doll physics, and been amazed by the fact a corpse never seems to stop moving after dying... Most impressive! I mean, really. In a kill-game like UT, you don't hang around watch corpses tumble about. Pointless, gimmicky feature.

Grall,

I only picked one example to show my point. But there are a ton of others. Like it was said here the particle system interacts with the environment. All moveable objects are controlled by these very same physics. Take the bulldog vehicle out for a spin. All of its movement is handled by karma (traction, torque, inertia, acceleration, speed, ect).

 

[Tagrineth]

If you REALLY want to see the 'ragdoll effect' at work, go into a Bombing Run map and fall into the pit under a goal ring Now THAT is entertainment!

Even with the physics on 'low' it's damned realistic...