UT2004, Far Cry - CPU and VPU (nv40, R420)

[overclocked]

Also, I wonder if upcoming DOOM3 as well as Half-Life2 are more like UT2004 or Far Cry or mixture of both ?

For instance, Half-Life2 with its second generation HAVOK for physics will require lots of resources from CPU, I believe. And it seems very shader intensive game as well. Ah.. it sounds like mixture of both. Lots of CPU power as well as VPU. Probably means crawling with current generation hardware.

A thing that comes to mind here is that when we see this shaderintensive games is that say playing at 1024x768 with 4xAA and 8xAF i think it should be a sweet spot for these games(or i wish..hmm)..
But the "minimum" fps will depend on the CPU as always.
But i usually cranks the IQ setting up to the point where i´m GPU limited, guess everybody does that..

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Ergo, the EAX driver itself is chewing up too much CPU rather than offloading the work to the onboard DSPs, which begs the question, why not?

This parallels the situation of video encoding/decoding, where many video cards do not fully accelerate all parts of the video codec pipeline, including some of the most expensive parts, which means it has to be done on the CPU.

My point is, that *is* how EAX works. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. As soon as you start doing EAX type stuff, and using all those extra "soundscape" type features that don't exist in the software sound system (ie more work), you end up with a bigger performance hit.

Just another example of Creative's general rubbishness. Other sound systems, such as Aureal, Sensura and Soundstorm have/had a much lower performance hit, often with better features and sound.

 

[Colourless]

What really doesn't make sense is EAX is all done on the DSP, but yet it saps your cpu so much. Something in Creatives drivers is totally busted with 3D Sound + EAX. If the number of voices increases, your performances goes down... and down.... and down.... and never comes back!

 

[ShePearl]

Shouldn't do, but it does. "Disagreeing" doesn't change the facts of the matter. That's why (for instance) Epic tells you to disable EAX if you experience performance problems. In fact, the pop-up help in UT2K3/4 warns you as you try to set this in game, that it reduces performance.

I have replaced SB Live 5.1 with Audigy 2 ZS. In my experience with SB Live 5.1 EAX in games does take up some of CPU resources, and this can be quite obviously noticeable in some situations. But with Audigy2 ZS, I just cannot tell the difference in performance between non-EAX, and EAX. Audigy 2 ZS does seem to work well, and better than old SB Live series in terms of hardware acceleration - low CPU utilization. Definately, in my experience.

 

[bloodbob]

What really doesn't make sense is EAX is all done on the DSP, but yet it saps your cpu so much. Something in Creatives drivers is totally busted with 3D Sound + EAX. If the number of voices increases, your performances goes down... and down.... and down.... and never comes back!

Okay this is all off topic but whinging about Create SB cards my SB PCI128 Original is @#$@ its missing 1/2 the features of the newer cards and EAX doesn't even work in 1/2 the games IE diablo 2.

 

[jb]

There is are consol command you can use in UT2k4 that displays all of your rendering stats, how much time is spent doing AI, Phsyics, ect. Might be useful if your wondering where thoes Frames are going:

stat xxxx where xxxx can be:

anim: toggles animation statistics display
audio: Toggles ON/OFF audio statistics.
default: Resets all displays to default visibility
fps: Toggles ON/OFF frames per second statistics.
game: Toggles ON/OFF game statistics.
hardware: Toggles ON/OFF hardware statistics.
histograp: toggles histograph statistics display
ligh: toggles dynamic light statistics display
matinee: toggles matinee statistics display
net: Toggles ON/OFF net statistics.
none: Switches all statistics OFF.
render: Displays rendering statistics.
reset: same as DEFAULT
xboxmem: toggles XBox memory statistics display

 

[ShePearl]

There is are consol command you can use in UT2k4 that displays all of your rendering stats, how much time is spent doing AI, Phsyics, ect. Might be useful if your wondering where thoes Frames are going:

stat xxxx where xxxx can be:

xboxmem: toggles XBox memory statistics display

xbox memory ? Why is it there on PC UT2004 ?

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

xbox memory ? Why is it there on PC UT2004 ?

Probably just legacy. IIRC, The UT2K4 engine is derived from UT2K3 which in turn is derived from a fork off Unreal Championship.

 

[KimB]

Probably just legacy. IIRC, The UT2K4 engine is derived from UT2K3 which in turn is derived from a fork off Unreal Championship.

The UT2k3 engine definitely wasn't derived from an X-Box project. This is more likely due to the engine being cross-platform, with the option there for developers who are using the engine to make an X-Box game.

 

[Entropy]

But the "minimum" fps will depend on the CPU as always.
But i usually cranks the IQ setting up to the point where i´m GPU limited, guess everybody does that..

I never do that. I always see to that the minimum framerate is determined by the CPU. Having the graphics drop the fps even lower is typically too painful to even consider.
There is a window however between "always CPU limited" where your gfx-card has unused potential, and "always GPU limited" where the frame rate is typically atrocious. That's the window I try to hit, where the graphics are improved, while the minimum frame rates don't take a significant hit.

I never give priority to graphics over playability and control. Ever.
Small imperfections in filtering vs. bursting blood vessels over crummy control is a very easy choice to make.

 

[hovz]

i can set every setting as low as possible, every graphics feature off, and turn off all sound. when i am in a big fight my fps will always plummet. thats called bad programming. ut2004 does not have anything noteworthy enough to warrent such massive framerate drops on the lowest settings. hell even on the highest settings theres nothing so spectacular about the graphics or physics that you can understand why the fps is dropping.

 

[Diplo]

graphics != game engine

 

[hovz]

http://www.firingsquad.com/guides/unreal_tournament_2004/default.asp

perfect example of how badly programmed the engine in 2k4 is

 

[jb]

The UT2k3 engine definitely wasn't derived from an X-Box project. This is more likely due to the engine being cross-platform, with the option there for developers who are using the engine to make an X-Box game.

Yeap from my understanding this is the best reason. However most of the basic code came from DE that at one time was working on the xbox version, so many of the important classes are in the packages that start with x

xweapon
xgames
xeffects

ect

 

[jb]

http://www.firingsquad.com/guides/unreal_tournament_2004/default.asp

perfect example of how badly programmed the engine in 2k4 is

After playing around with some of things the engine can do, I have to disagree. Epic has made an engine that is very highly configurable and more important easily to change. It runs fine on my hardware and gives some great visuals. Shure its not Farcry nor can it render what Farcry can. But its not trying to be what Farcry is.

 

[poly-gone]

perfect example of how badly programmed the engine in 2k4 is

Know what hovz, I'm getting really tired of you pointing your finger at the Unreal Engine and Epic folks. Why don't you build a better engine and show Tim Sweeney how things are really done?

 

[Diplo]

perfect example of how badly programmed the engine in 2k4 is

Exactly what are your qualifications to make this judgement, given you've clearly got no clue about programming or what goes into a game engine?

The UT2K engine is one of the most versatile engines around, powering everything from Splinter Cell to XIII to latest Rainbow Six. (Do you think all their programmers are idiots because they licensed it?) It is totally cross platform (UT2K launched on PC, Mac and Linux and versions have run on XBox and PS2). However, what makes it powerful is it's flexibility, extensibility and ease of content creation. It is regarded as having the best netcode and AI around and supports vehicles (road and flying). UScript allows modders to easily change every aspect of the game as well as allowing mutators to be used in UT to add more variety. This kind of flexibility obviously comes at some cost. But if it wasn't flexible there wouldn't be any damn game!

What you fail to understand is that large fire-fights in UT are much more demanding than an average game, since the game is far more fast paced than Far Cry and deals with many more quick moving AI bots. You don't get anything like the battles you see in UT2004 going on in Far Cry or other single player games. The AI in UT has to cope with lots of different game types, including complex team games, and each bot has their own personality and behavioral patterns. They can cope intelligently with driving vehicles (as teams) across huge and complex levels.

I just can't believe you have the childish audacity to make such idiotic and uninformed comments. This is not an AOL chatroom, so show some respect to programmers who have more talent in their left finger than you will ever amass in your ungrateful, petulant little life. Go and look at Epic's latest tech and then tell me they are rubbish programmers.

 

[hovz]

if the idiot above me read the thread he would know this doesnt apply to bot matches . why should i have to be able to do something better to criticize? if thats the case none of you can criticize tomb raider because not 1 of you could do any better

 

[hovz]

besides, as an end user why the hell should i care how many games their engine powers? all that matters to the end user is how the game HE PAID FOR runs. and ut does not run good for what it offers

 

[Ostsol]

I really think that if one modded FarCry to have UT2004 gameplay and content the performance wouldn't be any better. Depending on how much of FarCry's gameplay content is coded in Lua or C++ there might be a difference in the CPU limitation threshold, but performance patterns would otherwise remain similar.