Doom 3 [demo] slow on Linux

tactless · Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:01 pm Post subject: Doom 3 [demo] slow on Linux

First of all, my specs:
Abit NF7 (nForce II)
AMD Athlon XP 2600 @ 1830 Mhz
nVidia GeForce FX 5700
Vanilla 2.6 kernel

First of all, you can get a nice performance boost, much like in UT2004, by replacing the installed .so files in the doom3 with symlinks to your compiled ones. /me loves Gentoo

Secondly, to get an idea of what commands are available, note that that /cmdlist from Quake has become /listcmds, just as /cvarlist has become /listvars - and as always, supports wildcards. Also, the console now has tab-completion (now where are those three features in UT2004?).

First I must note that UT2004 works very well on my system (I'll try to get a benchmark), especially with the latest patches.

Now, in 800x600 at medium quality (and no AA) in the Doom3 demo, I get around 40fps, and that can drop to below 20 in crouded scenes. 1024x768, the native resolution for my LCD screen, makes that 10-30 FPS. Mind you, this is after switching to symlinks. It was worse before. But the really odd thing is that the menu itself only does about 60fps in 800x600, and 30fps at 1024x768! That just can't be right.

In Windows XP, however, things are much smoother. The game runs quite smoothly at 1024x768. I'd love to say what the framerate is, but for some odd reason, pressing the ~ key will not bring down the console in Windows XP! I have no idea why. My estimate would be that the game runs at 30-60 FPS in Windows.

Can you guys give your benchmarks (and benchmarking tips)?
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"If it wasn't for fog, the world would run at a really crappy framerate."

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Imek · Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:18 pm Post subject:

I just noticed too that the console didn't work in Windows, though I could've sworn I had it working with no problems before. Maybe you need to hold ctrl+alt+`? Failing that, the way I got around it was to just add the 'set com_showfps "1"' line to my DoomConfig.cfg file. Maybe that way you can get a better idea of the difference of performance between XP and Gentoo, because I'm not sure whether your performance is all that bad for your specs.

Oh, and thanks for the symlink tip, it helped. I should have thought of it earlier because I did the same thing with UT2004 already.
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Mr_Smiley · Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:27 pm Post subject:

I think its SHIFT + ~ to bring up console in windows.
Or you could add that line to your config

deathdruid · Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 1:49 am Post subject:

See the Doom 3 Tweak Guide for a description of all the cool console tricks you can do to squeeze out some more performance. I should try that symlink thing out myself.

5a\/ag3 · Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 2:11 am Post subject:

Control Alt ~ is the combo
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JoeG · Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 2:16 pm Post subject: Re: Doom 3 [demo] slow on Linux

feld · Guru Joined: 29 Aug 2004 Posts: 593 Location: WI, USA

yes can we please (for those of us who are somewhat n00bs yet) get a more detailed explanation as to of where the links are supposed to be looking at and exactly which files it was u simlinked?

thanks, it would b much appreciated!

-Feld

Imek · Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 4:04 pm Post subject: Re: Doom 3 [demo] slow on Linux

Imek · Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 4:19 pm Post subject:

oh, and some people seem to get improvements with this tip, but personally I don't see anything dramatic.
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tactless · Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 5:10 pm Post subject:

Okay, so I checked things out in Windows as well. First I must remind you that the settings are the same for both.

Menu
Windows: Menu runs at a constant 60-61 FPS.
Linux: Menu runs at 60 FPS initially, but once Mars zooms into view (higher LOD, I guess), it drops to 40.

Gameplay
Windows: 30-60FPS
Linux: 20-40FPS

And one particularily complex scene that I've run into - the infermary (after clearing everyone out, and taking a clear view from the far end of the room, over the tables to the window):
Windows: 20FPS
Linux: A whopping 11FPS.

So Linux is running the game 30%-50% slower for me! :cry:

This, by the way, is after the slight improvement (~10%) I got with the symlinks, and after bumping the image cache size (no effect). I do not wish to begin tweaking Doom's settings to get it to run faster - I want to see why it's running slower under the same settings! (diff'd the configuration files

)
I'm using nVidia's 6111 driver with a 2.6.7 vanilla kernel. AGP is disabled in the kernel - I'm letting nVidia's driver do that work (hasn't changed performance for me in the past). Running under Openbox (lighter than Id's recommend Fluxbox!).
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"If it wasn't for fog, the world would run at a really crappy framerate."

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Imek · Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 5:34 pm Post subject:

What do you get from 'cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/status'? I realised I had fastwrites off and turning them on gave me a performance boost.
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nyda · Apprentice Joined: 12 Aug 2004 Posts: 183

tactless · Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 6:27 pm Post subject:

Just enabled fast writes (SBA was enabled) - no change

Linux and Windows versions look the same to me. Both have the following line in their configuration:
seta com_videoRam "128".

Again, I've diffed the files, and fo und nothing.
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"If it wasn't for fog, the world would run at a really crappy framerate."

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nyda · Apprentice Joined: 12 Aug 2004 Posts: 183

Could be your windows driver settings. Are you sure you don't force some features off in windows? Trilinear filtering, mipmap detail etc? You might be using different driversettings on Linux.
Or it might just be slower for your system...

smerrima · n00b Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 47 Location: Boise, ID

How do you enable fast writes? Mine are disables as well.
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Imek · Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 7:55 pm Post subject:

smerrima · n00b Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 47 Location: Boise, ID

thanks
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tactless · Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 10:38 pm Post subject:

smerrima · n00b Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 47 Location: Boise, ID

I just got home and am testing the frame rate and am really dissapointed. Here are my system specs:

AMD 2600+ (2Ghz, 256k cache)
1Gb of DDR 333 Mhz RAM
Nvidia 5200 FX with 128 mb DDR

In game I am getting 10-16 fps most of the time. Also I have replace the .so files in /opt/doom3 with the ones I complied already.

This just can't be right...
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smerrima · n00b Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 47 Location: Boise, ID

fast writes seemed to gain me about 5fps
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ConVicTioN · Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 4:26 am Post subject:

Make sure memory usage is the same with com_showMemoryUsage
in windows and nix.
Here is some config mem tweaks for doom. I noticed this right away. Nix d3 was only using 32 meg. Windows auto manages this that is why so many get none to 15fps jump. Nix does what it is told 32 meg for textures in not even close to enuff. I set this to 256 and the game uses about 90 to 130 more depending on the action or objects in game. Q3 same way.

seta image_useCache "1" //sets to maunal cache
seta image_cacheMegs "256" //set this to half your total system ram
seta image_cacheMinK "20480" //change or will crash when useCache is fliped on
seta com_videoram "64" //Video Card Ram
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smerrima · n00b Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 47 Location: Boise, ID

ConVicTioN · Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 5:32 am Post subject:

What tweak guide? upsetchaps?
I dont look at tweak guides.
These commands been in ID games for a long time. Always been used the same way. As far as a tweak guide saying that more then 1 gig in ram dont worry about this tweak. Sounds like a windows tweak guide. Memory calls and allication is handled way different from nix to doze.
I have 512 in one machine and 2 gig in the other both had a nice jump is fps with seta image_cacheMegs //set this to half your total system ram . This is just my exp with this command on nix in ID games.
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tactless · Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 9:32 am Post subject:

No help

It's looking like a CPU utilization issue...
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"If it wasn't for fog, the world would run at a really crappy framerate."

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Tuna · Guru Joined: 19 Jul 2002 Posts: 485 Location: Berlin

hm.. played around with the nvidia-settings? i was dissapointed with the performance too.. but i noticed the games was 8x antialiased on my ti 4200 although the "overwrite apllication default" was unchecked and the slider was grayed out. setting the antialiasing option back to zero helped a lot.