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Jhedron
n00b
Joined: 07 Jun 2005
Posts: 45
Location: Michigan, USA
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 Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 1:49 am Post subject: UT2004, SDL, and AGP memory allocation |
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I've recently began playing UT2004 under Linux again, but I'm not sure everything is as good as it could be. If I run UT2004 with the libSDL included with the package, I get the following message in UT2004.log:
| Code: | | Log: OpenGL: allocated 32 MByte of AGP memory |
I have a GeForce FX5200 with 128 MB of memory. Why is UT2004 only allocating 32? I've also tried symlinking my system libSDL, but that yields the following message in UT2004.log:
| Code: | | Log: WARNING: Couldn't allocate AGP memory - turning off support for GL_NV_vertex_array_range |
Interestingly enough, there is no perceptible difference in performance between the two libs, and no meaningful variation in the FPS (according to STAT FPS).
I'm wondering why the package libSDL can allocate AGP memory (albeit only 1/4 of the total), buy my system libSDL cannot. It seems like this could indicate a deeper problem in my system. AGP does appear to be enabled:
| Code: | $ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/status
Status: Enabled
Driver: AGPGART
AGP Rate: 8x
Fast Writes: Enabled
SBA: Enabled |
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Headrush
Watchman
Joined: 06 Nov 2003
Posts: 5597
Location: Bizarro World
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| Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 2:20 am Post subject: |
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I'm no expert, but I don't think that 32MB allocated means that only 32MB is being used of your video memory.
I think its related to system AGP memory.
As to the the difference between AGP allocation between the static libSDL and the system libSDL I don't know.
I tested the static version again on my system and it is the same as the system version and allocates 32MB AGP memory. (SO it might be your setup) |
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Jhedron
n00b
Joined: 07 Jun 2005
Posts: 45
Location: Michigan, USA
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| Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 4:28 am Post subject: |
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| Headrush wrote: | I'm no expert, but I don't think that 32MB allocated means that only 32MB is being used of your video memory.
I think its related to system AGP memory. |
You might be right. My own hardware experience is rather limited. I did find this post that sounds like it might be relevant, but I'm not quite sure how. I'll play around some more.
| Headrush wrote: | As to the the difference between AGP allocation between the static libSDL and the system libSDL I don't know.
I tested the static version again on my system and it is the same as the system version and allocates 32MB AGP memory. (SO it might be your setup) |
I had UT2004 installed on a previous install of Gentoo, and I had good results using the system libSDL. I'm not sure about the memory thing, since I never looked through the log file back then. I have been thinking it might be my setup, but I'm not sure where the problem might be. It looks like all the relevant use flags are enabled, my kernel config has:
| Code: | CONFIG_AGP=y
CONFIG_AGP_VIA=y |
and as my post above shows, AGP appears to be enabled properly. I'll do some fiddling with different settings tomorrow and see what happens. |
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Jhedron
n00b
Joined: 07 Jun 2005
Posts: 45
Location: Michigan, USA
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:28 pm Post subject: VARSize in UT2004.ini |
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I've managed to improve performance when using the packaged libSDL. It seems that the amount of memory allocated has something to do with geometry caching. By default, an entry in the UT2004.ini file called VARSize is set to 32. I tried changing the value to 64, 96, and 128, though the largest amount of memory that's ever been allocated is 85 MB.
Changing this value resulted in two things:- Performance improved quite a bit.
- It now takes the ut2004 process almost a full minute or more to completely exit.
I'm not sure why (2) happened, but at least my performance is improving!
Now, if only I could figure out why my system libSDL isn't working... |
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Headrush
Watchman
Joined: 06 Nov 2003
Posts: 5597
Location: Bizarro World
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| Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 12:29 am Post subject: |
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| This makes sense. The VARSize determines the amount of static geometry objects to cache. |
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