Frame rate test results...

Cyanide · 2003-05-10, 04:11 PM

I did some testing the other day. I found that serious frame rate drops occur when there should be only very minimal or no frame rate drops. Here are my system specs:

1.5ghz AthlonXP
1gig DDR ram
geforce4 TI4600
soundblaster live Xgamer
WindowsXP pro
DirectX 9a
All my drivers are up to date
I play UT2003 on maximum settings in the biggest fights on the biggest maps in the game and never drop below 60fps.
My settings in game really don't matter. I play at 1024x768 and changing any graphical settings in game causes a fps variation of 1 or 2 depending on weather i'm turning settings up or down. Example: max detail with max res is only 1-2 fps slower than 1024x768 with all detail turned off.

Anyway. I found that firing your own weapon, even when staring directly at a wall with nothing else in view lowers the fps by 20-25 frames per second. Now this seems a little bit steep to me. I think something is wrong here. Firing your own gun with almost no polys to render should not drop your fps by 20 or more.

I also verified some testing doen by another beta tester that showed a sharp fps drop when looking in the direction of an active base. Even if said base and the action going on there are not visible at all.

Here is a link to my the screens i took to prove my testing.
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/...6453&members=1

edit: I just thought i would warn those of you who aren't in beta that just because your high end system runs other games perfectly does not mean it will run planetside. 20% or so of the people beta testing PS are having this issue and all of them have high end system. This is NOT going to be resolved in beta because the devs do not seem eiger to even acknowledge that it's a problem.

Nekota · 2003-05-10, 04:32 PM

Uhh... you won't actually see the difference in graphic settings unless you restart the game. I believe there's a warning to that effect. Just for giggles try settings at low after a restart. Also keep in mind that my version of the game seem to save settings often so if you left it at low when you logged off be sure it's still set at low before logging back in then let us know what the FPS was.

EDIT: On a side note. Debugging software is currently on along with optimzation turned off offering a double whammy while in Beta. You'd be safe to assume Gold version will be optimized so don't base your results on Beta as nessecerily the results you get from the final version.

QuickStar · 2003-05-10, 04:33 PM

wow , i never knew ur frames droppd that much

Kahar · 2003-05-10, 06:23 PM

How did you get the fps to show like that. I'd like to do some testing myself, but I haven't seen any commands to make the fps counter show. Do you have some extra program that does it or what?

OmnipotentKiwi · 2003-05-10, 06:34 PM

www.fraps.com

Cyanide · 2003-05-10, 08:22 PM

Originally posted by Nekota
Uhh... you won't actually see the difference in graphic settings unless you restart the game. I believe there's a warning to that effect. Just for giggles try settings at low after a restart. Also keep in mind that my version of the game seem to save settings often so if you left it at low when you logged off be sure it's still set at low before logging back in then let us know what the FPS was.

EDIT: On a side note. Debugging software is currently on along with optimzation turned off offering a double whammy while in Beta. You'd be safe to assume Gold version will be optimized so don't base your results on Beta as nessecerily the results you get from the final version.

Did i say that i did not restart the game after changing settings? No, infact i did restart the game after chaning my settings. I'm not stupid, i can read too ya know.

Also, i am not the only person to be experiencing these problems. Hundreds of other people in the beta forums with high end systems are reporting the same thing. Also, many people with much poorer systems report excellent frame rates. So something is definately wrong with the game. BTW, code optimizations do not happen overnight people. Stop dreaming. What you see at the end of beta is what retail will be. The CDs need time to print and the build that they have at the end of beta is almost completely identical to the one that is put on the retail CDs. If this is not fixed in a week or so, it will be a problem in retail too.