slow UT2003 performance in Linux compared to windoze

[dbd]

I have at least 10fps less in Linux than Windoze (98se - the 2nd fastest windoze OS for games(2nd to 95) when playing UT2003. This does not occour with the flyby benchmark, but does occour with the botmatch benchmark and for normal games which makes me think it is the processor (I have an 850Mhz athalon, 256MB RAM and Geforce 4 Ti4200 128MB so in both OS' the bottleneck is the processor).
I have tried stopping loads of the startup things and loading windowmaker as the GUI instead of KDE3, but neither make a difference. Are there anyspecific startup things I can stop which I may have missed or anything else I can change or is Linux (or Linux OpenGL) just less efficient when using my processor?

Thanks in advance for any help

[DarkLLord]

It's just an idea but did you optimize your kenel for your specific system ?!?

I can play halflife under linux using wine as fast as under the other operating system (but fare more stable) and I have the card only running at half speed

[dbd]

No, I have't done anything to the kernel as far as I know. I just did a normal install of Mandrake 9.0
What kind of changes would you suggest, and how would I do it?
Thanks

[tspinillo]

Are you using Nvidia's AGP or the kernel AGPGART? I was using the kernel GART for my 845G board, but noticed a slowdown when going to the 3123 drivers. I killed AGPGART and loaded the NVAGP and there was an immediate
speedup in Unreal2003.

A shot in the dark.

Good luck,

T

[dbd]

I used the drivers from the nvidia site, source RPMs becasue Mandrake 9.0 isn't supported yet, if thats what you mean?

[tspinillo]

Check the setting for NvAgp in your XF86Config. Using "1" will make it use
Nvidia's AGP driver. Also make sure the kernel's own AGPGART is not loaded or getting loaded.

T

[BigPenguin]

There's plenty of advice around about "tweaking" the drivers and the kernel, but I don't think your nvidia card or the linux kernel are at fault. Is this depriciation in performance happen on all games or *just* ut2003? The reason I ask is because the OpenGL renderer was just an after-thought in ut2003's development and is *no where* as fast as the windows Direct3D renderer. I'm not sure about the windows OpenGL renderer, but it should be used for comparing performance.

[Chalnoth]

I've done a number of benchmarks, and the OpenGL renderer is very close in performance to the Direct3D renderer in UT2k3 (Well, at least in the demo...don't yet have the full version...soon, though...). Additionally, the framerate was generally a bit more stable with OpenGL (Yes, it's not a big deal, but I really didn't like the initial stuttering in D3D mode...).

[Chalnoth]

Actually, I'd like to add an update to the above statement.

Here are some statistics using the CTF-Citadel flyby in the UT2k3 demo as a benchmark. I pulled the data out of the CSV's in the Benchmark/CSVs folder, put 'em in excel, and did a few calcs.

System:
GeForce4 Ti 4200, Athlon XP 2000+, nForce2 w/ 256MB RAM (266MHz, Agressive settings), 41.03 nVidia reference drivers.

Settings:
800x600x32, 8x anisotropic filtering, 2x FSAA (These are the settings I normally play at).

Results:
Average framerate:
Direct3D: 58.0 fps
OpenGL: 70.6 fps

RMS (standard deviation of the time per frame):
Direct3D: 5.8ms
OpenGL: 4.3ms

For those who have not taken, or just forgotten, statistics, RMS is a measure of how far the framerates deviate from the average framerate. That means that the lower the RMS, the more stable the framerate.

As you can see clearly, then, at these detail settings, not only is OpenGL (Under Windows 2000) faster, but it also provides a more stable framerate.

I guess I had just never compared the two OS's in high-quality mode before.

[dbd]

There is not much performance difference between Directx and OpenGL in windows. I don't know if it is just UT - its the only proper opengl game I play in linux, I have no other games as dependant on hardware power that work in linux (tux racer dont count!)