Two Demi-Newb Mapping Questions

[Yendor]

I've been making maps for a long time on-and-off.  I'm now taking things to the next level, concerning myself with lighting and performance.  This has yielded two questions:

1.  How does one measure frame rate performance? Is there a standard metric for this?  I've heard about r_speeds and timedemo and such, but how would I get a hard number that I can compare to, say, a stock map?

2.  is there a way to restore Quake2 to it's stock factory video settings?  I've tweaked things over the years, and now I notice that my new map looks vastly different on the three different computers on which I have Q2 installed.

I still run bone-stock v3.2 Stock Q2.  I've has no luck with the R1Q2 client - it chunks up a storm even on the fastest computer, and it's video rendering seems to kill the textures, leaving almost featureless planes.

Cheers!
~Y

[Yendor]

Aww... no responses?  Well, I have something for all those who know, who aren't helping:

[PANTONE 7717C]

haha good one! 

1. -  Ok, clever mapdesign is still important but framerate depends on the hardware setup nowadays. Nonetheless a Q2 map with an average polycount of say 10000 will make a fast PC work harder than when it's running one of the newest games (because of the newer and smarter technology used in those games.)
So the safest way to keep your map's performance in check is to watch the overall polycount. "r_speeds 1"  displays the polycount for the current POV.  Wpoly = worldpolys/solid structures, epoly = entitypolys (high epoly numbers usually occur in wide open maps where lots of stuff is visible.)
But when comparing the performance of stockmaps you have to keep in mind that there is a difference between Singleplayer maps and Deathmatch maps. For singleplayer maps it's okay to have higher r_speeds and slower peformance because game pace is slower and there generally is less action.

For deathmatch maps it's best to compare your map's r_speeds to the largest of the stockmaps, q2dm8. The r_speeds in that map peak just over a 1000 in some places which is peanuts nowadays. In fact it is not a problem if your map has r_speeds of 1500-2000 as long as it only occurs in a couple of places.
But if 1500-2000 is the average polycount throughout the entire map and you've also jam-packed it with entities then it will become slow and laggy for people with older PC's and/or weak vidcards. Personally when I'm building a map I strive for the r_speeds to stay under 1000 at all times although it's not a problem if it gets higher in some places.

(Always design your maps according to the "Line of sight" principle. If you can peek into a part of an area, no matter how far away it is then that area and everything in it will be drawn. Especially when you have two huge open areas in your map you got to make sure those areas cannot 'see' each other. Try to block that line of sight by adding a corridor with enough turns so that it's impossible for the player to peek into both areas no matter where he's standing.)


2. - Quake2 comes with a default cfg (found in pak0.pak with the name default.cfg). This config will be used and copied to baseq2 when the game can't find your customized one.  So, you could just move your cfg out of the baseq2 folder (keep it as a backup) and the soon as you start Q2 everything will be default, including the controls(!) and the lighting... which, at its default is very dark.

Or visit this link, it lists all stock Q2 cvars and commands with their default values:  http://www.cs.rochester.edu/research/quagents/console_commands.htm

[Yendor]

Awesome - thanks! 

So r_speed numbers are actually poly counts - got it.  That's not confusing at all. 

Turns out my map averages 1600 in almost all areas.  Arrgh.  The price of beauty, or at least some natural-looking stone work.  Oh well, I'm going with it - even on a P4-1.6Ghz with some older vid card, it seems OK.  I'll be doing more testing, and optimizing things with well-placed hint brushes and such.

Thanks very much for the info!

[Jay Dolan]

1600 world polys is no big deal for today's hardware -- even running stock Quake2 engines.  I would say anything GeForce 2 or later, and backed by a 1GHz CPU or better, could chew up that kind of map no problem.  The "1000 wpolys" guideline is a really a relic from Quake2's Hay Day.  Hardware (and video drivers) have evolved a lot since then.