FPS Help, wtf?

[Arm0r]

Hmmm.... is the gpu fan working?

yep, my system has 4 fans in fact...so heat is not the issue   

[console]

23 constant fps

Hmmmmmm....  (285 here)

OK... I've done a little research on your Intel G33/G31 Express chipset family...

This should be the GMA 3100 graphics core, shown in the Table of GMA graphics cores and chipsets section:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA


Here's a review of the gaming performance of that chipset:

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3111&p=18

The G33 was incapable of running Battlefield 2 and Supreme Commander. Offline testing with Quake 4 and Prey resulted in an interesting slide show that allowed us to see every detail of the benchmark session in a slow, excruciating fashion. Frankly, a visit to the dentist for a root canal almost seems like a better use of time. Not all modern games completely failed to run, however.

G33 was able to generate results (for this grouping) in Company of Heroes and Sims 2. Image quality generally favors the X1250 in most games we tested. The G33 had acceptable image quality but at times we could tell certain details were not as sharp or even evident when compared to the X1250 boards. While most people will not be buying these boards for gaming purposes without an external GPU solution, we did find that reducing the resolutions to 800x600 and slightly increasing the quality settings did result in a passable experience on a temporary basis in games the chipsets would run.

The graphics capabilities of these chipsets in gaming are best left for older RTS type games or DirectX 8 based FPS/RPG titles. Most kid oriented games should also run, provided they don't explicitly check for an NVIDIA or ATI GPU.

Sounds to me like, although your gfx core should 'technically' be able to run Q2... I would begin to suspect that it maybe isn't working out that way in practice.

Might want to look for a previous-generation GeForce card on ebay or something?

Regards,

[Arm0r]

I appriciate the time invested quadz, I read the quote as well as the page listed and now im left shaking my head....ill probably have to get another graphics card, one for gaming.....it just sickens me that a 256 meg vid card is incapeable of running a 7 and 10 year old game.

thanks though, I appriciate it.

[Arm0r]

would switching from vista to xp help at all you think? 

[Whirlingdervish]

it could be a result of your onboard video card using the same bus to transfer information to memory that your motherboard is using (a major downside of onboard video is that it's sharing your RAM instead of having it's own)

you are bottlenecked in that aspect and with vista running (it's a bit of a resource hog) you could be using more of that pathway than you can afford to give up when the game is drawing a lot of stuff, causing massive delays for the video rendering as it waits for it's info to make it through.

Your system could use another gig of ram if you're going to run Vista, but this wont solve the problem, it'll just make vista run a little smoother.


An equivalent vid card in AGP (recommended if you have the port) or PCI would draw a bit more power from the PSU, but it would be using it's own memory and a seperate bus to transfer it and as such would probably negate the framerate drop effect you are getting.

If you actually have a pci-e slot in that mobo, your options are even better when it comes to a nice cheap geforce card.

[|iR|Focalor]

AHA! Yeah, I didn't read the part where it said your video card was an Intel... which almost always means ON-BOARD video memory. Those are fucking useless. Everyone I've ever talked to that has one says they aren't worth a shit and they won't run anything decently, even programs that aren't all that demanding. Quadz pretty much hit the nail on the head. There's nothing you can do besides get another video card. Switching operating systems isn't going to help either. Vista has more background functions, but that would tax the CPU, not the video memory.

[Arm0r]

I have this video card sitting in front of me that I bought a long time ago (was going to give to my brother as a present) but he ended up having better....it's been sitting on a shelf out of the box for about 2 years or so, but think it's worth a try?


http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-ATI-RADEON-9550-XL-256MB-AGP-DVI-VGA-VIDEO-CARD_W0QQitemZ350137691655QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20081209?IMSfp=TL081209208008r7964

[|iR|Focalor]

Oh yeah, that should do the trick.

[console]

ATI-RADEON-9550-XL-256MB-AGP

Here are some benchmarks:  (From July, 2004)

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/tul9550/5.html

Would probably run Q2 well at 800x600 ?


Regards,

[PANTONE 7717C]

It's not a spectacular card but that Radeon 9550 is still better for (most older) games than the onboard intel chip. So if you have it, yes just install it.
But some Q2 "tweaks" that are worth trying before intalling the Radeon;
- Disable dynamic lighting. In the console type: set gl_dynamic 0, or put it in a autoexec.cfg.
(You probably already have this disabled, if not it will usually make a noticable difference on weaker cards/chips, especially in firefights when there's a lot going on like explosions, gun flashes etc.)
- Lower ingame resolution
- Take out any custom high res texture paks...
- Try 8-bit textures (Ingame go to: Video > 8-bit textures > yes

[Whirlingdervish]

That card is pretty much the ATI equivalent of the geforce fx5200 (I had one of these until I purchased a 7600GS)

I believe with my old 1.8ghz P4 with 1gb of DDR and a fx5200 I could push around 60-65 FPS at 800x600 in opengl q2, in all but the most spammy of mods ( WOD will fuck you )

If the intel onboard video came with drivers, I'd uninstall them before putting the new card in.
(you'll be able to find them later if you ever need them again, and some cards have difficulties when they're installed if another card's drivers are still present)

[R1CH]

Intel GMA is shit, since it uses system memory, uploading textures such as lightmaps is ungodly slow. Use gl_dynamic 0 to make Q2 playable.

[DaHanG]

Save beer money for a week and get a 9800 GTX

 

[Arm0r]

Save beer money for a week and get a 9800 GTX

 

  maybe I don't have bad fps, im just so drunk the game looks choppy


I did try installing the other vid card and to my supprise the thing doesn't work..dunno exactly why, but I suppose im fucked for the moment until I decide to stop being a cheap bastard and buy a decent card    thanks for all the suggestions and help though people, I appriciate it.

[Arm0r]

these setting look right?  I know, im relentless.