Looks like my Q2 Days will be ending...(Edit:spoke too soon)

[Slikkster]

(Edit:  My original post here,  followed by a needed dose of humility later, lol.)

I purchased this spiffy new Dell 2001FP 20" LCD monitor to replace a CRT that I had.  Actually, my girl's idea, because "it takes up less space", lol.
Anytime your love interest can urge you to buy new technology for aesthetic reasons, you know you're doing well!

But the downside, I've come to find, is a couple-fold.

LCD monitors want to run in their native resolution.  For this monitor, that's 1600x1200.  That's nice and all, and gives a big view of the playing area.  But I prefer to play at a bit less of a screen size than that.  My normal is 1024x768.  However, as I've come to learn after the fact, LCD screens will have to interpolate the lower-than-native resolutions, and the result is very jerky gameplay.

Even worse, however, is that there are fewer options for video settings with LCD's where monitor refresh rates are concerned.  I have mine hooked up to the DVI output of my videocard.  That effectively locks
monitor refresh rates for 1600x1200 at 60fps.  That's right, 60fps.  

That's all I can get in Q2 now, no matter what:  60fps.  

That's not enough to be competitive.  I've tried tweaking everything else I can tweak, but other players are simply faster than I am now, and get off shots before I can.  People are running circles around me (figuratively) while I'm struggling to shoot.  It's frustrating, to say the least.

It's a tribute to the calibre of players on the Arena server that I admit that I can no longer even expect to be in the top tier in any given game.  

I've been experimenting and have reluctantly found that there's no real fix, other than to go back to a CRT, and that isn't going to happen.

If you do a "timerefresh" command while inside a game from the console, chances are you'll get a result of several hundred frames, like 567.332 or some response like that.  When I do a "timerefresh" now, it comes back at exactly 60.  

And, before you ask or mention it, disabling Vsync has very little effect.
Additionally, I don't want to go to the Analog output of the videocard.  Even doing so might give me a 72fps max or some such, but DVI is the way to go if it's available.

So, that's that.  It is what it is, as they say.  

The good news for LCD owners like me is that the new generation of games, particularly ones that will come out based on the Doom 3 engine, are frame-locked at 60 FPS.  No longer will the best videocard yield the best FPS for gaming in games where that won't matter.  The best cards will do a better job of providing more visual detail and texturing.  But framerate won't exceed 60, according to John Carmack (of ID fame).


For those that point out that Arena limits play to 80fps and 20fps shouldn't matter much, I disagree.  I think that doesn't take into account framerate spikes.  Mine will never spike higher than 60.  

In any event, if someone comes up with a unique fix/workaround that I haven't found yet, I'd be interested.  Otherwise, it looks like it's time to move on.

It's been fun.

[M^tster]

Hate to say this Slikk, but Ive been playing at 59 fps this whole time..and have found out that yes more fps would be nice, but it doesnt make me not  a contender to win.There are advantages to more fps, I agree such as frame jumps..which i have never done but, have seen.{100 fps required to do I beilive}
If you don't want to play anymore, and she is more important than us fine hehe j/k.
Do what you will man, and I hope to see you in doom3 some day:)!


Soon as i get a non onboard vid card lol!
 P.S Have you tried tastyspleen.net?

[Slikkster]

Mat, I understand what you're saying about running at lower framerates.
I did it, too, with my crt.  But you have to trust me that my 60fps max is not your 60fps max.

Do me a favor to test this out.  Go into the arena server, and with your normal cl_maxfps 59 setting do a "timerefresh" at the console.  I can almost guarantee that your refresh time will be much, much higher than "59".  

So, it does make a difference.  My game is much slower now.  I thought about a new videocard, thinking maybe it's just slower because it's driving a 1600x1200 screen size, and, of course, that's true; you take a performance hit there.  But it's more than that.  

I just can't move as fast, at all.  Speed is key in Q2, for me, anyway.  I wish I could chalk it up to something else, like having a bad day or something.  But every time I play now, it just ain't happenin.

[quadz]

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude....!



Pick up some grenades, have some fun !!

[ĄƦçɧąɳɠҾԼ]

Maybe if you have the room, and if your video card supports it, you can set your CRT up as a secondary moniter to play Q2 on.

[Slikkster]

Hey Solo, thanks for the tip, but that wouldn't be feasible.  I'm treading on thin ice already with the pc setup, and now that the switch to an LCD has been made, it's a done deal.  There's no room at the inn for more than one monitor.  She'd freak if she saw two monitors!  

I know, I know...I can hear everyone now saying "Whipped!".  I could win that battle, but lose the war, if you know what I mean.


Note to all:  I need to be a little more clear on the LCD thing.  I shouldn't be confusing frames/sec with refresh rates of the monitor.  It just so happens that they are now equivalent (60), but my LCD is refresh-rate limited/locked to 60hz.

With my CRT monitor, I could play Q2 at cl_maxfps 60, but still run my monitor at 120hz refresh rate.  Makes a huge difference.  Almost no one with a CRT runs (or should run) their CRT at 60hz refresh rate.   But it's the norm for many LCD's, as refresh for LCD's isn't the same as refresh for CRT's.  Whatever, it boils down to this:  I cannot move my player nearly as fast side to side, forward, backward, etc. as I could before.  What I lacked in shooting accuracy, I made up for in player movement speed.  Having lost that, I don't have the shooting skill to make up for that.

[quadz]

Slikk,

My framerate was limited to 60fps for years... I only changed it a couple months ago.  Yep, timerefresh was 59.9997, not a smidge higher.

Also, i play with my desktop at 1600x1200, with quake2 in a 1280x960 window.

When I first switched to windowed from fullscreen, I thought I would never get used to it.  But it's 2nd nature now...

I recall having to play at 42 fps for upwards of a year due to problems with my cable provider's handling of upstream packets...

Look at all the players with 200+ ping still having fun...

The diff. between 60 and 80 hz is monkey nutz*.  (I believe that's the techincal term.)

            [* Insofar as the possibility for fun is concerned!!!]

Well anway - good luck !!

[M^tster]

I did slikk got 60.5 fps and that was @ tastyspleen.net
59 fps @ arena because thats my most optimal setting there.

50-60-70 fps is no big difference to me anyway.I want 100 fps sure but I still like quake and have gotten good while playing @ 59 fps

[Slikkster]

CRT or LCD, Quadz?  And windowing always gave me worse performance, even on my old setup.  I don't know how people run in a window.

[Slikkster]

Mat, all I can say is that I am quantitively slower now, so there must be other things at work.  Maybe a new videocard would help.

[M^tster]

Slikk I run in a window also. 800x600. Is your rate and such to match your fps? 12000 is default at least for me.I put it on 10000 when its gets choppy.Maybe that will help?

[FR4GG3R88]

DAM my CRT LATEST ME FOR OVER 7-10 YEARS NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY SHIT!!!! THIS CRT I GOT IS GOOOOOD AND IT CAN KEEP UP WITH GAMES!!! EXCEPT WITH MY SHITTY GeForce 2 64mb mmx 440 DDR video card it sucks!!! i want a 6800 ultra extreme sli pci express Also how can a monitor F*ck up the frame rate of the video card slikster the only thing i like about lcd is how NICER the picture is but i heard ALOT that a metal cannon ball in a game like q2 will look lke a flying comet with wings i hate my crt since its pretty dam gay gets too hot alot sometimse its been like ummm turning itself off since its a really old monitor but i think the new dell ultra sharp monitor can keep up with games also runnin that high of a res must make the computer lag up alot so i recommened get a super computer before getting an lcd also i am going to build my own computer soon ..... i got a computer book

[{TNP}Dukie]

Cool!  Boss! Bitchin!  Hiya!  

[{TNP}Dukie]

Slikk, sorry to hear about all this!

I gotta say keep trying a way to keep playing q2!  Winning isn't always everything.  I still win my fair share of matches and I'm on friggen dialup!  It doesn't happen that often, but it makes the winnin that much sweeter!

Plus, I might have a chance to frag you once in a while now  

[Slikkster]

Update:

It's the weirdest thing...I tried running in a 1600x1200 window instead of my normal "fullscreen", and it ran much smoother.  How odd is that?

Anyway, I played a couple of games yesterday and actually won once and finished a respectable second a couple of times to someone named Playlocke or some such.  

Back to fullscreen and I'm so much slower.  I always thought it was the other way around; that gaming and DirectX would prefer fullscreen vs. windowed mode for performance.  Strange.

Anyway, with just a little tweaking I might be OK.  In a 1600x1200 window, I can't see the comments at the top because the title bar blocks them.  Actually, I can't see many comments in that screen size anyway because the font size is so small!  I guess the comments can be moved with a .cfg setting to the bottom.  


Note to all:  After reading some of your comments, I feel a little ashamed, honestly.  It seems a lot of people really do play just for the fun and don't really care about winning so much.  I guess I've let the competitive side get the best of me, as I'm guilty of "playing to win".  Now, of course, I'm sure people like to win, too. But it appears a lot of players don't hold that in nearly the level of importance that I have.  Lessons learned.  I vouch to just play for fun.  Thanks for the responses.