Hmm, it might be due to the fact I run with high texture detail. The
recommended for my system is medium, but given that HL2 and CS:S both
ran fine on high I never turned it down. Oh, and I'm running at dx 8.0.

my P4 1.8 with 512-pc2100 and 64-radeon 9000



my 3500+ 64bit with 512-pc3200 and a 256 radeon 9800



before you ask, i preset my HL2 to 800x600 for critiques, i normally run it on 1024x768.. I hate resizing 2 dozen screens to fit snarkpit. :sad:

I also force my 9000 to run as 9.0 harware. for good or ill it seems to work perfectly.

Wierd I was getting 20fps in that shot, and obviously the
performance issues were down to the swap buffers. I wonder whats up
with my system, as I have a better setup than the one you posted. Do
you have your shader detail set to high or low? It could make a
significant difference I guess.

ok, i went back and looked on my old PC.

this is duncans:


my old PC: stats 1.8 P4 512 pc2100 and a 9000 radeon 64 meg (DX 8.1)

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Orpheus</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
so, given what i just read, how come reno and i got 2 different readings from the same point? shouldn't we be seeing the same crap rendering?

</DIV></DIV>

Perhaps one of you is running in dx8 mode, the other in dx9?
If you find any texture which has extra rendering stuff like bump mapping, orientate your view so that texture fills the entire screen (ie, if the texture is on the floor, crouch and look directly down). Swap buffers is likely very high. If the extra rendering effects from the texture's vmt file are removed, swap buffers would be noticeably lower in the same position (I've tried it myself).

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting keved</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Orpheus</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
what exactly are swap buffers anyways?

</DIV></DIV>
Texture fill rate. The more env crap rendering on a texture, and the more of that texture which is on-screen, the more framerate gets totally hammered.

</DIV></DIV>
so, given what i just read, how come reno and i got 2 different readings from the same point? shouldn't we be seeing the same crap rendering?

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Orpheus</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
what exactly are swap buffers anyways?

</DIV></DIV>

Texture fill rate. The more env crap rendering on a texture, and the more of that texture which is on-screen, the more framerate gets totally hammered. I had the problem on Riot where I had used certain textures on the floor so I extracted the vmt text file, edited out all the extra rendering stuff, saved it with a suffix of _custom, and framerate doubled.

Valve do seem to have done something about it in the latest update though. I've been able to go back to the default textures for Riot beta 2.
I'll take a look at your new version of Swamplight shortly, Finger.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Gwil</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>So with all things considered - Steam, Windows XP, Windows generally and Half Life 2 all running, plus any other background apps you might have (firewall etc),.. I wouldn't be surprised if all that can fix that is an upgrade of GFX/CPU/RAM, ReNo. </DIV></DIV>
now my new machine is virtually 100% a gaming machine. i have almost nothing running in the background when i play or critique. perhaps you should run "msconfig" prior to critiquing Duncan. :/

My P3 450 w/ 256mb RAM lagged with CS/HL/TFC (like, 10-20fps maximum) - yet ran the old WON based games like lightning on Windows 98.

So with all things considered - Steam, Windows XP, Windows generally and Half Life 2 all running, plus any other background apps you might have (firewall etc),.. I wouldn't be surprised if all that can fix that is an upgrade of GFX/CPU/RAM, ReNo.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting ReNo</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Thing is, my computer isn't even low end, its a mid range really. I'm running a decent system bar my graphics card, which, being a GF4 ti4200, isn't exactly that bad either. Almost every map I've seen with poor performance has been so due to this swap buffers bar :sad:
</DIV></DIV>

i am not posting this to further brag on my new PC i promise.

perhaps its a GeForce issue Duncan. maybe driver related.

seems to me that the numbers should be similar, even though my card is bigger. (numbers of swap buffers)
what exactly are swap buffers anyways?