*DAMN R6 Forum

 ::applause::

Hey Flies:
   Just a little info for you.
   All of the Nvidia drivers for the Mac are made by Apple with a little help from some Nvidia programers. And under Mac OS X, they are released with the OS updates. The last major update to the Geforce 4 Ti drivers was when Apple released Mac OS X 10.2.4. Apple also tweaked the Nvidia drivers a little for the Mac OS X 10.2.6 update, but this was mainly for better performance out of the Geforce MX cards under UT2K3.
   As for the Radeon cards, Apple releases the drivers for all of the OEM cards, ie 7500, 9000, & 9700, through software update. The only drivers you can get from Ati's site are for the retail cards, 8500 & 7000.

   With regards to framerates in GhR, I get between 5-65 depending on the map. GhR maps are generally 30-65 while DS maps are 5-35. This is with a Radeon 7500 32mb on a 933MHz G4.
   I myself have been trying to find a way to get more framerates out of GhR, and have tried the demo on several different towers, both singles and duals, as well as several graphics cards, r7500, gf4 mx, r9000, & gf4 ti. And unfortunately haven't found any real advantage to anyone of them. The difference in framerates being only about 15fps on average from the slowest to the fastest combination.

   My thoughts are varied as to why the Mac gets such a deminished performance from games. It could be the way the games are developed. It could be poor driver performance. Or it could be because of several bottle necks within the hardware.

   While I'm sorry that this doesn't really help you figure out how exactly to get the most fps out of GhR, I hope it does help figure out a few things. For me the best settings that I've found for game play are:
res: 1024x768x32
z-buffer: 16bit
shadows: off for most everthing
detail: high for all
This is the best I can find. Lowering the settings doesn't increase my fps, and the only negative effect is to go higher on the res.

l8r
ShadowBox

hey flies. nice hosting by the way. any way ive been in the same delemia as you . i have a rage 128, and tried to update to a radeon 9000 card. but to my asstonishment i have the only monitor(apple studio display 17" CRT W/ ADC) that isnt compati=able w/ that card. the only one. go figure. well the one thing that i found out is that GR and DS even though they were ported for mac they werent designed for us so they run slower. thats why when you play Island thunder or any other mods that have been converted for mac but not ported for us the run  really slow, like 5fps. uuhhh. i downloaded frostbite and have that problem as well. until they start developing game souly for mac we'll lose out. well that my undrstanding of it.

Guys of course the Mac doesn't achieve high framerates because Ghost Recon as well as R6 and RS are CPU bound games. It doesn't matter much what graphic card you use it is the CPU power that limits our FPS.

A 3.06GHz fast P4 beats the G4 by far. With our bottleneck of a only 167Mhz fast FrontSideBus it is ridiculous. The normal P4 has 400Mhz to make full use of DDR and the new released P4 with 3.06 Ghz has even a 800Mhz fast FSB. They get 126fps in GhR. Few weeks ago I posted an article with different framerates in the main news from 8.2.2003. Click here for the PC article (http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=50000360)

There you can see that a 1Ghz G4 is only comparable to a 1400 AMD Athlon with a  GForce 2 and if we have luck with a GForce 4. And the current PC are twice that fast. So you don't have to wonder. The reason why Island Thunder runs so slow is because the AI has improved much and takes up a lot of cpu power. If you play the same maps in adversial mp you will notice that your fps are twice that fast.

Frostbite runs better than IT imo and I can play most maps in adversial mp extremly well on my old imac 400.

Hope that helps to explain that the current Macs are two year old PCs! Only the coming 970IBM with a 900Mhz fast CPU will give GhR framerates from above 100.

Bye,

Mauti

That was my tip :P
http://208.45.96.61/hosted/mp/article.php?story=20030313144633734
I have a 466mhz G4, 768megs of ram, and a Geforce3.
And ghr doesn't run that badly (1024x768 with everything on low)
Basicaly its always good thinking to have a large amount of ram, all your applications turned off.
I remember in RS if you only kept active mods inside the mods folder, it would run faster than if you had a few hundred mods in there. I dunno if this is confirmed in GhR, but its good thinking.

Actually flies, it's funny that you made this post.  I have gone through the same thing earlier trying to improve the framrate of the game.  I have a Dual 867 DDR with 640 megs of ram and could only get 30 to 60 fps.  It it quite interesting when I have a 2ghz p4 next to me with the same graphics card in it that my mac has and it get's like 80-120 fps.  After messing around with Ghost Recon on the PC and Mac I have come to realise that ghost recon was really designed for the PC and when Aspyr ported it for the Mac they didnt really give two shits about making it comparable to the PC speeds.  So I put the problem on Aspyr myself.  Originally I tried doing the same thing.  Going to Nividia site which says go to the Mac site.  Then the Mac site says absolutely nothing on it.  Almost like no one has ever really complained about it before.  Then I wrote to Aspyr about it as well going on my conclusion that it was a bad porting job and well, they havnen't wrote back since.  I do understand now that Mac does update the drivers for the card thru the Apple updates but still to no avail.  Either way, i agree, there has to be something that can improve framrates for the game.  But hopefully someone with enough software knowledge will find an awnser for us in the near future.  
     Thanks for writing this site.  You have hit a point I have been trying to figure out for a while as well.  And thanks to |MP| website, they helped the framrate slightly as well with the USE EAX issue as well.  One more step closer but not quite to the goal. =)  

Saberian you don't understand that this has nothing to do with Aspyr it is Apple and its G4 itself. The Ghost Recon engine is CPU bound and the current G4s are slow no matter what you are doing.

However Flies I found out how to increase the fps between 5 -  15frames. Defrag your harddisk. The best thing would be a 2 - 3Gybte large Ghost Recon only partition then GR loads the textures much faster and you have a more stable framerate(I noticed this when I reinstalled GR after my HD crash on an empty partition. General the best of the best solution would be if you have more than 1Gybte RAM to create a RAM harddisk and move the complete Ghost Recon folder on it and play it from there.  ;)

Bye,

Mauti

I once noticed a big difference while not running finder and Grh at the same resolution. .. so make sure that you run finder/GrH in the same resolution. ..

//Lin
(AMD 2600 GeForce 4200 128MB with a gig of RAM)

I dunno about that one lin, I run GHR at 1024x768 and i ran my monitor at the same resolution untill i got my nice new monitor. Now i run the finder at 2048x*** and play GHR at 1024x768 and there isn't much of a difference. Also, when you load GHR it switches into a lower resolution for the interface, i can't remember if its 800x or 640 then switches back for the in game stuff.

And a side not about that EAX thing, it seems very effective when your in a huge match with 30+ people and nades, guns and  other noises are going off around you.
 If you guys are true FPS sluts like i am, turn everything to low and hope for the best.
btw, i'll try your tip in a few mins mauti and see how it helps
update, playing off a partition does seem to speed things up quite a bit, but you gotta defrag the partition to see any good results. Diskwarrior 3 is out for osX, its well worth having.

     Jeb told me of his excellent results loading GhR onto a dedicated partition, so I tried it. For me, it seems as though it made things slower. I'll try it on some different hosts and see what happens, but so far, I was noticing significant amounts of FPS lag--that is, situations such as the one I encountered earlier tonight while playing in Night Battle: I was swinging my view around, scanning for enemies, getting about 22-25 FPS (which is pretty normal for me), then when I would see someone, my FPS would instantly drop to around 5. This happened three times in a row, and was very frustrating. I suspect the problem may be because the partition I installed GhR on is on a hard drive that is quite slow. So, the point is, if you're going to try the dedicated-partition trick, make sure the partition is on a good, fast drive, or it probably won't help.

i should also point out that doing a "fix permissions" repair with Disk Utility speeds things up even more. You should do that once a month normaly, or even more often on your gaming partition.

I thought that DW 3 wouldn't include Disk Optimizer Plus nor any other disk defraggin' or optimizin' utility.

Actually mauti. the 3.06 ghz PC doesnt beat the G4. Look at the apple website for more details. And the game ghr doesnt depend on mhz speed 100% or 80% more like 60%

Do you really think Apple would admit that a PC is currently faster then a Mac!? Well look at the posted benchmarks in the february main news there you will see that Ghost Recon mostly depends on the CPU and not graphic cards.

Bye,

Mauti
ps.: Flies do you get framerates over 60 if you use a sniper gun zoomed in looking at the floor!? Or goes it over 60 then!?

Technically it wouldn't be something unusual if a game is limited to 60frames. When Raven Shield first came out for PC it was also limited but due a small text file modification this limit could be removed.

I ask if the counter stays still at 60 at your Mac if you are looking at the floor because even my imac gets up to 55fps if I look at the floor inside a building zoomed in. So there you should get much more than 60fps.

Bye,

Mauti

Mauti you are not right! The limit still exists in RvS but its a matter of Driver and Driver options.

When U find out how to disable Vsync for your monitor for the game! U will get more FPS , for PCs it is the same!

Vsync syncronizeses the vertical 60 Hz of your Monitor with your game, that is is why U have 60 FPS at max. B/c all games normaly run with 60 Hz.

the other way would be to force the game to run with higher Hz for example 85 Hz then this will improve your FPS to 85 FPS at max.

For PC It would be easy to do so , b/c options in the drivers are implemented but for Mac it didnt find a way yet!  

Flies is right! When he thinks that the 60 FPS barrier is a driver Problem.

And Mauti you are right that the game needs more CPU power then grafics power - although my ATI 7000 brought a boost to GhR.
But this does not explain the barrier.

But may be some OS X freak can now find out how to change this! after I posted the reason!

Yes and no, because when the R63 demo was released it was limited to 60fps but you didn't have to change driver settings to work around this problem. You simply could change the limit in a R63 setting file as far as I know but I don't have a PC(was posted on several R63 websites) but you are right that it also has to do with drivers but I think in this case it is up to the game because games like Quake3 and UT2003 achieve fps over 60 without problems so even Mac driver are capable of framerates beyond 60fps. Well may the count the fps differently(horizontal - vertical), who knows.

Bye,

Mauti

Q3 dont use Vsync thats all! thats why it reaches more FPS form the start!

Flies,

          I have taken a screenshot showing 61 fps as per your challenge and emailed it to you.  I WIN THE PINT!!!!!!!!   HEHE LOL.


                         +MOD+STuRM    :P

Vsync or not who really cares about seeing higher than 60fps
i do pretty damn well with a 20-30fps average, and i know many other good players who average in the 10-20fps.

I've only had the chance to play GHR on 3 computers
a imac 700, g4 466, and a tibook 400. The g4 466 runs it the best because of the geforce3 in it, plus the ram. As you can see i've never had a chance to play a cpu intensive game on anything with a decent cpu, however there has been a time in which i saw 63fps in the display. Bucc has also mentioned he gets above 60fps sometimes on his comp with a nvidia card in it.
Is the case for you that you max out at 60fps usually... if so what brand graphics card do you have.

update...
I just did some testing on my shitty slow computer and i pulled 68fps with some tuning(http://homepage.mac.com/farmerjeb/68.jpg). In your options.xml file make sure texture compression is off, and default mipmapping is on with the level of detail looking like
<MipMapLODBias>-0.000001</MipMapLODBias>
those seem to be the fastest settings without any noticeable differences in graphics.

Flies,

             Ha Det Bra!

             (Gasp) I would never pull a fast one on a buddy for the sake of a pint!  I would rather buy you a case!  

Dual 800 Quicksilver G4
OSX Jaguar (10.26)
NVIDIA GeForce2 TwinView (twinview not currently in use)
stock driver with software update from Apple

Conditions of screenshot:

Single Player-Firefight
Embassy
DS and IT activated
Zoomed into wall
I set my finder resolution to match my GhR resolution (1024x768)
Dead bodies Off
15 bullet holes
Vehicle shadows None
Blood On
Mipmap On
Music Off
USE EAX False


I am able to acheive higher than 60 fps regularly but only for seconds at a time--it crests and drops.  When my fps are under 60, the framerate text is yellow, when severely low the text turns red, and when at 60 or higher the text is green.  The enemy AI seems to cause the most fps problems.  

I will have to get myself across the pond to Denmark to enjoys those pints with you.  We can talk about girls as well!!!! :O
I am trying to boost my fps further so I will have more intel for you on the subject as well.  PM me anytime on GR or email.  Tusen t?kk f?r pint l?l,

                 +MOD+STuRM

                        :P

Compress textures off improved my fps a lot but only without mipmapping. Mipmapping drops my fps.

(imac 400 8MB ATI 384MB RAM 200assigned to GR OS9)

BYe,

Mauti

nop. U will not! I some maps u will have more FPS in some less. The bigger the map the less FPS. And there are much biger maps. And a few smaller.

I would get it if you asked for that.

Bye,

Mauti

it is a nice game. Get it. Try it. And may be buy a new Mac ( g5? )

Alright, thanks ? you've all been very helpful.

Just one more thing however: Where do I get the proper update for GhR?  I believe it is version 1.4.

I.e. *DAMN Mac Downloads under patches ;)

I  have the best idea for all!

GET THE NEW G5 -lol-

(http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~damnr6/yabbse/YaBBImages/rambo.gif)

I was wondering what kind of framerates people with G4 700 imacs get.
I'm usually around low 30's. Everyone 10 hosts or so, i'll manage to get around 60, but that's very rare. Sometimes if i'm running, i'll get 20's or 10's (if it's in a field or something with lots of trees).

I feel like this is a bit low. Please tell me how to adjust my settings to maximize my fps.

Snipe!!!!

The clue was to find out who has more then 60, not how has around 60. But thy for the info that u also dont braeke this magic border.

     Snipe, I dunno about the GPU upgrade paths available to the G4 iMacs, but if it's possible, you should pick up a Radeon 8500. They're around $179 new, you might be able to get one from eBay or the like, and they're quite reasonably powerful for GhR. One of my clanmates has an 8500 in his not-terribly-impressive G4 tower (I *think* it's a 733 or 800, but don't quote me on that), and he averages 40+ FPS with all detail settings on high.

 I'd suggestion the ATI Radeon 9000 Pro. I use one on my Powerbook ( 1GHZ G4 ), and rarely drop under 40FPS at Ghost Recon. ( everything on highest, of course ).

     The 8500 is actually somewhat more powerful than the 9000. The 8500 was the high-end of the 8000 series, and the 9000 was/is the low end of the 9000 series. Due to numbering wonkyness on ATI's part, the card with the higher number isn't as powerful. ::shrug:: Regardless, the 9000 probably does the job just as well, but I *think* the 8500 is actually cheaper than the 9000, for an overall better card.

Flies,

        Congrats on new hardware and your [EUR] promotion.  I noticed your new Bracket and Star right when u first changed em in GR.  Rock on brother,

                       BTs_STuRM :-[

I too have hit 61fps but never above that. There is deff. a cap.
G4/1.2ghz/512ram/ati 8500w/64mb

Indeed now I even managed to achieve 61fps on my iMac on embassy but not higher than that so there is a limit, grrr.

Bye,

Mauti

Hi all,

        I have pulled 62 fps here and there but not consistently--so I have also broken the 61 fps wall!!! I have screenshots (both singleplayer and multiplayer on Gameranger).  But I must say-- 62 fps is my wall so far--but I will see what I can do to penetrate the magic wall,

                  BTs_STuRM

Mauti: how on earth did you get 61 FPS?

Watching a replay on embassy  ;)

Seriously?

Yes!

the barier is only really broken when we can reach over 60 konstantly, not only once for 1 or two sec.

@Radeon 8500

It is now running under a new label 9100 - b/c of it faster speed and more rendering piplines. And it is definatly much faster then the 9000Pro! esp. much fast  then the 9000. The Rad 9000 is an absolute lowend Videocard. Nothing for gamers - normaly. Good for Notebooks.

I am at a point now, where i feel like i returned to starting point:
Quote from [EUR] Flies (originator of this thread) "
I asked so many ppl - and noone has experienced framerate over 60 pr.sec.
i mean noone - period.

So this leads to:

A: I buy a beer to the one who first experience fps over 60 on mac, and make a ss.

B: I am back at my suspicion that its limited by the driver in some sence."

Please review the entire thread before negating anyone's input.  A wall or barrier or ceiling is a supposedly impossible threshold to break.  Breaking it is breaking it.  That is the first step to consistently achieving framerates          above 60 fps.  

Hologram, Do you have anything constructive to add pertinent to this pursuit?  I'm all eyes,

               BTs_STuRM

PS - Ill try to come to Denmark for that pint Flies!!!



 :-[

Ok,

You people are obsessed with this fps thing.  

Unless you are a superman or an alien from another planet, you will have a hard time benefiting anything over 24 frames per second.  That's the reason why most Hollywood feature film was shot at 24 frames per second.

For the sake of the argument, you are from another planet, and you can differentiate between 24 frames per second and 30 frames per second.  I doubted you can tell the difference between 60 fps and 70 fps.  So stop obsessing about it.  To your human eye, 60 fps and 70 fps are absolutely the same.  You cannot tell the difference.  70 fps will not be any smoother than 60 fps to you.  No need to envy your PC friends.

And yes, I do have a Ph.D. in Biology.  I am not bull-shitting you.

Logan

Yes, But the computer is quicker than the eye--the cpus can tell the difference and it does translate into better gameplay, this is not about asthetics, but your point is well taken as I know these biological and FILM facts already--start a new thread about all your trivia-this is about improving framerate thank you,

                  BTs_STuRM :-[

I think Logan has a point (although I am no scientist).  I learned in high school that human cannot tell the difference above 24 fps (that's why movie was shot at 24 fps, as Logan has suggested).  I think it may be a good idea to put a cap on the frame rate, so that there will be less lagging when intensed battle is coming up all of a sudden.  I know computer can tell the difference, but human can't.  So really, what is the point of putting more fps if it doesn't translate into better gameplay?  Personally, I have a crappy old computer and a newer computer, one plays Duke nukem at something like 30 fps, and the other plays at some 60-70 fps (forget the real number).  I swear I can't tell the difference personally.  Maybe I have bad eyes :)

On the other hand, I understand how you feel.  My PC friends always have a faster fps in any game I play.  But anyway, the new G5 should kick their ass!

Maybe you should ask the author why such limitation is put there in the first place.

Whale  ;D

Hi all - I have never heard of the 24 fps rule.  Thanks for the info.  I don't feel so bad now.  I am able to tell the difference between 5 fps and 20 fps, he he.  I have a powerbook, and it has 8mb video card only (I think).  So even though I put everything to low, I can only get about 5-20 fps top (depends on the mods).  Some IT and Frostbite level is plain horrible.  So all of you lucky guys getting 60fps, don't complain :) Priss

Logan that's not entirely true. Yep the eye can't realize more than 24fps(the 25fps marketing trick prooved that were they inserted a 25th frame showing a Coke) The user didn't saw it but the sub consciousness saw it and after the movie almost 50 percent wanted to buy the shown coke. Nevertheless for Computer games you realize a difference until 60fps. It's not that you can see and realize more but the picture is more smooth because you add more transisitons that's the reason why we have old 50Hz(25full frames/sec) televisions and supersmooth and eye friendly 100Hz(50full frames/sec) televisions. You notice a difference you can also compare LCD screens with CRTs or low end 80Hz CRTs like my iMac screens and high end ones with 100+ Hz. You don't get more information: A user with 25fps and a user with 60fps gets the same information/sec but the later one seems to run better.

To sum up you note a difference and although higher fps than 60 doesn't improve the feeling much you know that if you can achieve 120fps in a game it will probably keep up playable 25fps in CPU heavy situations and further you know you can even try out higher settings than the default settings.

Bye,

Mauti

Mauti,

I am not sure if it is fair to compare the rate of games to refreshing rate of TV.  TV scans from top left to bottom right, and people have a much lower tolerance for that (the so-called flicker effect of how fast light is flashing at you).  The flicker effect also depends on how bright you set your monitor, so it really has many factors.  I also read that most people cannot tell the difference higher than 60-72 Hz for TV anyway.  Remember, even though the game is running at 10 fps, the monitor is still refreshing the same rate (70Hz or what not).  That's why you don't feel like killing your eyes when the game runs at 10 fps.  Cos those 2 rates are completely 2 different things.  Like apple and orange.

In any case, I absolutely do not believe you can tell the smoothness between 30fps and say 60 fps.  And to try to improve a 60 fps to 62 fps makes me sick to my stomach, cos I can only get 15 fps on a good day :)

peace,

fefe

Of course the rates are completly different in the meaning but I wanted to point out that although the sent information stays the same(still only 24fps)  on a 60HZ and 100HZ TV you can tell a difference.

Same in games: may you have Gran Turismo 1 for the PSX. If you play through the Arcade modus you get as bonus a 60Hz modus(30fps) and the difference is amazing!

That's also the reason why US games seem to be faster and smoother for europeans because NTSC works with 60Hz and PAL only with 50Hz.

Well you can't tell a difference between 60 and 100 but the subconsciousness will probably note a difference between 24 -  60. Your eyes stop realising more than 24frames but the feeling of 60 is much better! That's my point.

Bye,

Mauti

>Of course the rates are completly different in the meaning but I wanted to point out that although the sent information stays the same(still only 24fps)? on a 60HZ and 100HZ TV you can tell a difference.

As I mentioned before, some people have optimal at around 72 Hz scanning rate.  So of course some people can tell that 100Hz is better than 60Hz.  So I guess your point is: you agree with me. :)

>That's also the reason why US games seem to be faster and smoother for europeans because NTSC works with 60Hz and PAL only with 50Hz.

Again, 50Hz is crappy because it is lower than most people's optimal rate.  So you are once again just agreeing with what I said.  No agrument here. :)


When you see somone move in real life, it is a continuous motion.  So of course we would think it perceive it as smooth.  But in a movie, it only appears at 24fps.  But it still appears to be smooth as we see a real person move right in front of us?  Why?  

Because our eyes are not gathering data in an infinite rate.  (it would sensory overload, and most importantly, impossible).  The neuron is fooling us that it is receiving data at an infinite rate, but it fact, it is not.  As it turns out 24 fps in a motion picture will fool just about everyone.  Now, you can argue that someone may have a higher or lower tolerance, but jumping from 24 to 60, well, let's say if you have such data, you will be pretty famous.

I do agree with you on the feeling better aspect.  Knowing you can perform above 60 fps does help you to feel better about your system.  And I think it is useful to know that info, cos it will help you on changing your system detail level (as you point out earlier).

But I think some of you is correct by saying that people put a limit at 60fps for a reason.  Since human can't tell the difference after that point, why stress your computer to put out so much info?  Maybe it is more important to save some cpu cycle for occasion when battle is intensed?

That's my 2 cents of thought :)

improving the FPS in the game is the key in this Threat, not the biological facts of the 25 pic per sec human beings can realize. Most of knew that.

But we simply try to find out how to break this damn 60fps barrier. Thats all. If u dont know anything usefull to this, plz dont post - if u know we will be glad to have u heat. When u want to talc about the 24 FPS phenomenon then open a threat.

It is curiosity that made us searching for the solution.

I've been following this topic with great interest and I wonder if you all have overlooked the obvious.  The Mac version of Ghost Recon was simply ported over from the PC version, no?  

I also think many of you are correct in determining a driver issue.  I just don't think ATI and Nvidia put that much effort into their Mac drivers simply because there's less demand.  The video cards are more expensive and they sell fewer of them.  Apple could make a better driver for there OEM cards but let's face it, Macs aren't considered great gaming machines to begin with so there's less incentive to do so.  

I run GR on an 800/G4 iMac and get between 5 to 29 fps depending on the expansion pack.  Island Thunder is the worst for game play and that's with all the settings set to the  lowest.  Unfortunately, GR just isn't as much fun with everything set so low and I find myself playing less frequently over all.  

I'd like to get some benchmark scores with a new high end G5 just to see how many more fps are possible.  Hopefully the G5 will turn everything around for us Mac users.  

Rebel T

Dear [?EUR*] Flies,

A.  Don't we all want to win?  :)

I think how fast your computer know where you enemy is (which depends more on the cpu) and how fast it is drawn to your screen so you can react (which depends more on the video card) are 2 different things.  In any case, the screen drawing is the bottlenet.  Reaction time for human being is about 0.1 second.  The difference between 60 fps and 90 fps is 0.0055 sec.  You do the math. :)

Bad ping is much worse than slow computer in any case.  A 250ms lag (which is not a bad connection) give you a handicap of 0.25 sec, which is 45 times worse than the 0.0055 sec difference between a PC machine and mac machine.  So if you are the host, you will win even if you have a mac.

B. To address your point about OmniMax.  Just because they film the movie at 80-90 fps doesn't mean it is played at 80-90 fps.  When you match hockey on TV, sometimes they replay a slow-mo, but it still remains to be smooth.  Why?  Because it was shot at much higher framerate, so it can replay smoothly even at slow-mo (which requires more frame to make it smooth).

FYI, Omnimax is played at 24 fps.  Read the follow spec:
(http://www.glsc.org/geninfo.php3?class1=OmniMax&class3=Facts)
And I quote:

"The OMNIMAX projector is the largest projector ever made, advancing super-sized 70mm images horizontally through the projector at 24 frames, 5.6 feet of film per second."

C. Don't we all want the latest toy?  Actually I want a porche.  A friend of mine got a bmw, and I am so jealous :)

The thing is, is this really a bug?  Or is it a software feature?  Does putting a limit on fps helps one to maintain a lower but more steady framerate?  I have no idea.  Maybe we should ask the developer.  

To Anthony B:
I think GR is a port.  I am not sure, ask mauti about that.  Actually I have a follow up question: Does anyone know if GR take advantage of the velocity engine in G4?

Ya, G5 will be cool.  1 GHz bus.  Eat that intel!  

I wonder if G5 will have the same 60 fps limit.

Have you tried the following trick to make your machine faster?  I copied it earlier from the forum (from [EUR] Flies):

"For those who are forced to run GhR on its lowest settings for the extra speed might not know about this one trick: Open the "options.xml" file located in the data folder with TextEdit or SimpleText. Scroll down until you see:
<UseEAX>True</UseEAX>
Change this to:
<UseEAX>FALSE</UseEAX>.

EAX is an enhanced sound output for PCs with soundcards and suroundsound speakers (which we don't have), so turning it off will take some strain off the processor and your sounds will still sound the same."
I hope others have a few tips to share, for the common good of gameplay on GameRanger.
If we all improve -  we all be happy - and gaming will be more fun :-)
Best regards
[EUR] Flies "

And I think Mauti gave this tip:

In single level,  try to press <enter>, then enter the code <togglemovetrees>.

Tree won't move.  It takes less cpu cycle.

You can do this for multiplayer too.  Just type the code in single player first, and then start Multiplayer.

For multiplayer to work, you have to type in single player first every time you restart the application

Thanks to [?EUR*] Flies  and Mauti (love your work; by the way, are you gonna port the frostbite new version to mac? :)  ) for all the contribution.  It is certainly very informative and educational.  

fefe

Have any of you bothered to email the people who released the game? Was it Aspyr? They can probably give a detailed reason as to why the fastest Mac machine's can only achieve 60-61fps. 8)

Dear VooDoo,

Good point. :)

I have no idea if it is a video driver limitation.  Or if it is a GR limitation.  Someone should email them alright.

Does anybody know if velocity engine is used in GR?  I know quake 3 uses it.  I am curious.

     The FPS should not affect data transmission AT ALL. The two are absolutely different, and each should happen at its own rate as determined by the graphics hardware and network hardware/connection. I've frequently heard people saying that bad ping causes low FPS, or vice-versa. That should be total bullshit. However, since this is a Red Storm game and thus was programmed by syphilitic monkeys, I can't rule that possibility out.

Dear [Eur] Flies,

Actually I only play with my PC friends on his personal server.  What is your name in Game ranger?  I am not that good, maybe you can show me some trick :)

I am sure your observation is true.  However, those could be due to different reason.  

I really don't think you are uploading info the same rate as your screen output rate.  So a faster computer will upload more info to the server?  That would mean a server will overload if all client computers are fast computers.  That obviously doesn't make sense.  You are drawing every pixels on your screen, but you are not uploading every pixels to your server.  You only upload your location and your action.  That is dependent on your action, not how fast your screen draw the info to you.  That's why a good software (like half life in PC) is so playable even at 56k modem, cos they have good scheme on sending the info in a compact way.  Remember, the info is sent out the moment you press the keys, and it certainly does not wait for your screen to draw first before they send out the info.  If you move straight from point A to point B, it sends out the same data, no matter how many frames it draws on your screen in that second.

I have no doubt that a computer having 70 fps can perform better than 40 fps.  But that's association, not cause and effect.  A computer that can put out 70 fps is obviously the latest model, that means having faster cpu, better graphic card, faster BUS, faster RAM, faster cache.  That translate to faster generation of data, faster output of data from ethernet to GR and then to your screen, etc, i.e. less lag.

If you have 2 machines, both with same component, same everything, but one computer has a cap on on the video driver for 70 fps, the other have 40 fps (screen output rate), the 70 fps computer will see things appearing 0.01 second earlier than the 40 fps computer.  Human reaction time varies between 0.1 to 0.2 second.  So I really don't think one can blame it on the slower computer. :)

So for all of your having less than 61 fps, no worry.  Your computer can handle all the data generation and transfer.  It just doesn't show it on the screen.  

On the other hand, fast and slow ethernet makes a huge difference. :)

So if you want to win, make sure your neighbour is not downloading the hulk and hogging all the bandwidth....

Anyway, not sure how I get into this discussion.  But it is sure fun and informative. :)

Thanks again

fefe

     ::Captain Kirk impression:: Must... dispel... misconceptions!

     Lemme preface this by saying that I'm a student of video game programming and design (no, really. I'm in a Video Game Design program at my college), and a programmer, so I have a fair bit of background in this subject and I'm not just pulling this stuff out of my ass.

     In a typical program, there is a main loop which repeats continuously while the program is executing. This main loop triggers everything else in the program. A very simple main loop might function something like this: begin loop; check for keypresses--if a key was pressed then quit; go to beginning of loop.

     In a game, the main loop is necessarily complex, containing calls to functions that call other functions, and so on. A simple main loop in a game might go something like this: begin loop; get input from player; process input from player; update things on screen (that is, move things, delete things, add new things, etc.); draw screen; go to beginning of loop.

     What this structure means is that a game is doing only one thing at a time, in a certain order. Drawing the screen is typically the last step, since it takes the longest (1/60 of a second is a damn long time). In the case of Ghost Recon, it is a reasonable assumption that the network handling comes after player input and before sound and graphics handling. This structure would make sense because that would allow the network code to send out the latest data on what the player is doing, and it would allow the sound and graphics code to play the sounds and draw the pictures which represent the very latest data received from the other players.

     In the optimal case, drawing the screen takes no longer than any other section of the main loop, so everything can be counted upon to happen regularly. In real life, the drawing is going to take varying amounts of time, and on some computers, it's going to take a very long time. In the latter case is where we run into problems with this main loop structure. If the computer is only able to draw, say, ten frames per second, then the rest of the loop is hung up waiting for the drawing to finish, which means that the game will not receive network updates frequently, which means the player will notice lag.

     However, this is a well-known problem, and has a neat solution: a trick called threading. A "thread" is somewhat like a mini-program. It runs, executes its own instructions, handles its own data, and quits when it's done. The difference is, a thread is created by a program in order to handle some task. The reason threads are used is that all modern OSes are preemptively multitasking, which means that each program gets a share of the CPU and system resources to do its thing. Since a thread falls into the category of programs in this context, the thread can run simultaneously with the program which spawned it. This means, for example, that the network handling, the sound handling, and the graphics handling could all run in parallel, so that in a case like that mentioned above, where a computer can only get ten frames per second, the sluggish graphics handling won't bog down the sending and receiving of game packets, nor any other aspect of the game's execution.

     In other words, a properly written game engine (one which employs skillful use of threads, as well as some other performance tricks) will not have any correlation between frame rate and lag. I assume that Ghost Recon is threaded, because even if Red Storm's programmers are a bunch of syphilitic monkeys, it would be on the order of criminal stupidity to write a first-person shooter engine which was not threaded. However, I wouldn't put it past them.

ha ha, you are obessed with this thing :)

Dude, Loth is saying the game should not have "any correlation between frame rate and lag".  I agree completely.

"In the case of Ghost Recon, it is a reasonable assumption that the network handling comes after player input and before sound and graphics handling."
- that's what I am saying, man. :)

Concerning 15 fps vs 5 fps, I would pick 15 fps win too.  Since the difference is 0.134 second, higher than the reaction time (assuming all other hardwares are the same).

I will be on vacation starting tomorrow, so you have to live without me for a while.  Hope you won't miss me too much :)

Have a nice long weekend.

fefe

fefe, that thing about EAX was my tip  ;)
But the importance of that is that when you play in massive games of 30+ people and there is lots of shooting and nades going off, it seems to help my comp not lag, which in turn hurts my fps.

I think mauti talked about running GHR on a separate partition or drive, i've noticed that this is probably the best quick fix for performance. Also try to keep the drive as un-fragmented as possible ( especially since GHR has a few thousand files).

Quitting applications can help a little bit, but not to much, especially if you have a lot of physical memory in osX.
If you really care to see just how many processes are running on your computer at any given time open terminal and type "ps -ax -M" which will list all the active processes by memory usage. Or if you simply want to see the number type "ps -ax -M | wc -l". With 4 apps that i have open there are 141 active processes, so killing a few extra processes (closing apps that your not using) won't make much of a difference given the ways that osX handles memory and multitasking, assuming that the open programs are idle.

Currently I'm tinkering with using renice to speed up Ghost recon's performance. Renice is a unix tool that changes priorities of processes. In theory it would be possible to make ghost recon run a bit better if it had a higher priority. I'll run some tests and tell you if there is any differences.

This has got to be the most frustrating topic I have read. I just bought a new comp thinking it would deliver gaming bliss as well...now i read this and all i can say is...SH*T! So anyway, with a new comp right out of the box you think I should partition my HD right away and dedicate that soley to ghr? If so, how much space should I give it? And will I have to do this with RvS as well? Im getting a 1.25ghz with a radeon9000 pro, so as long as I can pull 30-40 fps I will be happy.

Oh, and uh, can you tell me how to set up a partition in my HD, I've heard of that b4 but I have never done it and the last thing I need to do is mess up a new comp. ;)

Kilz

Kilzo - a better Vid Kard will help u more! the 9000Pro is low- end!
And the 9000Pro will not be able to handle RvS properly!

     Yeah, as long as you're spending the money, spring for the 9700 Pro. It'll serve you better, and a lot longer.

     Radeon 9700 Pro: Me love you long time, soldier-boy!

A 9000 will handle rvs, its 64mb, rvs requires 32, plus it is listed on their supported cards list. I would have upgraded to a better one but I bought more RAM instead figuring it was money better spent for now. If my 9000 wont handle rvs, then at that time I will buy a new gc.

Ok flies, sounds easy enough, thanks!

Also this topic is precisely why I am so against pc players joining mac games via the ip. You get someone to join a RS game and they have a 3.0 dual pentium and are ripping off 80 fps or more while everyone else including the host is only pulling 20-25...totaly unfair. Pc gamers should just stick to pc apps and let us Mac peeps enjoy our virtually cheat free gaming.

Dear Jeb,

Sorry about the EAX tips.  I think I miscredited it to someone else. :)

I also find that defraging the hard drive helps big time.  And after I upgraded my hard drive, it is even better.  Although I don't understand why.  I thought the entire map (and the skins, etc) are loaded to the memory, so accessing speed of the harddrive shouldn't make the difference.  But it does.  Maybe someone can explain that.  How about ram disk?

Well, about playing with PC friends.  I notice that if you don't apply the "IT mac patch", a lot of the models are screwed up.  In many cases, I can see through wall and long bushes/trees.  Talking about having advantage over my PC friends :)

P.S. I am so tired after 2 flights and 8 hours of travel.  I should go to bed now.  They are also charging me for outside call.  I would recommand people go to Days INN, which has free airport access.

P.S.S. Flies, how was your hot date? :)  

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Hi all,

I have the following: 17" iMac, 800MHz PowerPC G4, NVIDIA GeForce2 MX, 32MB DDR video memory.

I would like to see better performance for Ghost Recon and am curious what the consensus is regarding best dollar value. More DDR? An new card? Throw it in and buy a PC to use for gaming?

Thanks!

I have 256MB RAM. Admittedly, I question whether the terrible slowdown I experience is due to graphic capabilities or processing power. Contrary to what is suggested elsewhere in this thread, it isn't only my frame rate that suffers.

Here are two exhibits:

a] I have noticed the cadence of automatic weapons fire change in correlation to a degredation of frame rate display. In other words, the weapon fire audibly changes from 12 rounds per second to, say, 5 rounds per second as the display begins to lurch noticably from fram to frame.

b] While running down a road, with no enemies active, my frame rate drops by a third if I shift my gaze from my feet to the horizon.

From what I have gathered from this discussion, exhibit A has to do with the burden on my system from processing game data and exhibit B has to do with the rendering capabilities of my graphics card.

So. might this question boil down to which will provide me the greatest overall benefit, enhancing either my DDR or DIMM RAM?

jeez, its that slow on an G4 imac...

I have a 466mhz G4 with a geforce3 (64megs) and 768megs of ram and i average around 30fps at medium.  More ram helps, and i would be curious to see GHR benchmarked on a 2ghz G5 with 8gigs of memory  ;D

You would benifit from more memory, that generally speeds up osX signifigantly, and i'm sure it would do the same for GHR.

sorry, off topic...but how does one "defrag" there computer and what does it do?

     I believe Norton Utilities has a defrag utility (it did in OS 9, so it should still be there in the OS X version). There are probably other defragging tools available, but Norton is the best-known (and I don't know any others, so I'm only going to mention Norton  ;D ).

     Defragmenting a storage device (most typically a hard drive) is a process wherein files that are fragmented--that is, not stored in one contiguous block on the drive--are moved around the disk so that they are in one piece on the drive. Defragging also involves arranging the data on the disk so that things that are more likely to be accessed often, like documents and applications, are stored closer to the read/write heads so that it takes less time to access them. I dunno how much good the arranging actually does in the real world, but the defragmenting of files is very useful because it allows your drive to read a file in one shot rather than being forced to jump around on the drive surface, which usually translates to noticable decreases in response times from your hard drive.

     Basically, it's one more way to get a minor speed improvement out of your computer. You should do it as maintenance about every six months or so (set aside a large block of time, since on a big drive, defragging can take all night).

Also it helps to let your comp index nightly, I used to always be playing games at index time so I would cancel it. Now it would take my comp 3 days to index so I keep canceling it. And don't forget to rebuild your desktop at least once a week along with zapping your p-ram. These little tweaks will keep your mac humming along nicely.

I would also recommend getting ?The little Mac book? by Robin Williams. She is a Mac Goddess, she usually writes a new book with each new operating system and covers all aspects and nooks and crannys of it. It is well worth owning. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0321169662/qid=1057536141/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-3361146-6293631?v=glance&s=books

And heres another question, is DDR ram (Double Data) like having twice the amount of regular ram? Like 256 of regular ram=512DDR?

     It's not DDR, it's DDR RAM. DDR stands for Double Data Rate. The advantage of DDR RAM is that it can send twice the data over its pins per clock cycle that SDRAM can send. Basically, SDRAM sends data at the beginning of a clock cycle, while DDR RAM sends data at both the beginning and the ending of a clock cycle. In other words, DDR RAM effectively has more bandwidth, so the computer can access the contents of RAM more efficiently.

Changed my monitor resolution to 1024x768, @ 100Hz and didnt see any improvement. Should i change my gameplay res to the same? I play at 1152x870 with an average of 40fps.

     I've heard that GhR's framerates improve if your game and OS resolutions are both the same. I've never tested it, but that's what I've heard.

How are you guys clocking your fps? Are you just guessing or does Ghr have some sort of built in benchmark test? I've been looking for a way to clock my fps in RS for my piece o'shiz G3 imac400.

     In the Ghost Recon Data folder, there's a file called options.xml. In options.xml, under the <Graphics> heading, there's a line that reads <ShowFrameRate>FALSE</ShowFrameRate>. Just change that to TRUE, and bam, you're set.

I tried the mipmaping guide and it raised my fps by 5 at average

changed the mipmap value from 0.5000 (default) to 0.2000

yay

If you remember my earlier post, I was debating whether to upgrade my DDR RAM or video memory in an effort to achieve better performance. Based on recommendations made here, I upgraded my DDR RAM from 256 to 512MB.

The difference is remarkable! Wide open maps with heavy AI that used to skip now run smooth as silk. In fact, I haven't been able to create any game play situation that causes a performance lag.

With RAM prices still fairly cheep, I advise anyone looking for a performance boost to look into a memory upgrade.

I did the same after reading the article...same settings except mine is set to 0.3000. At least a 5-10 fps rise.

nope...make sure the mipmapping box "is checked" and then go to ur options.xml file and edit the mipmapping data from 0.50000 to  something that works well on ur cpu. If 0.50000 works best dont change it. I changed it to 0.30000 and got more fps from on an average of 35-40 to 40-45.....

Whats with all this tweaking crappola, can't they just make the game run on its own. next thing ya know we will have to program them as well

I have a question about the frame rate display.

I consistantly get rates of 15-30 fps. However, I never exceed 30 fps. In fact, when I hit 30 fps the frame rate display changes from red to yellow.

Does the color change indicate anything? It certainly seems 30 fps represents a ceiling for me. Even with no enemies on the map and my view fixed on my motionless feet I can do no better.

Is this the result of a bad Mac port? How are people achieving frame rates approaching 60 fps?

     The way the FPS counter is set up in GhR is that when your FPS is below 30, the display is red, between 30-60 (I believe it's 60, can somebody who's actually gotten framerates that high tell me if I'm wrong?) it's yellow, and at 60 and above it's green.

     "Is this the result of a bad Mac port?" Yes.

as far as I knew below 30 and below is red, 31-60 is yellow, and 61+ is green.  I personally always thought it was like this but then again it shows basically how the people who made ghost recon apply framrate to the game.  Obviously they believe that 30- is not adequate enough a framerate for the game.  No I do understand that the human eye can only see up to 24fps and that is fine, but to be honest I do believe that it is important to have a good framrate for the game that is above 30.  although this guideline for framerates was obviously setup for the PC version, which does have a faster FPS then the Mac cause of the porting.  

 First off, Saber - the eye can't see over 60FPS. A lot of people assume that it's 24 or w/e because that's what movies run at ( a movie frame is different ).

Well, today, supprisingly, I broke 60 FPS.

It was quite odd. I hadn't played GHR in about 2 months. I always remembered it as having shit framerates ( 25-40 FPS ). Today, I opened it up, and was consistantly getting 50-60 at Farm Day ( highest graphic settings ). Then, we moved to Tank. I looked up at my framerate counter, and realized that I was getting 72 FPS. It remained between 60 and 70 FPS for the rest of that game.

When I hit the screen shot button ( Command Shift 3, because I never remember what the default screen shot key is ), the framerate will drop, however, I was able to get several screen shots with famerates ranging from 60-70.

I don't have any webspace, so if you want to see these screen shots, email me, and I'll send you a few of them.

I have a 1GHZ Powerbook G4, 1GB RAM, 64MB ATI Radeon 9000.  

Concerning fps that human can see, please read the following:

http://www.geocities.com/nmaniatis/bricktastic/framerate.htm

Actually 15-20 fps is enough to fool a lot of people.  They use 24 fps in movie just for good measure.  

peace.

 Anyone who believes that is nearly as dumb as the person who trusts facts that come from a site hosted by geocities.com.

I have here, 2 perfectly normal computers.

One Alienware PC, 3.3GHZ P4 256MB GeForce FX 5900. One 1GHZ Powerbook G4, 1GB RAM, 64MB ATI Radeon 9000.

I have here two perfectly normal copies of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault - one for PC, one for mac.

I have here, Omaha Beach. Both computer have everything set on highest.

Mr. Mac is getting 17 FPS - looks extremely jerky, and extremely hard to aim.

Mr. PC is getting 167 FPS - looks perfect. Easy to aim.


I have here the same two computer, with the same game.

Opperation Tourch:

Mr. Mac is getting 26 FPS

Mr. PC is getting 194 FPS

Mr. Mac looks quite jerky, difficult to aim, but playable.

Mr. PC looks perfect, easy to aim, not the slighest big jerky.

Anyone who claims that 25 FPS looks perfect has obviously never activated a frame counter, or is used to shitty framerates.

30+ = Playable.

60+ = Exellent.

The framerate facts.

Man,

Before you start to call people "dumb", did you even read it?  It was citing results from Scientists (and the url it cited was hosted by a real University).

Sometimes you think 15 fps game (the rate quoted by the game) is jerky because: a) the computer may not measure the frame rate accurately.  b) once in a while, it skips a few frame (when there is hot actions).  And when it skip frames, it is very hard to aim, becasue you have to "predict" where your aim will be after the skipping.

Man, there is really no need to resort things to name calling.  I am trying to tell what I know, in a civilized way.  I always try to back my claim with reference.  Maybe you can also try to back your claim (human can tell the difference at 60 fps) with some real scientific reference.  Go to find it.  Try National institue of health.  Stanford Univeristy or what not.  You just won't find it, cos it is not fact.

peace

Well, if your monitor is set at 100Hz for refresh rate, your max framerate output is 50 fps.  So really, even if your computer can put out 100 fps, the output rate is still limited by your monitor.  So really, even though you are superhuman, and can tell the different between 50 and 100 pfs, it doesn't matter, cos your monitor will limit it to 50 fps.  So not getting higher than 60 fps is no big deal.  Besides, we are not superman anyway... :)

It is usually not the frame rate that kills you.  It is the inconsistency.  Skipping/lagging a frame here or there really kills.

Dampk,

Good point about the monitor limitation.  I guess it settles once and for all if there is any merit of getting 60 fps+.

Ya, I don't like impolite people in the forum as well.  Pavel, if I were you, I would just ignore him.  Don't they have modulator to make sure there is no rude behaviour in a forum any more?  I don't read most forums nowadays, cos people are so rude and uneducated.  I guess good folks are hard to find on the web. :)

Good point dampk,

One thing that is more of a problem than people bitching about low fps, is people thinking that somewhere someone might be getting more framerates than them, which causes them to die (also people with fullscreen night vision  ;) ). I personaly don't care how my framerates are, right now i've turned my graphic detail higher and now i pull between 14-25 on my g4 which is just fine, i'm still damn good.
Look at Ace who plays GHR on a 500mhz revA tibook (8megs of videoram), at most he might see 20fps, but he is a better player than mostly everyone.

But remember kids, the more FPS you have, the longer your penis is.

The second someone gets a G5, plz post your fps's here  :)

weeeee, hope its over 100.

Jeb I think you put the the finger on the hot spot.  

Computer RAM, Frame rate, connection speed.  All of this is nice and I think that we get the most of what we have.  We have a clan members on 56k that are part of the good players of ghost recon.  They dont complain about it.

My point is that skill is the major reason of what makes the difference between poor, good and excellent players.

So my suggestion to the guys that unfortunatly think they have FPS problems,  just play a bit more and you might get better at it.

 ;)

GhR is definitely CPU limited.  I can run the game at 640x480 and 1600x1200 with my Radeon 9800 Pro and see virtually no difference in my benchmarking.  However, my dual proc 1.2 Ghz G4 performs slower on my benchmarks than my work laptop, a P3 1 GHz with a 16 MB Radeon Mobility (read, really lame card).  Here's what I did:

I turned all of the video options to the lowest settings to stress the CPU and not the video card.  I then loaded the Castle map.  The castle map is actually fairly complex, and since it's the map in the demo, you don't need to get the full version of either app to benchmark (the Mac demo and latest full game version give me the same performance).  I turned on teamsuperman so I didn't have to worry about dead teammates.  I then walk from the drop zone straight ahead into the whole in the castle wall without zooming in.  My G4 hovers around 30 fps in OS X.  My work laptop gets 37 fps.  That seems like a pretty big difference (20% difference in a rather complex scene).

oh, and all the talk about framerates.  Penstar Sys did a very good article about 30 fps vs 60 fps.  Since their website has some issues right now (only the frontpage loads up) here's a link to the article via someone else's site.  I actually think this is an archive of an earlier version of the report because it looks like some of the updated material is missing:

http://www.daniele.ch/school/30vs60/30vs60_1.html

Key observations:  72 fps is maximal.  24fps as max is bs because movies take advantage of dark rooms and motion blur to help with the "smooth motion"

just wanted to tell you all that Wllietell from MP got his G5 1.8. He says that he can maintain a solid  60+ FPS at 1280x960 with everything at high, and at 1600x1200 framerates bounce between 30 and 60 at high resolution. He only has the stock 512megs of ram in there so the fps might climb dramatically with more. I believe he has the geforceFX card, but not certain because i was drunk lastnight when he told this to me.

If cossack figures out how to move files between his old mac and his new 1.6 G5 we can see some fps on that machine.

In the meantime i'll cry myself to sleep until apple decides they want to ship my G5.

 I would assume with more RAM, the framerates would greatly improve. I use 1600 x 1200 on my Dual 1.25GHZ G4, and I get 40-60 FPS.  

ok i got my G5 a few days ago, and here is how it runs ghr
Its a 1.6, radion 9600, and 256megs of ram(for now).

Anyhow ghost recon has every setting on high with 32bit color in 1600x1200res runs on average between 40-60fps. It tends to only drop to the 40fps range on maps with rain, or lots of trees. I don't remember seeing embassy drop below 60fps. I wonder how much better it will run with 2gigs of ram.

oh btw, its capped at 60fps, however my g4 could go past 60fps in certain situations. Maybe its just the radion.

Sounds good! Could you please try Mission 5 from Island Thunder where most people didn't get more than 5fps due some high poly counts and CPU intensive AI.

Bye,

Mauti

i pulled 15fps with drops to 10 :(
the framerates didn't differ between 1024x768 and 1600x1200. I only have 256megs of ram right now. I don't think i have the latest textures fixes in there, so there were a few graphical glitches in the trees.

i still think that GhR is a bad convertion - that is the point of having so bad FPS.

I'm on the 12" powerbook w/ 256 megs of RAM, and have run several tests to see where my optimum framerate is, and pretty much no matter what I do, I max out at 30fps when testing on Embassy with the server set on Elite COOP (which is what i ussualy play BTW).  I ran another test with the server on veteran and noticed a few more fps but not that much of a difference really.  I ran another test with it set on Recruit, and WOW, there was a HUGE difference.  When running around like a chicken with my head cut off, which is quite easy in recruit mode, I was averaging 40-50fps, and when standing still and zoomed,  I hit the allmighty 60fps , but not a frame more.

The UEC trick didnt seem to do anything for me, but i havent really tested it to much with a big battle goin on around me so I'll still keep it on "false" cause it didnt slow my gameplay down at all and the concept seems to make sense. =)  

...  also I have tinkered with the Mipmapping feature in the options.xml, for the past couple months actually, and no matter what setting it is on it seems like the computer is tryin to render something that isnt even in the frame yet, which freezes up the framerate for a couple seconds >:( , especially when around enema's.......  Allthough I do like how it renders all the textures to make them a little more realistic and less tingy looking, but the chopyness makes it useless IMO.  Maybe I need more RAM for this to be useful?! *shrug* I dunno.

I did another little test toggleing the effects audio on and off and noticed a dramatic difference in framerate.  You can get 20 or more frames/sec with effects volume muted.  But then again, who wants to play GhR without the sounds of war, or your deep raspy breathes when you get shot in the gut from an enemy slug.  Not me!!


I hope this adds to the chaos of this thread. :P

OK

I got my dual G5 2Ghz with 1.5GB ram and the stock radeon 9600. In most maps with everything up, shadows, mipmaps, textures, modesl on full it stays up near 60 fps at 1680x1050.

When playing carnage missions with 100 bots and 10 tanks the framerate is still high >30.

However it has not gone over 60 to my knowledge yet. Even in MBC it will sit at 59-60 all the time.

Sweet experience though. ;D

Hey Martin, thx for the post. Could you please post for me and maybe others what the fps you get in America's Army. I am thinking of buying the dual G5 but want to know that the G5 will keep up with the next generation of games.

If there is a 60 fps limit, there should also be a way of removing that limit. I will look into it, but my technie-ness is only average, so I suggest someone else does it too. If we could uncap the fps, that would greatly improve my love for GhR. I have the meanest, leanest G4 on the market but I still get drops to 15 fps in EXTREME situations (and on embassy elite coop when hosting for some reason).

If you read the previous posts in this thread you will learn that I won a pint from Flies for being the first dude to break 60 fps and mail him a screenshot, lol.

I still have to cross the pond to collect it and enjoyt it with my bro Flies.  YAYAYYAYAYAYAY!!!

PS--The highest fps I got was 61 lol!!!

You will never believe me!!

But I had a boost of 61 Fps on my comp the other day! To bad I was to slow to take a screenshot!
And here is why its so unbelievable: currently I'm playing on a G3 350Mhz Blue & White, with 512 RAM and an ATI Radeon 7000 32 Mb PCI...

I couldn't believe it myself, but it was true!
Maybe it was the OS 9 that helped me get the boost, but I don't know...

I was so surprised I got shot a min later. LOL

My avarage FPS are between 20 - 50, sometimes under, sometimes above...

I hope someone can find the reason and the solution to get higher FPS then 60... Because I'm gonna buy my dual G5 in a few months. And I really want to get some better FPS then my 300Mhz comp.   ;D

lol, I only like strong Belgian Beers: Like Affligem, Duvel...

So come to Belgium and have pint over here! Much better then Carlsberg!

Jk! Never drunk Carlsberg before so I don't know, only drink Maes, Jupiler... and the strong beers of course...

Sent

I have gotten to 63 on embassy before, I was in the alley.

hey,

i just had a framerate of 66. it wasnt just there for a second, no, it was there several times.
Since i have Panther (my dad is a beta tester), my framerate improved from about usually 20-30 to about 30-66(!!) now.
i was on the castle map and it wasnt just in one place of that map and i wasnt looking into the heaven for more frames.
here?s one of the screenshots i took:

(http://paikuhan.themac.de/neuer%20ordner/66fps!!!.jpg)

i?m using an eMac with 700mhz, the built in 32mb geforce2 mx and 768mb of ram. i?m playing with 800x600x16 and with all settings on low.
since 2 weeks i?m using the full version of panther 10.3 and my game-performance really improved! :D

[one] Civic.xo

I don?t think it was Panther that did the trick....almost sure it was my brilliant host :)

I am really looking forward to getting panther. If it did such wonders to your imac... I wonder what it will do to my PowerMac with 128 radeon :O Woot. I wonder who will be the first to break 70 :D

OK Update Time

Even on the G5 if you get enough bot's on the screen detailed shadows can kill your framerate. I normally run with everything up except shadows now which run as blob shadows. I don't know if those with nvidia cards get better shadow performance as a few with mid range machines say they run with shadows on high.

Mipmapping has negligible effect on this machine. No discernible frame rate difference in normal gameplay and is does make things look nicer.

For Voodoo. Haven't got any AA framerates yet. You can find some over at insidemacgames.com forums. However I think that AA actually runs faster that GR. Could be my imagination but it is very very playable. That's with everything set normal or high.

Cya


Oh BTW. G5 = more kills than iBook.:-)

And there is definately a cap on the FPS. I think anything above 60fps may be just a calc error. In some maps the G5 hovers between 59 - 60 occasionally goin up to 61/62. but almost never more.

the shadows let your FPS go down on PC too - and this extremly - when GhR came out, nearly no system could run all shadows on.

So turn them off - they dont really help a lot.

Shadows are invaluable to me. You clearly haven't realized the use of it. Not my problem. :D

Gottsta Love Thos Shadows!!!! ::)

GR is capped at 60, however with mipmapping i was going over 60fps. Normally i would stop at 60.
Here is a screenshot.
http://homepage.mac.com/farmerjeb/g5ghr.jpg  (don't click if you have 56k)

AA runs slower than GHR, same with UT2k3. I average 30-40fps in AA in 1024x768 with settings on high. I run ghr at 1600x1200 on all high with mipmapping and it stays at 60fps with drops to 40-50.

oh, btw ghr runs faster in panther, because i can play itunes while playing ghr and stay at 50-60fps, when before i dropped to 30-40fps.

Thx jeb and OZ, but I was looking for the frame rate with the dual G5, but I am excided to hear teh 1.6 g5 gets such great frames in AA:O. Now if only Ace will get his ass moving and dl AA. ;)

I also cant wait for Panther. I hear great things with it and mac in the gaming industry.

Man I am playing this game much longer then u and I never missed the shoadows - They are nice but that all.

Never did use them - EAX is more helpfull - b/c I can hear the enemy.
before I see him.

With shadows on you can tell enemies are above you or sometimes even thru walls--how can you say this isn't helpful? ::)

Hey all

Just a short update for Voodoo. I've looked at the framerates in AA 1.9 on my dual

In the radio tower map (the only one I've really looked at)

I get framerates of between 35 - 120
probably average 45 outside, 85 inside
settings are:
everything on high
triple buffering, detail textures, projection maps and all that stuff on
1680 x 1050 x 32

every setting is standard or above standard.

the only mods are 8 sound channels instead of 32 and the "var" at 64 value to recognise the 64mb card

Dual G5
radeon 9600
1.5GB Ram

So for me AA run's faster than Ghost

Awesome Martin, thank you so much for your reply. I guess this thread is now open to all games and fps "tweaks".

I can only imagine the results with the 256mb ati card!! ;D

Why not - when someone knows how ti Tweak a common game - just post it here