[Sobek]

Hey guys,

Bit of an issue I've had for a while now (probably started seeing it a month ago but just chalked it up to my spare PC needing a fresh reinstall of Windows + Drivers and such). Basically, models with animations seem to cause the framerate to absolutely dive (even if I just stick down one of the single-frame versions of an animated one, like a pigcop or liztrooper, but to a lesser extent). After clearing off and starting fresh with my spare PC the other day, I've found the issue remains, and I've even tried backdating my Catalyst driver version to 8.10/11/12 to see if it helps - it didn't. This PC has the following specs;

A64 3200+
1gb ddr400
Radeon x800xt 256mb / HD2900xt 512mb (have tried both, am using the 2900xt right now)

What I've found is that it seems to be limited to specific versions of Mapster32. Eduke32 gameplay is unaffected, and runs absolutely fine regardless of how many models are on screen. I've created a picture which, I hope, shows pretty clearly what the difference is;



As you can see, the 2009 build/s have a framerate in that scene of 10, which in play feels more like 1 since it's so awfully bogged down that pressing left once basically makes it halt for a few seconds, at which point you just appear facing the other way (where the framerate is capable of being higher). So for whatever reason, the 2009 builds (I've tried all that I can get my hands on) seem to be causing this issue. As soon as I turn my view around in Mapster32 to look at anything except the models, the framerate happily skyrockets back to 400 or whatever it would normally be. Non-animated models, like some trees I imported recently to test, DO drop the framerate considerably, but allows Mapster to remain 'playable'.

Any ideas what might be going on here?

*edit* Among other things I have tested that had no effect;

Disabling / Enabling AA / AF settings, as I sometimes have some AA applied - No change.

Deleting the texture cache and letting it start anew - No change.

Running Fullscreen mode as opposed to Windowed - No change.

[TerminX]

Weird. I wonder if this is an ATI issue or something. Can you try opening EDuke32, loading that map, and then setting r_vbos to 1 in the console (perhaps followed by restartvid)? I think I defaulted that cvar to 1 in newer builds, but that version of Mapster32 might not have the var registered (or maybe it does -- try it!). If this is the problem, setting r_vbos to 0 every time you start Mapster32 should work as a workaround until a new build is available.

[Piano Man]

You do realise that in one of the pictures you seem to have started recording in Fraps which can cause the frame rate to drop like a stone since your saving uncompressed AVI data to your PC... the one with the red 10 in the corner.

I mean uncompressed 1280 x 1024 avi is like 30 MB a sec writing to your hard drive... Mine would slow down to. Check which button you have mapped to start recording in Fraps and make sure it doesn't interfere with Mapster commands.

[Sobek]

TX, on May 30 2009, 02:24 PM, said:

Weird. I wonder if this is an ATI issue or something. Can you try opening EDuke32, loading that map, and then setting r_vbos to 1 in the console (perhaps followed by restartvid)? I think I defaulted that cvar to 1 in newer builds, but that version of Mapster32 might not have the var registered (or maybe it does -- try it!). If this is the problem, setting r_vbos to 0 every time you start Mapster32 should work as a workaround until a new build is available.

Thanks, I'll give that a try in just a moment.

Piano Man, on May 30 2009, 02:41 PM, said:

You do realise that in one of the pictures you seem to have started recording in Fraps which can cause the frame rate to drop like a stone since your saving uncompressed AVI data to your PC... the one with the red 10 in the corner.

I mean uncompressed 1280 x 1024 avi is like 30 MB a sec writing to your hard drive... Mine would slow down to. Check which button you have mapped to start recording in Fraps and make sure it doesn't interfere with Mapster commands.

Thanks for the lecture, but I don't have FRAPS running. The yellow/red framerate counter there is from ATI Tray Tools, which I've always used alongside Eduke / Mapster without issue. As a sidenote, I HAVE also tried disabling ATT just to rule out the chance that the OSD is interferring with Mapster somehow, but it made no change.

[Sobek]

Well, sure enough, that did the trick.

The 2009-03-13 build of Eduke32 had r_vbos set to 0, whereas the Mapster32 of the same build had it set to 1. Setting it to 1 in Eduke32 dropped the framerate from 100 to 55 in that same scene, whereas in Mapster32, setting it to 0 instead of 1 improved the framerates from 10 up to 110, thereby matching the 2008 build's framerates.

Is there any negative sideaffects to having r_vbos set to 0 instead of 1? I understand that it's to do with Vertex Buffer Objects, but I don't know enough to know how that impacts on the game.