[BFG9000]

Does anyone have any suggestions as to which options to disable or change to help increase performance? It runs "okay" with everything set to "ultra" but I'd like to see if I could boost the fps a bit without sacrificing to much quality.

[mike_s]

BFG9000, on 08 April 2021 - 01:33 PM, said:

Does anyone have any suggestions as to which options to disable or change to help increase performance? It runs "okay" with everything set to "ultra" but I'd like to see if I could boost the fps a bit without sacrificing to much quality.

DOS is the answer

The problem with new systems when they come fresh out of the box is that a bunch of garbage is loaded in the background and at times this can create a lag in any application, not just Duke Nukem.

For absolute MAX performance...

Now if you want max performance on a newer machine, then what I would suggest is this:

1. Take note of the location of the DOS Duke Nukem files (especially duke3d.exe)
2. Make yourself an MS-DOS bootable USB or CD-ROM and restart your computer to boot from that
3. When the good-old DOS prompt appears, navigate to the duke nukem folder and launch the game.

If DOS does not recognize your hard drive (for it being big), then you'll have to copy the files onto the boot device but make sure the boot device can load the necessary drivers. With a bootable CD-ROM, the cd-rom device driver must be loaded along with MSCDEX.EXE to access the entire CD. Also, XMSDSK.EXE is wonderful with himem.sys because it allows you to make a ram drive of up to 64MB. Then if you mange to copy all duke nukem files onto that ram drive and launch duke from there, then speed will be fastest because nothing will interrupt it, not even the hard drive!

For decent performance...

DOSBOX works fine with me for the game, although my computer does turn its fan on while DOSBOX runs, it still does the job. You may need to edit the "cycles" setting in the dosbox config file and set the value to "max" if you want performance.


But in the end, if you want performance without overloading your system, then you need to unload applications you don't need running in the background.

[Jimmy]

Good luck running Serious Sam 3 on a DOS machine.

[MusicallyInspired]

mike_s, on 13 April 2021 - 02:31 PM, said:

DOS is the answer

Serious Duke3D is a mod for Serious Sam 3/Fusion.

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

Jimmy, on 13 April 2021 - 02:52 PM, said:

Good luck running Serious Sam 3 on a DOS machine.

You can with the infinite power of DOS which comes from it having zero bloat. Not even my CD drive can bring DOS' endless power down.

[JohnBlade]

Funny.

To go back on topic - what you generally want is to avoid is Texture quality reduction followed by using non-native resolution as that becomes immediately obvious. I personally disable in all games depth of field (DOF) and blur as I hate the effect and probably costs a bit of performance.

What costs a lot of performance and in my personal opinion is less visible is all kinds of shadows and afterwards the lightning, so try to cut on shadows and see. Also consider if you really need very far visibility for all items.

You might want to cap your FPS at certain level. This does not help performance itself but makes the "jumps" less noticeable (ie outdoor areas vs indoor areas). I had to cut the FPS to 30 to make it run "smoothly" on resolution of my choosing on my old laptop...

The author of Serious Duke actually admits that overall performance of first level is not great so maybe just go with it for first level and then try re-tweak it in 2nd and following levels if still not satisfactory.

[mike_s]

I thought by "Serious Duke3D performance" that the OP meant that he was sick and tired of low FPS and lags in Duke Nukem 3D games in general. lol

[Kerr Avon]

@BFG9000, sorry, I don't know, but if you post on the Steam page for the mod (My link) asking aout optimising the performance settings, then you should receive help there.

A quick look at My link shows:

"Performance:

Some areas (mainly in E1L1) have performance issues.
I'm working on further optimizing the levels without sacrificing the visuals.
-I recommend to reduce the shadow size down to low or medium since this is the most demanding setting"

mike_s, on 15 April 2021 - 04:40 PM, said:

I thought by "Serious Duke3D performance" that the OP meant that he was sick and tired of low FPS and lags in Duke Nukem 3D games in general. lol

That's an understandable mistake, but he/she meant this mod for Serious Sam Fusion, named 'Serious Duke 3D', a fan made remake (with new areas and situations) of the first episode of Duke Nukem 3D:





This video is a year or so old, and the mod has been improved/bug fixed since then, so don't treat the review as being final.