20% performance hit when I enable SMP in Quake3

[slkh 0]

I seems to get about 20% performance hit on Quake 3 Arena if I enable SMP mode. Shouldn't it increase the performance instead of decreasing it?

 

My settings are

1024x768x16 (FSAA) on Nvidia Driver 5.22 (detonator 2)

Geforce DDR

 

 

Even I successfully make Quake 3 Arena run, the possibility of it running is very small. I manage to get to the white screen, and it freeze, I need to shut it down and run again multiple time before it will actually run. I don't know what setting I have missed out. But seems like nobody have ever mentioned about this problem before anywhere else. Care to help?

[Dragon-Lord 0]

none of the new Nvidia drivers support SMP (officially, according to their website!), so I wouldn't bother for now. I am sure that the hit you are seeing is a result of a bottleneck of some kind (FSAA code?) in those drivers. I too am looking forward to SMP support in the drivers (soon?).

 

:}

[Cholera 0]

I know the problem of the frozen Q3..

I have a BP6 and a Dual celleron.

If i activate smp and start again there are often Errors like this freezing in the white screen or when the id movie is playing.

 

I think when using the 3.84 detonators it was better... maybe try them...

[slkh 0]

While even if I disable FSAA support on OpenGL, the performance hit when enable the SMP support still applies. I find it a bit weird. Could this be the reason Nvidia disable the SMP support?

 

So far, I haven't have any problem with all the official or beta driver on uniprocessor, but I am very upset about the SMP support and the performance was bad.

[-WrathChild- 0]

I HAD THAT PROBLEM, BUT IT WORKS FINE NOW!

Here is how you fix that DAMN white screen lockup!

You MUST play quake3 in SMP mode in REALTIME.

The easiest way to do this, is modify the shortcut on the desktop to read this!

 

cmd.exe /c start /realtime /max e:\Games2k\Quake3\quake3.exe

 

Change the "e:\games2k\quake3" to where your quake directory is...

I have not had a lockup with this enable.

Gamespy wont let this command work, or pass the server settings to it. I currently just run the shortcut, and go into multiplayer and connect through there. Pain in the !ss I know, but SMP works great, adds 20 -30 more FPS, 1024 and under that is.

[Dragon-Lord 0]

Tried this and SMP works now!!! Thanks!

 

However, I now get the same huge frame drop that was mentioned above, so back to SMP 0 for me...weird.

 

I am using Geforce DDR on Nvidia 5.25 drivers. Which ones are you using?

 

I have AGP 2X, SB enabled...

 

:}

[slkh 0]

I tried your tips, it didn't work. I run DNetc, is that the culprit? I sometimes disable DNetc, it run, but sometimes it doesn't run even I disable it.

 

So what should I do now?

[Dragon-Lord 0]

You know what else is wierd? Now that I run the (oddly slower) SMP 1 mode under the realtime switch, I get the occasional quick sound/video "hiccup" when playing Q3, but no more freezes! Weird. The game actually behaves like it wants to freeze, but the system won't let it. Go figure.

 

Also v5.25 has been MUCH better under Win2k. IRQL BSODs have seemingly disappeared. I still have a regular KMODE crash and an occasional BAP_POOL crash but things are getting more and more stable every release.

 

I really have high hopes for new SBLive drivers, the final IE5.5, and final W2K SP1. I think that will make a HUGE difference.

 

:}

 

 

:}

[FrogMaster 0]

Finally, I succeeded in having this realtime switch trick from bp6.com work : lock-ups in smp mode seem to have gone (det. 5.25). The fps performance, as all of us have noticed, is still around -20% as compared with monoprocessor (1024x768/32bits), which is bad.

So we have not yet got a real solution

[FrogMaster 0]

BTW, does anybody knows what this realtime switch does?

[Dragon-Lord 0]

SLKH, I was using an AGP aperture of 256, because I have 256mb of ram on my Supermicro mb. By dropping it down again to 32 or 64, the hiccups seem to have stopped with my system.

 

Also, I had made some John Carmack-recommended geforce-related changes to my Q3A config file. By deleting that version and rebuilding it from the new version of Q3A v1.17, my performance has increased as well.

 

I still get the SMP hit, but I am leaving SMP on for now.

 

The saga continues,

 

:}

[slkh 0]

I tried lowering down the apperture size, yes I agree it does help a bit. At some time, I heard the audio, but my screen is not refreshing, but later it continue to run fine. I believe if I have not lowered the apperture size, it could have lockup my system. Thanks for the tips.

 

However, by setting realtime, I still can't 100% able to launch Quake without a hang. Could it be I haven't have a full installation?

 

However, the performance hit still applies at all time. Anyone successfully break the barrier?

[slkh 0]

Wrathchild,

 

I have successfully reinstalled into a new directory instead of the Program Files directory which solve my problem when I use the /max /realtime options. Probably because of the space between the program files.

 

However, the performance hit still applies. Approximately 10 fps drop from 61.0 fps

My settings are

 

Celeron 300A@450

Geforce DDR

1024x768x 32 Trilinear

Max out all the setting available on screen.

 

May I know what is your settings?

[Greggy 0]

Now that I have 'resurrected' my SMP box, I will share my Q3A experiences with you guys:

 

Q3A(1.17) Demo 1, 1024x768 32bit colour, Billinear, Everything max out:

 

r_smp 0 - 63.0fps

 

r_smp 1 - 55.5fps (about 12% slower with SMP enabled)

 

My SMP 'development' box:

Dual 366 Celerons o/c to 550MHz (100FSB), Abit BP6 v1.0 (RU BIOS), 256Mb RAM, WinFast GeForce2 GTS (1x AGP, 2x = crash), 20Gb Seagate Baracuda II IDE (on HPT366 ATA66 controller), MX300, Windows 2000 Pro etc.

 

Note: r_smp 1 would not run at all before I downloaded the Windows 2000 updates, including the compatibilty updates from www.windowsupdate.com Since doing that AND setting AGP to 1x (using powerstrip) all 3D apps and games are 100% stable with this dual CPU setup. Amazing!

[slkh 0]

Q3A(1.17) Demo 1, 1024x768 32 bit colour, bilinear, everything else max out:

 

r_smp 0 = 62.2 fps

r_smp 1 = 52.8 fps

 

Q3A(1.17) Demo 1, 1024x768 32 bit colour, trilinear, everything else max out:

 

r_smp 0 = 61.7 fps

r_smp 1 = 54.3 fps (Improve compared to Bilinear???)

 

 

Configuration:

Dual Cel300A@464 Mhz

Supermicro P6DGU

384 Mb SDRAM @ CAS 2

CL Geforce DDR @ AGP 2X

18.2 Gb Quantum Fireball KA

6.4 Gb Seagate Medalist Pro

Windows 2000 Pro with all Updates installed.

SB Live

Nvidia reference Driver 5.30 (W2K)

 

Notes: Performance degradation somewhere around 16% (or 12% if Trilinear). Slight improvement over the previous few beta. Let's hope Nvidia will continue to improve the driver and push additional 30 fps or so to SMP users. FSAA performance still sucks...

 

Note 2: Anyone realize that the demo actually ran faster on SMP mode on, but slow down quite a lot when rocket is in use??

 

 

 

[This message has been edited by slkh (edited 27 June 2000).]