baaad perfomance on a very fast macpro

[franatic]

I'm having HUGE perfomance problems on my MacPro. I always have between 20 and 60 frames even with the lowest settings and everything turned off.
i'm running Mac OS X 10.4.10 and my hardware is:
* 2 Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors (1.33GHz FSB / 4MB L2 Cache)
* 16 GB of RAM
* NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB

Is there anything I can do to make it work under Mac OS or do I have to go for Linux / paralels desktp?
// edit
just wanted to add that I loce this game and had a lot of fun when playing it in lan with some frineds ( I had a winows pc )

[KadaverJack]

My first guess: is vsync enabled? (perhaps it's forced by the driver?) If it is, Nexuiz will never render faster than the screen's refresh rate...
If vsync is off, there might be a problem with the dual core CPU. Some ppl on windows had performance problems which could be fixed by forcing Nexuiz to run only on one core.

[torus]

Vsync might be your problem.

And btw, you will not be able to run Nexuiz using Parallels. Dispite their claims, 3d applications run very poorly still in emulation, and you will if anything get even worse fps, if it even opens.

[divVerent]

You have a nvidia card... can you try opening the console (shift-escape) and type "r_glsl 1"? And then check if everything looks right?

That feature is currently disabled on OS X because of broken drivers, but I'd like to know if nvidia cards are affected too. Also, it may increase performance.

Other than that, enter your driver settings and disable vsync.

[franatic]

Hm it works fine after I restarted the system (it has been running for 2 months). I also found out that i was rendering a 140GB movie file on one of my virtual desktops I almost forgot about. This might have kept the graphics card busy.
Disabling vsync could have helped as well.

[divVerent]

Can you try r_glsl 1 anyway (in the menu: OpenGL 2.0 shaders). The option is not saved on OS X (forced off on every start of the game) because of bugs in the OS X drivers... I'd like to know if these are still there. Especially, check if bloom works when that is enabled.

[melk]

I'd just like to say that I have a Mac mini 1.5 ghz Core Solo, 2GB RAM, Intel GMA950 graphics - with r_glsl 1 I get a BIG fps boost - BUT all the weapon and player models are black... fine for DM but I play CTF most of the time so I have to leave it off

I wish I could leave it on though, it nearly double my mix/avg/max frame rates

[divVerent]

We all would like Apple to fix their graphics drivers. Their broken drivers are the reason why r_glsl is forced off on each startup on OS X, while it's on by default on any other operating system.

Also, note how bloom and realtime shadows are broken on OS X...

however, as for the black player models, maybe we can at least work around THAT... but as none of the Nexuiz developers has a Mac that can do GLSL (I am the only one who has one, but that Mac mini has a Radeon 9200 onboard which does not support GLSL), this isn't going to happen anytime soon.

[AceOfThumbs]

I get good performance on an Intel iMac 2GHz Core Dup with a 256MB ATi x1600. I'm surprised the MacPro is having any trouble at all. I set my video quality settings to Low quality and get about 100 fps. I haven't done anything special in Nexuiz.

[AceOfThumbs]

Well, a little time has passed since my earlier post in this thread and I have played on more maps now and have experienced pretty bad performance on a few. I'm also using a Mac Pro now, but with an ATI x1900 video card.

Here are a few tips:

- Try the Nexuiz SVN instead of 2.3. It is significantly faster for me.
- Switch off Vertex Buffer Objects. For my video card this feature slows it down.
- Often I can switch on the Open GL 2.0 shaders, which gives a huge boost to the frame rate. I can be under 100 fps and switch on GL 2 and it jumps to 300fps!
- Play in games with fewer players. I've noticed a big slow down when there are more than 2 or 3 other players or bots.
- Turn off all effects except for real time dynamic lights and decals. I think these are the most important effects. RT dynamic lights let you see the light from weapons that are shot from behind you. Decals let you see where weapons fire hits a surface.

On my computer, I try to play with GL 2 on. For some maps the graphic overlay starts spinning and then I need to turn GL 2 off without being able to see. I made a key bind that toggles back and forth. It also switches Vertex Buffer Objects. For me, it works best when either both are on or both are off. Press o to toggle on and off. Here is the code:

Code: Select all

// toggle gl2 shaders and vertex buffer objects
bind o "toggle r_glsl; toggle gl_vbo"
//default to off in case it messes up display
set r_glsl 0; set gl_vbo 0