Need help w/ Nvidia GeForce 7900 quality/performance

[nexbender]

Yet another update due to overlooking the obvious (verbatim from a post below): I now see I left out the single most important thing from my original post! INPUT! There is some usually quite small INPUT lag that accompanies the frame dips, but since it is irregular, I have no idea how to compensate for it. I've tried adjusting rate as far down as 6000, but it never goes away or becomes predictable. The only thing, as originally mentioned, that helps ameliorate the issue is turning off all effects. Which boggles, because I can't imagine much more (any?) data coming over the wire because of that.

I originally posted this in Performance Tips, but as it garnered no replies I've deleted it and reproduced it here with a bit of a foreword:

I'd like to be able to play this game with a decent level of detail and eye-candy on the beefy home machine detailed below, but so far I have been unable to find a happy medium. I am playing online with visual squalor, reduced to bounding around in a 2d landscape with no trace of depth, no notion of velocity (how to track a target that blinks in and out of existence at random intervals?), aiming at a few pixels that, on closer inspection, resolve into a team-mate. Uh, yeah. Hi. It is rather sad.

Oh, and some might question my choice of an 85Hz refresh rate and desired fps, which I can only answer by saying my brain can not really compensate for any lower number. I can't get there from here. Anything less looks like a pathetic slide-show. It is hard to track movement or move properly when your brain has to keep waiting for the next slide to appear. I suppose this is why cats don't watch much TV (I don't either).

Rig: PCIE 7900 GTO (GTX w/ tighter mem timing, modded firmware but still very much in safe range, no artifacts, lines, etc.) on an Intel D945GNT, Prescott rev. Pentium D 3.2GHz proc (dual core), 3 gigs of memory. I run Archlinux, custom -RT kernel, extremely stable, almost zero latency (do audio recording), no shared IRQs. I run Nexuiz out of a dedicated X session (i.e., runlevel 3, env & exec nexuiz w/ negative nice from .xinitrc), nothing in the background save a few conservative daemons (ntp listener, udev), nothing cron'd. I have also run Windows on this hardware, some moons ago. I have _not_ run another OpenGL game on this box, but I have run Nexuiz on it under Windows with similar results.

I've tried both -glx and -sdl versions w/ stock config (and stock nvidia settings). -sdl produced very noticeable stutters, dropped/lagged input, dropped frames, tearing, frame rate all over the place. -glx ran somewhat better - more stable frame rate and input-responsive. I started there and have stuck w/ the -glx.

Make a long story short: does anyone have a 7900 series GeForce and *know* the best combination of options to get the best quality textures, smoothness and eye-candy w/ *zero* laginess and a decent frame rate (say, 85 or so, since I drive my CRT at 85Hz at 1024x768 for games). So far every possible combination I have tried, short of disabling every bit of prettiness, has produced miserable results. I am used to running games under Windows w/ all eye candy on and having to cap my frame rate anyway to prevent tearing!

Much thanks in advance, to anyone who tries to help. I have scoured the forums for anything relevant, but on the chance I've missed something, my apologies in advance as well.

My current settings are (stripped down to what's meaningful, I hope):

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_cl_color "0"
_cl_name "blah"
_cl_playermodel "models/player/crash.zym"
_cl_rate "25000"
cl_bobmodel "0"
cl_bobmodel_side "0.0"
cl_bobmodel_up "0.0"
cl_decals "0"
seta cl_hidewaypoints "0"
seta cl_nogibs "1"
cl_noplayershadow "1"
cl_particles_blood "0"
cl_particles_bubbles "0"
cl_particles_bulletimpacts "0"
cl_particles_explosions_smokes "0"
cl_particles_explosions_sparks "0"
cl_particles_quality "1"
cl_particles_rain "0"
cl_particles_size ".5"
cl_particles_smoke "0"
cl_particles_sparks "0"
seta cl_playerdetailreduction "0"
seta g_norecoil "1"
gl_picmip "0"
gl_polyblend "0"
gl_texture_anisotropy "0"
r_coronas "0"
r_depthfirst "2"
r_dynamic "0"
r_glsl_deluxemapping "0"
r_glsl_offsetmapping_reliefmapping "0"
r_shadow_gloss "0"
r_shadow_realtime_dlight "0"
r_sky "0"
r_waterscroll "0"
r_waterwarp "0"
seta scmenu_menu_height "768"
seta scmenu_menu_width "1024"
seta scmenu_mouse_speed "3"
seta scmenu_querystring ""
sensitivity "30"
showfps "1"
seta sv_defaultcharacter "0"
seta sv_defaultplayermodel "models/player/nexus.zym"
seta sv_defaultplayerskin "0"
seta sv_eventlog_files_counter "0"
seta sv_precacheitems "1"
seta sv_precacheplayermodels "1"
seta sv_precacheweapons "1"
seta sv_servermodelsonly "1"
v_gamma "2.500000"
vid_height "768"
vid_refreshrate "85"
vid_width "1024"
seta vid_x11_display ""


[Ed]

There is no 'known' best set of settings for any specific hardware. I think your problem is that you're expecting 85fps constantly, that's just not going to happen. You do not need to see 85fps constantly to get smooth movement and I don't blame anyone for questioning that before.

What framerate do you get on a timedemo?

[nexbender]

There is no 'known' best set of settings for any specific hardware. I think your problem is that you're expecting 85fps constantly, that's just not going to happen. You do not need to see 85fps constantly to get smooth movement and I don't blame anyone for questioning that before.

What framerate do you get on a timedemo?

I don't remember how to run a timedemo - I'll have to look up tomorrow because it's way past my bedtime. I'll post the results then. As for 85fps - how about 75? Is that reasonable? I'm used to that on 2d desktop and it doesn't seem very hard on my eyes. Is it true a _consistent_ framerate is more relevant to the mind's ability to "see" movement in a series of pictures?

[Ed]

I don't remember how to run a timedemo

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timedemo demos/demo1

As for 85fps - how about 75? Is that reasonable? I'm used to that on 2d desktop and it doesn't seem very hard on my eyes.

That's not comparable. Are you using a TFT or a CRT? The refresh rates are incomparable with a CRT as it is in effect half the rate. There is absolutely nothing wrong with 50fps.

Is it true a _consistent_ framerate is more relevant to the mind's ability to "see" movement in a series of pictures?

Not exactly. Consider video compression codecs where some blocks do not change between frames. Here there is a psychovisual redundancy reduction. In game as long as the fps doesn't dip much below 20 for more than a few tenths of a second it doesn't matter.

[nexbender]

timedemo demos/demo1

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date 2007-09-24 01:17:02 | enginedate 16:37:51 May 30 2007 | demo demos/demo1.dem | commandline /opt/nexuiz/nexuiz-linux-686-glx  | result 1910 frames 13.2547812 seconds 144.0989457 fps, one-second min/avg/max: 125 145 178

Are you using a TFT or a CRT?

CRT

In game as long as the fps doesn't dip much below 20 for more than a few tenths of a second it doesn't matter.

Ah, that's coming up on the problem, and I now see I left out the single most important thing from my original post! INPUT! There is some usually quite small INPUT lag that accompanies the frame dips, but since it is irregular, I have no idea how to compensate for it. I've tried adjusting rate as far down as 6000, but it never goes away or becomes predictable. The only thing, as originally mentioned, that helps ameliorate the issue is turning off all effects. Which boggles, because I can't imagine much more (any?) data coming over the wire because of that.

I'm on a 10Mbit down/1Mb up cable-modem pipe, behind a DD WRT router. No other local boxes up while I'm playing. Nothing downloading, no cron jobs, etc.

[tZork]

constant 85 should be possible with that rig. my 6600gt servs me 120fps almost all of the time on normal.cfg (during online gameplay). it dips a tad on some big open maps with lots of playres tho. i had some input lags in linux, tured out to be a xorg update that had re-enabled 3-button emmulation, so do doubbl echeck the "stupid stuff" and perhaps try a svn checkout and build of the very latest Darkplaces engine.

[nexbender]

constant 85 should be possible with that rig. my 6600gt servs me 120fps almost all of the time on normal.cfg (during online gameplay). it dips a tad on some big open maps with lots of playres tho. i had some input lags in linux, tured out to be a xorg update that had re-enabled 3-button emmulation, so do doubbl echeck the "stupid stuff" and perhaps try a svn checkout and build of the very latest Darkplaces engine.

Mouse is using protocol IMPS/2 (correct one) and pointed to char device for the mouse (/dev/misc/psaux). Emulate3Buttons is off. I use Archlinux, and pacman doesn't blow away or "update" existing conf files normally. I've checked all the other stupid stuff I could think of (any sort of background job, any sort of gl library mismatch, etc) and nothing panned out. And since I've run the OpenGL version of UT04, Sauerbraten, and Urban Terror on this box now, and they are all performing very well (200+ fps w/ no hitching/input-lag), I'm really out of ideas.

If I get around to building Darkplaces current from repository, I'll post my results over in the dev section and maybe link it here.

[nexbender]

OK, so do I make "nexuiz" or which one? This guy's docs leave something to be desired, like existing.

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[bender@rig darkplaces]$ make

===== Choose one =====
* make clean       : delete all files produced by the build
* make help        : this help
* make debug       : make client and server binaries (debug versions)
* make profile     : make client and server binaries (profile versions)
* make release     : make client and server binaries (release versions)
* make nexuiz      : make client and server binaries with nexuiz icon (release versions)
* make cl-debug    : make client (debug version)
* make cl-profile  : make client (profile version)
* make cl-release  : make client (release version)
* make cl-nexuiz   : make client with nexuiz icon (release version)
* make sv-debug    : make dedicated server (debug version)
* make sv-profile  : make dedicated server (profile version)
* make sv-release  : make dedicated server (release version)
* make sv-nexuiz   : make dedicated server with nexuiz icon (release version)
* make sdl-debug   : make SDL client (debug version)
* make sdl-profile : make SDL client (profile version)
* make sdl-release : make SDL client (release version)
* make sdl-nexuiz  : make SDL client with nexuiz icon (release version)

Uh, nevermind for now. Something in the source is causing gcc to puke & die (tried the nexuiz target), and since I build code on this box every freaking day, I'm fairly certain the fault lies not w/ me and mine. I may continue this on the appropriate mailing list. Or not, since they can't bother to follow conventions, I'm not sure it's worth it.

[Ed]

make nexuiz

[nexbender]

make nexuiz

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[davy@rig darkplaces]$ make nexuiz
make sv-nexuiz cl-nexuiz sdl-nexuiz
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/davy/twilight/darkplaces'
make bin-release \
                DP_MAKE_TARGET=linux DP_SOUND_API=ALSA \
                EXE="nexuiz-dedicated" LDFLAGS_COMMON="-lm -ldl"
make[2]: Entering directory `/home/davy/twilight/darkplaces'

========== nexuiz-dedicated (release) ==========
make nexuiz-dedicated \
                DP_MAKE_TARGET=linux DP_SOUND_API=ALSA \
                CFLAGS="-MD   -Wall -Wsign-compare -Wdeclaration-after-statement   -O2 -fno-strict-aliasing "\
                LDFLAGS="-O2 -fno-strict-aliasing  -lm -ldl"
make[3]: Entering directory `/home/davy/twilight/darkplaces'
gcc -MD   -Wall -Wsign-compare -Wdeclaration-after-statement   -O2 -fno-strict-aliasing  -c sys_linux.c -o sys_linux.o
gcc: Internal error: Segmentation fault (program cc1)
Please submit a full bug report.
See <URL:http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html> for instructions.
make[3]: *** [sys_linux.o] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/davy/twilight/darkplaces'
make[2]: *** [bin-release] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/davy/twilight/darkplaces'
make[1]: *** [sv-nexuiz] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/davy/twilight/darkplaces'
make: *** [nexuiz] Error 2

EDIT: I fixed it, though I'm not sure what fixed it. I made a change or three in the makefile.inc and reinstalled gcc becuz something didn't look right.