Bad framerates on ATI cards?

Innocence · #1 June 9th, 2004, 03:24 PM

Anyone know if the low framerate I'm experiencing with my ATI Radeon is a confirmed problem, and if anyone (Ilwinter or ATI) are working on solving it?

My PC is a 2.5+Ghz AMD Barton, 1Gb RAM, ATI Radeon 9600XT running WinXP PRO. Newest ATI drivers (Catalyst 4.5, tried reference and Omega wo. much difference), DX9.0b.

It runs FarCry, Battlefield Vietnam and like on highest settings smoothly, so how come my DomII framerates show below 2 FPS on highest settings, and about 10-15FPS on medium? I'm not talking battle, I'm talking in Video setup where you see an empty landscape scroll by.

Btw. I'm a PC technician myself and I've tried the same stuff I usually tell the Users: reinstalled game, updated drivers, tried different color depths and resolutions, rebooted every time I move the mouse, but nothing has changed with the framerate.

Reading the forum it sounds like an issue with Radeon cards - but is anything being done about it?

reverend · #2 June 9th, 2004, 04:10 PM

Hm. I haven't got a solution, but I can offer a comparison.

2.6 GHz P4, 1 GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9600TX (NOT XT, about the power of a 9600Pro), Win2k, DX9.0b, Cat 4.5 (Omega drivers).

On 1280x960 with 2x AA and 4x AF I get 20FPS on normal, 12 on high, 8 on very high and 5 on too high.

I'm not sure what could cause this problem. A friend of mine had the same very low FPS as you, until he upgraded to newer Omega drivers. Since you already tried that...

Innocence · #3 June 9th, 2004, 04:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by reverend:2.6 GHz P4, 1 GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9600TX (NOT XT, about the power of a 9600Pro), Win2k, DX9.0b, Cat 4.5 (Omega drivers).

Yes, should be much like mine

Quote:

On 1280x960 with 2x AA and 4x AF I get 20FPS on normal, 12 on high, 8 on very high and 5 on too high.

Yea, not very impressive either - again about the same low rates as mine.

Btw., I forgot to mention: I run the game in Windowed mode (circa 1400x1200 window) on a 1600x1200 32bpp Windows resolution. I've tried full screen mode though: It's a little better but only by margins really (like maybe 10%).

Granted framerates means very little in a game like this, but a rig with those specs ought to give me smooth graphics in highest quality

What about you nVidia people? It seems like any old 486 with a GeForce I card will leave even a Radeon 9800PRO in the dust when it comes to Dom2?

[ June 09, 2004, 15:48: Message edited by: Innocence ]

reverend · #4 June 9th, 2004, 05:06 PM

Hm. I could go and install Dom2 on my second PC, which has a GeForce. But I'm too lazy to actually try it.

Btw. FPS don't change when going from Windowed to Fullscreen. (I usually play Windowed)

I must admit, I'm not really concerned. 20 FPS on the battlescreen. So what. It's not like we're playing some clickfest here.

And I'm fast-forwarding through the battle most of the time anyway.

Now, under 10 fps on the higher settings, that is another story. I don't really see how merely increasing visibility range on the trees should cost so many FPS...

delacroix · #5 June 9th, 2004, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Innocence:

quote:
On 1280x960 with 2x AA and 4x AF I get 20FPS on normal, 12 on high, 8 on very high and 5 on too high.

What about you nVidia people? It seems like any old 486 with a GeForce I card will leave even a Radeon 9800PRO in the dust when it comes to Dom2?

most likely

. At 1280x960 with 2xAA I get 29 fps on normal, 18 on high, 13 on very high and 10 on too high and about 50 fps on low with a P3 933mhz and a GF2 GTS. Cleary not optimized hardware.

But I usually just stick to normal detail anyways since there is nary an improvement going much higher than that.

Innocence · #6 June 9th, 2004, 08:41 PM

As I suspected

Still, it's a little odd isn't it? I mean, all the hype aside the two card brands are nearly identical in performance, with a few pluses and minuses on each side, yet Dom2 has put a huge performance gap in between.

I wonder if Ilwinter knows about the problem, and if they do, have they reported the issue to ATI? The latest ATI driver alone lists fixes for two specific games, so why not for Dom2?

LintMan · #7 June 9th, 2004, 10:24 PM

I have a Radeon 9800Pro and also get crappy framerates. As I understand it, the problem is that Dom2 uses the OpenGL graphics API, which ATI has lousy support for, but which nVidia has good support for. So nvida owners do fine with Dom2, while ATI owners flounder.

Until ATI improves its OpenGL support, we're not likely to see much improvement here.

Innocence · #8 June 9th, 2004, 10:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by LintMan:
Dom2 uses the OpenGL graphics API, which ATI has lousy support for, but which nVidia has good support for.

True, nVidia is better at OpenGL than ATI, but not at a factor as we're seeing here!
Tom's Hardware tests show a modest performance reduction, and I would accept something like -20% - but the current stall is ridicilous

reverend · #9 June 9th, 2004, 10:58 PM

Well, in a few days, I'll hopefully be able to test the X800 with Dom2. Clearly, Dominions is an important benchmark.

PvK · #10 June 9th, 2004, 10:59 PM

Actually, I get bad frame rates with nVidia cards on Dom II, but not bad enough for me to particularly care, on the specific boxes where it comes up.

PvK