Why is cpu so slow...

TerrorFirmer

Hi,

I'm running an old computer here. Celeron 700Mhz with 192Mb ram, 16mb tnt2 and Win2K.

Its fine for desktop use - but when playing games (obviously older ones like UT) it tends to get bogged down completely sometimes. Unreal Tournament for example runs on 200Mhz and 32Mb ram. Even with the 700Mhz Celeron and 192 mb ram, it runs like a dog. Its smooth when idle but when you start running around shooting it drops into what I'm pretty sure what has to be near single digit FPS. When I was younger I used to run UT maxed out on a 500Mhz P3 and a Tnt2, and the celeron I have is coppermine core so its actually about the same if not better then a 500Mhz P3 benchmark wise.

UT is playable but only if I lower the settings to near minimum which I shouldn't have to do...also worth mentioning, I have a similar problem with Half Life, a game that runs if needs be on a 166Mhz cpu and 32mb of ram, it gets choppy as hell as soon as AI or anything scripted starts to appear/happen.

I had this problem with another older machine but I never got to the root of it. I've tried different Ram, different OS, hard drive etc. I've also made sure the cache video bios option is disabled in setup. I'm pretty sure it has to be the processor as the ram works fine in another machine, and when I stick the tnt2 into my main machine it renders UT perfectly at high settings.

Any ideas what might be causing the cpu to be running so horribly/choking up?

matrim

What graphics card are you running in it?
This could have a huge effect on performance. Also are there any other services running that might slow it down/

I would suggest trying a game where you turn off everything that is not essential on the machine .

Anti

I have the same problem with a 3.0ghz pentium 4 with sis onboard graphics with quake two. Fraps is showing 16fps at 800*600. I think the problem is is that the game cant recoognise the newer cpu's. If i remember right there is a program called dosbox that allows you to the game at a decent rate. But i cant really remember.

TerrorFirmer

matrim wrote:

What graphics card are you running in it?
This could have a huge effect on performance. Also are there any other services running that might slow it down/

I would suggest trying a game where you turn off everything that is not essential on the machine .

Tnt2 Pro. Obviously not a spectacular card but it was considered a very high end card at the time of UTs release.

No other significant services running, 120mb memory free, more then enough to cater for UTs recommended 64.

Am going to try reseating cpu and putting on some new thermal paste tonight see if anything. And that is interesting Anti. It sounds at least like the same thing I am experiencing - terrible performance when in theory should run great.

kmb

Maybe its the dx version your running?May be too advanced for a older game.
happened to me with midnight madness.After i think it was dx 7 or 8 graphics went mad etc.

regds

kieran

TerrorFirmer

kmb wrote:

Maybe its the dx version your running?May be too advanced for a older game.
happened to me with midnight madness.After i think it was dx 7 or 8 graphics went mad etc.

regds

kieran

No, was using dx9 but rolled back to dx7, still exact same...:(

Khannie

You might be wise to get some older video drivers and check that out. Newer drivers tend to ignore performance on older cards. The TNT2 should run it just fine.

TerrorFirmer

Tried older drivers and tried cleaning and putting on some new thermal paste.

Still nothing.

mukki

i had a huge network running unreal on pII 500mhz in the factory i worked in, and it played fine

what graphics type are you using

unreal asks you if you want
opengl
directx
software

did you try them all, software worked best on slow computers

TerrorFirmer

Tnt2 Pro Graphics, which as started were high end on UTs release.

It runs ok in D3d Mode on low settings, bad in OpenGL mode and absolutely hideous in Software mode, which further reinforces the opinion that its a cpu problem.

SouperComputer

how well do other games run, quake 1 for example?

You could benchmark the CPU with superpi to see how its comparative peformance is. For whats its worth, with those specs and that kind of game id run 98SE. I know that makes some people cringe, but im about to install 98 on a machine here to get an older game running at its former glory. 98 is quick and dirty, and not nearly as unstable as somtimes believed if you look after it.

The NT kernel wont allow direct hardware access for stability reasons, however this is the main reason older games run great on 98.

Also, try 66.93 Nvidia drivers. After a lot of researching I found that these were the latest to work well with the TNT2.

I recon windows 98 + 66.93 drivers and you'll be fine.

/edit, Ive hosted 66.93 drivers here for 2k if you want them. Let me know when you have them so I can take them back down

TerrorFirmer

The idea of Win98 is a sound one but I don't think thats the problem - a friend of mine is still hammering away fine on UT on his 500Mhz machine running Win2k.

I will give the 66.93 drivers a shot but after that I guess I'll have to accept it isn't much good for anything but the internet...

Quake I for the record runs flawlessly, but that used to run well on my old Pentium I machine.

SouperComputer

those drivers are still uploading, so give it until 22:00 boards time to download em.

Also, what chipset is on the board? Are you good for northbridge, AGP\GART drivers?

TerrorFirmer

Thanks souper, just got them elsewhere, thanks for your help though appreciated. Its an msi 6178 and i desperately wanted to get a 100mhz fsb p3 chip to test out on it to see if it is actually the cpu causing the problem but I cant find any around and all i have are 133mhz chips.

I installed 66.93 to hideous results - slower in-game,in-game browser almost non responsive. Installed the older 53.xx drivers and worked ok again, relatively speaking in its previous state. Tried even older drivers and more or less the exact same.

I tried running ut then with just the onboard intel 810 which of course had been disabled until now and it runs marginally worse then the tnt2 in D3d mode when in reality the difference should be massive.

You would nearly say its definately the TNT2 but it works flawlessy in other setups at high settings.

Truly mind boogling. No idea whats causing it, and worse still I had the problem before in a computer composed of entirely different parts - great desktop use and absolutely hideous games performance. never got to the bottom of it.

thanks for all the help and advise. think ill just sell it on....AGAIN.

TerrorFirmer

http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=10913

Just can't be bothered pursuing this any longer. No point wasting more money on it. Off to some loving family who need a net machine...I hope.

SouperComputer

did you get the latest chipset\AGP\GART drivers from intel's website?

Mr. Presentable

Lifted from PlanetUnreal


D3D Tweaks

Daniel Hudson sent in the following D3D tweaks:

For those victims of D3D chop, frame skips, and the other abnormalities caused by the framerate dropping below 30 FPS under D3D, I suggest the following.

Hit tilde [~] to bring up the console and type preferences.

Locate the display item amnd open it up.

Set ScreenFlash to false.
Set Decals to False.
Det NoDynamicLights to true. [All three of these can be changed under the normal preference menu also.]

Then find Rendering, D3D and set these options.

VolumetricLighting= False
HighDetailActors=False
DettailTextures=False

If you FPS was really bad you may also wish to set ShinySurfaces to False, and Coronas has never seemed to change my performance even one FPS, but feel free to try it set to false also.

You can manually edit these in the UnrealTournament.ini file under the headings of [WinDrv.WindowsClient] and [D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice]

Lighting seemed to make the biggest effect, and if you are hopelessly slow even after these changes, under display is an option for NoLighting, set it to true. This will make the game incredibly ugly however, it did enable me to break 50 FPS avg with a GeForce DDR on a P2-450 with 128MB ram and my low was exacxtly 30.15 FPS which played nice enough that I was never killed by an invisible rocket. And yes, I have plenty of swap space and a completely defragged HD with the swapfile at the end unfragemented. As well as the latest detonators drivers, and the 402 patch. Good luck to you nvidia users.

astrofool

For one thing, Half life with steam needs alot more than a p166 to run , also back in those days, 10-15fps was acceptable performance.

UT has a load of tweaks for better performance, but have been lost in the ether mostly, nipplenuts has a few there, also, if you can get the updated ogl driver, it'll run like a dream on older nvidia cards (and 3dfx ).

TerrorFirmer

astrofool wrote:

For one thing, Half life with steam needs alot more than a p166 to run , also back in those days, 10-15fps was acceptable performance.

UT has a load of tweaks for better performance, but have been lost in the ether mostly, nipplenuts has a few there, also, if you can get the updated ogl driver, it'll run like a dream on older nvidia cards (and 3dfx ).

Thanks nipplenuts - I tried all those tweaks already and no difference. Well, maybe a frame or two extra, but that defeats the whole purpose - I'm not trying to get the game running on a crap machine, the machine in question should be able to run at high settings no problem without tweaks. As said, I used to have a 500mhz P3 with a Tnt2 back in '99, and I could run the game at high settings without any difficulty.

And as for Half Life, I'm using an original Cd-Rom, no steam, but still, even with steam, its still very undemanding was the point basically.

And I've tried updating all the drivers I can, no difference.

Mr. Presentable

Funny thing is, my brother has an AMD dual core 3800 and a 6800gt PCIe and the worst running UT I have ever seen - low single digits fps. I read somewhere that UT has issues with particular CPUs, but cannot find the item now

SeanW

HavoK wrote:

http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=10913

Just can't be bothered pursuing this any longer. No point wasting more money on it. Off to some loving family who need a net machine...I hope.

Best move ever