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How many fps do you get ??? (Frames Per Second)

Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:21 pm
by I_Died_Once
If this has been posted and asked before, I missed it...

On average, how many frames a second do you get while playing BZFlag ???
Whats the most you've seen yourself have? What the least frames you can have and yet remain playable?

Now, that I've optimized my machine and made some tweaks I didn't know for the longest you can do, I get most anywhere between 125 and 150.

What about you ???

Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:23 pm
by macsforme
I got about 70-80 on average on my MacBook. Intel's GMA 950 isn't great.

Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 10:28 pm
by Joe-Schmoe
I usually have from 30 to 90 fps.

I hate it when it's 30...

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 1:48 am
by Think_Different
I keep my FPS at a steady 60 (1680x1050). I apparently am forcing my 8600GTS to 8x anisotropic and 16x anti-aliasing on all OpenGL apps, so the FPS doesn't go above or below 60 usually. The lowest playable fps for me is 25ish.

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 2:06 am
by Winny
Mine is usually pegged at 60, 'cause of VSync, but if I disable it, I usually get up to about 90-120fps.

EVGA 6600, 256MB memory.

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 2:18 am
by z[h]ero
Long time ago i had in average about 40 fps on a laptop with high resolution.
But now on vista i did set on the same machine JUST VGA resolution and NO effects, in order to get my 15-30 fps! :(

Cause of playing too often with this sucking system >25fps is now really comfortable for me :lol-old:
And <20fps starts to make me unhappy.

I was wondering when i did meet people who had the same low VGA resolution, but they had even less fps...

It would really help if some mapmakers would care about it. Indeed, the hardware needs to get updated from time to time. BUT sometimes with really little effort a map can be made much better playable (without changing the map-layout).

(Offtopic: My problem is due to "Intel GMA 900" ... :x
Pathetic Intel claims its cause it hasn't an "HW Scheduler". Whatever that is.
But i say: Dear Intel, GMA900 is DX9 compatible and has kinda exactly the same power like GMA950, so why is it impossible to write Aero Glass drivers for vista??
Btw, STILL in 2007 some systems were shipped with an onboard GMA900 => this new hardware is useless for professional 3D business in vista!!!)

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 2:54 am
by Longhair
Just double checked. Usually somewhere between 280 and 350 fps (according to bzflag's fps meter) on a pillbox map with several players on the screen.

I run bzflag in windowed mode maximized on one monitor of a dual-monitor setup. The video card is an EVGA geforce 7300GT - AGP on a machine running Ubuntu 7.10.

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 4:02 am
by Sky King
On my older desktop machine, I often have to play at 25-30 and can usually do just fine... just used to it I guess.

With all the frills maxed out, I run right at 59 on my nVidia Quadro NVS 135M with 256MB of RAM. I play full screen at 1280x800x32.

Note... there is no point in making your GPU work hard to produce frames you can't even see. If you are running a video card capable of producing 100+ FPS, I would highly recommend manually editing your config file and setting your energy saver frame rate to something like 60 or 75. (it defaults to 30) Then turn energy saver on... You have picked a frame rate you can play well at, and yet, you are not working your GPU as hard. On my previous HP laptop, both fans HOWLED at 60 FPS and would stay off at about 40 FPS, and battery life was much better if I wasn't on shore power.

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 4:14 am
by Triumph of the Soul
I have never had my FPS go above 41 that I can remember. 27 is probably what I most commonly see.

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 4:48 am
by Avatar
With everything maxed out (except anisotropic), I usually run at about 45 - 55 fps on average for most maps. Not too bad since I'm using an older, entry-level ATI card (Radeon 9250).

As for minimum playability, I can usually do just fine at as low as 17 or 18 fps. Below that, things are just untrackable and I can't play. Luckily, I haven't encountered any maps that push me that low since I built this machine two years ago.

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 1:47 pm
by Spazzy McGee
I cap mine at 30 using the energy saver function. I figure, whats the point in letting it go higher, if my battery will go flat in half the time.

Without that IIRC, I can get around 100. Hooray for intel intergrated graphics.

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 1:52 pm
by Tedius
When I was testing my graphics-card-killing map I found that when I got 30-45 fps on the MacBook Pro, a lot of people had under 20fps, (perhaps 20% found it unplayable?). So I aim for 50-60 fps as the minimum when I'm testing maps.


Here's a picture of someone playing at my map:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/laptops/dell ... 182257.php

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 2:49 pm
by dexter
I can get around 60-90 on a crowded map like MissileWar2. During a GU match I usually have around 200. Anything below 30 gets a little tough to play on.

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 6:33 pm
by Peter
I get about 30-50 fps usually.
I can get around 60-90 on a crowded map like MissileWar2. During a GU match I usually have around 200. Anything below 30 gets a little tough to play on.
A television set runs at about 60hz and is usually about 30fps. And movies play at 25fps. So 30 fps shouldn't be a problem :)

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 6:39 pm
by Longhair
Thanks for the tip Sky King, I'll check it out.

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 5:45 am
by Enigma
Sky King wrote: I would highly recommend manually editing your config file and setting your energy saver frame rate to something like 60 or 75.
You can do it in-game too.

/localset fpsLimit 60

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 11:33 pm
by Think_Different
PETER wrote:
I can get around 60-90 on a crowded map like MissileWar2. During a GU match I usually have around 200. Anything below 30 gets a little tough to play on.
A television set runs at about 60hz and is usually about 30fps. And movies play at 25fps. So 30 fps shouldn't be a problem :)
True, but most monitors refresh at 60Hz (some at 75Hz) so updates generated by the graphics card that are more than the refresh rate(such as 100fps) are discarded, because the display can only update at a rate of 60fps.

Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 11:43 pm
by dango
I get between 20-50, with a mean of around 30. Without energy saver on.
On the other boot on this computer, linux, i can get 120 no problem.

Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 3:48 am
by Bullet Catcher
As Sky King noted, any frames per second above the refresh rate of your display are wasted. In your config file, setting saveEnergy to 1 and fpsLimit to maybe 5 FPS more than your display refresh rate should maximize the useful performance and minimize heat that causes the cooling fans to run loudly.

The FPS I get with my onboard GeForce 6100 GPU varies widely from the limit of 80 I have set (my display runs at 75 Hz) down to the 20s when there is a lot happening. Most of the time I am concentrating on the game and it never occurs to me that there might be frame rate issues, so I guess that means it is good enough for me.

On a related topic, does anyone know how to tell whether the GPU needs more video RAM? I have mine set at 32 MB but it can go up to 128 MB.

Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 11:12 pm
by blast
You can also turn on Vertical Sync to sync the graphics card to the refresh rate of the monitor. This usually limits the FPS that BZFlag will output as well, but may depend on several factors.

Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 12:21 am
by Teppic
Bullet Catcher wrote:On a related topic, does anyone know how to tell whether the GPU needs more video RAM? I have mine set at 32 MB but it can go up to 128 MB.
Is it on board (shared memory) or PCIe?

Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 6:35 am
by Bullet Catcher
Teppic wrote:Is it on board (shared memory) or PCIe?
My GPU is onboard with shared memory. In the BIOS I can set it to use 16, 32, 64, or 128 MB of system RAM. I started out using 16 MB and have had it at 32 MB for about a year, but that change made no remarkable difference. Is there a way to tell if even more would help? (Just trying it would be too easy, after all!)

Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 6:42 am
by JeffM
it depends on how many texture are loaded. The standard bzflag maps don't load that many textures and 32 megs is probably fine. More advanced maps use more, so you may want to experiment. If you have enough ram it doesn't hurt to set it higher.

Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 7:41 am
by An SQUERRILz
I get as low as the high 10s and up to 40 I guess. It suppose it's a bit low but I'm not sure exactly what it represents.

Not really a problem except when I only see 4 frames a second when textures are on.

Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 6:19 pm
by andreas_e93
I get mostly about 80 fps. Found that "Energy Saver" button. Anyone who knows what that´s for??