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Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 10:56 pm
by tw1sted
andreas_e93 wrote:I get mostly about 80 fps. Found that "Energy Saver" button. Anyone who knows what that´s for??
It does just what the name says. Saves energy. IIRC, it limits your FPS to ~20, so BZFLag doesnt suck as much energy up as it usually does.

For me, i usually get around 40 FPS. When i used to play on vista, i would get FPS in the 20s or 30s, which i didn't mind much.

Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 10:57 pm
by macsforme
andreas_e93 wrote:I get mostly about 80 fps. Found that "Energy Saver" button. Anyone who knows what that´s for??
That activates your fpsLimit. Setting an fpsLimit is a two-step process... setting the local variable and turning on energy saver.

Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 2:31 am
by F687/s
I get about 120 on HiX, and it drops to about 80 on more "graphically minded" maps. But my computer's plugged into the wall outlet. Who needs to save energy? ;-)

Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 3:01 am
by SkillDude
I get around 15-35 fps on almost all servers. I seem to not be bugged by the fact that it's noticeably skippier and slower. Seems a lot of people do though.

Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 5:24 pm
by andreas_e93
How much energy do you save by turning that function?? Can´t be much?! It must be more useful to stop flying with aeroplanes if you want to save the planet?

Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 6:06 pm
by macsforme
andreas_e93 wrote:How much energy do you save by turning that function?? Can´t be much?! It must be more useful to stop flying with aeroplanes if you want to save the planet?
Limiting your FPS reduces your GPU/CPU load so that...

1. Your computer will run cooler, and the fans won't have to rev up so high (an especially important consideration on a laptop)...
2. Your battery will last longer, if you are running on battery power...
3. Other processes/programs in the background will have more CPU time.

Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 1:55 pm
by andreas_e93
Can´t be much energy you save or??

Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 3:11 pm
by blast
andreas_e93 wrote:Can´t be much energy you save or??
Sure, it can save a lot of energy. Typically, BZFlag tries to use 100% of the CPU (of one core, at least) in the attempt to render as fast as possible. When I turn on the energy saver, I can limit the 800FPS to 1200FPS that my gaming computer gets down to something more reasonable, like 200FPS. The CPU usage drops to less than 10% at that point.

And on my laptop, I can limit it down from around 50 to 70FPS to something like 25FPS, so that my CPU doesn't get so hot, and so that I conserve battery. Without it, my CPU temperature exceeds 70C. And that's even with the CPU undervolted a bit.

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 4:38 am
by BinarySpike
I get 300-400fps on the normal bzflag map, 200fps on tremulous and sauerbraten. I can't play anything below 7fps. And the max I've ever seen my fps on bzflag was like over 1000+ fps.

I used to play on my iMac (ATi Rage 128) and I would get 5fps-25fps.

I localset my fps to 40fps-90fps because I get motion sickness with anything over 120fps. (only on bzflag, because I played it so much at 5fps)

Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:49 pm
by Pizza Boy
on my computer i think this is answering it but i get alot dont get me for lying cause im not but i get about 2100-1800

Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:04 am
by Anthony
i usualy get 10 - 15 on a intergraded ATI radion express 200 at fullscreen
usualy at the fast severs

Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 6:35 am
by blast
Pizza Boy wrote:on my computer i think this is answering it but i get alot dont get me for lying cause im not but i get about 2100-1800
Nice. What video card and CPU do you have?

Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 10:27 pm
by Sky King
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.
Hey BC,

I just now saw this even though it's a bit old; Expanding on what Jeff said earlier:

At start time, your graphics card opens up all the texture files needed by your map, and loads them into memory at various resolutions. For instance, the grass texture is 512 x 512 pixels. Your card, depending on how much memory it has, will pre-render the grass at 512x512, 256x256, 128x128, 64x64, 32x32, etc... and so that texture once fully rendered will take up about 1MB (1,048,575 bytes, to be precise). Your card meshes together the various resolutions smoothly, so that as a wall gets farther from you, it is made up of blended tiles of lower and lower resolution.

The more memory your card has, the more of this pre-rendering the card can do at map start time, and the less that is done on the fly. But it doesn't "need" it, it simply uses however much you have as best it can.

Most maps use the default textures--the grass, the bricks, the tank surfaces, etc... and with normal settings, this will do OK with 32MB, but a tad more wouldn't be a bad thing.

Two exceptions though:

1. Some maps use a much larger number of graphics, or larger texture files, and that may mean your 32MB only allows pre-rendering at a few resolutions; There are maps where the texture downloads alone are several MB, and these renderings could easily gobble up 128MB.

2. Anisotropic rendering, if turned on, requires more memory. (I would not recommend using it, it adds very little benefit to BZ). If anisotropic is "on", the card also wants to pre-render asymmetric resolutions. That is, it also wants to store the grass rendered at 512x256, 512x128, etc... In this case the grass texture, for instance, could actually require 5-10 MB to store all the pre-renderings for just that one texture.

Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 3:45 pm
by Pizza Boy
blast wrote:
Pizza Boy wrote:on my computer i think this is answering it but i get alot dont get me for lying cause im not but i get about 2100-1800
Nice. What video card and CPU do you have?
ATI Radion 9200

Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 8:16 pm
by dango
Pizza Boy
Wow, with that same card i got 18-21.... Heh.

Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 8:18 pm
by blast
Pizza Boy wrote:
blast wrote:
Pizza Boy wrote:on my computer i think this is answering it but i get alot dont get me for lying cause im not but i get about 2100-1800
Nice. What video card and CPU do you have?
ATI Radion 9200
There is no way you got that kind of FPS with that video card. Are you sure you were looking at the frames per second? (Press 't' in game, wait a few seconds, and an "FPS: " will appear over the mouse box with a number)

Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 8:25 pm
by dango
Pizza Boy
Be careful not to look at the number right above the fps, its like tris or something, that is not your FPS.
Image
Look at the lower number with "FPS:" before it.

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 11:24 am
by Pizza Boy
thats my comp fps not in game fps

my in game fps is 88-100

plus we have this other like i think its called like open gl that gives us alot (we have linux)

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 12:17 pm
by blast
Pizza Boy wrote:thats my comp fps not in game fps

my in game fps is 88-100

plus we have this other like i think its called like open gl that gives us alot (we have linux)
Your comp fps? What are you talking about exactly? We were all talking about in-game Frames Per Second.

BZFlag uses OpenGL for graphics, on all operating systems.

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 12:24 pm
by Winny
Pizza Boy wrote:thats my comp fps not in game fps

my in game fps is 88-100

plus we have this other like i think its called like open gl that gives us alot (we have linux)
No, that number that you see when pressing T is your in game FPS.


To extend on what blast said regarding Open GL, it is what BZFlag uses to render (create what you see), on all Platforms. Open GL is in no way special to you. It is in place on all major Operating Systems (Windows, *Nix, OS X, Irix, BSD, etc...).

Read through this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:26 pm
by Peter
On my old laptop on windows xp I used to get about 15fps, on SUSE I got about 20, but on elive (which uses the enlightenment window manager) it got about 30/35fps.

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 8:23 am
by Bullet Catcher
Sky King, thanks for the description of how textures can quickly consume GPU RAM. In the interest of science I went into my BIOS and changed the video RAM from 32 MB to 128 MB. This had absolutely no discernable effect on my frame rate on the texture-light maps I usually play (Pillbox, Missile War), so I am back to 32 MB and the FPS wandering from 30-75.

I run Linux, and I have concluded that it is easier to set the __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK environment variable to 1 than to mess with the BZFlag energy saver settings, as it clamps precisely to my display frame rate and has the same effect for other OpenGL applications.

Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:09 pm
by deviltank
75 fps with Vsync, 170 without.

But when i overclock my 7300 GS i get less (!) frames, only about 60. This issue seems not to appear in other applications.

Any ideas if this is bz flag related or system related?

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:50 pm
by blast
deviltank, you probably overclocked enough that heat became an issue.

Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 9:30 pm
by Davy Jones
PETER wrote: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 :)
depends which television "Set" your talking about, i'm positive the newer models aren't that low - and we're not really talking about Television either, computer games with a 10fps difference can really stand out.