slow client suggestions?

cryptozoologist · Post by **cryptozoologist** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 6:28 pm

hi,
i have an amd k62 500mhz computer and a pci fire gl 1000 pro card, and it is definitely the slowest bzflag client i have. i was wondering what can be done to get more frames per second.

i have already turned all rendering things that are accessible from the menu like dithering and such off , and i am playing 640x480 (ugh!)

is there anything else i can do? is there a wireframe mode i can't find?

can someone recommend an inexpensive video card that will help? (i know, the latest geforce cards are probably the greatest, but they are very pricey and i don't want to be limited by the pc)

i am using mandrake 8.2 and the bzflag rpm that came on the install cd. if i compile it myself will it take advantage of the 3dnow! stuff and improve in some perceptible way?

thanks in advance.

cryptozoologist

JeffM · Post by **JeffM** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 7:05 pm

If I recall the FireGL 1000 Pro uses a Permedia 2 chipset from 3dlabs. That should run with some hardware features. The thing I would look at would be your video drivers. Do the drivers you have installed for X support hardware acelleration? If not, then you are just running software rendering, and that can be slow. This is commonly the case right now with nvidia cards, they drivers that ship with most X installs don't support hardware, and you need to install updated ones from NVidia.

I don't know where one would go about geting drivers for a P2 tho, I don't see anything on 3dlabs's site for linux, so you may need to dig around.

Dervish · Post by **Dervish** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 9:09 pm

Patlabor is correct with the Permedia 2 chipset on that card. I've worked with this card back around 1998 and have to comment that the early version of Permedia 2 drivers absolutely scream poor quality. Update drivers if you can, and if possible, get a better video card.

Post by **DTRemenak** » Mon Jan 27, 2003 4:50 pm

If you download 1.7g0, you can set the transparency of the control panel all the way down, to make it fully opaque. This will speed up old video cards quite a bit. Unfortunately, this option is not available in the version that came with Mandrake (1.7e6).

KnightMare · Post by **KnightMare** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 11:43 pm

Also, if not allready tried... Play it in a window and not full screen, that seems to add alot of FPS.

cryptozoologist · Post by **cryptozoologist** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 4:13 am

i tried bzflag in windows and it is a world of improvment. apparantly if you want hardware accellerated open gl in linuxland you need to be using one of the chipsets listed here:
http://dri.sourceforge.net/dri_status.phtml
but the list of (consumer) chipsets for windowsland users is here:
http://opengl.org/users/downloads/index.html

and my chip is on the second list

but in defense of linux, i'd like to point out that i can buy a graphics card for linux cheaper than i can buy a windows license.