Squeezing more FPS out of ProSavage hardware?!

Gullible Jones · 2005-07-22 23:25:18

Really, words cannot describe how irritated I am. On Windows 98, on a computer much older than this one, and with a fucking S3 Trio3D chip with all of 4 fucking megabytes of shared RAM, WC:SO (a free space-combat simulator) gave me smooth gameplay and no crashes, even with as many special effects enabled as my limited video hardware could support.

And now? With ProSavage 8 hardware that gives32 megs of shared RAM maximum, I can't get more than 2-3 FPS out of any OpenGL game - even fucking BZFlag, even with the full 32 megs of shared video RAM enabled and as many special effects as possible turned off!

Seriously, is there something wrong with the Savage driver? I know that even ProSavage hardware is capable of better performance than what I'm seeing here... Is the problem with the drivers, or does OpenGL just suck?

mint · 2005-07-23 01:26:13

I'm under the impression that the ProSavage cards don't support OpenGL (basically) at all.

I seem to recall that I was unable to get JK2:JO (Q3 based) running on an old laptop that I had with a ProSavage PM133 card 32MB vampire video, but Unreal Tournament worked fine (if you used the DirectX rendering).

So the answer is: No, OpenGL doesn't suck. No, it's not the drivers. Yes, Via and S3 video cards do suck indeed.

Gullible Jones · 2005-07-23 01:36:28

No support for OpenGL? What kind of shitty card is that?!

Ah well... I suppose my old ATI Rage 128 might work with this new box. Let's see... Rage 128s are for AGP 2x/4x IIRC, and I think I have AGP 4x/8x, so maybe it would work. I'll have to look around for more info though, I might have it wrong.

mint · 2005-07-23 01:44:32

The Rage128 definitely has OpenGL support. It works with the ati driver from the xorg project.

Gullible Jones · 2005-07-23 02:44:45

Yippee. I'll see if I can get that thing working.

(Hmm... OpenGL support is on the todo list for DRI's Savage driver. That will take some doing... :shock: )

Gullible Jones · 2005-07-23 03:06:12

Bahh, I misremembered - the video card isn't compatible with my mobo's AGP slot. Until the driver improves it looks like I'm stuck with Wine and DirectX. Ah well... Wine-cvs, here I come...

Gullible Jones · 2005-07-23 03:49:40

Aha, here's interesting news... I've found reports of people being able to play TuxRacer without a problem using DRI with ProSavage hardware.

I'm going to compile XOrg, Mesa, and DRI from CVS and see where that gets me. If it bombs out, I can just reinstall X and Mesa/DRI via the usual methods.

iphitus · 2005-07-23 09:33:01

if you want a few more fps, you can put the game in your ~/.xinitrc and startx right into it. Surprisingly, it does actually make a difference.

Gullible Jones · 2005-07-23 15:57:22

Interesting... Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

Gullible Jones · 2005-07-23 19:25:04

Ha... Gotcha! Recompiled XOrg from a CVS snapshot and reinstalled DRI and Mesa from snapshots as well, and OpenGL games are now playable!

Gullible Jones · 2005-07-23 22:50:11

Ach... Alas, not good enough. I'm installing dx9wine-cvs...

Arch Linux

#1 2005-07-22 23:25:18

Squeezing more FPS out of ProSavage hardware?!

#2 2005-07-23 01:26:13

Re: Squeezing more FPS out of ProSavage hardware?!

#3 2005-07-23 01:36:28

Re: Squeezing more FPS out of ProSavage hardware?!

#4 2005-07-23 01:44:32

Re: Squeezing more FPS out of ProSavage hardware?!

#5 2005-07-23 02:44:45

Re: Squeezing more FPS out of ProSavage hardware?!

#6 2005-07-23 03:06:12

Re: Squeezing more FPS out of ProSavage hardware?!

#7 2005-07-23 03:49:40

Re: Squeezing more FPS out of ProSavage hardware?!

#8 2005-07-23 09:33:01

Re: Squeezing more FPS out of ProSavage hardware?!

#9 2005-07-23 15:57:22

Re: Squeezing more FPS out of ProSavage hardware?!

#10 2005-07-23 19:25:04

Re: Squeezing more FPS out of ProSavage hardware?!

#11 2005-07-23 22:50:11

Re: Squeezing more FPS out of ProSavage hardware?!

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