Tremulous Forum
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Hendrich on August 09, 2008, 01:49:53 am
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Hey everyone, Hendrich here. Today I feel like to make a thread explaining how to improve the performance of your Tremulous experience. Since I cannot put anything here that could drastically improve performance without damaging your computer, this guide will show some basic tips, not anything new, but some of them are intresting. Go on and read on if you like.
Also, I removed part of my guide about my dear friend (20000 character limit), so yes, I apologize to my friend, but the guide must go on, and it was a hard desicion. :'(
Now, I know most of you are rollling your eyes, because Tremulous is based on the Quake 3 engine, an engine that could easily be run with the Dreamcast on full settings. Well, that is true, but the developers of Tremulous pushed the Quake 3 Engine to the max, and for the Quake 3 Engine, Tremulous looks amazing. Didn't you ever stop to take in the realism of Tremulous? Look at the little things, particles are flown after a lucifier shot was made, humans and aliens seems to be breathing on and out when they stop moving, or how the shadows are drawn on the player models when you go near a area under a shadow. Inspect how the Models are made, and the detail to all the objects. This is the Quake 3 Engine at it's best, but with that there is a cost.
Many players I know do not have good computers that an run Tremulous at a decent framerate, and thats why I made this guide, for the players who have slow computers. Now, I have two computers, a gorgeous Over-clocked 4 Ghz Quad core computer with the latest video cards, with a fancy price tag to boot. Then theres my crappy computer, a 733 mhz steaming pile of do-do. I mostly play with my crappy one for my reasons alone, but with the tips I know, my computer manages to play Tremulous fine. Read on to find out how to increase your computer's framerate.
Note: I'm not going to tell you your computer will be a beast and will run Treulous at 200 FPS. Results in doing this guide will may vary for different computers. You may or may not see a signifigant performance increase by doing this guide. Also, I am not responsible for any damage and/or action caused by following this guide, so if you continue to read, DO IT AT YOUR OWN RISK!
<-<-Part One; Good ol' simple computer clean up->->
It's simple, it's obvious, it's easy. Cleaning your computer's harddrive of un-necessary files is one of the best ways to ensure system speed and stability. When you play Tremulous, Tremulous uses your computer's harddrive as "Virtual Memory", and "VM" is an amount of space used by programs (Like Tremulous) to do shit like graphic processing. The more VM you have, the more space Tremulous has to process player models,weapons,etc which means the faster Tremlous will go. Now I know most of you do not have this problem, you might have crappy computers that has 200 GB harddrives, but I'm telling this for those who has very little space on thier harddrives. I recommend leaving 2-3 GB of harddrive space on your computer, which will help Tremulous run more effiecently. I have 2.3 GB of harddrive space on my shitty computer, more then enough for Tremulous.
<-<-Part Two; Know your limits->->
Tremulous is a pretty small (100 MB) but powerful game for Q3, so many old computers might have a hard time trying to run it. I know people are saying if your computer can run Q3 it can run Tremulous, but remember the important thing. People in Tremulous makes lots of turrets/teselas, and People in Tremulous lags the servers, plus Treulous has improved graphics, physics and a huge particle system to boot. So that means its best to play on servers you know that won't lag like the hells on earth, and servers that is located far away from your computer and attracts foreign players who has huge ping. Take this advice, it helps. If your computer is slow, don't go to servers that has Unlimited BP or has commands or features that creates huge explosions, because your computer's FPS will go down like a brick falling off a tower.
Then theres system requirements. Here are the system requirements "I" recommend, obviously this doesnt mean its "The Official, You Must Meet This Criteria" requirements:
Lowest possible system requirements for the Quake 3 Engine:
-350 Mhz
-64 Mb of RAM
-Windows 95 or higher
(I put this on for reference ONLY, I am positive that no computer with these "specs" can possibly run Tremulous.)
Minimum System Requirements:
-600 mhz
-256MB of RAM
-Windows 98 or higher (I don't know of the other non-Windows Operating Systems)
Reccommended System Requirements:
-800 Mhz/1 Ghz
-512MB of RAM
-Windows XP or higher
Optimal System Requirements:
-2 Ghz or above
-1 GB of RAM or above
-Windows XP or higher (I really don't reccommend playing Tremulous with any version of Vista)
You might have noticed my computer doesn't meet "my" System Requirements, yea, its really a steaming pile of doggy do-do, even I know it.
<-<-Part Three; Update your daum drivers once in awhile->->
Many of you should know what I am talking about, if you don't, then keep reading. "Drivers", is code (Like software) an operating system uses to control disk devices, display adapters, input devices such as a mouse or trackball, modems, fax machines, printers, and other hardware. I am mostly talking about your video drivers. Video drivers are the software that controls your graphics card and such (correct me if I'm wrong). A graphics card it a chip in your computer that supports the games you are playing in 3D. When you first got your computer, it came with the latest driver software for your computer card. After awhile, the company that made the driver software created updates, which improves speed,performance and visuals for you graphics card.
So, I know you now want to update your video drivers for better performance, but how? First you gotta go to your video driver's manufacturer's website. To do this, you gotta know the type of graphics card you have.
(For Windows XP or higher)
Go to Start > Control Panel > System > Hardware (Tab) > Click on Device Manager > Click on Display Adapters and below it you should see the name of your card.
Afterwards go to your computer's manufacturer's website. To find out who is you manufacturer you could look at the front of your computer for a name (Mine is Compaq, yea, I suck) or go to Start > Control Panel > System > General (Tab) and below the lines "Manufactured and Supproted by:" and you should see the name of your computer's manufacturer.
Go to their website by googling them (Like "Compaq's website or somethign like that), and if you cant simply google that because you don't know how to, then you REALLY shouldn't be playing Tremulous, or be using Windows in that case. In thier website should be instructions or a column saying how to download the latest drivers for your card. You can go to Start > Control Panel > System > Hardware (Tab) > Click on Device Manager > Click on Display Adapters and right click on your video driver and click on "Update Drivers", but that may or may not work.
Once your there, you could look for you graphics card and see where you could update your drivers. You on your own there, sorry, but I'm just too lazy to explain how to do everything in the world. ;)
<-<-Part Four; Don't download useless programs->->
Many, many, many, many, many people do this. It's stupid, its obvious, but mostly it's stupid. What I mean of useless programs, is programs that say they can acclererate your computer's performance, can update your computer's drivers or they delete viruses/spyware from your computer so your games can go faster. Its..its just dumb. NOTHING out there that has these claims are doing it for free, they themselves has spyware, programs that try to take over your computer or steal private information like credit card numbers. What programs are these? Well, get ready for Hendrich's small-ass list of shitty programs:
Driver Detective
Oh come on, even the title says it all. Driver detective? You can't tell me that isn't spyware, because it is, detectives are alot like spies, god these people were dumb. I downloaded it and it gave me spyware, yay. Didn't see that coming. Supposedly this program says it updates your drivers without you doing anything, hmm, suspicious? Hell no, I'm OK with a program downloading something without my approval, because it can't be spyware, right? No, it is, and when you update your drivers (or so-called) it says your drivers are still out-of-date, so you download again. Oh, its out-of-date again, so youd download again and again and again, then you find out your computers slow, why? well take a wild guess, comon, I dare you.
GL-Direct
Hmm, I womder what this does? It says on the very-confusing-to-understand description (after you deciphered the daum description), that if you do not have OpenGL, which is a 3D driver that is needed to make Tremulous go, you can use the slower, crappier, and the more diffuclt-to-use Direct 3D! Direct 3D was just like OpenGL, but slower, and it was used in older computers and video games until it was universally replaced by OpenGL. GL-Direct replaces video games that needs OpenGL with Direct 3D. Does it work? barely. Is it slower? yes. Does it have pop-ups that claim your computer has viruses so you should use a bogus virus cleaner which will add more spyware to your system? YES, yes and yes! Comon, don't download this, your smarter then they think you are, are you?
Registrey Booster,Registrey Cleaner, Reg Cleaner, you get the idea
Wow, people who download these must be really, really, really stupid. I cannot believe it, I just cant. These programs, like the ones mentioned above states that they clean up your computer's registrey to imrpove your computer's performance, but some of them (Like Registrey Booster) only kills 15 errors on your computer and you have to pay to clean up ALL of the errors. Are people this dumb? Ask yourself, where did these errors come from, because everyone who got these programs had exactly those 15 specific errors, now why does everyone have them? Even people who has Macs or linux, hell, people with FreeBSD had exactly 15 errors. Does every computer, no matter what computer or OS they had have these specific 15 errors. Oh yea, and why cant they un-install Registrey Booster/whatever? Take a guess, comon, take one guess why. Its not just spyware, its Zombieware. Now you must be like "WTF IZ ZUMBII WARE?". Zombieware is a program you cannot un-install, and so most likely its also has spyware, eating your computer up. And besides, why the hell would I trust some foreign program to change my computer's registrey? Take a look on this site, and please tell these idiots whats going on, this is where I got my information from (And yes, I also downloaded ALL of these programs and tested them):
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6138_102-0.html?forumID=31&threadID=116309&messageID=1321562 (http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6138_102-0.html?forumID=31&threadID=116309&messageID=1321562)
All of these programs I have reveiwed was 100% tested,spyware scanned, anti-virus scanned and used by me, for your cause. Now I have to delete the spyware that came with it. :(
<-<-Part Five, Tips from Techies->->
This part focuses on the replies from one of our Tremulous fourm members who actually knows a thing or two about Windows, so you might want to read up on what they say. If you like you can say something that can help others, even if it concerns users with other operating systems, you may.
*I get to edit what they say, if it is necesarry, which is (right now) not the case*
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Lakitu7 -Tips about Windows XP/Windows Vista
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I suppose that as one of the few techie guys around here that primarily runs Windows I should weigh in. For qualifications, I think it's sufficient to say that this XP install has lasted for circa 5 years now without an issue (No, if you don't suck you don't have to reformat Windows once a month), and that I reguarly achieve 1.5-2 months of heavy, heavy use without needing to reboot.
I'm impressed that this guide didn't fall into the usual trap of recommending 500 "tweaks" that are, primarily, snake-oil if not outright harmful (BlackViper guide, I'm looking at you).
In XP, you should keep Virtual Memory on. Your system won't use it until you're almost full on real-RAM anyway. If you turn it off and your system needs some more memory, things will just close. Further, many apps (Photoshop, to name one that's rather common) were written with swap-space in mind and do not function with the swapfile turned off. So, DO leave it on. Turning it off is much more likely to hurt you than help. However, the advice to set it to a constant size of something like 1.5-2x your physical RAM is correct. The setting to "automatically manage" is just a recipe for fragmentation. One tip that DOES help a little bit with virtual memory is to split it across different physical drives if you have them. Reading a large thing from swap that's stored on 2 drives will happen faster: twice the max access speed.
In Vista, the OS is more aggressive with using physical RAM and even less aggressive with use of disk cache than XP was. There's even less reason to disable disk cache in Vista. Yes, Vista's aggressive use of physical RAM makes people say "omg it uses so much memory" but that's because they're idiots who listened to OS zealots instead of trying to read how things work. The "extra" memory is prefetch and will be freed as soon as something needs it.
If you're running NTFS, and you really should be on your system drive, defragmenting is really unlikely to make a performance difference.
But yes, by-and-large, this guide has the right idea to not screwing up Windows: Don't do stupid things and don't listen when people tell you to do stupid things. Don't install programs that "MAKE YOUR COMPUTER RUN FASTER" or blindly apply "tweaks" that claim to do the same thing.
If you want your computer to run faster and Trem to load faster, buy another stick of RAM. You can buy 2 gigs of DDR2 in a good brand for $40.
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Tuple -Tips about NTFS + Other tips
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If you're running NTFS, and you really should be on your system drive, defragmenting is really unlikely to make a performance difference.
- Lakitu7
Defraging NTFS won't make trem run faster, however depending on how fragmented your drive is, it could greatly improve load times. Additionally, if your page file has been set to autogrow for a while, it too can become fragmented. The only way to fix that is to remove the page file, defrag as much as possible, the recreate the page file at a set size. My only thought in this is that a lot of the younger folks playing trem may have downloaded large zip files/ISOs etc, (ala pirates bay) and could have a pretty heavily fragmented drive. WARNING if your computer has a fragmented page file, there's a good chance you need that page file. Removing it and rebooting (which will be required) may cause extremely painful slowdowns until the page file is recreated, assuming your computer successfully boots.
What may help is to check for running processes in memory using the task manager. Lots of programs leave little helpers behind that are ultimately pointless and stupid, doing little else than checking for an update once a day or less. Some of the culprits are java, adobe acrobat, adaware, some zip programs, etc. I haven't used windows in a while so I don't recall any more, though I used to run into tons of them. If your machine is squeezed for memory, the little amount freed by stopping/killing these programs may make a considerable difference. If there are many of them, the amount of memory they consume may be substantial. Running msconfig from the run dialog comes to mind. I seem to recall that as the name of the program that will simplify locating programs that are run at boot time.
For more advanced users, I'd also recommend checking your system services. Turn off and/or disable any that aren't needed. But I warn you, MS seems to intentionally obfuscates their service names and does not do a good job of defining what they do, so if you don't know what a service does don't touch it. Or at least remember the services you changed and be prepared to change them back. I've seen windows systems do strange things when seemingly (completely) unrelated services are disabled, prepare yourself to reenable them if you run into weirdness. I'm reminded of a win2000 box that failed making VPN connections when a service that appeared (by name and MS web site) to have nothing to do with VPNs, encryption, tunnels, etc was turned off.
All of this is really just an end run around the real performance enhancer, in case you are for some reason unable to do it:
The single most effective performance enhancement has always been, in my experience, to add memory. If your GPU is the issue, memory may not help, for all other things it will. Scavenge old machines, talk to friends or family, they may have an old computer sitting unused that has the same type of memory that your system uses. You'd be surprised where you can find memory if you ask around and/or keep you eyes open for it. Its not as easy as it used to be (which was VERY) as there are many different types of ram these days, its still worth it though.
Well, so far thats my guide, I'll add more stuff tommorrow, and feel free to ask any questions. Right now I'm going to play Tremulous, I'm bored. But before I go, I want to let all of you nerds know its OK to try to tell me the information I gave was in-correct or mis-understood. I would like it to be polite though, nobody wants a flaming nerd-douche-bag blabbing on and on how a computer works. Got a problem with my langauge? Then if it's not because of Moderator/Fourm Regulations Issues, then you my friend, cannot handle tremulous, or a rated "M" game. I would gladly censor my content upon request, but guys, who cares? It's just words, I never meant to hurt anybody. (Except for Bush :P )
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Minimum:
- 700 MHz PowerPC G4/G5 or Intel processor
- Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later (but hopefully you've upgraded to at least 10.4.0 by now)
- 512 MB RAM
Recommended:
- Intel processor, 1.8 GHz or greater
- Mac OS X 10.4.0 or later
- 1 GB RAM
My condolences to all who knew your friend.
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Well, I have winXP. I had 256MB ram and for example WATAH map was absolutely unplayable. Every few steps system started swaping and paused whole game.
Then I bought 1GB ram and turned off swap - now it work perfectly.
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Minimum:
- 800 MHz PowerPC G4/G5 or Intel processor
- Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later (but hopefully you've upgraded to at least 10.4.0 by now)
- 512 MB RAM
Recommended:
- Intel processor, 1 GHz or greater
- Mac OS X 10.4.0 or later
- 1 GB RAM
My condolences to all who knew your friend.
Minimum:
- 700 MHz PowerPC G4/G5 or Intel processor
- Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later (but hopefully you've upgraded to at least 10.4.0 by now)
- 512 MB RAM
Recommended:
- Intel processor, 1 GHz or greater
- Mac OS X 10.4.0 or later
- 1 GB RAM
700 mhz was fine on my old computer.
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Updated. Thanks!
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I don't want to dissapoint you because it's obvious you've put a good effort on this, but cleaning up your harddrive won't do anything apart of speeding up loading screen times. If the game had to use virtual memory it would be unplayable no matter how clean the hd is.
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Tremulous always uses virtual memory (on any decent OS, at least). The less of it you have, the slower it's going to run.
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On Windows, the recommended size for the Virtual Memory (swap) is about 1.5 times the amount of RAM you have.
Cleaning up your harddrive can certainly improve Tremulous performance, since a neatly defragmented harddrive will mean Tremulous can find and access the files it needs more easily, thus resulting in improved performance.
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On Windows, the recommended size for the Virtual Memory (swap) is about 1.5 times the amount of RAM you have.
Cleaning up your harddrive can certainly improve Tremulous performance, since a neatly defragmented harddrive will mean Tremulous can find and access the files it needs more easily, thus resulting in improved performance.
Hmm? If you play tremulous and your system has to swap (ingame - not when loading maps!) you need more RAM or lower your settings.
For Lava:
You gave performance tips. I disproved them.
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On Windows, the recommended size for the Virtual Memory (swap) is about 1.5 times the amount of RAM you have.
Cleaning up your harddrive can certainly improve Tremulous performance, since a neatly defragmented harddrive will mean Tremulous can find and access the files it needs more easily, thus resulting in improved performance.
And grass is mostly green, but that also has very little to do with what I said. I merely noted the recommended size for your swapfile, nothing else.
Hmm? If you play tremulous and your system has to swap (ingame - not when loading maps!) you need more RAM or lower your settings.
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For people with reading disabilites and a very short short memory:
On Windows, the recommended size for the Virtual Memory (swap) is about 1.5 times the amount of RAM you have.
Cleaning up your harddrive can certainly improve Tremulous performance, since a neatly defragmented harddrive will mean Tremulous can find and access the files it needs more easily, thus resulting in improved performance.
This will only improve loading of tremulous. Not ingame performance.
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For people with reading disabilites and a very short short memory:
On Windows, the recommended size for the Virtual Memory (swap) is about 1.5 times the amount of RAM you have.
Cleaning up your harddrive can certainly improve Tremulous performance, since a neatly defragmented harddrive will mean Tremulous can find and access the files it needs more easily, thus resulting in improved performance.
This will only improve loading of tremulous. Not ingame performance.
Yes, improved performance, as stated.
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(Too bad one can only ignore pm's from certain persons and not entire postings...)
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Tremulous always uses virtual memory (on any decent OS, at least). The less of it you have, the slower it's going to run.
Total bullshit.
Under normal use I never touch the swap. I have 1Gb of ram, and its always been plenty of mostly everything.
A decent OS only uses the disk once it runs out of RAM. Windows swaps stuff on my house mates computer when he still has 2.5GB spare. That's just retarded.
Once a map is loaded the disk is barely ever touched, if at all, so there will be zero in-game benefit.
Also, it runs fine on pre-xp, I know its good on 2k and I believe it should work on 98 too. Anything with up-to-date-ish openGL available should work.
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Letting Windows manage the size of its swapfile by itself is a recipe for disaster, but that is why you disable this fine feature and just set it at a fixed size of 1.5 times your RAM.
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I can run trem fine on Win98, also:
Shouldn't the video card be included? My little brother has a computer with integrated graphics, WinXP, a decent processor (I forget exactly which), and 258MB RAM but can't top 10 FPS.
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I played tremulous just fine with 256 MB RAM, Intel Integrated graphics and Windows XP for all of last year (with 90 FPS on ATCS). Granted, I did regularly clean my computer..
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I played tremulous just fine with 256 MB RAM, Intel Integrated graphics and Windows XP for all of last year (with 90 FPS on ATCS). Granted, I did regularly clean my computer..
Try WATAH map and you will see ;D
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Quake3 doesn't make masses of use of the graphics card, most integrated Intel crap heaps work fine.
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On Windows, the recommended size for the Virtual Memory (swap) is about 1.5 times the amount of RAM you have.
Cleaning up your harddrive can certainly improve Tremulous performance, since a neatly defragmented harddrive will mean Tremulous can find and access the files it needs more easily, thus resulting in improved performance.
And again.
Tremulous loads everything into ram during the load screen. Not only that, it allocates a fixed amount of ram on start and manages it internally so the system doesn't do any unexpected decission. And if it ever loads any file that was forgot to add to the precache list, it becomes very noticable cause it produces a small freezing. But once the file is loaded, it is loaded, the freeze doesn't happen again.
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Quake3 doesn't make masses of use of the graphics card, most integrated Intel crap heaps work fine.
Only at low resolution and quality settings. The Intel GMA X3000 (the GPU component of the G965 northbrige) is quite powerful as far as integrated GPUs go, and even that is crushed to 15fps* on arachnid2 battles. The Q3 renderer will easily demand more than what most integrated GPUs in current systems can provide to give playable frame rates.
* 1280*1024, high quality settings.
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How an application performs is not only a matter of that applications memory management. 'Course it can pin memory in RAM, disallowing the OS to swap that memory to the hard drive when some of the background tasks get active. But if the OS has problems swapping back data (data for applications vital to for the OS to run smooth) back to RAM the system runs slow no matter how well the Q3 application is keeping its data in RAM.
This concludes, that a well configured system (see swap space size, see free space on hard drive => see disk fragmentation) makes any application including Q3 run better and more smooth.
This is also completely independent of Q3 pre-fetching data on map load.
So:
On Windows, the recommended size for the Virtual Memory (swap) is about 1.5 times the amount of RAM you have.
Cleaning up your harddrive can certainly improve Tremulous performance.
and
a neatly defragmented harddrive resulting in improved performance.
is both a valid statement.
Also, most modern OS's are implemented such that any unused RAM is a waste of RAM, thus it will automatically pre-fetch OS related data when it assumes it may need it in near future (this is already lightly there in Windows XP, more so in Windows Vista, not sure about current state of linux or macosx).
So swapping will always occur. This is also why with modern OS's its not wise to not use swap space.
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trem works with 128mb, and works perfectly with 192mb ram. (personal experience)
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trem works with 128mb, and works perfectly with 192mb ram. (personal experience)
On Windows Vista ?
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trem works with 128mb, and works perfectly with 192mb ram. (personal experience)
On Windows Vista ?
I highly doubt it. You would be struggling to run Vista with 128mb.
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trem works with 128mb, and works perfectly with 192mb ram. (personal experience)
Try WATAH map and you will see ;D
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WATAH? that map has to be (in my opinion) the crappiest map in Tremulous. Its HUGE, I have to search for 15 minutes just to find the tyrant to kill (I actually counted), I always drown because there's glass above the water, and I mistake it for a hole to the surface, the textures suck, the map looks like a combinations of textured boxes, and I can go on for days.
But hey, if you like it for XXX reason, thats your problem, I meant no offfence. I just hate it, I really hate it.
Also I'm updating this thread so I can stuff in more tips for those people who has pretty bad computers, not for the ones with over 2 Ghz computers or Quad-Core users.
My condolences to all who knew your friend.
Thanks Bomb, I still miss him very much. When you lose someone who was close to you, its hard to forget thier smiling faces you see everyday. I just wished he could have at least died without suffering any pain, so I could've looked into his face without crying. But sometimes I listen to the Portal song to make me feel better, and it does. I don't know why, thats why it's part of my singnature.
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WATAH? that map has to be (in my opinion) the crappiest map in Tremulous. Its HUGE, I have to search for 15 minutes just to find the tyrant to kill (I actually counted), I always drown because there's glass above the water, and I mistake it for a hole to the surface, the textures suck, the map looks like a combinations of textured boxes, and I can go on for days.
But hey, if you like it for XXX reason, thats your problem, I meant no offfence. I just hate it, I really hate it.
I never said before anything like "I love that map". I only reply on quotes, where someone trying to tell that 256MB ram or even 128MB ram is enough for playing. Maybe for ATCS only. WATAH map is only nice example, when 256MB RAM is absolutedly not enough for playing.
And I have no problem, if you look on my posts then there is: I have 1GB RAM and SWAP turned OFF, so even that WATAH map is fluent for me.
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BTW, I read that about TDR-Sycnora. It's very nice from you. (my english is not enough to tell you better words) :'(
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Thx Rotack, that is nice of you to say something like that. :)
But I wasn't talking directly to you, I just said that to everyone in general, WATAH sucks. :P
And yes, WATAH does go slow on slower machines, whoever made it must have been high while doing it. XD
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This guide is excellent! It's a shame none of our Void members took the initiative to make something as needed as this. Hell, you should have a guild of your own, as much work as you do. Keep it up Hendrich! You've almost got me as a fan!
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Wow, thx! I'll keep up the good work, its nice to know soemone out there is appreciates my work, I'll keep it up for people like you. ;D
I'm also updating the guide again. :P
PS: To tell you the truth, I thought the guide I made really sucked. :P
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A nice howto on cleaning up windows. You neglect, though, to mention anything about how video
games cards impact performance, or how HDD speed will impact swap speed. Might be useful for clueless winnoobs but beyond that it doesn't really seem to be helpful.
EDIT: Fixed stupid brain fart.
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A nice howto on cleaning up windows. You neglect, though, to mention anything about how video games impact performance
Sorry, but, wtf? The point of this guide was to increase performance on tremulous, so of course we all know playing tremulous does impact performance of the computer, duh, thats why I made this. If video games didn't impact performance, then obviously Tremulous would run faster. Whats the point of telling everyone Tremulous slows down your computer, because thats what everyone expects, explosions, lag and 3D models.
or how HDD speed will impact swap speed. Might be useful for clueless winnoobs but beyond that it doesn't really seem to be helpful
Your right about the swapfile thing, I should add that later on, and your absoloutly right, this guide was made for clueless winnoobs who doesn't know how to make tremulous run faster, because theres a whole shitload of them playing Tremulous. This guide can also give out information others didn't know before, but I can't give out tips on how to drastically imrpove your performance without the Moderators on these fourms questioning the risks involving those tips, so this guide has to be pretty basic a sense.
But thier right, sometimes you don't have to do risky things just to improve performance. I don't know any programs on the top of my head that increases speed without risk, but if you have ANY tips or programs you reccommend to the guide I'll check em out. If they're good enough I'lll add em to the guide.
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Wow, thx! I'll keep up the good work, its nice to know soemone out there is appreciates my work, I'll keep it up for people like you. ;D
I'm also updating the guide again. :P
PS: To tell you the truth, I thought the guide I made really sucked. :P
All the guides that Powa will eventually add to our Guild thread that I made will probably suck, but I have the courage to post them, just like you. But seriously, this guide is excellent. I didn't understand the half of it, but what really got to me was the thoroughness and sincerity of it.
Again, keep up the good work!
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maybe someone already posted it but i would really like to know the codes to get tremulous to use my 2 gigs of ram a duel processors even better the codes to speed up tremed.exe
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maybe someone already posted it but i would really like to know the codes to get tremulous to use my 2 gigs of ram a duel processors even better the codes to speed up tremed.exe
Hmm, a challenge! Done and done, I'll be off trying to figure this problem out, because sometimes shit liek this happens, that Tremulous uses only a certin maximum amount of RAM because if Tremulous takes up all your RAM Windows won't run, why? Because Windows needs RAM too. I know there are codes/commands that tells tremulous to use more RAM, and I'll be looking for em.
I should add this information to the guide.
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com_hunkMegs is what you're looking for -- not sure why you'd want to change it though. Trem doesn't need special "codes" to use your dual core processor, just run the SMP client if you really want to use both cores. I've heard it's unstable, though.
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just run the SMP client if you really want to use both cores.
Which SMP client is this you speak of?
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If you compile by source, there's a flag to compile an SMP client.
http://trem-servers.com/index.php?page=downloads (http://trem-servers.com/index.php?page=downloads)
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Wow, thx! I'll keep up the good work, its nice to know soemone out there is appreciates my work, I'll keep it up for people like you. ;D
I'm also updating the guide again. :P
PS: To tell you the truth, I thought the guide I made really sucked. :P
All the guides that Powa will eventually add to our Guild thread that I made will probably suck, but I have the courage to post them, just like you. But seriously, this guide is excellent. I didn't understand the half of it, but what really got to me was the thoroughness and sincerity of it.
Again, keep up the good work!
Psttt thats when you invite him to apply to Void.
*wink wink*
;)
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If you compile by source, there's a flag to compile an SMP client.
http://trem-servers.com/index.php?page=downloads (http://trem-servers.com/index.php?page=downloads)
and that flag is ignored outside OS X because it doesn't actually do anything on the other systems (but supposedly sdl 1.3 is supposed to fix this)
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A nice howto on cleaning up windows. You neglect, though, to mention anything about how video games impact performance
Sorry, but, wtf? The point of this guide was to increase performance on tremulous, so of course we all know playing tremulous does impact performance of the computer, duh, thats why I made this. If video games didn't impact performance, then obviously Tremulous would run faster. Whats the point of telling everyone Tremulous slows down your computer, because thats what everyone expects, explosions, lag and 3D models.
Sorry, that was my mistake. I meant to say "video card", not "video game".
If you compile by source, there's a flag to compile an SMP client.
http://trem-servers.com/index.php?page=downloads (http://trem-servers.com/index.php?page=downloads)
and that flag is ignored outside OS X because it doesn't actually do anything on the other systems (but supposedly sdl 1.3 is supposed to fix this)
Damn, it doesn't? What a ripoff :P
Fix it!
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Now, in an effort to be constructive, here's a Linux tip: Start it in another display. This has a few benefits; one is that your DE/WM won't be doing anything, so it saves some resources there, and another big one is that you will never, ever be interrupted by something popping up. It allows you to play fullscreen and switch around to your main things easily. You can use the following script:
#!/bin/bash
xinit /absolute/path/to/trem.x86 $* -- :1
# :1 would be on vc/8, :0 is vc/7 (The default). If you want it on another vc, just increment the display number
# You may need to use xauth to allow your user to access the other display, depending how your system is configured.
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com_hunkMegs is what you're looking for -- not sure why you'd want to change it though. Trem doesn't need special "codes" to use your dual core processor, just run the SMP client if you really want to use both cores. I've heard it's unstable, though.
Daum, you beat me to the awnser, just when I got it. :P
Well add in com_hunkMegs cactusfrog and add in how many megabytes you want Tremulous to use. Don't put too many in though, I'll reccommend 40-75% of your RAM, 75% maximum, but if your like me, don't touch it. You most likely will f*** up on it, and Trem will crash.
SMP client
Sorry, never heard of such a thing. Please explain further if it is useful, but I'm guessing using a SMP client is a peice of puppy do-do if everyone doesn't have dual/quad/whatever proccessors.
Psttt thats when you invite him to apply to Void.
*wink wink*
You like me to apply to a vaccum of dark matter wheres theres no existence of space or time?
:P <-- *Brain Malfunction*
Hey people, the guide reached over 600 veiws! ;D
And someone gave me a -1 on my Karma mark, I always wondered why do people do that? Doesn't that tick anybody off?
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Well add in com_hunkMegs cactusfrog and add in how many megabytes you want Tremulous to use. Don't put too many in though, I'll reccommend 40-75% of your RAM, 75% maximum.
Don't touch it.
If you set it too low, trem will crash, and if its bigger than it needs to be it will jut tie-up ram that could be used elsewhere and slow the system down.
ditto zoneMegs.
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ok will not touch! Any codes to speed up tremed.exe because my sever is ulimitedbp and i want to make it as unlaggy as possible.
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Set the build points back to default.
It was never designed to handle such things, and as such doesn't do a good job of it.
That or get a real net connection and ram up all the net settings. (And tell clients to do the same)
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+set com_zonemegs 24 +set com_hunkmegs 256 is what I have been using since forever.
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And someone gave me a -1 on my Karma mark, I always wondered why do people do that?
Because they can. If you don't say "You have right and I agree with you" to everyone, then you will have karma very low :-)
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I suppose that as one of the few techie guys around here that primarily runs Windows I should weigh in. For qualifications, I think it's sufficient to say that this XP install has lasted for circa 5 years now without an issue (No, if you don't suck you don't have to reformat Windows once a month), and that I reguarly achieve 1.5-2 months of heavy, heavy use without needing to reboot.
I'm impressed that this guide didn't fall into the usual trap of recommending 500 "tweaks" that are, primarily, snake-oil if not outright harmful (BlackViper guide, I'm looking at you).
In XP, you should keep Virtual Memory on. Your system won't use it until you're almost full on real-RAM anyway. If you turn it off and your system needs some more memory, things will just close. Further, many apps (Photoshop, to name one that's rather common) were written with swap-space in mind and do not function with the swapfile turned off. So, DO leave it on. Turning it off is much more likely to hurt you than help. However, the advice to set it to a constant size of something like 1.5-2x your physical RAM is correct. The setting to "automatically manage" is just a recipe for fragmentation. One tip that DOES help a little bit with virtual memory is to split it across different physical drives if you have them. Reading a large thing from swap that's stored on 2 drives will happen faster: twice the max access speed. :)
In Vista, the OS is more aggressive with using physical RAM and even less aggressive with use of disk cache than XP was. There's even less reason to disable disk cache in Vista. Yes, Vista's aggressive use of physical RAM makes people say "omg it uses so much memory" but that's because they're idiots who listened to OS zealots instead of trying to read how things work. The "extra" memory is prefetch and will be freed as soon as something needs it.
If you're running NTFS, and you really should be on your system drive, defragmenting is really unlikely to make a performance difference.
But yes, by-and-large, this guide has the right idea to not screwing up Windows: Don't do stupid things and don't listen when people tell you to do stupid things. Don't install programs that "MAKE YOUR COMPUTER RUN FASTER" or blindly apply "tweaks" that claim to do the same thing.
If you want your computer to run faster and Trem to load faster, buy another stick of RAM. You can buy 2 gigs of DDR2 in a good brand for $40.
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Nice information Lakitu7! It's so good, I'm adding it to the guide. :P
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(Photoshop, to name one that's rather common) were written with swap-space in mind and do not function with the swapfile turned off. So, DO leave it on. Turning it off is much more likely to hurt you than help.
That is not true. My Photoshop only show dialog window with message something like that "You have VM turned off, this brings zero performace more etc. You want run PS now?". Then PS work normally.
But with swap ON is system more slow. Because swap is used even if you have enough RAM. I have to wait when firefox with 10 tabs closing, PS with pictures take time to close etc. With swap OFF is all immediately. Click = program closed. I not found any program what not working with swap OFF. And now I really don't want slow down my old computer by turning swap ON.
But it's logical when you fill memory, then you can't run more programs. That happen to me only when I playing game "Fiesta online". This game work weird with memory.
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That is not true. My Photoshop only show dialog window with message something like that "You have VM turned off, this brings zero performace more etc. You want run PS now?". Then PS work normally.
But with swap ON is system more slow. Because swap is used even if you have enough RAM. I have to wait when firefox with 10 tabs closing, PS with pictures take time to close etc. With swap OFF is all immediately. Click = program closed. I not found any program what not working with swap OFF. And now I really don't want slow down my old computer by turning swap ON.
But it's logical when you fill memory, then you can't run more programs. That happen to me only when I playing game "Fiesta online". This game work weird with memory.
Photoshop depends on version, then. Earlier ones do as I say.
If Firefox is paging out, then you had it minimized for a long time and then sat the computer idle. The system pages out things that are minimized and idle for a long time so that starting new things will happen more quickly. This particular behavior is decreased/removed in Vista, but still exists in XP. It's the only possible point of contention for turning off swap in XP, but overall the pros outweigh the cons, generally. Most of your observed effect is the result of Firefox leaking memory like nobody's business. I'm not sure how much changing windows to compensate for failures in Firefox is really good advice.
Overall it fails the usual test: Do you know more about Windows than Microsoft does? Probably not. :) I'm inclined to think Adobe knows more about Photoshop than you do, as well.
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Well, I not need know anything about MS or PS. I only see my system speed with swap on and swap off. And swap off is faster for me :-)
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Microsoft doesn't seem to know much about their own products considering there are exploits/bugs still not fixed after many, many years. Also, why should loading something twice be faster then loading it once? HDD -> RAM -> SWAP -> RAM -> SWAP -> RAM -> ad infinitum
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If you compile by source, there's a flag to compile an SMP client.
http://trem-servers.com/index.php?page=downloads (http://trem-servers.com/index.php?page=downloads)
and that flag is ignored outside OS X because it doesn't actually do anything on the other systems (but supposedly sdl 1.3 is supposed to fix this)
Do you guys know if anybody but Zorb over at Beer Garden ever took advantage of that? Does the stock Mac client utilize Symmetric Multiprocessing? Here's a link (http://www.beer-garden.org/bg2/forum/index.php/topic,907.0.html) to the thread in which it was discussed, many moons ago. I never actually DL'd it, but CompSU (remember that dude?) said it was quite a bit faster. I don't know diddly about it, but since this thread is called "How to make Trem run faster" w/o mentioning any specific OS, I thought it might be interesting to Mac users, and to the OP, since Hendrich sounds pretty open to hearing about any helpful or useful hints. Maybe kev or one of the other knowledgeable folks can provide more information. Apparently SMP would enable both cores to run Trem, side-by-side. Someone mentioned above that it wouldn't be useful for other operating systems besides Mac, since a variety of hardware exists; for Mac users however, I believe that most of the recent machines are dual-core (or better), so it could potentially be very useful. I don't see any tweaks for Mac here, except for the very obvious get more RAM suggestion, which helped me immensely. A fine thread; big ups for starting it. :)
Thanks to anyone who can add more. Cheers!
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If you're running NTFS, and you really should be on your system drive, defragmenting is really unlikely to make a performance difference.
Defraging NTFS won't make trem run faster, however depending on how fragmented your drive is, it could greatly improve load times. Additionally, if your page file has been set to autogrow for a while, it too can become fragmented. The only way to fix that is to remove the page file, defrag as much as possible, the recreate the page file at a set size. My only thought in this is that a lot of the younger folks playing trem may have downloaded large zip files/ISOs etc, (ala pirates bay) and could have a pretty heavily fragmented drive. WARNING if your computer has a fragmented page file, there's a good chance you need that page file. Removing it and rebooting (which will be required) may cause extremely painful slowdowns until the page file is recreated, assuming your computer successfully boots.
What may help is to check for running processes in memory using the task manager. Lots of programs leave little helpers behind that are ultimately pointless and stupid, doing little else than checking for an update once a day or less. Some of the culprits are java, adobe acrobat, adaware, some zip programs, etc. I haven't used windows in a while so I don't recall any more, though I used to run into tons of them. If your machine is squeezed for memory, the little amount freed by stopping/killing these programs may make a considerable difference. If there are many of them, the amount of memory they consume may be substantial. Running msconfig from the run dialog comes to mind. I seem to recall that as the name of the program that will simplify locating programs that are run at boot time.
For more advanced users, I'd also recommend checking your system services. Turn off and/or disable any that aren't needed. But I warn you, MS seems to intentionally obfuscates their service names and does not do a good job of defining what they do, so if you don't know what a service does don't touch it. Or at least remember the services you changed and be prepared to change them back. I've seen windows systems do strange things when seemingly (completely) unrelated services are disabled, prepare yourself to reenable them if you run into weirdness. I'm reminded of a win2000 box that failed making VPN connections when a service that appeared (by name and MS web site) to have nothing to do with VPNs, encryption, tunnels, etc was turned off.
All of this is really just an end run around the real performance enhancer, in case you are for some reason unable to do it:
The single most effective performance enhancement has always been, in my experience, to add memory. If your GPU is the issue, memory may not help, for all other things it will. Scavenge old machines, talk to friends or family, they may have an old computer sitting unused that has the same type of memory that your system uses. You'd be surprised where you can find memory if you ask around and/or keep you eyes open for it. Its not as easy as it used to be (which was VERY) as there are many different types of ram these days, its still worth it though.
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I've been told this works well: http://www.theorica.net/gamexp.htm
Khalsa
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If you compile by source, there's a flag to compile an SMP client.
http://trem-servers.com/index.php?page=downloads (http://trem-servers.com/index.php?page=downloads)
and that flag is ignored outside OS X because it doesn't actually do anything on the other systems (but supposedly sdl 1.3 is supposed to fix this)
Do you guys know if anybody but Zorb over at Beer Garden ever took advantage of that? Does the stock Mac client utilize Symmetric Multiprocessing? Here's a link (http://www.beer-garden.org/bg2/forum/index.php/topic,907.0.html) to the thread in which it was discussed, many moons ago. I never actually DL'd it, but CompSU (remember that dude?) said it was quite a bit faster. I don't know diddly about it, but since this thread is called "How to make Trem run faster" w/o mentioning any specific OS, I thought it might be interesting to Mac users, and to the OP, since Hendrich sounds pretty open to hearing about any helpful or useful hints. Maybe kev or one of the other knowledgeable folks can provide more information. Apparently SMP would enable both cores to run Trem, side-by-side. Someone mentioned above that it wouldn't be useful for other operating systems besides Mac, since a variety of hardware exists; for Mac users however, I believe that most of the recent machines are dual-core (or better), so it could potentially be very useful. I don't see any tweaks for Mac here, except for the very obvious get more RAM suggestion, which helped me immensely. A fine thread; big ups for starting it. :)
Thanks to anyone who can add more. Cheers!
tjw's original mac client had smp support afaik, simply hacking in the mac smp support does very little to help fps with other oses though.
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I'm adding Tuple's reply to the guide, nice information Tuple! but do please explain what NTFS means. :P
Its nice to see people are actually talking how to improve performance of tremulous (The conversations are mostly about Swaping, I gotta add that to the guide.), usually I don't see much of that here in the fourms. But then again, I didn't see every single topic in the fourms, so yea.
Power to the players! XD
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NTFS = type of a (more) modern file system from Microsoft that uses advanced features like Data Streams and Journaling. It shouldn't fragment as much as the old type fat16/32 filesystems
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If you're running NTFS, and you really should be on your system drive, defragmenting is really unlikely to make a performance difference.
Defraging NTFS won't make trem run faster, however depending on how fragmented your drive is, it could greatly improve load times.
Agreed. I tend to measure things in terms of FPS though. Load times don't help too much unless they're SO BAD that you miss warmup, so that's why I didn't mention it. Sorry to make it sound like defragging does NOTHING, when I was just going for that it does nothing for your FPS.
Also, agreed regarding adding more RAM. That's a point I was trying to make too.
Taking care of crapware and those idiotic "helper" utilities is certainly worthwhile. MSConfig helps. Hijackthis is better, if you know what you're doing.
I don't agree with tooling around with Microsoft services. Use MSConfig and check "hide all Microsoft services," then take care of some of the "updater"-types that crept in through that section.
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I've been told this works well: http://www.theorica.net/gamexp.htm
Khalsa
I've got a virus alert.
:-\
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Game XP is intended to optimize the performance of your computer for gaming needs. It tweaks and modifies various XP settings (cache settings, CPU priority etc.) and optionally disables or stops several Windows services that are usually not needed. The program does not require any installation, and does not need to be running at all times. Game XP extends your operating system's capabilities and makes Windows faster and comfortable for maximum gaming experience.
Maybe thats why ur antivirus detect it as a virus.(Check highlighted)
RADICAL SOLUTION: http://goodbye-microsoft.com/
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Lol debian sucks!
RADICAL SOLUTION:
(http://www.ammahls.com/random/Cat_slave_PWNED.gif)
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Viva la Arch Linux! (http://archlinux.org)
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what about Zenwalk Linux?! (http://www.zenwalk.org/)
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what about Zenwalk Linux?!
I like Zenwalk Linux a bit better then Arch Linux. ^^