Optimising ioQuake 3 for Sam440

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ChrisH

Posted on: 2010/11/29 22:21 #1

Home away from home

With the release of "sam440ep_setup" fix for Sam440s, which should speed-up graphics performance, I thought I'd runs some tests to see how it affects Quake 3. (This will repeat some stuff I posted on AW.net ages ago.)

First, how do we benchmark Quake 3?
* Open the console of Quake 3 (typically by pressing Tab).
* Type "timedemo 1" (without the quotes!).
* Type "demo four"
* Wait for the demo to complete.
* Return to the console to see the results (fps).

The following are the "best" settings I'd previously found (where I aimed for good looks without much speed penalty)! Here's what I use:
Quote:

GL Extentions=On (Off is no faster)
Video Mode = 800x600 (1024x768 is signficiantly slower)
Colour Depth = 16-bit (32-bit only makes it slightly slower, but I can't see the difference)
Lighting = Vertex (Lightmap is massively slower, and I can't see the difference)
Geometric Detail = Medium (Low gives no speed benefit, while High is significantly slower)
Texture Quality = 4 (max) (Worse settings are almost no faster)
Texture Depth = Default (This doesn't make much difference)
Texture Filter = Trilinear (Bilinear is not any faster)

On OS4.1 beta with Debug Kernel I got 18.2 fps for "demo four". The next post will contain what I currently get (with OS4.1 update 2) before/after using the "sam440ep_setup" fix.

For posterity (and to save me writing it down elsewhere!) here are the results of changing only one setting & then running the same demo:
Quote:

1280x1024 = -2.9fps (-16%), i.e. 15.3 fps
Lightmap Lighting = -2.6fps (-14%)
1024x768 = -1.6fps (-9%)
High Geo Detail = -1.4fps (-8%)
32-bit Depth = -0.8fps (-4%)

32-bit Textures = -0.2fps (-1%)
Low Geo Detail = +0.0fps (+0%)
GL Extensions Off = +0.0fps (+0%)
Bilinear Filtering= +0.0fps (+0%)
Texture Detail 3 = +0.1fps (+0%)
Texture Detail 2 = +0.2fps (+1%)
16-bit Textures = +0.2fps (+1%)

640x480 = +0.5fps (+3%)

Note that fps varied by at least 0.1 between tests, and so anything between -0.1 & +0.1 fps can be considered "no change", while -0.2 or +0.2 fps (1%) should not be construed as being significant due to the high chance of errors.

Author of the PortablE programming language.

ChrisH

Re: Optimising ioQuake 3 for Sam440

Posted on: 2010/11/29 22:54 #2

Home away from home

On AmigaOS4.1 (with Update 2) I now get 18.8 fps (+/- 0.1) on my 667MHz Sam440 (with built-in Radeon gxf card).

After running the fix I get 19.0 fps. So not a huge difference for me, although according to the fix it only made 1 (of 2 possible) changes:
Quote:

Found a Sam440ep
OLD SPR[0x03b2]: 0x002d0000
SPR[0x03b2] already set... skipping
Found a Radeon GFX card
BaseAddress = 0xa8000000
Size = 134217728 bytes
POM2 pre : 1044000
0
12c45000
eebf7968
Enabling prefetching...
POM2 post : a8000000
f8000003
a8000000
0
Done !

My guess is that Quake 3 has a bottleneck other than graphics memory performance, and that some other games should see much bigger improvements...

Author of the PortablE programming language.

Radov

Re: Optimising ioQuake 3 for Sam440

Posted on: 2010/11/29 23:12 #3

Just popping in

@ChrisH

There are some other settings that You can try too:
setup->game options:
- dynamic lights - off
- high quality sky - off
- sync every frame - off

Unfortunately my Sam440 acts weird lately, so I can't test this settings by myself...

Crisot

Re: Optimising ioQuake 3 for Sam440

Posted on: 2010/11/30 4:52 #4

Just popping in

The patch improved a bit the graphics read performance.

In a such game, the graphic memory is never read.

The bottleneck is: Warp3D/MiniGL are slow.
Q3 runs 2x to 4x faster on a G4. Difference: CPU.

m3x

Re: Optimising ioQuake 3 for Sam440

Posted on: 2010/11/30 11:10 #5

Just popping in

@ChrisH

Crisot is right, the patch improves only read performance, which has near zero impact on 3D games.
You may noticed some improvments in some SDL games, emulators and amicygnix.

Anyway later today or tomorrow we'll publish a PCI update utility on ACube website which will improve write performance up to 30% (around 64 MB/s on the M9 chip) and with this you'll notice some improvment on 3D too, but don't expect miracles, max 1 or 2 FPS.

For overall better 3D performance, improved 3D drivers are needed.

nubechecorre

Re: Optimising ioQuake 3 for Sam440

Posted on: 2010/11/30 13:27 #6

Just can't stay away

@m3x

Quote:

For overall better 3D performance, improved 3D drivers are needed

I totally agree with you

Crisot

Re: Optimising ioQuake 3 for Sam440

Posted on: 2010/11/30 14:12 #7

Just popping in

@ChrisH

BTW, about Quake 3 tuning. You may have noticed sound is really jerky when reaching low FPS. Just uses thoses consoles commands:

s_mixprestep 0
s_mixahead 1

This wont improve performances, but at least you'll have much better sound.

Quote:

Lighting = Vertex (Lightmap is massively slower, and I can't see the difference)

This is one of the most important visual setting, Lightmap gives much better experience. Try to lower other settings to keep good performances with Lightmap.

Resized Image

Lightmap

Vertex

Edited by Crisot on 2010/11/30 14:32:41
Edited by Crisot on 2010/11/30 14:41:42

AmigaOne XE --- 7455A@1.4Ghz --- Radeon 9000 Pro --- RAM 2GB --- SSD 40GB

328gts

Re: Optimising ioQuake 3 for Sam440

Posted on: 2010/11/30 15:02 #8

Home away from home

@m3x

the new memory patch should be a news item on all Amiga sites IMHO

also, I can only play the first demo level in ioQuake3 and have no access to the other Tier levels ??

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fingus

Re: Optimising ioQuake 3 for Sam440

Posted on: 2010/11/30 15:18 #9

Just popping in

How will Quake3 perform on a Sam460ex?

kas1e

Re: Optimising ioQuake 3 for Sam440

Posted on: 2010/11/30 15:42 #10

Home away from home

@fingus
Imho a bit (5-7 fps) faster in compare with peg2. Because new sam have faster speed with video bus, and with memory , but l2 a bit loose in compare with peg2.

@m3x
Can you maybe plug-in radeon9250 to sam460, and try quake3 , just to see FPS difference on the same warp3d drivers, just on new sam ?

Btw, a bit out of topic, but maybe you can also do little test of LodePaint (opengl based painter), which show FPS ? If yes, i can write more details about how to test it. So we can compare peg2 and sam460 in real live, with current status.

Join us to improve dopus5!
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Crisot

Re: Optimising ioQuake 3 for Sam440

Posted on: 2010/11/30 16:25 #11

Just popping in

@kas1e

Quake3 is not bus intensive enough to take part of a faster video bus.

When it comes to 3D performances, GPU > CPU > ALL.

AmigaOne XE --- 7455A@1.4Ghz --- Radeon 9000 Pro --- RAM 2GB --- SSD 40GB

kas1e

Re: Optimising ioQuake 3 for Sam440

Posted on: 2010/11/30 16:28 #12

Home away from home

@Crisot

Imho 5-7fps + only or maybe the same or i will not very surprised if even a bit slower :)) Because of 1.2ghz of cpu, which are have lower L2 cash in compare with peg2, but a bit faster in raw power.

Anyway, by your test tool, it says that max mips on peg2 are about 3000, while on sam460 - about 2400 if i remember right. Dunno if it will also make sense for end usage or not..

Join us to improve dopus5!
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m3x

Re: Optimising ioQuake 3 for Sam440

Posted on: 2010/12/1 14:12 #13

Just popping in

@ChrisH

I noticed this in your comment:

Quote:

OLD SPR[0x03b2]: 0x002d0000
SPR[0x03b2] already set... skipping

There was a bug in my code, this means on your machine the first patch wasn't applied, you may still suffer for low L1 cache write speed.

Please try again with the new 1.1 version I just uploaded on OS4depot:

http://os4depot.net/?function=showfil ... /shell/sam440ep_setup.lha

Max Tretene, ACube Systems Srl, Soft3

Mrodfr

Re: Optimising ioQuake 3 for Sam440

Posted on: 2010/12/1 17:19 #14

Quite a regular

@m3x

5.WORKBENCH:> WORKBENCH:WBStartup/Sam440ep_setup verbose

Found a Sam440ep

Patch #1 ------------------------------
OLD SPR[0x03b2]: 0x000d0000
NEW SPR[0x03b2]: 0x00010000

Patch #2 ------------------------------
Found a Radeon GFX card
BaseAddress = 0xa8000000
Size = 134217728 bytes
POM2 pre : a8000000
f8000003
a8000000
0
POM2 already in use... not patching

Just for information.

Size: 134217728 bytes ??? not 64 MB.

A1200+Mediator+VooDoo3+060/50+96mo+IIYAMA 17"+CD,CDRW,ZIP SCSI-KIT
SAM440EP on Mapower 3000+AOS4.1

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carvedeye

Re: Optimising ioQuake 3 for Sam440

Posted on: 2011/6/13 20:58 #15

Just popping in

How about we all get together and have game in multiplayer :)

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