Lowend Challege: Get TDM 2.06+ running on the oldest and slowest hardware

[nbohr1more]

 

I have this old shed sitting in a box, dont know if this the lowest machine spec so far-

 

Dell D410

• Intel Pentium M 755 / 2 GHz
• Mobile Intel 915GM Express
• Intel GMA 900 - it only support OpenGL 1.4, what the min requirement for 2.06..?
• Windows Xp, but I may put linux on there.
• 1024*768 screen, but it barley runs T2 @ 800*600

 

 

That won't even run Doom 3. GMA 900 has "No Hardware T&L" support.

 

The only way that would work is with a wrapper like LLVM:

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/17867-compiled-llvmpipesoftpipe-for-windows/

 

but an i3 gets 2FPS in New Job as I recall so...

 

Well. I guess you could possibly install an express card or external GPU of some sort.

[Bikerdude]

Express card, hah! this thing is so old it only has a pcmcia slot.

[kano]

Latest build is a small form factor with a GTX750TI. Not particularly slow or old, but definitely a budget card. I find that the game runs great at 720p with soft shadow quality at 40. If you don't want soft shadows, you can use 1080p. But soft shadows and 1080p tend to slow things down.

[Petike the Taffer]

Windows 7 Professional Service Pack 1

32 bit (x86)

Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E7500 2.93 GHz

2,00 GB RAM

GeForce 9600 GSO 512

Edited June 6, 2018 by Petike the Taffer

[nbohr1more]

 

Haven't tried it yet, but I shall.

 

Ping?

[jaxa]

My A6-3400M runs the game. I think 15-30 FPS is typical, but I got closer to 3-5 FPS when beta testing one mission. I will conduct full and hopefully fair benchmarks at a later date.

[Blue_Pill]

I tried it on a Pentium M 725 notebook with 855GM chipset graphics and a whopping 512MB of DDR RAM but it only supports OpenGL 1.3. On Windows XP, TDM shows an initialization error and on Linux (antiX), it reaches the main menu with a black screen due to shader compilation errors. According to the console output, it does seem to support GLSL 1.1 and 1.2 but TDM requires 1.3 even with glsl shaders disabled. Didn't really expect it to run properly though.

 

Anyway, I also have an Atom x5-Z8350 board with 4GB RAM. It isn't quite old but it is quite slow. The last time I tried, it had <=15fps iirc but I will take a look at other maps and settings.

[Anderson]

but I will take a look at other maps and settings.

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19498-image-downsize-in-206/

[duzenko]

A bit off topic but it's probably the least inappropriate thread to post this

 

I did a RAM upgrade on my laptop and took a chance to benchmark memory controller

 

The hardware is dual-core i7-6000 something, intel 540 IGP, DDR4-2133

 

IIRC with just one 8GB memory stick I was seeing something like 48 fps in the Rightful Property inn scene

8GB + 4GB it was something like 52 fps and 8GB + 8GB was probably the same, possibly one extra fps but I wouldn't bet my hand on it.

 

Does not prove anything, but I'd say if you have a dedicated GPU you shouldn't expect visible difference between single and double channel memory modes.

An IGP always benefits from double channeling but my specific model has a eDRAM chip which supposedly makes it somewhat less memory limited. On the other hands 'regular' IGP's sans dedicated buffers might or might not be bottlenecked by their limited ROP's and shader power.

A lot of points to speculate about such as cache trashing and memory latency influence on CPU/GPU memory access fighting.

 

In the end, it's always better to have dedicated over IGP, double channel over single, eDRAM over nothing, DDR4 over DDR3, more shaders over fewer shaders, and be rich and healthy over poor and sick.

 

That concludes my report. Thank you for your time

 

BTW I heard that Intel decided that 64-MB eDRAM 'ought to be enough for anybody'

Using the default shadow map settings we end up with the global shadow atlas texture size of 144MB. High-quality (2K pages) shadows result in ~600MB texture.

Great thinking, Intel, as always (not).

I'd buy an AMD IGP if they had a budget model with some on-chip buffer but they don't do that at all. And AMD sucks in just as many ways as Intel. Looking back all the way to i810 chipsets, IGP's have been constant pain, more or less so depending on the specific model. 810, 845, ati XPRESS, X3100, HD 3000, 5500, 540, they all sucked in their own way.

Does not matter if it's 2000, 2010, or 2020. If you want ANY 3D, buy dedicated GPUs

[peter_spy]

If anything, higher RAM timings do increase fps. Maybe that helps in sending data to GPU faster? The gap between system and video memory clockings is still huge though.

[Anderson]

„

In the end, it's always better to have dedicated over IGP, double channel over single, eDRAM over nothing, DDR4 over DDR3, more shaders over fewer shaders, and be rich and healthy over poor and sick.”

 

„Does not matter if it's 2000, 2010, or 2020. If you want ANY 3D, buy dedicated GPUs”

Indeed, I imagine though most people who are on a buget and are getting a Celeron, will be disinterested in 3D. They just need a newer model that will last longer without the need to throw this laptop sooner than later. That includes cleaning it occasionally from dust. Too easy to have a Good game for your motherboard from overheating and so on.

And why reinvent the wheel on being rich?

„The acquisition of riches has been for many men, not an end, but a change, of troubles.”

― Seneca, Letters From A Stoic: Epistulae Morales

[nbohr1more]

Let's Necro!

Anyone interested in seeing whether 2.12 runs on ancient hardware?

Any volunteers?

[datiswous]

I guess I could try to make it run on this:

https://www.notebookcheck.nl/Fujitsu-Siemens-Lifebook-P1620.8269.0.html

Not sure if an Intel GMA 950 will be enough..

[nbohr1more]

49 minutes ago, datiswous said:

I guess I could try to make it run on this:

https://www.notebookcheck.nl/Fujitsu-Siemens-Lifebook-P1620.8269.0.html

Not sure if an Intel GMA 950 will be enough..

Would be interesting to see what happens but Intel GMA 950 has "No Hardware T&L" and only supports OpenGL 2.0.

If you are willing to install TDM 2.06 and try" r_useGLSL 0" then we would at least know whether such hardware can run the latest OpenGL 2.0 compliant TDM.

[datiswous]

I remember I was surprised it couldn't run Invisible, Inc. properly. But I'll give it a try later.