2.05 Unbound FPS

[BuckleBean]

In response to a reddit thread announcing steam greenlight (congrats all!), it came to my attention that 2.05 will introduce support for unbound FPS. Is there a recommended way of achieving that? Inserting seta com_fixedtic "1" into an autocommands.cfg file as I was doing before seems to be working quite well without messing with the game speed. Though I've only attempted the new training mission & haven't spent a significant amount of time. Additionally, I want to make sure this works with other missions. Further testing is needed.

 

Is this the best approach? I'm planning to update the Oculus/Vive Vorpx OP. It needs to be cleaned up for clarity anyway.

 

Here's the reddit thread for reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/5scybb/the_dark_mod_has_been_added_to_steam_greenlight/ddej9zp/

 

Cheers

[nbohr1more]

Try setting:

 

seta r_displayRefresh "90"

 

in autoexec.cfg.

 

Vsync will still cap your FPS to the Display Refresh as I recall.

 

You might need to disable in-game vsync too and use your driver setting instead:

 

seta r_swapinterval "0"

[BuckleBean]

Thanks, nbohr1more. This is very much appreciated. I responded to the reddit comment, but I'll continue the discussion here if needed. I hope to jump back in tonight & try your suggestions. While testing in VR with vorpx running, it was tough to say how well it was working because framerates were consistently low with geometry 3D enabled. The issue is most noticeable over 60fps. However, with G3D off, tjhings seemed promising. Furthermore, I jumped back in for a few minutes on a 144hz monitor & was pleased as punch to see the game running at 144fps with no apparent game speed issues. This is all very promising.

 

Out of curiosity, is there a difference between using an autocommands.cfg vs. autoexec.cfg? I had the former set up with commands to eliminate head bob bound to F11. I added the seta com_fixedtic "1" in that file & it seems to take effect without a keypress. Just curious.

[nbohr1more]

Hah! Good questions.

 

It seems that autocommands.cfg is mostly the same as autoexec.cfg.

 

It delays cvar and command changes until after the DLL code has loaded. This was done to prevent a bug where DMAP

was producing empty compiles when automating DMAP via the config file.

 

http://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=3199

 

I suspect that some render related cvars that require

a video restart (vid_restart) might not work with autocommands.cfg but I haven't tested that.

 

By the way, com_fixedTic is "sticky" which means that you can set it in the console and it should stay the way you set it without needing

autoexec.cfg. r_displayRefresh is not sticky unfortunately and does need autoexec.cfg to remain stable. The reason is that display refresh

can actually be a dangerous setting for older CRT monitors so if you end up having to kill Doom 3 (The Dark Mod) to stop it, the setting

will auto-revert to the safe value.

[BuckleBean]

I got a chance to mess with this tonight. Things appear to be working quite well with these settings. Thanks so much! After taking a look at the moddb announcement, I came across this bit about tdm_lg_interleave :

 

 

"I have been playing with tdm_lg_interleave 3 but I've tested it as high as 8 without seeing any stutter or anomalies. For most missions, I can set tdm_lg_interleave_min to 1 along with tdm_lg_interleave 3 and gain FPS (even at sub 30FPS areas ) with no consequence for frame stutter..."

 

I believe this suggests that by keeping tdm_lg_interleave_min to "1" and increasing tdm_lg_interleave, I may be able to achieve higher framerates. Indeed, increasing the latter seemed to do just that in some areas, but also a general overall higher average framerate. I tried values of 3, 8, 10, and 30 (just for kicks). I wasn't able to discern much of a difference between those values, though there was definitely an increase from the default setting. I'm not 100% sure i have all of this correct. Do you have any further guidance?

 

Furthermore, do you have any additional suggestions for maximizing performance? I don't think VRAM is an issue for me. I'm using a GTX 1080sc - 2500k @ 4.4ghz - 16GB RAM. That CPU is still going strong in most cases, but i expect that could be holding me back here. I believe the creator of vorpx has stated that the software benefits from newer CPUs.

 

Things are definitely improved in 2.05. I want to make the VR-Vorpx guide much clearer and would like to include information about performance.

 

Any further info you have would be useful. Thanks again.

[nbohr1more]

Yes.

 

You set the baseline where the interleave trick begins with tdm_lg_interleave_min.

Because the lightgem is so fast now, for most missions you can leave this at 1 so that

tdm_lg_interleave works at any FPS.

 

However, for VR there is another intriguing possibility... you could instead set the threshould

very high, like 70 then set tdm_lg_interleave 20 or higher.

 

The idea there is that at normal FPS, calculating the lightgem every 20 frames would be too unresponsive

but at insane FPS you could space out the calculations much further and enjoy additional boosting.

The only problem, of course, is that you may want both benefits. If I get enough demand for it, I could

create some sorta secondary cvar so that you can address both ends of the spectrum.

 

If you've already fiddled with everything here:

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Performance_Tweaks

 

you could also try the different shadow algorithms:

 

r_stencilShadowMode

 

As I recall, 2 was better in some areas and worse in others.

 

Finally, if I haven't said it before, use in-driver AA don't use native AA.

[BuckleBean]

Excellent, thank you. This is quite helpful. Yes, that native AA is killer even outside of VR. I turned it off a long time ago and found that things look just fine at higher resolutions (2560x1440).

 

EDIT: One last question, can all of these settings be placed in the autoexec.cfg? I figure I can use the console to test things, but I'd probably want to just have it set up to load every time once I find something that works.

Edited February 17, 2017 by BuckleBean