Fix found: Slow perf on vidia cards with TDM 1.08

[Bikerdude]

Lowenz posted this over in my beta thread, thought people might want to be aware of it. Essentially it fixes the weird perf issue some of my tester and myself had been having, I was seeing FPS number as low as 45FPS, which is rediculous on a GTX670.

 

Procedure for NVidia Users:

 

*Install lastest ForceWare drivers package

*Install NVidia Inspector (NVI): http://www.softpedia...Inspector.shtml

*Run NVI

*Click on "Tools" icon

*Search for Doom 3 (NOT BFG) profile

*Select Doom 3 profile

*Press export menu button and select "Export Current Profile Only"

*Save the profile naming it as you want

*Open the profile with a Text Editor (Notepad, Notepad++, etc)

*Change <ProfileName>Doom 3</ProfileName> to <ProfileName>The Dark Mod</ProfileName>

*Change <string>doom3.exe</string> to <string>thedarkmod.exe</string>

*Save

*Import the NEW profile with NVI import button

[ungoliant]

I've seen numbers lower than that in certain FM's on my 670 (did you get the Gigabyte version?), although the benchmark runs at about 200fps with all the TDM bells and whistles enabled. I will check out this fix.

 

edit: yea, actually I'm positive there must be something wrong. I checked out Sikkmod last week, and with every setting maxed I still couldn't make D3 run at less than 60fps with vsync enabled.

Edited December 14, 2012 by ungoliant

[Bikerdude]

• I've seen numbers lower than that in certain FM's on my 670 (did you get the Gigabyte version?),
  
• edit: yea, actually I'm positive there must be something wrong. I checked out Sikkmod last week, and with every setting maxed I still couldn't make D3 run at less than 60fps with vsync enabled.
  

• Yup!
  
• So that would suggest then that the driver isnt detecting TDM correctly for some reason.
  

For me it speeded things back up to normal again, but Lowenze has said its not a 100% fix.

[ungoliant]

Ok I finally got around to trying this out, and immediately noticed that this whole thing can be done in NV control panel without the use of NVI, although it is a cool utility and I'll likely keep it.

[Bikerdude]

We Tried via the Nv Cp but it didnt work...

[ungoliant]

Ok, I used the method as advertised. I'm pretty sure it works, for HoLS and Alchemist, I can only find a couple spots that bring down FPS from 60 to 45ish briefly for a second or 2. NHAT3 however still has plenty of solid 20FPS areas. I've changed the LOD settings a lot in the menu, and i've noticed I keep getting these console messages:

func_portal_xx: Opening portal due to lodbias 0.75 not being between 0.00 and 10.00

Replace the xx with a variety of values, with varying lodbias values between 0 and 10. Last I checked, 0.75 and 3.0 are between 0 and 10... is something wrong, here?

 

edit: I've floated near the treetops, and the LOD menu settings are definitely working, trees popping in and out and all that... I don't understand why this map performs so poorly unless its CPU related. I have an i5-3570K on default settings.

Edited December 17, 2012 by ungoliant

[grayman]

There's a cvar called tdm_lod_bias, and its default is 1.0. The code comment says:

 

"A factor to multiply the LOD (level of detail) distance with. Default is 1.0 (meaning no change). Values < 1.0 make the distances smaller, reducing detail and increasing framerate, values > 1 increase the distance and thus detail at the expense of framerate."

 

Do you have it set to 0.75 for your testing?

 

The code is printing the wrong message. It's supposed to say:

 

"Opening portal due to lodbias 0.75 being between 0.00 and 10.00."

 

Apparently someone cut and pasted the message from the section where the value is outside these bounds, but neglected to change the message wording.

 

So, if the lod bias is between 0 and 10, the portal is opened. Otherwise, it's closed.

 

I submitted a code change to correct the message.