Quake Timedemo Problem

2011-02-25 04:15:02 am

Apologies for posting here. I know this is all about speedruns, but I'm having framerate measuring issues with Quake 1 and there aren't many places left to turn! Basically, I have an original retail copy of Q1 v1.01 installed on a 98 box and would like to measure it's fps. I know I drop to console and type 'timedemo demo2' for a standard measure, but I seem to remember on my old PCs this would then burn through demo2 as fast as possible, and then tell me the average fps afterwards. Now, it's playing demo2 as it should, but at normal speed and no fps summary at the end. Anyone seen this? Same results from demo1 and 3.
Ta in advance Smiley

Thread title:

Mandel

2011-02-26 12:20:41 pm

Mumma

Quake doesn't need more than 72 fps since the engine caps there anyway.

However, to answer your question I think you have vsync on which means Quake will render no more than 1 frame per monitor refresh. Might try disabling it with something like vid_vsync 0 in the console before running your timedemo.

enigmo

2011-03-02 05:47:23 am

Well, tried a few things, came to a few conclusions.
Firstly, it looks like the original v1.01 retail Quake exe doesn't support timedemo in console. I managed to find an old disk with the v1.09, dropped it in, and works fine. Timedemo demo2 works and tells me 200fps fairly consistently across multiple runs.
When you say the engine caps at 72fps, does that mean the official 1.09 exe is uncapped? I haven't changed vsync settings from the default, or manually changed any framerate limits, it is as Shub intended.

Stubgaard

2011-03-02 11:48:54 am

Hey Ho Let's Go

v1.09 is capped at 72 fps too :-)

lolfu

2011-03-03 03:03:21 am

timedemo just ignores the cap and tests the system for how fast it could render the demo without the fps cap.

enigmo

2011-03-04 05:47:11 am

Aah, that explains a lot. Well, except for why 1.01 wouldn't do timedemo but 1.09 would, but it's good to know anyway: So unless I use DarkPlaces or ProQuake, any hardware that'll push faster than 72fps is basically wasted.

Stubgaard

2011-03-04 10:54:41 am

Hey Ho Let's Go

...you should use JoeQuake for starters anyway ;-)

enigmo

2011-03-09 07:14:43 am

I'll add JoeQuake to the list of things to try then, ta Smiley