Very low FPS (Dell M2800)

[Yuki]

Hey there,

After recently picking up ET again, and tweaking the config and general settings, I've come to reach a somewhat stable 70 FPS, after previously suffering drastically low FPS drops (~15 on some maps when near players) Although the 70 FPS is playable, I would say this is far from optimal. My specs are as follows:
 

My laptop (Dell M2800)
2.8-GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-4810MQ

8GB DDR3L ram

Graphics card AMD FirePro M4170 and Intel HD graphics 
Video memory 2GB
All drivers have been updated to latest version, running windows 10 build 1809

Game settings:

Using this config: https://fearless-assassins.com/files/file/1700-sonofdocs-top-of-the-line-cfg/, where I only changed /seta r_primitives 2 and set all the in game graphic display settings to lowest.

PK3 cleaner from this website has been utilized

Latest patch ET 2.60b also from this website

After reading several topics on this forum and other websites, I've still not been able to get my FPS past 70. Therefore I'm creating this topic, hoping someone can help me out. 

Any effort is much appreciated. If any additional information is needed, I'll be happy to provide it. 

Cheers,
Yuki

Edited June 12, 2019 by Yuki

[DoubleDragon]

AMD FirePro M4170 has a bus speed of 800-900mhz max

 

The cfg you downloaded has a resolution of 1600x1024 that is benchmarked very low fps output for that card at that resolution for certain games ET is not listed on the charts

 

You will  need to change the resolution in the config to your display or equal native resolution below or around 1366x768 to get what your looking for from that card

 

how ever if the cfg is to remain unchanged it would be best to create a shortcut of et.exe and send it to the desktop and edit the properties to overwrite any configuration setting from a .cfg

 

adding this to the properties target of the shortcut .ink file

 

default paths with commands

 

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory\et.exe" +exec Sonofdoc.cfg +r_customwidth "1366" +r_customheight "768" +set r_mode "-1" +vid_restart

 

You should run the .cfg command first then set customs aspect ratio and mode and vid_restart last to make it take effect

 

if you want to add a server ip address and connect to the server that was previously connected to with low fps put it after the .cfg with +connect then space with url or ip and then the custom aspect ratio you can edit the shortcut much easier then looking through files

 

if the fps is unchanged you may have to cvar_restart;exec etconfig;vid_restart and reset your name then restart the game with the shortcut because sometimes ET will bug with cvar changes

[Yuki]

5 hours ago, DoubleDragon said:

AMD FirePro M4170 has a bus speed of 800-900mhz max

 

The cfg you downloaded has a resolution of 1600x1024 that is benchmarked very low fps output for that card at that resolution for certain games ET is not listed on the charts

 

You will  need to change the resolution in the config to your display or equal native resolution below or around 1366x768 to get what your looking for from that card

 

how ever if the cfg is to remain unchanged it would be best to create a shortcut of et.exe and send it to the desktop and edit the properties to overwrite any configuration setting from a .cfg

 

adding this to the properties target of the shortcut .ink file

 

default paths with commands

 

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory\et.exe" +exec Sonofdoc.cfg +r_customwidth "1366" +r_customheight "768" +set r_mode "-1" +vid_restart

 

You should run the .cfg command first then set customs aspect ratio and mode and vid_restart last to make it take effect

 

if you want to add a server ip address and connect to the server that was previously connected to with low fps put it after the .cfg with +connect then space with url or ip and then the custom aspect ratio you can edit the shortcut much easier then looking through files

 

if the fps is unchanged you may have to cvar_restart;exec etconfig;vid_restart and reset your name then restart the game with the shortcut because sometimes ET will bug with cvar changes

Hey there, thank you for taking the time to write this. It immediately solved the issue, cheers!

[Arkinder]

Hi Yuki,

 

I'm glad that lowering the resolution was able to help improve your FPS. I know that not all players want to go with this option since it makes things more difficult to see. So I would like to offer another. Most laptops and non-gaming monitors have a refresh rate of 60hz. With Vertical Sync disabled, instead of waiting for the monitor refresh rate before drawing to the screen it draws closer to immediately. This matters because even at 125 FPS you won't see more than 60 of those frames despite Vertical Sync being disabled. The 125 frames are merged and this causes overlaps or inaccurate frames that you see while playing. In other words instead of seeing one frame you're seeing one, two, or three frames merged into one frame. The point being that on a 60hz monitor the only difference between 62 FPS and 125 FPS is perceived smoothness. For players that prefer a higher resolution that can't maintain 125 FPS I would recommend using 62 FPS instead. Not only is it easier to see but what gets rendered to the screen is more accurate.

 

seta r_displayRefresh "60"
seta com_maxFPS "62"
seta cl_maxpackets "62"
seta cl_packetdup "1"

or

seta r_displayRefresh "120"
seta com_maxFPS "125"
seta cl_maxpackets "100" (this should be "62" but some servers will change it between maps)
seta cl_packetdup "1"
// don't forget to set your mouse polling rate to 125hz.

 

Regards,

Arkinder

[Yuki]

12 hours ago, Arkinder said:

Hi Yuki,

 

I'm glad that lowering the resolution was able to help improve your FPS. I know that not all players want to go with this option since it makes things more difficult to see. So I would like to offer another. Most laptops and non-gaming monitors have a refresh rate of 60hz. With Vertical Sync disabled, instead of waiting for the monitor refresh rate before drawing to the screen it draws closer to immediately. This matters because even at 125 FPS you won't see more than 60 of those frames despite Vertical Sync being disabled. The 125 frames are merged and this causes overlaps or inaccurate frames that you see while playing. In other words instead of seeing one frame you're seeing one, two, or three frames merged into one frame. The point being that on a 60hz monitor the only difference between 62 FPS and 125 FPS is perceived smoothness. For players that prefer a higher resolution that can't maintain 125 FPS I would recommend using 62 FPS instead. Not only is it easier to see but what gets rendered to the screen is more accurate.

 

seta r_displayRefresh "60"
seta com_maxFPS "62"
seta cl_maxpackets "62"
seta cl_packetdup "1"

or

seta r_displayRefresh "120"
seta com_maxFPS "125"
seta cl_maxpackets "100" (this should be "62" but some servers will change it between maps)
seta cl_packetdup "1"
// don't forget to set   mouse polling rate to 125hz.

 

Regards,

Arkinder

Hey there Arkinder, thank you for your reply!

You make a good point as I did like the higher resolution I've had before so I just tried out what you suggested. The refresh rate of the integrated monitor is indeed just 60 Hz, so I've tried the first suggested .cfg settings. It seems to be working really well, the resolution I've set is 1600*900 and so far I've not noticed any drops in smoothness. Even though I've set the maxFPS to 62 as suggested, the FPS counter still seems to show  between 90-125 FPS regardless. Is it possible that the FPS counter may not be that accurate or am I missing something here?

Thanks for your time and regards,
Yuki

[Arkinder]

Hi Yuki,

 

There could be several reasons for this so I would suggest double checking everything. Some likely culprits are typos or the config settings are not being applied correctly. After you connect to the server execute the config again. If the problem persists upload a screenshot and your config.

 

Regards,

Arkinder

[Yuki]

On 6/14/2019 at 12:07 AM, Arkinder said:

Hi Yuki,

 

There could be several reasons for this so I would suggest double checking everything. Some likely culprits are typos or the config settings are not being applied correctly. After you connect to the server execute the config again. If the problem persists upload a screenshot and your config.

 

Regards,

Arkinder

Hi Arkinder,

Thanks for your reply. Executing the config after connecting to the server solved the issue - it limits the FPS to 62. 

Thank you for all your help. Best regards, Yuki

[*Kiba*]

just butting in here  but i would think with a pc like you have you should be able to run a stable 125 fps  but than again that just me butting in 

[Yuki]

9 hours ago, *Kiba* said:

just butting in here  but i would think with a pc like you have you should be able to run a stable 125 fps  but than again that just me butting in 

Hey there Kiba, thank you for your comment. Although the graphics card of my laptop isn't great for gaming, it can indeed run ET with 125 fps. However Arkinder pointed out that more than 60 fps can make what is shown on the screen less accurate because of my monitor:
 

On 6/13/2019 at 2:40 AM, Arkinder said:

The 125 frames are merged and this causes overlaps or inaccurate frames that you see while playing. In other words instead of seeing one frame you're seeing one, two, or three frames merged into one frame. The point being that on a 60hz monitor the only difference between 62 FPS and 125 FPS is perceived smoothness. For players that prefer a higher resolution that can't maintain 125 FPS I would recommend using 62 FPS instead. Not only is it easier to see but what gets rendered to the screen is more accurate.

Arkinder makes a good point, and after reading about the topic some more, I found that limiting the fps has other advantages besides increased accuracy:
 

Quote

If your GPU is capable of producing higher frame rates than the VSync cap you can take advantage of its leftover capacity to increase the resolution, draw distance, or other graphics quality settings. (Source)

I've tried both 62 and 125 fps a fair amount of time and smoothness wise I don't feel that much difference - so it doesn't make much sense for me to play on 125 fps unless I get a monitor with a higher refresh rate.

Regards, Yuki

Edited June 17, 2019 by Yuki