ET lagging, could these PC changes be the reason?

[Fresh]

Hi guys,

 

I play ET a lot mostly on HC server and I am getting so much lag now it is unplayable on the HC server with 24 active players.  Before it was not a problem.

 

The recent changes to my PC are:

- Installed Epic Game Launcher and Fortnite

- Upgrade AMD graphics driver because of warning from Fortnite.  Used the automated upgrade software from https://support.amd.com/en-us/download.

 

My internet connection is 25 Mbps or so over a Wifi connection and my ping shows at about 15 in the ET game so I don't think that is the problem.

 

I have not changed anything in my ET config since I started playing the game 15 years ago so it is probably default.

 

I am running a Windows 7 desktop, AMD Phenom II X4 830 processor, 64 bit at 2.80 Ghz with 8GB RAM.  My graphics card is an AMD Radeon HD 5570.  It is a 10 yr old machine but should be OK running ET

 

Any advice would help, thanks.

[Xernicus]

Graphics drivers would be most likely the issue, if that's the last thing that got changed. I know off the top of my head that the 5xxx series cards are on legacy support, and you likely had two options, an old version of Catalyst and a beta version of Crimson.The last version of Catalyst more than likely would work well with that card, unsure about Crimson. As for what would be compatible with Fortnite... most likely Crimson.
I know I ran into issues with a 4xxx series card with Catalyst v13, and had to downgrade and wait for a newer driver.

I'd follow the tutorial I wrote for using DDU to do a clean graphics driver installation: https://fearless-assassins.com/tutorials/article/449-how-to-use-ddu/

Don't use the automated installation utility, download the entire driver installation binary. If you want a Fortnite compatible driver, Crimson may be the way to go, but don't be surprised if you run into bugs, it's an "as-is" courtesy driver. Here are direct download links:

Official AMD Crimson Beta for Legacy Cards
Official AMD Catalyst Driver v15.7.1, last officially supported driver for legacy cards

Edited March 26, 2018 by Xernicus
Grammar correction

[Fresh]

OK thanks Xernicus, I will follow your tutorial.  I am attaching the output from dxdiag to show my current display driver config.

DxDiag.txt

[Fresh]

Hi Xernicus, I used Windows to rollback the graphics driver to the previous version.  It went back to version 8.960.11.1000 from 15.200.1062.1004.  I logged into ET and with 20 players on HC server it was at least playable.  So hopefully this is enough of a fix for now.

 

I checked and confirmed that it was the 'AMD Catalyst Control Center' that I used recently to upgrade from 8.960.11.1000 from 15.200.1062.1004.  So I did not use the Crimson release and used what AMD recommended.

 

Thanks to the ideas in your tutorial it led me to try a simple driver rollback before doing the whole thing.  Thanks for your help!

[Xernicus]

Hmm, let's see... v 8.960 is Catalyst 12.3... I seem to recall that being a good driver for ET. I'm wondering if that's right before they ditched/fubar'd the compatibility profiles for ET/Quake3.
I can't remember whether /r_primitives 2 cvar was required before that release, or only after. It was somewhere around that time afaik.
If you don't have it (primitives) set already to a specific value, that could be the performance issue you're seeing with the newer driver.

 

You could check your config by simply typing

/r_primitives [ENTER]

And seeing what value is returned. If it's anything but "2", then I'd bet that's your issue with the newer driver.
It's simple to set, just type this:

/seta r_primitives 2

Where seta (set all) writes the value permanently (set and forget)- don't use /set for this one

One thing that doesn't make sense is why the update function in Catalyst chose an older driver besides the max supported... I will pull an older card off my shelf though and experiment with Catalyst 15.7.x and Crimson for you though, and report back tomorrow or the day after.

[Fresh]

Thanks Xernicus!  I checked r_primitives with 8.960.11.1000 and it was 0 so I will set it to 2 like you suggest.  I also have not restarted my PC since rolling back to 8.960.11.1000, I guess I will do that at some point

[*Kiba*]

going to go off  topic here  

 

 

and say this is why i hate AMD  they always put stuff out without testing it  and it's always as is and they take forever to  get a new one out or fix there bugs 

 

but from what people are saying just uninstall the latest driver update and install the one before it  if i'm not mistaken AMD does have a driver  history if you can get it to pull up that is  i had nothing but  bad  experience's with AMD so that why i'm hating on it so much 

 

but i will say this and  i did not really get to stay with AMD Crimson  very long but i did have a better  experience with Crimson then i did  Catalyst crimson has better load time when you want to load it up and us it then catalst did but they both have there problems 

[kajto3]

ET sucked with Crimson as fair as I remember. I've played ET on AMD for a long time and I know one trick to make the game smoother on these cards. Basically, you need to downgrade OpenGL driver specifically for ET. To do that, you have to find and download 'atioglxx.dll' file (the oldest possible the better, but you should experiment with different versions) and put in in your ET folder (where ET.exe is). And that's it. You should notice significant FPS count change (it might go up or down, that's why you need to experiment). I can upload the file(s) that worked for me if you want.

[Xernicus]

ET sucked with Crimson as fair as I remember. I've played ET on AMD for a long time and I know one trick to make the game smoother on these cards. Basically, you need to downgrade OpenGL driver specifically for ET. To do that, you have to find and download 'atioglxx.dll' file (the oldest possible the better, but you should experiment with different versions) and put in in your ET folder (where ET.exe is). And that's it. You should notice significant FPS count change (it might go up or down, that's why you need to experiment). I can upload the file(s) that worked for me if you want.

ET runs great on Crimson. Better than on Catalyst (the older driver) by far. And that trick hasn't worked for a few years now.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Xernicus
Catalyst is the older driver

[kajto3]

Guess that all depends on the card itself... What do you mean by "hasn't worked for a few years now"? Tested on my laptop like a year ago and it helped a lot.

[Xernicus]

Guess that all depends on the card itself... What do you mean by "hasn't worked for a few years now"? Tested on my laptop like a year ago and it helped a lot.

I mean that that particular trick hasn't worked with the more modern drivers. Well any release in the past two/three or so years. Granted, if you have an older card, then the "newest" driver will be a few years old anyways.

They changed how the driver processes OpenGL libraries, and it won't call "external" libraries anymore (such as an atiogl DLL file placed in the game's running path)

 

I remember when it stopped working, because I used to use this trick. I remember there was another hack too, where you flipped some values around in the internal OpenGL DLL and a XML file (system32) and the compatibility profiles would then work correctly... but honestly, there's a better way.

Rename "et.exe" to "quake3.exe". Change the shortcut to represent the new executable name. Make sure it's running as an admin. Boom, done.

 

No trying to get the game to use older potentially incompatible OpenGL libraries, no patch hacks, no digging through xml files... just rename, and you're done. Not to mention it takes a fraction of the time compared to messing with older drivers. And this works on the latest Crimson Adrenalin release- and will continue to work for the foreseeable future.