Torque 1.5 - Poor perfomance and bug on Mac Mini G4 1.4
by Kostiantyn Teterin · in Torque Game Engine · 10/26/2006 (2:17 pm) · 16 replies
I have tried Torque 1.5 demo on my Mac Mini. Most of the walkthrough scenes runs very slow, especially the scene with the mirror. And the menu wasn't displayed correctly - here what I have:
http://www.emotionrays.com/macbug.jpg
Sorry, I don't know how to insert images into the message.
Any ideas?
http://www.emotionrays.com/macbug.jpg
Sorry, I don't know how to insert images into the message.
Any ideas?
About the author
#2
great hall, hut, and tower are all being displayed at the same time.
I had the graphical problem you show in your screenshot happen once to me on the Mac test machine here, but never again. I was able to make the garbled screen go away by switching back and forth between fullscreen and windowed mode. We are looking into it.
10/26/2006 (3:51 pm)
Kostya - the demo is very graphically intensive and may run slowly on certain configurations, especially when the great hall, hut, and tower are all being displayed at the same time.
I had the graphical problem you show in your screenshot happen once to me on the Mac test machine here, but never again. I was able to make the garbled screen go away by switching back and forth between fullscreen and windowed mode. We are looking into it.
#3
We're talking less than ten frames per second on the demo, and the same for any of the levels from starter.fps in the actual toolkit. TGE1.4 runs beautifully on this machine; perfectly smoothly as far as these humble eyes can tell. 1.5 may have all sorts of super awesome improvements and stuff, but it's awful to watch. The individual frames look great, of course...
Am I doing something obviously wrong? Are there console variables that need to be set?
Gary (-;
EDIT: Forgot about metrics. I was wrong, it's not 10fps, it's 2.
10/26/2006 (6:33 pm)
Regarding the performance thing, on my powerbook G4, TGE1.5 is... abysmal.We're talking less than ten frames per second on the demo, and the same for any of the levels from starter.fps in the actual toolkit. TGE1.4 runs beautifully on this machine; perfectly smoothly as far as these humble eyes can tell. 1.5 may have all sorts of super awesome improvements and stuff, but it's awful to watch. The individual frames look great, of course...
Am I doing something obviously wrong? Are there console variables that need to be set?
Gary (-;
EDIT: Forgot about metrics. I was wrong, it's not 10fps, it's 2.
#4
Sometimes I move TGE to the background so I can do other stuff while it does that, which seems to have adverse affects, but... uh, this is significantly slower than I've come to anticipate.
Gary (-;
10/26/2006 (6:55 pm)
TGE based scene lighting complete (36.443 seconds)
Starting Synapse Gaming Lighting Pack scene lighting...
Lighting object 1 of 11...
Object lighting complete (1.641 seconds)
Lighting interior object 2 of 11 (starter.fps/data/interiors/tower/tower.dif)...
Object lighting complete (47.274 seconds)
Lighting interior object 3 of 11 (starter.fps/data/interiors/tower/tower.dif)...
Object lighting complete (208.731 seconds)
Lighting interior object 4 of 11 (starter.fps/data/interiors/tower/tower.dif)...
Object lighting complete (63.397 seconds)
Lighting interior object 5 of 11 (starter.fps/data/interiors/dock/dock.dif)...
Object lighting complete (34.435 seconds)
Lighting interior object 6 of 11 (starter.fps/data/interiors/dock/dock.dif)...
Object lighting complete (32.905 seconds)
Lighting interior object 7 of 11 (starter.fps/data/interiors/dock/dock.dif)...
Object lighting complete (11.048 seconds)
Lighting interior object 8 of 11 (starter.fps/data/interiors/dock/dock.dif)...
Object lighting complete (31.385 seconds)
Lighting interior object 9 of 11 (starter.fps/data/interiors/cottage/cottage.dif)...
Object lighting complete (50.434 seconds)Sometimes I move TGE to the background so I can do other stuff while it does that, which seems to have adverse affects, but... uh, this is significantly slower than I've come to anticipate.
Gary (-;
#5
iBook G4 800Mhz: 1.5 - 3.5 Fps
iMac CoreDuo 1.83Ghz: ~55 Fps (BUT down to 15 Fps or worst when moving Camera - causing terrible Lag sensation )-:
I'm going to Shark Torque 1.5 this weekend and see what happens. (OMG, I'm still porting my game to TGE and now porting to XNA too, this weekend I'm going to be CrAzY).
10/27/2006 (11:23 am)
Same performance Problems here:iBook G4 800Mhz: 1.5 - 3.5 Fps
iMac CoreDuo 1.83Ghz: ~55 Fps (BUT down to 15 Fps or worst when moving Camera - causing terrible Lag sensation )-:
I'm going to Shark Torque 1.5 this weekend and see what happens. (OMG, I'm still porting my game to TGE and now porting to XNA too, this weekend I'm going to be CrAzY).
#6
10/27/2006 (11:32 am)
The demo is a pretty hardcore representation of all the cool new features of 1.5 all at once - I have a g4 test machine here with 256 ram, GeForce 2 MX, 859 Mhz I believe.. it definitely chugs in the demo at places, but playing around with your own levels should be better. The tower and great hall with all it's lights both onscreen at once is a lot to handle for certain systems.
#7
The shark file is here: icculus.org/~chunky/stuff/itstheweatherbob/.
Gary (-;
10/27/2006 (11:47 am)
Owie-noogies. This is a brief snippet from stronghold:The shark file is here: icculus.org/~chunky/stuff/itstheweatherbob/.
Gary (-;
#8
Gary (-;
10/27/2006 (11:48 am)
This reflects what I'm seeing; starter.racing and the TLK demo level don't suffer these performance problems. Gary (-;
#9
That said, I'm also seeing poorer than expected performance on my Macs at 1024x768 or greater. I keep hearing about how the demo levels have all these bells and whistles, but do they really have much more than you might expect from a level in a typical, finished game? It actually seems to me like there is a fairly average number of things populating the demo level, including the special bells and whistles.
The thing that seems to give the engine the most fits is DIF rendering, which is concerning for me since my project involves a quite large DIF as the central focus.
10/27/2006 (12:50 pm)
@Gary, are you running the debug version? The release version should run considerably faster, I would think.That said, I'm also seeing poorer than expected performance on my Macs at 1024x768 or greater. I keep hearing about how the demo levels have all these bells and whistles, but do they really have much more than you might expect from a level in a typical, finished game? It actually seems to me like there is a fairly average number of things populating the demo level, including the special bells and whistles.
The thing that seems to give the engine the most fits is DIF rendering, which is concerning for me since my project involves a quite large DIF as the central focus.
#10
I have two G5 Dual 2Ghz systems that are identical except for the graphics card: one has an older ATI 9600 Pro, and one has an ATI X800. On the 9600 machine, the TGE stronghold level's performance is not great. I'm getting fps averaging around 20-25 running at 1024x768. It's an older card, though. But it probably explains why TGE runs like molasses on your Powerbook G4. The same mission runs fairly well on the X800 machine.
My project, however, crawls below 10 fps on the 9600 machine, mostly because of the one large DIF structure.
10/27/2006 (1:01 pm)
The other thing I should mention is that I've been able to compare TGE performance (on Macs, at least) with different graphics cards on the same machine.I have two G5 Dual 2Ghz systems that are identical except for the graphics card: one has an older ATI 9600 Pro, and one has an ATI X800. On the 9600 machine, the TGE stronghold level's performance is not great. I'm getting fps averaging around 20-25 running at 1024x768. It's an older card, though. But it probably explains why TGE runs like molasses on your Powerbook G4. The same mission runs fairly well on the X800 machine.
My project, however, crawls below 10 fps on the 9600 machine, mostly because of the one large DIF structure.
#11
I run a PowerBook G4 with OS X 10.4 here for Mac dev. I recently upgraded from 256M to 768M of RAM and it's like a whole new machine. I'm not sure if the issue is related to OS X's ability to swap efficiently or the slow hard drive in the machine (or both), but when it ran out of available memory the machine practically slowed to a halt.
Anyway the new TGE demo seems to be heavy on memory usage (at least heavier than past demos) and it could be causing memory swapping.
I'll pull down the latests demo in a bit to see what the performance is like here.
10/28/2006 (10:57 pm)
How much RAM are you guys running?I run a PowerBook G4 with OS X 10.4 here for Mac dev. I recently upgraded from 256M to 768M of RAM and it's like a whole new machine. I'm not sure if the issue is related to OS X's ability to swap efficiently or the slow hard drive in the machine (or both), but when it ran out of available memory the machine practically slowed to a halt.
Anyway the new TGE demo seems to be heavy on memory usage (at least heavier than past demos) and it could be causing memory swapping.
I'll pull down the latests demo in a bit to see what the performance is like here.
#13
10/29/2006 (11:15 am)
Wow, that's a lot. I still need to check out the demo on my PowerBook, but it sounds like I'll see similar performance.
#14
Gary (-;
10/29/2006 (11:17 am)
The day I bought my powerbook I upgraded it to 1.25G, the max I can put in it :-)Gary (-;
#15
1gb ram
MacOS Tiger
I'm also getting rock bottom performance, on the starter.fps and the demonstration (the same level I think). starter.racing runs great.
Thanks,
Loler
10/30/2006 (6:56 pm)
Macmini 1.44GHZ PowerPC1gb ram
MacOS Tiger
I'm also getting rock bottom performance, on the starter.fps and the demonstration (the same level I think). starter.racing runs great.
Thanks,
Loler
#16
TGE 1.42 was far speeder.
TGE 1.5 is far better looking.
11/03/2006 (1:33 am)
I work on my PowerBook 1.67 GHZ, 1.5 GB Ram, Radeon 9700 and I get 10 fps in strongHold demo, and about 20 fps int the other demo.TGE 1.42 was far speeder.
TGE 1.5 is far better looking.
Torque 3D Owner Rubes