Multiple Machine testing problems
by Garrett Brown · in Torque Game Builder · 04/29/2006 (11:25 am) · 4 replies
Hello all,
I recently tried to test my game built off of Beta 1.1 on multiple machines and encountered an unexpected amount of slowdown. I will describe the two test machines and the performance to try and help anyone trying to help me:
Machine 1:
Development Machine
Pentium 4 3.4GHz
512 MB RAM
ATI Mobility X600 128 MB RAM, PCI Express
Performance - Being that this is my dev machine, everything performs at the speed I want. I typically have a range of 100 - 120 objects on screen running at 290 fps.
Machine 2:
Test Machine
AMD Athlon 1400
512 MB RAM
ATI 9800 Pro 128 MB RAM, AGP
Performance - While I'm kicking myself for not running this with the Debug banner on right now (this machine is at my work place) the game ran amazingly slow on this. Now, it didn't seem like the fps was below 30 or chugging or anything like that, it just seemed like it was getting less time to do calculations.
Other notes to consider: schedules seem to run at the same times on both systems. For instance, a
schedule(1000, 0, "foo"); what delay the calling of the function "foo" for 1 second on both machines.
I make calls to setScenePhysicsFPSActive(1); and setScenePhysicsTargetFPS(225); in my scripts. I would usually just limit the framerate to 30 to make sure it works the same on different computers, but I'm not sure how that would function with these calls.
So basically, I need some tips on making my game run in a consistent manner on different spec'd machines. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
G
I recently tried to test my game built off of Beta 1.1 on multiple machines and encountered an unexpected amount of slowdown. I will describe the two test machines and the performance to try and help anyone trying to help me:
Machine 1:
Development Machine
Pentium 4 3.4GHz
512 MB RAM
ATI Mobility X600 128 MB RAM, PCI Express
Performance - Being that this is my dev machine, everything performs at the speed I want. I typically have a range of 100 - 120 objects on screen running at 290 fps.
Machine 2:
Test Machine
AMD Athlon 1400
512 MB RAM
ATI 9800 Pro 128 MB RAM, AGP
Performance - While I'm kicking myself for not running this with the Debug banner on right now (this machine is at my work place) the game ran amazingly slow on this. Now, it didn't seem like the fps was below 30 or chugging or anything like that, it just seemed like it was getting less time to do calculations.
Other notes to consider: schedules seem to run at the same times on both systems. For instance, a
schedule(1000, 0, "foo"); what delay the calling of the function "foo" for 1 second on both machines.
I make calls to setScenePhysicsFPSActive(1); and setScenePhysicsTargetFPS(225); in my scripts. I would usually just limit the framerate to 30 to make sure it works the same on different computers, but I'm not sure how that would function with these calls.
So basically, I need some tips on making my game run in a consistent manner on different spec'd machines. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
G
About the author
I work at n-Space, located in Orlando, FL as a designer. When I'm not there, I work on side projects, generally using TGB. Side projects I've finished are Oddictive, Klockotock, and AstroDriller3020
#2
04/30/2006 (7:08 am)
I echo'd out $pref::Video::disableVerticalSync and it said 1 for my game on this first machine, but I can't get to the other machine until monday. I don't think it would change though...I mean if the $pref is a Torque pref set in script, then it should get set the same for all machines, right? I'll check the refresh rate as well when I do that. I'll also run the DebugBanner on, hopefully that'll clear up what's going on. Thanks! 
#3
But prefs and apps are always lower priority than driver.
And it is most likely that on working system, VSYNC is set to always on on drivers. In this case, it makes no difference what the app sets vsync to, the driver will still syncs at screen refresh rate (or 1/2 , 1/3 , 1/4, ... of it)
04/30/2006 (7:35 am)
Yes. It might be there in prefs.But prefs and apps are always lower priority than driver.
And it is most likely that on working system, VSYNC is set to always on on drivers. In this case, it makes no difference what the app sets vsync to, the driver will still syncs at screen refresh rate (or 1/2 , 1/3 , 1/4, ... of it)
#4
05/01/2006 (7:41 am)
Well I re-tested the game this morning, with completely different results. The game now runs more like it does on my dev machine. I'm just gonna test on some other machines. The machine was having problems with other games that same day, I'm guessing it might've just needed a reboot. Thanks for the help though 
Torque 3D Owner Marc Dreamora Schaerer
Gayasoft
If so, is your screen refresh rate 60hz on the screen there?