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Offline tegeland

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i386/amd64
« on: December 20, 2011, 06:10:58 pm »
can i install the amd64 version downloaded from the link in the above pinned topic on the same system that i have a 32 bit game running on without affecting or needing any of the files existing in the 32 bit game, and if so, how? I haven't even opened the download yet since I have tweaked all the settings in the 32 bit game and have it running smoothly with all video maxed :) oddly my frame rates are 15-30 but all screens are smooth.
I am hoping the 64 bit may increase frame rates by using the additional 4g ram which 32 does not see.. any comments on that?

Thanks

Offline bayo

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Re: i386/amd64
« Reply #1 on: December 20, 2011, 07:54:40 pm »
I think it will not change your speed rate, cause it mostly depend of your video card/gl driver.
And sure we dont use 4GB of memory in any version (or i hope we dont) :-)

Offline tegeland

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Re: i386/amd64
« Reply #2 on: December 20, 2011, 10:01:13 pm »
well the video card is NV9800GS, 512MB, I know its not the most powerful but it is compliant with the PCIe1a (rare bus). If anyone can say with 100% certainty a more powerful NV card compliant with PCIe1a(and linux 11.10) I'd love to hear it, (power no prob.. 1kw supply),it has been difficult to get cards that work properly on it (no mandate for backwards compliance since it was not in production long before PCIe2). My native resolution is 1920x1080 and I run all else maxed. If I drop the res a notch to a 1400x my frames stay in the 40's but the picture quality takes a noticable hit so I keep it native and turn down all rotation and scroll speeds till I find the just right combination, 15fps and smooth. This is not to say higher frames wouldn't make moving the view around at higher speeds more enjoyable.. and save time.. but I haven't cracked that nut yet with my existing hardware.

Regardless, I'd still like to try the 64 build, but I don't want to mess up the current install. I run the game on two other windows, an XP and a 7/64ult,40-50fps, but the windows graphics and picture quality really blows compared to the linux.

Note, I downloaded,compiled,installed and config the linux build 2.4-dev, including maps,(no help needed) so I really just need reassurance the two won't intertwine and mabey a little guidance (If you can answer my question I shouldn't = big time commitment to spoonfeeding)

Thanks in advance..

Offline tegeland

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Re: i386/amd64
« Reply #3 on: December 21, 2011, 03:53:07 am »
on a final note, after hours of testing and comparison, I am thoroughly convinced it is not the video card or its drivers (absolute latest)..
reason being.. I have been running beta oil rush for a year now maxed out video settings, but 64bit builds only, and I fly through that, zero lag or skipping and the graphics are pretty extreme for anything running native linux with no emulator.

my fps in there is the same, 15. Hence my desire to try a 64bit ufoai build.

Offline geever

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Re: i386/amd64
« Reply #4 on: December 21, 2011, 11:49:23 am »
But it's most probably the driver.

As far as I remember Forceware has a feature to optimize the vcard settings to certain games. And it faulty detected UFO:AI as UFO:Aftermath, using sub-optimal settings which caused slowdown. You could check if playing with vcard settings solve the problem.

Note: The FPS is maxed at 50, so you won't get more than that.

-geever

Offline tegeland

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Re: i386/amd64
« Reply #5 on: December 24, 2011, 04:02:27 pm »
ok,
I have downloaded and compiled the complete amd64 2.4-dev version.
It worked fine, but slow at first with all settings maxed. Note, the squeeze package mentioned above did not work, missing dependencies as mentioned above.
The following is a brief breakdown of the video settings I used to achieve the best quality graphics with enough speed to be fully playable without any lag or slowdown. I am posting this because some people may get discouraged with the task, as I nearly did, +/- 30hrs of incremental changes noting the affects visibly and through the system monitor.

......................................
Linux ubuntu 11.10 64bit (os)
amd athalon 64x2, 4000+x2, manually overclocked 10% (processor)
450Gb HD w/ Sata bus
Nvidia series 9 video card PCIe1a interface, 512Mb, 285.05.19 Driver
8Gb high speed ram
......................................
X server Settings:

Resolution 1920x1080 (my opinion resolution has the largest impact on picture quality, and the second largest impact on fps, anti-alaising is the highest impact on performance)

sync to Vblank off (2 locations)
cursor shadow off
allow flipping off
open gl slider set to high performance
antialaising set to use application settings
anisotropic filtering overide application settings off
texture sharpening on
........................................................
Game settings:

Resolution- 1920x1080

pre cache models-on

resolution cap- extreme (visibly affects image not processor intensive)

filtering- bi/tri/mip (visibly affects image not processor intensive)

compression- off (on destroys image quality, but does slightly increase overall performance. I'd recomend keeping it off and dropping screen resolution or anti-alaising instead to increase performance)

anistropy- off

GLSL Shaders- on (a must for full experience of graphics)
Vertex Buffers- on (seems to have a slight increase in picture quality with no noticable impact on performance)

multisample buffers-3 (cleans the graphics noticably better with each increment, very processor intensive, noticable performance drop with each increase)

swap interval- 0 (no noticable graphics quality increase but significant impact on performance with each increment)

Post processor shading- on (noticable increase in graphics quality)

Realtime lighting- on (noticable increase in graphics quality)

dynamic lights- 1 ( any more than that and the soldiers whose heads move side to side develop what I call chin lights, a beam of light under their chin which lights up their armor on their chest and moves with their head, like a little flashlight, kind of annoying)

Texture normal mapping- off (on causes tiny little flickering white lights on the soldiers, their weapons and the aliens, tried to screenshot but they don't show in a screenshot)

Lightmap block size- High

..................................

notes:

 I wouldn't drop the multisample buffers/anti-alaising below 2, even at 2 the actor outlines start to become a point of fixation with the moving/shimmering

In my case I see no issues with the card or the drivers, there are four available drivers and they all function the same with this game. note however that the nvidia functions are largely disabled as illustrated above in the settings. Overiding the game settings with the card settings does produce slightly better graphics when tweaked but is tremendously more cpu intensive.

In my case it appears the cpu is my bottleneck when cranking up the anti-alaising which does impact quality noticably. I'll get a 6400 and install it then update this post accordingly.

manually setting the affinity of the game to both cpu's in my case did appear to balance the helix of cpu load swapping better, however one dedicated core was not capable of running smoothly. prior to manually assigning affinity one cpu would run 110% for roughly 10-15sec with the second at 35-40% before sharing the load, after manually assigning they swap in about 5sec intervals with loads not exceeding 98% on any one core.

on my system the game takes 1.8Gb ram, os +/- 750mb so likely 3Gb ram necessary to avoid bottleneck in ram.

It would be nice if the settings sliders were given editable numerical values, many of the sliders have drastic impacts on quality of graphics and are very difficult to return to original values, there is no reset to default so I recomend not playing with sliders unless you have alot of time on your hands or are willing to re-install game, re-install is likely faster than manually trying to get them all balanced again.

Hope this helps anyone getting frustrated with video settings.

Offline MCR

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Re: i386/amd64
« Reply #6 on: December 24, 2011, 04:36:06 pm »
 :o I would not turn off normalmapping, although there are still minor problems with model normalmaps ;)

In Options->Video Settings -> Other you can find 3 options to easily configure the graphics (low/medium/high) btw.

1.8GB ? You're joking.

Offline geever

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Re: i386/amd64
« Reply #7 on: December 24, 2011, 04:40:50 pm »
1.8GB ? You're joking.

I thought that at first too, but without texture compression and your 122x texture sizes at maxed graphics, I can imagine...

-geever

Offline MCR

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Re: i386/amd64
« Reply #8 on: December 24, 2011, 04:48:28 pm »
I am on Ubuntu 11.10 AMD64 as well.
In Campaign with loaded savegame & battlescape started ufo v2.4dev master debug version uses 638.5 MB here.

Offline tegeland

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Re: i386/amd64
« Reply #9 on: December 24, 2011, 07:33:23 pm »
no joke, see screenshot at 1.4 gb, when I have more time i'll show you one as high as 2gb, it depends alot on the maps i think