so i just got the new unreal tournament 2004 linux demo, and i love the game.

only problem is, it runs quite poorly. and i don't think its just my hardware, i have a radeon 9000 pro vid card with 128 MB of memory, a p4 1.6 ghz processor, and 512 MB of ram. also, i got the ut 2003 demo, and it runs flawlessly at 800 x 600 with full detail and everything on the exact same setup.

with 2004, i have it at the lowest res and all the worst detail settings, and i still get ~15 fps (at a guess). I'm using the proprietary fglrx kernel module for my vid card, so i really don't think it should be THAT bad.

the only thing i can think of is i am running it in windowed mode, because my x messes up if i try to run it full-screen.

anyway if anybody has any suggestions, or would like to share their experiences (maybe this is normal, and i just need to upgrade?) i would much appreciate it.

oh yeah, and I'm running slack 9.1 which is great and am trying out kde 3.2 which i also like, if that makes a difference

Your system should run UT2k4 just fine. Although, it's a demo only, and it still has to be done a lot of optimizations, I think. Using a lighter desktop environment should help a lot. Full screen for games is a must also, so you give full control to the program to front buffer. It won't give any more speed (fps). At least my tests with DirectX(when I started coding DirectX with ver 8.0) has proven that DirectX was even faster when windowed, but the full control was only done when in full-screen, to synchronize the frames . Well, I would recommend a lighter desktop as blackbox (even if only for testing purposes) and without a doubt fixing your full-screen problem

thanks you for answering Megaman X

I will try with fluxbox, since it's reasonably light and i already have it installed, but i don't know what i can do about my full screen problem. anyway ill explain what it is incase anybody has any suggestions:

i like running my desktop at 1280 x 960. it runs very nicely at this resolution. the problem is, to make it run at this resolution i have to put this in my XF86Config:
and if i uncomment the other modes, it wont use this res for the desktop, although some of the other modes will then work. for example, if i change it to
Modes "1280x960" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600"
i can run UT at 800x600 full screen, but my desktop runs at only xga and alot of stuff doesnt fit the way i like.

anyway i've posted my entire XF86Config at http://chris.antho.com/XF86Config
this may be part of my UT problem

maybe i could set up another section specifically for running fluxbox and games? any solutions/ideas are much appreciated

i got an athlon 1,7 with 256 mb ram. geforce 2 with 32 mb. fedora with fluxbox and the game runs just perfect @ 1024 x 768.

ach i think all of these problems stem from a crappy proprietary ati kernel module. using the built in radeon one fixes everything, unfortunately it's no good for gaming. oh well, i guess i'll just wait untill i eventually buy a new graphics card, and i'll be sure to get one that's better suported

try something like... a geforce fx 5700 ultra, which is what i have. its a high-end card with great drivers. if that doesnt catch your fancy, you could try something like a geforce 4 TI, less expensive but pretty good.

UT2004 runs pretty nicely on my system at 1024x768, P4 2.6 @ 3.4, 512mb ram, GF4 MX440

i think that may be the best solution. i'll try to get some money for this card, since after all it's quite a decent card (its the 9000 pro, with 128 MB of memory) it just has shit for support. well thanks for the feedback everybody

Is there a way to tweak this game and/or linux for godlike fps?

I see people have wrote here that with their GF440mx it works "perfectly", this I refuse to believe.
Perfectly = >85fps, constantly.

Now I have a LCD, so over 60fps is overkill. But still, I'd like a constant 60fps, with as much eye-candy as possible, currently I run 1024x768 with all he details turned off/minimum. Though I kept blob shadows. I won't go lower than 1024, it gets ugly.
My machine: Athlon XP1800+, Geforce FX5600, 512 RAM, kernel 2.4.22-10mdk, nvidia drivers are the latest (5336).

From what I've read here, it seems like I should have no problems in achieving my goal of constant 60fps, so why is it that in critical combat situations I see quite dramatical slowdown, up to something like 15fps?

Does the kernel have a lot to do with gaming speed, is a self-compiled one honestly faster? I had 2.6.2-rc2 for a good while, but mandrake-update botched something and after a day of struggle and tears I was forced to downgrade to 2.4.22 (I noticed no speed loss, anywhere)
How about ALSA?
I run windowmaker so there's no KDE eating resources.
Older Nvidia drivers, perhaps?
Right now the game is ugly and slow, that's just not cool.

Edit: Oh, and GLXGears gives ~3000fps

yeah with that system you'd think you'd get better fps...

anyway i DID find that upgrading from 2.4.whatever to 2.6.3 made a big difference in response time, if not overall speed, which is important for gaming. it probably also helps to have a kernel custom compiled for your hardware.. so i would say go for it, it's fun to do anyway

but about the slowdown, are you sure it wasn't just the server/your connection? i'm not sure how the netcode for ut2k4 compares to the HL netcode, but if it's remotely similar your frame rate dropping during intense action probably has alot to do with load on the connection (the server is having to send more information about each player to each player)

and one more thing: in my experience speed isn't one of mandrake's strong-points, although 10.0beta was a big improvement

anyway good luck, i hope you get it running better.

There are some detailed performance hacks at http://www.linux-gamers.net/modules/...1&articleid=40

I was looking there for another problem but basically I agree with these posts. Linux is very capable as a games machine, in fact with an invidia gfx card I get over 10k fps playing games. Must make sure you have hardware rendering. Some very good setup pointers for this on

http://digital-conquest.ath.cx/wiki/...p/Cedega_howto

I personally am struggling with ut2004 as I am stuck with 600x800 resolution when I normally operate at 1280x1024. If anyone has had experience of this I would welcome the input.

Hmm. A (probably) dumb question, but do you have GLX loaded correctly? if you do

"glxinfo|grep direct" do you get
"Direct rendering = yes"

and "glxinfo|grep vendor" should produce something like (not in linux now..)

client vendor = ATI <something-about-driver-version>
server client vendor = ATI <something-about-driver-version>

I've never faced the kinda problem you have before, and my old card (Radeon 9100, 128mb) wasn't that much different from 9000...