Doom 3 on a G4

[Nova77]

Hello, anybody knows how to tweak Doom 3 to be fluid on a G4? Mine is a dual 1.42 MDD with 2 GB RAM, Geforce 7800 GS 256 MB RAM and an OWC SSD as boot / apps.

I get good graphics, however frames skip when I move. Any advice???

 

[zen.state]

Best way to find the sweet spot in game settings is to start with everything turned down all the way down and then keep taking it up a notch till you notice lesser performance.

I have no experience with Doom 3 at all to offer though.

 

[Nameci]

I am sorry @Nova for the off topic.

@zen,

What is that keyboard? Is that an apple pro keyboard transplanted with black keys?

Looks cool.

 

[zen.state]

I am sorry @Nova for the off topic.

@zen,

What is that keyboard? Is that an apple pro keyboard transplanted with black keys?

Looks cool.

Thats my 2nd KB on my desk and is connected to my G4. It's the last clunky key model KB with all the character keys replaced with black ones from an older Apple pro KB. I also did the home, end pg up and down in black for a balanced look. They keys fit perfectly. Same membrane/stem system.

 

[Nova77]

Looks like there are some tweaks to do with the .cfg log file... as well as unpacking the compressed gamefiles for less CPU stress (and more on the hard drive). If some1 knows more about these tips, tell me.

 

[MrCheeto]

This offers a lot of tweaks to Doom 3. I was able to get almost full quality at 45+ fps on my 9400m with enough tweaks.

Be careful and run the bench Doom 3 benchmark (in the link as well) with every tweak to test the effects on frame rate.

 

[ViviUO]

How high is your resolution?

 

[Nova77]

How high is your resolution?

Ok, so the weird thing is, even at LOWEST settings (default low settings = 640X480 and everything turned off), game skips frames when I move, enter doors, etc. When I put it at medium settings, it is not slower, but same problem. At high settings, looks like a little less fps but not bad.

I would like to at least get the game running fluidly at 640X480 with low settings, although I should be able to get better quality than that.

 

[MrCheeto]

How is your anti-aliasing? On that thing...you'd probably be better off completely disabling it.

Again, use the tweak guide to disable some things. In fact, there's an option to only draw what is visible at any given moment. That one would clearly save you resources.

 

[Nova77]

How is your anti-aliasing? On that thing...you'd probably be better off completely disabling it.

Again, use the tweak guide to disable some things. In fact, there's an option to only draw what is visible at any given moment. That one would clearly save you resources.

I think the cache tweaking tip would be one of my best bets. If I can manage to put maximum stress on the SSD it should be better.

I'll do more testing later.

 

[CubeHacker]

Ok, so the weird thing is, even at LOWEST settings (default low settings = 640X480 and everything turned off), game skips frames when I move, enter doors, etc. When I put it at medium settings, it is not slower, but same problem. At high settings, looks like a little less fps but not bad.

I would like to at least get the game running fluidly at 640X480 with low settings, although I should be able to get better quality than that.

If your framerate remains the same whether you set the game to low, medium, or high graphics, that means you are CPU limited. Since you have the fastest stock G4 system that Apple ever made, you don't have many options except to replace your G4 system and get something faster.

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

Ok, so the weird thing is, even at LOWEST settings (default low settings = 640X480 and everything turned off), game skips frames when I move, enter doors, etc. When I put it at medium settings, it is not slower, but same problem. At high settings, looks like a little less fps but not bad.

Sounds like your CPU is the bottleneck here. I've got a dual 1.8GHz G5 with a Radeon 9600 XT graphics card, and I can run the game find at medium settings on 640x480. Not that I'd actually want to play a pretty game like that on such a low resolution, but it works.

 

[VanneDC]

That 7800 should be great for running doom 3 .. I recon a issue elsewhere , sounds like it's chugging to disk.. Enough free space? dual 1.42 should be just great for that game, ESP on such low Rez.

 

[Nova77]

That 7800 should be great for running doom 3 .. I recon a issue elsewhere , sounds like it's chugging to disk.. Enough free space? dual 1.42 should be just great for that game, ESP on such low Rez.

Only 15 GB left, cause I put the game on the SSD.