Portal 1 Video settings

[GrantMeThePower]

I just got my first mac. Its the new base 21.5" iMac. I installed steam, then bought Portal.

When it first loaded it defaulted to a number of things. I changed them all to the upper levels of performance, where it initially had lower levels. It also had a lower resolution than native.

At first it seemed choppy until i turned on vsync. It then ran very smoothly.

1. Why did it defualt to lower settings if it runs well on better settings?
2. why did vsync on help?

 

[lykranian]

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[Patrick946]

I just bought a 4GB 13" MBA, and I was trying to figure out which settings would be best for Portal 1 as well. It ran decently on the normal settings, but once I started moving the options around it improved a lot. I don't actually know what some of the options mean though, do any of you have a good primer for optimizing games?

 

[GrantMeThePower]

Welcome to the Mac side of things!

1. The game defaults to lower settings, to make sure that it is playable. I don't know why, but to me, messing with graphics settings is half of the fun
2. Most screens have a refresh rate of 60hz. This means that the screen can only show 60 frames per second. Gaming performance is ofter measured in frames per second. Since you have a new computer, it should be able to run Portal like it's a stuffed animal. When your game gets more than 60 fps, the graphics card and the screen disagree on what should be shown on the screen (the card's like "show this, yo!" and the screen's all like "wait up, bro!"). This makes it look choppy. Vsync forces the game to go to 60 (or, it depends) frames per second, resolving that issue, making it look nice and smooth, with a constant frame rate.

Sorry if I confuse you...

That totally helps explain why vsync helped.

It would be really nice to understand what settings to adjust. Or when to disable vsync. I think that i get confused when i look at all of the settings options which ones to prioritize, and what settings i should push and what to back off of.

Thank you for your explanation!

 

[lykranian]

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[lykranian]

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[lykranian]

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[Patrick946]

What do you mean by primer?

Primer = starting guide, FAQ, how-to, etc. Primer like priming an engine to get it started.

Thanks for the advice all, I'll try messing around with settings when I get home. And then once I finish the game, I'll do it again with Portal 2!

 

[GrantMeThePower]

What other games do you have? Did you get the orange box?!

First, thank you for all of your explanations and help. I really appreciate it and will fiddle with everything when i get home! I'll also try to look up how to measure FPS.

The only other game i have right now on the mac is half life 2. When i installed steam it said i had already purchased it! That was pretty cool...i'd bought it way back in the day when it was first released for my old PC. I like that steam will let me play it again for free. Other than that I have nothing.

 

[aimbdd]

For fps, hit esc: options:keyboard:advanced: then check enable dev console. After that go back to the game and hit the ~ button. Then type cl_showfps 2. This shows you an average fps.

 

[lykranian]

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[GrantMeThePower]

Yup, enabling the console and typing that will work, and there's also one called net_graph 1 which is bigger, and looks nicer to me.

You should check out the assassin's creed games! And amnesia

Have you had a chance to play with settings? What works optimally for you?

What's amnesia?? I've never heard of that! I'll have to check it out. I've played assassins creed on the ps3.

I did the console FPS code posted. I was getting over 100 FPS. My settings are everything as high as it goes (at 1920x1080) except antialiasing which i have set at 4x and filtering mode which i have set at anistopic 4x.

There was a lot of screen tearing. Before turning on v-sync i also tried upping the filtering and the problem was that there was a huge difference in FPS when i was looking through a portal or not, so i just left them at 4x and turned vsync on. It stays at 59 or 60 fps almost always now.

Thanks for your help again! i gotta find that amnesia thing. is that on steam?

 

[lykranian]

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[0098386]

Wow! Those new iMacs are amazing! With medium settings, I only get around 25-30...
Yeah, vsync is awesome in your case! Congrats on a nice system.

Yup they really are quite good! I'm running at 2560x1440, everything set to max (even AA, which is pointless at such a high res!). Never dips below 60fps... even with portals everywhere and the multiplayer cam enabled.

Valve make very well optimised games - Apple made a very powerful iMac!

 

[Patrick946]

I got the game running very smoothly, but during the boss fight it got choppy and I had some audio issues, which was a pretty big disappointment (considering how important audio is to this game). Still, I was only replaying it as a refresher, so it's not a huge deal.

 

[Signal-11]

Edit: Though lowering the texture quality usually shows a large bump in performance.

Depends on the amount of RAM you have on your card.

Don't feel like you NEED to have vsync on bas long as you're getting 30fps+, your settings are stellar. Some people say you can't see more than 30fps, but there is a huge difference. To me though, 30 is perfectly playable, and I would sacrifice fps for prettyness.

If he drops below 60 fps with vsync, it's going to drop to 30fps anyway.

 

[lykranian]

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[lykranian]

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[Patrick946]

I had the audio issue on my old core 2 duo iMac. I just looked at a blank wall on pause until they restarted. There was that one room on the trek to glados under the facility with all the pipes and tubes and such that made me get like 10 fps on lowest settings in lower resolutions, too. the rest if the game ran well though.

Thanks for the advice.