[mitsubishi]

Ok, this is probably not the best place to discuss such matters :-) but maybe someone has some suggestions specifically for UrT and quake3.

Ok, after years with a crappy ATI radeon 7500 I got another crappy card but this time an nvidia 5700LE. At first, I used the default options, agp x8 on the BIOS, read/write support on the BIOS and just "driver" "nvidia" on the X config. I took a look in the /usr/share/NVIDIA-lalalal/README file and there is an "appendix D" with a load of options.

The motherboard here is nforce2 based.

First one I tried was

Option "NvAGP" "1"

That should use the nvidia agp driver, it did I suppose, the agp and nvidia_agp modules were both loaded from the start. (2 should use agpgart, and 3 first try agpgart or fall back to nvidia agp).

On glxgears AND on quake3 the agpgart driver did better which was a surprise actually because the motherboard has an nforce2 chipset which I expected to be better off with nvidia drivers. The difference was not great but still noticeable. For example 2010 fps on glxgears, 2200 fps with agpgart. 50 fps on best quality(really the best, ridiculousy the best) on the first level of q3, 60 fps with agpgart.

Then it was

Option "RenderAccel" "1"

which should enable accelaration for the "render extension". I have absolutely no idea where that extension is used but I noticed no difference watsoever on q3 with either agp driver. nvidia reports it's unsafe. I guess maybe it's nothing really important for performance but exists as an option only because it can be unstable. not sure at all though.

I' ve found by googling that the render extension is used for antialiasing fonts but I don't know if it's the same extension we're talking about.

Anyway, these were the ones I took the time to look at, there are loads of other options that I'm not sure I understand. Any more details are appreciated. I'll still look into the rest options, it's only two days I got this card. Maybe I should update this thread with more info by the time I get more information.

[HoboHumpinSlut (old)]

here is what i use:

in /etc/modules.conf

options nvidia NVreg_EnableAGPSBA=1 NVreg_ReqAGPRate=4

in /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "nVidia1"
    Driver      "nvidia"
    Option      "NvAgp"       "1"
    Option      "RenderAccel" "On"
    Option              "DPMS"
    BusID               "PCI:1:0:0
    Screen          0
EndSection

in /etc/profile

# __GL_FSAA_MODE  GeForce3, Quadro DCC, GeForce4 Ti, GeForce4 4200 Go,
#                 and Quadro4 700,750,780,900,980 XGL
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#   0             FSAA disabled
#   1             2x Bilinear Multisampling
#   2             2x Quincunx Multisampling
#   3             FSAA disabled
#   4             4x Bilinear Multisampling
#   5             4x Gaussian Multisampling
#   6             2x Bilinear Multisampling by 4x Supersampling
#   7             FSAA disabled
__GL_FSAA_MODE="2"
export __GL_FSAA_MODE

[mitsubishi]

(I describe sth very weird at the end of this)

Ok, more on it. Thanks a lot btw hobes, you've been very helpfull.

Ok, the agpgart module should not be loaded in order to use the nvidia agp support. I did the stupid mistake to assume that the nvidia-agp module came with the nvidia drivers but it came with the linux kernel, so I had to blacklist both of them on hotplug because the stupid thing would keep loading them after every reboot without any /etc/modules or /etc/rc2.d saying so. So when I said I had worse performance with the nvidia agp module it was more that agp was disabled altogether:P

That means I could get the nvidia agp driver on it and confirmed it from /proc/driver/nvidia but.... the performance gain is insignificant if not at all. Maybe agpgart is good enough for nforce2 nowadays. At least the frame rate on glxgears seems more stable and I generally trust nvidia better when it comes to their chipsets so I guess it's the best choice to use the nvidia agp support.

Also, I found out some tweaks about fast writes and SBA (even though I have no idea what SBA is) but it seems that the defaults are fine since SBA is enabled and fast writes are reported from /proc to be supported by agp but not from the actual card.

Now, something very strange:

HoboHumpinSlut, I used the __GL_FSAA_MODE environmental var for antialiasing which I'm not sure what it does (I only guess some general "smoothing" on 3d renders) and for the FX cards, README suggested to use

# 1 2x Bilinear Multisampling
# 2 2x Quincunx Multisampling
# 4 4x Bilinear Multisampling
# 5 4x Gaussian Multisampling
# 6 2x Bilinear Multisampling by 4x Supersampling
# 7 4x Bilinear Multisampling by 4x Supersampling
# 8 4x Bilinear Multisampling by 2x Supersampling

And I used 2, 2x Quincunx Multisampling which I noticed is the same you used. Performance both on glxgears and quake3 dropped to HALF. glxgears would get 2100-2200 frames/sec now it'd get 1000-1100, quake3 on ridiculously heavy graphics would get 90-100 now it'd get 50-60. And the worst part is I didn't notice any significant visual difference. I'm not that good to notice slight aisthetic differences though. In any way, I didn't use that variable at all. I think I should test the other antialiasing options just in case but no way I'm going to use that one I tested again.

[HoboHumpinSlut (old)]

AA will lower you fps, but your grafix will be the hell of a lot nicer. no more pixel stairs (at least less)
for urban terror though, it doesnt matter for me at all if i enable it or not (as long as i am at the 'easy' levels of AA). my fps dont change much, so i sacrifice those 2 or 3 fps for not having those stairs on my screen.

ad agp:

$ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/status 
Status:          Enabled
Driver:          NVIDIA
AGP Rate:        4x
Fast Writes:     Disabled
SBA:             Enabled
$ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/card   
Fast Writes:     Supported
SBA:             Supported
AGP Rates:       4x 2x 1x 
Registers:       0x1f000217:0x1f000304

make sure that the agp rate you use is the maximum supported by both, the agp bus and the grafix board. (done via the module parameter in modules.conf like shown 2 post earlier)
generally SBA is safe while FW can mess things up (grafix-wise). both should aid the performance though.

[mitsubishi]

I'm not sure, but I think I'm ok on those:

$ cat /var/log/XFree86.0.log|grep "AGP rate"
(II) NVIDIA(0): Detected AGP rate: 8X

$ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/status 
Status:          Enabled
Driver:          NVIDIA
AGP Rate:        8x
Fast Writes:     Disabled
SBA:             Enabled
$ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/card    
Fast Writes:     Not Supported
SBA:             Supported
AGP Rates:       8x 4x 
Registers:       0x1f000e0b:0x1f004302

FW doesn't seem to be supported on the card itself (unless it really means "disabled").

BTW, you talk about a 2-3 fps drop using AA, I noticed fps to drop at half here. If it was for 2-3 fps probably I'd use it.

[HoboHumpinSlut (old)]

your agp is fine.

Quote

FW doesn't seem to be supported on the card itself (unless it really means "disabled").

indeed. so youre pretty much at the max you can do.

[quote name='"fs"]BTW' date=' you talk about a 2-3 fps drop using AA, I noticed fps to drop at half here. If it was for 2-3 fps probably I'd use it.[/quote']in UrT that is, not in glxgears. i have a rather huge drop in glxgears as well. but its not like glxgears is a lot fun to play

[mitsubishi]

I'll check it out even though I'm not that particularly attracted to eye candy:p I use nvgs almost always and even when I'm not, skyboxes and almost all effects are off :p

[HoboHumpinSlut (old)]

[quote name='"fs"]I'll check it out even though I'm not that particularly attracted to eye candy:p I use nvgs almost always and even when I'm not' date=' skyboxes and almost all effects are off [/quote']
then you definitely dont need AA
i like my UrT to look good though, even when i use nvgs, which i do occasionally.

[mitsubishi]

I tried doom3 just now and there "the stairs phenomenon" on some scenes is indeed more than obvious(on some cut scenes especially, they don't look pre-rendered just rendered in real time). That made the idea more interesting. Of course, doom3 with cards worse than nvidia 6600 or 5950, looks terrible even in the lowest quality, so it's difficult to afford it when you already get 20-60 fps. But I guess on UrT doesn't sound that bad.

[mitsubishi]

weeee 40-60% fps increase by changing color depth from 24 to 16