[Deal]

I just got Jedi Knite 2, Jedi Outcast.

I have a 733mhz G4 with a Nvidea GeForce 3 and 3/4GB ram running OS X 10.2.1

The game has 4 default quality settings (thay can also be custom set). The settings are (from lowest to hightest) Faster, Fast, Normal, HighQuality.

On my system it plays fine at Faster or Fast. But even at normal it lags bad. Forget HighQuality all together.

Anybody else getting better results? Any advise?

Thanks in advance

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by Deal:
I just got Jedi Knite 2, Jedi Outcast.

I have a 733mhz G4 with a Nvidea GeForce 3 and 3/4GB ram running OS X 10.2.1

The game has 4 default quality settings (thay can also be custom set). The settings are (from lowest to hightest) Faster, Fast, Normal, HighQuality.

On my system it plays fine at Faster or Fast. But even at normal it lags bad. Forget HighQuality all together.

Anybody else getting better results? Any advise?

Thanks in advance

Apparently High Quality is so demanding that it requires a video card from the year 2008 to run the game at a respectable framerate.

Edit: edited some spelling mistakes...

[Thinine]

Enable texture compression by typing "seta r_ext_compress_textures 1" at the console (shift+~). That should allow you to play at higher quality settings. Also, JK2's AI is very processor intensive, so that is probably your limiting factor.

[a2daj]

Avoid "Very High" Texture Quality and performance should be decent on your rig. On most levels, I can play with everything maxed out except for Texture Quality and maintain a consistent enough framerate that doesn't distract from aiming. This is on a G4 867 with a RADEON 8500.

[proux]

Agreed, don't use "very high".

[hadocon]

Perhaps JKII supports dual CPUs as I am playing on high settings on my DP 800 with a GForce2MX w TwinView 64MB card. It runs quite well - there is a bit of slowdown, but it never dips too low.

anyone know anything about this?

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by hadocon:
Perhaps JKII supports dual CPUs as I am playing on high settings on my DP 800 with a GForce2MX w TwinView 64MB card. It runs quite well - there is a bit of slowdown, but it never dips too low.

anyone know anything about this?

I think JKII uses dual CPUs in network play.

You'd have to ask Mr. Oliver on that.

As for why smp isn't enabled in single-player? I'm not sure...I think Brad told me once (and made me look quite stupid in the process ) that certain aspects in single-player mode were too complex to try to code with smp in mind. Enemy AI and such.

Come to think of it, I'm not even sure if I quite understood what Brad told me.

[mac freak]

It runs fine on my iMac G4 (700 MHz/GF2MX) at 1024x768x32, medium textures, medium geometry. Hardly 100 FPS mind you, but consistently above 30, which satisfies me. I get similar performance on my DP450/Radeon, perhaps slightly less.

[Olorin]

How do you get JK2 to display FPS? I am getting great performance on my iMac G4800. I think it's the first OS X game that actually plays great. Oh and the 10.2.2 update really helps out.

[mac freak]

By 30 FPS, I mean I don't detect slowdown -- 30 FPS appears to be the lower limit for fluidity (though 60 does look quite a bit better). Is there any way to get the game to spit our a framerate display? I wish everyone made it as easy as Blizzard did with D2!

[a2daj]

Bring down the console (the instructions should be in the readme) and type
\cg_drawfps 1

or

\cg_drawFPS 1

The latter works fine for me.

[Deal]

Thanks all.

I'll try those suggestions.

I wonder what it takes to play this game on it's max settings?

[Nathan Adams]

Originally posted by mac freak:
It runs fine on my iMac G4 (700 MHz/GF2MX) at 1024x768x32, medium textures, medium geometry. Hardly 100 FPS mind you, but consistently above 30, which satisfies me. I get similar performance on my DP450/Radeon, perhaps slightly less.

I just downloaded the demo, on an identical machine, with 512mb or ram, it ran absolutely awful.
choppy is an understatement - I couldn't even kill the first 2 stormtroopers because the lag between clicking shoot, and actually shooting is a good second or so.
this is even on the lowest detail settings at 640x480
And the funny thing is, Q3 still runs great at full everything.... go figure

[a2daj]

There's a lot more going on with the game than Quake 3. Any time a developer adds something new to an existing game engine, it makes sense that it's going to take a little more cpu power to process it. With JK II (and SoFII which uses much of the same technology, both being Raven games), there's a number of cpu intensive engine enhancements in the single player app.
However, it shouldn't be as choppy as you mentioned on your machine. I ran through the entire game on max details at 800x600 (except for textures, which I set to High instead of Very High) on my G4 867 w/ Radeon 8500. Sure, there were some levels that killed framerates and required texture adjustment, but for the most part, my framerates were smooth. I'm one of those guys that would a bare minimum of 30 fps or more for a smooth single player experience, but want much faster framerates for multiplayer. And JK II more than exceeds my requirements for most of the single player game with high quality config I used.
Your iMac should be plenty powerful enough to run the demo, especially with the graphics turned down all the way. There may be a different issue going on. Make sure FSAA is not on for starters. If you're not sure how to check, read the readme file.

[mac freak]

Also:
If you have OS 9, RUN IT IN OS 9, not 10.2.
I get weird lag when entering new rooms under OS X.

Nathan Adams --
That's weird... hmmm... I wish I had a good suggestion, but I really don't!

[Maquero]

no matter how much i lower the quality ,i still see some weird artificats floating in the game,restarted even reinstalled : nothing

[iamnid]

I agree, play it in OS 9 -- I haven't got JK2 yet, but my powermac is essentially identical to your setup and I ALWAYS get better performance out of my games if I load OS 9.

Damn you OS X... why does your game performance have to suck so much?

[schwa]

Originally posted by iamnid:
Damn you OS X... why does your game performance have to suck so much?

Actually, there's a fairly straightforward answer to this:

In OS 9 (and earlier), the front-most application could soak up all the CPU time it wanted. The "multitasking" of that OS is fairly primitive, so background apps couldn't really grab CPU cycles effectively. Basically, whichever app is in front gets to go "Me! Me! Pay attention to ME!"

In OS X, multitasking is fully implemented, so a background app can take up as much CPU time as it needs. So, *anything* you've got running on OS X (even things like your web server daemon) are going to soak up cycles, and the front-most app can't stop them.

Now, there is probably programmatic way to compensate for this, since Windows doesn't seem as hobbled by it. I imagine it's just a matter of time before Mac programmers adjust. Shifting toward Cocoa, X-only apps may help- Omni's game ports run damn smooth.

[iamnid]

Thanks... I'd always wondered if the fact that games that are made to run in os9 and os x would simply be faster if they were coded for os x only.

They had better get their acts together though... because when the new macs that don't boot OS 9 comes out, many people will be forced to run in OS X at crappy frame rates.

[a2daj]

From my understanding, Windows has some APIs that allow developers to have their games hog the CPU, something which OS X doesn't have.

Maquero, are you playing the demo? Are you using a Radeon 8500? There is a known issue that's specific to the demo and the Radeon 8500 that causes texture glitches. I've heard that there may be a patch to fix that, but I don't know when it will be released.

[Jansar]

It plays fine on High Quality for me (but all I play is the Demo, not the actual game).

[hadocon]

Can anyone with a GF3 post their FPS numbers? I just bought a GF3 and I want to know how much better it is than my old GF2 MX.

[Liquidity X]

1st. Ok heres what i found. TURN TEXTURE QUALITY TO 16 BIT. I have everything maxed out and it plays fine, but if i set it to 32, its like a slide show.

2nd, multi prossessors is enabled by defualt in the MP version, you have to maully turn it on in SP. The easyest way is to open up "jk2config.cfg" in yer local/library/applicationsupport/jediknight2/base and set seta r_smp "0" to seta r_smp "1" and dual chips will work on the SP version. good luck.

[Brad Oliver]

Originally posted by Liquidity X:
2nd, multi prossessors is enabled by defualt in the MP version, you have to maully turn it on in SP.

First, SMP is not enabled by default in the MP app - you must enable it yourself.

Second, it's not supported and won't activate in the single-player app. If you try, you'll see a message in the console about this.

Brad

[iamnid]

Ouch.. nothing like having Brad Oliver correct you.

[Guy Incognito]

This is almost a joke...I'm testing a GeForce 4 Ti 128MB in my computer...I've got 640MB of RAM. High Quality still produces significant slow downs.

I wasn't too far off when I said you need a video card from the year 2008.

What's up with High Quality anyways...I don't see any High Quality in the textures...they don't look any sharper, any larger or whatever. The game is so-so in graphics quality even on High Quality.

Conclusion: High Quality is really not worth it...and the best video cards out there right now can't even handle it.

[Jansar]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
This is almost a joke...I'm testing a GeForce 4 Ti 128MB in my computer...I've got 640MB of RAM. High Quality still produces significant slow downs.

I wasn't too far off when I said you need a video card from the year 2008.

What's up with High Quality anyways...I don't see any High Quality in the textures...they don't look any sharper, any larger or whatever. The game is so-so in graphics quality even on High Quality.

Conclusion: High Quality is really not worth it...and the best video cards out there right now can't even handle it.

What does the rest of your specs look like?

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by Jansar:


What does the rest of your specs look like?

Rest of my specs?

Dual 800
7200RPM HD

Hard to believe getting slow downs for a graphics quality that doesn't impress me one bit.

[a2daj]

There are four texture quality settings for JKII, Low, Medium, High, and Very High.

There is a difference between High and Very High, but most people wouldn't notice unless they looked closely. One of the more noticeable differences is in the character skins. If you see close ups of Desann's armor, you'll see that Very High quality textures looks much better than High. But there is a significant performance hit with VHQ textures on certain levels.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by a2daj:
There are four texture quality settings for JKII, Low, Medium, High, and Very High.

There is a difference between High and Very High, but most people wouldn't notice unless they looked closely. One of the more noticeable differences is in the character skins. If you see close ups of Desann's armor, you'll see that Very High quality textures looks much better than High. But there is a significant performance hit with VHQ textures on certain levels.

Too bad the character models suck ass and aren't worthy of these so called 'high quality textures.'

I've never seen something so crappy as when Kyle Katarn opens his mouth to speak...it looks like crap. And as an off-topic rant about JK2...Kyle Katarn looks retarded when he dies...he tucks his arms near his body and falls homosexualy to the floor.

I started inspecting texture up close in-game and they didn't seem very amazing...blurry pixelations.

Again OT: Oh well...I'd rather see good physics than failed efforts to make the game look good with 'high quality textures'.

Can't wait 'till Doom 3 and UT2003 for Mac where characters actually roll down stairs and don't stand stiff when they die (this looks ridiculous when a character has died near a ledge and his body is floating in the air with only his feet touching the ledge...it also looks ridiculous when they die near a wall and a body part is embedded into a wall.)

[Liquidity X]

I have found setting yer texture quality to 16 bit makes a world of difference. I play with everything elese maxed out and its just fine most of the time. DP 500, ATI 8500.

[Jansar]

Hold on, wait a second...

So does it slow down the whole time on HQ, or does it slow down when a lot of action is taking place at once? I noticed minor slowdowns on the demo during the lightsaber fight with two rogue warriors fighting me.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by Jansar:
Hold on, wait a second...

So does it slow down the whole time on HQ, or does it slow down when a lot of action is taking place at once? I noticed minor slowdowns on the demo during the lightsaber fight with two rogue warriors fighting me.

Yeah...only when there's a lot of action goin' on.

But the framerates still suck...on a low res.

[iamnid]

Guy Icognito -- if what Brad Oliver said is correct -- that DP doesn't work in Jedi Knight II, then your system is only running on 1 800mhz g4. Also, isn't the DP 800 only running a 100mhz system bus?

I'm not trashing your system or anything... it's much better than mine! I am looking forward to getting this game but I guess it is really going to suck on my G4 if it doesn't run well on your system.

Is there anybody out there running JK2 on a faster system? What sort of performance are you getting?

[Brad Oliver]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
But the framerates still suck...on a low res.

I have a similar setup (DP/800) only with a GeForce3 instead of a 4Ti, and I'm getting good framerates using the default settings. When you say the framerates suck, what rates are you seeing and where in the game is this?

Brad

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by Brad Oliver:


I have a similar setup (DP/800) only with a GeForce3 instead of a 4Ti, and I'm getting good framerates using the default settings. When you say the framerates suck, what rates are you seeing and where in the game is this?

Brad

I was talking about Very High Quality textures and using a low res such as 800x600...I'm getting 30-40fps...acceptable for my standards, but unacceptable considering I've got the faster video card for a Mac.

Very High Quality isn't worth it in my opinion...trading useless slow downs for barely noticeable increase in texture quality isn't worth it.

I'm not really bitter...I'm just surprised that the Ti can't handle it.

[Brad Oliver]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
I was talking about Very High Quality textures and using a low res such as 800x600...

Oh, my mistake. I thought when you kept repeatedly saying "high quality", you meant "high quality".

Brad

[a2daj]

I'm guessing part of the issue may reside in how well Apple's OpenGL texture compression works. I have a PC workstation (P4 1.9GHz) with a 32 MB GF2MX. With the demo, and most everything maxed out (VHQ textures, but no shadows) running at 1024x768, the demo intro is butter smooth and game play thoughout the demo is also smooth, hovering around 40 fps on the outside, and much higher inside. On my PowerMac 867 with a 64 MB Radeon 8500, the intro is a 3 fps slide show with the same settings. And it seems people with the GF4Ti behemoth are having similar issues with a 128 MB video card.
Sure, there's a big difference in CPU speed, but when it comes to the textures, the video card memory would be a limiting factor in performance.
Maybe Apple's OpenGL texture compression just doesn't compress the textures as well as the algorithms used on the PC.

[Jansar]

Originally posted by a2daj:
I'm guessing part of the issue may reside in how well Apple's OpenGL texture compression works. I have a PC workstation (P4 1.9GHz) with a 32 MB GF2MX. With the demo, and most everything maxed out (VHQ textures, but no shadows) running at 1024x768, the demo intro is butter smooth and game play thoughout the demo is also smooth, hovering around 40 fps on the outside, and much higher inside. On my PowerMac 867 with a 64 MB Radeon 8500, the intro is a 3 fps slide show with the same settings. And it seems people with the GF4Ti behemoth are having similar issues with a 128 MB video card.
Sure, there's a big difference in CPU speed, but when it comes to the textures, the video card memory would be a limiting factor in performance.
Maybe Apple's OpenGL texture compression just doesn't compress the textures as well as the algorithms used on the PC.

Yeah, may be. I have the most decked out Apple system to date, and in parts of some games, the action WILL slow down. And I'm wondering, "Why did I buy such a nice system for games to chug on me?" However, it could be the compressor. I sure hope there's a speed increase soon.

[Deal]

I have been playing the game with reduces texture quality and at 16 bit. It plays much better and is a fun game. It allows me to crank up the rest of the stuff and looks good enough.

I hope Apple fixes any and all issues they can regarding this. It wasn't that long ago Steve stood up there and said he was dedicated to the Mac being a gaming platform. I use computers for work and play. I would hate to have to do my play on a PC.

I also hope somebody keeps porting the StarWars stuff. I really missed it since DarkForces.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by Brad Oliver:


Oh, my mistake. I thought when you kept repeatedly saying "high quality", you meant "high quality".

Brad

My bad...I'm just not thinking straight these days...ex-girlfriend problems, crapload of homework, mysterious computer problems, cooking for myself...you know.

[ReggieX]

Originally posted by Liquidity X:
I have found setting yer texture quality to 16 bit makes a world of difference.

Hmm.

I only have a G4/400 with flashed Radeon 8500, and am getting good results with the following setup in X and 9:

640x480
color depth and textures: 32 bit
Geometry and Textures: Medium
Detail shaders: off
Bilinear filter

VSYNC: off
Dynamic lights: on
Shadows: simple
wall marks: off
anisotropic filter: off

[proux]

Performance update:

with a cube 500 512MB and Geforce 2 MX, 640x480 32 bits all on high but volumetric shadows and ansitopic (...) filter. Games runs fine, 20-60 fps most of the time, low 20s in complex battle.
But there is a level, artus mines, where you need to take everything down, and even then outside I get low low 10s fps. Tough.

Also the demo was quite easy even on Jedi Master level, but the actual game is much harder, especialy before you can use the force.

Also only one type of crash, when loading saved games in the end of that mines level, all my saves became corrupted and I had to go back to the recent checkpoint, this time was close but usually the checkpoints are too spaced. This could be very annoying to lose a saved game just before a checkpoint.

Overall

[sunriser]

i guess i have the clue to the speed problem in Jedi Knight II... it's less the graphics than the AUDIO

Just check your audio setting, turn off the EAX or whatever it's called and you'll get good performances... I could barely play the game on my iMac/800 until i turn off this feature. I also turn down to 22khz also...

BIG SPEED IMPROVEMENT... for 1024x32/meduim/medium no slowdown at all

Dont forget the pcs have hw card for audio and the mac has only it's CPU...

I hope it will help some ppl here

[iamnid]

True... I have noticed in previous games that downing the sound quality helps immensely in video quality! There must be something wrong with me as I really have a tough time telling the difference between 22Khz and 44Khz when gaming -- it just really doesn't matter that much to me and I have no qualms about turning down the sound quality.

[sunriser]

I neither can say the difference between both on games...

[lokjah]

ive wanted to play this game, is it really cool? I have a dual gig quicksilver with 1.25 of ram, i'm guessing it would run ok on my machine.

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