[Ivan]

I'm new to the game forum and was wondering how I can get test results for the demo of quake 3 and Unreal...do you need to get certain software or can you do it with what's on the demo, thanks in advance

[Jsnuff1]

what do you mean by test results?

[iSoldier]

I think that he is talking about frames per second...which still to this very day I don't know how to capture. Someone mind with a little help?

[Ivan]

Yes, I'm referring to FPS, I hear people talking about it all the time but don't know how to see what my fps really is =(

[seventray]

In Q3, select the demo menu. Once the demo menu comes up, press the tilde key (looks like this ~). Type in the console: timedemo 1 and press return. Press the tilde key again and play one of the demos. Once the demo is done, press the tilde key once more and the last line will show you your FPS.

In UT, there is a menu that has an option of display timedemo statistics. Just find this in the menus and a play a game against bots. Your FPS will be displayed in the window while you play.

Hope this helps

[gorefan68]

For future reference, head over to www.xlr8yourmac.com.

They have detailed instructions on how to get the FPS of all sorts of games, AND they have a huge video card database, so you can compare your results to people with a similar system.

Ca$h

In UT, you'll want to record a demo so you have a concrete sequence to measure FPS on. Hit "~", type "demorec", close the console with "~" and play for a bit. Open the consol and type "stopdemo". Now, when you want to play the demo, just open the consol and type "demoplay". Before doing so, go to the tools menu and turn on the timedemo, this will give you an FPS readout. Now, whenever you want to see how a setting affects UT performance, just play the demo before and after setting changes, and note the average FPS change.

The nice thing about making your own demo is that you can record lots of action, so its representative of true play. There's also a standard demo available for download at places like planetunreal.com. I don't have a precise link, but you might check it out if you want to compare your performance to that of others.

Don't use the cityintro demo, its not a real guage of game performance since there are no bots or action in it.

[Ivan]

OK, In the Phobos moon area I only got a averge of 30fps and in the...Oh, I forgot the map....where the campers hide in the loft, place, I got a averge of 40fps on my iMac DV 99' is that good?
BTW, those games sound sooo good with my iSub crancked up!!! =)

You can find framerates that others have gotten using your setup by checking out www.xlr8yourmac.com.

It's difficult to compare framerates unless a standard demo is used. There are simply too many variables to account for when comparing levels. Number of bots and the nature of your view (poly count) can both affect framerates dramatically. Of course, the more action taking place, the slower your framerates will be.

What resolution are you using? With only 8MB vRAM, iMac's are very limited with resolution. Even a Radeon is very limited at high resolutions, because it only has 32MB RAM. I've found that lighting mode affects framerates substantially in UT, if I use vertex lighting my framerates go through the roof, but then the image quality sucks ass. Check out some dedicated Quake and UT sites to learn more about configuring the games for high frame rates. I don't know about Quake, but for UT osX is an excellent all-mac resource: http://www.planetunreal.com/osx/help.html

Good luck! You'll need it with an iMac.