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How
Fast Is Quake 3 Arena 1.30 Beta On The Dual G4/800
Running OS X 10.1? Originally
posted October 5th, 2001 Graeme Devine was
named "Chief Designer" at Id Software in March of
1999. One of his missions has been to modify the
code in Quake 3 Arena to take advantage of Power
Mac distinctives such as the Velocity Engine,
Multiple Processors, and OS X. I don't know about
you but I've been so depressed when I see those
Wintel machines attaining frame rates in the
stratosphere. Well, this week I
took delivery of three key ingredients: a Power
Macintosh G4/800MP, OS X 10.1, and Quake
3 1.30.
Let's see how successful Graeme has
been: PERFORMANCE
ANALYSIS Excuse me a
moment while I catch my breath... Wow! The
latest
version of Quake 3
Arena
screams when you feed it the latest, bestest
hardware and software from Apple. It also helps to
tweak Quake settings (just like the Windows guys
do). If you are a game
freak, you gotta get 10.1 and you gotta get a
GeForce3 and you gotta get a dual G4 of some sort.
(See graphs
below.) I love OS X 10.1!
I love my new G4/800MP. I love my Geforce3! I love
Quake 3 Arena 1.30! Thank you, Graeme and Id
Software! Thank you Steve and Apple. God bless
America! MORE TEST
DATA Below is the
beginning of a new comparison graph between the
fastest Power Mac G4's and the fastest Pentium and
Athlon based PC's. Email me your numbers and I'll
post them. But be sure to follow the test setting
guidelines at the bottom of this page. For now,
here's a comparision between the two fastest Dual
G4 systems and a Pentium 4 1.6GHz, all three with
GeForce3 cards: Isn't that
amazing? The 800MP actually ties with the 1600Mhz
P4! Tom's Hardware
compares the GeForce3
to the NEW GeForce
Titanium
on a Windows PC. (Note: They didn't run the same
version of Quake 3 or the same DEMO file that I ran
so you canNOT compare those figures to the ones on
this page.) 12/29/01 -- The ATI Radeon
8500 was tested against the GeForce3 &
GeForce3 Ti 500 using a 2GHz Pentium 4 system by
SharkeyExtreme.
The performance exceeded the GeForce3 and matched
the GeForce3 Ti 500 in the "MAX"
settings Quake 3 Arena
test. (See also
TomsHardware.)
That's good news since ATI is introducing a Mac
verswion of the Radeon 8500 at the upcoming
MacWorld Expo. 1/24/02 -- AnandTech used the
latest Unreal engine to test 15
different graphics cards
on an Athlon 2000+ system. Also, see
other
applications
tested by
Bare Feats using the 800MP. WHERE TO
BUY You can purchase
Quake 3 Arena from any software outlet. You can FTP
the latest beta version of Quake 3 direct from
Id
Software. Visit the
Apple
Online Store
to pricing on the new Power Mac G4's. If you want
the GeForce3, it can be added as a BTO
option. Small
Dog Electronics also
does "build-to-order" on new Power Macs and doesn't
charge you state sales tax. You can get a stripped
G4/800MP for as little as $2699. They have G4/867's
for as little as $1999 and G4/533MP's for
$1949. Need big, fast,
second drive? I like the new 80G 7200 rpm Seagate
Barracuda ATA IV. It clocked 41MB/sec sustained
read and write on the 800MP. Check newegg.com
for very low pricing. HOW I TESTED
QUAKE 3 ARENA (and what settings you should use if
you send me your numbers): MODE 1:
"Fastest" MODE 2:
"Max" I also have made
the following tweaks which added significant
speed: The DEMO
file run is the one that comes with version
1.30 called FOUR.DM_66 AppleTalk is
disabled and VM is disabled; Extensions are BASE
set. SPEED
TEST RESULTS
from Bare Feats (by CATEGORY) LINKS
to SPEED tests on other web sites HOT
SPEED DEALS DOWNLOADS
that add more SPEED SPEED
UPGRADE
guide ©
2001 Rob
Art Morgan.
UPDATE: October 6th, 2001 with speed tweaks and
Pentium
4
numbers
by rob
ART morgan,
Bare Feats Mad Scientist
LEGEND:
GeF2 = GeForce2 MX
GeF3 = GeForce3
x = tweak #1 -- s_chunksize set 2048,
y = tweak #2 -- s_mixahead .07, cg_scoreplums
0
GL driver ON, video mode 640x480, color depth 32
bit, Full Screen ON, Geometric Detail LOW, Texture
Detail NEXT TO LOWEST, Texture Quality 32 bit,
Texture Filter BILINEAR, Sound Quality
HIGH
GL driver ON, video mode 1024x768, color depth 32
bit, Full Screen ON, Geometric Detail HIGH, Texture
Detail HIGHEST SETTING, Texture Quality 32 bit,
Texture Filter TRILINEAR, Sound Quality
HIGHs_chunksize
2048 (OS X only)
s_mixahead .07 (.03 setting made it run faster
but it turned sound off. No fair.)
cg_scoreplums 0
r_smp 1 (on 800MP to active dual cpu mode; left
at default 0 for solo cpu Macs)
all other settings remain at default
Gotta Question? Comment?
Email rob-art@barefeats.com