Having trouble getting high frames in Quake \ VOGONS

Having trouble getting high frames in Quake

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First post, by Dosboss

Posted on 2021-01-08, 16:31

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Recently put together two old systems (a pentium dual core and a Pentium4) and installed Dos 7.1 on both.
I installed my favorite old dos games, blood and quake as well as a few others.

Blood runs well on both systems, but I cannot get more than 30 frames in Quake on either one.

I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction as far as improving Quake FPS.

I've been using a cheap 9500 GT PCIe video card on the dual core system, which doesn't seem to affect quake FPS in the slightest. It definitely boosts other games though.
The P4 system currently has no GPU, waiting on an ebay delivery for this one.

Reply 1 of 8, by The Serpent Rider

Posted on 2021-01-08, 16:34

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In which resolution?

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 2 of 8, by Dosboss

Posted on 2021-01-08, 18:47

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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-01-08, 16:34:

In which resolution?

I believe it is set to 800x600, but I could be wrong.

Reply 3 of 8, by Namrok

Posted on 2021-01-08, 19:18

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Are you running Quake, GLQuake, or a source port?

The Quake engine does have an FPS cap variable. I believe it's cl_maxfps? Maybe it got set to 30 at some point? It's been a hot minute, but I think you can just pull down the console with ~, type "cl_maxfps" and it should tell you the current value. Then typing "cl_maxfps 60" would set it to 60.

Just a sanity check before you go chasing down hardware/driver issues.

Win95/DOS 7.1 - P233 MMX (@2.5 x 100 FSB), Diamond Viper V330 AGP, SB16 CT2800
Win98 - K6-2+ 500, GF2 MX, SB AWE 64 CT4500, SBLive CT4780
Win98 - Pentium III 1000, GF2 GTS, SBLive CT4760
WinXP - Athlon 64 3200+, GF 7800 GS, Audigy 2 ZS

Reply 4 of 8, by Dosboss

Posted on 2021-01-08, 19:37

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Namrok wrote on 2021-01-08, 19:18:

Are you running Quake, GLQuake, or a source port?

The Quake engine does have an FPS cap variable. I believe it's cl_maxfps? Maybe it got set to 30 at some point? It's been a hot minute, but I think you can just pull down the console with ~, type "cl_maxfps" and it should tell you the current value. Then typing "cl_maxfps 60" would set it to 60.

Just a sanity check before you go chasing down hardware/driver issues.

Its pure dos Quake install.
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll give that a shot when I get home from work.

Another issue I have is extreme menu lag in Quake and other games on the P4 computer. The game itself runs relatively smooth, but super laggy in menus to the point where there is no response from keystrokes.
This doesn't happen on the pent dual core machine, the menus are responsive. Any thoughts on this?

Reply 5 of 8, by The Serpent Rider

Posted on 2021-01-08, 19:59

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I believe it is set to 800x600

Any VESA resolution in Quake will require FastVid utility or alternatives for optimal performance.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 6 of 8, by Dosboss

Posted on 2021-01-08, 20:03

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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-01-08, 19:59:

I believe it is set to 800x600

Any VESA resolution in Quake will require FastVid utility or alternatives for optimal performance.

I have tried FastVid, but it always crashes the computer.
No matter which of the three settings are enabled, it always crashes right before listing the After: status

Reply 7 of 8, by The Serpent Rider

Posted on 2021-01-08, 20:04

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The Serpent Rider wrote:
or alternatives

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 8 of 8, by Dosboss

Posted on 2021-01-09, 01:03

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Forgot I had an old PCI card and plugged it in. This time fastvid enabled and I am getting 90 fps in quake now.
Thanks everyone for help.

Any idea on the menu lag? The menu lag persists even when I'm getting 90 frames playing the actual game

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