Namrok wrote on 2021-10-04, 15:12:

So I have one of those seemingly ubiquitous K6-2+ time machine builds. Full specs are […]
Show full quote

So I have one of those seemingly ubiquitous K6-2+ time machine builds. Full specs are

K6-2+ 500
PC Partner MVP3 motherboard
256MB PC100 SDRAM
AWE 64 CT4500 (Disabled in windows)
SB Live 4780
Geforce 2 MX 400 (Running 8.05 drivers)

So kind of a budget 1999 build. It's running Win98SE, and I updated Blood 2 to version 2.1.

This machine makes short work of Quake 2 getting about 60 fps time demo1 at 1280x960. And I just finished up Shogo on a P233 MMX equipped with a humble Riva128 that got about 20-30 fps at low settings and 640x480. So I was expected good things from Blood 2, another Lithtech 1.0 game, on this marginally beefier machine. After it all, it easily doubles the Quake 2 FPS I get on that weaker machine, at much higher quality and resolution to boot! Heck, I just benchmarked Quake 3 and Demo0001 got 40 fps at 800x600 high detail.

But nope. Blood 2 consistently runs at between 15-25 FPS, even at 640x480 and the lowest settings. It makes zero sense to me. I've disabled sound, music, movies, and joystick. I've toggled nearly all the engine level disables. I've turned on optimized textures, triple buffering and single pass multi texturing. Nothing makes it budge. It's like it's CPU limited horribly. Which I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around. I know the K6-2+'s had poor FPU performance compared to a Pentium II, but this simply isn't squaring with performance in other games, or my own memories of playing it on a P233MMX with a Riva TNT back in 1998.

Are my expectations, and memories, just totally off on this one? The only nagging thing that occurs to me is that I have DirectX 8 installed and this is a DirectX 6 game.

What version of the game are you playing?

Later Steam releases are bloated with much higher system requirements that the OG release.

Version 2.1, patched up from the 1.0 CD I own. Patched to 2.0 first, then 2.1.

Strange. You should be seeing much better performance.
Been a long time since I played Blood II, but I'm assuming you are running in D3d? How does the software mode compare?
That should isolate you to just the CPU performance and might give you a clue if that is the culprit.

Hmm...no. I don´t see how the CPU is to blame.
I recently tried Blood II in my Presario 7476. Its CPU (regular K6-2 500, not the plus version) is weaker than yours.

I get adequate performance with both PCI cards (the TNTm64 and Voodoo2, the latter giving better performance).

I am not at home now, but I could check with FRAPS what numbers it throws.

Have you tried lowering the driver version to 6.31 ?

Jasin Natael wrote on 2021-10-04, 15:44:

What version of the game are you playing?

Later Steam releases are bloated with much higher system requirements that the OG release.

I didn't know that, I wasn't aware that that happened with Windows games. DOS games yes, of course, since Steam and GOG package them with DOSBox, which of course needs a much faster, and Windows based, PC.

Why does the Steam version of Blood 2, a Windows game, require more resources than on it's original release? Is it packaged with nGlide or a similar Glide wrapper? Is there more to it than that?

I rarely bother looking at the system requirements when I buy older games, though when I have noticed and realized that they were much higher than on the game's original release, I think I always assumed that it was just GOG or Steam covering themselves by giving much higher system requirements so that no one would buy the game and find out that it ran too slowly on their relatively slow PC.

Namrok wrote on 2021-10-04, 15:12:

AWE 64 CT4500 (Disabled in windows)
SB Live 4780

Still surprised to see this unnecessary setting and no one yet has mentioned this, the SB16 emulation on Windows will be disabled if the AWE64 card is enabled.

Since you are using a SB Live!, did you make sure that the VxD drivers are installed?

Namrok wrote on 2021-10-04, 15:12:

The only nagging thing that occurs to me is that I have DirectX 8 installed and this is a DirectX 6 game.

The recent DX runtimes won't affect compatibility with old games in practice due to having separate DLLs since DX7. There could be corner cases but that's unlikely the problem.

Namrok, have you looked at:

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Blood_II:_The_Chosen

It's a good site for help with running PC games.

Yeah, Software mode was about the same. A bit worse perhaps.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-10-04, 16:16:

Still surprised to see this unnecessary setting and no one yet has mentioned this, the SB16 emulation on Windows will be disable […]
Show full quote

Namrok wrote on 2021-10-04, 15:12:

AWE 64 CT4500 (Disabled in windows)
SB Live 4780

Still surprised to see this unnecessary setting and no one yet has mentioned this, the SB16 emulation on Windows will be disabled if the AWE64 card is enabled.

Since you are using a SB Live!, did you make sure that the VxD drivers are installed?

Namrok wrote on 2021-10-04, 15:12:

The only nagging thing that occurs to me is that I have DirectX 8 installed and this is a DirectX 6 game.

The recent DX runtimes won't affect compatibility with old games in practice due to having separate DLLs since DX7. There could be corner cases but that's unlikely the problem.

I believe I'm running the VXD drivers, but also the performance is not improved by turn sound and music off entirely.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-10-04, 16:16:

Still surprised to see this unnecessary setting and no one yet has mentioned this, the SB16 emulation on Windows will be disable […]
Show full quote

Namrok wrote on 2021-10-04, 15:12:

AWE 64 CT4500 (Disabled in windows)
SB Live 4780

Still surprised to see this unnecessary setting and no one yet has mentioned this, the SB16 emulation on Windows will be disabled if the AWE64 card is enabled.

Since you are using a SB Live!, did you make sure that the VxD drivers are installed?

Namrok wrote on 2021-10-04, 15:12:

The only nagging thing that occurs to me is that I have DirectX 8 installed and this is a DirectX 6 game.

The recent DX runtimes won't affect compatibility with old games in practice due to having separate DLLs since DX7. There could be corner cases but that's unlikely the problem.

This is a fair point. Those Live WDM drivers can murder performance. The VXD drivers are usually faster but can be buggy, especially on socket 7 machines.

Con 2 botones wrote on 2021-10-04, 16:12:

Hmm...no. I don´t see how the CPU is to blame. I recently tried Blood II in my Presario 7476. Its CPU (regular K6-2 500, not the […]
Show full quote

Hmm...no. I don´t see how the CPU is to blame.
I recently tried Blood II in my Presario 7476. Its CPU (regular K6-2 500, not the plus version) is weaker than yours.

I get adequate performance with both PCI cards (the TNTm64 and Voodoo2, the latter giving better performance).

I am not at home now, but I could check with FRAPS what numbers it throws.

Have you tried lowering the driver version to 6.31 ?

Does 6.31 support the Geforce 2 MX 400? I see the regular MX in it's INF file, but not the 200/400 variants.

EDIT: I just went for it. Uninstalled the nvidia drivers through Add/Remove Programs. Installed the 6.31 drivers. No change.

For completeness sake, I uninstalled Blood 2, and tried running version 1.0 again, then 2.0, then 2.1. No changes in framerate. Getting between 15 and 25 fps on the first subway level. The opening cutscene only runs at about 13 fps when Giddeon in is frame.

If my socket 7 build was AGP I would throw a spare MX400 in there this evening and give it a go. As it is I might try it with my Voodoo3 just to see what kind of framerate I get. Mine is a k6-3+ but should be within spitting distance. I'm convinced it has to be a driver bug somewhere. Are you using a HDD? If so, is DMA enabled? Shouldn't account for that much performance loss but something to check?

I'm using an SD to IDE adapter, but last I checked DMA was enabled.

Who knows, maybe I'll just go with a fresh windows install at some point if this annoys me enough. I'm not sure I want to play Blood 2 that badly, but now there is a problem to be solved!

Might be the easiest thing. Did you install any of the unofficial service packs ? i've had unpredictable behavior with those in the past.

I did, although I can no longer remember the features from it I choose. I believe just the core updates and speed improvements.

K6-2+ and k6-3 dont care about “Cacheable RAM Size”, do they?
Because if they do, MVP3 chipset prefers 128MB to 256MB (when the onboard L2 cache is 512Kb).

If Blood II is the only game you are experiencing weird performance, then the above makes even less sense.

Con 2 botones wrote on 2021-10-04, 18:45:

K6-2+ and k6-3 dont care about “Cacheable RAM Size”, do they?
Because if they do, MVP3 chipset prefers 128MB to 256MB (when the onboard L2 cache is 512Kb).

If Blood II is the only game you are experiencing weird performance, then the above makes even less sense.

You will get different opinions on this. Phil's tests show that they do care but very, very little.

Myself I have a SiS5598 chipset and 512k of cache and I find that 128MB performs slightly better on my setup for whatever reason. It is minimal however. YMMV

Jasin Natael wrote on 2021-10-04, 19:09:

Con 2 botones wrote on 2021-10-04, 18:45:

K6-2+ and k6-3 dont care about “Cacheable RAM Size”, do they?
Because if they do, MVP3 chipset prefers 128MB to 256MB (when the onboard L2 cache is 512Kb).

If Blood II is the only game you are experiencing weird performance, then the above makes even less sense.

You will get different opinions on this. Phil's tests show that they do care but very, very little.

Myself I have a SiS5598 chipset and 512k of cache and I find that 128MB performs slightly better on my setup for whatever reason. It is minimal however. YMMV

Good to know, thanks. I also own a SIS5595+Sis530 chipset based motherboard (ASUS P5S-VM). I would like to add a K6-2+ or K6-3, but they are not easy to find or relatively expensive when they show.

If "very, very little" means 1 or 2 FPS when it comes to gaming, then I guess it would be better to keep 256MB for overall system performance. If it means around 5 FPS penalty...hmm I would stay with 128MB (especially because I only use vintage PCs for gaming).