bofh.fromhell wrote on 2021-02-08, 20:35:

I'm amazed how CPU sensitive Q3A is! […]
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I'm amazed how CPU sensitive Q3A is!

The AXP 1800+ Is slowly approaching what the TI4200 can do.
And even shows negative scaling in High Q @ 1280x1024, whats up with that? =)

The 6800GT however is seriously starved, and for some reason shows way better scaling then the 4200 across all resolutions.

My A7M266-D is a pain to use, passes all stability tests i throw at it.
But still has random lockups, not detecting KB/mouse etc. etc.
I did a partial recap of it, maby its time to do all the small buggers too.
Then again the 760 MP chipset (or rather the 768 B1 SB wich I ofc have) seemes to be kinda buggy overall.

Thread necro and all.
But I sorted the instability issues with the A7M266-D.
Turns out my testbench PSU (Corsair AX760) could not handle the +5v load!
Despite the EPS CPU power that supposedly feeds one of the CPU's.

Tried it yesterday with xp, e5800 and a voodoo5 and all I got was a blank screen 🙁

I wanted to add my experience with trying SMP in Quake III on older systems by adding +set r_smp 1 to the quake3.exe shortcut. For the systems attempted, it was a complete disappointment.

Dual slot 2, PIII Xeon 550 MHz / 2M Tanner
Voodoo3 3000
W2K SP4
Result: Screen stays grey and hangs there. Must do ctrl-alt-del, task manager, close Quake3.

Dual slot 1, PIII 850 MHz Coppermine
Geforce 3
W2K SP4
Result: Screen stays black and hangs there. Must do ctrl-alt-del, task manager, close Quake3.

Dual socket 5, P233 MMX
Matrox G450 & Voodoo2 12 MB SLI
W2K SP4
Result: Screen flashes, like it is stuck switching modes between the 2D and 3D video cards. Cannot enter Task Manager. Must hard reset.

Dual socket 8, PII-333 Overdrive
GeForce 2
W2K SP4
Result: Quake III runs fine, but it is slower than with a single processor. SMP = 25.6 fps, non-SMP = 27.6 fps

Wish I had the luck you guys were having.

EDIT: added the following three systems to this post in order to keep the dualie results together.

Supermicro P3TDE6 / Tualatin 1.4 GHz / 512K
Nvidia Quadro FX3000
W2K SP4
Result: SMP = 171.9 fps | non-SMP = 129.5 fps
Of the 7 dual CPU systems I tested, this is the only one with a positive outcome.

Intel SAI2 / Tualatin 1.4 GHz / 512K
Nvidia Quadro FX600
W2K SP4
Result: SMP = 55.9 fps | non-SMP = 77.6 fps

MSI MS-9105 / Tualatin 1.5 GHz / 512K
Nvidia GeForce4 ti4400
W2K SP4
Result: SMP = 121.5 fps | non-SMP = 132.0 fps
For this particular setup, I had to use the Task Manager to close Quake3.exe as it hung at startup, however, as per your suggestion, re-opening Quake allowed it to run. However, non-SMP was faster than SMP.

while quack3 has an r_smp option, it was not programmed with smp in mind, so the option may or may not yield any improvement. but in general my experience is unimpressive, and i tend to keep the option off.

feipoa wrote on 2025-05-23, 12:03:

I wanted to add my experience with trying SMP in Quake III on older systems by adding +set r_smp 1 to the quake3.exe shortcut. F […]
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I wanted to add my experience with trying SMP in Quake III on older systems by adding +set r_smp 1 to the quake3.exe shortcut. For the systems attempted, it was a complete disappointment.

Dual slot 2, PIII Xeon 550 MHz / 2M Tanner
Voodoo3 3000
W2K SP4
Result: Screen stays grey and hangs there. Must do ctrl-alt-del, task manager, close Quake3.

Dual slot 1, PIII 850 MHz Coppermine
Geforce 3
W2K SP4
Result: Screen stays black and hangs there. Must do ctrl-alt-del, task manager, close Quake3.

Dual socket 5, P233 MMX
Matrox G450 & Voodoo2 12 MB SLI
W2K SP4
Result: Screen flashes, like it is stuck switching modes between the 2D and 3D video cards. Cannot enter Task Manager. Must hard reset.

Dual socket 8, PII-333 Overdrive
GeForce 2
W2K SP4
Result: Quake III runs fine, but it is slower than with a single processor. SMP = 25.6 fps, non-SMP = 27.6 fps

Wish I had the luck you guys were having.

Couple of questions to hopefully get you running:
- are you trying 16:9 resolutions? The initial videos don't show up if you are.
- are you launching non-smp first? If you do and then attempt to launch smp, q3 usually hangs
- did you try relaunching after the gray screen with the xeons? When you exit with task manager the colors are all messed up, if you relaunch right away it usually works.

Try launching it right as you boot the machine, and avoid launching non-smp before smp.
I have high hopes of good results for the P3 and Xeons systems, your dual 850 with GF3 should hit around 120ish FPS I'd expect.

The P5 / PPro systems are probably too slow to gain much.

I am running 4:3, 1280x1024 on all my systems. There isn't a modern monitor anywhere in my house.

I pulled out the Xeon PIII again to ensure that I'm loading SMP first. Still hangs with a grey screen and hourglass. Task Manager to force quit quake3.exe, then running it again, yielded the same results - hung grey screen.

With the Xeon/Voodoo3, I do not get the colours messed up when loading Task Manager to force quit. I did on some of my other systems.

I pulled out a few more systems, all of which were dual socket 370.

Supermicro P3TDE6 / Tualatin 1.4 GHz / 512K
Nvidia Quadro FX3000
W2K SP4
Result: SMP = 171.9 fps | non-SMP = 129.5 fps
Of the 7 dual CPU systems I tested, this is the only one with a positive outcome.

Intel SAI2 / Tualatin 1.4 GHz / 512K
Nvidia Quadro FX600
W2K SP4
Result: SMP = 55.9 fps | non-SMP = 77.6 fps

MSI MS-9105 / Tualatin 1.5 GHz / 512K
Nvidia GeForce4 ti4400
W2K SP4
Result: SMP = 121.5 fps | non-SMP = 132.0 fps
For this particular setup, I had to use the Task Manager to close Quake3.exe as it hung at startup, however, as per your suggestion, re-opening Quake allowed it to run. However, non-SMP was faster than SMP.

feipoa wrote on 2025-05-24, 13:51:

I pulled out a few more systems, all of which were dual socket 370. […]
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I pulled out a few more systems, all of which were dual socket 370.

Supermicro P3TDE6 / Tualatin 1.4 GHz / 512K
Nvidia Quadro FX3000
W2K SP4
Result: SMP = 171.9 fps | non-SMP = 129.5 fps
Of the 7 dual CPU systems I tested, this is the only one with a positive outcome.

Intel SAI2 / Tualatin 1.4 GHz / 512K
Nvidia Quadro FX600
W2K SP4
Result: SMP = 55.9 fps | non-SMP = 77.6 fps

MSI MS-9105 / Tualatin 1.5 GHz / 512K
Nvidia GeForce4 ti4400
W2K SP4
Result: SMP = 121.5 fps | non-SMP = 132.0 fps
For this particular setup, I had to use the Task Manager to close Quake3.exe as it hung at startup, however, as per your suggestion, re-opening Quake allowed it to run. However, non-SMP was faster than SMP.

I'm curious about your results overall and why you're having so much trouble / seeing no gains.

I think in the thread some people reported trouble with Voodoo cards and SMP, but your result with the GF4 TI 4400 is very strange--user F2bnp submitted results with the same mobo and got huge gains.

I take it these runs are for 800x600? Your results with the P3TDE6 fall in line with the dual Tualatins 1.4 GHz results I had submitted

• GF4 TI 4600: nonSMP 131.6 / SMP 162.1
• Your Quadro FX 3000: nonSMP 129.5 / SMP 171.9
• GF 6800: nonSMP 131.4 / SMP 185.7

BTW, you have a lot of really nice hardware!

EDIT: Actually your results with the Quadro FX 3000 pretty much align with F2bnp's results at 1024x768 and an overclocked GF 5900 Ultra

feipoa wrote on 2025-05-24, 11:02:

I am running 4:3, 1280x1024 on all my systems. There isn't a modern monitor anywhere in my house.

When I wrote the above, I also meant to say that I'm running 1280x1024 in Quake3. Should I not be?

feipoa wrote on 2025-05-24, 11:02:

I am running 4:3, 1280x1024 on all my systems. There isn't a modern monitor anywhere in my house.

I pulled out the Xeon PIII again to ensure that I'm loading SMP first. Still hangs with a grey screen and hourglass. Task Manager to force quit quake3.exe, then running it again, yielded the same results - hung grey screen.

With the Xeon/Voodoo3, I do not get the colours messed up when loading Task Manager to force quit. I did on some of my other systems.

It probably hangs when it wanna show the brief intro movie.
IIRC you can skip it with adding "-skipmovies" to the shortcut.

feipoa wrote on 2025-05-24, 23:41:

feipoa wrote on 2025-05-24, 11:02:

I am running 4:3, 1280x1024 on all my systems. There isn't a modern monitor anywhere in my house.

When I wrote the above, I also meant to say that I'm running 1280x1024 in Quake3. Should I not be?

It shouldn't really matter in order to launch with SMP. You're using release 1.32c of q3?

I wish I had noted my driver versions when I launched these tests. I'll try a few machines when I get a chance and test different drivers

feipoa wrote on 2025-05-24, 23:41:

feipoa wrote on 2025-05-24, 11:02:

I am running 4:3, 1280x1024 on all my systems. There isn't a modern monitor anywhere in my house.

When I wrote the above, I also meant to say that I'm running 1280x1024 in Quake3. Should I not be?

You should be testing at all resolutions or at the least 640x, IMO.
http://murc.ws/forum/hardware/benchmarks/2588 … force-2-vs-g400
Re: Building a PC to match the original xbox

Athlon XP dusting my dual P3 🙁
Re: DosFreak All System Specs 4-14-2022

I tried adding the -skipmovies option, which skipped the intro, but didn't change the outcome [tested on my dual Xeon PIII system].

I set Quake to 640x486x16bit, but it also did not change the outcome.

I am using the Quake3 v1.32 update. Typing 'version' in console reveals Oct 7 2002. Do you have a link for the 1.32c that I should try?
EDIT1: I'm guessing this file, quake3-1.32c-win.zip https://web.archive.org/web/20070227231426/ht … pic.php?t=21699

EDIT2: Looks like 1.32c largely was to address some buffer overflow vulnerability and a security issue with auto download. I've updated, but the new version did not change the outcome.