Does raising the resolution lower fps

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unreal junkie

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May 15, 2001
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My system must be a wierd anomaly or something. Of course all of you know that my system is an amd k-6/2 300 with 128 megs of ram.. and i run UT in 1024*768 and i noticed that some maps run at the same speed that 640*480 ran at. Now usually you would think this would hurt me big time but in some cases it helped. Is this normal or is my system really screwy
 

iolair

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As bulldog said, this seems a common issue with K6-2 processors.... I have a K6-2 500 and run virtually the same FPS nomatter whether I'm in 640 x 480, 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768.

The thing that seems to limit my FPS most is the number of players on a map; with 2-5 players I'm pretty much flying but with 16 it's getting to the limits of being able to play it at all. In other words, it's when the processor has to do more work that limits the FPS....
 

badmaninheaven

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Jun 8, 2001
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Well , i'm running a celeron 466.
And mine seems to have better fps with increased resolution !!!!!
Its true.
I'mean when i tried playing in 640 x 480 damn!did it suck !!
And when i played the same in 1024 x 768 it was waaaay b8r.
:p
 

hal

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iolair is right. I have a P2 400 that has the same problem and I get virtually the same fps in 800x600 that I do in 1024x768. 32 bit color has zero effect on my fps as well.
 

unreal junkie

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Bad thing about it though.. the maximum bots i can handle without watching a 1 slide show is 4... but depending on the level.. like fetid for example it can go to almost 10 but i wouldnt push it that far.
 

B

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I think it depends on the combination of Processor and Videocard. I have a Geforce 2 in my rig and like iolair said:

This is a sign of a processor limited machine; it means your graphics card outguns the processor.

So this is what I think: The processor just can't handle the amount of "data" the videocard is pushing through. If its running 50 FPS on 640x480 my videocard has power enough to push the resolution up and keep the FPS the same, while the processor is sweating his pants off till it as a swamp-ass :)
 

Prophetus

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Dec 4, 1999
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Some graphics card's drivers are designed and optimized for higher resolutions. Take the Radeon, for example. Playing at 16 bit @ 1024x7 results in lower FPS than playing at 32 bit. That's because the drivers shut down certain features and optimizations at the lower bit rate.

Same goes for most other GC's. Their drivers start using certain optimization features at higher resolutions. Once you go below the default resolution, those features are either turned off or work at half speed.

So if you run UT at 1024x7 and receive 60 fps, then move to 640x480, it is quite possible to maintain the same FPS (or lower), without noticing an increase. They don't expect or understand why someone would play most games at such low rez, so they don't spend the time to optimize the drivers for lower settings.

Some people don't realize they can play at a higher rez and probably receive better FPS. I know I didn't. I was getting poor FPS at 800x @16 bit. Until I started to read the reviews and realized the optimal setting was 1024x7 @32.

Test your GC's, not every GC has optimized drivers and most companies don't say anything about it (they feel it's a form of cheating during benchmark tests:))