Bug 51787

FWIW, I suspect it's more likely (re)compiling fragment shaders than vertex shaders. Possibly related to constantly changing fixed-function emulation shaders, UT2004 seems to burn through those quickly (this also caused slowdowns with fglrx's shader cache when the game was new). Just an idea, maybe this is different.

It might not help in fixing this, but I found that the framerate is much more consistent if I load all cpu cores with something while playing ut2004. Normally, the framerate counter is green, but flashes into yellow and purple, which makes movements very choppy. When something is running in the background, the framerate counter stays green, and all movements are smooth.

With the llvm compiler the game is unplayable either way.

(In reply to comment #2)
> It might not help in fixing this, but I found that the framerate is much more
> consistent if I load all cpu cores with something while playing ut2004.
> Normally, the framerate counter is green, but flashes into yellow and purple,
> which makes movements very choppy. When something is running in the background,
> the framerate counter stays green, and all movements are smooth.

Maybe cpufreq is causing this here's what I get on the demo on an HD4890 + 4x3.4GHz phenom II.

R600_LLVM=0 ut2004 as-convoy?spectatoronly=1?numbots=8?quickstart=1?attractcam=1 -benchmark -seconds=120 -nosound

cpufreq ondemand - 

30.027578 / 76.497787 / 162.457611 fps

cpufreq set to performance

37.627441 / 93.523949 / 197.051376 fps

> 
> With the llvm compiler the game is unplayable either way.

I see the stalling in the demo benchmark.

2.030273 / 70.589706 / 196.047073 fps

This is not related to cpufreq. I've fixed my governor to the highest frequency and still experience these massive lags.

(In reply to comment #4)
> This is not related to cpufreq. I've fixed my governor to the highest
> frequency and still experience these massive lags.

Since I cerated a startup script for ut2004 that does 'set all cores to performance ; ut2004 ; set all cores to ondemand' the game runs smoothly without any lag.

Now I took a new look at the issue with GALLIUM_HUD=fps, and there is definitely a serious problem with cpufreq. I have a few scripts to switch cpufreq governor between performance and ondemand (Phenom II x4), and to switch between high and low gpu power profiles (HD6850). When ondemand is selected, it seriously limits performance, and causes noticeable variance in fps. Some examples:

Psychonauts, main menu (Raz standing on top of the giant brain)
ondemand/low 20 fps
ondemand/high 40-50 fps
performance/low 29 fps
performance/high 104 fps

SW:KoToR, the main character standing alone on Dantuine, looking at the Ebon Hawk
ondemand/low 20-30 fps
ondemand/high 20-30 fps
performance/low 55-60 fps
performance/high 68 fps

The difference between ondemand and performance makes a huge difference in native games as well. Quake Wars, Team Fortress 2, and UT2004 are all borderline playable with ondemand, but run perfectly with performance. It's not just a drop in fps, but a very noticeable laggyness, that kills the games.

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