# UT2004Demo speedup hint



## Cat (Mar 2, 2004)

This was posted today at Macosxhints: disable sound to improve performance. 

IT WORKS! Onlsaught was well nigh unplayable before, now it is !!OMFG!!11!!TEH SNAPPY!!! if you get my drift ... 

Please try and test, it's really simple! Edit your UT2004.ini: toggle useSound from True to False: that's it. Details at the link.


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## Viro (Mar 2, 2004)

The reason for this is because on PCs, the sound card does all the sound processing. That's why you've got cards like the Audigy2 and so on which have rather powerful processors on board.

Macs on the other hand don't have such sound cards, and thus the CPU has to take on the role of a sound card. Turning off sound isn't really an option. Why would you want to play a game without the sound?

The following link shows some performance graphs for UnrealTournament 2004. http://www.barefeats.com/ut2004.html


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## Cat (Mar 2, 2004)

> Turning off sound isn't really an option. Why would you want to play a game without the sound?


Erm ... well, if my choice is between playing a game and not being able to play it, I'd rather play without sound ... my fps went from ~5 to ~25: from unplayable to rather enjoyable! Moreover, UT2004 gives excellent visual feedback on the direction of enemy fire, so this compensates somewhat for no sound.

I'm quite happy with this tweak, as I now can finally play the bigger maps, onslaught and assault.


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## Zammy-Sam (Mar 2, 2004)

well, this is a demo. Would you pay $50 (?) for a game without sound?


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## Viro (Mar 2, 2004)

Good grief. You people are desperate to play UT2k3. I thought I was bad


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## Drizzt (Mar 2, 2004)

Turning the sound off to speed up the game is ridicoulous IMO.  Sound is the most basic thing in a game and if I have to turn it off just to see the game run the way it's sposed to, then Macsoft isn't getting any money from me on this one.  It takes me back to how horrid it was to play SNES emulators with the sound off on some older Macs that I once had.  The games were incredibly boring compared to when I had been able to play them on the real thing.  Even if it is fixed in the final version of the game I'm still very doubtful I'll buy it because I figure the other way that the performance will end up having problems on my machine is on big outdoor maps like ONS.  No thanks.  I want to play ONS and Assault at full speed so I'll just hold off and get a real gaming machine.


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## HateEternal (Mar 2, 2004)

Why hasnt apple done something about this.. just seems silly to not have independant sound cards if it is going to mean that much a performance boost.


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## Zammy-Sam (Mar 3, 2004)

UT2004 has some really impressive sound effects. I suppose they will reduce the effects to the max in the next patch or make a much better difference between high quality sound and low quality.


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## Viro (Mar 3, 2004)

HateEternal said:
			
		

> Why hasnt apple done something about this.. just seems silly to not have independant sound cards if it is going to mean that much a performance boost.



Well, in a dual proc system, the 2nd processor takes on the role of the sound card. Looks like we should all go out and buy dual G5s to play games. Maybe, that's what Apple wants 

Seriously, i don't know. Its not like they cost a lot or anything. Perhaps its because the sound card manufacturers don't support macs.


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## Damrod (Mar 3, 2004)

But I see it right, that I can not just go to the next PC vendor and buy a SoundCard and put it in my G4, as the onboard chip of the card is not compatible with my Mac? If thats the case, is there no way that could be altered?


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## diablojota (Mar 3, 2004)

The sound in the G5 is on-board.  This doens't necessarily mean it is using the processor for the sound.  In the G5's I believe this is not the case because of the higher technology involved with the optical sound.  However, with the G4 based systems, the processor may be having to do this grunt work. Stupid in my opinion, but such is life.  Hopefully Apple will eventually create an on-board sound card (or PCIx adaptation) so that they can reduce the number of tasks the processor needs to do.


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## Viro (Mar 3, 2004)

No. Look at the link I provided in some of the previous posts. The Single CPU G5 takes a big drop in framerates when sound is enabled, while the Dual G5s take a slight drop. It shows that one of the CPUs is being used for sound processing. Without a dual, your CPU does all the sound processing. 

On board sound has nothing to do with it. Its the lack of a dedicated sound processor that's doing the Mac game performance in. Integrated sound like the ones found on the NForce are superb. Its just shocking to see Apple not doing the same with their top of the line Apple G5s.


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## a2daj (Mar 3, 2004)

UT2K3 doesn't take nearly as big of a hit when sound is on as the UT2K4 demo takes (~5% to 40%).  So it would seem there's some issue with the sound code in UT2K4 that affects performance more than before.  It doesn't seem to be the OpenAL lib used in it so it might be the actual game sound code.

On PCs, there's usually a slight penality for playing with sound on even with DSPs.  I think some cards still cause up to 5-10% performance hits.


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## Viro (Mar 4, 2004)

That normally only happens when the DSP has to process more sound channels than it can support in hardware. Most of the new sound cards can handle at least 16 channels in hardware. The following page has the performance of the top of line PC soundcards. It shows the % of CPU used. http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/audigy2_versus_nforce2/page2.asp

One of these babies will definitely help Macs when running games.

No idea what they changed in the sound system going from UT2k3 to UT2k4. But whatever they did, it doesn't sound any different on my Powerbook.


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## hulkaros (Mar 11, 2004)

Here are some good news regarding UT2004...
http://www.insidemacgames.com/news/story.php?ID=9260

Viro remember: Good programming always helps!


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## Viro (Mar 11, 2004)

That's good news. But what bug is it?


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## Zammy-Sam (Mar 11, 2004)

I think using sound was the bug! 
Guess the patch will turn off the sound by default or we'll get the good old beep-sound back... 
Sorry for my sarcasm


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