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QIII uses 100% CPU
Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 2:18 pm
by [dbD]Narc
When I run Quake III (Demo, Arena, of Team Arena) it consumes 100 % of my CPU-usage. My configuration should easily be able to play the game with some CPU to spare. The configuration is:
AMD XP2000+
1Gb DDR Memory
Radeon 9800Pro
Etc.
Does anyone have an idea to resolve this problem?
edit: I installed the QIIIGold package with Point Release 1.32 and 1.32c.
Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 3:37 pm
by Foo
Set com_maxfps to 125
Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 4:19 pm
by AmIdYfReAk
you cant be serious.....
you think the more power that you have the Less CPU that it uses? Sorry, but that is wrong..
And i am kinda curious, What is the reason that it bothers you that its using 100% cpu?
Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 4:38 pm
by Captain
Aye, it seems normal for a CPU like that.
Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 4:56 pm
by Tormentius
Yeah a 2000+ is hardly a high-end CPU. I would guess thats normal as well.
Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 7:43 pm
by [dbD]Narc
Thank you for your replies.
It just suprised me that a game that should run on a PII consumes all the CPU bandwidth of a much more modern proc (altough it is not a high-end CPU). I thought the GPU would take over most of the work.
I tried com_maxfps and although the command works, it makes no difference in CPU-usage. I also tried running the game at the lowest settings.
The thing that made me think that something was wrong I haven't mentioned yet; In the menu, before entering an arena (either in single or multi-play) the CPU is also at 100 % usage. I would have guessed that the system would be more or less idle in a simple menu. This is at least the case with more modern and demanding games.
To answer AmIdYfReAk's question (And i am kinda curious, What is the reason that it bothers you that its using 100% cpu?); it disturbs other apps running in the background.
Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:24 pm
by ^misantropia^
Q3A enters an infinite loop upon starting, i.e. it keeps executing the same command sequence over and over. In twenty years time, when multi-terahertz CPUs have become the norm, Q3A will still keep your CPU pegged at 100%.
Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 11:24 pm
by dzjepp
/exec stupidquestion.cfg
How come you can run like 3 copies of q3 with 125fps each then if the cpu is supposedly loaded at 100% with just 1?

Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 11:37 pm
by ^misantropia^
Because part of the game loop consists of wasting CPU cycles until the next frame needs to be rendered. In pseudo-code, it'd look something like this:
Code: Select all
frame_duration = 1000 / com_maxfps; // frame time in milliseconds
while (1) {
frame_start = time();
render_frame();
while (time() < frame_start + frame_duration) {
// idle
}
}
Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 12:25 am
by +JuggerNaut+
misantropia's cranial turret gives me a stiffy.
Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 12:52 am
by Captain
olo
Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 6:06 am
by [dbD]Narc
^misantropia^ wrote:Q3A enters an infinite loop upon starting, i.e. it keeps executing the same command sequence over and over. In twenty years time, when multi-terahertz CPUs have become the norm, Q3A will still keep your CPU pegged at 100%.
This implies that everyone playing QIII has a CPU-usage of a 100%. Can some of you verify this?

Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 6:42 am
by Captain
I see that you have 47 processes running. I bet 75% of those are absolutely useless and will save a lot of your PF and CPU.
Dual-core will obviously not spike to 100% over Q3.
Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 9:00 am
by AmIdYfReAk
that is because quake 3 was built to use the old SMP code, two proc's makes q3 use 50% to get 100%..
Kinda supid really...
Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 9:22 am
by Captain
It's those processes I'm more worried about. He's got 47 running with a "meh" CPU and lots of pagefile used up :/
Perhaps a little visit to msconfig would sort that out

Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 1:14 pm
by [dbD]Narc
Captain Mazda wrote:It's those processes I'm more worried about. He's got 47 running with a "meh" CPU and lots of pagefile used up :/
Perhaps a little visit to msconfig would sort that out

When the system is idle it takes a few procent CPU (with all those processes running), but probably alot of other resources. Most processes are labeled Microsoft :-( (in MSconfig). Maybe it's time for a fresh install :-) Hehe, or QII.
Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 11:08 am
by Eraser
[dbD]Narc wrote: Hehe, or QII.
You don't really understand it yet.
Quake II would take 100% CPU as well. That's just because of the way the engine works. Windows will take care of executing multiple threads (in really corner-cutting laymans terms "multiple programs") that take 100% CPU time simoultaniously.
The fact that Quake 3 takes up a 100% CPU time isn't anything to worry about, it's supposed to do that. And still, a CPU running at 100% is not necessarily a bad thing anyway.
Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 11:18 am
by Foo
[dbD]Narc wrote:^misantropia^ wrote:Q3A enters an infinite loop upon starting, i.e. it keeps executing the same command sequence over and over. In twenty years time, when multi-terahertz CPUs have become the norm, Q3A will still keep your CPU pegged at 100%.
This implies that everyone playing QIII has a CPU-usage of a 100%. Can some of you verify this?

Yep. Plays fine too, no problems. Can run winamp and P2P in the background without any issues.
Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 12:00 pm
by Eraser
I see one issue there though, and it's called promode

Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 2:35 pm
by [dbD]Narc
Thanks all !! It is crystalclear now :icon26: