Help: slow on i810

[Jenya]

Hello,

I have a p4 2.93 GHz @ 533 MHz cpu with an integrated intel graphics media accelerator 900. With 512 DDR PC 3200 RAM. I'm running ubuntu 6.06 on 1280X1024 resolution. When I run Planeshift even at a low resolution the game crawls and is unplayable. I'm just wondering if anyone can help me resolve this issue?

Thank you in advance.

[DaveG]

For starters, the name is PlaneShift...

[Xordan]

Sounds like your graphics card is the problem there. You won't be able to run many games with a integrated graphics card.

[Rolf Blacksmith]

3D acceleration working?

you can type "glxinfo" in a console. Look into the first lines of the output. If there is "Direct Rendering: No", then your system doesn't use the graphic chip's capabilities.

[Jenya]

Fixed the issue by changing the game resolution to 640X480 and changing the Unubntu desktopto boot at 16 bit resolution instead of 24bit

[Induane]

Hmmm performance in the game engine should actually be worse with 16 bit color.  I'm guessing that the issue is texture memory allocation.  Try booting into your bios)CMOS)  usually by hitting the del or F2 key during boot.  Look around for options that allow you to allocate more memory to video.  Try upping it a power of two - so if its 16 - go to 32 if its 32 go to 64.  As long as you have plenty of system memory this shouldn't hurt.  Then try bumping color depth back to 24 bit and see if it works better.

[Jenya]

Hmmm performance in the game engine should actually be worse with 16 bit color.  I'm guessing that the issue is texture memory allocation.  Try booting into your bios)CMOS)  usually by hitting the del or F2 key during boot.  Look around for options that allow you to allocate more memory to video.  Try upping it a power of two - so if its 16 - go to 32 if its 32 go to 64.  As long as you have plenty of system memory this shouldn't hurt.  Then try bumping color depth back to 24 bit and see if it works better.

The game actually runs fast for me under 16 bit. It's completely unplayble under 24 bit. In terms of video mem allocation, I've changed that in the bios and the performance is better. Also adding a memory hole in the bios seems to increase performance.

[moritz]

I can confirm on Debian testing/unstable. Changing DefaultDepth in xorg.conf from 24 to 16 makes the game playable to me. With 24 it was way too slow.

[bilbous]

Take a look for this file: README.i810, in my distribution it is at /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/doc/ but I am not using ubuntu. It might have a different name but probably is the same.
Among other things mine says this:
8.  Known Limitations

   o No 3D support in this release.

this would likely be a problem.

[sylmael]

Hello,
my girlfriend had problems with an i810 based card, and the solution we found (which made PS run perfectly), was to put her desktop as well as PS in 16bit...

[Induane]

Must be  a quirk of the card. Live and learn.

[Ralleyon]

The graphics card is not the best I've seen but it can support big resolutions and work very well in terms of performance... but there's a catch.

You see, I have the same graphics card on my laptop as well. Under Linux I'm experiencing the same problems and I see no workaround for it since we simply don't have an adequate driver. On Windows, it runs PERFECTLY. So, who's with me to go to Intel's door armed with some forks and axes tomorrow, ey?

Seriously, under Linux, if I want to run the game I have to decrease resolution, colour depth, etc to work, just as you all stated. But the best workaround for this is... (I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M SAYING THIS  ) is to run Windows. For PlaneShift, I made a sacrifice... and it was worth it from my point of view.

Now for a more permanent sollution and which doesn't restrict your choice of OS anymore is to buy an actual graphics card that can support Planeshift without problems - NVidia and ATI cards come to mind.

[sylmael]

Ralleyon, I agree with you when you advise to buy a Nvidia or Radeaon card, but I'm afraid the motherboard won't have any AGP port if it already has an integrated graphic card, and that's the case of my girlfriend, I may be wrong though...

[Induane]

You see, I have the same graphics card on my laptop as well. Under Linux I'm experiencing the same problems and I see no workaround for it since we simply don't have an adecquate driver. On Windows, it runs PERFECTLY. So, who's with me to go to Intel's door armed with some forks and axes tomorrow, ey?

Ummm they released open source drivers already...

http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edgy#How_to_install_Graphics_Driver_.28Intel.29

That shows how to install it on ubuntu although you can tweak the instructions for any OS.  Make sure you install alien first   This helps with performance tremendously on these cards. 

It does say "Note: This driver is for Intel® 82830M, 82845G, 82852GM, 82855GM, 82865G, and 82915G/GM graphics controller-based products only. " 

But I think the intel i810 falls into this category.

[bilbous]

Ralleyon, I agree with you when you advise to buy a Nvidia or Radeaon card, but I'm afraid the motherboard won't have any AGP port if it already has an integrated graphic card, and that's the case of my girlfriend, I may be wrong though...

A lot of them do, I have a geforce4 onboard but I also have the agp port. If you don't want to open the box to find out look up the mb on the manufacturers website or you should have received the MB manual and it will say. If you bought it put together the parts should be listed on the invoice. If that isn't the case you can often find out from the bios printout at boot although that will take more effort as you have to search the bios code on the net.