Why does my Doom 3 run slow?

[Hellsspawn]

alright im running on 2.59 ghz
1 gig of ram
and a Geforce FX 5200 128MB graphics card and the game is running like a 56k'er on battlefield 1942

[ImAllOuttaBubbleGum]

do the following if u havent already:

download the latest nVIDIA driver and directX 9.0c.
then run the game and activate the console by Ctrl + Alt + ~key (above tab) and type without quotes "timedemo demo1.demo" which will run a benchmark and return a result in FPS (frames per second). Run the benchmark once more and then record your result and post it here.

your video card should allow you to run in Medium Quality 800x600 at least. if you want better frame rates i suggest turning off Shadows in Advanced Settings in Doom 3, and then going to your nVIDIA driver settings located in your taskbar (a little logo icon) and change the default "Quality" to "High Performance". doing the above should grant you 10-15 more frames. another way is by overclocking your video card which will give you a few more frames but it can lead to trouble so id only recommend this only if you know what your doing!

another option would be getting a better video card. i hear 5200's arent great cards for cutting-edge games like doom3.

good luck

[NightmareZer0]

Reformatting greatly helped my proformance.

[Doom nerd]

thanks ImAllOuttaBubbleGum. i have the same settings as he did and i did what you told him to do. and walla it runs a a good FPS. i think 28.9 after the test. is that good? i know i barly get frame lag. well any ways thanks!!

[SyntherAugustus]

28.8 is playable but it's really not a good fps to be happy about. If you get a better video card (like a 5700U+) you should be fine.

[Doom nerd]

do you know what the normal FPS is for DOOm3? and ill be getting a new video card next mounth.(once my paycheck comes in)

[Serph]

got a good performance on my system, there is only 1 problem, if i open a door the system slows down very hard, its like the game is stuck for half a second or so. Any suggestions how to make that stop?

specs of my pc:

P4 2,5 GHZ
1 gig ram
Gforce FX 5900 ultra

[Verdale]

How many MB of DDR memory you got on that 5900?

And I have:

P4-HT @ 2.4 GhZ
512 MB DDR RAM
NVidia GeForce FX 5200 128 MB DDR

And run Doom 3 on Medium quality at 640x480 resolution and get a good solid 40 FPS during most of the game, about 25-30 in Hell.

[KLittle123]

Hellsspawn said:

alright im running on 2.59 ghz
1 gig of ram
and a Geforce FX 5200 128MB graphics card and the game is running like a 56k'er on battlefield 1942

Its the card man...5200 sort of suck...my friend got one that was a FX 5200 and it was 256mb and it lagged like crap.

[Verdale]

The 5200's are a waste of money in their 256 MB edition, might as well get a 5900 with 256 MB, almost the same price anyways.

[Terra]

Serph said:

got a good performance on my system, there is only 1 problem, if i open a door the system slows down very hard, its like the game is stuck for half a second or so. Any suggestions how to make that stop?

specs of my pc:

P4 2,5 GHZ
1 gig ram
Gforce FX 5900 ultra

Unzip all the pak files into the base directory stops the sticking.

Problem is they are huge when u unpack them. the reason for freezing is the game is loading the textures fromt he zipped files which takes longer than when files are available iunzipped.

Backup everything before you do this though.

[Verdale]

It could also be from your video card swapping graphics. If you have a 256 MB card, and run on ultra, it could do this. Or if you have a 128 MB card, and run it on high, it could do this. The thing is, that Doom III's textures are very detailed, thus larger in size. Your video card lags the first few seconds of a game because it has to render all the graphics into your card's memory. Then, with the textures already loaded on there, it doesn't have to re-render those graphics anymore, increasing framerate.

However, when you get to a door, it usually open to a different area with new textures and graphics. If you video card's memory is already filled, then your graphics card will have to swap the graphics. It would have to unload the graphics from it's memory, and load the new ones. This could take from almost one second to thirty second, depending on the CPU of your graphics card. This, also, could be the reason you're expierencing the freezing after opening doors...

Or at least I think that's how it works... somethin' like that.