Doom3 low fps?

[JoeyDoomas]

Hello, I tried the Demo of DOOM 3 and even on my recently bought computer (which is a laptop) I get low frames. The game auto-detects my computer for Medium quality and it still runs slow...

Anyone know what's going on? I wanted to play this game for a while..

BTW, this is on a Vista OS.

My specs:

System model: Vostro 1500
Manufacturer: Dell
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T7100 @ 1.80 GHz
Memory:2558 MB RAM
DirectX version: DirectX 10

Video card: NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Approx. total memory: 1141
Current display mode: 1280 X 800 (32 bit) (59Hz)

[ReFracture]

That 8400GS isn't gaming material, so I'm not surprised.

Even so, the game is from 2004.

What resolution are you trying to run it at?

[andrewj]

(a) try downloading and installing latest video drivers from nVidia's site

(b) try turning off FSAA (full screen anti-aliasing)

[wildweasel]

The 8400 should at least get you decent performance, though shared RAM could be interfering with that - my advice is the same though; go get newer drivers, and experiment with the screen resolution for a bit. I see no reason why you should be getting "low" frame rates with that setup.

[Reisal]

Turn shadows WAY DOWN or OFF if you can.

[Airman266]

Isn't 2.5gig of RAM kinda low for a Vista computer? If I recall Vista requires a ton of RAM just to run; doesn't leave alot left over for the game.

[Maes]

Weird, an nVidia 8400GS sould be more than enough for Doom 3, even with shared video ram. Hell, it runs fine even on my ATI Radeon 9600XT, and that's straight from 2003!

Make sure you're running on recent nVidia drivers (and not stock, unaccelerated VGA) and see if you can fix the amount of video RAM: Doom 3 runs fine with 256 MB of dedicated VRAM, but from the amount you're reporting you probably actually have 4 GB of total RAM but running on a 32-bit OS (32-bit Vista?) and thus any amount over 3GB is unreliable. Plus video RAM allocation is 100% dynamic, thus you have an unpredictable amount of video RAM being allocated from an unreliable memory pool.

The simplest solution might be downgrading to 2 GB of physical RAM.

[Bucket]

You know, I've had this problem my whole gaming life. Doesn't matter what game I'm playing or what hardware I'm running it on, it always starts to crawl when I get into firefights.

[Maes]

Now that I'm thinking about it, you must be running it on Ultra detail, that takes a fucking lot of VRAM (more than 512 MB). I wouldn't set it that high even on a laptop with an 8600 GT, if it didn't have as much VRAM.

Otherwise, Doom 3 runs even on an nVidia 5200 FX (tested).

Update: forgot that you mentioned medium detail -_-

[DoomsdayRooster]

Is this an integrated video card? That really might explain it all.

[DooMikE]

Hm, have you tried lowering the resolution to 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768? This can sometimes do the trick.
Maybe you have running background tasks/anti-virus hogging resources? ( KILL windows aero for Gods sake! )
Maybe you should try game boosting software like riva tuner ( or indeed GameBooster, but that new version have a "virus" that apparently fcuks up any software that uses pascal programming language, like Skype ) if you´re not comfortable closing tasks in taskmanager.

I play on this laptop:

AlfaNote JFL92 Laptop (custom built system).
Motherboard Chipset: Intel PM965 (Crestline-PM) + ICH8M.
IntelCoreDuo2 T9300 @ 2.50GHz.
4GB Kingston RAM, DDR2 SD-RAM PC5300 ~ 333.3MHz.
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT, 512 MB DDR2 SDRAM.
Audio: Intel 82801HB ICH8 - High Definition Audio.
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit, SP2.

(System not overclocked)

Ultra settings, AA and all and it clocks at a steady 60 FPS.

Best of luck

[Maes]

Well, to begin with, an 8600GM with 512 MB dedicated RAM is a far superior integrated GPU compared to an 8400 with (probably shared) memory. Ever since shared memory integrated switched to dynamic memory management, a lot of games have problems. Plus, Vista is just a huge fuckup for games if left at SP0 level, with the original drivers and DX 10. The fact that he's apparently using 4 GB on a 32-bit (?) Vista installation doesn't help, especially with shared video RAM.

Anyway, the OP has stopped giving feedback early on, so we're really digressing here. He either solved his problem, or plainly doesn't give a fuck anymore.

[Jonno8825]

I've heard this work a few times, though I have never done it myself. end the vista taskbar program, apparently that takes quite a bit of ram to run. I'm running an XP though, so just google it or something before screwing around with programs.

Good luck