Performance Tweaks
This article relates to performance issues for players. For performance information for mappers, see Performance: Essential Must-Knows
Show FPS
First, you can check how many FPS are achieved by opening the console with Ctrl+Alt+~ (tilde, ^ on German keyboards) and type:
com_showFPS 1
Show Position
To identify the locations where problems are found, use these two cvars to render the positions as an overlay display while playing.
Open the console with Ctrl+Alt+~ (tilde, ^ on German keyboards) and type:
g_showviewpos 1 con_noPrint 0
Stop Time
Moving and Thinking can impact performance in unexpected ways.
When comparing graphical settings it might be best to "Stop Time" so that the entire scene is frozen
and the FPS changes due to graphics options can be more easily compared.
Open the console with Ctrl+Alt+~ (tilde, ^ on German keyboards) and type:
g_stopTime 1
Optimizing the OS performance
Linux UEFI Secure Boot
With Secure Boot enabled in the BIOS, most Linux distros will fallback to (slow) open drivers
and wont have access to most hardware acceleration features. Disable Secure Boot for the best performance.
Stop running programs in the background
Programs running in the background might either eat up memory that is needed for Doom 3 The Dark Mod, and thus cause swapping to the hard disk, or they might consume CPU time or other resources.
This can cause either general slowdowns or hickups during game play.
Ensure that Programs are the main priority in the OS
To begin the process, type sysdm.cpl in Run box (Windows + R) and hit Enter to open the System Properties.
Select the Advanced tab and under Performance, click on Settings.
In the Performance Options box, select the Advanced Tab again.
You will see a section Processor Scheduling
Choose "Programs" then click Apply.
White-list TheDarkMod.exe in Security Software
Make sure that Windows Defender or Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, etc aren't constantly scanning or interacting
with TheDarkMod.exe. Add it to your security white-list.
Windows 10 Granular Security Options
With new attacks like Meltdown and Spectre, Windows 10 has added CPU architecture specific security fixes.
Many of these have performance impacts. The impact is mostly on Storage access so loading times would
normally be the only casualty of these changes. Still, it's possible that these protections might interfere
with The Dark Mod in other ways.
Please review:
and disable the security options you feel are excessive.
Priority and Affinity
Set TheDarkMod to High Priority
- Launch TheDarkMod
(Note: Do not start a mission or test map yet. If the 3D render is initialized it will take a long time to exit fullscreen and return to it.)
- Alt + Enter to exit fullscreen
- Ctrl + Alt + Del to open your Task Manager
Right-click on TheDarkMod.exe the choose "Go to Details"
- (On the details\processes pane)
Right-click on TheDarkMod.exe and mouse-over Set Priority and choose High
- Alt + Enter to return to fullscreen
You can also edit your Desktop shortcut to start in High priority:
Right-click your Desktop shortcut to TheDarkMod and select Properties
- On the Shortcut Tab enter the following into the "Target:" field
cmd.exe /c start "TheDarkMod" /High "C:\darkmod\TheDarkMod.exe"
(Assuming you installed into C:\darkmod)
- Then
click the Change Icon button and browse for the Darkmod.ico icon in your darkmod install path
Click Apply
Set TheDarkMod Affinity
If you have a limited number of cores or heavy background tasks are always consuming the default cores, you can set The Dark Mod to run on a specific core via "affinity"
- Launch TheDarkMod
- Alt + Enter to exit fullscreen
(Note: Do not start a mission or test map yet. If the 3D render is initialized it will take a long time to exit fullscreen and return to it.)
- Ctrl + Alt + Del to open your Task Manager
- Click the Performance Tab and look at the CPU display to see which cores are the least busy
- (On Windows 10, click the "Open Resource Monitor" link and then click the CPU tab and expand the right pane)
- Close the Resource Monitor and click the Processes Tab in Task Manager
Right-click on TheDarkMod.exe the choose "Go to Details"
- (On the details\processes pane)
Right-click on TheDarkMod.exe
- Mouse-over then click "Set Affinity" and uncheck cores you want to prevent TDM from using
- Alt + Enter to return to fullscreen
As with Priority you can set Affinity in your shortcut.
Example Target:
cmd.exe /c start "TheDarkMod" /affinity 1 "C:\darkmod\TheDarkMod.exe"
The affinity number is not matched to the number in your performance screen. For example "Core 0" in Task Manager is affinity 1. The values are in Hex but are converted from binary where 1 represents an active core and 0 is disabled in a descending order.
For example: Binary 1110 means Core 3, 2, and 1 are enabled while Core 0 is disabled. Converting from Binary to Hex gives you /affinty E. This is a useful config if the majority of your processes are running on Core 0. FE for an 8 core chip would accomplish the same result.
Another useful option is 0101 /affinity 5 which will select core 0 and 2 which are "real" cores in a Hyperthreading environment.
- Core 0 is 1
- Core 1 is 2
- Core 2 is 4
- Core 3 is 8
- Core 4 is 10
- Core 5 is 20
- Core 6 is 40
- Core 7 is 80
- Core 8 is 100
- Core 9 is 200
- Core 10 is 400
- Core 11 is 800
Again, the core number does not exclude hyperthread cores so if you have an 8 Core \ 16 thread CPU you must count all real and hyperthread virtual cores when setting affinity.
Combined Example
You can include both priority and affinity switches in your shortcut
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start "TheDarkMod" /High /affinity 5 "C:\darkmod\TheDarkMod.exe" +r_softShadowsRadius 2.5 +r_useEntityCulling 1
Start TheDarkMod with high priority on Cores 0 and 2 (real cores) and add two launch cvars ( See Conventions).
As you can see, you can make a huge launch string but once you go past 2 or 3 cvars it's best to
use Darkmod.cfg unless you wish to make multiple launchers for testing (etc).
Process Management Note
You can also either "End Task" on processes that you know you don't need or set them to "below normal" or "low" priority.
Moving these low priority processes to a different core via affinity is also an option.
Some processes, such as OneDrive.exe (which is integrated into the OS) will keep restarting so it's best to set these to "low priority"
If you are unsure what a process does, do not change it until you've researched the process.
Disable Desktop Effects
(If you are willing to sacrifice you desktop visual behavior and effects for better TDM performance. Note: This can be reverted.)
To begin the process, type sysdm.cpl in Run box (Windows + R) and hit Enter to open the System Properties.
Select the Advanced tab and under Performance, click on Settings.
In the Performance Options box, select the Visual Effects tab.
Check "Adjust for Best Performance" then click Apply.
Driver Considerations
(IdTech4) The Dark Mod is based on OpenGL 2.0. GPU manufacturers have largely ignored
issues with this older specification so a number of workarounds have been compiled
by the community to attend to erroneous behaviors or poor performance.
(AMD\ATI) Disable Catalyst AI
2018: The latest Radeon Crimson and Adrenalin Drivers:
Surface Format Optimization = OFF
Disable Catalyst AI in recent AMD Drivers
(AMD\ATI) Rename the executable
Most modern drivers have built-in profiles for the executable names of commercial games.
Renaming TheDarkMod.exe to the name of a commercial OpenGL game may gain you some optimizations
or even a Crossfire profile (I believe DarkAthena.exe had one.)
Known working renames:
DarkAthena.exe (thus far the most consistent improvement)
Wolf2MP.exe
Amnesia.exe
Brink.exe
Prey.exe
(Nvidia) Optimus Laptop wont use your Nvidia GPU
See also: [1]
Many Laptops now have the ability to use the GPU that is built into the CPU when not "gaming".
Unfortunately, sometimes the drivers for these Laptops don't detect TDM as a "game".
The easiest solution is to create a Driver Profile for TheDarkMod.exe or TheDarkModx64.exe in your driver settings.
- Right click
anywhere on your desktop where no icon is shown
- Left Click
Nvidia Control Panel
- Then Click on the Programs Tab
- Click "Add" and browse for TheDarkMod.exe or TheDarkModx64.exe
- Then scroll down the settings list and find "OpenGL Rendering GPU"
- Then select your Nvidia GPU from the list of options
(Nvidia) Disable Index Buffers
seta r_useIndexBuffers "0"
in Darkmod.cfg
(Notes: This tweak is the default in v2.05 and newer)
OBSOLETE: This setting no longer exists in 2.08
(Nvidia) Disable the Streamer Service
Open your run dialog (Windows + R) or command prompt and type services.msc
On the Extended Tab locate "Nvidia Streamer Network Service"
Right-click it and choose "Stop"
Once the service is stopped, right click it again and choose Properties
On the General Tab set Startup Type = Disabled then click Apply.
Do the same for "Nvidia Streamer Service"
Do the same for "Nvidia Telemetry" service(s).
Note: There is a GUI option to disable streaming in the newest Geforce Experience settings page.
You would still be advised to disable the Telemetry service for extra performance.
You can also perform these steps for any services that you know can be manually started
or are not needed for your daily usage. (Obviously) Do not disable any service that you don't
recognize or know is safe to disable.
NEW INFO:
The Nvidia Streamer Service is now tied to the "Geforce Experience" "In-Game Overlay" setting.
Disabling that feature in Geforce Experience should accomplish the same as the above.
(Nvidia) Disable Threaded Optimizations
Open Nvidia Control Panel ->
Manage 3D Settings ->
Bottom half of list locate "Threaded Optimization" <-- Set to NO / Off
Also set "Multi-display/Mixed GPU acceleration" to "Single display performance mode"
This can also reduce or eliminate driver crashes or rendering anomalies.
- Note: This might be obsolete information.
With the latest Nvidia drivers, some users have reported that disabling Threaded Optimizations
has significantly reduced performance. (Down from 60 to 25FPS in one case.)
Lower in-driver quality settings
AMD, Nvidia, and Intel all give users the option to lower texture quality and
also have various quality "optimization" levels for texture LOD Bias and Anisotropy (Filtering).
Try different driver versions
Sometimes updating to the latest driver version or reverting to an older version
will improve performance. Try a few revisions or ask about known good driver versions.
This applies to both GPU drivers and "Motherboard Chipset Drivers".
See also Upgrade your BIOS
Optimizing Dark Mod settings
The settings changes below generally can be changed independently of one another.
This means that if your want better settings in one aspect (such as AA) you can
try reducing quality or disabling another aspect (such as post-processing, image_downsize, v-sync, etc)
Conventions
Most of the changes demonstrated in this article are via "Console variables" CVARS.
The "seta" prefix is intended to save these settings permanently so that they are retained on restart and that is what is used by Darkmod.cfg.
seta r_softShadowsRadius "2"
Temporary Testing
To temporarily test any settings, you can drop the "seta" and simply invoke the cvar and it's value (without double quotes) in the console.
Example:
Open the console with Ctrl+Alt+~ (tilde, ^ on German keyboards) and type:
r_softShadowsRadius 2
Note: Some CVAR changes in the console, such as vid_mode (resolution), r_multisamples (AA), r_swapInterval (V-Synch), image_anisotropy (AF)
cannot be changed without also invoking vid_restart.
NEW: As of TDM 2.07, almost all conventional settings can be altered without restarting the engine!
See also: Toggle settings in realtime
Launch Options
You can also add the value as part of your of your target in your shortcut:
Example with two cvars:
Right click your Desktop shortcut to TheDarkMod and select Properties
- On the Shortcut Tab enter the following into the "Target:" field
"C:\darkmod\TheDarkMod.exe" +r_softShadowsRadius 2 1 +r_useEntityCulling 1
(Assuming you installed into C:\darkmod)
- Then
click the Change Icon button and browse for the Darkmod.ico icon in your darkmod install path
Click Apply
See also Set TheDarkMod to High Priority
Enable Multi-Core (new in v2.06)
In 2.06 the engine splits the Frontend and Backend into separate threads if you enable the Experimental "Multi-Core" setting in the Advanced Video settings GUI menu.
seta com_smp "1"
in Darkmod.cfg
Uncap FPS (New in v2.06)
Run one game tick per graphics frame, rather than fixed 60 ticks per second. (Limited to 166hz) In 2.06 this is now a GUI option "Uncap FPS" in the Advanced Video settings GUI menu.
seta com_fixedTic "1"
in Darkmod.cfg
Lower or Disable Soft Shadows (New in v2.06)
In the advanced videos settings menu set the Soft Shadows quality slider to low or off
seta r_softShadowsQuality = 0
in Darkmod.cfg
Note 1:
(OBSOLETE)
In game Anti-aliasing should be disabled when using Soft Shadows on Nvidia hardware.
Use FXAA in your driver settings instead.
NEW:
TDM 2.07 allow Nvidia user to use real MSAA with FBO mode
Note 2:
(OBSOLETE)
For many players the only way to achieve substantial shadow softness in the GUI is to
set quality to High or better. This causes the misleading perception that soft shadows
are too expensive for most hardware.
To improve shadow softness without increasing the quality setting, set:
seta r_softShadowsRadius 2.0
You can experiment with values between 1.5 and 3.5 or more.
(The "softness" slider is now included in 2.07 GUI)
Change Shadow Mode (New 2.07)
In TDM 2.07 we offer two different "Shadow Implementation" options in the GUI.
- Maps (Shadow Maps)
- Stencil (Stencil Shadow Volumes)
Shadow Maps can perform better in scenes with fewer but larger light sources
and less small shadow casters. Big areas + Big Lights + Shadow Maps = HIGH FPS
seta r_shadows "2"
Shadow Map Size
The larger the Shadow Map texture, the more detail and less artifacts you have further away
from the light center or for small objects. Conversely, smaller Shadow Map textures perform better.
seta r_shadowMapSize "384"
Max Light Size
The larger the light, the more Shadow Map resolution you need (see Shadow Map Size).
There are some lights so large that Shadows will never look good without insane texture sizes.
You can set a threshold to say if lights are bigger than X, use Stencil Shadows.
seta r_maxShadowMapLight "1500"
Disable Post-Processing
In the advanced video settings menu make sure post-processing is disabled
seta r_postprocess "0"
in Darkmod.cfg
OBSOLETE as of 2.08!!!
Use r_bloom 0 instead.
Lower Anti-aliasing
In the standard video settings, set AA to a lower value or 0
seta r_multiSamples "0"
in Darkmod.cfg
(Note: Nvidia's in driver FXAA anti-aliasing setting is substantially faster than the multi-samples settings
in game.
Doom 3 is far less susceptible to AA artifacts so this may be an acceptable alternative especially if you are are running the game at native resolution (or nearly native).
AMD has MLAA which may also work well in the same way.)
LATEST DEVELOPMENT:
2.07 allows Nvidia users to use real MSAA with FBO mode
(OBSOLETE)
When Nvidia hardware owners enable Soft Shadows in 2.06, this forces "Frame Buffer Objects" (r_useFBO 1) to be active.
FBO does not work with MSAA in 2.06 so as a workaround MSAA settings are converted to Resolution Scaling factors (r_fboResolution x.x).
Resolution scaling is MUCH more expensive than MSAA.
We recommend the following options:
- 1) Disable MSAA when using Soft Shadows and use FXAA, MLAA, or SMAA in your driver instead
- 2) Disable FBO using the follwing switches
r_nvidiaOverride 0 r_useFBO 0
Note: Disabling FBO will result in flickering shadows on some "noSelfShadows" objects.
Run The Dark Mod in fullscreen
Running Darkmod in windowed mode might be quite a bit slower than fullscreen mode.
One reason for this is that windowed mode is forced to V-sync. ( See Disable V-sync )
seta r_fullscreen "1"
in Darkmod.cfg
Disable V-sync
In the standard video settings, disable vsync
seta r_swapInterval "0"
in Darkmod.cfg
NEW INFO!!!!
Setting r_swapInterval "-1" enables "Adaptive Vsync" which only performs the sync action when you are at or above refresh rate.
This has much less performance impact.
The Dark Mod has extremely variable FPS compared to modern titles due to it's substantial CPU heavy renderer.
We strongly recommend disabling V-Sync altogether or forcing variable V-sync tech such as
G-Sync, Freesync, Fast-Sync or Enhanced Sync (new) in your driver settings.
Force Refresh Timing
(Related to vsync)
Some newer video cards may not properly report the refresh rate to this engine (typically digital output like DVI, HDMI, or DisplayPort) This can cause lag, stutter, and uneven frame pacing.
create an autoexec.cfg in your darkmod directory and set:
seta r_displayRefresh "60"
(Obviously increase to match your available mode.)
Set Object Detail to Low
In the advanced video settings menu lower the Object detail slider below normal
seta tdm_lod_bias "0.5"
in Darkmod.cfg (see also Object_detail )
Set the ambient shading to "Faster"
Inside the settings, change the ambient rendering method to "Faster".
seta tdm_ambient_method "1"
in Darkmod.cfg
(Note: Some preliminary tests in v2.05 show that the Enhanced Ambient is now faster than the "fast" texture based Ambient.)
Set the interaction.vfp to "Standard"
In the video settings menu, change the interaction shader to Standard. Lighting will not look as good, but you may gain a few frames per second.
seta tdm_interaction_vfp_type "0"
in Darkmod.cfg
In 2.08 this setting is "r_interactionProgram".
Reduce your resolution!
On older cards, Doom 3's TDM's render engine is very expensive for every per pixel drawn, and reducing the resolution will help the most. For instance, at 1600x1200 the game needs to draw four times as many pixels as when running 800x600. The result with 800x600 will not look as bad as one might think – but the frame rate improvements might make it much more playable.
If you cannot set the resolution you want in the settings menu then enter it in Darkmod.cfg.
To edit Darkmod.cfg:
- Uninstall any current mission in the New Mission menu.
- Close Dark Mod
- Edit Darkmod.cfg in the darkmod folder
- Re-install the mission.
- Whenever you UNinstall and install another mission, these changes will migrate to those FMs as well.
(Alternatively, edit both the Darkmod.cfg in the darkmod folder AND the one in the current FM game folder, eg, fms\chalice.)
Search down for these cvars first and replace them with the values shown:
seta r_mode "-1" seta r_customHeight "640" seta r_customWidth "480"
alternate for wide screen monitors:
16:9 ratio
seta r_mode "-1" seta r_customwidth "1280" seta r_customheight "720" seta r_aspectratio "1"
See also: Resolutions
Note: The r_nvidiaOverride cvar forces Nvidia hardware with Soft Shadows to r_useFBO 1.
This will force resolution to native resolution.
Lower your Render Scale (New 2.07)
The new "Render Scale" slider in 2.07 allows you to reduce the internal resolution that TDM
will render to. Lowering this has a similar performance impact as lowering your resolution
but may have less visual degradation as the down-scaled pixels as bilinear filtered.
(Below 65% of native resolution, the filtering makes the scene very blurry.)
seta r_fboResolution "0.85"
Note: With the r_fboResolution CVAR, you can also do the opposite...
You can ALSO render to a HIGHER THAN NATIVE resolution and the down-scaled output will look sorta like SSAA.
This is VERY expensive so we recommend going no higher than r_fboResolution 1.5.
Field of View Decrease
Note that this setting might occasionally produce odd effects such as a grabbed object seems to move a little on release.
You can get a performance improvement if you decrease the field of view. By default this is 90 degrees but you might try entering in the console:
g_fov 85
or
seta g_fov "85"
in Darkmod.cfg
In addition, if you are playing a mission that is too good to miss and reach a very low performance area which is almost unplayable on your machine, you might consider setting the field of view extremely low temporarily to get you through then restore to 90 later...
g_fov 50
or bind a toggle
bind "z" "toggle g_fov 50 90";
in Darkmod.cfg so you can tap a key to go between FOV ranges.
See Toggle Settings in Realtime
Note from Fidcal: I have played comfortably on g_fov 75 and even think perhaps it makes nearby objects more realistically close so you can get right up to a table, etc. Not noticed any problem with restricted view.
Lower Anisotropic Filtering
In the standard video settings, lower or disable AF
seta image_anisotropy "0"
in Darkmod.cfg
Note: This has very little performance benefit for most GPU hardware.
This is also one of the few graphic settings that can be adjusted without requiring a
vid_restart or restarting the engine.
Slow loading times
Loading times for The Dark Mod are known to be on the long side. The main culprit is that the engine encodes mip-maps
when loading textures. In the future, we may be able to address this by compressing the normal maps or encoding them
in a format that includes mip-maps.
Some users have reported modest benefits to loading time when upgrading to an SSD but given the bottle-neck above CPU
and RAM upgrades would likely be more beneficial.
Sometimes, beyond the normal expectation of slow loading, the load times are egregiously slow. In those cases it's
best to review the tuning options and workarounds below.
If you find an FM is very slow to load it may be an ATI graphics card problem. One report says this was cured by turning off Catalyst AI. Also cures HDR-Lite Post-Processing Problems.
Changing the following settings to 0 will also reduce loading time, but be warned: if you have a lower-end system, poor graphics card, or low ram, you will likely notice a performance hit ingame since you will now be using uncompressed textures.
seta image_useNormalCompression "0" seta image_useCompression "0"
NEW INFO: The Dark Mod has never really used Normal Map compression because it is incompatible with heightmap images
and it produces nasty artifacts for the texture scales we use.
The current builds have had the RXGB swizzle disabled as of at least 2.0 standalone. (Probably as of v1.08 when the GPL executable sources were released.)
There is no benefit to enabling normal map compression currently so feel free to set this to 0.
The above "NEW INFO" appears to be wrong and is under investigation. Enabling normal map compression seems to reduce VRAM usage even though we don't natively use it.
NEW INFO 2: v2.05 will have a new image_mipmapmode cvar. 0 = Software (original), 1 = Legacy GL, 2 Modern (default).
This will offload Mipmap generation to the video driver. Depending on the quality of your GPU driver this may improve or
degrade texture loading performance. In my testing, mode 2 is a little slower than mode 0 on initial load but is substantially
faster on reload or loading new FM's that use the same textures )
Note: Disabling compression may lead to Malloc errors due to memory consumption.
You may be able to compensate by setting image_downsize options or use image_downsize instead of disabling compression. Image Downsizing
See RGTC Normal Map Compression (hint hint)
The game is very slow!
If you get less than 10 FPS, or the game even stutters, please try this:
Look into your Darkmod.cfg inside your darkmod folder and check that the following settings are like shown below:
seta r_fboResolution "1" seta image_usePrecompressedTextures "1" seta image_useNormalCompression "1" seta image_useAllFormats "1" seta image_useCompression "1" seta image_preload "1" seta r_useCachedDynamicModels "1" seta r_useShadowVertexProgram "1" seta r_useEntityCulling "1"
NEW INFO: The Dark Mod has never really used Normal Map compression because it is incompatible with heightmap images
and it produces nasty artifacts for the texture scales we use.
The current builds have had the RXGB swizzle disabled as of at least 2.0 standalone. (Probably as of v1.08 when the GPL executable sources were released.)
There is no benefit to enabling normal map compression currently so feel free to set this to 0 as shown above.
(The above "NEW INFO" must be wrong somehow as disabling Normal Compression leads to significant VRAM usage. To be determined.)
Note: image_preload can increase the memory usage at load time, some lowend users have disabled this ( 0 ) to get past malloc errors for going over your memory limits.
Lightgem Calculation Optimizations
Lightgem interleaved calculation
By default lightgem calculation occurs every frame. You can set lightgem calculation to happen only once
per several frames by setting tdm_lg_interleave console parameter to values higher than 1.
For example, typing:
tdm_lg_interleave 3
in console tells TDM to recalculate lightgem value every third frame.
This tweak can increase average FPS, but it often produces noticeable stuttering, especially on slow machines when your FPS is below 25 to 30FPS.
Lightgem interleave minimum FPS
In TDM 2.05 there is a new tdm_lg_interleave_min cvar that allows you to set a cutoff point for FPS below which the Lightgem Interleave optimization takes effect. It is set to 40 by default. If your FPS goes below 40 then tdm_lg_interleave returns to the default value of 1 internally to prevent stutter. Depending on your sensitivity you may wish to increase this to 50 or more.
tdm_lg_interleave_min 40
As the cost of lightgem calculation is (also) substantially lower in v2.05 and newer, you may be able to set this to 1 for most missions.
In testing, the only mission I found that suffered from "tdm_lg_interleave ( > 1) stuttering" was "Penny Dreadful 3: Erasing the Trail".
For that mission, I set tdm_lg_interleave_min to 50 to cure the stutter.
This setting can also be used to boost already high FPS values for the new unbounded FPS options ( com_FixeTic 1 ).
(eg. If you have 90FPS set tdm_lg_interleave to 7 and tdm_lg_interleave_min to 75 to attempt a push towards 120FPS)
In 2.06 with the lightgem calculated on a different thread, this can likely stay at 1 regardless of how low the FPS gets.
Weak Lightgem (Not Recommended)
Setting:
seta tdm_lg_weak "1"
in Darkmod.cfg will disable the renderer based lightgem and use a simpler math-based solution.
It's a far less accurate lightgem but may allow weaker systems to play the game as a last resort.
(Note: The cost of lightgem calculation has been substantially lowered in TDM v2.05 and newer.
This may be an obsolete option in future releases.)
Split Lightgem (Obsolete)
- Obsolete info. In TDM 2.07 split lightgem is always enabled. The CVAR is gone.
You can also split the calculation across frames so that part is done in one frame and part is done in the next:
tdm_lg_split 1
Some folks have reported that this causes flicker but that was in older builds.
I haven't seen any problems with this in recent builds.
This will give a modest boost compared to interleave and both can be used together or independently.
Eg:
Keep tdm_lg_interleave 1 for to prevent stutter at low FPS but set tdm_lg_split to gain a little boost.
or
Set tdm_lg_split to 1 to get you from 26 FPS to 28 FPS as a baseline, then set tdm_lg_interleave to 2 to gain a substantial boost (up to double FPS) but since the baseline is close to 30FPS the risk of stutter is substantially reduced.
NEW INFO:
In v2.05 and later tdm_lg_split is enabled (1) by default.
Lightgem Interleave vs MapBufferRange (Obsolete)
In v2.06, the new r_useMapBufferRange cvar can conflict with LightGem interleave and split optimizations.
Lightgem split and interleave options are best for helping systems that do not work well with Multi-Core (com_smp 1).
If you have a system that runs well with Multi-Core optimization enabled, consider disabling split and interleave
in favor of r_useMapBufferRange and r_useBfgPortalCulling.
See also r_useMapBufferRange
Disabling standard graphics features
At the cost of some pretty severe scene quality, you can disable a number of independent graphic features
that are non-essential to play.
Image downsizing
TDM can automatically reduce texture resolution for all 3 supported texture types; diffuse,
normal (bump), and specular. Systems with very low quantities of VRAM or low memory bandwidth benefit from this change.
In Darkmod.cfg, set image_downSize to 1 and then set a limit with image_downSizeLimit, e.g., "image_downSizeLimit" "256".
seta image_downSize "1" seta image_downSizeLimit "256"
This reduces texture memory requirements and may completely alleviate hard drive thrashing. There are similar cvars for bump and specular maps as well.
Example: Downsize Normal Maps
seta image_downSizeBump "1" seta image_downSizeBumpLimit "256"
Example: Downsize Specular maps
seta image_downSizeSpecular "1" seta image_downSizeSpecularLimit "64"
Obsolete Info: As of TDM 2.06 you may use image_downSize with post-processing (bloom) enabled!
Note: We recommend that you disable post-processing before using image_downsize.
If you set image_downsizeLimit below 512, part or all of the screen wont render when post-processing enabled.
If any image_downSizeLimit is set below your screen resolution, you will see visual errors when post-processing is enabled.
Disable Soft Particles
The new Soft Particle effects in v2.03 and newer use a little more GPU than the previous particles.
This is offset by the fact that v2.03 and higher don't render particles during the lightgem calculation.
Still, if you want an extra boost then set:
seta r_useSoftParticles "0"
in Darkmod.cfg
Disable Fog
seta r_skipFogLights "1"
in Darkmod.cfg
Disable BlendLights
seta r_skipBlendLights "1"
in Darkmod.cfg
Disable Player Shadow
The player shadow slightly reduces performance. It has no game effect at all (not seen by AI for instance) apart from atmospheric effect so if you want to disable it enter in the console:
g_showplayershadow 0
Or, in Darkmod.cfg (see above) change the following line from "1" to "0":
seta g_showplayershadow "0"
Disable Player Lantern Shadow
You may notice a drop in performance while using the player lantern.
Add "noshadows" "1" to entitydef light_lantern_moving in tdm_playertools_lantern.def and this stops the player lantern casting shadows.
This helps improve performance slightly when using the lantern.
Disable Particles
This will seriously mar your image quality. Flames, glares, and smoke will all be gone.
seta r_skipParticles "1"
in Darkmod.cfg
Disable all Ambient Surfaces
Related to skipping particles, r_skipAmbient will get rid of any non-lit* particles
(*most particles are additive blends and don't react to light)
along with any other surfaces that don't change based on illumination (most decals, additive glowing windows, etc.).
seta r_skipAmbient "1"
in Darkmod.cfg
Disable Specular Maps
Specular gives materials their shine. This option will make all surfaces shine-free.
Note: This may not work with the Enhanced Ambient
seta r_skipSpecular "1"
in Darkmod.cfg
Disable Normal Maps
The main detail attribute for textures in Doom 3 \ Darkmod is the Normal Map.
If you disable this your game will become really ugly.
seta r_skipBump "1"
in Darkmod.cfg
Disable Sky
(New in v2.05) Pitch black sky with no clouds, Moon, or stars
seta g_enablePortalSky "0"
in Darkmod.cfg
Disable Lip Sync
AI will not play lipsync animations
seta tdm_ai_opt_nolipsync "1"
in Darkmod.cfg
Use BFG style Portal Culling (new in v2.06)
If you have a system that works well with Multi-Core ( com_smp 1) then you may consider enabling r_useBfgPortalCulling to reduce cache thrashing.
seta r_useBfgPortalCulling "1"
in Darkmod.cfg
Enable MapBufferRange (Obsolete)
( Obsolete info. This is not optional in 2.07 )
If you have a system that works well with Multi-Core ( com_smp 1) then you may
consider enabling r_useMapBufferRange to optimize the way that Vertex cache is loaded.
seta r_useMapBufferRange "1"
in Darkmod.cfg
Note: Using this option with Split Lightgem (tdm_lg_split 1) or Lightgem interleave (tdm_lg_interleave > 1)
can result in rendering bugs.
See Lightgem Calculation Optimizations
Drop in Frame Rates when Viewing Water
Some players have reported a drastic drop in performance when an agitated water surface is in view. (This on a Radeon card.)
Try entering this in the console. It disables the water visible surface effects but at least it might let you play normally...
seta r_skipPostProcess "1"
or
seta r_postprocess "0"
You can also set a key-bind to toggle this instead:
bind "z" "toggle r_postprocess 0 1"
See Toggle Settings in Realtime
See also Underwater performance poor
2.07 Experimental Features
These settings may offer some performance benefits with caveats \ bugs.
Single Pass Shadow Maps
In attempt to mimic the Shadow tech in DOOM 2016, TDM 2.07 has a Shadow Map mode where all shadow casting is gathered for a full scene in one pass:
seta r_shadowMapSinglePass "1"
This mode does not seem to improve FPS for Nvidia hardware.
This is probably because of the Nvidia's tiling (deferred rendering) hardware optimizations.
Multi-light Shading
Meant to be paired with single pass shadows (above), multi-light shading gathers all the lights of the same type into one pass.
seta r_testARBProgram "2"
Note: This mode does not offer "Enhanced Ambient" rendering
This mode does not seem to improve FPS for Nvidia hardware.
This is probably because of the Nvidia's tiling (deferred rendering) hardware optimizations.
RGTC Normal Map Compression
Doom 3's original Normal Map compression RXGB was just a swizzled version of the S3TC compression
used elsewhere in the game. The swizzle allowed allowed artists to store more detail
as the alpha channel has more bits of storage than the red.
In practice, RXGB still doesn't look so great and nobody has done much work on compression optimization
to improve how encoders use this format.
ATI introduced a new way of compressing Normal Maps in 2004 called 3Dc which only requires 2 colors
This has morphed into a few variants (BC5 or DXN built into DirectX, and LATC or RGTC in OpenGL).
We chose RGTC since Intel supports it on very old hardware. It's the most cross-compatible.
When RGTC is fully working, missions will require far less VRAM and memory bandwidth.
Currently, it's almost completely working with only some Glass and Water shaders having bugs
seta image_useNormalMapCompression "2"
The main benefit of compressed normal maps other than reduced memory footprint, is Loading Time.
This will especially be true when the engine can use pre-compressed normal maps with mip-maps
rather than encoding them on load.
Skip Dynamic Shadows
Only render shadows from Stationary lights. This will break missions where players might need to hide in a moving shadow.
seta r_skipDynamicShadows "1"
Lower Sound Quality
Force 22khz
2.06: Do not use this optimization. It is known to cause issues with loading missions on some OpenAL hardware:
http://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=4814
(This is fixed in 2.07)
You can force 22khz audio processing to reduce the CPU overhead of audio processing.
Obviously, EAX effects will increase CPU load for audio so you should consider disabling
those before lowering audio quality. If normal audio plays fine but EAX causes performace,
this change might give you a boost while EAX is enabled.
seta s_force22kHz "1"
Disable EFX reverb (new 2.06)
The new EFX audio option (equivalent to EAX) has some impact on mission performance due to additional reverb calculation.
Disable this option for extra performance. Especially if you get big stutter or lockup events opening doors from indoor
to outdoor areas
Gameplay Performance Tips
If you have done everything else you can and performance is still poor then one or two things you might do in game to help:
- Revert to 2.03 Search behavior
seta tdm_ai_search_type "1"
The new AI "hiding spot" routines in 2.04 (and newer) are more CPU intensive that 2.03's search method
- Close all doors after you have passed through. Generally the game has to process both areas until you close the door if the doorway is still in sight.
- Kill or KO every AI you can. You might not like to play that way but generally, AI still hog resources even out of sight (depending on how set up in the game.)
- Avoid alerts. A dozen guards searching for you will really slow things down on a low-end machine.
- Try to look down at the ground when moving along. Gazing up at a grand vista will slow you down. Best to do your gazing while standing still.
Hardware Considerations
The Dark Mod 1.0 was released in 2009. The average mission designer and player of that time had a Geforce 6600GT and AMD Athlon 64 X2 2GHZ.
While some missions were playable all the way down to a P4 2.8GHZ with an FX5200, this is well below the expected audience for this project.
Current Intel integrated GPU's have better performance than the Geforce 8800 that was a high-end card in 2009. Low-power mobile chips are known to throttle under heavy load, especially when using integrated graphics.
Configure Video RAM
Change:
seta com_videoRam "128"
to the appropriate value (in MB) for your GPU in Darkmod.cfg
Eg. A 2GB video card would have 2048 there.
seta com_videoRam "2048"
Upgrade your BIOS
Sometimes bugs or unintended specification limits in the BIOS on an older motherboard will prevent it from allowing the CPU or GPU to meet their potential.
If your manufacturer has an updated motherboard BIOS available, consider applying it.
Last resort: Upgrade your hardware
Modern games need a lot of computing power, and while you don't need the absolutely newest hardware to play them, upgrading single components of your machine can help tremendously:
- If you got less than 2 GByte main memory, consider upgrading your memory. This really helps to reduce swapping, which introduces quite noticeable slowdowns.
- If you got a graphic card from NVidia older than the GF 7x00 series, consider upgrading it.
- For comparison, see Known System Configurations to see the weakest hardware known to run current TDM versions.
Upgrading your CPU is possible in most cases but can be quite complicated
and the cost might be so high that upgrading your whole PC might be a better value.
Upgrading the hard disk will usually not help much with gaming, unless you are running out of free space.
Some users have reported that SSD has improved loading times but the bigger problem with load times
is Mip-Map generation which is CPU \ Memory bandwidth limited.
Toggle settings in realtime
With the exception of Resolution, AA, and AF settings; most of the above settings can be changed in realtime in the console or via a bind in Darkmod.cfg.
For example, you could bind both post-processing and enhanced interaction to the Z key to enable and disable them both by pressing that key
bind "z" "toggle r_postprocess 0 1; toggle tdm_interaction_vfp_type 0 1"
in Darkmod.cfg
A Warning about cm_backFaceCull
Some users have reported AI pathfinding and tread-milling issues with this enabled.
While this can be the fault of poor map design or monsterclip placement,
one thing that can cause this is the performance cvar:
seta cm_backFaceCull "1"
This cvar does improve performance but it is not worth the hassle in most cases.
We recommend disabling it (cm_backFaceCull "0" ) unless you know the mission you're playing has been tested with it enabled.
Blurry Briefing and Menu Screens
- Obsolete info. This is fixed in TDM 2.05 (and later.)
If you get blurry briefing and menu screens then in Darkmod.cfg make sure you do NOT have image_downSize 0.
Instead set it to 1. But see also Image Downsizing as there is a patch available to allow
image_downsize without making menus blurry.
Related FXAA
(2.07)
If you disable in-game AA in favor of FXAA in your driver settings, text will be a little blurrier. This is a known problem with FXAA in general.
See also
See also the FAQ.