Advice on Celestia and Vista on new computer

[fsgregs]

Hi folks:

I sure could use your advice. My older computer had a motherboard problem, so I just went out and bought a new expensive computer (over $900). Here is some of what it has:

AMD Phenom Quad-Core processor
Vista 64 Bit Premium edition with SP1
5 GB RAM
500 watt Altec power supply
Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT video card
Plus lots of other stuff such as a big hard drive, DVD burner, etc.

The store I bought it in (Best Buy), installed the power supply and video card, along with the latest drivers.

I loaded Celestia 151 on it and expected it to be lightning fast. At least with frame rates of 80 fps or more. To my shock, when I launched the program, my frame rates are no better than they were on my old system. I'm getting only 24 or so fps when viewing High-res Earth and only 16 -18 fps when viewing the high-res version of the Hubble Space Telescope. Something is wrong. Before my motherboard went out on my old system, I had installed the GeForce 9600 GT on it, and my frame rates were over 50 fps when viewing Earth.

Is there something in Windows Vista I have to do to optimize running Celestia? I installed the program in C:/Program Files, rather than C:/Program Files x86. Does that matter?

If this is the poor performance I can expect with this computer, I'll take it back to the store. They have a 14 day return policy. My time is running out, so any advice you can give me would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks

Frank

[ajtribick]

Have you downloaded the latest graphics drivers for your card? The Microsoft ones are probably old and have probably been crippled by removing all the OpenGL stuff which might otherwise compete with their beloved DirectX...

[fsgregs]

Yes, the drivers on my card are the most recent. I just checked.

Is this level of fps performance on Vista normal, or is there something wrong with my system?

Frank

[t00fri]

Yes, the drivers on my card are the most recent. I just checked.

Is this level of fps performance on Vista normal, or is there something wrong with my system?

Frank

I think this is much too slow. But this can easily be evaluated, which I always do once for all, when I bought a new machine.

Download 3DMark06 from the www.Futuremark.com site.

Then you run their standard tests and have your card evaluated automatically. You then can compare with millions of other people's benchmarks notably for the same card as your own. Such a test gives you a precise and comfortable result about the functioning of your 3d graphics engine. Nothing easier than that...

Did your really never do this before?

Fridger

[BobHegwood]

Just FYI, Frank...

24FPS is actually pretty good for a Vista system. I get approximately
16-20FPS when I am am not viewing a special area in Celestia, so you
are actually doing pretty well.

It is very sad, I know, but Vista causes the PC to use any extra resources
for itself. At least that has been my experience so far.

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[fsgregs]

Bob:

Thanks for your advice that a 20 fps frame rate is not bad for Windows Vista. If true, that SUCKS!!! This computer cost me almost $1000. It better run Celestia better than 20 fps!!!

Has anyone else gotten these same values on a Vista 64 bit machine? Please ... what can I expect?

Fridger:

Thanks for the tip about 3DMark6, and for your feeling that 20 fps or so in Celestia is way too slow for this quality of computer. I have gone to the website, and downloaded the 3DMark6 file. I will run it tomorrow and see what happens. Does it also test OpenGL video card performance, or is it only for DirectX applications?

1. Does anyone else have a GeForce 9600 GT video card running on Vista? What frame rates are you all getting?
2. I have a Quad-Core CPU and 5 GB of RAM in this new computer. Isn't that supposed to free up system resources so Celestia can fly through its paces?
3. It would be a MAJOR pain for me to have to return this computer. In addition, I've already paid Best Buy $100 to install the video card and power supply, and it is not refundable. Also, there may be a 15% restocking fee for returning the computer. It would cost me $250 plus the $100 price of the video card to return the computer, just to discover that my Celestia performance is typical for a Vista 64 bit machine.

Chris ... if you are reading this ... what do you think? Advice .... comments ....

Thanks guys

Frank

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[cartrite]

fsgregs,
Here is something you can. Run Celestia, set your texture resolution to low or medium, and exit. Then restart and see if there is a difference.

I sometimes see a decline in fps on Linux KDE and my system. I noticed that this may have something to do with the state Celestia was in when I last ran the program. The major factor was the texture resolution being set to high. If I exit Celestia and textures are set to medium, Celestia can then start with much higher fps. If I start Celestia and the textures were set to high, I would get much slower rates even if I tried to set the textures back to medium or even low. In contrast, if I start Celestia when textures are set to medium, I can then set textures to high and there is no drop in fps. This is on Linux KDE though. But Windows also saves option settings on exit to the registry so this may be a factor with Windows too.

See here.
viewtopic.php?p=110194#p110194

cartrite

[t00fri]

Bob:

Thanks for your advice that a 20 fps frame rate is not bad for Windows Vista. If true, that SUCKS!!! This computer cost me almost $1000. It better run Celestia better than 20 fps!!!

Has anyone else gotten these same values on a Vista 64 bit machine? Please ... what can I expect?

Fridger:

Thanks for the tip about 3DMark6, and for your feeling that 20 fps or so in Celestia is way too slow for this quality of computer. I have gone to the website, and downloaded the 3DMark6 file. I will run it tomorrow and see what happens. Does it also test OpenGL video card performance, or is it only for DirectX applications?


Thanks guys

Frank

Why would you think of returning this very powerful machine. You are mixing up hardware and software considerations! If at last Vista is too slow for you, then you could always install XP or Linux. But with this hardware the chances are NIL.

The foremost considerations before tuning should be to examine whether your new hardware works properly. The 3dmark06 test resets the driver setttings /temporarily/ during the test to some default. Hence by running the test and comparing the result with the public database, you can judge quantitatively whether something is wrong with your hardware.

Among the millions of datasets from other people, your results will be placed into a slot where other results with very similar hardware than yours are ready to be compared!

There is also an extensive CPU test so you can evaluate easily your whole machine for once to be sure that it works properly. Again you can quantitatively compare your results to those of many others with the same CPU.

Next you must understand and control your driver settings with the NVIDIA tool that comes with the driver. For instance, if you happen to have set the maximal antialiasing value (16x ?) this may considerably slow down your rate. Moreover, the fps rate depends on whether you have activated Sync to VBlank, in which case your fps rate will never be bigger than the screen update rate i.e. 60 for a LCD screen. This is a good setting, though. Then you should check whether the Triple Buffer is activated and what value of anisotropic filtering is preset. For the latter 4-8x is sensible.

Last not least you should check whether the display resolution has been set to the native resolution of your LCD monitor (rather than an interpolated value) and whether the LCD is connected to the digital outlet of your card. You should also control the temperature of your graphics card with the tool that is part of the NVIDIA settings tool.

+++++++++++++++++++++++
After spending lots of money for a NEW machine it should be perfectly logical to once do these checks in a systematic fashion, rather than trusting some (anonymous) guy in a shop who was told to put this machine together for you...
+++++++++++++++++++++++

Fridger

PS: Just so you get a feeling: with my VERY old FX5900ultra/256MB card and a 3.2GHz/3GB RAM Pentium4 I am still getting 50-60 fps right after a fresh Celestia 1.60SVN has started and Earth fills a certain fraction of the screen. These are my fps values both for Windows XP and for Linux. I have anisotropic filtering = 4x and NO antialiasing, triple buffering = ON. The temperature of my card is 45 degees C.

15-20 fps is JUST far too slow for a "butter smooth" operation!

[fsgregs]

Fridger:

If at last Vista is too slow for you, then you could always install XP or Linux. But with this hardware the chances are NIL.

The foremost considerations before tuning should be to examine whether your new hardware works properly. The 3dmark06 test resets the driver setttings /temporarily/ during the test to some default. Hence by running the test and comparing the result with the public database, you can judge quantitatively whether something is wrong with your hardware.

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, 3dmark06 will not run on this machine. It has Vista 64 bit and DirectX 10.0 The program is not designed for either. when I try to launch it, it says it is missing a DirectX9.c dll file. I have gone on the vendor's website about it, but I found no reference to a fix ... apparently. I don't want to try installing some directX 9 files in Windows, for fear it will screw up the operation of directX 10. So .... unless there is another option, I cannot test out my video card to see what it does.

Secondly, I have rather minimal settings on the video card ... Everything is set to "let application decide" except for antialiasing, which I've set to 4X.

You mentioned that I could always try installing Win XP on this system, but that the chances of it are nil. Is that because Win XP is a 32 bit program, or because some motherboards are just not designed for it?

Cartrite ... I have tried lowering resolution to medium, but the frame rates do not change.

[t00fri]

Fridger:

If at last Vista is too slow for you, then you could always install XP or Linux. But with this hardware the chances are NIL.

The foremost considerations before tuning should be to examine whether your new hardware works properly. The 3dmark06 test resets the driver setttings /temporarily/ during the test to some default. Hence by running the test and comparing the result with the public database, you can judge quantitatively whether something is wrong with your hardware.

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, 3dmark06 will not run on this machine. It has Vista 64 bit and DirectX 10.0 The program is not designed for either. when I try to launch it, it says it is missing a DirectX9.c dll file. I have gone on the vendor's website about it, but I found no reference to a fix ... apparently. I don't want to try installing some directX 9 files in Windows, for fear it will screw up the operation of directX 10. So .... unless there is another option, I cannot test out my video card to see what it does.

Secondly, I have rather minimal settings on the video card ... Everything is set to "let application decide" except for antialiasing, which I've set to 4X.

You mentioned that I could always try installing Win XP on this system, but that the chances of it are nil. Is that because Win XP is a 32 bit program, or because some motherboards are just not designed for it?

Cartrite ... I have tried lowering resolution to medium, but the frame rates do not change.

Sorry, I forgot you are on DirectX10. But there is the new 3dMark Vantage that requires Vista and DirecX10. Why didn't you try that?

http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/3d ... /download/

Possibly, you can only use it freely for trial, but so what.

I got a Core2Duo CPU on my laptop which is also a 64bit machine. Nevertheless it runs with a 32bit Windows XP from my lab. The advantage of 64bit CPUs is only given once you have the appropriate programs for 64bit! Celestia for example is a 32bit program!! For normal operations 64bit may cause more trouble than benefits! I don't think that you are involved with complicated and very long floating point calculations where 64bit power saves time.

+++++++++++++++++
Of course there is a 64bit Windows XP as well as a 64bit Linux.
+++++++++++++++++


Fridger

[cartrite]

Cartrite ... I have tried lowering resolution to medium, but the frame rates do not change.

Have you seen my post at the Bugs Forum? I edited it since I first posted and it may explain things better.
viewtopic.php?p=110194#p110194
Setting the texture resolution to medium didn't work for me either while Celestia was still running. The frame rates stayed the same. It was only after I exited Celestia with textures set to medium resolution and then restarting Celestia that the frame rates increased.
cartrite

[Boux]

Frank,
Celestia should fly on such a machine.
Do not believe those who say that it will be crawling as compared to XP. This is mostly an urban legend.
I would expect a steady 60 fps speed average from your config.
First of all, Celestia should be installed in C:/Program Files x86 as it is a 32-bit executable and not a 64-bit build.
Even better, just install it on a separate partition so that you will get rid of the UAC when working in the Celestia directory.
Then, as Fridger wrote, default video driver settings may need to be tweaked.
The best way to experiment is to create a new profile for Celestia in the driver's control panel and experiment from there.
Start with very conservative settings: no antialiasing, no vertical vsync, low level of anisotropic filtering, etc.
Make sure the video drivers are from Nvidia and not from Microsoft.
Never ever update the drivers from Windows auto-update: they basically remove hardware OpenGl acceleration from the drivers to make DirectX look superior. Auto-update may have silently loaded them.
You may also want to check that your processor and/or graphic card frequencies are not falling back to some energy-saving scheme.
Use CpuZ and GPU-Z utilities to monitor both and see what is happening.
Good tweaking!

Edit:
Two questions:
What is the WEI score of this rig?
What is the resolution of your screen?

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[CAP-Team]

I just checked my FPS on Vista x64 with 4 GB RAM and a NVidia 8600 GTS with 256 MB.

While just watching earth I get 60 fps, even with a 64K VT texture and 64K normal map (thanks to the good old doctor ).

When I also load the HST (the big model) and view it from up close and watch earth (with VT) at the same time I get a FPS of about 25 (while not loading textures). The CPU load at this time is about 90% (on a dual core).

This is both on a screen size of 1920x1200.

It surprised me that while having 4 GB of RAM, Celestia just uses about 256 MB, so loading (vt) textures makes Celestia still run a bit shakey when a lot of textures are needed.

You have a 9600 GT, so I would say you could perform better than this.

[t00fri]

I just checked my FPS on Vista x64 with 4 GB RAM and a NVidia 8600 GTS with 256 MB.

While just watching earth I get 60 fps, even with a 64K VT texture and 64K normal map (thanks to the good old doctor ).

Yeah, I love seing more 64k monsters! 60fps is what one should get with Sync to VBlank active and the card still having some reserves... That's what I had expected from the start of this discussion with a modern 8xxx or 9xxx NV card.

When I also load the HST (the big model) and view it from up close and watch earth (with VT) at the same time I get a FPS of about 25 (while not loading textures). The CPU load at this time is about 90% (on a dual core).

This is both on a screen size of 1920x1200.

It surprised me that while having 4 GB of RAM, Celestia just uses about 256 MB, so loading (vt) textures makes Celestia still run a bit shakey when a lot of textures are needed.

You have a 9600 GT, so I would say you could perform better than this.

In any case I think Frank should carefully watch out for possibly forgotten add-ons that might spoil his fps performance.
++++++++++++++++++++
Was this bad performance with the ED stuff installed??
++++++++++++++++++++

Fridger

[fsgregs]

Thanks everyone for your great advice. I ran 3DMark Vantage (the program that tests Vista 64 bit and DirectX 10 video performance), and my new high-end computer scored in the lower 3rd of performance. Upon further checking with some folks I know, I learned more. My friends told me that AMD's phenom quad-core CPU running Vista is not actually that good for graphics. Seems that it does not utilize its 4 processors unless the software/game running on it has code to split the video among those CPUs. Celestia does not do that, nor do many of the video games currently out there. Also, while the Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT card is OK, it is not actually an expensive card. In fact, I paid only $84.00 at Newegg.com, including shipping. According to my sources, the card runs well on Intel 2 Dual core CPU's but would not give top performance on the AMD quad-core CPU in the computer I got.

There is also the possibility that my new video card is defective.

After stressing over the almost $1,000 I paid for this system, I brought it all back to Best Buy and returned it for a full refund. They were real nice about it. While there, we talked about me trying to upgrade the computer I already have. I would need a new Motherboard, CPU, Video card and power supply, but everything else in it works fine (RAM, ROM, DVD Drive, sound card, etc.) I have NO IDEA how to do such a thing, nor how much it would cost, nor what components to buy, but I realize that to be happy, I need a computer that is designed for graphics and video games. Perhaps I should spend a lot more on a high-end video card, and a lot less on the peripherals. Who really needs a 600 GB Hard Drive????? I've had a 120 GB drive for years, and it has never gotten more than 50% full.

Anyway, I want to thank you all for your great advice and the time you took to help me.

Now ... if I can figure out how to install motherboards, cpu's, ..... GULP

Frank

[cartrite]

Quite the adventure. I rebuilt my computer the way you are talking about. It cost me about $400 a couple of years ago. I kept using my old GeForce 5500 for about a year or so after that till I bought the card I got now. That cost a little extra. I got a motherboard/processor combo and the ram and used the power supply, keyboard, mouse , monitor, etc. from the old computer. I just replaced the motherboard, processor, and ram. I got it all at Tiger Direct. They have a big selection of motherboards/processors there. Wasn't that hard either, but I had a couple of A+ classes the year before at the local community college before I did this so........ One A+ class covered PC hardware and the other covered the Windows OS.

Also, while the Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT card is OK, it is not actually an expensive card. In fact, I paid only $84.00 at Newegg.com, including shipping

I saw a card on Ebay yesterday that was almost the same as mine for about $35. They also had one with a starting bid of $0.99.

Good luck

[t00fri]

@Frank:

I immediately realized that this computer of yours was far from optimal for your needs and was wondering who had advised you... I would certainly buy a LARGE AND fast harddisk (or perhaps better two smaller ones). Textures are VERY large and can easily fill many GigaBytes of storage. Harddisks are NOT expensive these days. It is important that you know which brands are reliable and which are NOT. Since my laboratory buys thousands of harddisks per year (!) I know their large statistics concerning hd crashes/problems pretty well...

I have never bought a desktop computer as a whole. I always buy precisely the parts that I want and then assemble them myself. After a thorough test I can be 100% sure that I got what I wanted.

Why do I know such things? It's simple: learning by doing, reading and using my common sense as a physicist ...

Fridger