DirectX performance.... sucks?

[CrazyBernie]

Anyone else have performance issues running in DirectX mode?? I get a performance rating of 22 in DX mode vs about a 4/5 in OpenGL mode... which is hilarious considering I have an ATI/AMD videocard.... specs as follows:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+
ASUS M2R32-MVP 580X Crossfire Motherboard
2GB OCZ DDR2 667 @ 4-4-4-15-2T
ATI Radeon HD 2600XT w/256MB GDDR4
Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Ed. (onboard disabled)
WD Raptor 37GB (lol, I need a bigger hard drive, but I store most of my garbage on a 2nd computer; this is my gaming machine)
Windows XP Pro (all the updates)
Everything updated with the most current drivers.

The performance is the same Windowed or Full Screen mode. There's a massive difference in CPU usage between the modes as well... OpenGL doesn't see more than a 16% cpu usage vs 50% in DX. What's DX eating to get so fat??

[macdude22]

Is it a big deal to use OpenGL mode (which is what the Mac and Linux versions use anyway)? I suppose it stands to reason as a cross platform development system that Blitz focuses on OpenGL more than DirectX so DirectX performance may be less optimized.

[CrazyBernie]

It's not a big deal at all, I just wanted to know if anyone else was having the same problem, or if I was doing something wrong. And the developers should be aware if there's an issue on particular hardware/software combinations so that it can be looked at/possibly corrected.

Just trying to make sure a slick little game like this gets as much lovin' as possible

[JOG]

Here:

P4E 3.4Ghz
Geforce 7800GS @ 480/2700
2GB 2-2-2-5-1T
WinXP home
DirectX 9.0c @ 09/2007

Performance right after starting a new game:

Without Hyperthreading
OpenGl: 1-2 (10% = 2)
DirectX: 2-3 (25% = 3)

With Hyperthreading
OpenGl: 1-2 (10% = 2)
DirectX: 3-4 (50% = 4)

Your Athlon X2 is a dual-core processor (effectively two CPUs running at 2.1 Ghz each ) while my single-core P4 runs at 3.4 Ghz and with Hyperthreading enabled just emulates a second CPU giving it processing power on demand, Eschalon with DirectX seems to use just one CPU (like many other games, NWN2 for example) so my PC runs just a bit slower with DirectX, while your PC seems to run the game just on one 2Ghz CPU.

[focus]

I get a score of 1 under DirectX, on an Nvidia 8800gts. Game won't run at all under OpenGL.

[VPeric]

One of my computers works worse under OpenGL (~5 compared to 1), while the other (weaker) is better under OpenGL (2-3 compared to 6-7). Not sure what's the underlying cause, but hey, that's why we get a choice anyway - to avoid making this sort of situation a problem.

EDIT: Actually, I just got an idea: which DirectX does Eschalon use? The newest (9.0c)?

[Rumtruffle]

Is it a big deal to use OpenGL mode (which is what the Mac and Linux versions use anyway)? I suppose it stands to reason as a cross platform development system that Blitz focuses on OpenGL more than DirectX so DirectX performance may be less optimized.

whats Blitz?

[JOG]

whats Blitz?

http://www.blitzbasic.com/

[Rumtruffle]

omg the game was written using that cool program?

good stuff. good stuff for others to know that cool games, and commercially viable products can be made using the program.

myself i have dark basic, but ive always thought of getting blitz basic 3d or max one day.

just dont really have time to code AND play games..... and tbh pleasure comes before anything else these days.

wish i were 18 again and had that lust to code into the small hours.

*sighs*

[Xyle]

Wow, I cant believe this. The wife wanted to play the game again. She had it installed on her vista OS Dell Laptop. She ran it and the lag was so horrible it was unplayable. About 100 rating on the options screen. I did everything I could to get it fixed but nothing worked. We gave up and she was looking for another game to play while I browsed these forums to see if anything popped up. I read this thread, changed to OpenGL driver, relaunched the game and now the rating is 4/5.

Unbelievable!!

Thanks for the tip!!

[BasiliskWrangler]

Yeah, some video chipsets are just better optimized for OpenGL rather than DirectX. Also, going to 16-bit color (from 32-bit) can gain additional speed on some computers.