Framerate drop in some areas of a map

[headkase]

This is an issue thats been plaguing me for quite a while and I now have seem to finally found the solution to it.

In very specific parts of some maps the framerate most of the time (but not all of the time) drops to about half of what my graphics card is capable of pushing. For example a specific spot is in DM-Diesel where you come up a ramp and the rocket launcher is directly ahead then you turn 90 degrees left and you will see the armor vest directly ahead the frame rate would drop to about 15fps and looking away from the armor vest it would return to its normal 30fps. Here are my hardware specs:

Pentium D 830 @ 3.0 Ghz
Asus P5LP-LE motherboard (HP m7277c branded) w/ latest intel chipset drivers
Ati HD2600XT 512MB GDDR3 PCIe x16 w/ latest Catalyst (8.5)
Realtek onboard HD audio w/ latest drivers (R.195)
2GB RAM
1TB HD

Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP1

I experimented with every conceivable setting in both the Catalyst Control Center and UT3, as the issue only happens most of the time I would occasionally think I found it only to have it return. I saw the change log of patch 3 beta 1 as saying it fixed an octree bug so I installed that but it did not correct the issue. The setting that has finally resolved the issue for me is to add -onethread to the target of UT3's shortcut. Running on one core (as this command line parameter implies) has corrected the issue for me. Hopefully this post is specific enough that it will allow Epic to trace the issue.

[DrFish]

The setting that has finally resolved the issue for me is to add -onethread to the target of UT3's shortcut

I just tried out the setting for fun.
It doesn't help with the teleport area FPS drop on Deck.

[joe74509]

I just tried out the setting for fun.
It doesn't help with the teleport area FPS drop on Deck.

I found out the suggestion given by ShadowDancer can improve the portal fps drop quite a bit:
"Turning off bCheckRelevancyThroughPortals helped me out a lot with that. It's in UTGame.ini "

[headkase]

I just tried out the setting for fun.
It doesn't help with the teleport area FPS drop on Deck.

Deck used to have low fps spots for me too but in my case -onethread has resolved them as well. What are your hardware specs?

[DrFish]

WinXP Pro, Intel Core2 Quad 6600, ATI 3870 HD, 2GB RAM DDR2-800.

If I overclock the CPU to 3GHz, I gain about 10 FPS (from 50 to 60) on Deck on the lowest corner, which is, looking the the deck area through the doorway when you have the lower flak platform behind you.

I'm playing at 1280x1024, most setting at maximum except detail level at 1, no motion blur, no depth of field, no bloom. Aniso x16.

Catalyst 8.5 drivers

[headkase]

I would expect you would get better fps than that with your machine. I also play at 1280x1024 and I have both texture and world details set to 2 and I get a consistent 29 to mid 30s fps throughout Deck. Of course if I go right up and face a wall the framerate jumps right up to the smoothing rate (62 fps).