jDRP "light": Reducing effects to tweak performance - how?

[LigH]

Hi folks, especially Dani J666!

Due to the fact, that my PC isn't the most powerful (Duron 800, 256 MB, GF2GTS 32 MB), but I still would like to enjoy the 3D models and some other effects of the jDRP 1.01, I wonder if it would be possible to reduce some of the most performance consuming parts to tweak the speed a bit.

As far as I found out, I would have to unpack the PK3 file (which seems to be mostly PKZIP compatible), edit some of the scripts (especially in the Auto folder), and repack it.

My question now is: Which files, and which entries, would gain a good amount of performance, but still don't hurt the feel too much?

From my experience, it seems that especially particle effects hurt a lot; in old versions of additional scripts, it was mainly the rocket smoke trail which made the game almost stall, and in the jDRP, I'm afraid that mostly the torches are one reason for massive slowdowns. Maybe you know some more effects which are especially performance consuming, where reducing or removing their appearance might help.

[Chilvence]

If the particles are your biggest sting, you can probably get away with not modifying anything at all - just go into the control panel in the options menu and tweak the particle amount. You might also want to disable dynamic lights - theyre nice, but not really essential to the doomy feel, especially if theyre causing slowdown. There should be more than enough options in the control panel to boost your performance; also, the next version of the JDRP is reportedly more forgiving of your system, using more reserved effects and varying levels of detail for each model.

[LigH]

I always thought I knew quite a lot about 3D graphic cards, effects and so on (I even own the OpenGL Red Book); but sometimes I doubt if I really know which effects harm the performance how much. For example, I disabled fake radiosity and did not get out of the slowdowns, so indeed, I would next try to limit particle generation (I just hope that this won't harm the look&feel too much, e.g. I remember areas where just a few torched burned, depending on my point of view).

Thank you so far; but I still don't mind more ideas.