Playing Back the Demo

Fortunately playing back the demo is not as involved as the recording process. Again we have to create a shortcut.

The shortcut is-

x:\installdirectory\bin\TRAOD_P3.exe -benchmark="prague3a" -godmode -settings

The Start In is -

x:\installdirectory

Again, replace x:\installdirectory with your install path. Replace prague3a with the benchmark name that you have saved.

-settings

This brings up the settings dialogue. When a different card is detected, the settings do change so make sure the settings are consistent between different videocards before testing.

An important note about -godmode is that you need it for both the recording and playback. I am not sure what kind of system the demo playback uses, but if you use godmode in 1 portion and not the other, your demo may do unexpected things. A further caveat is that you can live while benchmarking and die in the playback. An example is the prague3a level. When you get into the room with the water, there is a big fish in the pond. During demo recording you can jump in there with godmode and not die, but during demo playback you can die even with godmode on. The point is to not do things that can get you killed off. We have had demos that are not consistent between different machines also. I am not sure if this is because of a mistaken exclusion of -godmode but I am pretty sure it is not. One demo that was recorded was on a AMD 3200+. It would not play back the same way on a P4 2.8 system. Demos on the P4 2.8 with different videocards would play back the same though and that is our base system used for benchmarking Tombraider.

Some rendering errors with the Tomb Raider engine. Notice how fuzzy Lara looks. This happens on both nVidia and ATi cards

Some other commandline options for playback include

-mode="1024x768x75"

Specifies the resolution and refresh rate

-multisample="4"

Specificies the AntiAliasing Setting

For a more complete list of commandline settings visit this forum post at Empire Gaming or refer to the Beyond3D document. Those two pages cover settings extensively and I will not parrot it here.