FPS Performance Decrease (Post build 272)

WebtranceWebtrance US Join Date: 2013-11-08 Member: 189165Members, Reinforced - Shadow
I want to point out a decrease in overall performance (FPS) since build 272. For example, I know for a fact that 3-4 builds ago, I would routinely maintain 200 FPS steady after joining a game with 5-8 marines or more. That was at the marine tech point with marines running around prior to game start. Now, with build 272, I'll drop to 112-130ish until running out of the room and away from pregame chaos. The rest of the game seems okay, though I still notice a slight drop in FPS in general. My goal has always been to sustain 140FPS as I use a 144hz monitor. The 140 framerate limit helps me with stutter and tearing, yet allows me to benefit from my 144hz monitor. The bottom line is, there's been a decrease in FPS performance since the last few patches. Perhaps this can be looked into.

I74790K
GTX980
16GB 2133mhz
2TB/120GBSSD
Soundblaster Z
BenQ xl2420TE

Comments

  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    There have only been 4 reports of performance dropping.. and every one of them the user owned a 980 GTX.
    Have you updated the driver recently?
    Are you familiar with making a Plog?
  • OscarTheCouchOscarTheCouch Join Date: 2005-01-10 Member: 34647Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
    get a G/free-sync monitor then u dont have to worry about stutter and tearing.
  • Cr4zyb4st4rdCr4zyb4st4rd United Kingdom Join Date: 2012-08-09 Member: 155200Members, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
    get a G/free-sync monitor then u dont have to worry about stutter and tearing.

    rofl
    shit fps is shit fps, gysnc doesnt instantly make it playable. Sure it's no tearing shit fps, but it's unplayable crap.
  • ZeroEarThZeroEarTh Singapore Join Date: 2014-07-01 Member: 197126Members
    mean while im playing with 35 fps ....

    and somepeople complain about game that havave over 100 FPS :)
  • ezekelezekel Join Date: 2012-11-29 Member: 173589Members, NS2 Map Tester
    edited January 2015
    Yes, performance has dropped heavily for me - I'm seeing an average of -40 frames in all scenarios from my old average

    GPU: GTX 680 2GB

    Driver: 344.11 (recently updated from 337.88 - never played ns2 on 344.11 until yesterday)

    344.11 is also the first driver to support the 980 series, I used it because it is also the first driver since maybe 50+ driver releases to have the lowest amount of input lag. Similar to your setup I also have a soundblaster Z and benQ xl2420T. Another thing I disabled in my nvidia control panel was 'scaling'. I set scaling to be done on my monitor (which it always was on, but it use to be set to aspect ratio. I disabled that for no scaling because I played native and it caused some extra lag with input).
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    Yea users who are experiencing an fps drop : @ezekel‌ and @Webtrance‌ and anyone else,

    Please test with rolling back your GPU drivers.. and report back here.
    There is no clear explanation why there should be a drop in performance for these select individuals, let alone to that degree. And the only thing that's changed lately are the drivers.


    If you can reliably reproduce poor performance scenarios where you have lost some 40 fps that you would normally have had, please make a plog:
    type "p_logall" without quotes in the console (~ key) whenever you want to begin recording in game (don't do this until you at least spawn in a round)
    then you can p_endlog or just wait for the round to end or map to change or just quit the game, and it will end automatically.

    Then navigate to your hidden folder
    c:/users/YOU/appdata/roaming/natural selection 2/
    And you will find your file, something *.plog
    Zip it/ compress it.
    Upload it to somewhere on the internet
    Link it to me here

    This will give me a frame by frame analysis of what is going on, so try to pick a time when you can reproduce your lowest performance like the 30 fps you said you get.
    Dont record for longer than 30 minutes, and dont record for shorter than 5.
  • RejZoRRejZoR Slovenia Join Date: 2013-09-24 Member: 188450Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow
    ZeroEarTh wrote: »
    mean while im playing with 35 fps ....

    and somepeople complain about game that havave over 100 FPS :)

    The issue, at least in my case has always been the disconnection between displayed framerate and the feel of the game. Most games that have 60fps are smooth to play. But NS2 often shows that I have 120fps, yet it feels like I have 30 or even less. Could never managed to understand this phenomenon only seen in NS2.
  • rkfgrkfg Russia Join Date: 2013-09-03 Member: 187744Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
    Chiming in about the same issue. The FPS drop is huge. No, H U G E. It happens when I fire LMG, shotgun hitches a lot, it's like a 500 ms freeze before it shoots. Generally, any particles cause slowdowns, plog attached. The culprit is RenderParticles::UpdateBufferedState.

    I cleaned up the shader cache and workshop directory, turned off mods, verified the game files, the issue persists. Please, please fix this ASAP as this makes the game completely unplayable, any particles on screen (be it welding, LMG/shotgun shooting or anything else) cause heavy hitching. I already have everything on low.
  • WasabiOneWasabiOne Co-Lead NS2 CDT Join Date: 2011-06-15 Member: 104623Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
    Those having issues, can you also please load up a local server and test there? I'd be interested to see if you are still experiencing issues locally not connected to a remote server.
  • rkfgrkfg Russia Join Date: 2013-09-03 Member: 187744Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
    Yes, I've tested this in the sandbox mode, no mods. Same hitches, same function in the profiler.
  • rkfgrkfg Russia Join Date: 2013-09-03 Member: 187744Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
    It's slightly better on a vanilla server without mods, 8x8, but shotgun hitches are quite distracting anyway. Strace shows lots of file lookups, /materials/effects/nanospark1.material.polygons and /materials/effects/electric_arc_anim.material.polygons are most frequent. They are being found eventually (in contrast to previous map bugs with non-existing files) but it happens too often.
  • rkfgrkfg Russia Join Date: 2013-09-03 Member: 187744Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
    Here's the strace I acquired shooting the shotgun. Note the rate of the stat64 calls, it happens literally every frame. 3024 calls in just 7 seconds, WOW! 432 times per second.

    It's much worse when mods are enabled (I've enabled two — Exo2 font replacement and a custom crosshair) because it looks up their directories as well. Seems to be not only a linux issue, my teammates confirm at least the shotgun hitches that were introduced in 273.
  • develdevel Join Date: 2014-09-13 Member: 198444Members
  • HellwireDHellwireD Join Date: 2015-01-18 Member: 200904Members
    Can we put rkfg into the CDT ? Thanks.
  • rkfgrkfg Russia Join Date: 2013-09-03 Member: 187744Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
    Too much of a burden for me but thanks for supporting! I can help here and there sometimes but not on a regular basis.
  • TinkiTinki Join Date: 2013-12-03 Member: 189715Members
    edited January 2015
    rkfg wrote: »
    It's slightly better on a vanilla server without mods, 8x8, but shotgun hitches are quite distracting anyway. Strace shows lots of file lookups, /materials/effects/nanospark1.material.polygons and /materials/effects/electric_arc_anim.material.polygons are most frequent. They are being found eventually (in contrast to previous map bugs with non-existing files) but it happens too often.

    The game stutter when i'm firing with a shotgun AT AN ALIEN for me too (so no freeze when i just bought a shotgun and shoot at nothing). It's the exact same sensation some of us had in a previous build (1 year ago, can't remember the number). No problem with LMG. Last build (272) was all good, no problem. I didn't change any settings, and i completly reinstaled the game.

    Any idea where this is coming from ?
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    edited January 2015
    Since this thread was opened for patch 272 - PLEASE DO NOT POST HERE IF YOU STARTED HAVING ISSUES SINCE PATCH 273!!
    Start another thread or use one of the many already posted.

    Please follow my instructions here if you wish to help us fix this:
    http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2230001/#Comment_2230001

    Thank you

    Edit: Thank you @rkfg‌
  • rkfgrkfg Russia Join Date: 2013-09-03 Member: 187744Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
    Should I repost my collected data to that thread?
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    Nope, you're good.
    Thank you very much for that data though - most useful!
  • Mordecai WalfishMordecai Walfish Join Date: 2012-10-30 Member: 164803Members
    ezekel wrote: »
    Yes, performance has dropped heavily for me - I'm seeing an average of -40 frames in all scenarios from my old average

    GPU: GTX 680 2GB

    Driver: 344.11 (recently updated from 337.88 - never played ns2 on 344.11 until yesterday)

    344.11 is also the first driver to support the 980 series, I used it because it is also the first driver since maybe 50+ driver releases to have the lowest amount of input lag. Similar to your setup I also have a soundblaster Z and benQ xl2420T. Another thing I disabled in my nvidia control panel was 'scaling'. I set scaling to be done on my monitor (which it always was on, but it use to be set to aspect ratio. I disabled that for no scaling because I played native and it caused some extra lag with input).

    Can anyone tell me more about the input lag improvements in 344.11 or point me in the direction of further information about it? Specifically, do drivers *after* 344.11 still have these improvements? (I'm on 347.09). Just wondering because I've heard mention of these input lag reductions on 344.11 on these forums a couple times and on other sites, but am not able to find any specific information about them.

    Ironhorse also mentioned them in the build 273 release thread:
    IronHorse wrote: »

    Edit:
    There is a workaround if you are a 970 or 980 GTX user! Relating to this Nvidia goof of VRAM allocation, if you do not want to roll back your drivers (because 344.11 has great input delay changes) you can simply limit the amount of VRAM that Natural selection 2 uses in the options!


    Really want to know whats up with these drivers and if it's a good idea to rollback from my current one (347.09) to 344.11 . It would *seem* obvious that improvements would carry on to newer drivers, but nVidia has had a spotty history with the amount of input lag in their drivers.
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    @Mordecai Walfish‌ I was just repeating the info from ezekel there, so we should definitely be asking him :)
  • ezekelezekel Join Date: 2012-11-29 Member: 173589Members, NS2 Map Tester
    @Mordecai Walfish‌ 347.09 has the same reduction as 344.11, no need to revert unless other issues arise.
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