How Fast Does the Spark Editor Run For You?
DarkATi
Revelation 22:17 Join Date: 2003-06-20 Member: 17532Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Revelation 22:17 Join Date: 2003-06-20 Member: 17532Members, Reinforced - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">System Specs Please</div>Hey everyone,
I recently built a computer for the sole purpose of editing with Spark. Right now the Spark Editor runs very slow. Meaning, when using the line tool for instance I have to draw the line by putting my cursor where I want the line to appear and waiting about 20 seconds sometimes before the line actually appears there.
My GPU is really not made for gaming so I am going to Fry's Electronics when I get paid on Wednesday to buy a Geforce 8900 GT PCI Express card. Right now I am running a Geforce FX 5200 PCI card. (Not express! PCI! Ugh!)
I suppose my concern is... will the editor run any better? Is it my GPU or also my system? Here are the specs:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+ @ 2.6Ghz (Bone stock, no overclock.)
2 Gigs of RAM
Clean Hard Drive with Fresh Install of Vista Home Premium
120 GB WD HDD with 74 Free Gigs
This system is by no means "state of the art" but it should be more than sufficient for running Spark, right? I have checked the minimum requirements for NS2 and they seem very low so I'm guessing my GPU is the problem.
How does the Spark Editor run on your machine and what are your system specs?
Cheers,
Cody
I recently built a computer for the sole purpose of editing with Spark. Right now the Spark Editor runs very slow. Meaning, when using the line tool for instance I have to draw the line by putting my cursor where I want the line to appear and waiting about 20 seconds sometimes before the line actually appears there.
My GPU is really not made for gaming so I am going to Fry's Electronics when I get paid on Wednesday to buy a Geforce 8900 GT PCI Express card. Right now I am running a Geforce FX 5200 PCI card. (Not express! PCI! Ugh!)
I suppose my concern is... will the editor run any better? Is it my GPU or also my system? Here are the specs:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+ @ 2.6Ghz (Bone stock, no overclock.)
2 Gigs of RAM
Clean Hard Drive with Fresh Install of Vista Home Premium
120 GB WD HDD with 74 Free Gigs
This system is by no means "state of the art" but it should be more than sufficient for running Spark, right? I have checked the minimum requirements for NS2 and they seem very low so I'm guessing my GPU is the problem.
How does the Spark Editor run on your machine and what are your system specs?
Cheers,
Cody
Comments
AMD Athlon x2 5600+
6gb 800mhz ram
250gb seagate hd
geoforce 8800gts 320mb
320GB HD 7200RPM
ATI Radeon HD 4850 512mb 256mb Video card
4GB Ram
Windows 7 32bit
Overall, spark runs pretty well. I can have several editors open at the same time, WITH Firefox minimized. ( Firefox was edited. )
BFG 9800GTX+ 1GB OC'ed (750MHz Core clock)
3GB DDR2 RAM
Windows 7 Ultimate 32Bit
and a like 4 year old 250GB HD@7200RPM
Spark runs fine for me. If I could make a suggestion, maybe another gig of RAM could help (Especially if you're on DDR and not DDR2).
AMD Athlon II X4 620 OC @ 3.2 ghz
XFX Radeon HD 5770
500 GB HD
Windows 7 64 bit
Spark editor loads in around 2 seconds from shortcut and everything is drawn instantly no problem. If you are using DDR1 ram, that might be the problem. Also PCI cards are extremely slow so it might not be the ram, but just the PCI graphics itself. I had a 9400 GT PCI card that game with my old dell computer (yuck dell). But still spark editor isn't really graphically intensive (so i would say ram)
2.1ghz
1 G ram
Spark editor doesnt work most likely due graphic card, also notable that just running the spark editor raises 20'C overall heat so it basicly takes a bit more than average game that runs (HL2 / oblivion / NS).
Occlusion culling doesnt help, when your system can't even handle one room though :/
Athlon64 3000+
2 GB
Radeon x700 Pro
Win2k
I know, I shouldn't complain with such a ###### system, but it' still within the min. sys. requirements.
If I recall correctly, one of the devs (Max?) said that he doesn't wanna be one of those guys that give out way too low sys. requirements in order to get more money.
Considering how bad it runs, I don't believe in much improvement regarding my system though...just another broken promise.
Intel Quad 2.4 ~1066
4GB RAM ~1066
nForce 680i ~1066
x2 SLI 8800GTX
Windows 7
By 8900 GT I assume you mean 8800GT/9800GT (They are the same card essentially)? If so, that doesn't seem to be that great a deal, as you can get better cards for less. Take a look at this list here:
<a href="http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/502403-graphics-card-ranking-5th-time-last.html" target="_blank">http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-ge...-time-last.html</a>
Personally I would recommend something like a Radeon 5670, 4850, 5750 or what ever card you can find around the 9800GT on that list that is cheaper.
Also need to make sure that you don't go out and buy something that will kill your power supply. Came across this card earlier today, <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161319" target="_blank">HIS Radeon 5670 512MB</a>. Minimum PSU for a system with this card installed is listed as 400W on the page. Seems decent to me but I don't follow ATI all that much so I don't know what cards are good/which are known problem causers- Stuff like that.
Like I said, I have a 9800GTX+ w/ 1GB that's overclocked to 750 core clock and that works wonders on all the games I currently play. My only suggestion would be to avoid the 9600's if you do end up going with Nvidia. I had a lot of personal problems with that particular card (Went with two different brands and type of card ((GT,GTS)) and ran into nothing but the same exact problems).
My 9800 is solid though, so I feel I can personally vouch for it.
I definitely wouldn't count on FX 5xxx to perform in ANY game at all, less of all dynamic editing suites. However, the line-drawing lag you mention definitely... Shouldn't be there. Maybe check if you have any overheating or spyware going on? And I suppose it's a bit late to suggest not to install Vista...
4GB Ram
Radeon 5770
Spark will run fine. Perspective mode runs best full screen with lights set to false.
Quick tip: Put all your spot lights in one layer and all your lights in another. Quick, easy, mass editing from True/False.
The other card I was considering is the one someone else mentioned - HIS Radeon HD 5670 1GB. This card gets great reviews but scores slightly lower than a 9800 GT overall and does in fact suck more power out of your machine. The 9800 GT is on sale for 75 bucks at my local electronics store and the HD 5670 is going for $120. Even if I order the HIS online from somewhere like newegg.com I will pay $80 for it plus shipping and like I said, the 9800 GT ranks as a "better card" overall - including that link that someone posted.
As far as spyware goes I really don't think it's possible that spyware is causing the issue since I just installed a totally fresh copy of Windows Vista Home Premium. Spark has run like this from the very beginning, so that rules out spyware.
I am guessing it is my GPU because Natural Selection runs really fast on this machine. If it were the processor or RAM causing the issue I would expect some hangups in other programs / other games but it never happens.
My budget is quite constrained right now because I am newly married, going to school almost full-time, saving for a house, saving for a second car and my dog just got diagnosed with heartworms... so $75 is about all I can afford and I doubt there is a better card for a cheaper price. I have looked around quite a bit... but if you know of a better deal, let me know!
I believe my RAM is DDR2 but I will check and consider throwing more RAM in there. (I have no idea how old this mobo is that I scavenged so I don't know how much RAM the motherboard supports either... 2 Gigs could be the limit.
Also, I just wanted to point out that the system specs / minimum requirements listed by UWE are for the GAME and not necessarily the toolset. I don't think any promises have been made by the UWE guys in regards to their tools running on your computer. It's a blessing just to have them available to us, so we shouldn't be too critical about them.
Cheers,
Cody
so why on earth would a recent install be vista? apart from ME there is no worse performance killer... if u need lots of ram or dx10/11, go windows 7, if u want speed and have less than 4gb ram, go xp tbh
and remember to actually install new drivers for your graphics card, the default windows ones don't usually make use of the hardware acceleration! (scrolling in a browser actually stutters my computer when the graphics drivers weren't installed, and it's a year old laptop that can run l4d2 and dragon age without too much trouble)
If you need higher specifications to create your game than to run it, then you normally have big problems. Especially in a community in which you are to encourage modification.
Consider Photoshop. My old work computer can display any picture you create in Photoshop but it can't run Photoshop itself.
The point is, the toolset is pre-alpha right now. It has not been refined or streamlined in any way and like someone else stated, without occlusion culling the editor is going to render EVERYTHING. The game wouldn't do that and eventually the editor won't either (since it is actually the game engine that runs the spark editor) but right now it does.
So it isn't ridiculous to expect an editor to run slower than the thing the editor actually produces.
Ultimately, I'm sure it is the desire of UWE to streamline their tools but for now we can't really complain with what we've got. ;) That's all I'm saying.
Cheers,
Cody
Spark seems to have a lot of errors directly relating to graphics processing units. Just check the stickied threads and discussions on Spark bugs.
Spark runs fine in unlit mode if there is not too man things. Lit mode radically reduces performance, especially with shadowcasting lights. A test "Marine Start" room with full lights and not too few props will drop FPS to ~2.
Spark runs fine in unlit mode if there is not too man things. Lit mode radically reduces performance, especially with shadowcasting lights. A test "Marine Start" room with full lights and not too few props will drop FPS to ~2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I thought I heard Max or somebody say that they were working on making lit mode more efficient.
You have a setup that is really close to my own (after I get the 9800 GT that is) so are you happy with your overall performance in unlit mode? Does it lag at all? How many props can your system handle? How big can you build your maps?
Cheers,
Cody
Spark runs fine in unlit mode if there is not too man things. Lit mode radically reduces performance, especially with shadowcasting lights. A test "Marine Start" room with full lights and not too few props will drop FPS to ~2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's weird, I don't think this should happen. I have the exact same rig (save for core duo), and I'm not getting any drops until about six shadow-casting lights. In fact I think it's tolerable up until like twelve.
Yes, but see this was my original question - is it my GPU or my entire system? By gathering information from other users I can then make an informed decision about whether or not to invest in a new graphics card or a new computer altogether.
I am going to stick with the 9800 GT. Best bang for my buck right now. I have read a lot of reviews and although the Radeon HD 5670 has higher stats as far as calculations per second, etc. the 9800 GT snags higher frame rates the majority of the time. (In some tests considerably more so.)
It is a sad day, though. I really like ATi as I think my nickname proudly displays. But today... is a new day... they shall call me... DarknVidia...... wow... that sounds lame...
:(
Cheers,
Cody
I am going to stick with the 9800 GT. Best bang for my buck right now. I have read a lot of reviews and although the Radeon HD 5670 has higher stats as far as calculations per second, etc. the 9800 GT snags higher frame rates the majority of the time. (In some tests considerably more so.)
It is a sad day, though. I really like ATi as I think my nickname proudly displays. But today... is a new day... they shall call me... DarknVidia...... wow... that sounds lame...
:(
Cheers,
Cody<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Your name could be.. Darth Vidia, Sounds starwarsy =p
Why?
Did you ever try to run something like Visual Studio? It uses a few hundred MB of RAM regularly for small apps. The compiled app itself may only use 500k of RAM, though. Dev tools have to work with unoptimized, raw data. The game gets compiled (Or, in Spark's case: Optimized) data. That Photoshop example was great, too. Editing a simple image in Photoshop may take up ~900MB of system memory. Even the TIFF-Version (with all layers etc.) + a viewer are just a few MB in size.
OP: Get a 9800GT. PCI is (usually) limited to 33MB/s. PCI-E 2.0 x16 (=9800GT) can handle 8GByte/s (4GB/s with a PCI-E 1.0 board). It can be expected that transferring a single texture to the graphics card takes ages...
Sorry that you feel this way but you're not living in the real world. Editors typically use more resources than finished products. It's as simple as that. Final Cut Pro on Mac for instance takes a lot of RAM or GarageBand but in the end they output a video or audio file that most Granny PCs could handle.
EDITED MY RANT. [/rage]
UPDATE: I did purchase a PNY 9800 GT 1GB PCI Express card tonight and WOW!
My problems were ENTIRELY my GPU's fault as I had hoped all along. The editor runs like a hot knife through butter. I finally got to run lit mode and check out the models in all their glory. Great purchase. I got it for $89.99 (after 10 buck mail-in-rebate) from Fry's.
Super worth it. Glorious I say. Glorious!!
It did cause my Audigy 2 audio card to stop working though... oh well... I'll look into that later. This product (the SB Audigy from Creative) has always been flaky from the day I bought it.
Oh yeah it could be that I only have a 300 watt Power Supply... lol... don't ask me how that's working with the PNY... *hehe*
Cheers,
Cody