Performance Issues

[Deleted User] · February 2011

Firstly, absolutely superb job on Natural Selection 2 - the game is looking stunning and has so much potential. I've been a fan since NS1, which was one of my favourite games (mods?), ever. It seems unfair to call it a mod, because it was so much more!

Anyway, to my point: what can be done to improve my in-game performance in NS2? I so dearly want to play, but struggle to get frame rates that I consider playable :(

At the moment I'm running a 1GB GTX 460, Athlon X4 3Ghz and 4GB of RAM - so nothing too shabby - but I'm only getting roughly 25-35 frames at all times, and because it fluctuates so much it's noticeably choppy and a little unpleasant.

Admittedly, I am <i>trying</i> to run the game at my monitor's native resolution (1920x1080); but in my defence, the first thing I did to try was dropping the res, and this didn't seem to improve things at all, or barely at all, which confused me - so I just put it back up thinking that if I was stuck at those frame rates I might as well enjoy a crisp looking game whilst doing so! I have the details set to medium, and again changing this really doesn't seem to alter the frame rate <i>that</i> much. I have run the game in 'ridiculously awful' at 1280x720, a dirtily low resolution, and it's honestly barely any different from 1920x1080 at high! :/

Does anyone have any suggestions that I could make to improve my gaming experience?

And finally, I guess this is a bit of a given, <i>but</i>, is NS2 going to become more optimised as development continues..? And have any optimisations been made in build 163 (which Steam is downloading for me at the moment).

Thanks and bloody good job so far!

Mr. Epic · February 2011

Only disabling shadows offers any improvement, you can do so with "r_shadows 0" (and then to re-enable you do "r_shadows").

For more performance we must wait for additional optimization, but the good news is that all signs point to NS2 being capable of better frame rates in the future so there is hope!

PaiSand · February 2011

Yes, yes and yes.
And read here: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=111496" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=111496</a>

extollo · February 2011

Most of the issues are server side performance - your machine should provide a reasonable rate client side.

There are a number of areas contributing to the current hitches - all actively being worked. I expect it will take a few more patch cycles to start to
see really noticeable improvement.

See the "Progress" list on the first page of the website for active technical tasks related to performance.

[Deleted User] · February 2011

Okay, thanks everyone - I'll stick with it and look forward to the improvements!

[Deleted User] · February 2011

Right, well I opened up the console from the main menu and typed in "r_shadows 0" and "r_flash false" and nothing appeared to happen..? After I'd typed those things in and pressed enter, no confirmation line appeared or anything, so I have no idea if they took effect? Is that normal? Am I supposed to type them into the console at the main menu?

I didn't include the quotation marks when typing them in-game.

Chris0132 · February 2011

You won't get confirmation, they are commands which you normally wouldn't have access to.

You should notice however that nothing casts shadows, the fans in the ceiling and so forth don't cast shadows.

peregrinus · February 2011

Do you have to type 'dev 1' or 'cheats 1' first?

Mr. Epic · February 2011

No, you can use it at any time without having to use any dev or cheat modes.

To confirm it was disabled, simply walk to a rotating fan with shadows or something that you can see is clearly casting shadows. Enter r_shadows 0 in the console, and then you should notice the scene change to be much flatter (as there won't be any shadows). If you didn't notice any difference, look again and type r_shadows to re-enable it. You should see some difference. If nothing changes either time you are likely typing it in wrong. Check for the console changing the S in shadows to upper case, the r_shadows command is case sensitive and sometimes it gets changed.

luns · February 2011

we need better settings, to be able to turn off anything in-game which can increase our performance. for example shadows, decales would be great to be able to turn off in the settings without looking for the commands.

I personally had 20 or so fps drop. In hive rooms my fps spikes like crazy, and during combat it just freezes, and spikes.

ScardyBob · February 2011

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (jbaker8935 @ Feb 17 2011, 06:43 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1833090"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Most of the issues are server side performance - your machine should provide a reasonable rate client side.

There are a number of areas contributing to the current hitches - all actively being worked. I expect it will take a few more patch cycles to start to
see really noticeable improvement.

See the "Progress" list on the first page of the website for active technical tasks related to performance.</div>

This. Bottleneck is server-side right now so any client-side improvements will not make gameplay any less 'laggy'.

Not sure the reason, but it seems like server-side performance has gotten a little worse this patch. I was on a few servers last night where the tick per sec dropped to 0. While I've seen 2-3 tick per sec in previous B16X builds, its never gone to 0.

Performance Issues

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