What did you do? Performance problems.
Mkilbride
Join Date: 2010-01-07 Member: 69952Members
Join Date: 2010-01-07 Member: 69952Members
So I last played Build 224, which wasn't that long ago. Performance had improved, that was nice.
Now it's 227, performance is gone again, and it wasn't even good before.
Also, how come I have 80-90FPS...and it looks like 30FPS? When I type r_stats, I see 30ms next to my FPS?
Also, regardless of my settings, performance stays the same. I even tried deleting the entire game, folder and all, thinking issues from beta might be left over. Re-downloaded, nothing.
It's really frustrating to see 80-90FPS but it feels like I'm playing 30FPS console wise. MSI Afterburner is showing 40-60% CPU usage and 50-60% GPU usage, while my FPS Can be as low as 30, which is like a god damned slide show. VRAM usage is about 900MB of 2GB
Now I realize you're indie, and I remember you saying you had to release early due to concerns over going bust, but this is still pretty bad. I even have SLI forced and FPS suffers. It helps abit, a 70% increase in frames, but still, even 80-90FPS feels like a sideshow.
I know comparing to other games is not fair; especially ones with a much larger budget and team, but I can run games like Metro 2033, Battlefield 3, ect, maxed out @ over 100FPS and they look alot prettier / have more going on and far larger levels. Again, I know it is not a fair comparison.
But I'm sick and tired of the old saying that just because a developer is Indie, we should forgive, or ignore their mistakes. I'm finding it really frustrating with all the 10/10 reviews completely ignoring the massive issues that were not fixed from beta.
I want the game to do well, I was a massive fan of NS1, played it like crack back when it was released and a few years after that. The game still had a solid few months of work to do. There are several issues with the performance, netcode, and servers requiring absolutely beasts of machines, I know one server company who told me they had to dedicate an entire core to just running one NS2 server on one of their servers, and normally they could run 4-5 servers of your average game off just one core. Poor optimization, server side, as well.
Granted, I know you'll try your hardest to fix this, but I have to vent my frustration as having watched this project since it was announced all those years ago, for it to have come out in such a sorry state.
If people can't play your game, they're not going to buy it. They'd have more luck running Crysis 2 with HD mods than this game.
For reference on my system:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Core i5 2500K @ 4.5GHZ, 8GB RAM 1866MHZ, GTX670 SLI OC'ed 30%(Increase Voltage), 128GB Samsung 830 SSD + 2 1TB HDDs.) Windows 7 64-bit Professional<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<img src="http://s14.postimage.org/50tffygxb/4920_screenshots_2012_11_02_00002.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
For some reason the above just feels like 30-40FPS and is very jerky / not smooth.
Now it's 227, performance is gone again, and it wasn't even good before.
Also, how come I have 80-90FPS...and it looks like 30FPS? When I type r_stats, I see 30ms next to my FPS?
Also, regardless of my settings, performance stays the same. I even tried deleting the entire game, folder and all, thinking issues from beta might be left over. Re-downloaded, nothing.
It's really frustrating to see 80-90FPS but it feels like I'm playing 30FPS console wise. MSI Afterburner is showing 40-60% CPU usage and 50-60% GPU usage, while my FPS Can be as low as 30, which is like a god damned slide show. VRAM usage is about 900MB of 2GB
Now I realize you're indie, and I remember you saying you had to release early due to concerns over going bust, but this is still pretty bad. I even have SLI forced and FPS suffers. It helps abit, a 70% increase in frames, but still, even 80-90FPS feels like a sideshow.
I know comparing to other games is not fair; especially ones with a much larger budget and team, but I can run games like Metro 2033, Battlefield 3, ect, maxed out @ over 100FPS and they look alot prettier / have more going on and far larger levels. Again, I know it is not a fair comparison.
But I'm sick and tired of the old saying that just because a developer is Indie, we should forgive, or ignore their mistakes. I'm finding it really frustrating with all the 10/10 reviews completely ignoring the massive issues that were not fixed from beta.
I want the game to do well, I was a massive fan of NS1, played it like crack back when it was released and a few years after that. The game still had a solid few months of work to do. There are several issues with the performance, netcode, and servers requiring absolutely beasts of machines, I know one server company who told me they had to dedicate an entire core to just running one NS2 server on one of their servers, and normally they could run 4-5 servers of your average game off just one core. Poor optimization, server side, as well.
Granted, I know you'll try your hardest to fix this, but I have to vent my frustration as having watched this project since it was announced all those years ago, for it to have come out in such a sorry state.
If people can't play your game, they're not going to buy it. They'd have more luck running Crysis 2 with HD mods than this game.
For reference on my system:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Core i5 2500K @ 4.5GHZ, 8GB RAM 1866MHZ, GTX670 SLI OC'ed 30%(Increase Voltage), 128GB Samsung 830 SSD + 2 1TB HDDs.) Windows 7 64-bit Professional<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<img src="http://s14.postimage.org/50tffygxb/4920_screenshots_2012_11_02_00002.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
For some reason the above just feels like 30-40FPS and is very jerky / not smooth.
Comments
The more noise we make, the more topics we make about this issue, the more load it puts on their server, the less they can ignore it. Sure they know of it, but I just feel like to many forums have the "Keep it to one topic" thing, we need to make them see every page of it be filled with these types of topics.
Don't mean to sound whiny but as a paying customer, exceeding the recommended requirements for this game, I am considering asking for my money back and buying it a few months later on sale when it (hopefully) had significant improvements to performance.
Just wait for the precache fix to go out tonight, and see if its much better.
Only downside now is that my GPU is going mental and creating a lot of heat. It's a Radeon 6850. Before the patch it didn't do anything lol
in next 6 hours they will patch the precache fix patch that should fix a slew of problems.
(most impact on FPS to least)
1. Ambient Occlusion
2. Game Resolution
3. Texture Quality
4. Shadows
Also, this isn't great but it works: try closing all or most other programs in the background. NS2 uses a ton of memory, and uses multiple CPU cores, so your browser and other programs sitting in the background and updating themselves causes hitches.
I agree that they need more work on performance, but with the above you can get smooth gameplay (my computer is 3 years old now and the game runs fine).
You could try turning off your GPU overclock and reset the settings of your gpu's configuration (take note of your GPU overclock parameters first just in case) - it has worked for some.
Also, BigImp, if you read my post, you would note, turning down those settings does nothing. My performance is ######e and I have over 33ms of GPU lag, it seems. As low as 14 at times, but still.
As for memory, I have 8GB and I don't run anything else in the backround when I game.
Even Nvidia's ceo has said that while performance gains may be had, its never as smooth of an experience as a single card.
And after owning 3 sli setups.. and dual GPU setups... and allll the headaches that came with them.. I agree.
Try using a single card and see if you end up with the same feeling of sluggishness, regardless of fps. I know i did the same and am never looking back.
I tried EVERYTHING from pre rendered frames to beta drivers etc etc.. for those of us who can notice the slight difference in responsiveness of frames, disable MGPU.
Oh and stop sticking to your guns and at least try to remove the OC on your gpu. You never know.
Also monitor the heat that they are experiencing with "speedfan" a free program.
I can't exactly remove the OC, because the 6xx series auto-OC"s
and YES, I have tried with SLI disabled, obviously, I'm no idiot!
I use SLI in plenty of games and it's very smooth, the microstutter has been improved massively.
###### insulting post, ironhorse. I didn't expect to be to insulted on these forums, I'm shocked.
I don't know you and i don't know what you are capable of, so i covered the basics.. i think you are being a tad bit sensitive to my <i>suggestions</i> that originate from my own experience in a very similar situation. :-/
Something so subjective as "It's really frustrating to see 80-90FPS but it feels like I'm playing 30FPS console wise." is not enough to go on. If you wish for better results you're going to have to provide something measurable here like a demo or a profiler shot etc, else its just immeasurable and not really addressable besides providing the basics, as i did.
p.s. theres no "shot" showing for me.
First post, I tried just making a link instead of using the forum image tag.
No, it's just the way you talked to me was highly insulting is all.
As for the FPS feeling like 30FPS, another thread made a topic about it having to relate to the multicore fix and V-Sync. The devs have said they are looking into it and it is a legitimate issue.
As I said, MSI AFterburner is showing less than half GPU & CPU usage, this is the only game affected by it. Also SpeedFan...we're in 2012. I'm using MSI Afterburner to monitor all that with OSD.
As far as I can tell, this game isn't using even two full threads, and can't effectively use GPU power. Considering how CPU Dependent on the game is, pretty bad.
I guess my post was TL:DR though, as most of what you've asked was answered in the first post.
- Wait for Vertical Sync: Triple buffering
- Texture Streaming (experimental): On
- Multi-core rendering: On
That issue with Vsync + multicore is an isolated issue from how capping framerate is being done currently, the same can be done using the maxfps command. But seeing your screenshot @ 84.9 fps i dont think you are running vsync? So you shouldnt be experiencing anything like that jitter?
I've looked over your OP again and the only thing i see that is descriptive of the symptoms you are experiencing is "Also, how come I have 80-90FPS...and it looks like 30FPS? When I type r_stats, I see 30ms next to my FPS?" To answer your question that 30ms is just a direct translation of the framerate and is a more accurate method for the developers to measure framerate IIRC..
So i'm not really sure what to address here? :-/
I'm assuming you're using raw input as well, which combined with no vsync and ~90fps you should be experiencing smooth as silk gameplay?
If not or if you are experiencing hitching of some sort please take some screenshots of profile running in the console with the tree expanded so that we can see if theres anything odd like spiking etc.
Thanks
edit: looking at the post before me, you dont need texture streaming on with your rig, and i dont know why you would want vsync (but u dont seem to be using it anyways)
Somehow I doubt that forum posts on a particular topic are going to cause significant server load...
Also, yes, I agree the game is poorly optimized and runs nowhere near as well as it should and that we should talk about it. There's no reason to flip out because someone suggested some things to check for you, though.
My system isn't that up to date (Intel core duo E8500, Nvidia GTX 260, 4gb ram) but i can run for example Battlefield BC2 with medium details on a decent framerate. In NS2 my game drops to <30fps in larger fights (even with low details). :/
That issue with Vsync + multicore is an isolated issue from how capping framerate is being done currently, the same can be done using the maxfps command. But seeing your screenshot @ 84.9 fps i dont think you are running vsync? So you shouldnt be experiencing anything like that jitter?
I've looked over your OP again and the only thing i see that is descriptive of the symptoms you are experiencing is "Also, how come I have 80-90FPS...and it looks like 30FPS? When I type r_stats, I see 30ms next to my FPS?" To answer your question that 30ms is just a direct translation of the framerate and is a more accurate method for the developers to measure framerate IIRC..
So i'm not really sure what to address here? :-/
I'm assuming you're using raw input as well, which combined with no vsync and ~90fps you should be experiencing smooth as silk gameplay?
If not or if you are experiencing hitching of some sort please take some screenshots of profile running in the console with the tree expanded so that we can see if theres anything odd like spiking etc.
Thanks
edit: looking at the post before me, you dont need texture streaming on with your rig, and i dont know why you would want vsync (but u dont seem to be using it anyways)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I am using it, I like to get rid of tearing. I have a 120HZ monitor, so yes.
Even if I turn absolutely everything to minimum my performance just plummets when stuff is going on. a 8v8 server I have 40-50FPS with every setting, including textures, set to low.
That issue with Vsync + multicore is an isolated issue from how capping framerate is being done currently, the same can be done using the maxfps command. But seeing your screenshot @ 84.9 fps i dont think you are running vsync? So you shouldnt be experiencing anything like that jitter?
I've looked over your OP again and the only thing i see that is descriptive of the symptoms you are experiencing is "Also, how come I have 80-90FPS...and it looks like 30FPS? When I type r_stats, I see 30ms next to my FPS?" To answer your question that 30ms is just a direct translation of the framerate and is a more accurate method for the developers to measure framerate IIRC..
So i'm not really sure what to address here? :-/
I'm assuming you're using raw input as well, which combined with no vsync and ~90fps you should be experiencing smooth as silk gameplay?
If not or if you are experiencing hitching of some sort please take some screenshots of profile running in the console with the tree expanded so that we can see if theres anything odd like spiking etc.
Thanks
edit: looking at the post before me, you dont need texture streaming on with your rig, and i dont know why you would want vsync (but u dont seem to be using it anyways)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You are one very patient guy.
I've read in some other thread that the game is quite CPU demanding (which would surprise me, as I would expect my GPU to be the bottleneck at 1920*1080?). I've tried lowering to 1600*900, but didn't do much.
Here my specs, just for reference:
AMD Phenom II x4 955 BE @3,6ghz
ATI Radeon 6870 HD 1GB
4 GB RAM
Hope Unknown Worlds will continue to work on optimization...
Now,
1) I am not trying to play the game in any fancy way, I know I don't have a super computer (it gets by though, lets just say this is not the only game I own, but as noted comparisons to certain games are unfair). Presume I am talking of having everything that can be turned off, off. I will be merely speaking of 800x600 (the only one its playable on) and 1000x800 everything on low or off.
2) Drivers updated, nothing significant running in the background.
3) I have done extensive tweaking in the Nvidia control panel. Nothing like vsync or fxaa is on when it should not be. Assume I have it tuned for maximum performance.
My specs.
AMD Athlon II X4 640 @ 3GHZ
4GB Ram
PNY Geforce GT430 1gig
Thus, being merely a 430 to a 450 under the recommended specs. I cannot help but find the current gameplay disappointing (fps lag in combat results in me dying, a lot).
Observations:
a) 1000x800 is unplayable at best it will reach 30fps, in any action whatsoever however it will be in the teens. Unfortunately this appears to be the lowest resolution the game has been really designed for. By which I mean in the 800x600 I am forced to play it in is clearly not designed for chat, game ranking scores, the menu, font sizes etc
b) No noticeable difference between 800x600 and 600x400. Either in general FPS or in the appearance of stutter.
c) The issue is less, constantly low fps (30-35fps is to my mind, perfectly playable) or fps decreasing in fights. Its more apparently random 'stutters'. A pattern behind which I am yet to identify. A previous poster mentioned infestation. However, I have experienced stutter all over several maps early in game before infestation has spread.
Thought I'd chip in as well after trying every trick in the book that is the interenet. I managed to play the game for a good 2 days after the release with no problems with nearly all graphics set on full (no HBAO and minimal infestation, 1920x1200). After that something changed though. The game has become unplayable and it's not related to my hardware, setting everything to minimum (quite a trip down the memory lane watching this game at 640x480 and all at minimum) didn't do literally anything.
Having settings at full or minimum result in the same exact performance which is around 30fps in the more peaceful areas but once stuff gets moving it drops below 15.
I have cleared all the game files
I have reinstalled the game (even with cloud sync disabled, the game still remembers my key bindings, did I miss something beyond what's in steam folder and appdata?!)
I have eliminated CCC from the background
I have tried the game at absolute minimum graphics settings
I have catalyst 12.10 installed (and the game worked with these drivers for the first 2 days)
My CPU (intel C2 q9450 @ stock 2,66GHz) hits about 75% load with the game (all cores), gpu (HD6950 with 2Gigabytes) load is about 34% when playing with all bells and whistles.. I have 8 gigabytes of RAM and running windows 7 x64. r_stats shows that cpu isn't waiting for GPU (0ms).
My friends who are also running the game on ATI cards have not had the same problem (although my little brother does have the exact same problem though, he has Q6600 and HD6950). None of the Nvidia users have had the same problem yet.
I'm leaning towards the update having something to do with this, corrupting something or "unoptimizing" the game for particular setups.
Please fix this, I really started to like this game until this went down!
Basically, Multicore and V-sync doesn't function properly together or separately for some people after 225/226
++++++++++
<b>If you have Multicore ON, try turning it OFF. Or vice versa. Same for V-sync. </b>
++++++++++
Personally I have found that Multicore and V-sync both enabled<i> at the same time</i> make the game incredibly jittery, even though 60+ fps is being reported.
The fix for me is to have v-sync ON, while Multicore is OFF. All of my cores are still used as if Multicore were ON, so I think it's bugged.
------------------
System Information
------------------
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1
Processor: Intel® Core i7 CPU 950 @ 3.07GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.5GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 3582MB RAM
Page File: 1949MB used, 5214MB available
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
Display Memory: 2550 MB
Dedicated Memory: 1015 MB
Shared Memory: 1535 MB
Basically, Multicore and V-sync doesn't function properly together or separately for some people after 225/226
++++++++++
<b>If you have Multicore ON, try turning it OFF. Or vice versa. Same for V-sync. </b>
++++++++++
Personally I have found that Multicore and V-sync both enabled<i> at the same time</i> make the game incredibly jittery, even though 60+ fps is being reported.
The fix for me is to have v-sync ON, while Multicore is OFF. All of my cores are still used as if Multicore were ON, so I think it's bugged.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I've been playing around with multicore and as far as I can tell it does nothing. It is for sake of testing off and staying off at the moment.
(of course this is a bug your mentioning but,) There's no logical reason however why v-sync would make the game run faster, it requires the gpu draw every frame twice to reduce screen tearing and in every game or engine i have ever encountered lowers fps. due to increasing demand (not always by a huge amount) on the gpu. This is the reason I turned it off straight away and It's off now. I'll try and play with it on and see if it helps later.
but, I doubt it. the reason being. The phenomenon reported in that thread notes the FPS doesn't change. I've been playing with the fps display on and the fps lag appears to be reported.
In a manner reminiscent to me of the arma engine. There does also appear to a client end performance impact by how good the server is.
I should've mentioned this as well. but also for sake of testing, i'm not touching a server with less that 97% performance and less than 50ms latency.
I understand about the recommended specs, the game does need to be optimized more, but in fairness a GT430 is absolutely atrocious
<img src="http://tpucdn.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_GT_430/images/perfrel.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" />
And this is a chart from two or three years ago.
And this is a chart from two or three years ago.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Its a souped up one (remember, not all gfx cards are made equally and PNY appear to have done a very good job retooling this chipset circa late 2010), reason I got it was after significant amount of market research. For dx11 cards at 300w (and before anyone starts, I am getting zero power issues) this PNY number was the best thing on the easily accessible british market. Critically it has 128-bit memory interface not 64 like the gt 610 or 520.
Again I don't want to make comparison to other games. Lets just say I am a avid day z, skyrim, l4d2 etc player and it more than holds its own with plenty of dx10 and dx11 games. It is my opinion the 'little card that could'. I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking to enter into the low end of the mid range market.
The first game i've had issue with is NS2.
And Again , not trying to do anything impressive. 1000x800 everything on low or off at a stable fps 30-40. If I could achieve this You'd never hear from me again.
To blame my set up, seems like the easy answer here. But I know what its capable of, and this... <u>should</u> by all logic and reason be within its capabilities.
Remember again, its not consistently low fps thats the main problem. Its fps spikes.
Not sure if you tried or not, but these settings are better on than off for me, so try:
Vertical Sync: Triple Buffered
Texture Streaming: On
Multi-core Render: On
and of course, if you're not already, make sure you have no background programs (except Steam) running when you play the game.