Unrealisticly bad perfomance!

Madd0gMadd0g Join Date: 2012-12-24 Member: 176116Members
So first off my PC is:
Q8300 quad core 2,5ghz
GTX560ti
4gb ram
700W PSU fortron
Win 7 64bit.

My performance in NS2 is sometimes completely unplayable.
I am playing on a low resolution with all low settings and still getting 10-15 frames in a lot of the fights.
I run games like bf3 with 40+ fps no problem and even planetside 2,so it seems rediculous to me that i would get 10-15 frames on NS2 while playing on low settings,low rez...
I also get horrible lagg in the menu while trying to search servers,i can bearly move my mouse.

Would really apreaciate some tips how to fix that.

Comments

  • ObraxisObraxis Subnautica Animator & Generalist, NS2 Person Join Date: 2004-07-24 Member: 30071Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, WC 2013 - Supporter, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts
    Hi there, your CPU speed is actually lower than the minimum system requirements (Core 2 Duo 2.6 ghz). You may have a quad core CPU, but the Ghz value matters much more in NS2 than most other games due to the Spark Engine using scripting language as it's game code base. BF3 was developed by a large studio for console which are 7 years old. NS2 has been developed for the PC by a very small team. Until they can optimize the game further, you may need a faster CPU in order to get better performance.

    While your GPU is more than capable of running NS2, your CPU is from 2008 technology making it 4 years old. It may be time to consider upgrading as other games will also soon be pushing your CPU boundary anyway. It's also possible your not getting the full performance of your 560Ti due to being CPU bottle-necked.

    Example here: <a href="http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-2010/compare,2418.html?prod%5B4788%5D=on&prod%5B4417%5D=on" target="_blank">http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/charts/deskt...od%5B4417%5D=on</a>

    As you can see from the above comparison, you get 100FPS more between even an older i5 Sandy Bridge and the Q8300 in L4D2. Encoding a MP4 video takes nearly half the time. ie: The Q8300 is roughly half as powerful as the i5 Sandy Bridge. And we haven't even compared the latest Ivy Bridge CPU.

    <b><i>Things to try:</i></b>
    Set everything to low
    Turn off Ambient occlusion
    Set Particles to Low
    Turn off Atmospherics
    Lower your resolution

    And if you feel confident:
    Overclock your CPU to 3.2Ghz+

    The lag on the server browser should be fixed in the next patch. Thanks!
  • Madd0gMadd0g Join Date: 2012-12-24 Member: 176116Members
    So you are saying it's perfectly normal to run a game like bf3 with 40+ frames and run ns2 with half the player size and grapfhics of bf3 with 10-15 frames?
    That seems like a worse optimization even than ps2 lol.
    And i do know my CPU is bottleneck,but since i dont have money to change it i am stuck with it.
    Anyway thx for the response it was very informational.
    Just 1 more thing i want to ask,is it safe to overcloack a 4 year old heavily used CPU like Q8300?
    Because my warranty have expired.
  • TinCanTinCan Join Date: 2006-12-11 Member: 59010Members
    I would recommend trying a program called Game Booster if you haven't already. It shuts down unnecessary system processes to improve performance. It helped me a bit with my "lower than the minimum system requirements" setup. I have a Pentium4(HTT) 2.8Ghz
    - Too bad I can't overclock it. If you are going to overclock, the thing you need to focus on is cooling. How good is your fan/heatsink/airflow/etc.
  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    edited December 2012
    If you've never overclocked in your life, read up on it. Because before the iCores were introduced, overclocking and getting a stable one at that, on 2006-2007 hardware is quite fiddly...

    Also BF3 was indeed created for the PS3 and Xbox360, which are oldschool hardware, your PC is actually much more powerful then those consoles. So it's only logical you can run BF3 smoothly. However NS2 is a 2012 game that is in fact running on a scripting language for the game code, which requires 2011-2012 hardware to run smooth and even those, at stock speeds, can have trouble.

    The game still needs optimizations, but brute forcing your way through the current optimization issues, with 6-4 year old hardware running only at 2.5Ghz, is simply asking too much. It requires at the very least 3.0Ghz (Also clock for clock the iCores are faster)
  • ExoskelettExoskelett Join Date: 2012-12-18 Member: 175509Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    edited January 2013
    Well Battlefield 3 does not look that way badly for a "console game". We should not forget that Natural Selection 2 is some kind of Closequarters - you do not have large areas with all time over 20 players on screen.

    If you check Unreal Tournament 3 you may add 20 bots running on your CPU and its still working better as NS2 while u get the same more likely much higher detailamount as the Spark Engine shows up.

    NS2 is unoptimized at all i guess - actually who the hell is using less then 4 cores at those times ? Maybe some1 with an Office computer but why is it called office then lol :>
  • DghelneshiDghelneshi Aims to surpass Fana in post edits. Join Date: 2011-11-01 Member: 130634Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited January 2013
    @Exoskelett: You assume that graphics are the only thing that put stress on your computer. As you might imagine, your <u>graphics</u> card handles a lot of that stuff. This game being bottlenecked by CPU performance might make you think that there are other things taking a lot more time to calculate in NS2 than in other games.

    This is caused by a <u>conscious design decision</u>, sadly with a big tradeoff in performance.
    Yes, low performance is also caused by the dev team being very small, the engine being largely programmed by just one guy, etc... But a lot of it is caused by the decision to improve workflow (very important for a small team!) and enable incredible modding capabilities by using a different kind of programming language for almost everything not part of the core engine.

    There are still possibilities to make it run significantly faster in the future through various optimizations, but as always this takes time.
  • |MaguS||MaguS| Join Date: 2013-01-01 Member: 176998Members
    <!--quoteo(post=2052336:date=Dec 28 2012, 08:29 AM:name=Kouji_San)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kouji_San @ Dec 28 2012, 08:29 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2052336"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you've never overclocked in your life, read up on it. Because before the iCores were introduced, overclocking and getting a stable one at that, on 2006-2007 hardware is quite fiddly...

    Also BF3 was indeed created for the PS3 and Xbox360, which are oldschool hardware, your PC is actually much more powerful then those consoles. So it's only logical you can run BF3 smoothly. However NS2 is a 2012 game that is in fact running on a scripting language for the game code, which requires 2011-2012 hardware to run smooth and even those, at stock speeds, can have trouble.

    The game still needs optimizations, but brute forcing your way through the current optimization issues, with 6-4 year old hardware running only at 2.5Ghz, is simply asking too much. It requires at the very least 3.0Ghz (Also clock for clock the iCores are faster)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    Wow so according to your logic crysis should run amazing with all settings maxed on a pc that meets NS2 min req since its a game made before 2012. You clearly know little about pc hardware or gaming.

    NS2 runs pretty poor on high end systems when compared to games of higher caliber. BF3 even for being released on consoles looks far better then NS2 and runs better. His PC should technically be able to run the game at low to medium settings if he can run BF3 without issue.
  • CoTTonCoTTon Join Date: 2005-02-28 Member: 42773Members
    Goto your physX settings in your nvidia control panel and make sure the setting is set to your graphics card instead of auto or CPU.
  • geoxilegeoxile Join Date: 2010-12-24 Member: 75926Members
    Frostbite 2 is a multiplatform engine so each platform is (or at least should be) sufficiently optimized. But that's not important.

    TC, low res usually results in a greater CPU bottleneck than usual, so you might want to try turning up the resolution and seeing what you get. As for the game, I can't say but if it's really so script dependent then I guess it's heavily dependent on CPU performance. Though it seems a bit weird that a Q8300 is struggling with this game. Technically it should fit between Phenom II and Nehalem clock for clock from what I recall so it's still a fairly competent CPU.
  • ObraxisObraxis Subnautica Animator & Generalist, NS2 Person Join Date: 2004-07-24 Member: 30071Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, WC 2013 - Supporter, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts
    <!--quoteo(post=2054497:date=Jan 2 2013, 05:45 AM:name=|MaguS|)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (|MaguS| @ Jan 2 2013, 05:45 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054497"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Wow so according to your logic crysis should run amazing with all settings maxed on a pc that meets NS2 min req since its a game made before 2012. You clearly know little about pc hardware or gaming.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    He did not say that at all, and both of us know more about what hardware NS2 requires as we've been testing various setups for years. We are saying that because NS2's game code is script based, not C++ based like Crysis it relies more on a single core's actual CPU speed than other games. C++ is much faster at executing than lua however lua allows much more mod-ability. NS2 ships with the game code so anyone can change it and change it without compiling. It's much easier to mod NS2 than Crysis. Yes there is a performance trade-off initially, but performance will increase with time.
  • UzverUzver Join Date: 2012-11-20 Member: 172632Members, Reinforced - Silver
    In my opinion the main problem of low perfomance - LUA, LUA and again LUA. Because of LUA it's hard to implement true multicore support. Because of LUA lowering graphics will not give you additional FPS. You just need a CPU with over 9000 GHZ and hi end architecture, not a powerful GPU.
  • JayssoneerJayssoneer Join Date: 2013-01-04 Member: 177450Members
    Just adding my own experience, hopefully someone can tell if I should be getting better performance.

    <b>Setup</b>
    Processor: i7 2600K @ 4.5GHz
    Graphics card: HD7970 Crossfire
    Resolution: 1920x1200
    Memory: 16GB 1600MHz
    Storage: Crucial M4 128GB
    Operating system: Windows 7 Ultimate x64

    I've turned all settings to minimum/off, expect multicore rendering which increases performance. My framerate is still dipping to 40 in the endgame, lowering settings didn't help much at all. Crossfire was also useless so I disabled it. I also disabled hyperthreading and give NS2.exe high priority. I made sure that my CPU overclock stays stable in-game (it's always been stable with prime95, but Turbo Boost can cause fluctuations with light loads). Using ThrottleStop (logging only), I can confirm that the multiplier stays at 45 when I'm playing.

    I haven't tried a lower resolution, because that's not a very attractive choice with LCD monitors. 40fps is pretty much playable, but it annoys me to no end. I can run most games at stable 60fps, though there are some other games besides this, where no amount of tinkering with settings will eliminate the framerate drops. At least MWLL (a Crysis mod) and MechWarrior Online have similar issues. Both seem to be bottlenecked by the CPU, just like NS2.
  • fatal0efatal0e Join Date: 2013-01-02 Member: 177139Members
    edited January 2013
    Keep in mind the q8000 series was the cheapo weak version of that generation. The q9450+ was the gaming chips to get during that era.

    I have not analyzed my fps. I have everything on high settings, ambient occlusion and vsync are off, texture streaming is on. In graphics options it shows 88-91 fps. I like to play 24 person games, I never feel the game is slow, I also do not feel like it gets slower towards the end of a game. Game feels very fast and smooth the whole time. With texture streaming off I did feel some hiccups on occasion.

    1920x1200 high detail settings, ambient occlusion and vsync off. Texture streaming on.
    Core 2 Quad 9450 @ 3.21ghz
    Asus P5Q-E Mainboard P45 chipset
    8GB DDR2 1066
    Radeon 6950 1GB
    Samsung 830 256GB SSD
    Windows 8 Pro 64 bit


    I have noticed a trend of bad performance on weak chips. I think when they say 2.6 Core 2 Duo they intend for that to be the E8000 series which were fast chips. The E7000 series is much slower, the Q8000 quads are similar to the E7000 series and slower than the E8000 for workloads that only use 1 or 2 cores.

    Athlon II, Phenom, and Athlon FX users need a lot more clock speed than 2.6ghz to make up for the weak individual core performance of these chips. Phenom IIs will not be punished as much but still need more than the 2.6ghz to equal an E8000 series intel chip.
  • StriderNS2StriderNS2 Join Date: 2012-12-22 Member: 175867Members
    The highest I've been able to get my stock cooler Athlon II x4 Propus 640 is @ 3.45Ghz. That's as high as I can stably get it and the game still struggles.
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