Low FPS, My findings.....

Ghozer

Ok, so, my machines not amazing, but it should be more than capable of running NS2..

AMD x6 @ 3.2Ghz
12GB DDR3
Radeon 6770 1GB

I have been doing some testing....

Now, with everything low, AA enabled, Multi Core rendering enabled, and Texture Streaming enabled, and MultiSample disabled, I can hit 100+ in the ready room, and easily 60-80 when running around as alien, or marine, on ALL maps!

Changing Texture streaming to OFF reduces by approx 5fps
turning AA OFF doesn't affect the FPS at all
Turning Multi Core rendering OFF drops by around 10 fps
With Multi Sample on Double, I get about 5fps reduction in some areas, and it doesn't feel as smooth (jerking around)
With Multi Sample on Triple, I get about 10fps reduction in some areas, and it doesn't feel as smooth (jerking around)
now, I know it's render latency on ATI cards that causes the jerking around, so I just leave Multi Sampling off, it's no problem really!!

---

Now, I have been watching closely at what moments my FPS drops, and then done some testing and have determined the following...

I have noticed, that there's a few things that cause major drops...

Marines firing......
-- I did some testing where I stood with a single marine in a hive location, with infestation, cysts, a couple of spurs etc (a standard hive setup)

Single marine stood / running around, with me as skulk I was getting 55-65 FPS constantly easily, as soon as the marine started firing (at the wall) my FPS dropped by around 15-20 instantly

now, 35 FPS against a single marine is doable, but this seems to double up the more marines, with 3 marines, in battle I get around 20 fps...

with more than 3 marines I get 15 fps or below, there was one time I hit 5fps

This is the same when exo's are firing also!

Dead power nodes...
-- When a power node gets destroyed by aliens, it all goes dark, that's fine, but when the red lights turn on, for some reason my FPS drops by about 10 in that area (doesn't help that i'm slightly colour blind also)

Gorge spit / Lerk spikes
-- When a gorge is spitting, or a lerk is using spikes, my FPS drops by around 10 also
-- also, when a gorge spits at me as a marine, and my visor is covered, my FPS drops by about 5-10

Other stuff
-- When i'm parasited as a marine, and I have the little yellow worms, I get about a 5fps drop
-- when buildings are bile bombed, my FPS drops 5-10 fps (depending on number of buildings in area)

IronHorse

Thanks for this. I've found similar results for some of those. See other tech support threads regarding micro freezes for instructions on how to use loadtimes and profile commands to further investigate the cause. Curious if our results are the same.

Farren

Just curious, what fps do you get when not connected / in the video settings menu?

Ghozer

I get about 98 when in the settings menu..

Oddly enough, when in the Readyroom on Summit, I can hit 145+

I have been doing a little more tweaking, and i'm currently on around 45-70, with no major drops in combat (no more hitting <25) with the following..

Resolution (Native, 1440x900)
Buffering = Off/None
Texture Quality = high
AA = Off
Bloom = On
AF = On
Texture Streaming = On
MultiCore = On

Everything else = off

weeschwee

Where do you have multi-sampling and buffering as options? Are these console commands or are these options in your graphics card software? I don't see either in the game menus.

Fule

120 fps in menu, 80-90 fps in ready room, ~20 fps in early game combat and I guess you know what happens in late game combat...

OuchOfDeath

There are two bottlenecks in a game. NS2 lets you figure out which one is which. Type in r_stats in the console (opened with the ~ key), and you'll get a bunch of stats. The second line will be GPU wait time. If this number is at 0 then it means your CPU is the bottleneck at that particular moment. If it's not at 0 then it is of course your GPU that is the bottleneck.

You were hitting a GPU bottleneck as the settings you changed only affect the GPU. With the lowered settings your CPU is now the major bottleneck. That's not a very fast CPU.

weeschwee wrote: »

Where do you have multi-sampling and buffering as options? Are these console commands or are these options in your graphics card software? I don't see either in the game menus.

Multi-sampling is anti-aliasing. Same thing. And I'm guessing by buffering he means texture streaming.

phoenixbbs

No, I think by buffering he'll mean Vsync off/on/double/triple buffering

Vsync will automatically reduce the frame rate to whatever your vertical refresh rate is, which in most modern monitors will be 60fps - although I think in some cases it can reduce that again to 30fps to try to keep things "stable".

I get quite a lot of "tearing" on my card (ATI 4850) so I usually switch vsync on triple buffering

IronHorse

Triple buffering can easily add up to half your reaction time in input delays though.. giving your enemy the slight advantage.

Ironsoul

I've recently found that even at 90fps I struggle to play, I overclocked my cpu (and my cpu should be more than enough for smooth responsive gameplay) and got roughly 120+ fps, it was amazing, I could do the wall jump thing (couldn't at less than 120), I could land bites on marines, when a marine my aim was better, everything was more responsive and I was playing literally twice as good. one problem, the overclock is unstable and my computer shut down.

Why does ns2 require 120fps in order to have an enjoyable smooth experience? Sure, it's mostly responsive at anything over 35fps but it still feels "wrong" at anything under 120. That's pretty bs.

AurOn2

so, it could be sound that makes the fps drop, possibly? O.o

Crispy

Guys, when you gain FPS it's important to know specifics. E.g. did you gain from FPS up from 35 or 5 up from 85 FPS? It's a huuuge difference because of the way framerate is calculated. Here's an example:

30 FPS (typical limit for most console multiplayer games and also non-dedicated PC multiplayer servers)

Frametime = 1/FPS = 1/30 = 0.033 seconds = 33 milliseconds

That means on average every frame takes 33 milliseconds. This time is directly impacted by the calculations running and how long each of those takes (and if they're distributed off to the CPU/GPU in a balanced way). E.g. physics calculations are not only generally really expensive, but they're also usually bound to obvious player-initiated events, so it's really obvious to see a frametime increase (which in turn means a framerate decrease).

Why am I mentioning this? Let's take a look at the difference between a gain from 35 FPS to 40 FPS, and from 85 FPS to 90 FPS.

35 FPS -> 40 FPS
Frametime = 1/FPS = 1/35 = 0.0285 seconds = 28.5 milliseconds
Frametime = 1/FPS = 1/40 = 0.025 seconds = 25.0 milliseconds
Frametime gain = 28.5-25.0 = 3.5 milliseconds

85 FPS -> 90 FPS
Frametime = 1/FPS = 1/85 = 0.0118 seconds = 11.8 milliseconds
Frametime = 1/FPS = 1/90 = 0.0111 seconds = 11.1 milliseconds
Frametime gain = 11.8-11.1 = 0.7 milliseconds

The actual gain @ 40 FPS is 5 times greater than the gain @ 90 FPS.

Finally, it's natural for your FPS to drop as soon as the following scenarios are true:

1) You are not the only person in the game
2) You are moving, not just standing still
3) You have other players or structures on your screen (these play animations, although they shouldn't be that expensive)
4) You are shooting other players and they are shooting (or biting!) you
5) You have V-sync enabled (framerate killer!)

frallan123

I usually end up having 45-60fps late games and the game is unplayable even though it says I have 60fps. I usually have over 120fps in early games and im using a 120hz screen but playing under 100fps feels like you are having 25fps.

Crispy

One other thing: resolution makes a big difference (and screen refresh rate, but you already mentioned that)