I'm wondering if this problem is something that came about from lowering the amount of frames that are pre rendered through the DX9 API ever since reinforced patch.
The extra frame may have been buying our GPUs enough time to not stall the pipeline.. idk
IIRC That was accomplished by just changing one line of code which told the DX9 API not to do any frame limiting, since NS2 is doing its own. By default DX9 delays by 1 frame.
The only other thing was that priority was given more to input than rendering in that patch.. but i'm not sure that'd have much affect on this symptom.
Hmmmmm...
I will test out some in eingine framepacing today with r_sync.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
I did some testing with max prerendered frames, which I still have on fun.
I maxed out my GPU as much as I could by spamming the map.
All input still felt instant.
Perhaps up the max frames & if your input is crap, try another input device? (I know when I changed my keyboard it ment the difference between 'why dont I shadowstep, I am pressing it' and 'shadowsteps'.
So... doesnt seem to do a damn thing for me :-/
I dont get it.. how are you not seeing these same results @dc_darkling ?
You are running the same video card as me, you're running the game on a SSD like me, and you have a cpu thats one generation off from mine.. i'm confused @-)
(nvidia drivers 331.82 the latest WHQL)
A) are you 100% sure you cannot recreate those screenshots above following the instructions i previously gave? and if so, wtf is the difference between your setup and dictator's and mine?? HMMMM
edit: using all default settings on my nvidia ns2 profile, as well. And you're not using AO, are you?
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
edited December 2013
@Ironhorse
* latest drivers.
* I shall attempt in a moment to do the whole wireframe thingy. Patience then,
* difference? talk over on steam, faster.
* no AO yet due to graphics bug(s) I talked to you bout.
* changed from default nvidia:
- 4 frames
- single screen performance mode, as I dont own more then 1 screen. (standard is dual)
>
Edit, you can breathe more easy. After speeding in biodome as a lerk I finally got SOME hitches. With effort.
Not all however had the buffered line.
I had an older 64 GB (SATA II) SSD I wasn't using and put it in my PC to augment my traditional HDDs (I'm not sure if it's my primary or slave drive but one is only 5900 RPM) in hopes of increasing load-time performance in two games. I used symbolic links to access the games off of the SSD. I was a bit surprised that loading times changed very little so I believe loading time is mostly dependent on how much data has to be passed through your RAM and/or GPU. I have an ATI 7970 but with maxed details I didn't notice much an improvement at all, possibly because so much has to be cached onto the GPU's RAM.
Does anyone know if regular RAM speed is a significant factor? I'm using 8 GB DDR3 1600 with 9-9-9 timings. Nothing too great but I've never had less than 2 GB available so I haven't seen a need to upgrade. I have noticed trying to use BIOS OC controls causes immediate crashing so maybe the RAM is a little flakey. Does anyone know if APU processors can bottleneck performance? Reading this thread seems like most performance issues are dealing with the graphics card.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
actually the cpu is a large factor of performance, and way to many folk ignore good ram.
Dont use symbolic links, deinstall & install ns2 on the ssd. Steam allowes multiple libs. It SHOULD vastly increase load times so I cant imagine why you didnt see gain.
@Ironhorse
well I did say somewhere before that I notice on big maps like biodome with lotsa shinies, that if I move at insane speeds, that I may perhaps hits a bit.
I still had to try to actually get to hitch, so this is indeed not something I personally cared about.
According to @DC_Darkling there's a lot more than just that involved. You actually have to manually supply the ahci drivers for YOUR motherboard during the windows install to take full advantage of it. Almost no one does this though so as a comparison you're probably not that lacking compared to others. Is apparently a huge boost though.
So... doesnt seem to do a damn thing for me :-/
I dont get it.. how are you not seeing these same results @dc_darkling ?
You are running the same video card as me, you're running the game on a SSD like me, and you have a cpu thats one generation off from mine.. i'm confused @-)
(nvidia drivers 331.82 the latest WHQL)
A) are you 100% sure you cannot recreate those screenshots above following the instructions i previously gave? and if so, wtf is the difference between your setup and dictator's and mine?? HMMMM
edit: using all default settings on my nvidia ns2 profile, as well. And you're not using AO, are you?
After my extensive testing in DX9, DX11, max frames 60, 80, 90, 100, 120... R_sync 0 -6... I can conclude that the hitching pretty much occurs just in differing levels of "strength" with how much GPU overhead you have generated. R_sync has no effect really... and the only correlative factor I found was with GPU tuilzation. FOR NO HITCH, I had to have GPU utilization hover around 20%. For me... that meant turning either many effects off. Or limiting my framerate to 60 and dropping my resolution.
This performance quirk is very strange.. because I have never had a moment in a game where I want my GPU utilization to be so low... only so that the GPU can apparently cope wit the massive "thrashing it gets" upon loading new geometry at certain map points.
In the mean time, I will play in 1080p all the dials turned up and live with the hitching. Turning all settings down to purposefullly limit how the game looks and runs (120 fps 720p still hitches even a bit).. seems wrong.
@james888 - I have a similar experience, 10 - 20 sec loading time max, I am usually one of the earliest players on a new map ;-)
Starting with reinforced, though, I experience a wierd hitches whenever I come to an area where enemies are waiting early in the game.
To give y'all folks a bit of advice - to enjoy all the newest features and speed of the modern SSD disk, you have to connect it to a SATA 3 port. I actually bought a new MOBO when I bought the Samsung 830 SSD.
My ssd is the adata sp900, and is slow in ssd terms. I am always first to load. A buddy who I play with all the time has the Samsung 840 and he is always the last to load. Hdd/ssd speeds seem to mean little. Something else is at play.
Performance has literally doubled over the last year.
Not true. It did double, until after 249. Since then performance has decreased, ESPECIALLY post-reinforced.
Correct, I have not seen one build after reinforced where server performance has returned to pre reinforced levels. If we could at least obtain prereinforced performance levels things would be a lot better. This is not to say that there has not been build since reinforced that increased performance but they have not gone back to the levels it once was. The last few builds in particular have each had big hits on server performance. This is why your seeing people complain about 261 but the issue has just been building over the last few builds and it took the most recent performance tank to push people over the edge.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
Official servers have had some issues, but looking at graphs for every single server and comparing between those patches doesn't yield any notable or discernable difference.
If anyone has any info on the matter it would be most useful
My ssd is the adata sp900, and is slow in ssd terms. I am always first to load. A buddy who I play with all the time has the Samsung 840 and he is always the last to load. Hdd/ssd speeds seem to mean little. Something else is at play.
It can make loading faster if you have texture streaming turned on.
Also, during the Precaching with my standard HD, it takes about 30-45 seconds to get to 20%, after that it goes fairly quickly to 100%
I've heard from other people with SSDs that it jumps to 20% almost immediately then takes more time to get to 100%
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
About the ahci driver thing.
If you do NOT supply the raidchips own ahci drivers during windows setup, windows will:
* use either ones supplied with windows from the same manufacturer. (lucky then)
* run standard ms ahci drivers which will work. (but less efficient then custom made for the chip)
Installing the ahci driver lately in win7 (and probably win8, not sure) will usually fix this.
HOWEVER at times windows can behave... odd when you do this. It can work less speedy then initially installed with the specific driver. It can also start to BSOD. At worst it will hand the kernel randomly with no feedback whatsoever. (Yes, have fun debugging that)
The drivers specific to a chipset to be installed are preOS drivers, also named as F6 drivers and are a seperate download then the ones used to install after windows is installed.
The drivers specific to a chipset to be installed are preOS drivers, also named as F6 drivers and are a seperate download then the ones used to install after windows is installed.
As far as I've seen in my experience, the AHCI drivers install just fine when you make the switch even after you've installed win7 (can't speak for other versions). For intel, look for "Intel RST" (this is a DIFFERENT download from the intel chipset drivers) and it also comes with a RAID control utility (which you can disable if you don't need/want it), on AMD I think they come with the chipset drivers and just show up as "AHCI Driver" or "Sata Driver" in their install, can't remember exactly.
As far as I know, installing at OS install isn't in any way different from installing after win7 has already been installed.
Source: I've previously accidentally installed win7 with the bios in IDE mode, on both AMD and Intel mobos, and after switching to AHCI, windows loaded fine, the "new HDD" was "found" on boot (automatically) and then the driver was replaced with the "chipset specific" driver successfully (separately downloaded, NOT built-in).
I've heard that sometimes when you switch your HDD to AHCI (from IDE or "Legacy" mode or whatever it's called), windows can BSOD on boot... but luckily, I didn't have that experience. It probably depends on your motherboard, and more accurately your southbridge chipset, and how good the "built-in" drivers for it are, in windows.
Yes. But the quality of the AHCI drivers used are what we're talking about. The ones supplied by default by windows during install are not the best. As @DC_Darkling has said (here or somewhere else?) they are not true AHCI. The ones supplied by your mobo manufacturer will perform a lot better but must be supplied additionally during the windows install. All AHCI related software installed after that still doesn't cut it.
Official servers have had some issues, but looking at graphs for every single server and comparing between those patches doesn't yield any notable or discernable difference.
If anyone has any info on the matter it would be most useful
Server has hitches in this build.
Server still has memory leaks, possibly causing performance issues.
Can't run stable 30T on the same configuration as before.
Other issues in this build are server crashes due to stack corruption.
Besides the general "server performance is poor and it doesn't multi-core properly" in NS2 of course.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
Ok lets try this again.
IDE = oldschool always works but 'slow' way of speaking with your harddrive.
AHCI = faster but needs to be fed some drivers to work.
* As some stated the biggest problem is when installing windows 7 first and then swapping the bios from IDE to AHCI.
* If the BIOS already is in AHCI but your chipset is unrecognised, it will use standard MS drivers during install. Giving the chip specific drivers after install will in most cases work. However sometimes it will cause weird problems eventually from BSOD to kernel hangs without feedback. This can be random and only show itself in the following days/weeks.
* Not having any chip specific drivers will keep running the MS ahci drivers which will do the job, just less efficient then chip specific. (think for example of additional options the chip provides)
* Installing windows with chip specific AHCI drivers and lateron updating them with chip specific drivers should not cause any problems as long as the driver during install is ment for preOS installation. Any problem arising during this phase is a sign of a underlying deeper problem. (Could be just a crap chip)
To make it even more sweet, driver version as well as brand harddisk and controller on the harddisk (or SSD) can also make weird differences. While more rare it is possible certain driver versions of certain chipsets conflict with certain models of harddisks. These are incredible harsh to troubleshoot but considering the vast amount of computers in the world these problems do happen!
Comments
I'll report back
I maxed out my GPU as much as I could by spamming the map.
All input still felt instant.
Perhaps up the max frames & if your input is crap, try another input device? (I know when I changed my keyboard it ment the difference between 'why dont I shadowstep, I am pressing it' and 'shadowsteps'.
I believe that is due to new cloak design?
Nvm that.
Max prerendered frames = 2
Max pre rendered frames = 4
So... doesnt seem to do a damn thing for me :-/
I dont get it.. how are you not seeing these same results @dc_darkling ?
You are running the same video card as me, you're running the game on a SSD like me, and you have a cpu thats one generation off from mine.. i'm confused
@-)
(nvidia drivers 331.82 the latest WHQL)
A) are you 100% sure you cannot recreate those screenshots above following the instructions i previously gave?
edit: using all default settings on my nvidia ns2 profile, as well. And you're not using AO, are you?
* latest drivers.
* I shall attempt in a moment to do the whole wireframe thingy. Patience then,
* difference? talk over on steam, faster.
* no AO yet due to graphics bug(s) I talked to you bout.
* changed from default nvidia:
- 4 frames
- single screen performance mode, as I dont own more then 1 screen. (standard is dual)
>
Edit, you can breathe more easy. After speeding in biodome as a lerk I finally got SOME hitches. With effort.
Not all however had the buffered line.
Not all however had the buffered line.
Dual post as I couldnt attach them with edit or I was blind.
>edit
no I could not match a sub purple bar to the big ones on top. They did not add up, yes I scrolled.
Does anyone know if regular RAM speed is a significant factor? I'm using 8 GB DDR3 1600 with 9-9-9 timings. Nothing too great but I've never had less than 2 GB available so I haven't seen a need to upgrade. I have noticed trying to use BIOS OC controls causes immediate crashing so maybe the RAM is a little flakey. Does anyone know if APU processors can bottleneck performance? Reading this thread seems like most performance issues are dealing with the graphics card.
Dont use symbolic links, deinstall & install ns2 on the ssd. Steam allowes multiple libs. It SHOULD vastly increase load times so I cant imagine why you didnt see gain.
@Ironhorse
well I did say somewhere before that I notice on big maps like biodome with lotsa shinies, that if I move at insane speeds, that I may perhaps hits a bit.
I still had to try to actually get to hitch, so this is indeed not something I personally cared about.
After my extensive testing in DX9, DX11, max frames 60, 80, 90, 100, 120... R_sync 0 -6... I can conclude that the hitching pretty much occurs just in differing levels of "strength" with how much GPU overhead you have generated. R_sync has no effect really... and the only correlative factor I found was with GPU tuilzation. FOR NO HITCH, I had to have GPU utilization hover around 20%. For me... that meant turning either many effects off. Or limiting my framerate to 60 and dropping my resolution.
This performance quirk is very strange.. because I have never had a moment in a game where I want my GPU utilization to be so low... only so that the GPU can apparently cope wit the massive "thrashing it gets" upon loading new geometry at certain map points.
In the mean time, I will play in 1080p all the dials turned up and live with the hitching. Turning all settings down to purposefullly limit how the game looks and runs (120 fps 720p still hitches even a bit).. seems wrong.
Engine bug is engine bug.
Starting with reinforced, though, I experience a wierd hitches whenever I come to an area where enemies are waiting early in the game.
To give y'all folks a bit of advice - to enjoy all the newest features and speed of the modern SSD disk, you have to connect it to a SATA 3 port. I actually bought a new MOBO when I bought the Samsung 830 SSD.
Correct, I have not seen one build after reinforced where server performance has returned to pre reinforced levels. If we could at least obtain prereinforced performance levels things would be a lot better. This is not to say that there has not been build since reinforced that increased performance but they have not gone back to the levels it once was. The last few builds in particular have each had big hits on server performance. This is why your seeing people complain about 261 but the issue has just been building over the last few builds and it took the most recent performance tank to push people over the edge.
If anyone has any info on the matter it would be most useful
It can make loading faster if you have texture streaming turned on.
Also, during the Precaching with my standard HD, it takes about 30-45 seconds to get to 20%, after that it goes fairly quickly to 100%
I've heard from other people with SSDs that it jumps to 20% almost immediately then takes more time to get to 100%
Quad Core Phenom, 9600GT, 8GB RAM.
If you do NOT supply the raidchips own ahci drivers during windows setup, windows will:
* use either ones supplied with windows from the same manufacturer. (lucky then)
* run standard ms ahci drivers which will work. (but less efficient then custom made for the chip)
Installing the ahci driver lately in win7 (and probably win8, not sure) will usually fix this.
HOWEVER at times windows can behave... odd when you do this. It can work less speedy then initially installed with the specific driver. It can also start to BSOD. At worst it will hand the kernel randomly with no feedback whatsoever. (Yes, have fun debugging that)
The drivers specific to a chipset to be installed are preOS drivers, also named as F6 drivers and are a seperate download then the ones used to install after windows is installed.
As far as I've seen in my experience, the AHCI drivers install just fine when you make the switch even after you've installed win7 (can't speak for other versions). For intel, look for "Intel RST" (this is a DIFFERENT download from the intel chipset drivers) and it also comes with a RAID control utility (which you can disable if you don't need/want it), on AMD I think they come with the chipset drivers and just show up as "AHCI Driver" or "Sata Driver" in their install, can't remember exactly.
As far as I know, installing at OS install isn't in any way different from installing after win7 has already been installed.
Source: I've previously accidentally installed win7 with the bios in IDE mode, on both AMD and Intel mobos, and after switching to AHCI, windows loaded fine, the "new HDD" was "found" on boot (automatically) and then the driver was replaced with the "chipset specific" driver successfully (separately downloaded, NOT built-in).
I've heard that sometimes when you switch your HDD to AHCI (from IDE or "Legacy" mode or whatever it's called), windows can BSOD on boot... but luckily, I didn't have that experience. It probably depends on your motherboard, and more accurately your southbridge chipset, and how good the "built-in" drivers for it are, in windows.
What does AHCI do?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host_Controller_Interface
Server has hitches in this build.
Server still has memory leaks, possibly causing performance issues.
Can't run stable 30T on the same configuration as before.
Other issues in this build are server crashes due to stack corruption.
Besides the general "server performance is poor and it doesn't multi-core properly" in NS2 of course.
I'd be careful with that one as swichting it on; might cause windows fail to load, depending on whether it loads the drivers or not.
IDE = oldschool always works but 'slow' way of speaking with your harddrive.
AHCI = faster but needs to be fed some drivers to work.
* As some stated the biggest problem is when installing windows 7 first and then swapping the bios from IDE to AHCI.
* If the BIOS already is in AHCI but your chipset is unrecognised, it will use standard MS drivers during install. Giving the chip specific drivers after install will in most cases work. However sometimes it will cause weird problems eventually from BSOD to kernel hangs without feedback. This can be random and only show itself in the following days/weeks.
* Not having any chip specific drivers will keep running the MS ahci drivers which will do the job, just less efficient then chip specific. (think for example of additional options the chip provides)
* Installing windows with chip specific AHCI drivers and lateron updating them with chip specific drivers should not cause any problems as long as the driver during install is ment for preOS installation. Any problem arising during this phase is a sign of a underlying deeper problem. (Could be just a crap chip)
To make it even more sweet, driver version as well as brand harddisk and controller on the harddisk (or SSD) can also make weird differences. While more rare it is possible certain driver versions of certain chipsets conflict with certain models of harddisks. These are incredible harsh to troubleshoot but considering the vast amount of computers in the world these problems do happen!