<!--quoteo(post=2039169:date=Dec 3 2012, 11:41 AM:name=purephoenix)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (purephoenix @ Dec 3 2012, 11:41 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2039169"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->run any DirectX 11 game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wait what? You telling that NS2 is DX11 game? :)
I don't understand why people still 'argue' about performance. Go play combat or NS2:Classis, where you don't have cysts - voila! Until that new feature (mess) is fixed (removed?:D) - I don't think any 'optimization' works will drastically improve FPS at current dev. stage. Going other root, fixing 'the code' and getting aprox. +1-2fps is not an appropriate optimization level, and the work it will require to get that +1-2fps avg. per client will not pay off by dev. work (unless they decide to invest a lot of resources into that field because re-writing code is almost the same as writing it from the scratch, which I don't see happening. I have experience in that sort of field and one dev. can spend a day on improving the code for 1 feature of the application (and we are talking about game dev. here... which is way more dependent on the coupling and I have no idea to what stage NS2 code is couple (tight/loose)) to increase the response/run time just by a few ms...). So I'm not even expecting any work to be done in that root for now, apart from re-working cysts, etc. As it's the fastest way of getting that 'performance optimization' level.
However, another high issue is reg, and if someone is telling that it is not 'that bad' - believe me, it is and you are just a bad FPS gamer and have no overall experience at all in NS. The predecessor of NS2 - NS1 had 'such' a good reg (not really until late years:D), but it actually was waaay better than current reg in ns2.
There are 2 reasons behind it: 1. NS2 hitboxes stretch/jiggle because of alien skilled 'movement' aka speed boost from wall jump etc, which does not compute the hitbox correctly. Also include ping difference here for threshold. Why would suspect this? Because there are no references to the 'fixes' or any 'adjustments' to the reg in the build changelogs, however the reg feels different compared to 230 and 232, and that's where the major changes to the walljump/speed formulas where applied.
2. Server tickrate. YES, THAT ONE. Why would the servers with 20-25 tick rate have such BAD BAD reg, whereas 30tickrate servers work 'better'. Because it was and still is the same in HL1/NS/CSS/CS:GO - the higher tickrate is on the server (ABOVE so called 'RECOMMENDED'), the better reg and performance is. NS1 had 30 tickrate servers for long in it's begging stage. With years server hosters improved their hardware etc, and we switched to 60. And than to 100. Even going for 60 drastically improved the reg. And Having 100 tickrate competitive servers compared to 30 tickrate pubs was a good real-time test for reg. Back to NS2 - yes, it 'works' with 30 tickrates OK'ish, but not to a satisfactory level. Did you ever noticed that client tickrate thing (aka cmdrate)? Yes, it is there (net_stats). 60-70 tickrates? (at least last time I've checked it was around that value. Might go lower in combat 'cos of fps which is expected, but I wasn't paying attention) Well, that's what client side wants to send to the server! However, it can't =( The server will never receive more than its maximum tick rate setting EVER, and basically CAN'T receive OR respond to you with more updates per second than it's tick rate. So why is that important? The higher you set your updaterate, the more accurately your game can show you what's going on (aka hitboxes + reg).
So what we have in the end with the rates: client is trying to send 60-70+~ tickrates to the server (cmdrate sent, bottlenecked), but the server only computes half of it (or even less), as the server tickrate (in best cases) is 30tickrates (updaterate received). Another remark to cmdrate - it is heavily coupled to fps. The higher FPS you have, the higher cmdrate will be generated by your game to send to the server, as it is calculated with each frame rendered.
Final conclusion - playing on the server that is capable of running reliably at higher tickrates, clients with hardware that can run at higher rates will see MUCH smoother gameplay and hit registration is generally a lot more accurate. Generally if the server is running at 60 tickrates, you would set up your updaterate and cmdrate to 60(66). With 100 tickrate servers - to 100(128). Since we can't set this values up, I suspect they are already set to 'good' values (that's why the client tickrate is high at least). However, currently the server is bottle-necking with the client.
Prove me wrong. Go for proper explanations, we can handle them.
<!--quoteo(post=2039169:date=Dec 3 2012, 06:41 AM:name=purephoenix)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (purephoenix @ Dec 3 2012, 06:41 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2039169"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How is that relevant? The CPU is so outdated it's missing 3 massively-increasing performance features. C2D is not good enough, period.
I think you're getting confused with who's knowledge of hardware is sub-par. Nobody in their right mind should be expecting a dual-core to run any DirectX 11 game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
rofl what's with these people who have no idea about hardware, or what this game's requirements are supposed to be.
So apparently NS2 is DX11 now lol. How does CPU have anything to do with DX11 anyways? Nothing that's what.
Did you realize one of the benefits of DX11 (which NS2 does not support) is freeing up CPU utilization and technically should run more efficient then DX9 on dual cores especially?
Lastly, in case it hasn't been abundantly clear: CORE 2 DUO is the RECOMMENDED processor for THIS game.
<!--quoteo(post=2040801:date=Dec 6 2012, 06:16 AM:name=blzd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (blzd @ Dec 6 2012, 06:16 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2040801"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->rofl what's with these people who have no idea about hardware, or what this game's requirements are supposed to be.
So apparently NS2 is DX11 now lol. How does CPU have anything to do with DX11 anyways? Nothing that's what.
Did you realize one of the benefits of DX11 (which NS2 does not support) is freeing up CPU utilization and technically should run more efficient then DX9 on dual cores especially?
Lastly, in case it hasn't been abundantly clear: CORE 2 DUO is the RECOMMENDED processor for THIS game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Recommended means the game will run. Does it run? It foes? To satisfactory level..? They can't put High End specs into recommended, because it is not true. The game can run on lower specs, but with loss of quality or performance...
You can compare CPU performance ( a bit vague) here: <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/55?vs=287" target="_blank">http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/55?vs=287</a>
Wrong again. You must be thinking of the minimum system requirements, which are much, much lower, to the point where the game can probably install and that's it.
The recommended system requirements should at the very least insure smooth game play on medium settings.
As it stands, with well over the recommended system requirements, not even the lowest settings used insures smooth game play.
My original point was even people with quad cores and Radeon 7000 series are experiencing similar issues, but I'll keep teaching people basic PC hardware in the mean times.
<!--quoteo(post=2031372:date=Nov 21 2012, 10:26 AM:name=tarquinbb)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tarquinbb @ Nov 21 2012, 10:26 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2031372"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->i think the dvd writer is the problem :D
nah, seriously though - 7770 is a very cheap card these days, so you can't expect great performance in every game.
i would suggest downloading 'realtemp' free prog and running it just to test your cpu temp. it's a relatively easy process and will instantly tell you whether the problem is graphics card or cpu (from what i've heard, at over 70-80C your cpu will throttle back - this is very common if your heatsink/fan is clogged with dust).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
well mate i have zotac gtx a 680 4gb edition, still watching a slideshow in the endgame. the game does not really choke the graphics card, actually leaves it alone. the problem seems to be cpu based, but even overclocking at 4.5 core speeds didnt help the end game.
I recently upgraded from a Phenom x4 9650 2.3@2.8ghz, 4gb ram, GTS450 1GB, Win7 x64. First 5 minutes of NS2 was 30+fps then quickly was ~15fps avg, endgame >10fps avg at 1280x800 75hz. Low Settings.
I upgraded to a AMD FX-6300 @ 4.1ghz, 8gb ram, same GTS 450 1GB, Win8 Pro. I played a 90 minute match last night and got +30fps average at 1440x900(highest resolution my monitor gets 75hz). Fullscreen Windowed, Triple buffered vsync, Medium textures(1gb isnt enough for high), Rish infestation, AA on, bloom off, atmospherics on, AF on, AO off, texture streaming off(i dont even know what this does), multi core on.
This definitely shows how not GPU hungry this game is, r_stats still goes up to about 10ms on the cpu thread. I am not sure why OP is having trouble with his rig since mine is nearly similar spec'd and runs slightly better.
You people who defend NS2 by blaming hardware should stop doing so, because it's good ol' fashioned bullcrap.
If a system is powerful enough to run all modern games in high res and high settings and one new game called Natural Selection 2 is released that has terrible performance on that system, you don't blame the system. You blame the game. Crysis is a good example. Just because all current systems ran Crysis pretty badly when it was released, that doesn't make any of those computers obsolete. It's the game that sucks from a standpoint of performance. The fact that Crysis 2 actually had better performance proves that newer games doesn't have to mean more demanding. So just because NS2 was released a month ago doesn't mean that it should run any worse than Crysis 2. Five years from now a game that looks way better than NS2 could be released that runs better on today's systems than NS2. That's how big this problem is. This is how it always has been and how it always will be.
Just as has been said by the few participants who actually understand software in this topic, the problem is that the game engine consists of LUA code. This language is preferred for companies like UWE since they wanted to create a space where where very small groups of people could develop advanced software in a short time (which they actually could now that the engine is built.) The problem is that the performance suffers greatly instead. Just like Civilization 4 suffered greatly from being developed in Python; another easy-to-code yet low-performing coding language. To explain in a way so that the inexperienced can understand: these coding languages are compressed versions of raw code. They take long strings of raw code and put it into simpler strings and words so that it goes practically faster to create more code. The problem here is that for every one of those strings, the processor has to unfold this code from its compressed form and turn it back into raw code. This process is what is choking the shiz out of our systems. C+ for example is a very high-performing "raw" coding language; it's uncompressed, but takes longer to work with since you have to type way more into each string.
NS2 has such terrible performance not because of bugs or lack of optimization, but because of UWE's design-choices. What you're playing right now is the NS2 they had intended to create when they started this five years ago and it's not going to get much better. You've paid for a product that they did the best they could with. If they'd chosen a different path in terms of coding language it may had taken them 15 years to finish the damn thing since they have such a small staff.
Now you've learned your lesson and may do some research about what coding language is used in the games you buy in the future, so you can avoid those that use LUA and Python if you expect excellent performance. When you have to buy a processor that costs 300 bucks to play a shooter in 60 FPS, it's kind of serious. So upgrading isn't exactly a sensible choice either. Some people have already gone the route of upgrading without reaching anywhere near 60 FPS, for that matter.
AMD's CPUs are awful, sorry to hear you got duped by the marketing.
<!--quoteo(post=2043494:date=Dec 11 2012, 02:48 AM:name=Robby)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Robby @ Dec 11 2012, 02:48 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2043494"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If a system is powerful enough to run all modern games in high res and high settings and one new game called Natural Selection 2 is released that has terrible performance on that system, you don't blame the system. You blame the game. Crysis is a good example. Just because all current systems ran Crysis pretty badly when it was released, that doesn't make any of those computers obsolete. It's the game that sucks from a standpoint of performance. The fact that Crysis 2 actually had better performance proves that newer games doesn't have to mean more demanding.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> No, your example proves exactly why you're wrong. The original Crysis had incredible graphics and so it required a high-end computer. This wasn't a defect, it was intentional. Crysis 2 was less demanding because it was dumbed-down for the sake of running on severely outdated consoles.
OP has a computer that runs crappy dumbed-down console ports really well. You know, the games that are limited to like 8 people per multiplayer server instead of 16, 20, 24, or sometimes more. He should play more crappy ports designed to run on 8 year old hardware if he wants good performance. Or he could upgrade to a computer with a CPU that's not slower than Intel's budget models from 4 years ago and a GPU not in the "value" category.
I'm not being "elitist" or something, I'm stating facts: OP's computer was not built for modern PC games, it was built for console games... his choice of CPU is especially unfortunate since in order to switch to something <i>not awful</i> he'll need a new motherboard as well. "Bulldozer" CPUs are slower than Athlon IIs.
Should Unknown Worlds have recommended higher hardware for minimum and recommended specs? Probably. It does "run" on the minimum hardware but it's not enjoyable, which is what the standard for "minimum" means. "Recommended" probably should've been higher, but the game does run just fine with console-level player counts, though it's not quite so enjoyable with just 5 people per team.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->When you have to buy a processor that costs 300 bucks to play a shooter in 60 FPS<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> A sub-$200 i5-2xxx or i5-3xxx will run NS2 just fine. The problem is that OP bought a CPU that's a pile of crap because he thought "OMFG 8 CORES" without finding out that it wasn't really 8 cores and was <b>slower</b> than the previous AMD architecture which was <i>itself</i> <b>slower</b> than C2D clock-for-clock. <a href="http://techreport.com/review/23246/inside-the-second-gaming-performance-with-today-cpus/3" target="_blank">I mean, just look at this.</a> The damn thing's slower than a Phenom II x4. It's slower than Intel's CPUs from three years ago. Blame AMD for making ######ty hardware, not Unknown Worlds for not targeting their game to run on such garbage hardware.
OP, on the bright side, there's not a lot of these "modern PC games" since it's such a small market, and one permeated by the sort of confusing marketing nonsense that might convince you to buy an AMD FX CPU.
<!--quoteo(post=2044029:date=Dec 12 2012, 01:07 AM:name=nawoa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (nawoa @ Dec 12 2012, 01:07 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2044029"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->AMD's CPUs are awful, sorry to hear you got duped by the marketing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You may not believe so yourself, but you're as biased as they come. And what you're saying is pure, jaded poison. Does your dad work at Intel, perhaps?
AMD processors are great for all sorts of gaming. The LUA coding language is not. It's that simple. AMD may not have the solution to the poor performance of NS2. But that doesn't mean that AMD is at fault, nor that Intel are to be praised, when it's the game itself that is the problem.
As AMD CPUs can run all other games just fine as long as you have a GPU recommended for the respective game, what you're saying simply isn't true in any other situation than in those where the game is either poorly optimized or uses a coding language as slow as LUA, just like in this case, since NS2 runs way worse than other FPS games on <u>all</u> processors. The OP could play any other game fine with that processor.
Just because there actually exist processors that <i>can</i> run a game like NS2 with decent performance, and just because they happen to be made by another company, does neither mean that AMD processors suck nor that you should have to get one of the best processors on the market to play it when processors such as the OPs can run any other game (except those outlined above) just fine. Any sensible person would complain to the developers and ask them to either fix the performance issues (which in this case is hardly conceivable) or to build their next game with a different coding language, or to put a "Boycott LUA!" tag on your website/blog/facebook to raise awareness of this curse. Not go on a rampage against the producer of the processors with the best watt-to-performance ratio on the market for the last decade.
For the second time so far in this topic alone i have to state the obvious: the game itself, and not your processor, is the cause of the terrible performance of NS2. This is because it falls into the category of games built with slow-running code. As there in fact are processors you could buy that would run NS2 in performance that doesn't get you killed (quite literally), you should naturally go with a high-performing Intel processor for this. Just know that this will be major overkill for all other games, and thus hardly worth it and quite frankly mad to do for a single game.
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=2043494:date=Dec 11 2012, 02:48 AM:name=Robby)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Robby @ Dec 11 2012, 02:48 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2043494"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->wall'o'text<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> NS2 most certainly has performance issues related to the choice of Lua over a more conventional code such as C++ for much of the gamecode. However, I don't think its unreasonable to expect a 2012-era game to require 2012-level hardware to perform the best. Also, people are getting moderately reasonable performance for <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=119506&st=60&p=1967881&#entry1967881" target="_blank">less than stellar</a>, <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=119506&st=80&p=1981167&#entry1981167" target="_blank">mid-level</a> hardware.
Saying an i3 is less than ideal really isnt realistic. It is very well known that NS2 hardly makes use of any cores beyond 2, so having 2/3 cores and high clock rate, with good IPC is what matters. Considering that i3 is sandy bridge, its got 2 of the 3 requirements solidly met. The clock rate is probably whats holding that CPU back most.
Another huge point is getting 100+ fps constant in NS2 is arguably comparable to getting ~50 in alot of other games, and when you start to drop below 100 you get alot of irregularity in your inputs. I think that is a big area where they could make alot of perceived improvements without having to actually boost the framerate. Input, specifically the impact on your mouse movement fps fluctuations have, and the general delay on key inputs could really help improve feel without changing performance. Beyond that, there are massive stuttering and warping issues with the netcode since the last major rewrite, which no doubt is also adding to the perceived framerate.
Yesterday while playing on a popular and fast server we all experienced warping near end game when I went clean through a marine who was facing away from me.... He shot my anus as I came out the other side....
After several mins of laughing I decided to set about recreating this, no luck yet but it did remind me of times past in TF/Q1/2 when you could shoot yourself in the back of the head with a rocket :D
Comments
Wait what? You telling that NS2 is DX11 game? :)
I don't understand why people still 'argue' about performance.
Go play combat or NS2:Classis, where you don't have cysts - voila! Until that new feature (mess) is fixed (removed?:D) - I don't think any 'optimization' works will drastically improve FPS at current dev. stage.
Going other root, fixing 'the code' and getting aprox. +1-2fps is not an appropriate optimization level, and the work it will require to get that +1-2fps avg. per client will not pay off by dev. work (unless they decide to invest a lot of resources into that field because re-writing code is almost the same as writing it from the scratch, which I don't see happening. I have experience in that sort of field and one dev. can spend a day on improving the code for 1 feature of the application (and we are talking about game dev. here... which is way more dependent on the coupling and I have no idea to what stage NS2 code is couple (tight/loose)) to increase the response/run time just by a few ms...). So I'm not even expecting any work to be done in that root for now, apart from re-working cysts, etc. As it's the fastest way of getting that 'performance optimization' level.
However, another high issue is reg, and if someone is telling that it is not 'that bad' - believe me, it is and you are just a bad FPS gamer and have no overall experience at all in NS. The predecessor of NS2 - NS1 had 'such' a good reg (not really until late years:D), but it actually was waaay better than current reg in ns2.
There are 2 reasons behind it:
1. NS2 hitboxes stretch/jiggle because of alien skilled 'movement' aka speed boost from wall jump etc, which does not compute the hitbox correctly. Also include ping difference here for threshold. Why would suspect this? Because there are no references to the 'fixes' or any 'adjustments' to the reg in the build changelogs, however the reg feels different compared to 230 and 232, and that's where the major changes to the walljump/speed formulas where applied.
2. Server tickrate. YES, THAT ONE. Why would the servers with 20-25 tick rate have such BAD BAD reg, whereas 30tickrate servers work 'better'. Because it was and still is the same in HL1/NS/CSS/CS:GO - the higher tickrate is on the server (ABOVE so called 'RECOMMENDED'), the better reg and performance is. NS1 had 30 tickrate servers for long in it's begging stage. With years server hosters improved their hardware etc, and we switched to 60. And than to 100. Even going for 60 drastically improved the reg. And Having 100 tickrate competitive servers compared to 30 tickrate pubs was a good real-time test for reg.
Back to NS2 - yes, it 'works' with 30 tickrates OK'ish, but not to a satisfactory level.
Did you ever noticed that client tickrate thing (aka cmdrate)? Yes, it is there (net_stats). 60-70 tickrates? (at least last time I've checked it was around that value. Might go lower in combat 'cos of fps which is expected, but I wasn't paying attention) Well, that's what client side wants to send to the server! However, it can't =( The server will never receive more than its maximum tick rate setting EVER, and basically CAN'T receive OR respond to you with more updates per second than it's tick rate. So why is that important? The higher you set your updaterate, the more accurately your game can show you what's going on (aka hitboxes + reg).
So what we have in the end with the rates: client is trying to send 60-70+~ tickrates to the server (cmdrate sent, bottlenecked), but the server only computes half of it (or even less), as the server tickrate (in best cases) is 30tickrates (updaterate received).
Another remark to cmdrate - it is heavily coupled to fps. The higher FPS you have, the higher cmdrate will be generated by your game to send to the server, as it is calculated with each frame rendered.
Final conclusion - playing on the server that is capable of running reliably at higher tickrates, clients with hardware that can run at higher rates will see MUCH smoother gameplay and hit registration is generally a lot more accurate.
Generally if the server is running at 60 tickrates, you would set up your updaterate and cmdrate to 60(66). With 100 tickrate servers - to 100(128). Since we can't set this values up, I suspect they are already set to 'good' values (that's why the client tickrate is high at least).
However, currently the server is bottle-necking with the client.
Prove me wrong. Go for proper explanations, we can handle them.
C2D is not good enough, period.
I think you're getting confused with who's knowledge of hardware is sub-par. Nobody in their right mind should be expecting a dual-core to run any DirectX 11 game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
rofl what's with these people who have no idea about hardware, or what this game's requirements are supposed to be.
So apparently NS2 is DX11 now lol. How does CPU have anything to do with DX11 anyways? Nothing that's what.
Did you realize one of the benefits of DX11 (which NS2 does not support) is freeing up CPU utilization and technically should run more efficient then DX9 on dual cores especially?
Lastly, in case it hasn't been abundantly clear: CORE 2 DUO is the RECOMMENDED processor for THIS game.
So apparently NS2 is DX11 now lol. How does CPU have anything to do with DX11 anyways? Nothing that's what.
Did you realize one of the benefits of DX11 (which NS2 does not support) is freeing up CPU utilization and technically should run more efficient then DX9 on dual cores especially?
Lastly, in case it hasn't been abundantly clear: CORE 2 DUO is the RECOMMENDED processor for THIS game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Recommended means the game will run. Does it run? It foes? To satisfactory level..?
They can't put High End specs into recommended, because it is not true. The game can run on lower specs, but with loss of quality or performance...
You can compare CPU performance ( a bit vague) here:
<a href="http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/55?vs=287" target="_blank">http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/55?vs=287</a>
The recommended system requirements should at the very least insure smooth game play on medium settings.
As it stands, with well over the recommended system requirements, not even the lowest settings used insures smooth game play.
My original point was even people with quad cores and Radeon 7000 series are experiencing similar issues, but I'll keep teaching people basic PC hardware in the mean times.
Next?
nah, seriously though - 7770 is a very cheap card these days, so you can't expect great performance in every game.
i would suggest downloading 'realtemp' free prog and running it just to test your cpu temp. it's a relatively easy process and will instantly tell you whether the problem is graphics card or cpu (from what i've heard, at over 70-80C your cpu will throttle back - this is very common if your heatsink/fan is clogged with dust).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
well mate i have zotac gtx a 680 4gb edition, still watching a slideshow in the endgame. the game does not really choke the graphics card, actually leaves it alone.
the problem seems to be cpu based, but even overclocking at 4.5 core speeds didnt help the end game.
i hope they will fix this soon.
I upgraded to a AMD FX-6300 @ 4.1ghz, 8gb ram, same GTS 450 1GB, Win8 Pro. I played a 90 minute match last night and got +30fps average at 1440x900(highest resolution my monitor gets 75hz). Fullscreen Windowed, Triple buffered vsync, Medium textures(1gb isnt enough for high), Rish infestation, AA on, bloom off, atmospherics on, AF on, AO off, texture streaming off(i dont even know what this does), multi core on.
This definitely shows how not GPU hungry this game is, r_stats still goes up to about 10ms on the cpu thread. I am not sure why OP is having trouble with his rig since mine is nearly similar spec'd and runs slightly better.
Edit: I should update my sig XD
If a system is powerful enough to run all modern games in high res and high settings and one new game called Natural Selection 2 is released that has terrible performance on that system, you don't blame the system. You blame the game. Crysis is a good example. Just because all current systems ran Crysis pretty badly when it was released, that doesn't make any of those computers obsolete. It's the game that sucks from a standpoint of performance. The fact that Crysis 2 actually had better performance proves that newer games doesn't have to mean more demanding. So just because NS2 was released a month ago doesn't mean that it should run any worse than Crysis 2. Five years from now a game that looks way better than NS2 could be released that runs better on today's systems than NS2. That's how big this problem is. This is how it always has been and how it always will be.
Just as has been said by the few participants who actually understand software in this topic, the problem is that the game engine consists of LUA code. This language is preferred for companies like UWE since they wanted to create a space where where very small groups of people could develop advanced software in a short time (which they actually could now that the engine is built.) The problem is that the performance suffers greatly instead. Just like Civilization 4 suffered greatly from being developed in Python; another easy-to-code yet low-performing coding language. To explain in a way so that the inexperienced can understand: these coding languages are compressed versions of raw code. They take long strings of raw code and put it into simpler strings and words so that it goes practically faster to create more code. The problem here is that for every one of those strings, the processor has to unfold this code from its compressed form and turn it back into raw code. This process is what is choking the shiz out of our systems. C+ for example is a very high-performing "raw" coding language; it's uncompressed, but takes longer to work with since you have to type way more into each string.
NS2 has such terrible performance not because of bugs or lack of optimization, but because of UWE's design-choices. What you're playing right now is the NS2 they had intended to create when they started this five years ago and it's not going to get much better. You've paid for a product that they did the best they could with. If they'd chosen a different path in terms of coding language it may had taken them 15 years to finish the damn thing since they have such a small staff.
Now you've learned your lesson and may do some research about what coding language is used in the games you buy in the future, so you can avoid those that use LUA and Python if you expect excellent performance. When you have to buy a processor that costs 300 bucks to play a shooter in 60 FPS, it's kind of serious. So upgrading isn't exactly a sensible choice either. Some people have already gone the route of upgrading without reaching anywhere near 60 FPS, for that matter.
The end.
<!--quoteo(post=2043494:date=Dec 11 2012, 02:48 AM:name=Robby)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Robby @ Dec 11 2012, 02:48 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2043494"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If a system is powerful enough to run all modern games in high res and high settings and one new game called Natural Selection 2 is released that has terrible performance on that system, you don't blame the system. You blame the game. Crysis is a good example. Just because all current systems ran Crysis pretty badly when it was released, that doesn't make any of those computers obsolete. It's the game that sucks from a standpoint of performance. The fact that Crysis 2 actually had better performance proves that newer games doesn't have to mean more demanding.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, your example proves exactly why you're wrong. The original Crysis had incredible graphics and so it required a high-end computer. This wasn't a defect, it was intentional. Crysis 2 was less demanding because it was dumbed-down for the sake of running on severely outdated consoles.
OP has a computer that runs crappy dumbed-down console ports really well. You know, the games that are limited to like 8 people per multiplayer server instead of 16, 20, 24, or sometimes more. He should play more crappy ports designed to run on 8 year old hardware if he wants good performance. Or he could upgrade to a computer with a CPU that's not slower than Intel's budget models from 4 years ago and a GPU not in the "value" category.
I'm not being "elitist" or something, I'm stating facts: OP's computer was not built for modern PC games, it was built for console games... his choice of CPU is especially unfortunate since in order to switch to something <i>not awful</i> he'll need a new motherboard as well. "Bulldozer" CPUs are slower than Athlon IIs.
Should Unknown Worlds have recommended higher hardware for minimum and recommended specs? Probably. It does "run" on the minimum hardware but it's not enjoyable, which is what the standard for "minimum" means. "Recommended" probably should've been higher, but the game does run just fine with console-level player counts, though it's not quite so enjoyable with just 5 people per team.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->When you have to buy a processor that costs 300 bucks to play a shooter in 60 FPS<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A sub-$200 i5-2xxx or i5-3xxx will run NS2 just fine. The problem is that OP bought a CPU that's a pile of crap because he thought "OMFG 8 CORES" without finding out that it wasn't really 8 cores and was <b>slower</b> than the previous AMD architecture which was <i>itself</i> <b>slower</b> than C2D clock-for-clock. <a href="http://techreport.com/review/23246/inside-the-second-gaming-performance-with-today-cpus/3" target="_blank">I mean, just look at this.</a> The damn thing's slower than a Phenom II x4. It's slower than Intel's CPUs from three years ago. Blame AMD for making ######ty hardware, not Unknown Worlds for not targeting their game to run on such garbage hardware.
OP, on the bright side, there's not a lot of these "modern PC games" since it's such a small market, and one permeated by the sort of confusing marketing nonsense that might convince you to buy an AMD FX CPU.
You may not believe so yourself, but you're as biased as they come. And what you're saying is pure, jaded poison. Does your dad work at Intel, perhaps?
AMD processors are great for all sorts of gaming. The LUA coding language is not. It's that simple. AMD may not have the solution to the poor performance of NS2. But that doesn't mean that AMD is at fault, nor that Intel are to be praised, when it's the game itself that is the problem.
As AMD CPUs can run all other games just fine as long as you have a GPU recommended for the respective game, what you're saying simply isn't true in any other situation than in those where the game is either poorly optimized or uses a coding language as slow as LUA, just like in this case, since NS2 runs way worse than other FPS games on <u>all</u> processors. The OP could play any other game fine with that processor.
Just because there actually exist processors that <i>can</i> run a game like NS2 with decent performance, and just because they happen to be made by another company, does neither mean that AMD processors suck nor that you should have to get one of the best processors on the market to play it when processors such as the OPs can run any other game (except those outlined above) just fine. Any sensible person would complain to the developers and ask them to either fix the performance issues (which in this case is hardly conceivable) or to build their next game with a different coding language, or to put a "Boycott LUA!" tag on your website/blog/facebook to raise awareness of this curse. Not go on a rampage against the producer of the processors with the best watt-to-performance ratio on the market for the last decade.
For the second time so far in this topic alone i have to state the obvious: the game itself, and not your processor, is the cause of the terrible performance of NS2. This is because it falls into the category of games built with slow-running code. As there in fact are processors you could buy that would run NS2 in performance that doesn't get you killed (quite literally), you should naturally go with a high-performing Intel processor for this. Just know that this will be major overkill for all other games, and thus hardly worth it and quite frankly mad to do for a single game.
NS2 most certainly has performance issues related to the choice of Lua over a more conventional code such as C++ for much of the gamecode. However, I don't think its unreasonable to expect a 2012-era game to require 2012-level hardware to perform the best. Also, people are getting moderately reasonable performance for <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=119506&st=60&p=1967881&#entry1967881" target="_blank">less than stellar</a>, <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=119506&st=80&p=1981167&#entry1981167" target="_blank">mid-level</a> hardware.
Another huge point is getting 100+ fps constant in NS2 is arguably comparable to getting ~50 in alot of other games, and when you start to drop below 100 you get alot of irregularity in your inputs. I think that is a big area where they could make alot of perceived improvements without having to actually boost the framerate. Input, specifically the impact on your mouse movement fps fluctuations have, and the general delay on key inputs could really help improve feel without changing performance. Beyond that, there are massive stuttering and warping issues with the netcode since the last major rewrite, which no doubt is also adding to the perceived framerate.
After several mins of laughing I decided to set about recreating this, no luck yet but it did remind me of times past in TF/Q1/2 when you could shoot yourself in the back of the head with a rocket :D
Early days....