Hope Of Better Performance

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Comments

  • gnoarchgnoarch Join Date: 2012-08-29 Member: 156802Members, Reinforced - Gold
    edited December 2012
    <!--quoteo(post=2047529:date=Dec 18 2012, 11:46 AM:name=rebirth)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rebirth @ Dec 18 2012, 11:46 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2047529"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Not to rain on your parade... but i honestly doubt those numbers, especially late game on big servers with 16+ players. Why do i do that? Because i own a 2600k myself and because people are only looking at client fps without noticing how choppy the actual game feels regardless of client fps.

    You can have >40 fps in combat and have no packet loss and the game will still feel horribly unresponsive especially if the round has been going on for a while.
    People are looking for the problem in all the wrong places imho, most of the performance issues for highend CPU users seem to have started when UWE capped client fps calculation for some stuff to the server tick rate. Maybe that's where another look should be taken?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    ?
    Apples and pears?
    Obviously my hardware does not affect server fps/tick rate? But the most horrible server tick rate changes nothing about me having 40 FPS in fights.
    Sure the game runs crappy on 24 ppl db server but then the issue is "NS2 server performance really sucks" and not "NS2 runs crappy on <b>my</b> Computer."

    Btw even the BF3 server performance sucked HARD at the beginning with massive tick rate problems on 64ppl servers. And DICE is a 250 ppl studio backed by EA.

    And btw. the reason why you perceive NS2 hardware requirements as too high is probably because we are at the end of the current XBOX360/PS3 cycle and therefor Hardware requirements of all cross-platform games has not changed for 4 years.
    Once the next gen XBOX/PS are released 2013, all new games will require something along i5/i7 and >HD7950/GTX670.
  • rebirthrebirth Join Date: 2007-09-23 Member: 62416Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    Try reading again... your max client performance seems to be capped by the server performance. This problem got introduced during beta (Build 218? Like i said before i can't remember the exact build anymore) when UWE capped some client calculation to the server tickrate. Before that the game calculated a ton of stuff based on client FPS, which resulted in players with beefy CPU's and 100 client fps to have way faster movement (especially as skulk) compared to people who ran the game at crappy <60 fps rates.

    To remove these differences UWE decided to cap all these calculations to the 30 fps tick rate of servers. Since then overall performance on the client side and overall responsiveness has suffered heavily, which to me looks like the direct result of tying lots of the client performance to crappy server performance. To me that looks like one of the main reasons why people with beefy setups still suffer from medicore game performance.

    And where exactly did i say i perceive the NS2 hardware requirements as too high? I never ever said that, quite to the contrary i believe NS2 hardware requirements are on the "cool end" of the spectrum because it's mostly CPU capped. Having your game that CPU dependent is a great way to future proof your game compared to having something that requires a beefy GPU. Average CPU performance increases way better over time and across the userbase as most PC's usually come with an half decent CPU, same can't be said about high GPU requirements, these usually lock out big parts of the PC userbase that have gone with Office PC's or OEM prebuild setups that usually deliver with castrated GPUs.
  • gnoarchgnoarch Join Date: 2012-08-29 Member: 156802Members, Reinforced - Gold
    All I said was that you dont need a OC >4Ghz Cpu to get 40 FPS.
    You reply thats not true because server performance sucks.
    I say that is true but still I on my end of the game have good performance with less than 4 Ghz.
    So basically we are saying the same thing I guess.

    That last paragraph was obviously not addressed at you but to people who are of the opinion that they should be able to play any given game with their crappy 4 yr old machine.
  • DavilDavil Florida, USA Join Date: 2012-08-14 Member: 155602Members, Constellation
    <!--quoteo(post=2047542:date=Dec 18 2012, 04:31 AM:name=gnoarch)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (gnoarch @ Dec 18 2012, 04:31 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2047542"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->All I said was that you dont need a OC >4Ghz Cpu to get 40 FPS.
    You reply thats not true because server performance sucks.
    I say that is true but still I on my end of the game have good performance with less than 4 Ghz.
    So basically we are saying the same thing I guess.

    That last paragraph was obviously not addressed at you but to people who are of the opinion that they should be able to play any given game with their crappy 4 yr old machine.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    I think one of you is referring to server and the other is referring to their own machine. This game was, is, and probably forever will be very demanding on the processor(s) of the server. The best servers are ones that have OC'ed processors and not necessarily Xeons, more like i7's. Aside from that it is confirmed you don't need over 4 ghz for more than 40fps, that's just ignorance.
  • rebirthrebirth Join Date: 2007-09-23 Member: 62416Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    Sure you can get >40 fps easily, i'm only saying that it won't make much of a difference because the game will still feel unresponsive.
    And that's kind of an bummer, because to me it feels like the game had been way more fluid/playable before the changes that tied so much client calculation to server performance. Basically performance got worse for a lot of people with that and now UWE is trying to get performance back to that level in very small steps by improving server performance.

    Dunno why, but that whole approach just feels flawed to me in the long run.
    Of course players shouldn't have such an direct gameplay advantage like higher movement/shooting speeds with high client fps, but there ought to be another solution to that problem than just dumping down everybody on the same crappy performance level regardless of client hardware.
  • WonderWafflesWonderWaffles Join Date: 2012-11-02 Member: 166137Members
    For me, disabling 'Camera Animations' really did it for me. It's feels more smooth
  • RandomEngyRandomEngy Join Date: 2002-11-03 Member: 6146Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    <!--quoteo(post=2047558:date=Dec 18 2012, 01:19 PM:name=rebirth)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rebirth @ Dec 18 2012, 01:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2047558"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Sure you can get >40 fps easily, i'm only saying that it won't make much of a difference because the game will still feel unresponsive.
    And that's kind of an bummer, because to me it feels like the game had been way more fluid/playable before the changes that tied so much client calculation to server performance. Basically performance got worse for a lot of people with that and now UWE is trying to get performance back to that level in very small steps by improving server performance.

    Dunno why, but that whole approach just feels flawed to me in the long run.
    Of course players shouldn't have such an direct gameplay advantage like higher movement/shooting speeds with high client fps, but there ought to be another solution to that problem than just dumping down everybody on the same crappy performance level regardless of client hardware.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    That theory doesn't make much sense to me. If client FPS is tied to server performance, why do you only see FPS drops when *you* are in combat? If you're off in some empty room while there's a huge fight somewhere on the map, why doesn't your FPS decrease?
  • SixtyWattManSixtyWattMan Join Date: 2004-09-05 Member: 31404Members
    <!--quoteo(post=2047038:date=Dec 17 2012, 04:21 AM:name=HeatSurge)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (HeatSurge @ Dec 17 2012, 04:21 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2047038"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->... on Ultra, right?

    I don't have FC3 (yet), but I heard that it eats GTX 680's for breakfast on Ultra. Kinda like the first Crysis that a single card still can't render properly ( <a href="http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=877&Itemid=72&limit=1&limitstart=4" target="_blank">http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?opti...mp;limitstart=4</a> notice how the GTX 680 OC delivers an AVERAGE framerate of 66, which means half the time it's below 60)... and how long ago was it released, 5 years ago?

    I'm still hoping that Maxwell (coming out next year) can run Crysis 1 properly. I've been waiting for a card to replay that with :-) .

    There's no way you run FC3 maxed out at a decent resolution with a gtx460 at a playable framerate...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Crysis runs better than Far Cry 3 and looks better doing it (Crysis also doesn't over-saturate all the colors). People are making Far Cry 3 out to be the new Crysis and it actually looks much much worse in almost every aspect. Also, the only thing that just murders FPS in Far Cry 3 is Ambient Occlusion which, in Far Cry 3, is either buggy as hell or just looks like garbage. It's funny how devs still try and fail to look as good as a 5 year old game, that's cross platform gaming for you.

    Are we still arguing over whether NS2 has performance problems or not? Because it does, and the devs are working on it non-stop. Do something constructive with your time.
  • scanfieldscanfield Join Date: 2012-12-14 Member: 175069Members
    Folks, without running NS2 in a profiler there's no way to say what piece is causing the slowness. Lua is a plenty fast language, and anyway one assume it's only handling game logic. You can't optimize a game (or anything!) via theory like this -- you have to profile, find the hot spots, and remove or reduce them. Of course anyone who's been doing engineering for a while knows this, and to ship a game like NS2 the UWE guys know this well.

    Basically, there's no use speculating on what's causing the slowness (C++ or Lua) since it's much more about specific uses and specific bits of code.
  • rmbrown09rmbrown09 Join Date: 2012-10-17 Member: 162592Members
    if (game != quickas######)
    {
    Makegamefaster(Charlie, unicorn, christhimself, jennajameson);
    problem = solved;
    }

    I should really apply at UWE clearly it's not that hard
  • ultranewbultranewb Pro Bug Hunter Join Date: 2004-07-21 Member: 30026Members
    <!--quoteo(post=2047090:date=Dec 17 2012, 05:55 AM:name=CrushaK)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CrushaK @ Dec 17 2012, 05:55 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2047090"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->From my experience with Unreal tech: ... snip ...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    That's pretty much how all the game engine works. I call it "The Quake Loop" for an FPS, but the concept is older than that. It's basically a poor-man's timeslice emulating how the OS would split up work.

    Using the "profile" console command, you can see that Lua is taking at least 50% of compute time. Looking at this, performance goes to crap when any other aspect spikes more than a single digit of performance percentage. For me, I'll see spikes in the sounds effects and the garbage collection on a long-running map. This has a cascading effect causing everything else to go to crap at the same time - everything seems to panic and stall.

    As for as better performance, the only gains possible now are from removing spikes - which seem to occur when the limits of the engine are reached (1000+ entities, 20+ cinematics, the terrible cyst implementation, et all). Anything that doesn't massively overhaul the Lua code cannot improve the performance substantially. It can only remove the massive performance dips.
  • ultranewbultranewb Pro Bug Hunter Join Date: 2004-07-21 Member: 30026Members
    <!--quoteo(post=2047690:date=Dec 18 2012, 01:50 PM:name=scanfield)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (scanfield @ Dec 18 2012, 01:50 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2047690"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Folks, without running NS2 in a profiler there's no way to say what piece is causing the slowness. Lua is a plenty fast language, and anyway one assume it's only handling game logic. You can't optimize a game (or anything!) via theory like this -- you have to profile, find the hot spots, and remove or reduce them. Of course anyone who's been doing engineering for a while knows this, and to ship a game like NS2 the UWE guys know this well.

    Basically, there's no use speculating on what's causing the slowness (C++ or Lua) since it's much more about specific uses and specific bits of code.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Type "profile" in the console. Lua is 50% of the all compute time. So, the "folks" are right. The interpreted language is the major offender.
  • MiniH0wieMiniH0wie Join Date: 2007-11-25 Member: 63013Members
    <!--quoteo(post=2047573:date=Dec 18 2012, 06:44 AM:name=WonderWaffles)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (WonderWaffles @ Dec 18 2012, 06:44 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2047573"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->For me, disabling 'Camera Animations' really did it for me. It's feels more smooth<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    What exactly does this feature do?
  • SixtyWattManSixtyWattMan Join Date: 2004-09-05 Member: 31404Members
    <!--quoteo(post=2047711:date=Dec 18 2012, 03:57 PM:name=MiniH0wie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MiniH0wie @ Dec 18 2012, 03:57 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2047711"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What exactly does this feature do?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    When turned off it removes camera movement when doing things like sprinting as Marine or hitting a structure as an Onos.
  • FappuchinoFappuchino Join Date: 2012-10-10 Member: 162008Members
    <!--quoteo(post=2047706:date=Dec 18 2012, 12:53 PM:name=ultranewb)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ultranewb @ Dec 18 2012, 12:53 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2047706"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's pretty much how all the game engine works. I call it "The Quake Loop" for an FPS, but the concept is older than that. It's basically a poor-man's timeslice emulating how the OS would split up work.

    Using the "profile" console command, you can see that Lua is taking at least 50% of compute time. Looking at this, performance goes to crap when any other aspect spikes more than a single digit of performance percentage. For me, I'll see spikes in the sounds effects and the garbage collection on a long-running map. This has a cascading effect causing everything else to go to crap at the same time - everything seems to panic and stall.

    As for as better performance, the only gains possible now are from removing spikes - which seem to occur when the limits of the engine are reached (1000+ entities, 20+ cinematics, the terrible cyst implementation, et all). Anything that doesn't massively overhaul the Lua code cannot improve the performance substantially. It can only remove the massive performance dips.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    So, realistically, apart from the needed particle optimizations, infestation should definitely be looked at right (and has long been confirmed as a ginormous offender)?
  • kastkast Join Date: 2003-11-13 Member: 22791Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
    <!--quoteo(post=2046016:date=Dec 14 2012, 11:01 PM:name=rmbrown09)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rmbrown09 @ Dec 14 2012, 11:01 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046016"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This semester I worked a lot in Python. Great language, easily understood. Does some great things in nothing but an interpreter. Its major issue is of course, that it is not a compiled language like C++ or C. No matter how great Python may be, it will never be faster than C++. It's in the nature of how it runs.

    (Aside from Jython, but you know what I'm saying)

    Now I am not familiar with Lua. From what I understand though it's a lot like Python. Runs slower but is easier to work with. That being said is there any actual hope that the devs can actually optimize the game run at a much better level? I just beat Far Cry 3. Btw an absolutely amazing game. Best single player I may have ever played actually. Far Cry 3 looks gorgeous, huge environments and tons of detail. Runs like a dream. NS2 however while still looking good, runs worse, just under max settings in environments a quarter of the size. I just can't help but think maybe the optimization is near a wall. An asymptote of performance that cannot be surpassed based on what the game was written in. Anyways, hoping someone with more programming // Lua knowledge can fill me in on this.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    LOL YEAH BRO I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN KEKEKEKEKEKKEKE


    1001011100001010011100001101001010100111011001
  • PyromaniacPyromaniac Join Date: 2009-02-20 Member: 66498Members
    45fps was promised for an E8400 and 8800gt by release.

    I'm on an E8400 overclocked to 3.6ghz and an 8800gts 512, yet i tried the game again yesterday and was getting <30 fps not even during late game or heavy combat.
  • MzMzMzMz Join Date: 2006-10-23 Member: 58087Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Supporter
    Just out of curiousity,

    My specs are GTX 660 and Phenom II 3 cores @ 3.12.
    I get around 30~50 ish in game and less then 20 in heavy (like 3 exos vs 3 bile bombing gorges) combats.
    My CPU is of course limiting my fps because I keep 0ms "waiting for GPU" in those combats even with all graphics maxed out.
    However, I recently tried some beta maps (tanith and eclipse) that have grey walls and noticed that my fps is significantly better
    (roughly 1.5 ~ 2x) So, I was wondering why textured + props vs grey walls perform so differently when I know my GPU
    can handle the game in most extreme situations.
  • GnubboloGnubbolo Join Date: 2007-11-01 Member: 62793Members
    edited December 2012
    88 fps in the classic mod in ns_caged

    world record !! :D


    ( i think the problem is in order: infestation, high number of poligons in map architectures, particles, and exos animation ? )
    when exos are shooting at an hive in the endgame, my fps drops at 5, yes five frame per seconds, with a 3.6 ghz dual core amd processor ( graphic details low, 800x600 )
  • LocklearLocklear [nexzil]kerrigan Join Date: 2012-05-01 Member: 151403Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, WC 2013 - Shadow
    edited December 2012
    <!--quoteo(post=2047335:date=Dec 17 2012, 04:16 PM:name=Strayan (NS2HD))--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Strayan (NS2HD) @ Dec 17 2012, 04:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2047335"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I have a fully watercooled OC'd 3930k + GTX 590 setup and it chokes on that game. And for all it's successes, it doesn't look any better than Crysis 1.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    But you don't need that to run FC3 on the lowest settings.

    NS2 lags on that kind of machine with the lowest settings.. my i5 3570k @ 4.5 ghz, and HD7970 2gb, get destroyed by NS2 by mid-late game down to say 50fps or maybe 30fps. (max 120fps at the start of a game, map dependant) Wheras with FarCry 3 I can rock 60fps Vsync'd.. on maximum settings.

    Imagine how this wrecks the standard casual gamer's experience on like a Core 2 Duo @ 2.2 ghz or an AMD Phenom II @ 3.4 ghz etc.. with more standard GPUs that aren't 500$. Aka.. your target playerbase..

    NS2's performance on a server perspective, and a client perspective is <b>really</b> worrying. Especially seeing that this is the last patch for a long time and since release I haven't gotten any FPS increase at all. I still range from 120fps at the start of the game down to below 30fps by the end or worse.

    Your game can be fantastic all day, which I think it is. But when people can't run it.. what can you do..
  • bLink`bLink` Join Date: 2012-02-18 Member: 146506Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    edited December 2012
    This game wasn't ready on oct. 30. This game should still be in beta.

    Nothing is improving so far. Except for snow ball :D but that's probably only for winter/christmas

    I hope something would improve when they get back from vacation, because the game is losing a lot of players. :/
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