Bad performance? Some hints and tips

13

Comments

  • AurexAurex Join Date: 2013-01-18 Member: 180477Members
    I read through every post, tried every possible solution listed here to solve my game performance problems. My cores are unparked, ns2.exe is running on High priority, every setting in the game is at minimal, i'm running the latest ati drivers (13.1) and every other driver is up to date as well. While i know my rig is pretty old, it can still run Battlefield 3 at 45 fps on High and every other recent game without any problem. Playing at a 1920*1080 resolution i get 35 to 40 fps early game, 15 to 20 during mid game... this drops horribly to 8-12 fps in end game, even worst than that when more than 3 onos/exos are present in game (not on screen). Below are my specs and a couple of profiler screenshots. I really hope engine will improve in some way in the future, because i simply can't play a full game without the urge to bang my head against the wall. I'll be able to upload a game log later, if that helps somehow.

    My specs:
    Q9400 @3.2 ghz
    8 gb DD3 1333 Corsair ram
    4870 HD 1gb

    Screenshots:
    <a href="http://i46.tinypic.com/2hrk4nl.jpg" target="_blank">http://i46.tinypic.com/2hrk4nl.jpg</a>
    <a href="http://i50.tinypic.com/34s2ihw.jpg" target="_blank">http://i50.tinypic.com/34s2ihw.jpg</a>
  • shonanshonan Join Date: 2013-01-28 Member: 182562Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited January 2013
    Just registered to help in fixing this issue, I am having serious FPS problems considering how powerful my rig is and I was wondering what settings I should use when submitting these logs to identify the issue.

    Seems like a great game, too bad its hard to enjoy playing it.

    So should I use my desktop resolution which makes the game unplayable or a very small resolution that makes the game playable and what settings should I use, the lowest or the highest?

    EDIT: I see that the devs want the most polarizing things so I will later submit a log with my desktop resolution and max settings.

    If you want anything else I can provide.
  • shonanshonan Join Date: 2013-01-28 Member: 182562Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    So heres the first log.

    First my specs:

    Intel Ivy Bridge Core i5 (quad-core) 3570K @ 4.2GHz
    AMD/ATI Radeon HD 4870x2 custom overclocked (GPU 775MHz, memory 960MHz)
    16GB DDR3 1600MHz
    Latest Catalyst 13.1 legacy drivers, all other system drivers installed.

    I can barely play the game with lowest settings and 1024x768 resolution so theres definitely something way off.


    I would attach the files but this forums attachment function isnt working (tested on Firefox, Chrome, IE and Opera) so I uploaded it to these services for you to download:

    The plog itself contained in a 7z archive:

    client-0128-162602.plog.7z (5.4 MB)
    <a href="https://mega.co.nz/#!lw0RECpZ!E9fYMxK6Scg_bNpA101DJwF3-_1WDmxkBDm5XJo-lUY" target="_blank">https://mega.co.nz/#!lw0RECpZ!E9fYM...DmxkBDm5XJo-lUY</a>

    or

    <a href="http://bayfiles.com/file/CIp9/Nv0Krl/client-0128-162602.plog.7z" target="_blank">http://bayfiles.com/file/CIp9/Nv0Krl/clien...-162602.plog.7z</a>

    Here's the settings I used:

    <img src="http://i.imgur.com/NwXlrSp.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
  • TopheTophe Join Date: 2013-01-31 Member: 182680Members
    Same problem. The game doesn't uses both gpu and cpu. They are always around %60. frames dropping below 20 which makes it unplayable

    Phenom II X4 3.8 Ghz
    GTX 670
  • shonanshonan Join Date: 2013-01-28 Member: 182562Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    New plog with the latest build.

    Performance got a lot better with it but it still isnt good enough for the game to be properly playable, theres FPS drops especially when theres a lot of going on on the screen and especially smoke and other effects close to the screen drop performance very badly.

    This time fiddled with settings while playing to see how the settings affect performance.
  • FarrenFarren Join Date: 2005-03-13 Member: 45065Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited February 2013
    Shonan based on your performance I'm wondering whether both of your GPU cores are working together correctly when the game is run. In mid-October AMD released a profile set that held Crossfire profiles for NS2, not sure if they're part of the standard Catalyst release by now or not, so make sure you go and install the expanded profiles just to be sure:

    http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/crossfirex-app-profiles.aspx

    Also try turning down the resolution and AF to see what your framerate does - according to Wikipedia you should have 2X12GP/s for your pixel fillrate, so if it is only using one GPU then you'd only have 12GP/s
  • shonanshonan Join Date: 2013-01-28 Member: 182562Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited February 2013
    Farren wrote: »
    Shonan based on your performance I'm wondering whether both of your GPU cores are working together correctly when the game is run. In mid-October AMD released a profile set that held Crossfire profiles for NS2, not sure if they're part of the standard Catalyst release by now or not, so make sure you go and install the expanded profiles just to be sure:

    http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/crossfirex-app-profiles.aspx

    Also try turning down the resolution and AF to see what your framerate does - according to Wikipedia you should have 2X12GP/s for your pixel fillrate, so if it is only using one GPU then you'd only have 12GP/s
    They are part of my drivers and I am using the crossfire profile meant for NS2.

    I have tried turning down resolution and setting AF off but still theres severe performance drops/lag so it must be somekind of problem with the game.

    Also I can run other games on my desktop resolution and high graphics settings etc without problems so theres definitely something off here..

  • luappy13luappy13 Join Date: 2009-08-29 Member: 68642Members
    Disabling awesomium_process.exe (and a bunch of other windows non-required processes and services significantly boosts my fps.

    awesomium is the browser in a game and is not that easily killed (restarts quite regularly even though killed in task manager) but you can download and install Daphne which has a neat 'trap' function which will kill it the instant it starts up. Doesn't appear to have a detrimental effect on the game either.

    For those of us on really low end systems I would recommend getting a grasp of your task manager, killing as many services as possible (Window Management Instrumentation, Windows Font Cache Service are big culprits) as well as killing explorer, trimming down your desktop eye candy.

    I have written a couple of bats to shutdown/restart almost all non critical services and processes.

    Don't run AV and use a separate clean OS installation for gaming.

    I'm on a i3 + 540GT laptop 8GB ram and I get about 60-70 fps with drops to about 40 in heavy combat... Playable. Just.
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    @luappy13
    Thats rather rigorous and I surely do not suggest to run without AV.

    Also I do not know if you can get in trouble vacwise with messing with the processes like you do now, but at your own risk.. I get a better idea then 3rd party programs.
    Go to www.sysinternals.com (it is microsoft), and download process explorer. That one can suspend a process, which is basicly a pause function. It is still open, so it should not start a new awesomium-process.exe

    Reason why stopping processes might help in your case is because then you are obviously getting strained on the CPU.
  • natostanconatostanco Join Date: 2011-02-15 Member: 81912Members
    Does 0ms waiting for gpu means I am not gpu limited?
  • xtalxtal aka X-rayCat Join Date: 2009-06-28 Member: 67961Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Supporter
    Yes. I would say even if you get 10% of game time above 0[ms] you're not GPU limited.
  • VittuLimaVittuLima Join Date: 2012-12-25 Member: 176227Members
    natostanco wrote: »
    Does 0ms waiting for gpu means I am not gpu limited?

    I'm not sure if it has anything to do with it even tho many ppl here say it does. I'm getting 0-1ms waiting for gpu all times but i know for a fact that i'm HEAVILY gpu limited(Gpu is on 100% strain all times playing NS2 but CPU is only on 50% load).

  • xtalxtal aka X-rayCat Join Date: 2009-06-28 Member: 67961Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Supporter
    @VittuLima how many cores are on your CPU? cause you will get 100% CPU load only if you have 1 or 2 cores - NS2 doesn't use well more than 2 cores.

    What GPU you have? What is your min/max fps in game?
  • inzoinzo Join Date: 2013-01-05 Member: 177669Members, WC 2013 - Silver
    I get 25 fps in lategame battles, but even during this time it says 0 ms waiting for GPU and 0 ms waiting for render thread.

    Does this mean I'm not cpu or gpu limited? If so, what's with the fps?
  • pmnoxpmnox Join Date: 2013-03-02 Member: 183543Members
    It means that you are cpu limited.
  • GeoGeo Join Date: 2013-03-24 Member: 184353Members
    Does anyone know any more performance tricks? I have graphics set to lowest, resolution to lowest, NS2 priority set to high, and I removed the "Infestation" folder to get rid of the infestation graphics. I still get dips below 30 fps. My GPU is not great, but I just want to be able to play the game smoothly, and I am almost there. I don't want to buy a new GPU. Is there anything else I can do?
  • Rich_Rich_ Join Date: 2012-11-05 Member: 167152Members
    edited March 2013
    Maybe theres a way to get something less demanding than minimal infestation up. A blocky texture green/black spots very little render demand maybe. Infestation is a very important part of how ns2 works so it cant just be visually eliminated.

    [cant tell if serious or. . . ]Of course the most mannly option to solve this issue, is to get better computer parts. And a benefit is little snot nosed kids who cant afford pc parts are not gonna play. Thats what easy-to-render same-gfx-engine-since-2004 call of duty is for. get a job hippys [/lolz]
  • GeoGeo Join Date: 2013-03-24 Member: 184353Members
    edited March 2013
    I don't think the infestation graphics are necessary. Maybe they are for serious competitive matches where every piece of information is vital, but I can play without them just fine on the regular servers. You can delete the infestation graphics entirely by removing the folder named "Infestation" in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Natural Selection 2\ns2\materials".

    I don't want to buy a new GPU.
  • JnyFoxJnyFox Join Date: 2013-03-26 Member: 184428Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    So, reading this post few times, tried the tricks and still suffering poor performance, I thought Im gonna add my new knowledge for you.

    My rig was this:
    1055T @ Stock speed
    4Gb RAM
    GTX 460 768Mb
    game installed on a SSD

    I was able to play, early beta times poorly. After going gold it was running better and better.
    Wanted to do something about it. First clocked my 1055T to 3.6Ghz, saw some improvement on FPS. Then I bought a new GPU, GTX660 2G. Saw again some improvement on FPS, still was not satisfied. Also upgraded RAM to 8Gb, dont think that matter much tho.
    Then I stumbled to this core parking problem which happens in WIN7. I did read about it earlier, but never gone further with it. But now I research this matter some more.
    I installed coderbag.com/Programming-C/Disable-CPU-Core-Parking-Utility this little software and first checked if I had any parked cores. I did, 3 actually. Unparked them, booted and tried NS2.
    Now, I had put adaptive VSync on for some reason a few days back. So afterburned just showed 60FPS, I maxed every setting in 1920x1200 resolutinon and went gaming, holy smokes! GPU was running 99% and r_stats showed me that its waiting GPU ~9-10ms. This was huge improvement, since before it was allways showing for waiting the CPU. I have second screen full of graphs of CPU temp,speed and usage, also same of GPU.
    Now the game was running nearly 60fps and the big thing was that I was able to see a lot more improvement on usage of the CPU, GPU usage was high also.
    So basically when I saw high GPU usage it was bottlenecking it. When GPU usage dropped, so is dropping FPS and then CPU is choking.
    After all I turned down a bit for settings, ambient, atmos etc. But still pretty much everything else on MAX. And it was running like never before.

    So conclusion is, try the app, unpark your cores, give us your feedback. And have your multithread option on(ofc).

    Maybe this work for some, not for all. It definitely worked out for me.

    Over and out.
  • Rich_Rich_ Join Date: 2012-11-05 Member: 167152Members
    edited March 2013
    Geo wrote: »
    I don't think the infestation graphics are necessary. Maybe they are for serious competitive matches where every piece of information is vital, but I can play without them just fine on the regular servers. You can delete the infestation graphics entirely by removing the folder named "Infestation" in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Natural Selection 2\ns2\materials".

    I don't want to buy a new GPU.

    infestation is a critical component of this game.
  • Rich_Rich_ Join Date: 2012-11-05 Member: 167152Members
    JnyFox wrote: »
    So, reading this post few times, tried the tricks and still suffering poor performance, I thought Im gonna add my new knowledge for you.

    My rig was this:
    1055T @ Stock speed
    4Gb RAM
    GTX 460 768Mb
    game installed on a SSD

    I was able to play, early beta times poorly. After going gold it was running better and better.
    Wanted to do something about it. First clocked my 1055T to 3.6Ghz, saw some improvement on FPS. Then I bought a new GPU, GTX660 2G. Saw again some improvement on FPS, still was not satisfied. Also upgraded RAM to 8Gb, dont think that matter much tho.
    Then I stumbled to this core parking problem which happens in WIN7. I did read about it earlier, but never gone further with it. But now I research this matter some more.
    I installed coderbag.com/Programming-C/Disable-CPU-Core-Parking-Utility this little software and first checked if I had any parked cores. I did, 3 actually. Unparked them, booted and tried NS2.
    Now, I had put adaptive VSync on for some reason a few days back. So afterburned just showed 60FPS, I maxed every setting in 1920x1200 resolutinon and went gaming, holy smokes! GPU was running 99% and r_stats showed me that its waiting GPU ~9-10ms. This was huge improvement, since before it was allways showing for waiting the CPU. I have second screen full of graphs of CPU temp,speed and usage, also same of GPU.
    Now the game was running nearly 60fps and the big thing was that I was able to see a lot more improvement on usage of the CPU, GPU usage was high also.
    So basically when I saw high GPU usage it was bottlenecking it. When GPU usage dropped, so is dropping FPS and then CPU is choking.
    After all I turned down a bit for settings, ambient, atmos etc. But still pretty much everything else on MAX. And it was running like never before.

    So conclusion is, try the app, unpark your cores, give us your feedback. And have your multithread option on(ofc).

    Maybe this work for some, not for all. It definitely worked out for me.

    Over and out.
    This is interesting. Not running win7 or i'd try it, think win8 has something similar?
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    oO
    That is.... odd.
    NS has multiple threads.. 3 if I remember ok. (correct me if I am wrong here)
    - graphics stuff
    - logic stuff
    - something else I forgot.

    The biggest slowdown for the biggest percentage of the players is the logic thread. Thats 1 thread. 1 thread can only run on 1 core. So activating other cores would do....... nothing.

    Also windows unparks and parks your cpu cores on the fly if needed. For example.. im running on 4 to 8 logical cores now. If I start NS2, windows quickly kicks it down to one core as its fastest to just run all threads on 1 core for this game.

    You can disable CPU parking with some basic windows settings aswell, but I doubt to see any use of it.. You eat up more energy and windows unparks them as needed.
    If this truly got more fps for you I would check if its a smart idea to look for BIOS updates or something.
    Glad it helped you though. :p

    *note, bios updates at your own risk.*
  • VittuLimaVittuLima Join Date: 2012-12-25 Member: 176227Members
    edited March 2013
    xtal wrote: »
    @VittuLima how many cores are on your CPU? cause you will get 100% CPU load only if you have 1 or 2 cores - NS2 doesn't use well more than 2 cores.

    What GPU you have? What is your min/max fps in game?

    I have 4 cores, I5-3570k. My GPU is HD7750. My "normal" fps in game is 50-100. Lowest i have seen in late game huge battle was few patches ago 27. Highest in readyroom 200 staring at wall. As you can see my cpu is lightyears ahead of the gpu, yet the waiting for gpu is 0ms but the gpu is on 100% usage 24/7 while playing according to hardwareinfo and the cpu gets barely stressed by NS2. All the cpu cores are being used with 30-60% load while playing according the HWINFO programs.
  • shonanshonan Join Date: 2013-01-28 Member: 182562Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Here's a new plog with the latest 243 patch, things are better than before but theres definitely still room for improvement.

    Observations during the PLOG:

    1. Started with resolution 1280x1024 Fullscreen, with the following "high" settings:
    ib2H8Io4u5F2xd.jpg

    Game was barely playable.

    2. Then cranked up resolution to desktop 1600x1200, same settings as above. Unplayable.

    3. Still 1600x1200 resolution, now on the following "low" settings:
    iYUeNVpKaugPL.jpg

    Doesnt really get much better, still unplayable.

    4. Lowered resolution to 1280x1024 with the same settings as above. Somewhat playable, can actually hit targets.

    Here's the plog, hope it didnt get borked due to changing settings in between:

    client-0328-123726.plog.7z (3.8 MB)
    https://mega.co.nz/#!sY01mI4Q!RqScyAVTeL5TflHfDBJI7GMDGzdt7B0KPyhYFWh9DaM
  • shonanshonan Join Date: 2013-01-28 Member: 182562Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    One more plog, this time a game on Summit with the following settings and 1600x1200 resolution:

    i8lqhjb3FlPb7.jpg

    The plog itself:

    client-0328-163406.7z (10.0 MB)
    https://mega.co.nz/#!EMglSCiY!MGantiJL6pSmA6rFqjCKw2cTXo4dE-6_2M5mJexoLPg
  • That_Annoying_KidThat_Annoying_Kid Sire of Titles Join Date: 2003-03-01 Member: 14175Members, Constellation
    thanks for this Zaggy
  • CarefootCarefoot Join Date: 2009-07-28 Member: 68288Members
    What does Multicore rendering do? I have an HD 7770 and only 4GB ram. I run other processes in the background. I don't choke as much as my FPS dips. Network lag aside usually the frustrating thing for me is when I am only getting 10-15 frames. I have everything on lowest and if possible I am happy to sacrafice as much eye-candy for performance as possible. Will 8GB of ram help me or would I be better off upgrading my mobo/CPU and getting dual 7770s? Or should I sell my current hardware and invest in a new card + rig? Its an XFX 7770, and my mobo caps out at 8GB ram and I use an i5. Much love.
  • SexiroSexiro Join Date: 2013-04-16 Member: 184863Members
    Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 3.2Ghz, 2GB RAM @ 1066Mhz, GeForce EN8800GTS 640Mb. Poor FPS :(
  • IronsoulIronsoul Join Date: 2011-03-12 Member: 86048Members
    VittuLima wrote: »
    I have 4 cores, I5-3570k. My GPU is HD7750. My "normal" fps in game is 50-100. Lowest i have seen in late game huge battle was few patches ago 27. Highest in readyroom 200 staring at wall. As you can see my cpu is lightyears ahead of the gpu

    At least you recognise that fact.
    Sexiro wrote: »
    Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 3.2Ghz, 2GB RAM @ 1066Mhz, GeForce EN8800GTS 640Mb. Poor FPS :(

    Your computer is really old, but the biggest thing that will be killing your performance is the ram, 2GB is not enough, I've noticed issues when running 4GB of ddr3, I'm using 8GB to play ns2. It will be cheaper to upgrade your cpu, mobo and ram than to buy 6GB of DDR2 these days.
  • kespeckespec Join Date: 2012-11-18 Member: 172279Members
    VittuLima wrote: »
    xtal wrote: »
    @VittuLima how many cores are on your CPU? cause you will get 100% CPU load only if you have 1 or 2 cores - NS2 doesn't use well more than 2 cores.

    What GPU you have? What is your min/max fps in game?

    I have 4 cores, I5-3570k. My GPU is HD7750. My "normal" fps in game is 50-100. Lowest i have seen in late game huge battle was few patches ago 27. Highest in readyroom 200 staring at wall. As you can see my cpu is lightyears ahead of the gpu, yet the waiting for gpu is 0ms but the gpu is on 100% usage 24/7 while playing according to hardwareinfo and the cpu gets barely stressed by NS2. All the cpu cores are being used with 30-60% load while playing according the HWINFO programs.

    i get the same results with i53570k, zotac gtx 680 4gb edition. as you can see problem is the cpu, it requires a supercomputer
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