Feedback - Extreme FPS Loss through binocs #3782

[monsjoex]

Its something in the code that is wrong.

Fix it, else releasing 1.31 will be a gignatic failure.

[mcketten]

AMD X2 250 3.0 dual core.

4gb RAM

Win7 64bit

nVidia GTS 250 1gb

On lut's test settings (native resolution, maximum settings, nVidia settings on application controlled):

Without binos: 55fps

With binos: Quick drop to 48 fps, then back to 55 fps.

With vsync/trip buff enabled:

Without: 60

With: 60

If its a problem with the code in the game it somehow doesn't effect my nvidia card, which is reportedly is effecting nvidia cards more than the ATI cards.

The other thing I've noticed is that it doesn't seem to be a problem for those of us running Win7 64bit.

[ghostrider]

The other thing I've noticed is that it doesn't seem to be a problem for those of us running Win7 64bit.

I'm running Win7 64bit and it effects me a lot; can't use any weapon with a scope which is about every weapon

a little fyi; I have Crysis and can run that with no FPS problems at all on high or very high settings so its definitely not the power of my gfx card, RAM or processor.

The code for this game is just outdated and its really starting to show, every single graphics card and processor being used to play this game was not around when they wrote the code. They need to either do a complete re-vamp of the code or start doing it piece by piece and try to catch up with todays hardware.

Also, this game has an enormous processor footprint for some reason. I have E8500 dualcore 3.2ghz processor and this game uses 90+% all the time while only using about 1gb of my 4Gbs of RAM.

[Bacon55]

The fact that forcing Vsync off in the drivers doesn't effect the game (with Vsync set on in the settings) reveals something, I'm not sure what but it's very odd.

The fact a GTS 250 is outperforming more powerful cards is confusing as well.

Hopefully this sort of data will help the Rats narrow down whatever bug is in there.

I'm also running Win7 64 bit and getting these issues.

Edited March 29, 2010 by Bacon55

[lutorm]

I posted this in my test thread, but maybe it's of interest here too: After upgrading my machine from XP x64 to Win7 x64, and along with that from Catalyst 10.2 to 10.3, I now get 66 fps in the bino test compared to 45 before. Who knows if it's new drivers, new OS or just having a clean system, but it made a 50% difference in fps... (only in that test though, the other tests are about what I remember from before.)

[OLDZEKE]

Have you all tried running the game at some low resolution like 800 x 600? Does it change the behavior at all? If your FPS doesn't improve with fewer pixels then it must be a CPU side issue (could be *in* the driver or the code).

This would be a handy clue for us.

BTW we are still in Beta so don't assume nothing will be fixed :-)

No AA or anistropic, game set to best performance.

1920x1080=97 unzoomed-55 zoomed....Native res my monitor.

1280x720=113 unzoomed-90 zoomed....Lowest game res option in the game settings.

So yes dropping res garners higher fps and appears to give a lower % of fps loss in binos.

i7 920 stock clock

260GTX

win7 32

[ghostrider]

So i was doing some experiments with changing the lighting in game by changing the time of day and it occurred to me that the primary cause of the FPS drop may be the self-shaders on the trees leaves.

as you cycle through time of day you can see that the shaders on the leaves change; when you are zoomed in on dozens and dozens of these individual objects the shaders become too much for the gfx card to render.

i went and tested the same sort of thing in the live version of the game and its present there but performance still stays playable zoomed in with binocs or scopes. in my test my FPS went from 104 non zoomed to 43 zoomed in the same area 51 area that i did my tests for beta.

I tried to see if there was someway i could turn off this self-shadowing/shaders on trees leaves but had no luck.

[AHWULF]

Do NOT compare 130 to 131, the code is way different.

The issues you are seeing are not because the code is old, we have changed a ton of stuff in 131 to modernize the code. Since it only happens to a subset of hardware/OS/drivers its not an across-the-board issue. Just on this page you can see some NV cards can't handle it and some can.

If you get 90 fps and then 55 zoomed in then don't worry its the ones where it goes to 12 where something is wrong.

One good thing to report for everyone with a terrible loss of FPS or a minimal loss (1) OS version (2) 32/64 (3) Video card/VRAM (4) Video card driver version (5) Resolution (6) RAM

There obviously are a set of these where the problem is bad and a set where it isn't. Without a complete list its tough to figure out where the problem is. This would also be required in getting NVidia to care enough to figure it out.

My 4870 doesn't have much trouble. It's the same code.

[hick]

No issue to speak of

Win XP Pro x64

nVidia Quadro FX3600M 512mb

Driver version 195.62

1280x800

4gb PC5300 DDR2

[mcketten]

im getting the driver update tonight and going to see if there is a difference in performance doing the same test

[mcketten]

im getting the driver update tonight and going to see if there is a difference in performance doing the same test

interesting: with the newest drivers in lut's test i'm getting better FPS zoomed in on the trees than zoomed out.

however, i decided to experiment more and spawned in at beaumont so that i could stand on the eastern depot and scan.

after multiple scans in circles i have determined that with the new drivers i do have the problem, not game breaking tho (drops to 20-30fps) but ONLY when looking at the fir trees and ONLY some of them.

very weird.

[Bacon55]

interesting: with the newest drivers in lut's test i'm getting better FPS zoomed in on the trees than zoomed out.

however, i decided to experiment more and spawned in at beaumont so that i could stand on the eastern depot and scan.

after multiple scans in circles i have determined that with the new drivers i do have the problem, not game breaking tho (drops to 20-30fps) but ONLY when looking at the fir trees and ONLY some of them.

very weird.

Yes the fir trees are the worst for me too.

Win7 Ultimate x64

nVidia Geforce GTX260 core 216 896Mb x2 (SLI)

197.13

1920x1600

9Gb DDR3 1333 @ 1527MHz

[spleef]

same problem here... 8600GTS w/ 196.21 driver.

[peegee77]

Do NOT compare 130 to 131, the code is way different.

The issues you are seeing are not because the code is old, we have changed a ton of stuff in 131 to modernize the code. Since it only happens to a subset of hardware/OS/drivers its not an across-the-board issue. Just on this page you can see some NV cards can't handle it and some can.

If you get 90 fps and then 55 zoomed in then don't worry its the ones where it goes to 12 where something is wrong.

One good thing to report for everyone with a terrible loss of FPS or a minimal loss (1) OS version (2) 32/64 (3) Video card/VRAM (4) Video card driver version (5) Resolution (6) RAM

There obviously are a set of these where the problem is bad and a set where it isn't. Without a complete list its tough to figure out where the problem is. This would also be required in getting NVidia to care enough to figure it out.

My 4870 doesn't have much trouble. It's the same code.

Ahwulf, I understand what you are saying and your logic. But something still doesn't make sense to me.

I have had this issue with WWIIOL for as long as I can remember. In the past, when I had maybe 60fps generally and it fell to 20fps, it was annoying but playable. Now, with a normal 30fps and it dropping to 10fps it is a big issue. But I have to say again:

* I have had the problem with 1.31.x.x, with 1.30.xx, and with every previous version that I can ever remember;

* I have had the problem with Win XP 32 bit and Win 7 64 bit;

* I have had the problem with an AMD 64 X2 6000+ and an AMD 64 3500+ processor;

* I have had the problem with an nVidia 9500 GT, an ATI X1650 and an ATI X800 pro graphics card.

You are suggesting that there is no inherent problem with the game or the code, but that some people are unlucky enough to have a setup where the issue manifests itself. If that is the case, I must have been very, very unlucky over the years to have always had a setup that was vulnerable to it.

The other possibility is that there is a problem with the game or the code, and that some people are just lucky enough to have a setup that avoids the problem.

Don't get me wrong, this is not a piss & moan post. It's a big time for CRS and the players alike, and we all want 1.31 to succeed and get more players into the game. I am sure everyone will do everything they can to give you the data you need to nail this problem. But it has gone on for many years, and it has never been fixed, and I think the jury is still out on what the real cause might be.

Let us know what else we can do to assist.

----------------------------------------------

Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+, MMX, 3DNow (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz

Memory: 3072MB RAM

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT

Display Memory: 1024.0 MB

Current Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (60Hz)

Driver Name: nv4_disp.dll

Driver Version: 6.14.0011.9621 (English)

[mcketten]

Ahwulf, I understand what you are saying and your logic. But something still doesn't make sense to me.

I have had this issue with WWIIOL for as long as I can remember. In the past, when I had maybe 60fps generally and it fell to 20fps, it was annoying but playable. Now, with a normal 30fps and it dropping to 10fps it is a big issue. But I have to say again:

Remember, the trees aren't ww2ol , they are speedtree.

Its far more likely that this is an issue with speedtree than it is with unity.

[peegee77]

Remember, the trees aren't ww2ol , they are speedtree.

Its far more likely that this is an issue with speedtree than it is with unity.

Quite possibly. Which is why I said "the game or the code" to include all game elements and licensed technologies.

But speedtrees are an integral part of WWIIOL. If, for example, Ford Motor Company sold a car and it was found there was a problem with the brakes, they wouldn't say "oh that's nothing to do with us, the brakes are made for us by Ferodo".

[dweeb]

I have this problem. Looking through the tank sights with trees around it drops to 15 max as low as 5-8 or so, but it actually plays WORSE than that sounds. When looking through the binocs it will fluctuate between the high and lows I just listed constantly, so controlling the sight becomes virtually impossible with any precision. Its not just a poor frame-rate thing, the overall effect is that it feels like you are controlling something underwater.

Windows Vista 32bit

4gigs ram

8800gt 512mb dedicated

intel quad core Q6600

Edited March 31, 2010 by dweeb

[mcketten]

Quite possibly. Which is why I said "the game or the code" to include all game elements and licensed technologies.

But speedtrees are an integral part of WWIIOL. If, for example, Ford Motor Company sold a car and it was found there was a problem with the brakes, they wouldn't say "oh that's nothing to do with us, the brakes are made for us by Ferodo".

Yeah...i really think it might be in the rats interest to run a test on the fir trees - dunno how, too bad they cant easily duplicate two towns and have one with the firs and one without and then have us spawn in and look around and report our fps.

I bet we'd find that the one with every tree but the tall firs does great...

[lutorm]

I posted this in my test thread' date=' but maybe it's of interest here too: After upgrading my machine from XP x64 to Win7 x64, and along with that from Catalyst 10.2 to 10.3, I now get 66 fps in the bino test compared to 45 before. Who knows if it's new drivers, new OS or just having a clean system, but it made a 50% difference in fps... (only in that test though, the other tests are about what I remember from before.)[/quote']

Actually, I just realized that another thing that changed here was that I downloaded the new .31 installer and ran that instead of .30 that the previous test was done with. Did anyone else notice better performance with the binos in .31? The rats did talk about how optimizations were in the pipeline for the beta.

[mcketten]

So i was doing some experiments with changing the lighting in game by changing the time of day and it occurred to me that the primary cause of the FPS drop may be the self-shaders on the trees leaves.

as you cycle through time of day you can see that the shaders on the leaves change; when you are zoomed in on dozens and dozens of these individual objects the shaders become too much for the gfx card to render.

i went and tested the same sort of thing in the live version of the game and its present there but performance still stays playable zoomed in with binocs or scopes. in my test my FPS went from 104 non zoomed to 43 zoomed in the same area 51 area that i did my tests for beta.

I tried to see if there was someway i could turn off this self-shadowing/shaders on trees leaves but had no luck.

in my digging through other dev sites and blogs looking for info on speedtree FPS loss the one thing I kept coming across over and over was the other devs telling each other to not use self shaders or use the very minimum, and to make sure that they properly compiled the LODs, but if there was a sudden decrease in FPS with a LOD shift then they should consider doing it without a compiled LOD.

[peegee77]

These screenshots were taken on 1.31.0.31 offline. I put a rifleman near the default spawn area, selected binos, and gradually moved the view down from the sky towards a group of trees.

I think the pics illustrate very clearly the problem we are talking about.

135fps

100fps

46fps

15fps

------------------------------------------

Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+, MMX, 3DNow (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz

Memory: 3072MB RAM

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT

Display Memory: 1024.0 MB

Current Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (60Hz)

Driver Name: nv4_disp.dll

Driver Version: 6.14.0011.9621 (English)

[jackw]

1.31.031 Offline testing rifleman looking up road at trees from between the posts at corner of road.

Just using settings tabs GPU settings changed out of game BE settings changed in game.

Stock settings no overclock.

Res 1600-1200 without bino and with bino

GPU set to Performance

BE set to Performance 108-113 60-62

GPU set to Performance

BE set to Balanced 95-100 59-61

GPU set to Performance

BE set to Quality 70-75 51-53

GPU set to Balanced

BE set to Performance 103-108 57-59

GPU set to Balanced

BE set to Balanced 88-94 56-57

GPU set to Balanced

BE set to Quality 68-71 48-49

GPU set to Quality

BE set to Performance 58-60 29-30

GPU set to Quality

BE set to Balanced 58-60 29-30

GPU set to Quality

BE set to Quality 58-60 29-30

[samalpar]

Just wanted to mention if no one has, there is substantial fps loss when looking through bombsight view as well.

[jw]

has any one noticed you dont even have to use the binocs, its the trees and shrub , Im using a older 7300 gs card but I can maintain 35 to 45 fps as long as I stay away from looking at the shurb and trees, dont even have to use the binocs, just look at it and watch my fps go from 45 to 15

[peegee77]

has any one noticed you dont even have to use the binocs' date=' its the trees and shrub , Im using a older 7300 gs card but I can maintain 35 to 45 fps as long as I stay away from looking at the shurb and trees, dont even have to use the binocs, just look at it and watch my fps go from 45 to 15[/quote']

I agree. If I look at agroup of trees and then walk towards them, the fps drop more and more as they gradually fill my field of view. I don't find it quite so severe as using binos or zoomed optics, but it is still quite marked.