Feedback - Extreme FPS Loss through binocs #3782

[lutorm]

maybe this will help illustrate the point slightly better...

i found a tree by itself...and got up real close so it should be the highest LOD

just looking at it, not down my scope in a regular brit rifle i get constant 60fps (v-sync on); as soon as i look down the scope, not change anything else except hitting the zoom key my FPS drops in half to a constant 30 fps!

Thats with 1 tree! I didnt observe an LOD change or anything, just an FPS drop, so i don't see how this is a graphics card fillrate problem.

Why would it not be fillrate? When you zoom in (which is obvious from the pics that you do), the graphics card has to fill more pixels. The LOD doesn't matter for fillrate (it just changes the number of vertices, not pixels).

In my testing, though, it didn't seem to be fillrate, it seemed to be shader power. Presumably the trees have some pixel shader that loads the cards.

Besides, you need to turn vsync off. You have no idea what the actual fps drop is, you could be having 61 and 59 which would turn into 60/30 with vsync.

[hick]

Okie doke,

Decided to do a bit of "testing" on my rig comparing 1.30 to 1.31 re: performance.

For this test, I loaded both into offline mode, spawn a brit rifleman at the farthest east depot in givet, walked east along the road to the spot where the row of bushes starts along both sides, and looked at the forest NE both without and with binocs.

Here is what I found.

System Specs:

Dell M6300 Mobile Workstation

Intel T9300 Core 2 Duo 2.5ghz

nVidia Quadro FX3600M 512Mb driver version 195.62

4GB PC5300 DDR3 RAM

Loading BE:

1.30 CPU Load - Peak 38%, Avg 15%

1.31 CPU Load - Peak 99%, Avg 85%

1.30 GPU Load - Peak 8%, Avg 3%

1.31 GPU Load - Peak 100%, Avg 100%

Persona Select Screen

Roughly same as Loading

In-Game

1.30 CPU Load - Peak 55%, Avg 43%

1.31 CPU Load - Peak 99%, Avg 95%

1.30 GPU Load - Peak 18%, Avg 12%

1.31 GPU Load - Peak 100%, Avg 100%

Also of interest were my GPU Clock Speeds.

For 1.30 they were:

Core Clock 300mhz

Memory Clock 300mhz

Shader Clock 799mhz

Mem usage 258Mb

For 1.31 they were

Core Clock 500mhz

Memory Clock 500mhz

Shader Clock 1250mhz

Mem Usage 499Mb

The GPU Clock settings are controlled automatically by the driver based on load.

Frame rates in game looking at speed trees:

No Binocs:

1.30 - 83FPS

1.31 - 71FPS

Binocs:

1.30 - 70FPS

1.31 - 19FPS

So it seems as a whole, 1.31 is maxing out my available system resources in terms of computing and graphics processing power, thus the increased demand placed by "zoomed" optics causes a sudden and rapid decrease in performance. Whereas in 1.30 there is sufficient capability remaining in the hardware to absorb the increased demand.

I am using GPU-Z to record the GPU loads and I8KFan to record the CPU loads.

Now nVidia recently updated the drivers to 197.16 so I am going to download and re-run to see if there are any improvements.

[hick]

Retested with 197.16 and got similar results. Click Links below to view Logs.

CPU Log

GPU Log

[haughtkarl]

Has anyone tested an old crusty nVidia video driver to see if the problem still exists? I'll have to give it a go later but looking at their archived beta drivers for Win 7 64 bit the oldest you can install is 181.71. I'm just curious if this FPS drop is only associated with the latest drivers.

[hick]

Has anyone tested an old crusty nVidia video driver to see if the problem still exists? I'll have to give it a go later but looking at their archived beta drivers for Win 7 64 bit the oldest you can install is 181.71. I'm just curious if this FPS drop is only associated with the latest drivers.

no, I've tested it with the Dell OEM Drivers (175.75, 6/10/08) just for kicks and grins and it made no difference.

[GOPHUR]

please identify which trees do and which do not cause this issue. That could help a lot.

There are only about 5 different types of trees in the game.

[hick]

no' date=' I've tested it with the Dell OEM Drivers (175.75, 6/10/08) just for kicks and grins and it made no difference.[/quote']

Honestly I'm sure what you would call themm They are the tall deciduous ones east of Givet

[haughtkarl]

For me it solely depends on how clustered the trees are. If I spawn into an east side depot in Dinant and look southeast towards the forested hill with optics, my FPS plummets. Looking at a single tree by itself has hardly an impact on my FPS.

[hick]

For me it solely depends on how clustered the trees are. If I spawn into an east side depot in Dinant and look southeast towards the forested hill with optics' date=' my FPS plummets. Looking at a single tree by itself has hardly an impact on my FPS.[/quote']

this would make sense as more trees in a give FOV = More demand on the system.

[decoy77]

Seems like this effects ati cards more so then ndivia. My old rig runs a q9400 with a ndivia gtx 280, my new rig runs a i7 930 with a hd 5870, and my gtx 280 blows the 5870 away with respect to fps when using binos, scopes, etc. So maybe somewhat of a driver issue as well?.! The ati 5870 should blow my gtx 280 away, but due to the decrease in fps using zoom/binos and occasional stutters whiel flying, I switched back the the gtx 280/q9400:(

[Bacon55]

Seems like this effects ati cards more so then ndivia. My old rig runs a q9400 with a ndivia gtx 280' date=' my new rig runs a i7 930 with a hd 5870, and my gtx 280 blows the 5870 away with respect to fps when using binos, scopes, etc. So maybe somewhat of a driver issue as well?.! The ati 5870 should blow my gtx 280 away, but due to the decrease in fps using zoom/binos and occasional stutters whiel flying, I switched back the the gtx 280/q9400:([/quote']

Well that certainly torpedoes the whole fillrate/hardware issue.

[monsjoex]

Hm if i put my settings on performance i get a steady 20 when looking at the long pine tree woods at the training area. With graphics max i get around 14. Normal view i get 60 fps. (1.31.36)

So i guess its playable

[haughtkarl]

Wow, I think that's first report I've read showing the same problem with an ATI card.

[odds]

please identify which trees do and which do not cause this issue. That could help a lot.

There are only about 5 different types of trees in the game.

Spawn Dinant East AB, Walk east to the road, and look S SE with bino or commander on tank towards the forest. I watch my fps go from from 78 down to 6 to or frames per minute ie Lockup. Not crash Lock up just I'm mashing my keyboard to do any thing type lock up which it does a min later.

This was on version .38 in offline mode

Quad core @3gzh with 9600GTS video card.

IMO this one is a show stopper Gophur.

[makrel]

Spawn Dinant East AB, Walk east to the road, and look S SE with bino or commander on tank towards the forest. I watch my fps go from from 78 down to 6 to or frames per minute ie Lockup. Not crash Lock up just I'm mashing my keyboard to do any thing type lock up which it does a min later.

This was on version .38 in offline mode

Quad core @3gzh with 9600GTS video card.

IMO this one is a show stopper Gophur.

Odds - what ingame settings and resolution are you playing with?

I have the same video card but much inferios processer - and the lowest I have had is 10-12 FPS. And I was certainly able to play - no lock-up.

I play at 1280x960 with medium quality settings and medium number of players viewable (but most check boxes in video settings on).

[munchkin]

Spawn Dinant East AB, Walk east to the road, and look S SE with bino or commander on tank towards the forest. I watch my fps go from from 78 down to 6 to or frames per minute ie Lockup. Not crash Lock up just I'm mashing my keyboard to do any thing type lock up which it does a min later.

This was on version .38 in offline mode

Quad core @3gzh with 9600GTS video card.

IMO this one is a show stopper Gophur.

I just did this on my setup.

I get about 100 FPS normal view and when I change to binos my FPS jumps up to about 130......

[munchkin]

There is something here I just don't get.

At first after starting the game offline and doing the initial test at the training ground. I get insane frame rates. Without binos 115-130 and with binos I get 200+.

Then I despawn and do the .bench'es

After those I do the default spawn in again and the same procedure.. and I get about 85 FPS normal view and 110-130 through binos.

What has the .bench'es done to cause this dramatic change?

[lure]

On my machine this trees are the by far worst ones. I get FPS cut down to 30-50% of normal FPS each time they happens to be in view. If 1.31 goes live with this I'll be unable to play. I see moments of single digit FPS with a Core 2 Duo @ 3Ghz and GF8800GTS machine. In .38 beta it seems my "normal" FPS is in the area of 40-90 but if I bring binos up and theese threes are in view i get a MAXIMUM FPS of 20. If there is a lot of them layered I get down towards 10.

Edited May 7, 2010 by lure

[AHWULF]

I just tried offline in my debug version on my MacPro with ATI 4870 and got (at that Dinant location, EAB E road looking at SSE forest) 2/3 the FPS when zoomed into the trees. I tried both with highest quality and best performance and got the same 2/3. What I did see is that when zoomed in the CPU started to wait 2x longer for the GPU to get back to it and I could hear the fans cranking up on the video card. This would seem to indicate the video card is cranking away at a ton of something.

[mevan]

Same here. Rifle scope or Binos pretty much the same.

[GOPHUR]

10 pages. Wow.

Fixed for 1.31.0.39. Please retest.

[munchkin]

10 pages. Wow.

Fixed for 1.31.0.39. Please retest.

Where is it? Wanna download and test right away!

[ghostrider]

god i hope this is fixed.. I just reinstalled Elders Scrolls 4: Oblivion and was comparing my FPS; on max detail, standing in front of a forest with a tree right in my face i was getting 60 fps (v-sync limited). I was actually getting higher FPS when i had only trees in view.

I'm pretty sure Oblivion uses Speedtrees as well so they should have similar behavior in this game.

[DOC]

no there will be little similarity due to comepletely different demands and criteria regarding what you render, how you render it, what collision and other vertices you are handling, how you are handling them, and the gross differences between the two game engines

comparing games in this manner, which share nothing much beyond 1, 0's and your perceptions based on visual cues, rarely nets you anything solid to base the comparison on other than what you think looks better or not

you could compare a ford thunderbird and a porsche cayman and base their similarities, or why you think they should be more similar than they are ... on the fact that they are both painted yellow with paint from the same manufacturer

wouldn't help the makers of either one to make them better cars on that basis, and remember that one of those cars was built before fuel injection, disc brakes, radial tires or alternators were standard production items

[hick]

10 pages. Wow.

Fixed for 1.31.0.39. Please retest.

will do.