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1.7.0.6 Performance

 
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1.7.0.6 Performance - 7/30/2012 11:09:06 AM   
defekt

 

Posts: 18
Joined: 7/30/2012
Status: offline 		Hey guys! New to the game but I’m getting the hang of things fairly quickly.

One thing I have noticed is how poorly the game seems to run in the mid-later stages and I was interested to read if there are some stock tweaks that can be applied to try and improve things.

My first game (1.7.0.6) was a 10x10, 700 stars (I think) with all races, and of course I started by running with absolutely everything turned on, max slider settings. Performance on the galaxy map, at all zoom levels, was at first perfectly fine but by the mid game stage it had become pretty bad, not climbing above 5FPS, and the scroll zoom was agonisingly choppy. Maximum zoom-in performance was okay – until there’s a battle whereupon the frame rate often drops to ~2-3FPS (during the ‘Guardian Fleet’ stage the entire game didn’t get above 5FPS at any zoom level). Virtually unplayable, which is a bit disheartening.

Turning off Civilian ships on the Galaxy map helps a bit, but not much. Turning down star density made no appreciable gains, neither did reducing nebula detail. Does mucking around with core affinity make any difference and if so what should I try? Anything else I can try?

AMD Phenom II 965 3.4GHz; 4GB RAM; HD6970.
Post #: 1
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 7/30/2012 3:06:39 PM   
defekt

 

Posts: 18
Joined: 7/30/2012
Status: offline 		I’ve had a look around at some Youtube let’s play vids and found a few that play Legends in the later stages of the game and all seem to run the game smoothly and fluidly, even during huge battles. Something clearly isn’t working properly because my average 5FPS in the mid stages is killing the game dead for me. My system is not old by any means and it has no trouble running anything else; running on all latest drivers as well.

Could it be because I used dual monitors (@1920x1200)?
I often leave the browser running in the background streaming music but turning that off seems to make no difference.
I stop the game and reload it, no change.
I don’t force affinity, all cores available.

At a loss to explain why it runs so badly.

< Message edited by defekt -- 7/30/2012 3:07:47 PM >

(in reply to defekt)
Post #: 2
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 7/30/2012 3:19:02 PM   
Jeeves


Posts: 491
Joined: 9/28/2010
From: Arlington TN U.S.A
Status: offline 		If you are in sector or galaxy view, performance when scrolling is poor if you are displaying long range scanners, the flashlight icon above the lower right panel. I have an old machine with no performance issues otherwise. As you say, maybe it is your dual monitor setup, or your video card.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

_____________________________

Live long and prosper!

Lonnie Courtney Clay

(in reply to defekt)
Post #: 3
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 7/30/2012 3:37:33 PM   
defekt

 

Posts: 18
Joined: 7/30/2012
Status: offline 		I do leave LR overlays on, but the poor performance isn't just when scrolling; none of the ship icons move smoothly, they judder away like- well, like at 5fps. Will try without LR overlays and I will turn off the second monitor.

If a HD6970 can't hack something like DW then something is very, very wrong. ;)

(in reply to Jeeves)
Post #: 4
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 7/30/2012 4:26:00 PM   
adamsolo


Posts: 110
Joined: 12/31/2009
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: defekt

I do leave LR overlays on, but the poor performance isn't just when scrolling; none of the ship icons move smoothly, they judder away like- well, like at 5fps. Will try without LR overlays and I will turn off the second monitor.

If a HD6970 can't hack something like DW then something is very, very wrong. ;)


I had this "5fps ship moving/bouncing" problem when I bought a new laptop with a GeForce 650M GT card (quite good for a laptop). I played ok with my old card in a much slower PC so hardware was not the case here.

I tried to force core affinity to a single core since that fixed it for a guy here in the forums, but to no avail in my case. It all came to three things (sorry but I'm not completely sure which fixed it for me - although I'm inclined to number 3):

1. Motherboard chipset drivers update
2. Video card drivers update (use the laptop manufacturer ones if they exist)
3. Force game to use the dedicated video card instead the integrated one

I was going mad with this and I even started to write a post like this one to ask people about this. In a last reboot the game suddenly started to play very fluidly, even on a huge late-game (created with Quick Start). All was well but I couldn't understand which of the points above fixed it.

I'll bet it was number 3. In my case I have a nVidia dedicated card but also an IBM 4000 HD integrated one, and I used the nVidia software to force the game to use the dedicated card, but I guess you must have a similiar option, if you're using a laptop of course.

< Message edited by adamsolo -- 7/30/2012 4:30:51 PM >

_____________________________

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Your source for Sci-Fi and Space Strategy Games

(in reply to defekt)
Post #: 5
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 7/30/2012 4:57:55 PM   
defekt

 

Posts: 18
Joined: 7/30/2012
Status: offline 		If this game can't work with a modern GFX card then I'm sorry but I'm more likely to dump the game. That can't be the case - utter madness if it is.

(in reply to adamsolo)
Post #: 6
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 7/30/2012 6:40:04 PM   
defekt

 

Posts: 18
Joined: 7/30/2012
Status: offline 		Affinity tweaks (1, 2, all processors): No change.
Resolution drop: Minimal gains.
Run the game in compatibility mode (XP SP3): No change.
Disable extended desktop (1 monitor): No change.
Minimal in-game settings (no stars, no nebulae, no LR Scanner overlay, no other overlays): No change.
Mobo and GFX driver update (already where up to date): No change (expected).

I can even see the in-game dialogues drawing themselves when they appear, and the pop-ups don't slide nicely into view as I've seen them happen on YouTube vids, they chunk in one inch at a time and bring the whole action display to all but a halt as they do it.

If this really is shaping up to be a game that won't run properly on a fairly recent ATi GFX card then- well, we're wandering into refund territory because nowhere in any of the specs does it say that.

(in reply to defekt)
Post #: 7
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 7/30/2012 7:07:47 PM   
adamsolo


Posts: 110
Joined: 12/31/2009
Status: offline 		Are you playing on a laptop? Do you have 1 video card or 2 (1 dedicated and 1 integrated)?

I'm not familiarized with ATI cards but if you have two types of cards you could end up having the same problem as I did. After forcing the game to use my dedicated card all was well. At least that's what I think did it for me (since I also had my Mobo drivers up to date). Try in Tech Support if that doesn't make it for you.

< Message edited by adamsolo -- 7/30/2012 7:09:23 PM >

_____________________________

[blog]: Space Sector
Your source for Sci-Fi and Space Strategy Games

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Post #: 8
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 7/30/2012 7:20:37 PM   
defekt

 

Posts: 18
Joined: 7/30/2012
Status: offline 		No, it's a desktop; no on-board VGA.

(in reply to adamsolo)
Post #: 9
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 7/30/2012 8:07:54 PM   
WiZz

 

Posts: 255
Joined: 9/28/2011
From: Ukraine
Status: online 		When I had an old PC (something like dual core pentium 4 + 2 Gb ram + Geforce 7600 GS) I had noticed, that changing color scheme from true color (32 bits) to high color (16 bits) gave game a boost of performance. Ingame graphics didn't suffer from these actions.

< Message edited by WiZz -- 7/30/2012 8:08:20 PM >

(in reply to defekt)
Post #: 10
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 7/30/2012 9:03:11 PM   
defekt

 

Posts: 18
Joined: 7/30/2012
Status: offline 		Thanks for the suggestion. No appreciable gains.

(in reply to WiZz)
Post #: 11
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 7/30/2012 10:08:10 PM   
unclean

 

Posts: 139
Joined: 12/31/2010
Status: offline 		How many other empires were in the game? I have a 4ghz Phenom II, and things start getting pretty choppy for me in the mid game if I set the number of empires above 11 or have more than 400 stars. The number of empires in particular seems to be the real performance killer.

(in reply to defekt)
Post #: 12
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 7/31/2012 12:27:44 AM   
defekt

 

Posts: 18
Joined: 7/30/2012
Status: offline 		It is actually in an 8x8 with 400 stars and 11 civs not 10x10 with 700 stars, so it's performing even worse than I'd first thought. Frame rate when zoomed right in with nothing happening is okay, so it can't be civ AI that's slowing anything down. Battles, sometimes even battle only between a couple of ships, and the galaxy view grind to the point of being unplayable (2-5fps). This isn't being played on a weak machine! It just sounds completely bizarre that much older machines are reportedly running this on far larger maps, with far more stars and with lots of civs.

(in reply to unclean)
Post #: 13
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 7/31/2012 10:39:25 AM   
defekt

 

Posts: 18
Joined: 7/30/2012
Status: offline 		...none of the CPU cores goes over 30% whilst running the game even at its worst rate of performance (2fps) so it's not a CPU bottleneck issue either.

(in reply to defekt)
Post #: 14
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 8/1/2012 9:50:44 AM   
unclean

 

Posts: 139
Joined: 12/31/2010
Status: offline 		Yeah that's really messed up, the game should be running way smoother.

Only thing I can think of is that your dual monitor setup is messing it up somehow.

(in reply to defekt)
Post #: 15
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 8/1/2012 10:45:43 AM   
defekt

 

Posts: 18
Joined: 7/30/2012
Status: offline 		I tried disabling the other monitor, as listed above (along with many other changes): no change.

There isn't much left to try other than with another GFX card, which I don't have. (No onboard.)

All tests so far point toward draw rates thus DW running like sh_te on at least ATi 6x series cards. Not a great selling point.

(in reply to unclean)
Post #: 16
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 8/1/2012 11:50:09 AM   
WiZz

 

Posts: 255
Joined: 9/28/2011
From: Ukraine
Status: online 		GFX card is not necessary for DW. DW runs fine even on integrated graphics, because game doesn't use DX9 or something else. Graphics of DW is something similar to graphics, which draws different icons and effects in windows. It uses mostly CPU. These effects are hard for computing and cause these lags. You can't fix or reduce it. Only hopes, that in next game or addon coders force game engine to do all calculation with videocard.

(in reply to defekt)
Post #: 17
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 8/1/2012 1:14:26 PM   
defekt

 

Posts: 18
Joined: 7/30/2012
Status: offline 		Read above. No core goes above 30% at any stage. It is also not unusual to have mobos that don't have onboard VGA, mine being one such model.

If DW is not written to work with some modern gear then that needs to be made abundantly clear on the required system specs otherwise some customers will have grounds to ask for a refund. This thread already probably stands as being a warning to prospective buyers, and those whose gear may not be affected may avoid the game entirely just in case. (Add to that the cost of the game and expansions if bought from Matrix and most will be more likely to not risk it.) Some technical input from the developers might serve to alleviate some of the ambiguity.

< Message edited by defekt -- 8/1/2012 1:15:44 PM >

(in reply to WiZz)
Post #: 18
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 8/1/2012 4:50:02 PM   
vonHart

 

Posts: 8
Joined: 8/1/2012
Status: offline 		I experienced the same issue as defekt, poor performance, especially in the later stages of the game although my system specs are above the recommended settings and the cpu usage stays at cozy 50% max. I am pretty sure that I tried everything to fix this problem and that I spent more time trying to solve this issue than actually playing the game.

After watching several lp's I got convinced and bought the whole DW package for about 80€; off course I am annoyed that there are some "unnecessary" hardware issues which are clouding my gaming experience. However defekt, I think that your critic is way too harsh.

Hardware issues are not an uncommon problem with videogames due to nearly endless possibilities to combine pieces of hardware in your machine. Testing your piece of software on every possible combination is impossible; it's especially problematic for a small developer like matrix games which has only 30+ employees (wikipedia). While I am sure that there are system specs which are obviously having problems with handling the game, I am also sure that the developers will address this problem, if it is a major one. If it's not, it would be grossly unfair to the majority of gamers to demand that the developers spend time on a problem which is only affecting a fraction of the gamer-base. I don’t think that DW was written with the intention to NOT run on certain modern gear but the problem follows from the points I made before.

So, while I understand your anger, because I share it in some points, I think you are clearly wrong when you try to bandwagon potential buyers into believing that DW will not run on their systems. It seems not to be a major problem thus, statistically speaking, the probability that DW will not work on their machines is fairly low.

And if you, potential buyer, are reading this thread at the moment, considering if ,after all, DW is worth buying or not; let me assure you that even if DW runs laggy on my machine I still love it, I love to play it and I think it's one of the most impressive games I ever saw. It is THE 4x game at the moment and due to its sheer brilliancy it will have an impact on the whole genre. So go, buy it, you know you want to.

(in reply to defekt)
Post #: 19
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 8/1/2012 5:11:50 PM   
defekt

 

Posts: 18
Joined: 7/30/2012
Status: offline 		Developers are usually not averse to listing performance issues where hardware is concerned, if not within the system requirement specs themselves within fora such as these. No such information exists for DW. Perhaps at least in a very small part, now it does. Disclosure shouldn’t be anything to be afraid of… or perhaps you would have preferred that I kept my specific specs a secret so as not to ruin the potential surprise for others?

(in reply to vonHart)
Post #: 20
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 8/1/2012 8:20:17 PM   
WiZz

 

Posts: 255
Joined: 9/28/2011
From: Ukraine
Status: online
quote:

ORIGINAL: vonHart
Hardware issues are not an uncommon problem with videogames due to nearly endless possibilities to combine pieces of hardware in your machine. Testing your piece of software on every possible combination is impossible; it's especially problematic for a small developer like matrix games which has only 30+ employees (wikipedia).


I'm pretty sure, that DW can cause lags even on highest level top PC. I'm sad, that DW is lagged, but I had used somehow. As for me, this is not biggest problem.

(in reply to vonHart)
Post #: 21
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 8/2/2012 2:11:22 AM   
unclean

 

Posts: 139
Joined: 12/31/2010
Status: offline 		@vonHart do you have an ATI card? Like Wizz said this game pretty much doesn't touch the gpu at all, but it's weird that performance could be so inconsistent.

quote:

ORIGINAL: defekt
If DW is not written to work with some modern gear then that needs to be made abundantly clear on the required system specs otherwise some customers will have grounds to ask for a refund. This thread already probably stands as being a warning to prospective buyers, and those whose gear may not be affected may avoid the game entirely just in case. (Add to that the cost of the game and expansions if bought from Matrix and most will be more likely to not risk it.) Some technical input from the developers might serve to alleviate some of the ambiguity.

You should post in the tech support forum or pm elliotg. But yeah, such poor performance in an $80 game is pretty unacceptable.

(in reply to defekt)
Post #: 22
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 8/2/2012 1:58:35 PM   
vonHart

 

Posts: 8
Joined: 8/1/2012
Status: offline 		@ unlcean: nope, Nvidia. I suppose it’s a multicore processor load issue. As far as I know DW was originally build without multicore support and the feature was added in some addon or patch. Maybe there are some troubles left with that. And yes, i tried to run DW on a single core.

@ defekt: as I said before, I don’t think that this bad performance with certain specs is expected or intended by the developer. Thus I think some sort of disclosure obligation doesn’t make sense because it would have to include every problematic hardware combination, that will be a pretty long list. What would help would be a demo. Does anyone know what’s the problem with that? Btw. defekt, have you already tried Erik’s tips in the Tech-Support FAQ regarding bad performance issues? It didn’t solve the issue for me but made DW at least playable.

(in reply to unclean)
Post #: 23
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 8/2/2012 3:02:59 PM   
defekt

 

Posts: 18
Joined: 7/30/2012
Status: offline 		An ATi 6x series card with an AMD quad core CPU on a W7-64 OS isn’t what I’d call an esoteric configuration. I don’t know for certain if it is a problem with the way the game interacts with the card but thus far all leads point towards a draw rate issue. I’m not for one moment suggesting that the game was deliberately coded to run poorly on certain hardware configs -- I'm angry about the game running badly when I know that it runs smoothly on far older machines but I'm not irrational about it -- but I also don’t subscribe to the notion that the devs aren’t already aware that something might not be as efficient as it could be with modern gear, of which new customers are more and more likely to own as time ticks by. Considering the price point at which the game currently sits this becomes a significant issue.

A demo would certainly help but seeing as the game doesn’t grind to a practical halt until the mid-late stages I don’t see how a demo could reveal that without giving away too much of the game itself for free.

I’ve tried all tweaks listed within these fora and many more besides.

(in reply to vonHart)
Post #: 24
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 8/2/2012 4:12:38 PM   
vonHart

 

Posts: 8
Joined: 8/1/2012
Status: offline 		Well you could limit the demo to a few quick start scenarios (beginning, galactic republic) with only a single race and limited amount of time. With the galactic republic scenario you would get a look of what awaits you in the mid-end stages of a sandbox game.

I share your feelings about the performance of DW on low-tech compared to high-tech systems. But I wanted to point out that it's probably not a systematic problem which may serve as an argument against buying DW, as you said in a previous post
quote:

If DW is not written to work with some modern gear then that needs to be made abundantly clear on the required system specs otherwise some customers will have grounds to ask for a refund.
but rather some sort of "bad hardware combination luck" problem. And if only a small fraction of the gamerbase is affected by it, the devs will not prioritize work on that problem. I thought that your words in post #18 were unfair because your assumptions were wrong, thus i replied. But I think that already enough has been said about that.

What made you think it's a GPU related problem rather than a CPU related? The fact that DW runs smoothly on older systems seem to be a clear indicator that the graphical processing tasks in DW are not that big that you would need a specific GPU to handle. Rather older CPU's seem to shoulder it effortlessly. The comment of WiZz that you can run DW without a GPU seems to point in the same direction. My estimate is that it is a CPU multi core related issue because that feature was not available from the beginning of DW, so there might be still room for improvements.

(in reply to defekt)
Post #: 25
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 8/2/2012 7:25:51 PM   
WiZz

 

Posts: 255
Joined: 9/28/2011
From: Ukraine
Status: online
quote:

My estimate is that it is a CPU multi core related issue because that feature was not available from the beginning of DW, so there might be still room for improvements.


It doesn't help much. Only one effective decision is coding ENTIRE game engine to use graphic acceleration. It is the only way. After that, DW will flying. But, I think, this will not be made, because next addon is last for DW.

(in reply to vonHart)
Post #: 26
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 8/2/2012 10:42:42 PM   
ehsumrell1


Posts: 1535
Joined: 8/17/2010
From: The Briar Patch Nebula
Status: offline 		For those of you who may have missed it, a while back Elliot gave an interview concerning
Distant Worlds and Codeforce that may provide some insight into some of the previous
discussions in this thread. Just FYI.

You can read it here: http://truepcgaming.com/2011/10/28/4x-space-odyssey-distant-worlds-interview/#more-2580

_____________________________

Shields are useless in "The Briar Patch"...

(in reply to WiZz)
Post #: 27
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 8/3/2012 12:29:36 AM   
defekt

 

Posts: 18
Joined: 7/30/2012
Status: offline 		More performance testing findings:-

I suppose only someone technically connected with the game's mechanics will be able to answer this but does the game run some sort of five second cycle? Every five seconds the frame rate falls away dramatically, then for the next five seconds it's smooth, then five seconds later it falls away again... repeat ad nauseum. At first I thought this was caused by pop-up dialogues but it happens when the game is paused and when no pop-up dialogues are in view. My test was to start a completely new game (v1.7.0.16), zoom in on a planet and gently circle the view around by holding RMB. For five seconds it will be smooth, for five seconds it will be very laggy, then for five seconds it will be smooth again, etc.

I stripped away all unnecessary processes, including virus scanners and so forth, and performed the above test both with and without CPU affinity settings (1 core, all cores), with and without dual monitors, etc. Essentially I've repeated all the things I did before to try and claw back some performance before I noticed this five second cycle. No other game or application follows the same five second pattern, it's just DW.

(in reply to ehsumrell1)
Post #: 28
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 8/3/2012 3:54:43 PM   
Gareth_Bryne


Posts: 210
Joined: 5/16/2010
Status: online 		In my experience, the cause may lie in motherboard compatibility problems. The components may be all right, but the connections are flawed on a material level, which shows in singular cases. And DW IS a singular case, it runs smoothly on otherwise low-end computers with enough processing power, and sometimes has problems on high-end systems.

_____________________________

"Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts," - Londo Mollari

(in reply to defekt)
Post #: 29
RE: 1.7.0.6 Performance - 8/3/2012 4:27:23 PM   
defekt

 

Posts: 18
Joined: 7/30/2012
Status: offline 		I'm sure you said something insightful but I was too busy admiring your choice of avatar and sig quote. :)

(in reply to Gareth_Bryne)
Post #: 30
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