[BUG] FPS is CPU bottlenecking between 45-60 fps...

It feels more like 30 FPS.

The weirdest part is that both task manager and afterburner say that my CPU is only being utilised at about 60%.

Does anyone know a fix? This has only started being a problem with the latest patch adding the Christmas aesthetics and whatnot (I think, though maybe I just didn't notice it before).

Specs:
Core i7 6700k (haven't overclocked it yet, it's not thermal throttling though, as it's liquid cooled and will comfortably run at 100% for hours while transcoding video footage. )
16GB DDR4 RAM
MSI GTX 1070
Windows 10
Game is installed on an SSD, dunno the read/write speed but it shouldn't matter in this case anyway.

I'm running everything at ultra @1080p(with .ini tweaks), and up until now haven't had any problems except in the largest of fights (and don't we all).
I've tried with and without supersampling and it makes no noticeable difference to CPU load.

Is there any way to make PS2 utilise that extra 30-40% CPU clock headroom? Do I need to do things with CPU affinity? Please halp. The game ran flawlessly up until recently and these performance issues are getting very frustrating.

I would not mess with trying to allocate cores to the game. That puts the OS in the backseat.

Yeah. I know that if you prioritise the game process, it will cause problems, but I've heard that you can disallow the game from using core 0 in order to make it stop sharing that core with the OS, and because its multithreading is ****, this means you get better performance as it simply moves those computations to a different core that it otherwise would be leaving untouched.

I have a similar setup with a 1080.

My CPU utilization goes to 100%. I get good FPS running at 1440p. Well over 100. It does dip to 40 in large zergs but with my Gsync I don't feel any lag. Most settings are high, a few ultra although I turned shadows down. I have zero ini adjustments, everything is handled in game.

It's a brand new computer and I haven't overclocked anything.

Frankly as beefy as our system is, it still takes a hit.

Here's a suggestion, go to nvidia control panel and make sure your 3D settings are set to application control. Remove any finite ini settings and try lowering some settings and see if it helps.

It could be a problem with my .ini tweaks, but the issue is not that my CPU is hitting 100%, but that the game is failing to utilise system resources when they are available, and as such is resulting in FPS drops. I haven't seen any of my cores go over 80% since the Christmas patch, and my GPU usually sits comfortably at about 50% usage. I'll try changing my control panel settings though. That might help with allocating more resources.

The application versus global control can be found in the first setting under 3D settings and it's labeled: Adjust image settings with preview. The application versus global control can be found there.

Make sure you hit the "APPLY" button after you switch from global to application control in the control panel. It's located in the bottom right corner and it's easy to miss and if you close the control panel after changing without applying and it will still use global settings.

That's one thing people don't realize is that if you leave it at global or specific control panel settings, it will override any settings done in game and use whatever is defaulted as global or custom in the control panel.

Good luck.

unpark cores the solution

OVERCLOCK THAT SUCKER ASAP.


I get 120-150fps in WG/small fights, on my 4670k@4.2Gh'z, and my CPU is a dud by all standards. With a water cooling system, you should easily get 4.5Gh'z, and that should trash PS2. Try and get it as high as you can without overvolting too high or getting too high temperatures. If you can reach 4.8Gh'z by 1.3 volts you are golden.

Also, turn off shadows. I know they look nice, but I loose a good 30fps when even turning shadows from off to low.

Do those two things and you should have 0 issues with FPS.

Shadows save my *** all the time. Like extra eyes.

Yeah. I do plan to overclock it, should have plenty of headroom. I just need to overcome my fear of ******* it up.

As far as disabling shadows and ****, you seem to misunderstand my problem. It's not that my CPU is actually bottlenecked, but that the game thinks it is, and refuses to use more of my power. Like, the game runs at 45fps in large battles(it feels like less, I think the FPS counter is broke), says it's CPU locked, meanwhile none of my cores is running at more than 70%. Like wtf? PLANETSIDE, DO YOU SEE ALL THIS FREE CLOCK SPEED THAT YOU AREN'T USING?? FOR F*CKS SAKE.

I shall look into it...

Even on my 4.2Gh'z 4670k(So probably better per-cor performance then your 3.8Gh'z) doesn't reach 100% single core use. I think PS2 is just really bad at utilizing CPU power in the first place, which is why those with AMD CPU's tend to get crapped on the most(Not utilizing the already low per-core performance, unable to utilize the increased core count).

When it comes to PS2, the best way to deal with it is simply brute force. Unfortunately, this means when it comes to getting FPS, you have a "budget" of sorts you get to spend. Shadows are going to take up a good 30% of that budget. The rest of those settings beyond fringe ones like 2.0 Render Quality will only take up another 30%, and then the rest comes from being forced to render large population fights.


I mean, if you want to keep Shadows on, by all means, it's your PC. But I personally don't find the FPS impact to be worth the aesthetic improvement.

Im blind then.

But I shouldn't have to turn off a setting which falls well within the performance capabilities of my machine. Its f*cking dumb. I'm gonna do a reinstall, see if that makes any difference. I never had problems with this until very recently...

Indeed, better to keep them on low.

Planetside doesn't use Hyperthreading, your 8 cores are actually 4 and you sit at 100% core usage. Just disable hyperthreading in the bios and you will have your nice 100% usage.

Also, like most people said, disable shadows and you will never dip below 60.

The problem with trying to keep Shadows on low, is that while Shadows Off gives a good +30 FPS benefit, Shadows only set to Low compared to High only gives around 10-15FPS.

It seems that rendering the shadows in the first place takes up the vast majority of the CPU power needed for ultra shadows, and turning up the quality only has a minor impact thereafter.

Shadows transform (from memory to screen basically) every object in the scene twice, once for the normal view, and the second for the light source. That's why even turning them on takes a lot of performance. Higher settings extend the draw distance for shadows, so more distant objects also get transformed a second time. That doesn't mean you should turn them off. Every game with dynamic shadows will see a boost from turning off shadows. Even turning down draw distance and model/flora detail will have a similar effect due to reducing the amount of things to transform.

What you should do, is adjust the settings to be in balance for your system. I'd say turning all of these things to low is better than turning one entirely off. You'll get a nicer image with similar performance.

the problem you speak off existed 3 years ago and back then, the solution was the one you speak of

problem -> hyperthreading not really supported by the game
solution -> turn off core / OC cpu, in this game speed of CPU is more important than number of cores etc / mess around with priorities basically tell your computer to use one core and use it good

I remember well, because I had that exact problem back then and that was the solution (which worked).

however --> today, 3 years later, your (stock) 3.7 GHz processor should be more than enough even without the overclocking.

I'm no expert, but if I were you; I'd look elsewhere.


PS. I did a bit of reading and actually, it seems like Intel's processors hardly have changed over the past 4 years or so. So maybe it does make sense that a 3 year old problem is still a problem today :
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2626105/intel-real-cpu-progress-years.html

Ok. So turning off shadows appears to grant perfectly consistent 60fps, with similar results being achieved by simply setting them to low. However, I like muh shadows so I've done a bit more playing around and...

I updated my Nvidia drivers and turned off MFAA in the GPU settings (idk why GPU settings would affect my game if it's CPU bound), and saw a considerable performance boost in bigger fights. I don't know if it was the drivers or the MFAA. I don't know why it made a difference. I don't really care. It's still not perfect, and a CPU OC is next on the to-do list. Gonna try and hit at least 4.6Ghz, see how much difference in performance that gives me.

Why don't you just turn off global and custom nvidia controls like I posted? Those damn settings will override anything you have in game.

I have the same setup and I run shadows at high and at a resolution much, much higher than yours probably and everything is smooth as butter.