Large Frame Bleed in Bases

Discussion in 'Player Support' started by Slev, Mar 1, 2013.

  1. Slev

    Populated bases as of this patch are now causing a massive amount of frame bleed, CPU bound down to 15fps. I have an i7 3.4gHz quad core, so I was at least hoping to be playable in bases. I thought it could be due to streaming, but turning that off did not change fps at all. Any solutions to this, or is it just expected that you can't keep stable frames in a facility?
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  2. Naceo

    Ditto here. my FPS took a nose dive around large bases. Dosen't seem to be tied to engagement size. I could be in a fight with complete hellfire raining down and still never go under 35 FPS. Now walk into an amp station? BAM! single digit FPS.
  3. Jaybo H

    Yep, it seems everyone was saying it in /y chat regardless of faction. I have never seen the game run this bad before this last patch, even back in beta, which was before any of the optimizations.

    Something definitely broke.
  4. Naceo

    I think it has to do with the rendering of bases. I look up to the sky and my FPS shoots back up to normal. It's like the game is now trying to render every single base object, even if it is behind a wall or is otherwise not visible. Whatever the case it's destroying my framerate.
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  5. Slev

    Certain specific bases (almost always tech plants) seem to really push the FPS down hard.
  6. Hatamoto

    Same here, fps definatly went down some with this patch. Tbh i feel like im playing optimize settings more than playing the actual game, and its getting rather boring. Im starting to not give a **** how the game runs, and it worries me because i know the game has potential.
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  7. VengefulGhost

    I have the same problem. The game has gotten progressively worse and worse for me since the last big content patch, it is nearly impossible to play because in addition to low FPS in bases, tremendous lag, menus taking forever to load, and the game crashing constantly are also affecting me. My hardware hasn't changed at all but I was getting 40-60 FPS almost everywhere in December/Mid-January. Now it's something like 10-15, 30 max.
  8. LordMondando

  9. Jerion

    I've noticed this, especially around Amp stations. It's bizarre, and I'm really confused as to why it happens. The Amp bases on Indar are unplayable for me. Biolabs and Tech plants aren't as bad by a longshot (I can still play at something more than a slideshow), but they also slam my FPS. I'm trying to brainstorm reasons, but nothing is coming. It's not tied to shadows, because I have those turned off and it happens anyway. It might be tied to an occlusion culling and LOD problem, where the system is suddenly very conservative; far too many things are being unnecessarily (?) rendered.
  10. Jaybo H

    Again I want to stress I have NEVER seen it run like this, even in beta, and this is all after the Server Merge patch.

    I am getting CPU limited constantly for the first time (and no, I am not running anything new or different in the background.)

    Could this have anything to do with the new issue of capturing a spawn area at a large base where it keeps the enemy shields even though you own the building? I've noticed this every time as of the new patch, cross-server and cross-faction.

    I know they are always working on performance and I have never had an issue with fps until this last patch. No, I am not exaggerating. (well, we had that weird performance issue when in vehicles but it still wasn't this bad)
  11. Fairlightfire

    Well, I think FPS definitely dropped because numbers of players greatly increased after server merges. For me it's super clear and I think that there's no way these things aren't related. Large bases is one FPS hungry thing. Player count (maybe nearby, or maybe even just on the same continent, definitely not only those I see on the screen) is another big FPS eater. That I know when I spawn on Amerish where it's still a lot less populated. I instantly get nice fluent game. However, I can't say for sure that last patch didn't change anything. Maybe it did, maybe it's just player numbers.

    What do you expect guys? Today I saw like 25 people in one room capping one freaking point. Almost never it was that polulated (first time I saw Indar locked on Ceres due to being full) . Ironic thing is — after server merges bad optimization is much more apparent. :) I think we should get a lot more people on less powerful versions of i5 and i7 saying here how they can't get acceptable fps. I kind of feel bad for this engine. :) Needless to say I get slideshow too now. I was forced to reduce drawing distance to 500 already. :D Still have some room for improvement. :D
  12. Naceo

    True enough, but fight the enclave so I'm hitting the render limit no matter what. Anywho, I can tell where my FPS is supposed to be in a big fight. Just look up so that no buildings are rendering on screen (Player location is still being sent to the computer so it is still rendering their locations).

    Also the fact remains that the base can be entirely empty, I still get only 15 frames standing in the middle of it. This issue is entirely new to me and only showed up after the merge patch (the optimizations within the patch more specifically). I've checked the CPU usage, poor thing is positively screaming on all 4 CPU's.
  13. NC_agent00kevin

    Not only this, but when I forst load into the game, sometimes the models and geometry take a second to fully load.

    There is a LOT of sloppy work beneath the surface. Cutouts of geometry where the floor appears to be one piece, but instead is several. This not only add to the vertices that have to be processed/rendered but there are more completely unnecessary surfaces to render.Not only that but models extend through the floor at the warpgate - namely the Globe Continent Warp terminals. Why they extend an extra 10 feet through the floor is beyond me.

    A lot of the models have textures in places that we do not see - also bad for optimization. In fact, thats a basic DONT in skinning models. Just as having a 5 piece floor instead of a one piece floor is a big no no.
  14. Hatamoto

    perhaps the modellers and level designers could have a hand in optimizing the game after all then? Set them to work doing this instead of releasing new stuff that most likely is only bogging down performance even more.
  15. SomeRandomNewbie

    What your describing with the deferred loading is pretty typical for streaming engines. Most UE3 games do the same thing (very noticeable in the Mass Effect series, for example). It's an artifact of not being able to load in the whole level at once (normally due to memory considerations).

    With regards to invisible geometry though, a lot of that's down to objects being reused across the continent. The same terminal model is used all over the place with different 'heads' stitched on, and in some places the 'root' is exposed as the terminal is on a slope. Buildings (like the WG buildings) are made out of smaller pieces that are pasted into the environment over and over, like you'd see with structures in a custom HALO map. The same's true for a lot of the rocks scattered over Indar - a rock may look small, but 90% of its model is buried underground, the variation comes from scaling and rotating a few models over and over, exposing different parts.

    This re-use of assets is typical in MMOs in particular, but it happens a lot with recent games in general. The reason? The extra polygons put negligable strain on the GPU; most of the load comes from effects and post-processing. That's been the trend since about 2003 - and it's a big part of why DirectX 9 (i think, might be wrong on the version number here) required unified shaders instead of the old vertex/shader model.

    Basically, if you 'compile out' the extra geometry you might get a 2-5% boost in performance, if anything. But the memory requirements will fly up (more 'unique' geometry) which may make the game unplayable on 32bit systems, the size of the map on the HDD will increase (same reason), and you'll introduce a different class of performance issue - stuttering due to excessive streaming. The HDD remains the slowest part of any PC.

    Long story short; optimisation is tough, and what works for one type of game (corridor shooter) doesn't always work for another (MMO).
  16. LordMondando

    Not trying to big my thread up lads, but this issue gets solved quicker if we take an empirical and systematic approach to the problem.

    thus, try and isolate the conditions under which your FPS is dying.
  17. LordMondando

  18. NC_agent00kevin


    http://www.moddb.com/mods/novacor

    With all due respect, I was making a statement, not asking a question. I make games myself, which is why I pointed this out.

    Also, its still sloppy.

    All it does it cut down on download times and overall file size. When you have 90% of a model below ground, you are wasting resources. With most other engines, it can add up to much more than 2-5% as you said - and might I ask - how did you come up with this number?

    The reuse of assets is typical in every game - but you do it when you are using the entire model, not burying half of it below ground. When you only need a portion of the model, you simply go edit the original model and use a more efficient version. Its not such a big deal with a terminal because its going to have the same amount of vertices and polygons, but when it comes to rocks and things with varying shapes, it makes a very big difference.

    Now on to your last little bit. There really wouldnt be an increase in memory load. Whether there is one different rock model for each of 5 rocks in one areas or 5 clones of the same rock, the memory must still know that 5 rocks are there, and they must be rendered. The different models themselves make little impact, and typically increase performance IF a large portion of them are not even utilized. Its more of the memory thinking ' I need to draw off of these polygons' as opposed to it thinking ' I have 5 rocks to put here, here and here'.

    Bottom line is, building a game out of lego blocks (which is basically what I see here) is sloppy and very poorly optimized, regardless of the engine or genre of game. Its what developers do to save time and development costs, and its a big no no most of the time.