Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace & FreeSpace Open Support => Topic started by: WDeranged on September 13, 2009, 12:05:48 am
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Hi, I downloaded FS2 from GOG.com and used the automatic FS2O installer (the one that downloads the components), the install appears to have gone well, I can play the game and everything works how you would expect it's just that I'm getting framerate drops all the time, even with the lowest possible graphics settings, even at 640x480.
I have a Q6600 @3.5ghz, GTX 280 gpu and 4GB of ram, so my pc is no pussy cat, strangely if I max out every single setting and enable the MediaVPs mod it runs slightly better but still it can't seem to hold 60fps.
I should add I'm only on the second mission, no huge battles yet, these slowdowns happen when I'm looking at empty space and especially when the radio chatter window appears in the top left.
So does anyone have any ideas what could be going on? It's rather strange when maxing out your settings actually reduces slowdown :eek2:
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I don't know exactly what the problem is there, but as a pre-emptive warning, turn down the detail before an asteroid mission (mostly user campaign related. Looking at YOU Derelict!). Large quantities of asteroids takes the rug out from under the framerate.
As for your problem, close anything not essential when playing and see what happens. On my computer, for one, I have to close the HP Total Care Advisor (actually close via the task manager) or it lags it all to hell.
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Thanks for the reply, I've got practically nothing else running, I don't think this is a matter of resources as the slowdown is the same or worse even with everything turned off and running in 640x480 :confused:
I noticed I placed this thread in the wrong area, If a mod happens to read this could you move it to the support area?
Cheers :)
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What kind of numbers does the fps counter show? (to be enabled somewhere in the launcher)
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Which build do you have selected in the Launcher? I believe I've heard of a problem like this before.
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Yea there were some reports when 3.6.10 final came out about ani files causing slow downs for some reason. No idea what the solution was (if any) though.
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Due to the design of the engine you will always see some drops.
It's not that your graphics card is limiting any part of the performance, however the backend is not in anyway efficient.
Also, we're not (currently) able to utilise multiple cores on a machine, so that may be a source of your inefficiency.
We're working on it!
Hope this helps!
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What kind of numbers does the fps counter show? (to be enabled somewhere in the launcher)
It appears to hover around 59.9 and 60, I've not seen it drop any lower, seems odd that the fps are a solid 60 but visually I'm getting judders.
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Which build do you have selected in the Launcher? I believe I've heard of a problem like this before.
Yeah I found a forum post about people using the old executable, causing slowdown, my launcher is set to use 3.6.10 :yes:
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Due to the design of the engine you will always see some drops.
It's not that your graphics card is limiting any part of the performance, however the backend is not in anyway efficient.
Also, we're not (currently) able to utilise multiple cores on a machine, so that may be a source of your inefficiency.
We're working on it!
Hope this helps!
I'll take your word for it, just seems odd that if I drop all the detail right down to rock bottom and change the resolution to 640x480 I get worse performance than if I crank everything up, max resolution, max antialiasing and anisotropic filtering with all the new eyecandy enabled :wtf:
Oh, I get roughly the same performance from OpenGL as I do in D3D, probably slightly better.
*edit* I just tested it with Vsync disabled, the fps counter reads 120 solid fps, unwavering, there is no visual slowdown/judder but I can't play witout vsync, space sims without vsync are pretty horrible to look at :(
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No, you don't. The engine doesn't actually support D3D.
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Checklist:
Run in OpenGL
Make sure that you get a recent Nightly Build
Make sure that your GPU drivers are up-to-date
By rights you shouldn't have any issues at all with that system.
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No, you don't. The engine doesn't actually support D3D.
So the Direct3D 8 option is just a placeholder?
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Yeah.
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Thanks for the quick replies guys :)
Anyway I've tried the latest nightly build (in OpenGL) with no joy, exactly the same judder, it's related to the video link I'm sure, I could be staring at a blank empty section of space and the second that pilot animation in the top left starts the judders kick in, actual FPS are unaffected.
The moment the radio chatter stops, gameplay return to normal for the most part, however performance certainly isn't perfectly fluid. I will try updating my drivers next, but you know how things go with Nvidia and new drivers these days :shaking:
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Did you select the build in the top box of the launcher? Do you have the latest MediaVPs?
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Could it have something to do with the v-refresh rate of the desktop (some sort of a driver bug)? Maybe try to play with it a bit.
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Try with -nosound enabled. Your mention of pilot chatter affecting things might suggest it being an audio issue, so disabling sounds is a pretty surefire way to isolate the problem on sound system - if problem disappears, correlation is quite clear; if not, we'll have to look elsewhere.
You could also check that you have the in-game text-to-speech disabled on missions; if the TTS conflicts with existing messages or if TTS is not working correctly, it could cause problems (this is mainly a shot in the dark though).
What sort of sound card are you using? What setting do you have on your FSO Launcher's Audio/Joystick panel? Generic Software is the default that should be tried (other options may be available, and they might work perfectly well, but if you have something else selected and it causes problems, choose Generic Software and retry.
Also, check that you don't have any processes running amok and grabbing CPU processing power from the game exec; the problems you described are consistent of something interrupting the game's process momentarily (it could be related to sound driver crapping itself out, or any other process with equal priority to FS2_Open that hogs the CPU.
Also mentioning what operating system you use would be helpful (default assumption that I tend to use is WinXP, but it can sometimes be wrong).
And you'll get used to quick replies on these forums I think. ;)
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Did you select the build in the top box of the launcher? Do you have the latest MediaVPs?
I did but I had selected fs2_open_3_6_11r_5591 which was just the same, however fs2_open_3_6_11d_5591 has no problems with the radio chatter, I'm still getting gameplay related judder (the fps stays locked at 60 though), I think tweaking with the detail settings might help from now.
I'll keep tweaking and see what I can get, thanks :)
Oh, the latest Nvidia drivers did nothing.
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With regards to Herra Tohtori's post above I tried disabling audio, I also have an external sound card which I tested, the problem remains no matter what I try, playing with acceleration options and such, It looks as though this issue isn't audio related...however I'm pretty sure its HUD related, the 3.6.11d_5591 executable appears to solve the issue of com chatter slowdown but I have just noticed I get the same slowdown when I target a large vessel (the game has to render the ship in the lower left), It's almost like HUD activity is causing slowdowns for me.
All the while the FPS remains at 60 though, which is puzzling :lol:
Thanks again for sticking with me though, I don't think I've seen a forum with this level of support.
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Fly without the HUD !!
:lol: :lol: :lol:
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I'm not a Skywalker :lol:
Though as crazy as it sounds if there is an option to remove the HUD it might help me narrow down the problem.
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There is. You can also make the Messaging box either be a pop up or OFF.
Look in your Controls options for "Toggle Hud".
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Ok, anyone who posted between when you said
All the while the FPS remains at 60 though, which is puzzling :lol:
and now who didn't mention v-sync is an idiot.
1) This is caused by v-sync being enabled. There's a launcher checkbox to disable it, under the Speed list.
2) As long as the framerate stays above 40 or so, it really isn't discernible to the human eye. The only real issues are things moving very fast across the screen. No offense, but if your framerate is 60, you shouldn't be complaining.
Edit: actually, he said it even before then. So castor and I are the only non-idiots around. Yaaaaay!
Edit the Second: and QuantumDelta has flamed me on IRC for that second part, so I strikethrough'd it. Apparently I was misinformed. :(
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Yep, disabling Vsync appears to fix all the judders (the com video judder and targeting judder) but if you're sensitive to it the tearing is horrible, with Vsync enabled the game judders like hell every time I get com traffic videos *unless* I use the debug executables, I don't know what this means but something weird is going on.
For a test I played through the first few missions of the unmodified game, it's perfect and smooth, albeit not very impressive :(
Just out of interest, does anyone else get a nice steady 60fps-ish performance out of FS2O? Is it Just as smooth as the unmodified game or do you live with the judder for the glorious visuals?
I'm just trying to figure out if I have a real issue here or if I'm just noticing something that everyone else just accepts :lol:
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You may need to force on triple buffering, which can be done in the driver control panel or nHancer. I play FS2 with vsync/TB on the same card and it works fine. I find almost any game intolerable without vsync, but space sims like FS2 exhibit some of the worst tearing as you say.
The only other thing that comes to mind is a multi-core timing glitch, which can sometimes cause the effects you describe. It really shouldn't be a problem with FS2 anymore, but this issue is very system-specific and it's hard to predict where it will come up.
If there was any motion irregularity with the engine itself, I would have been the first one to complain about it. :p
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You may need to force on triple buffering, which can be done in the driver control panel or nHancer. I play FS2 with vsync/TB on the same card and it works fine. I find almost any game intolerable without vsync, but space sims like FS2 exhibit some of the worst tearing as you say.
The only other thing that comes to mind is a multi-core timing glitch, which can sometimes cause the effects you describe. It really shouldn't be a problem with FS2 anymore, but this issue is very system-specific and it's hard to predict where it will come up.
If there was any motion irregularity with the engine itself, I would have been the first one to complain about it. :p
I tried forcing triple buffering under the OpenGL settings of rivatuner, I also checked the cpu affinity, it was set to core 1, I changed it to core 0 but there was no change in performance :(
The strange thing is how what I'm targeting seems to cause slowdowns, I was just spinning around watching the motion of the nebula while cycling through targets, it would be perfectly smooth until I target a jump node, then it starts juddering, change target and rotation is perfectly smooth.
*sigh* computers eh?
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If you're seeing tearing - if you can, try to limit your FPS with the max-fps thing, to a multiple of your monitors refresh rate, it mitigate the effect somewhat, though ultimately it depends on the quality of your monitor more than anything else.
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WDeranged, could you please try fs2_open_3_6_11r_sse2.exe found in the link below.
http://173.8.193.66:7701/svn/MediaVPs/Nightlies/fso-WIN-20090913_r5596-SSE2.7z
Edit: If you don't know how to open 7z archives, grab 7-Zip from http://www.7-zip.org/
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I'll give that a try in a couple of hours when I get home, thanks :)
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No joy with that I'm afraid, the non debug exe still slows down when I get com videos, however I noticed that it doesn't happen if I have something targeted (...but only with 'all features on' in the launcher), this is the same for 3.6.10 and 3.6.11.5591, the debug versions of all the releases I've tried don't have the problem but the general low performance remains.
I'm using 'The Roman's Blunder' mission for all the testing I've done as the first five minutes are scripted and predictable, I noticed that in the debug versions the FPS counter is registering 45 (juddery) as I approach the Iceni, instead of flickering between 59.9 and 60 (smooth) as in the standard exe.
The search continues :sigh:
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One other possibility, maybe worth a shot although it doesn't quite match your profile:
Are your FS2 files fragmented? That can certainly cause strange jittering.
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I'm an compulsive defraggler :D
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One other thing, it may only be using one of his cores, but he's got that thing OC'd to 3.5GHz so I think that one core has enough juice to handle FSO. Make sure the checkboxes in the launcher that refer to preloading data are checked. I honestly don't know why some of those aren't just the default behavior nowadays.
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Seems like a mystery, it's a bummer for sure, I really don't want to play the game "vanilla" now I've seen how epic it can be :(
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Can you run a debug build and post the fs2_open.log from your data folder?
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http://chris.mwerr.net/fs2_open.log
Hope it helps.
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Try the "Cache Bitmaps between missions" (in the Launcher, under Game Speed) as well as the "Preload mission game sounds" (Under Audio) flags.
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Hm, maybe a slight increase in fps but its barely noticeable, still getting the general judders I'm afraid.
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Try a Nightly SSE or SSE2 Build.
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He already did, didn't help.
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Try a Nightly SSE or SSE2 Build.
Yep I've tried a few, thanks though.
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What happens when you try windowed mode?
...or fullscreen window in recentest builds.
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I gave them both a try but no joy, I still get the com video slowdown in the normal exe and general bad performance in the debug, I tried running the windowed mode at 640x480 but the framerate was identical to 1280x1024.
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Just a few other observations, the game is using 100% of one of my cores almost constantly on all detail settings, I take it this is normal?
Also disabling the com video section of the hud initially runs well however after a minute general performance seems to drop quite a bit, It's looking like my best hope of playing the game at the moment is to run the standard exe, with the HUD fully enabled and to make sure I have something targeted, performance is pretty tolerable then.
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Any new ideas? :)
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For a test I played through the first few missions of the unmodified game, it's perfect and smooth, albeit not very impressive :(
Does that mean you ran the original FS2 exe, or FSO with just the original VPs?
Have you combed through the process list, sure there's nothing more you could disable (just to try if it has any effect, if its something you can't disable permanently)?
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The original exe, using FSO with the original VPs is still juddery, again, independent of detail settings :sigh:
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I've actually been having a similar problem, although I only get the juddering sometimes (mostly on training missions for the FS2 campaign, although it happens rarely in the story missions as well). Turning the framerate indicator on shows I'm still getting a solid 60 FPS. The problem goes away when I turn Vsync off, although of course I get tearing when I do.
I just downloaded and installed the game a couple days ago, and I'm running the FSO 3.6.10 build and the media VPs, including that advanced one. My computer isn't quite as much of a powerhouse as WDeranged's is but it's still respectable, running winXP pro on an 8800GT and an athlon X2 with 2 GB of RAM.
I haven't tried the detailed troubleshooting that WDeranged has done yet, mostly because my problem doesn't seem to be as annoying as his, but I'll do that when I have time. I just wanted to let you guys know that it's not an isolated incident.
EDIT: I should mention that the juddering doesn't seem to start until I target something, and stops when I'm not targeting anything.
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Good to know I'm not alone, it sounds like a related issue :)