[R#183] Poor FPS in populated zones

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21-05-13, 00:10
JoshCooper

[R#183] Poor FPS in populated zones

I have noticed that on my PC my FPS really suffers (averaging about 15ish) when I'm in an area populated with other runners like P1, however is capped at 60 through most other areas and situations. Whereas my laptop, running much poorer spec seems to not be affected at all by this and can sit in P1 50+ FPS.

Are there any known issues why my PC struggles with this when it can run much newer games on high gfx settings with no problems?

Some of my PC spec;
Windows 7
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 250 Processor (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Gfx Card: AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series
Gfx Memory: 2799 MB
21-05-13, 01:26
Strife

Same issues. I have to put on fog distance on low in op fights just so I can get proper fps to hit anything
21-05-13, 09:10
eNTi

/confirmed

i can hear my pcs fans when idling on p1. the more people, the higher the load. could it be, that the meshes of player models desperately need some cleanup?
21-05-13, 09:48
SilentEye

This is odd, my frames never drop below 62 regardless and my system specs are not that fancy.
21-05-13, 10:13
nabbl

CPU issue. Upgrade your CPU and you should be fine.

(Multicore doesn't help as Neocron doesn't support it)
21-05-13, 10:34
eNTi

i got an i5. this game was clearly made for machines with much less in mind.
21-05-13, 10:54
nabbl

Quote:

Originally Posted by eNTi

i got an i5. this game was clearly made for machines with much less in mind.

notebook?
21-05-13, 12:24
eNTi

Quote:

Originally Posted by nabbl

notebook?

desktop with 8 gb ram and a geforce 470gt oc.
21-05-13, 12:34
nabbl

Also meines Wissens hat NC ein Problem damit wenn sich die CPU automatisch heruntertaktet. Ein i5 geht dann bis auf 1,6 ghz runter, was f�r NC in gewissen Regionen zu wenig ist. Am Medi m�ssen dann viele Details dargestellt werden und die CPU taktet automatisch hoch (eigentlich innerhalb von Millisekunden). Aber bei NC w�re ich vorsichtig... kann sein dass es da Probleme gibt, denn die Engine ist echt bescheiden.

Versuche mal im BIOS die automatische Taktung zu deaktivieren. (http://www.computerbase.de/forum/sho....php?t=1050018)

Das ist aber h�chstenst geraten. Mein i7 hat keinerlei Probleme... mit dem Q6600 den ich davor hatte hat alles geruckelt...

Ich schreibs mal noch auf englisch, geh jetzt aber Mittagessen :-)
21-05-13, 12:39
eNTi

i thought of upgrading my pc for a while now, but i never thought neocron could be a valid reason for that. :D
22-05-13, 01:21
JoshCooper

Thanks for the replies. I wouldn't of thought it was due to the actually speed of the CPU though as my much slower laptop CPU (2.1GHz), and intergrated gfx card can handle the game with capped FPS in P1

Perhaps certain brands or series of CPU's struggle with NC, I've heard that some games for example will play better on nVidia cards then ATI, so maybe the same kind of thing happening with CPUs?
22-05-13, 02:13
Zoltan
- Check if you run "Neocron" on the right graphic adapter
- Did you have NVIDIA OPTIMUS? Use the forum search there is a solution
- Check if "ENABLELOGS" is activated in the NEOCRON.INI -> deactivate this
- Try to force the Client to use a single core of your cpu. You can do this in the taskmanager
To explain the "Neocron runs on my old System better than... blah".

Neocron was created in 1998 there were no multicore cpus except some pentium pro cpus.

The client is using multithreading but optimized for one single core. For a better understanding: "Multithreading" means in the theory to work on multiple tasks at the same time. On single core PCs the cpu is switching fast between all the "threads" but there is no real parallelism. Its still a syncronous process which grant some special timing possibilites between 2 or more threads. (Thread A is ready at the same time like Thread B).

On multicore cpus a problem called "race condition" raises more often. Multicore processors are providing a REAL parallism because each thread is assigned to a different core. Unfornatunatly this will lead to the circumstance that Thread A is ready but Thread B is still working... Thread A have to wait for a resyncronization. I don't need to tell you that a "resync" will cost some cpu time and you'll Encounter some of the freezes, stutters or simple low fps.

In the worst case Thread B has to provide some information that Thread A need to complete the work. This will end up in a crash ;(
22-05-13, 09:48
SilentEye

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zoltan

...

Would it be worth a try for people with multi-core processors and problems to assign a single CPU core to their Client.exe in the task manager?
22-05-13, 10:04
nabbl

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilentEye

Would it be worth a try for people with multi-core processors and problems to assign a single CPU core to their Client.exe in the task manager?

what he said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zoltan

Try to force the Client to use a single core of your cpu. You can do this in the taskmanager

EDIT:
One of my clanmates who also had FPS problems confirmed yesterday that my proposed fixes helped him a lot.
His CPU runs on full power constantly now (power consumption will raise a bit) and his FPS issues are gone.
22-05-13, 10:10
SilentEye

Quote:

Originally Posted by nabbl

what he said:

Oops :p
22-05-13, 12:09
Massaker

Yes that's right. I tried the proposed fix of nabbl from www.computerbase.de and disabled the "Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology of my Intel I7-2600 and disabled C1E, C3 and C6 messages for the operating system too.
My processor ran on 2,4 GHz in powersafe-mode before because NC doesn't use the full power of one single core. Now my CPU is running in turbo-boost mode and is runnung now on 3,9 GHz with a temperature around 65 - 75 �C.
The time that Plaza 1 in front of the medicar need to load all players was about more than 0,5 seconds. Now it's less that 0,2 to 0,1 seconds. The fps freeze is very short now.
An other example is Pepper Park 1 Club Veronique. While i ran to the door i get fps freezes for about 1 second and now less than 0,2 seconds.

I have a Nvidia GeForce 260 GTX and I thought that I need a better graphic card to get better performance. But the CPU settings helped a lot and other games like Battlefield 3 work better now :)

A nice and easy tool to see your cpu speed, ram speed and usage and anything else is CPU-Z. It's freeware and works on the most Intel cpu's: http://www.cpu-z.de/

Thanks for your help nabbl ;)
22-05-13, 12:34
eNTi

while i understand that this might be good for performance it's a terrible terrible idea to let the cpu run at it's BOOST speed. that's a surefire kill. not to mention the excess heat and noise from my fans. i get it, this game is old. it's cpu hungry. still there must be a way to optimize the code or the meshes before having to oc my cpu to make it run at 60 fps in every situation. the sprite issues i posted are one thing that could be and should be optimized. maybe make an option to turn them off? i wouldn't miss them.
22-05-13, 12:47
SilentEye

I always run at 62 FPS and I have no problems playing ever, there must be easier solutions for you guys.

My specs;

Quad core i7 2,4ghz
3 x 2GB 1600mhz (triple channel) memory
ATI Radeaon 5830 1GB DDR3
Resolution 1920x1080

Also my notebook runs fine;

Quad core i7 2,8ghz
2 x 2GB 1600mhz (dual channel) memory
Nvidia Optimus 400 (or something similar, I forgot the name)
Windowed mode
Fog and grass reduced
19-06-13, 12:21
Agent L

Quote:

Originally Posted by eNTi

it's a terrible terrible idea to let the cpu run at it's BOOST speed. that's a surefire kill.

Why "kill"? TurboBoost is Intel's idea.

Quote:

Originally Posted by eNTi

not to mention the excess heat and noise from my fans.

Yes, that's the only problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by eNTi

still there must be a way to optimize the code

Of course there is, every code can be optimized. But someone has to do it, so don't demand the work to be done unless you're willing to pay the salaries.

Quote:

Originally Posted by eNTi

it's cpu hungry.

No, it's not. It does great even on slow CPUs - as long as they don't grind into full stop when power is most needed.

Modern CPUs employ extremely aggressive power saving mechanisms. That's where power savings come from: the moment CPU thinks it has little to do, it slows down and/or stops. The problem is, it's not as smart as it should be, and CPU often stops when is most needed. And apparently, the way NC is written either misleads power saving mechanisms or makes the results of a slowdown especially noticeable to users (but Massaker's remark about Battlefield suggest it's a problem not limited to NC).
This is why disabling "Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology" fixes the problem, at great cost of heat and noise.

There are many SpeedStep settings between "max saving" and "full power" so probably there is something that can prevent problems yet still yield some power savings. So, make comprehensive tests, find the optimal setting and share the knowledge.
19-06-13, 14:31
JoshCooper
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoltan

...
Try to force the Client to use a single core of your cpu. You can do this in the taskmanager

...
This has worked for me perfectly. Running NC and changing the affinity of the process to run on just one core has fixed the problem for me.
Just a bit of a pain having to do this every time I launch the game.
19-06-13, 20:57
Kanedax

I'm going to try forcing it to use a single core when I got home. Been having the same issues. Setup is as follows:

CPU: AMD FX-8120 8-core running at 3.2 Ghz
RAM: 16 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1066
GFX: Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 2 GB edition
20-06-13, 09:37
nabbl

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoshCooper

Just a bit of a pain having to do this every time I launch the game.

Solution:

- Open the folder where Neocron is installed
- Make a new file named startneocron.bat (the extension must be .bat as in "batch file")
- Open it in notepad and type:

cmd.exe /c start /affinity 1 client.exe

- Save it and close notepad
- Now, create a shortcut of startneocron.bat and place the shortcut on your desktop

Problem is however that you are maybe not allowed to directly start the client.exe.
20-06-13, 14:40
Dropout

Im starting NC through a Powershell script.
That way I can start NC up through the launcher (I duallog a lot, so need to be able to change port easy).
Then when the client starts, it changes affinity.
20-06-13, 19:58
Satan2k2

Quote:

Originally Posted by nabbl

Solution:

- Open the folder where Neocron is installed
- Make a new file named startneocron.bat (the extension must be .bat as in "batch file")
- Open it in notepad and type:

cmd.exe /c start /affinity 1 client.exe

- Save it and close notepad
- Now, create a shortcut of startneocron.bat and place the shortcut on your desktop

Problem is however that you are maybe not allowed to directly start the client.exe.

Maybe this can be implented into the launcher as option, shouldn't be that much of a problem to extend the launcher with a checkbox and the start parameters.
21-06-13, 01:02
Dropout

Quote:

Originally Posted by Satan2k2

Maybe this can be implented into the launcher as option, shouldn't be that much of a problem to extend the launcher with a checkbox and the start parameters.

Shouldnt take too long to implement, no.
However, Im sure that the Devs has more than enough to do - this is probably one of the Things that shouldnt have too high priority, especially considering that it is something that we can do something about ourself.