Example of Dirty Bombs poor frame rate consistency v2.


(PixelTwitch) #1

So here is what I mean when I talk about stutter and frame drops.

//youtu.be/kkyD3J74xJI

[video]https://youtu.be/kkyD3J74xJI[/video]

The graph at the bottom left shows the time between each frame.
Consistency is just as, if not more, important as raw framerate and this is something Dirty Bomb does a horrible job at maintaining. There are multiple reasons for this, such as poor optimisation, using the game engine in ways it was not supposed to be used and not building a system to adapt to frame rate variance.

This really needs to be looked at in greater detail because the game is built around 1 core skill (High Speed Tracking Aim) and that skill is very reliant on fluid movement and consistency. Something Dirty Bomb lacks greatly right now.

My major concern here is Splash Damages track record with performance (let’s just say its not good). ET:QW was horrible to run on launch, most of us know the issues with Brink, games SD had done as contract work (Doom 3 and Batman) also had some performance issues compared to their single player components and now with Dirty Bomb we are seeing the same thing.

What I am hoping some of you guys reading this could do is record and upload a video and leave you specs so we can see if we can pinpoint some sort of pattern here.

The commands you need are…

STAT UNITGRAPH
STAT RAW

Type these in the console once you are playing a game and record the graph, it is very important to type STAT RAW because without it the engine smooths out the graph to show average frame rates over a set number of frames, this hides any mirco stutter / frame drops.

My system specs are as follows…

CPU: i7 3930K (Hex Core) @ 4.7Ghz
GPU: Nvidia 980GTX
RAM: 64GB 1600hz
OS: Windows 8.1 x64
PSU: 800watt Corsair
GAME DRIVE: 2x 250gb SSD in RAID 0
SYSTEM DRIVE: 1x 120GB SSD

Please help out if possible guys, the game is barely playable in my eyes right now and I fear if we don’t pin point the issues soon, its likely never going to get fixed. Unlike games in the past, its also unlikely we will see massive increases in frame rate as new hardware comes out. UE3 is very dependent on single core speed and right now the industry is moving towards more cores at a slightly lower speed. Meaning, in future we could actually see DB performing worse on newer systems.


(Kroad) #2

yes this is exactly what I’m getting, but it only starts after about 10 mins of gameplay, extremely infuriating, game becomes completely unplayable after 15 mins of gameplay


#3

Its very true what he says. Small stutter makes it very hard to aim heads. The stutter is not obvious, as the cause if missing shots, until you compare it directly, against non-stutter. So lots of players could perform way better if stutter was removed.

Stutter get stronger when your FPS fluctuates.
So its essentual to limit your FPS, so you dont get additional stutter when moving between lets say 120-180.

One program that works with any card to limit FPS is MSI Afterburner. Its overlay is not working well with DB + OBS or Mumble, so use the OBS fix for it, and disable mumble overlay.


(Nail) #4

fixed that for you


(Erkin31) #5

ET:QW was horrible to run on launch,

??
Since the first beta, I always had more than 120 FPS (with a 8800 GTS 320 Mo at the time of its release). I do not remember to have read a lot of complaints about its release optimisation (except the 30 fps lock to remove with a command).

My framerate on DB is good (>140 with a 970 + 2500k), but I have me too a lot of variations with no reasons, even if I block the framerate to 125. There is, clearly, a problem about this.
The game remains enough comfortable on my PC, while on many others games just a difference of 5 FPS gives me bad sensations.


(Szakalot) #6

[QUOTE=Erkin31;528741]??
Since the first beta, I always had more than 120 FPS (with a 8800 GTS 320 Mo at the time of its release). I do not remember to have read a lot of complaints about its release optimisation (except the 30 fps lock to remove with a command).

My framerate on DB is good (>140 with a 970 + 2500k), but I have me too a lot of variations with no reasons, even if I block the framerate to 125. There is, clearly, a problem about this.
The game remains enough comfortable on my PC, while on many others games just a difference of 5 FPS gives me bad sensations.[/QUOTE]

try playing quake wars now, with its 30FPS servers, if you move too fast you will experience the most hardcore stutter ever.


(Rémy Cabresin) #7

To those wondering:

Green - Frame time, time spent for the current frame on the CPU
Red - Game thread, time spent in the game thread
Blue - Render thread, time spent in the render thread(
Yellow - GPU time, time spent for the current frame on the GPU

In my eyes(im not an expert at all just searched things up and my own testing) it seems that most of DB’s problems seem to be CPU related. The problems seem to get (a lot) worse when there are more people on the server which is mostly CPU load(very simply said: the more moving **** there is on your screen, the more CPU power is used. its why RTS game with ****loads of units on screen are 90% CPU load). In this vid it seems the green line(cpu) is also most inconsistent, the yellow(GPU) is inconsistent as well but stays within acceptable ranges most of the time(especially for a Beta game, its very acceptable GPU performance). GPU spikes don’t have to mean(but can) a lot since half the time all it means more textures on the screen having to be load but most modern GPU’s should have no problems with anything DB throws at them(I think BCOG said on stream that most textures are 1024x1024? which is far from anything spectacular for a modern game)

Personally I would love to be able to have my hands on a 64bit client, just to see how assigned RAM affects performance in this. Some time ago there was one of the devs saying that one of the reasons for only 3 mercs was that the amount of player models/skins having to be loaded for more mercs/cards per player meant very severe performance issues which sound a lot like RAM load to me.

Just my 2 cents I guess, feel free to correct if wrong/disagree.


(Runeforce) #8

Guess the problem is too modern and unproven hardware…(alternatively, SD is building a game for the future.)

Yep. So what else is (not) new? Having a etqw deja-vu moment here :slight_smile:


(AssortedStuff) #9

My computer runs very hot when I’m playing DB.
Cannot say if it has always been like that because I only been checking it very recently.


(Nail) #10

definitely CPU dependent


(mccrorie) #11

Wow. Even tech related vids remind me of how much I suck at this game…


(PixelTwitch) #12

lol, I am actually pretty decent at DB so don’t worry too much.
Hopefully once Splash Damage has some ranked play working well and better server restrictions, you will get in with people of equal skill levels. Right now the problem is that a lot of the guys that have been playing this for a long time, are really REALLY good. So new players and slightly lower skilled players end up leaving and only the “top” players remain and so the cycle continues.

I will have some tips and tricks stuff out in the future so be sure to keep an eye out :slight_smile:


(mccrorie) #13

Sweet.

I’m curirous to try this out to see the results because I have a system that is probably below minimum spec.


(KeKX7) #14

This is what happens to me after 15-20minutes playing the game, it’s unplayable.
Temperatures are normal and i don’t have problems in any other game.
I Also tried to format my disk and reinstall everything with no luck.
You can see the flashing of yellow line.When i switch to spectator mode the stuttering seems disappear.
(Sorry my bad english)

intel i5 2500k
gtx 760 4gb
8gb ram
winn8.1


(-PogS-) #15

I personnaly would love to play under OP’s conditions :wink:
I play wih all settings to low at 60-80 fps max on a Pentium G860 @ 3 GHz (2 cores), 6 Gb RAM, 64 GB SSD, Nvidia GTX 670 OC running Win 7 64bits.


(mccrorie) #16

[QUOTE=KeKX7;528833]This is what happens to me after 15-20minutes playing the game, it’s unplayable.
Temperatures are normal and i don’t have problems in any other game.
I Also tried to format my disk and reinstall everything with no luck.
You can see the flashing of yellow line.When i switch to spectator mode the stuttering seems disappear.
(Sorry my bad english)

intel i5 2500k
gtx 760 4gb
8gb ram
winn8.1[/QUOTE]

Whoa, that’s shocking. I wonder what the issue is. My system doesn’t do that and it’s not great.

i5-2450M @ 2.5GHz
2gb GT550M
4gb ram
win 7


(Kroad) #17

Managed fixing this by lowering a bunch of settings in config (all buffer/memory settings, just ctrl f for memory and then for buffer and turn all the related lines down to 1), also raised fps on certain maps by quite a bit (big maps like bridge and trainyard)
anyone experiencing this should give it a go, although I can’t guarantee it will work for everyone (i have a **** cpu personally so maybe wouldnt help people with better ones)

heres my config if you dont feel like changing anything yourself http://pastebin.com/D4z3D6t5


(Ashog) #18

Extensive use of “skilless fast flying sticky nades from which the enemy can’t hide nor has time to react” but at least you seem to enjoy them! Only the normal nades are deprived of love from PixelTwitch.

Also, don’t see much sense in trying to prove framedrops extent using the current fastest videocard because you actually are missing half of the stutter that a normal average player’s GPU would exhibit. I’d rather see a GTX760 or something more average. But of course one uses what he’s got so it’s okay.

But I agree, optimization is extremely poor, as it was in ETQW too. At least here the netcode was patched to a good state for beta.


(ailmanki) #19

Will have to try this, and see if other stats commands work also… Curious about collision and network stats… http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/StatsDescriptions.html