FPS drop in 78188 compared to 1.57

[celery 8]

Current issue from earlier thread:

I've had suspicions for a while but now I confirmed them. One of these beta patches has considerably decreased the game's performance when using a strong zoom such as the one in many sniper rifles. It has made it somewhat difficult to use them.

Recreate:

Start non-beta game and place M107 sniper on Utes. Zoom all the way up and scan some woods.

Start beta game and place the sniper in the same place and zoom around and notice decrease in performance.

[Dwarden 1125]

Celery that's easy to said but can't you simply attach the mission to CIT?

and post URL to the ticket? (sry if you done it already and i missed it)

it's always important to have exact location and repro case which You talk about

[celery 8]

Celery that's easy to said but can't you simply attach the mission to CIT?

and post URL to the ticket? (sry if you done it already and i missed it)

it's always important to have exact location and repro case which You talk about

I don't have an account there. Here is a mission for easy recreate process.

http://www.mediafire.com/?xdley4fyy1o0pgl

My results

Non-beta: 45 fps lowest

beta: ~30 fps lowest + stuttering

[Tonci87 163]

Celery, please try again with different Atoc Settings. This could help the BIS devs to see which ATOC Feature is responsible for this

[celery 8]

I don't use anti-aliasing in A2.

[Tonci87 163]

Oh ok, I thought it could have something to do with AToc...

[Zipper5 74]

I can confirm what Celery is saying, I too have the same performance drop using this beta compared to running 1.57 final. Though my FPS doesn't at any point dip below 38 FPS in his repro mission, the fully zoomed-in FPS in 1.57 final is significantly higher (sometimes going higher than 70 FPS) than it is in this beta.

[eddie247 10]

someone has already done it for you celery ;) this ithread is from a few weeks ago with demo missions and youtube recordings and stuff by gingermcale

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=112646&page=2

(I screamed the first time I alt F4'd while playing)

[celery 8]

someone has already done it for you celery ;) this ithread is from a few weeks ago with demo missions and youtube recordings and stuff by gingermcale

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=112646&page=2

(I screamed the first time I alt F4'd while playing)

Not necessarily the same problem as the fps eventually came up in that one. In this case the fps doesn't rise, it stays low and stuttery and the video memory setting doesn't seem to affect it.

Edited February 13, 2011 by Celery

[f2k sel 164]

I'm getting about a 30% drop but no stuttering.

[suma 8]

I can confirm what Celery is saying, I too have the same performance drop using this beta compared to running 1.57 final. Though my FPS doesn't at any point dip below 38 FPS in his repro mission, the fully zoomed-in FPS in 1.57 final is significantly higher (sometimes going higher than 70 FPS) than it is in this beta.

I am afraid it is probably tied either to some specific settings, specific location, or perhaps to some specific HW or drivers. I have tried the situation in both 1.57 and the recent version and I get the same fps in both cases.

To make exact comparison easier, I use following in my init.sqf. You can suggest a different camera position if you want.

_camera = "camera" camCreate position player;
_camera cameraEffect ["Internal","Back"];
_camera camPrepareTarget [102825.42,5351.04,-6488.96];
_camera camPreparePos [3043.10,4397.94,2.00];
_camera camPrepareFOV 0.034;
_camera camCommitPrepared 0

[celery 8]

I am afraid it is probably tied either to some specific settings, specific location, or perhaps to some specific HW or drivers. I have tried the situation in both 1.57 and the recent version and I get the same fps in both cases.

To make exact comparison easier, I use following in my init.sqf. You can suggest a different camera position if you want.

_camera = "camera" camCreate position player;
_camera cameraEffect ["Internal","Back"];
_camera camPrepareTarget [102825.42,5351.04,-6488.96];
_camera camPreparePos [3043.10,4397.94,2.00];
_camera camPrepareFOV 0.034;
_camera camCommitPrepared 0

Using that camera angle and indicating fps with 0=[] spawn {while {true} do {sleep 1;titleText [format ["%1",diag_fps],"PLAIN DOWN",1]}} I got 40 fps in beta and 50-53 fps in 1.57 final. To me the difference is significant because I get an additional stutter that doesn't show in the fps. Do you have any idea which change may have affected this?

My specs:

Win 7 32-bit

AMD Phenom II X3 720 @ 3.2 GHz

Nvidia GTX 260, latest driver

4 GB physical RAM

[suma 8]

the fps. Do you have any idea which change may have affected this?

Until I find I machine where I can see the issue, I cannot tell. I have briefly inspected the changes made in the rendering in between and I have seen nothing which would seem suspicious at first sight.

One thing worth trying could be if you could take dta\bin.pbo from 1.57 and and dropping it into the recent beta. If this would help, it would indicate the problem is caused by some change in the shaders.

[celery 8]

One thing worth trying could be if you could take dta\bin.pbo from 1.57 and and dropping it into the recent beta. If this would help, it would indicate the problem is caused by some change in the shaders.

I copied bin.pbo to Expansion\beta\dta and nothing changed.

[no use for a name 0]

Hmmm, I was just trying the basic benchmark mission and my FPS stayed the same between 1.57 and beta 78188; but it did seem it wasn't as smooth and made the scene "jerky" while the camera panned, causing my screen to tear a lot worse w/o VSYNC enabled (compared to 1.57).

That was just a quick test so I'll mess around some more and hopefully find something more specific.

[Fireball 16]

I've ran A2 Scenery "Benchmark 01" in 1.57 final and in 1.58 78188 BETA and I had in both cases exactly 30 FPS. No subjective/visible differences in smoothness either.

I have AA set to High, PP to off (AToC is off too), VSync on and everything else to "Very High", VD is ~4600.

[celery 8]

Hmmm, I was just trying the basic benchmark mission and my FPS stayed the same between 1.57 and beta 78188; but it did seem it wasn't as smooth and made the scene "jerky" while the camera panned, causing my screen to tear a lot worse w/o VSYNC enabled (compared to 1.57).

That was just a quick test so I'll mess around some more and hopefully find something more specific.

I've ran A2 Scenery "Benchmark 01" in 1.57 final and in 1.58 78188 BETA and I had in both cases exactly 30 FPS. No subjective/visible differences in smoothness either.

I have AA set to High, PP to off (AToC is off too), VSync on and everything else to "Very High", VD is ~4600.

This issue is tied with zooming. Did you try the repro mission?

[Fireball 16]

EDIT: Alright, lemme see if I can find the repro misison.

[celery 8]

That sounds to me like something on your machine changed. Hardware changes? Drivers updated? Needs a reboot? Any recent tweaks in NCC/CCC?

Seeing how nothing changed until the 1.58 beta and 1.57 is fine, I'd say the patch changed something.

[suma 8]

Seeing how nothing changed until the 1.58 beta and 1.57 is fine, I'd say the patch changed something.

Since 1.57.76815 the major rendering feature added was ATOC. It is quite possible it has affected the rendering in some way even without MSAA. If you can dedicate some time to help me to pinpoint the issue, what would be very helpful is if you can try the betas from http://www.arma2.com/beta-patch.php in the range from 76815 to 78188 one by one and check which is the first one where you see the slowdown. Once we know this, it will be easier to guess which particular change has caused this.

[celery 8]

I'll download the betas and test them during the evening.

[suma 8]

I'll download the betas and test them during the evening.

Great, thanks a lot, I am looking forward to see the result.

(I really enjoy working for this community - I appreciate that instead of just complaining you are willing to put a significant effort into this.)

[celery 8]

Well, it didn't take long. The low fps and stuttering starts with 76934.

[Fireball 16]

Well I used the repro mission, I added Sumas init lines (camera angle) and started the mission with both 1.57 and 1.58 beta (latest) again and the results are cunning:

A2 CO 1.57 final: ~33 FPS

A2 CO 1.58 BETA: ~43 FPS

I switched couple of times forth and back (stopped and started the game each time) because I almost couldn't trust my eyes, but it's reproducible. I also think 1.58 BETA offers the better quality LoDs and/or textures at the same angle for the better FPS.

I will make high res video snippets for both cases and upload them to YT, reference them here.

EDIT: I'll simply upload screenshots for the quality diffs, the videos can't show anything, since Fraps hogs down the system completely.

Edited February 13, 2011 by Fireball

[-DirTyDeeDs--Ziggy- 0]

great, thanks a lot, i am looking forward to see the result.

(i really enjoy working for this community - i appreciate that instead of just complaining you are willing to put a significant effort into this.)

like ! :239: