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Sudden performance drop on biggest maps with a low spec comp
Posted: 13 Jun 2008, 09:55
by BlueTemplar
OK, I have an old computer, so I don't pretend running spring with all effects activated, and getting a decent performance out of it. I merely expect PLAYABLE preformance, i.e. > 10/15 fps
Here are some of my previous posts that I think are related to the problem (in chronological order, system specs inside):
viewtopic.php?p=237298#p237298
viewtopic.php?p=239106#p239106
This one was with a mac, but reproduced the same problem:
viewtopic.php?p=235694#p235694
So, on small maps (for instance Small Divide) spring runs fine : 10-28 fps even with power-hungry mods like CA and IceUI activated.
But if I try a bigger map, like Dead Reeef Dry, and activate the luaui, suddenly when there are what i suppose to be particles on the screen (when units fire, nanospray, llt fire, geovent smoke, but NOT factory nanolaser) fps suddenly drops to 1-2.
Disabling luaui then doesn't change anything.
This is frustrating me a lot, since I can't understand why the performance drop would be so sudden, while on a smaller map there is no drop at all!
So, maybe it's a bug in Spring?
Re: Sudden performance drop on biggest maps with a low spec comp
Posted: 13 Jun 2008, 10:58
by BlueTemplar
This is getting more and more weird - I tried again playingg on Dead Reef Dry, but with SpringSP, and didn't have any problem!
Also, I tried to spec a 5vs5 BA DSD, and after 10-15 minutes suddenly the framerate dropped to 5... while I've already played 8vs8 DSD without many problems!
This time I was sure to deactivate my router...
I'm puzzled...
Re: Sudden performance drop on biggest maps with a low spec comp
Posted: 13 Jun 2008, 13:55
by AF
You have a geforce 2 and 512MB how do you expect to run spring at a playable framerate?
Firstly the bigger the map, the bigger the ram needed. You have a small amount of ram, its not going to work.
I would also say a geforce 2 is not going to work well with particles.
Either way this hardware setup is not satisfactory for playing spring.
Re: Sudden performance drop on biggest maps with a low spec comp
Posted: 13 Jun 2008, 14:03
by BlueTemplar
In the past week, in no multiplayer games I played (mainly BA, XTA and CA a little bit) I have experienced slowdowns to the point of being unplayable.
And that includes a 8vs8 on DSD!
Of course, sometimes, when lots of units are present, it can become somewhat choppy. But that happened only in few games.
Re: Sudden performance drop on biggest maps with a low spec comp
Posted: 13 Jun 2008, 14:41
by jK
BlueTemplar wrote:
In the past week, in no multiplayer games I played (mainly BA, XTA and CA a little bit) I have experienced slowdowns to the point of being unplayable.
And that includes a 8vs8 on DSD!
Of course, sometimes, when lots of units are present, it can become somewhat choppy. But that happened only in few games.
AF wrote:You have a geforce 2 and 512MB how do you expect to run spring at a playable framerate?
Firstly the bigger the map, the bigger the ram needed. You have a small amount of ram, its not going to work.
First, you have a geforce2mx with
32MB, so the gfx needs to load textures from the sysram the whole time.
Second, you only have
512MB that wouldn't even be enough for spring alone (on big maps) and now your gfx even buffers textures there(!) -> so your OS needs to use the swap on your
HDD and that's the point where it gets slow.
And why does it only happen on big maps? quite simple:
-> big map
->-> big ground texture
->->-> needs more sysram (the full ground texture is there (multiple hundred MB))
->->-> needs more gfx ram (spring needs to load for each ground quad a miplevel)
->->->-> gfx ram is full
->->->->-> gfx buffers textures in sysram
->->-> sysram full
->->->-> swap is used (slow)
And why doesn't it happen right from the start when the game loads?
-> no s3o unit textures loaded yet (they are loaded dynamicly when they get used)
-> particle atlas isn't used yet and buffered in the sysram (no gfx->sysram access)
-> less units
-> less needed ram
And what did we learned?
-> upgrade your ram (and buying a new gfx+cpu wouldn't be bad, too)
Re: Sudden performance drop on biggest maps with a low spec comp
Posted: 14 Jun 2008, 19:44
by BlueTemplar
I've tried to install a new graphic card, sadly here's what I got:
http://forums.sapphiretech.com/showthread.php?t=19948
I'm going to try it again when I have some time.
I thought about upgrading ram, bus since I have 2x256 SDRAM, it probably wouldn't be worth it.
As for upgrading the CPU... rather buying a new computer then! (Which I'm thinking about to do in the end of the summer, depending on available funds...)
It's still weird that I now get a worse performance than before, since I have a dedicated 2gb swap partition... so it shouldn't have been affected by fragmentation - but it's true I had a fresh install by then - maybe if I have some time I'll try a complete cleanup.
Otherwise, is there a config option for spring to "ignore" ground texture - replace it by a flat color when too much memory is used for instance?
P.S.: Also, how do you explain I don't get those problems in singleplayer?
Re: Sudden performance drop on biggest maps with a low spec comp
Posted: 14 Jun 2008, 23:11
by jK
BlueTemplar wrote:It's still weird that I now get a worse performance than before, since I have a dedicated 2gb swap partition... so it shouldn't have been affected by fragmentation - but it's true I had a fresh install by then - maybe if I have some time I'll try a complete cleanup.
it isn't fragmentation ...
why do pay much money for less sysram if you could buy multiple hundred GB large HDD for the same money? -> the HDD is slow
Re: Sudden performance drop on biggest maps with a low spec comp
Posted: 15 Jun 2008, 00:17
by BlueTemplar
Yeah, I know. But I think that the limiting factor for my system is first the GPU and the CPU, then only the ram - so it wouldn't be worth upgrading it, especially that I'm limited to 2gb of 2100 ddram by my motherboard.
Re: Sudden performance drop on biggest maps with a low spec comp
Posted: 15 Jun 2008, 00:56
by AF
It is the limited amount of graphics memory for textures and the limited amount of system ram. These are your major bottlenecks.
Re: Sudden performance drop on biggest maps with a low spec comp
Posted: 15 Jun 2008, 01:26
by jackoverfull
shortly, you have two solutions:
1) play only on small maps;
2) buy a new machine or enhance the ones you already have.
I have an ibook g4@1.33 with 1gb ram and a ati radeo 9200 with 32 mb vram. I play small maps against 3 AAIs and spring is perfectly playable.
Re: Sudden performance drop on biggest maps with a low spec comp
Posted: 15 Jun 2008, 03:02
by AF
I would also point out if you play against an AI you'll end up loading all the units at the start of the game to satisfy the AI, and the lazy loading mentioned before will be useless.
Re: Sudden performance drop on biggest maps with a low spec comp
Posted: 15 Jun 2008, 06:47
by BlueTemplar
Ok, I'm sorry, that's NOT normal - It's the start of the BA game in DSD, everything's fine 20-30 fps, then suddenly when nanoblobs or units firing are on the screen I suddenly drop to 1-2 fps!!!
Why didn't I have any problems of that kind 8 months ago? I'm telling you - there's probably a bug in the spring graphic engine.
Re: Sudden performance drop on biggest maps with a low spec comp
Posted: 15 Jun 2008, 06:50
by LordMatt
You can get a really nice comp these days for not too much money, you might want to take advantage of that.
