27 replies to this topic

[Sign]

Now this is peculiar. My system is nothing stellar and is due an upgrade, that I know. Regardless, I'm seeing an issue with MWO *only*: it will not max out the CPU or GPU during play.

It's a 965 x4 BE at stock speed (3.4Ghz), and an aging xfx 5850 at stock speeds too.

Other games, like BF3, will get my CPU at near 99% on all cores, and the GPU at near 99% constantly.
MWO on the other hand, gets my 4 CPU cores at around 70%, and the GPU at a meager 60 ~ 70%. The very odd thing is that whenever I press TAB, at the round start screen, or at the round end screen, GPU usage shoots up to near 99%.
Another peculiar trend is that the GPU use % seems to steadily increase during the game; the longer a match goes on, the more it gets used and the higher the FPS.

This all translates to an underutilized GPU, an underutilized CPU, and less than stellar game performance.

See this image for graphs and temps, (which are also nothing too extreme to be causing throttling) during a random match:

You can see that the GPU usage % climbs and climbs (the plateau at the end near 99% is the end of round screen, right after that the game ended and the usage plummets). The FPS also climb, slowly but steadily. Usage spikes is me pressing TAB to check teams.

You can also see that CPU is never really maxed out, so It can't be bottlenecking my GPU, or vice versa.

So, any ideas or tips as to why this could be happening? As I said, it doesn't happen in any other game.

[Werewolf486 ScorpS]

Lulz PGI?

[Goose]

Try "sys_budget_soundCPU = 5" in your user.cfg; Maybe set to "1" …

Got a framerate limiter of any kind?

[Catamount]

Going back to some very old topics on this forum, MWO has never seemed to properly utilize quad-core CPUs (and yet hates dual-core CPUs). A stock 965BE is NOT fast enough to get near 60fps in heavy combat, in fact you'll probably often be bogged down into the 30s by it, so if your GPU can do better, then consequently it will not approach 100% load either.

If you want to experiment with MWO's multithreading, or possible lack thereof, I suggest you use MSConfig to disable cores on startup and see if behavior changes in terms of CPU utilization. I'd be willing to bet that if you dropped to two or three cores being visible to Windows, you'd see that utilization go up.

Edited by Catamount, 05 November 2013 - 06:46 PM.

[DarkenedShrines]

This is interesting, I came to this section of the forum for a similar reason. I'm running a Core2Quad @2.3Ghz and a AMD HD 5770 here in my GF's flat, and with FPS between 20 to 35. I also noticed CPU and GPU utilization stagnate somewhere between 40% and 60%, wondering what could be the bottleneck.

There also is an old issue that there is a noticeable FPS-boost on slow machines if you press TAB and watch the scoreboard during a match. This gives me +10 and more FPS. I once opened a Topic on that issue, but it appears that it never had been adressed.

I'll try running a few games with changed CPU affinities for MWO in the task manager. I believe you don't have to use MSConfig and do reboots that way.


p.s. old Topic: http://mwomercs.com/...83#entry2468983

Edited by DarkenedShrines, 07 November 2013 - 11:59 AM.

[Sign]

Another image with the issue even clearer:



Each time there is a spike it was me going to the menu to change graphic settings and seeing if it affected the gameplay. This is ridiculous, looks like the MENUS tax the system more than the game itself.

I even downgraded my catalyst as I was using the newest beta, back to 13.9 release to discard bleeding edge issues.

I was talking to another friend with a 965 BE and a 660Ti and he is seeing the same issue. All cores half used, gpu around 70% at best.

EDIT:
For a comparison, here's the graphs while playing BF3. Totally different story.

Edited by Sign, 07 November 2013 - 03:07 PM.

[Talsha]

I have exactly the same issue.
1900x1200 resolution 965BE, Ati6950 even on lowest settings my framerates move between 10 and 30.
GPU Utilization is around 32% Cpu around 50.
Only 2 of the 4 CPU cores are used properly it seems...
So far I tried every trick I could think of.

To be honest given the graphic quality of the game, I am taken aback by this performance {Scrap}.

Seems this issue is not new indeed:
http://mwomercs.com/...100-cpu-or-gpu/

[Durant Carlyle]

The game isn't really optimized right now. It's more taxing on the CPU than the GPU. Perhaps when DirectX 11 mode is released, that might swing it back to being more GPU-heavy.

[Tolkien]

That is really bizarre how the GPU utilization has an obvious trend...

It suggests there's some sort of resource leak that is somehow using more GPU power as time goes on.

[Flapdrol]

Utilisation is a skewed way of looking at things. Distributing stuff over more cores increases overhead, bf3 may spread out nicely over 6 cores but performance doesn't scale with it.

Gpu's seem to be getting more powerful all the time, cpu's seem to get you only marginal gains, a 2500K is still very close to a 4670K and was introduced almost 3 years ago.

[Besterino]

From my own personal experience (yeah, you can read that kinda like a disclaimer) with MWO also ping seems to have an impact on FPS. For some reasons my provider had a worse connection to the MWO Servers during the last weeks and simultaneously FPS were hit by a 20-25% decrease. Now back with ping around 100 (playing in Germany here), FPS are also back to where they were (around 70-100ish).

I honestly can't really think of a reason why ping should influence rendering Speed, but as I said it's an impression I got. Difficult to test/reproduce though...

Edited by Besterino, 15 November 2013 - 06:06 AM.

[Shamous13]

Besterino, on 15 November 2013 - 06:04 AM, said:

From my own personal experience (yeah, you can read that kinda like a disclaimer) with MWO also ping seems to have an impact on FPS. For some reasons my provider had a worse connection to the MWO Servers during the last weeks and simultaneously FPS were hit by a 20-25% decrease. Now back with ping around 100 (playing in Germany here), FPS are also back to where they were (around 70-100ish).

I honestly can't really think of a reason why ping should influence rendering Speed, but as I said it's an impression I got. Difficult to test/reproduce though...

I'm thinking it's because MWO bottleneck is currently CPU.

[Rasc4l]

PGI Y U NO RESPOND TO THREDS LIEK THESE AND MAKE UNDERSTND?

[Modo44]

Flapdrol, on 15 November 2013 - 04:45 AM, said:

Utilisation is a skewed way of looking at things. Distributing stuff over more cores increases overhead, bf3 may spread out nicely over 6 cores but performance doesn't scale with it.

Actually, graphics processing is extremely easy to distribute over many cores. Modern GPUs have over 100 specialized processing units precisely to take full advantage of this fact. The issue with not using DX11 is, those specialized units can not be utilized properly, and instead the same load gets pushed onto the puny number of 4 or so cores a CPU can provide.

Edited by Modo44, 15 November 2013 - 09:13 AM.

[ArmageddonKnight]

The first itteration of DX11 for MWo will not have the performance gains ur looking for. Just a heads up.

[TLD LARS]

I do seem to have some of the same problems.

I am running a AMD 955BE 3200mhz quad.
2x ati 5870 crossfire.

The CPU is overclocked to 3500mhz, that should be close to your specs on the CPU.
The 3200-3500 bump helped allot on the framerates, maybe that could help you run the game better.

My problem is that the 2, 5870 cards runs like crazy, with higher load then any other game.
Vsync in the ATI drivers helped a bit, but I also get more end more load on the cards, as time goes and the end scorescreen gives the highest load.
The temperatures after a match is 10 degrees higher, then 45 minutes of BF4, with a fair bit of extra noise from GPU fans.

The battlelab menu does not allow my GPU to sleep, not even when minimized, that also gives some extra load and noise.

[Blue Footed Booby]

Flapdrol, on 15 November 2013 - 04:45 AM, said:

Utilisation is a skewed way of looking at things. Distributing stuff over more cores increases overhead, bf3 may spread out nicely over 6 cores but performance doesn't scale with it.

...

To clarify, whenever tasks aren't completely independent you're going to end up with one task waiting on another for some piece of information it needs. There's always a tradeoff, and it's entirely possible to reach a point where spreading tasks across more threads results in so much waiting that when combined with the inherent management overhead you don't actually get any performance gains. In other words, just because not all cores are getting used, and the ones being used aren't all at 100%, that doesn't necessarily mean there's something wrong with the engine.

This is ignoring the fact that it's entirely possible to have plenty CPU and GPU to spare, only to get limited by the amount memory or the speed of your hard drive.

TLD LARS, on 15 November 2013 - 10:38 AM, said:

...as time goes and the end scorescreen gives the highest load...

Lots of games have problems like this, including some in CryEngine. I'm not entirely sure why. There are also games where the menus make my computer emit an obnoxious high pitched tone.

Edited by Blue Footed Booby, 15 November 2013 - 10:45 AM.

[ArmageddonKnight]

That high pitch tone will be coil whine from ur GPU due to Vsync not being enabled on said menu's.
grpahcis cards will emite coil when a super high FPS , usualy like 500FPS+

For example with Vsnc off on purpose i can see some loading screens, menu's , etc in some games have FPS in the thousands and i get very loud coil whine at such times.

[Claviger]

I run a Intel 3960x@4.5 ghz and crossfired 7950s@stock speeds at the moment, and neither gets used anywhere near their potential. CPU is about 15% use (1 full core and some change on a second) and the gpus float around the 80% mark.

HDD: RAID 0 Samsung SSDs
RAM: DDR 3, 2100 @ 200 9-11-11-28 latency

NOWHERE do I have a bottleneck...

FPS is a solid 90 pretty much at all times on a 120hz monitor with vsync on.


would be nice to get my actual 120 the system is capable of....

Not that I expect answers, but, do you plan on splitting the client at all across more CPU cores for many threaded pcs?

Edited by Claviger, 18 November 2013 - 05:45 AM.

[Autobot9000]

You should check your energy saver settings (should be on performance and no other setting) as well as a FPS hard cap, that can be set in various places (GPU driver software, in-game, third party tools...). I don't think it's the game's fault, even if you make it sound like it would be.