10 replies to this topic

[Xaositect]

Hi everyone,

I recently realized that I could run the game on all three of my 24" 1920x1200 displays by creating an Eyefinity monitor group that the game would recognize, but I'm having major performance problems that I can't quite figure out, so I was wondering if anybody else had had a similar experience and, if so, had determined how to fix it. My system hardware is as follows:

Processor: Intel Xeon W3680 (6-core, 3.33GHz, 12MB L3 cache)
RAM: 24GB
Video card: Radeon HD 7970, center and right monitors connected with DisplayPort, left monitor connected with DVI

Now, I know a single Radeon 7970 isn't going to give me 60fps with all graphics options enabled with three screens (though it seems to handle that fine with one), but at the beginning of a drop, if I turn all of the graphics options to minimum in MWO and make sure antialiasing is off, I get about 40fps, which isn't great, but is playable. However, it seems that after I've seen enough enemy 'Mechs, the framerate takes a huge nosedive, down to the 2.5 to 5fps range, which is clearly unplayable. If I look away from a group of enemy 'Mechs after the framerate has gone down that much, sometimes it will recover to the 35-40 range from before, but there's always a point at which (possibly when I'm being fired at by multiple enemies) the framerate goes down to the 2 to 5 range and just doesn't go back up no matter what. I have the newest Catalyst drivers and I can't guess why performance would suddenly get so bad- I can certainly understand it going down with more enemy 'Mechs and weapons fire on the screen, but going from high 30s down to mid-single-digits seems like an awfully big drop. Has anybody else had a similar problem? For what it's worth, if I go through any of the testing grounds, the framerate never drops that much and says in the 35 to 40 range no matter what, so clearly the big performance hit has something to do with having a number of active enemies.

Edited by Xaositect, 14 December 2013 - 11:07 AM.

[Goose]

…

Well, convention wisdom says you can't game on three monitors without Crossfire. That might be the ~40 limit you are up against in the training grounds.

Moar importantly, CryEngine on DX9 hates all non-overclocked CPUs. But, it might hate your hexacore less then most if you type into your user.cfg:

sys_budget_soundCPU = 1
sys_job_system_max_worker = 6
s_NumLoadingThreadsToUse = 5
sys_spec_Water = 1
r_WaterCaustics = 0
r_WaterCausticsDeferred = 1
r_WaterGodRays = 0
r_WaterReflectionsQuality = 0
e_particles_thread = 1
sys_limit_phys_thread_count = 0
p_num_threads = 6
e_GsmCache = 1
r_fogShadowsWater = 0
e_ParticlesGI = 0
e_ParticlesShadows = 0
r_ssao = 0
r_ssdo = 0
e_TerrainAo = 0
e_Tessellation = 0
e_WaterOceanFFT = 0

Got all that? Great: Now you have to chose:

Option One:

ca_thread0Affinity = 0
ca_thread1Affinity = 0
r_WaterUpdateThread = 0
sys_main_CPU = 0
sys_physics_CPU = 0
sys_streaming_CPU = 0
sys_TaskThread0_CPU = 0
sys_TaskThread1_CPU = 0
sys_TaskThread2_CPU = 0
sys_TaskThread3_CPU = 0
sys_TaskThread4_CPU = 0
sys_TaskThread5_CPU = 0

Option Two

ca_thread0Affinity = 1
ca_thread1Affinity = 4
r_WaterUpdateThread = 3
sys_main_CPU = 2
sys_physics_CPU = 5
sys_streaming_CPU = 0
sys_TaskThread0_CPU = 0
sys_TaskThread1_CPU = 3
sys_TaskThread2_CPU = 1
sys_TaskThread3_CPU = 4
sys_TaskThread4_CPU = 4
sys_TaskThread5_CPU = 1

Both options work, but Option Two might work better … And might work better still if I keep banging my head on this keyboard some moar.

Good luck!

[Sen]

If you turn down all the effects and still have major FPS drop, your bottleneck isn't your GPU.

I had a 3930k @ 4.4 that would dip into the 19-20 range in 3 screen eyefinity with everything just about maxed on a single 7950, so the 7970 SHOULD push above that. Could have been my overclock that created the difference, but while Xeons are workhorse server chips, I have no idea what the differences in architecture/instruction sets, and hence no way to effectively guide you aside from generic statements like "have you tried overclocking".

In the end I gave up and went with a single 21:9". This game is just so horribly unoptimized it's almost not worth making the attempt.

At least for now.

Edited by Sen, 14 December 2013 - 12:08 PM.

[Xaositect]

Goose, on 14 December 2013 - 11:48 AM, said:

…

Well, convention wisdom says you can't game on three monitors without Crossfire. That might be the ~40 limit you are up against in the training grounds.

Moar importantly, CryEngine on DX9 hates all non-overclocked CPUs. But, it might hate your hexacore less then most if you type into your user.cfg:

sys_budget_soundCPU = 1
sys_job_system_max_worker = 6
s_NumLoadingThreadsToUse = 5
sys_spec_Water = 1
r_WaterCaustics = 0
r_WaterCausticsDeferred = 1
r_WaterGodRays = 0
r_WaterReflectionsQuality = 0
e_particles_thread = 1
sys_limit_phys_thread_count = 0
p_num_threads = 6
e_GsmCache = 1
r_fogShadowsWater = 0
e_ParticlesGI = 0
e_ParticlesShadows = 0
r_ssao = 0
r_ssdo = 0
e_TerrainAo = 0
e_Tessellation = 0
e_WaterOceanFFT = 0

Got all that? Great: Now you have to chose:

Option One:

ca_thread0Affinity = 0
ca_thread1Affinity = 0
r_WaterUpdateThread = 0
sys_main_CPU = 0
sys_physics_CPU = 0
sys_streaming_CPU = 0
sys_TaskThread0_CPU = 0
sys_TaskThread1_CPU = 0
sys_TaskThread2_CPU = 0
sys_TaskThread3_CPU = 0
sys_TaskThread4_CPU = 0
sys_TaskThread5_CPU = 0

Option Two

ca_thread0Affinity = 1
ca_thread1Affinity = 4
r_WaterUpdateThread = 3
sys_main_CPU = 2
sys_physics_CPU = 5
sys_streaming_CPU = 0
sys_TaskThread0_CPU = 0
sys_TaskThread1_CPU = 3
sys_TaskThread2_CPU = 1
sys_TaskThread3_CPU = 4
sys_TaskThread4_CPU = 4
sys_TaskThread5_CPU = 1

Both options work, but Option Two might work better … And might work better still if I keep banging my head on this keyboard some moar.

Good luck!

Thanks, Goose, I did have a suspicion that it had something to do with the game not taking advantage of all of the CPU cores, but I wasn't aware of a way to tell the game how many cores to use or to set core affinity for threads. Where is this user.cfg file you speak of, or is it one I need to create? I searched my MWO directories and can't find such a file.

Also, Sen, this Xeon I have is essentially the workstation version of the Core i7-980X Extreme Edition, the difference being that the Xeon supports workstation-y stuff like ECC memory (which I am using) and some other bells and whistles irrelevant to MWO like Demand Based Switching and Trusted Execution Technology.

http://ark.intel.com...0-GTs-Intel-QPI
http://ark.intel.com...0-GTs-Intel-QPI

Thanks for the feedback, if you had it running alright on three monitors with a 7950, then there's hope for my 7970, though if I can apply Goose's configuration changes, I may get a second 7970 card to use CrossFire so things will run better.

[Goose]

D:\GAMES\Piranha\MechWarrior Online

… Or, thereabouts …

It's just a text file, saved as "user.cfg"

Edited by Goose, 14 December 2013 - 03:03 PM.

[Xaositect]

Goose, thanks, that may have just done the trick! I created a user.cfg file there and put in the settings you recommended (option two for core affinity settings) and just did a drop where my framerate stayed at 35 or more the whole match, even in close combat with multiple enemies. I'll have to invest in a second 7970 to get the framerate back higher and turn on the higher image settings, though. Thanks again!

[Xaositect]

Well, I spoke too soon, it worked fine for one drop, but then while spectating in the second drop after that, it dipped back to the 5 to 9 fps range. Strangely, it happened when no enemy 'Mechs were visible, so I guess what's causing the trouble isn't necessarily enemy 'Mechs on the screen after all. It does look like the config settings helped some, because my framerate after them was more like 50 at the beginning, and even when it was down to single-digit framerates, they weren't quite as bad as before (5 to 9 as opposed to 2 to 5). I'm hoping they'll do some work on this to optimize performance.

[Sen]

So basically it's the older socket 1366. . Yea, your performance is in the ballpark.

have you tried DeerSpotter's FPS thread?

http://mwomercs.com/...-core-machines/

I never messed with these, but a lot of people swear by em'.

[Goose]

http://forums.guru3d...&highlight=EIST

[Egomane]

Well, as an Eyefinity user myself, with a 7970 (though an OCed GHz one) and monitors connected in the same fashion, I need to chime in on this thread.

I don't believe that your problem is the power of your GPU. I'm playing fine in 5760x1080. I'm not absolutly sure about my framerates but I never drop into the depths you experience. I always have a smooth playing experience. So I have a little lower resolution and a bit more power on my GPU, but overall that shouldn't cause such a massive difference.

My settings are Very High, with the exception of Motion Blur (off) and Post Processing (low).

Can you do us the favor and post the rest of your system specs (PSU, Mainboard and all that)? While an overclock of your CPU will probably bring you some performance increase, I'm not sure if it is doable with your system.

Note: Please make sure that your CPU is actually running at it's supposed speed. I just found a forums entry, where your Xeon CPU only registered with 2.6 GHz until it was manually set to its intended base clock values.

Edited by Egomane, 16 December 2013 - 05:07 AM.

[Xaositect]

Egomane, on 16 December 2013 - 05:07 AM, said:

Can you do us the favor and post the rest of your system specs (PSU, Mainboard and all that)? While an overclock of your CPU will probably bring you some performance increase, I'm not sure if it is doable with your system.

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, SP1
CPU: Intel Xeon W3680
RAM: 24GB (6 x 4GB) Kingston unbuffered ECC (I think PC3-10600 but I'll have to check; maybe PC3-8500)
Motherboard: ASUS P6T7 WS SuperComputer (http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813131390)
Video: Diamond Radeon HD 7970 3GB (http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814103201), using whatever the newest non-beta AMD drivers are

Other stuff that shouldn't matter:
Audio: Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series (PCI Express, of course)
Main storage: Intel X25-M (second-generation) 160GB (http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820167017)
Additional storage: 4 x 2TB Western Digital Caviar Green (two RAID1 arrays)
PSU: SeaSonic SS-750KM3 750W (http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817151087)
Optical: Pioneer BDR-205BKS (http://www.newegg.co...N82E16827129051)

When I run CPU-Z it reports the expected 3.33GHz speed on the cores, but I'll check when I get home. Goose and Sen, I'll take a look at those threads, thanks again.