1911 replies to this topic

[Imperius]

Karl Berg, on 12 June 2014 - 09:18 PM, said:

Hey Imperius!

I saw your post earlier, and was meaning to write down specific specs on my work machine today to give you some potential guidelines. But with the very rocky PTS run today, I completely failed to follow through. I also ended up missing all my meetings too .

Your system looks plenty beefy to be honest. Are those i7 Xeons, or older P4 based cores?

The draw calls made into D3D are very CPU intensive. A good chunk of that is due to the lego-like nature of the mechs; being formed out of dozens of individual components rather than a single character that can be rendered with a single draw call, like in most other games. It's also compounded by the particle system, the terrain system, and the older Scaleform 3 integrated into the engine.

Because of this, you're definitely going to want a very strong CPU. I'd recommend a quad core. I have an older i7 920 at home which does decently well; and I work on an i7 of some newer flavour at work. You'll want a very fast bus to your GPU for efficient main memory to GPU DMA transfers, so PCI x16 or better. If your current Xeons are net burst cores, making the move to i7 based cores would definitely be the most important thing you can do for performance.

Fast main memory, and low latency if you can manage it; especially if we get that high-res 4k texture pack released. I think I run 8/8/8/24 at home, but it's been a few years since I specced the system.

Because we're so CPU limited, most decent GPU's will do a good job, but the more raw fill rate you have, the less the particle system will slow you down. I run a 1GB AMD 5870 at home. Pretty sure I have an nVidia card of some flavour at work, although I'll double check on that for you.

SSD will help load times somewhat, and may also reduce hitching if an asset didn't pre cache correctly. I doubt it would make a difference for general framerate in-game.

Hope that helps!

Yea they are real old xeons and that information helps me a lot. So I'll work on getting a good CPU, RAM, SSD and I'll keep the nvidia card I got... Of course I need to wait a while because I just bought a gold dire wolf to join the ranks of my gold timber after last nights clan test. Amazing job and killed my FPS again... I think missiles just kill it.

My machine is poorly optimized it's a 2008 Mac Pro with updated graphics.

Thanks for the timely reply I look forward to your next post when you have time I know you're busy.

Edited by Imperius, 13 June 2014 - 08:43 AM.

[Cimarb]

There was a website that someone suggested a while back, but I can't remember the name of it. You could input your hardware and it would show you upgrades that were compatible with the other components you had.

Anyone have any idea the site I am talking about?...

(I know enough to put one together, but the "Xeons", "8/8/8/24" and such is all Latin to me still...)

Edited by Cimarb, 13 June 2014 - 04:18 PM.

[Goose]

Heffay, on 13 June 2014 - 05:46 AM, said:

Woah woah woah.... WOAH! Wait... you have 4k textures for everything???

I've never made a demand from PGI or IGP before, but here is mine: Please please more info???

Info like "4GB video cards won't cut the mustard: Get six" …

[Heffay]

Goose, on 13 June 2014 - 04:23 PM, said:

Info like "4GB video cards won't cut the mustard: Get six" …

For 4k textures, THIS CAN BE ARRANGED!!!

Imperius, on 13 June 2014 - 08:39 AM, said:

My machine is poorly optimized it's a 2008 Mac Pro

You know, I'm as much of a Mac fan out there as anyone, but... seriously. It's time to get a decent PC gaming machine.

Or heck, even a modern day MBP!!

[Wintersdark]

Goose, on 13 June 2014 - 04:23 PM, said:

Info like "4GB video cards won't cut the mustard: Get six" …

Fortunately, 2GB video cards will be just fine with 4K textures. Maybe 1gb cards, too, but don't quote me on that. We don't have a whole lot of different textures in use at one time, after all. My 2gb card has no trouble whatsoever with zounds of HD textures in Skyrim, for example, far more than MWO has, let alone loads at once.

[Goose]

Karl Berg, on 12 June 2014 - 09:18 PM, said:

The draw calls made into D3D are very CPU intensive. A good chunk of that is due to the lego-like nature of the mechs; being formed out of dozens of individual components rather than a single character that can be rendered with a single draw call, like in most other games. It's also compounded by the particle system, the terrain system, and the older Scaleform 3 integrated into the engine.

Because of this, you're definitely going to want a very strong CPU. I'd recommend a quad core. I have an older i7 920 at home which does decently well; and I work on an i7 of some newer flavour at work. You'll want a very fast bus to your GPU for efficient main memory to GPU DMA transfers, so PCI x16 or better. If your current Xeons are net burst cores, making the move to i7 based cores would definitely be the most important thing you can do for performance.

Fast main memory, and low latency if you can manage it; especially if we get that high-res 4k texture pack released. I think I run 8/8/8/24 at home, but it's been a few years since I specced the system.

Because we're so CPU limited, most decent GPU's will do a good job, but the more raw fill rate you have, the less the particle system will slow you down. I run a 1GB AMD 5870 at home. Pretty sure I have an nVidia card of some flavour at work, although I'll double check on that for you.

SSD will help load times somewhat, and may also reduce hitching if an asset didn't pre cache correctly. I doubt it would make a difference for general framerate in-game.

Hope that helps!

Sir? I know I gave up on my i7-920 a little early, but it at 2.8GHz, it never seemed happy until I used a fps limit in the low 40s: How "decent" is "decently" for you?

I don't think I've seen anyone come out and say CryEngine is sensitive to ether bandwidth or latency in main memory: What have you seen?

I was under the impressions the particle system was a form of CPU bottleneck, like physics? There were a number of my tests where standing at the C4 bridge access on River City, facing 340°, would drop the GPU load 5~12%; I blamed this on the fire right in front of me, the one that dispersals if particles are set to Low.

I know the default thread placements in CryEngine will cheerfully use 6 cores, and it's clear a quad-core with enough Hz can absorb half it's cores "doubling up," but I'd really like to know in what pattern they do so. (Finding out why setting all 12 Named Threads to zero seems to work on smaller core-counts might also be informative: My theory on it is really just a WAG.)

Thank you for your time, Sir.

[Goose]

Heffay, on 13 June 2014 - 04:25 PM, said:

For 4k textures, THIS CAN BE ARRANGED!!!

Per card?

Heffay, on 13 June 2014 - 04:25 PM, said:

You know, I'm as much of a Mac fan out there as anyone, but... seriously. It's time to get a decent PC gaming machine.

You had me …

Heffay, on 13 June 2014 - 04:25 PM, said:

Or heck, even a modern day MBP!!

Then you lost me …

[Goose]

Here's a thought: Can we get an in-game benchmark? Laps of River City, 24 walking MirvWarriors blowing the crap out'a each other? With or without settings guidance, maybe you could put it under the noeses of some tech sites, for Great Plugs?

Edited by Goose, 13 June 2014 - 05:54 PM.

[Imperius]

Goose, on 13 June 2014 - 05:53 PM, said:

Here's a thought: Can we get an in-game benchmark? Laps of River City, 24 walking MirvWarriors blowing the crap out'a each other? With or without settings guidance, maybe you could put it under the noeses of some tech sites, for Great Plugs?

Good ideas

[Rebas Kradd]

Karl Berg, on 12 June 2014 - 09:18 PM, said:

The draw calls made into D3D are very CPU intensive. A good chunk of that is due to the lego-like nature of the mechs; being formed out of dozens of individual components rather than a single character that can be rendered with a single draw call, like in most other games.

Say more about this and its other effects on gameplay mechanics. What are those dozens of individual components? Does it affect hitreg? Why did you decide to go with this setup instead of single components? How else does this make MWO unique from other games, in terms of design challenges?

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 13 June 2014 - 08:57 PM.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Cimarb, on 13 June 2014 - 04:09 PM, said:

(I know enough to put one together, but the "Xeons", "8/8/8/24" and such is all Latin to me still...)

I'm no pc expert when they start thowing out specs either, but Xenons are a line of processors by Intel or AMD which have been superceded by newer CPU lines. The 8/8/8/24 has to do with the RAM latency timings set in CMOS/BIOS. I'm not sure on the specifics, but it's something only experts deal with. The motherboard and memory sets these automatically though you can override them sometimes in the CMOS/BIOS, though, just like overclocking your CPU, you have to know what you are doing or you can ruin your hardware.

[Imperius]

Ok, here is the build I am thinking about doing your feedback would be outstanding Karl.

Keep in mind I'm going to use my Nvidia GTX 680 Mac Edition which should work in it regardless since EFI boot is an extra added to the card.

CPU Intel Core i7-4930K Ivy Bridge-E 6-Core 3.4GHz
Heat Sink (This thing is just cool, hope it fits)
Motherboard ASUS Sabertooth X79 LGA 2011 Intel
GPU Nvidia GTX 680 Mac Edition
RAM CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Power Supply CORSAIR HX Series HX750 750W
Total Cost $1,374.94
Case MWO feel to it

Edited by Imperius, 14 June 2014 - 12:51 AM.

[Li Song]

@Karl Berg
According to analysis performed here: http://mwomercs.com/...-a-brief-guide/
Internals (actuators, gyros, life support etc) do not take part in the resolution of critical rolls. I.e. a roll that hit an internal is a re-roll. This was reinforced by the fact that internals had 0 HP.

In the Clam PTS data files, internals now have a HP value. Does this mean that internals do take part in the crit roll resolution and can infact be destroyed? In other words, do internals act as a built-in crit buffer? (I'm not asking if destroying an actuator has any actual effect on your mech, which would be cool but doesn't really affect my mechlab).

Also in response to PTS clam:

• Missing description for Clan Standard Structure in TheRealLoc.xml.
  
• Accepting lobby invite while in lobby fails silently.

Edited by Li Song, 14 June 2014 - 03:08 AM.

[Rogue Jedi]

TheCaptainJZ, on 14 June 2014 - 12:19 AM, said:

I'm no pc expert when they start thowing out specs either, but Xenons are a line of processors by Intel or AMD which have been superceded by newer CPU lines.

Sorry but that is incorrect, Xeon is a line of Intel processors usually used for Servers and has been going since 1998, the current line up of Xeons are (depending on model) comparable to anything from a mid range i5 to CPUs outclassing the best i7 as they are a server processor it is easy to find motherboards capable of mounting 2 (or occasionally more) Xeon processors

edit: spelling

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 14 June 2014 - 01:37 AM.

[SweetJackal]

Cimarb, on 11 June 2014 - 10:29 AM, said:

Why can't everyone wait until we see it in action before asking for it to be turned off?....

Shar Wolf, on 11 June 2014 - 10:42 AM, said:

Because then what would they whine about?

Having said that - there probably will be a toggle....eventually

Technoviking, on 11 June 2014 - 10:47 AM, said:

Because the sky is falling, duh... you wanna get crushed under its weight?

Well, good news! They have actually released the sound assets for the Warhorns. You can find them HERE

Now I will say that I am using a very nice pair of Sennheiser Headphones that run about $150 along with an audio balancer which has done a marvelous job of keeping my ears from bleeding even on the Sound Warning Spiders in I Wanna Be The Boshy and in many cases of watching live streamed content other headphone users are proclaiming the dead of their ears when I am unaffected. The setup I have running makes it very comfortable to listen to almost any audio that is put out on the web without subjecting myself to the pain from poorly handled audio.

Even so these Sound Assets are borderline painful to me in some cases in both content and quality. Having to listen to it because someone in the match has that horn equipped and got a kill would not just break immersion but it would actively make the game uncomfortable for me to play.

Lacking a means to mute only that sound is the same problem as putting VOIP into the game and leaving no means for the player themselves to regulate their own sound levels to it, leave them unable to mute abusive players. There needs to be an option to turn off the warhorns or the warhorns need to be on their own audio slider so players can reduce or mute that aspect of the volume accordingly.

Sound provides so much important information and helps with awareness in addition to many of the sounds in MWO being satisfying to listen to. Without a means to turn off the Warhorns in game that would leave me with muting my entire client in order to play the game. At which point I'll just stop playing.

[Modo44]

We have heard of a laser hit detection problem that made them register 10% less damage. Can you tell us if that is 10% less on average, or for every shot fired? The reason I am asking is, I could only notice all or nothing laser hit detection (working fine or disappearing with 0 damage). Is it possible that the bug found is something different?

[Bad Karma 308]

Imperius, on 14 June 2014 - 12:46 AM, said:

CPU Intel Core i7-4930K Ivy Bridge-E 6-Core 3.4GHz
Heat Sink (This thing is just cool, hope it fits)
Motherboard ASUS Sabertooth X79 LGA 2011 Intel
GPU Nvidia GTX 680 Mac Edition
RAM CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Power Supply CORSAIR HX Series HX750 750W
Total Cost $1,374.94
Case MWO feel to it

Don't mean to put you off, but your question is far more appropriate over in the Hardware support forums as there is quite a bit of experience to help better answer your question.
http://mwomercs.com/...are-accessories A developer usually target their code to fall within the minimum and recommended hardware requirements: Listed here --> http://mwomercs.com/...m-requirements/

However, since you are here, computer design and engineering is my profession. So if you're willing to take some advise I'll throw out a few pointers regarding your questions.

You have a very good design going but let me give you some considerations for you to think about:

I never go about putting parts down for people until you know the most important factors:

1.) Budget -- The most critical of all factors
2.) Longevity - Whatever you build needs to plan out for future upgrade ability, or else you've just defined its approximate date of death.
3.) Needs & use- What else does this machine need to do for you. Is it just games or do you edit video, database, or just general use.
4.) Cannibalize - What components can you bring forward from your current system(s).

Your CPU choice. If you are going to move into the 2011 (I.e. "Enthusiast") realm then the 4930K will gain you entry but also allow you plenty of room for oveclocking provided you can keep it very cool i.e water cooling. . But....without overclocking, at this point, the socket 1150 based 4770K can outperform the 4930K, but you lose the extra 2 cores. Also something to reflect on is that the HASWELL-E 2011 series is due out in the 3-4 qtr of this year but will necessitate a new 2011 Z99 chipset and current 2011 MBRs will not be compatible (per Intel). So you may be literally building yourself into a deadened system by your current choice.

RAM: Yes, a socket 2011 with quad channel memory will give you far more memory bandwidth, but you should look for faster memory as 1600 is slow enough at this date and time that your extra bandwidth will be offset by the lower performance. There are some great deals out there on 1866,2133 and even 2400 right now that is about the same cost as 1600. Also with quad channel memory you want to have at least 4 sticks to aggregate the bandwidth to take advantage of this feature. Right now 4Gb is minimum, 8GB is about standard, and anything over 16 is pure gravy.

Motherboard: the Sabertooth line by ASUS is a great board, but it is the entry level board for their Republic of Gamers Line (ROG). As such it trims quite a few features and OC stability available with the higher ROG boards.

GPU: The 680 should serve you fine for now. One thing to remember is that Nvidia re-branded the GTX 680 as the current GTX 770, with a few tweaks. So to upgrade in the future you'd have to surpass the GTX 770 or you'd see no benefit.

Cases are subjective to each individual, so I don't go into to much here. Just make sure that if you do decide to OC, the case you choose has enough room and accessories to support it. But I do always say that with a case, go a bit more than you think you need.


Now for my own setup and experience.

---------------------------
Processor 2x Intel Xeon E5-2697W v2 Ivy Bridge-EP 3.1GHz 12-Core W/HT 48-cores @3.8GHZ

Co_Processor Intel Xeon Phi 5110P

Motherboard ASUS Z9PE-D8WS Dual LGA 2011

Memory 128GB DDR3 2133

Hard Drive OCZ Z-Drive R4 CM84 1.2TB PCI-E

NIC Intel PCI-E 10Gb Dual Port sfp

Video Card (depending on need) 3x GTX780 Ti / 24x Nvidia Tesla 1070X 1U GPGPU servers

Monitor 3x HP ZR30w 30"

Sound Card Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion

Keyboard Logitech G19

Mouse Cyborg R.A.T. 7

Operating System Windows 7 Enterprise
_____________

Now I also game on a second system that I switch in and out on which is similarly configured.
CPU 4960X
MB: Rampage IV Extreme
RAM: 64GB DDR3 2400
GPUs Currently 2x 780xTi with a new 780 6GB edition for running Physics X

I do have a trio of Titans, as well as some just arrived Titan Zs that I'm experimenting with, but haven't really gamed on them yet. there are also several 48U racks loaded with customized 1U Tesla 1070x that I use mostly for GPGPU but am attempting to push MWo through them.

Spoiler

And plenty more power to spare: (this is my old setup before I moved last year, My new room/office is unfinished still bare drywall at this point.) I'll get some new pics as I get closer to finished.


(This is my current (finished) Basement server farm)

While I use my Xeon based system more often I do get slightly better FPS on my 4960X system. But the big system is far more condusive to my needs at the moment. But even with all this horse power I tend to stay just shy of 80-90FPS while standing still at drop. I average 55-70FPS for much of the game. But it does every once in a while venture into the teens and even single digits (for just a sec or two) when a lot of action is going on close up. I haven't mapped out the causes of the single digit slow downs but I; leaning toward that they may be more server side at this point, but with no real evidence to back up that claim just yet.

Now, I run a single 30" monitor at 2560 x 1600 and TXAA for MWo, At 1080P it never dips below 100fps. Regardless, the monitor has a 60Hz refresh. Also to take under consideration is that SLI & Crossfire are not implemented yet as you can read previous in this post where I has inquired with Karl on its hopeful timeline.

So if you go through the hardware and accessories forum, you'll see that a lot of people have very mixed results with the game as it sits right now. The performance has improved drastically with the last several patches, And I expect that we'll see even more with newer release. But for right now the old adage is that the more GHZ,CORES/RAM/GPU that you can throw at it will help. It is just what your wallet can sustain becomes the biggest factor.

Edited by Bad Karma 308, 22 October 2014 - 11:52 PM.

[Goose]

Li Song, on 14 June 2014 - 01:08 AM, said:

Internals (actuators, gyros, life support etc) do not take part in the resolution of critical rolls. I.e. a roll that hit an internal is a re-roll. This was reinforced by the fact that internals had 0 HP.

In the Clam PTS data files, internals now have a HP value. Does this mean that internals do take part in the crit roll resolution and can infact be destroyed? In other words, do internals act as a built-in crit buffer?

If heat has been reduced to a "countdown to shutdown," then letting the gyro absorb crits without any form of knockdown (or even increased movement sway) would seem kind'a cheap, even if everyone had access to it equally.

Seems to me the most we know about crits in MWO is how a Gauss is the most explosive thing in the game, and an AC/20 needed a HP boost; Add on to this engine-mounted HSs getting critted during CT strikes, and the open question if an empty ammo slot is still a valid crit, and thus the whole system seems a black box.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Rogue Jedi, on 14 June 2014 - 01:34 AM, said:

Sorry but that is incorrect, Xeon is a line of Intel processors usually used for Servers and has been going since 1998, the current line up of Xeons are (depending on model) comparable to anything from a mid range i5 to CPUs outclassing the best i7 as they are a server processor it is easy to find motherboards capable of mounting 2 (or occasionally more) Xeon processors

edit: spelling

Ok, like I said, not a pc expert, but i don't hear xeons often and just assumed since things change rapidly and i heard the name thrown about in the past but not as often in recent times. As it is server hardware and I don't work in the tech field, that would explain it.

[Bad Karma 308]

TheCaptainJZ, on 14 June 2014 - 09:49 AM, said:

Ok, like I said, not a pc expert, but i don't hear xeons often and just assumed since things change rapidly and i heard the name thrown about in the past but not as often in recent times. As it is server hardware and I don't work in the tech field, that would explain it.

If I can chime in, Intel usually takes its design specs from the XEON line and gimps it down to gear it to Enthusiast & mainstream consumer levels. As an example:

A Xeon 2687 8 core minus 2 cores is the I7-3960X 6 core. Take away two more cores and you have a 4 core I7-2600. Exact same lithography under the hood.

Every once in a while they will bring some technology from the other direction and implement it up the chain, like with the low power mobile technology (which came out of Intel's Israeli location designing for laptops, but usually the features tend to trickle down from on top.

So anytime you want a real beast of a CPU, or multiple CPUs for that matter, go for a XEON. The cost of admission just tends to be far greater.

Edited by Bad Karma 308, 14 June 2014 - 12:14 PM.