78 replies to this topic

[MercJ]

EDIT: for latest results, check here.
EDIT 2: even more late(st) results! Check spoiler for full details, or just skip to the post.

Spoiler

Okay, a couple more frame time captures. I've started using the Academy for a more controllable environment (a Timberwolf takes almost exactly 2min to complete the Gauntlet challenge, and the results seem to be comparable to live matches). Also, a surprise 390X appears...(I seem to get better/smoother results with Nvidia cards, supposedly because their drivers have less CPU overhead - not confirmed, but it makes sense in a game like MWO that is already CPU bound...)

I compared the (HPET off for all tests, btw) SMT disabled results with a run on a single CCX w/o SMT:



w/ GTX970 single CCX:


And a bit more testing just to be sure. Might have been the patch or something else, but I seem to be experiencing far smoother frametimes than before. Either way, this seems to be a consistent result.

And....my conclusion so far:

Spoiler

I like it. I'm actually surprised at how well it games, considering all the "fuss" on the internet about 1080p gaming. I'm willing to bet it would have been the best gaming CPU option if it could have hit the frequencies that Skylake/Kaby can. Unfortunately, the R7s can't go quite that high, but in MWO it doesn't seem to ultimately make too much of a difference.

So, no secrets here - if you're looking for the absolute, top-end, end-all-be-all of MWO gaming performance, you still need to find the highest-clocked Intel CPU you can. Right now, that seems to be the i7-7700K.

If you're not chasing that last 1-5% of performance or at anything above WQHD resolutions...a Ryzen CPU is actually an option now. You may have to tinker ever so slightly (not really though, tbh), but yeah. I'm actually satisfied with this R7 1700's performance in MWO, which is something I haven't been able to say about AMD CPUs for years.

If the single CCX results are any indication, and if the R5/R3s releasing soon are truly just a single core complex (not two CCXs split in half), they're going to be a great option, ESPECIALLY if they can overclock better (not holding my breath - Ryzen is good, but Zen2/Zen+ is probably going to be the Phenom 2 to AMD's Phenom). The best news is, Ryzen is actually good now.

BREAKING NEWS EDIT: Umm - it's quite pre-emptive, but what's some click-bait between forum-goers...not sure if this is the fix all AMD FX users have been looking for, but...initial results are pretty compelling. Follow the trail for more...

Hey all,

I've done a fair bit of benchmarking and comparisons between all manner of Intel and AMD systems in the past two/three years here on the forums. (Check this post if you want to get caught up.)

I wanted to start a new thread specifically for Ryzen, as it seems it stands to even the playing field ever so slightly. Obviously these CPUs have only been available for a few days, and I have yet to see any MWO-related data

So, with a Ryzen 1700 in-hand and a motherboard on its way to be delivered in a few hours, I thought I'd start prepping this thread to contain some frametime captures and later analysis/experimentation to see how AMD's new CPUs will fare in MWO.



Stay tuned for more, assembling the system in a few hours and hope to be up and capturing most of tonight.

Planning to start with Win7, but will check Win10 as well.

Initial Benchmarking Configuration:
- Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (to avoid Win10 scheduler issues - will investigate this later)
EDIT: Started with Win10 until I can bake in the new USB chipset drivers for Win7 :/

- Ryzen 1700 at healthy OC (aiming for 4.0 GHz, although it sounds like all Ryzens top out around this range)
**EDIT: So, on overclocking...seems most top out around 4.0GHz, mine runs at 3.8 without a voltage bump, but I need 1.3V to get to 3.9GHz - don't really feel like that last 100 MHz would be worth it. Still runs pretty cool, so I'll probably just stick with the Wraith Spire cooler.

- MSI B350 Tomahawk AM4 Motherboard
- Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 2x4GB DDR4 (2400 MT/s, probably won't bother OC these, but might try if I have time to get them into the 3000 range)
- SSD for storage etc. etc.

- FRAPS for min/max/avg capture (more than likely will just drop in solo queue)
- FRAFS for charts/plotting
- 1920x1080 resolution
- Damage glow off, no AA, all settings very high except for particles and obj detail (low)
- Windows performance profile set to "High Performance" (CPU @100% min)
- I messed around with Process Lasso (the MSI Tomahawk allows you to disable cores but not SMT), but disabling SMT doesn't seem to make that much of a difference

Starting with the stock cooler, although I've got a range of coolers to test with if need be - just received an AM4 mounting bracket for my Swiftech H220, so that's an option if the overclock needs it. Probably will run with SMT disabled for now, but later on I'll see if there's a difference. See above.

Edited by MercJ, 25 March 2017 - 12:10 PM.

[Peter2k]

windows 10 would be gimping youre FPS at the moment
by how much, cant say

but its an issue needing a patch from microsoft (something with SMT on Ryzen)
but interested to see what difference there is


also it seems Ryzen can benefit from higher memory bandwidth

Spoiler

if you can give a comparison between lower clocks (like 2400 or so) and maybe 3000, if you can reach or even surpass that
but that seems to be a BIOS maturity issue at the moment

its just hard to come by anything really, just too new a platform

[Requiemking]

Well, from what I've seen with past computers, MWO, for some reason, REALLY dislikes it if you use any video card not made by NVIDIA.

[MechaBattler]

Please forgive me for being uninformed. Is AMD putting out anything for those of us plebs unfortunate enough to be poor?

[Vaenson]

MechaBattler, on 07 March 2017 - 10:38 AM, said:

Please forgive me for being uninformed. Is AMD putting out anything for those of us plebs unfortunate enough to be poor?

there will be quad core ryzen too... but you have to wait a little

[darqsyde]

MechaBattler, on 07 March 2017 - 10:38 AM, said:

Please forgive me for being uninformed. Is AMD putting out anything for those of us plebs unfortunate enough to be poor?

Ryzen 5 are being released in Q2, and Ryzen 3 in H2. The (Raven Ridge?) Zen APU will probably be released in H2 as well, likely in time for Back-To-School.

[Zoeff]

Interesting to see a fellow mechwarrior looking at Ryzen, and even buying it.

As far as I'm aware though, MWO prefers fast cores over more cores so I don't have much hope of seeing any sort of improvement in MWO. That said I'm quite happy to see AMD making interesting CPUs again.

[MercJ]

Zoeff, on 07 March 2017 - 12:10 PM, said:

Interesting to see a fellow mechwarrior looking at Ryzen, and even buying it.

As far as I'm aware though, MWO prefers fast cores over more cores so I don't have much hope of seeing any sort of improvement in MWO. That said I'm quite happy to see AMD making interesting CPUs again.

Yep, that's been the experience so far. Speed / freq (and IPC, being a factor) beats all in MWO. I don't expect Ryzen to set new highs for Mechwarrior Online, but I'm especially curious to see if the frame times will be at least competitive to Intel. I'm after consistency more than anything, and we all know how inconsistent MWO can be even on high-end systems.

(For me, I'm just glad there's a 8c/16t CPU out there now for < $400...I'll definitely make use of it. Gaming on it would just be a side bonus, but at least it seems to be a competitive option now instead of a downright inferior product in every way like FX was :/ Those searching for the absolute best gaming CPU will probably still be better served by the i7-7700K or i5-7600K, but if we're only talking a ~5% difference or something, that's close enough for most users. When the R5 and R3 release those will obviously be better choices for pure gaming as far as cost effectiveness...if Ryzen can hold its own in MWO, that is).

Edited by MercJ, 07 March 2017 - 01:10 PM.

[MercJ]

Quick update - FedEx delayed the motherboard one day (Thunderstorms around Memphis I guess?), but it's here now, and the system is up and running...


Skipping Win7 for now, didn't want to take the extra time to DISM/bake in the AM4 USB drivers on my modified UEFI Win7 USB flash drive, so starting with Win10 Pro 64-bit for now.

Downloading drivers and MWO as we speak, hopefully will get some captures soon.

[Zoeff]

Ahhh nice. I'm waiting for a particular ASRock mATX board to become available before I push the purchase button.

Will be interested to see how it performs exactly. A bit worried that the Win10 scheduler ends up messing things up for MWO even more so than other titles, considering this game is so CPU dependent.

[Kalam Mehkar]

I'm looking forward to your experience, so thanks for being the guinea pig! I'm really interested in frame rate consistentcy, like yourself.

[MercJ]

Okay - just doing some drops with AW0L in CW, not the best testing environment, but had the bad luck of starting on River City :/ This map is stuttery on every system I've tried (including Intels @ 4.5+), so don't read too much into this one - I won't be updating the OP with this example until I'm sure it's reflective of a trend, but since I've kept everyone waiting too long, here's the first caps so far...



Again, don't read too much into it - I think Win10 is still updating in the background too :/ Now that I think of it, I think that Xbox GameDVR is running too...CURSES

Here we go - much better:


(Here's my i5-6600K for comparison - different resolution though - )

Edited by MercJ, 08 March 2017 - 09:34 PM.

[MercJ]

Impressions so far - I've got some room to OC I think - haven't even touched the voltage yet, and highest temp I've reached on the stock cooler @ 3.8 is 51.9C... (btw, this stock cooler is - well, it changes the game for stock coolers, that's for sure!)

I'd definitely wait for the R5 or R3, but if the R7 is anything to judge the architecture by, it's actually...decent. Yeah, it's not going to replace any OC'd i5 or i7 anytime soon, but it can at least provide a similar enough experience that you don't feel like you've wasted your money (unlike the FXs :/ ).

[MercJ]

Tried out Process Lasso to experiment with SMT enabled/disabled - doesn't seem to make too much of a difference yet, but there are a lot of variables...

[DavidStarr]

I think it's better to benchmark in the testing grounds. Removes most variables.

[NobunagaReborn]

Peter2k, on 07 March 2017 - 09:56 AM, said:

windows 10 would be gimping youre FPS at the moment
by how much, cant say

but its an issue needing a patch from microsoft (something with SMT on Ryzen)
but interested to see what difference there is


also it seems Ryzen can benefit from higher memory bandwidth

I used to run mwo at 120 frames on win7. now I run at 60 with win10. Though I have more things loaded on my pc since the free win10 update. I can say my framerate has lowered.

Can also say the only time I have had game(anygame) problems was when The game programming itself was crap. Win 10 seems more stable. I'll take the less frames if windows 10 is just more stable

[Zoeff]

DavidStarr, on 08 March 2017 - 10:18 PM, said:

I think it's better to benchmark in the testing grounds. Removes most variables.

There's a problem with that though, it's effectively a static image. The real FPS killer in MWO are the 24 mechs moving around which I believe was, at one point or another, attributed to each mech component being similar to a player character in a regular shooter game on cryengine. On top of this the various smoke/particle effects can make frame rates plummet for short moments. You can't capture this in the testing grounds unfortunately. Really the only reliable way to benchmark this game would be to have 24 AI mechs move around and shoot one another in an actual benchmarking mode.

[Flapdrol]

Yeah, testing grounds is useless for performance testing.

[Peter2k]

NobunagaReborn, on 08 March 2017 - 10:54 PM, said:

I used to run mwo at 120 frames on win7. now I run at 60 with win10. Though I have more things loaded on my pc since the free win10 update. I can say my framerate has lowered.

Can also say the only time I have had game(anygame) problems was when The game programming itself was crap. Win 10 seems more stable. I'll take the less frames if windows 10 is just more stable

less performance should only happen with Ryzen and Windows 10, for now until Microsoft issues a fix
though that can be worked around a bit as well

not on other hardware at all
fps should be the same, or within margin of error

[MrWeaseluv Fetladral]

here we go MercJ.. Win 10, FX8350 CPU (running @ 4ghz overclock is off), ATI Radeon RX460 video card, 16Gb ram DDR4 2400 on river city pub drop high graphic settings.. ran 3 60 second caps all with in 1 fps of each other... FRAPS log...
2017-03-09 15:49:32 - MWOClient
Frames: 4039 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 67.317 - Min: 47 - Max: 81


On a side note running at 4.5Ghz overclock i get much closer to the I5 setup you showed. I was having a crash issue last night (don't think it was the overclock but still checking to be sure)

Total system cost.... $695.00.... I stole this sucker lol

Edited by MrWeaseluv Fetladral, 09 March 2017 - 01:39 PM.