54 replies to this topic

[razenWing]

I've been pretty reluctant to speak out against gaming optimization. I kind of feel, everyone have their own spec, and sometimes... it is what it is.

But today, it kind of reach a boiling point.

When I joined the game with my MSI GS 60 4k Ghost Pro Gold Edition (brag) about 1 and a half years ago, (basically, best laptop in the market 2 years ago) I was getting about 60 FPS.

With each patch, and with each pressing of F9, I get more and more depressed.

What's the compromise? Less effects, less details, less... less... less.

This is going from max everything at 60 FPS to today, I barely hit 30 with constant screen lag with high to medium settings. People don't generally complain about this because... well.. it is what it is, and we kind of accepted it.

But this is ridiculous.

Your coding should not be this lousy. What, every patch you have and we must upgrade our system?

I somehow fix the screen lag and settle around 40 fps by turning shadow to low, particle to low, and host of other previous "very high" to "high" settings to medium.

I now know why EVERY SINGLE streamers on twitch that I view have very "thin" ppc trails. This is one of the saddest and most depressing day of my play in MWO, and I endured Mapgate. (Keep in mind also, that they are STREAMING. I am not. Yet I am forced to turn down resolutions like they do)

So please PGI, before the next "update," run optimization, and see why your patch is degrading performance with every single patch. Is it memory leak? Is it unused coding? Is it variables that you didn't bother to clean out? If you release an optimization patch, I guarantee that more people will be appreciative of your efforts than the next mechpack or map mode.

(PS. Incursion mode is a piece of.... Maybe it's time to consider unilateral objectives to fix Assault and Incursion. More space and more strategies. I still think Escort is a resounding success if not for your refusal to balance the map odds. Just fix using the same philosophy. You guys are seriously making things way too complicated.)

Edited by razenWing, 18 April 2017 - 09:28 PM.

[Tibbnak]

Test your fps during a drop with hud on and hud off (Rshift + F11)

Mwo uses scaleform on top of cryengine for its 2d hud assets and menus, which allows for straightforward design but also requires you basically to run an entire standalone out of date software rendered flash runtime environment in the background of the game executable.

Which means it's basically constantly crushing your laptop cpu with large fill and antialias and vector rendering requests.

To make it even worse, all of the rendered assets for the hud are in pixel rather than ray/svd format, so it's a lot more taxing on flash's already hilarious pipeline to render.

As a bonus, the in-world AR and the minimap both involve rendering and pixel manipulating a lot of various pixel format images in realtime as the action is going on, further compounding the issue. The coup d'etat' of the matter is that they have this software pipeline stuffed with this constantly operated-on large texture for the map itself.

This is on top of any background rendering that this black box might be trying to do at any point, that we just don't know about.

Edited by Tibbnak, 18 April 2017 - 10:31 PM.

[Vellron2005]

Hey, it's still better than how Blizzard does it..

A long time ago, before I had the beast of a machine I have now, I wanted to play their Diablo 3.. so I install the demo and, lo and behold, the game is amazing, runs nice, and everything is great..

So I BUY the full game, along with the expansion.. I install.. and the game lags so much it's unplayable!?!

I contact customer service and they make me jump through hoops.. I install this driver, and that service pack, and end up completely messing up my system, being unable to play ANY game, and be forced to do a FULL REINSTALL of Windows..

And after I grief them about it, they tell me "Ops, sorry, the latest update made your graphics card obsolete and it's no longer supported"

The card and the machine could run most any new game of the time..

I instantly requested a full refund

Never again..

Back on topic:

Yeah, I've noticed a significant drop of performance ever since the FW4.2. patch.. it's been getting worse and worse..

I still get to play on max settings, but the game tends to lag a bit on drop, and when there are many mechs in the screen..

Edited by Vellron2005, 19 April 2017 - 04:55 AM.

[Athom83]

[El Bandito]

I agree with OP. I had less issues with FPS drops and stuttering a year ago. And I had no performance related issues back when 8v8 was a thing, only lag/hitreg related.

[Mechteric]

It seems to vary a lot by map too, I'll get 100 FPS on one map, but 60 FPS on another. That's fine with me since I have a decent rig, but it must hurt those who get 50-60 regularly then drop to 30 or lower on some maps.

[CapnKirk13]

You know there's a problem with code optimization when your GPU usage is at 93% while in the Mechlab.

[Dee Eight]

I haven't seen anything higher than 35fps since a year ago (just before polar was introduced). I routinely get TWO POINT FIVE fps when trying to leave the drop zone on crimsom.

[JC Daxion]

It is possible something happened in this patch that effected optimization. If that is the case, it should defiantly be reported, and tracked down and fixed.




But they have optimized the game plenty of the years since i started playing in 2014. My old system i started and could get 15+ FPS when i started, Some maps i hit 20.. But i also had dips, which made killing lights very hard. Then they added 12 v 12, which basically patched me out of playing because my frames went so low. I took a break for about 3-4 months. When i returned, I was getting a fairly stable almost 20 FPS. up about 5 despite adding 8 more people.


summer of 2015 i got a new comp which put me up about 30+ average. Over the next 2 years which is till now, i have been able to turned up every setting to medium, from my low settings, and I now have 60 FPS. My point is they have done tons to optimize the game over the years.

Old comp 8500 duo core, 4 gigs ram, Nivida 9800, setting low, FPS 20 or so

New comp, I5 3350, 8 gigs, Nivida 550TI, average 60(monitor max) on medium



My point is, If you are having DPS dips by that large of number, have you done anything? Like Grab a DX-diag, and contact support and let them know about your issue on your config? They can't optimize what they don't know is an issue. Things can often come down to a unique card, or board or a combo that has not been tested/optimized. It's one of the main things companies love from beta testers. A very wide range of machines and DX-diags to take info from.

Edited by JC Daxion, 19 April 2017 - 07:06 AM.

[Simbacca]

My desktop (over 2 years old now) running good specs (32 GB RAM, Intel i7-4820K processor, nVidia GTX780) could only run certain aspects on max settings back then. Just to deal with FPS drops, I turned off cockpit glass and cockpit monitors (saved 2 to 4 FPS there alone), and last year dropped down shadows and shaders quality. These definitely helped - but I do get significant FPS drop especially if my mech is facing 20 some odd mechs (even though they are not all visible due to the terrain).

Edited by Simbacca, 19 April 2017 - 07:12 AM.

[Sunstruck]

I wonder if excessive sound processing could be a problem too, like if there is a sound effect that uses a low pass filter effect (DSP processing) in FMOD and then there are a hundred instances of it during the middle of a battle.

I get weird random frame stutters in the middle of a battle. Its the worst in River City and Tourmaline.

[Wildstreak]

I can still say with certainty my nVidia card bought in October boosted my FPS enough that I could record video just fine.....until January/February, one of those patches did something that I now get occasional stuttering no matter how much background stuff I turn off or other changes tried including lowering settings.

Nothing really changed on my computer between October and Jan/Feb that could cause this degradation in recording.

FPS still shows the same.

[Albino Boo]

In shock news 5 year old laptop graphics card underperforms on games. In other news water is wet.

[cazidin]

Apparently, somehow, MW:O is designed without multi-core usage in mind and I'm not even sure why a game developed post 08 would even do that. Also, frankencode leads to poor optimization on an engine that itself is poorly optimized. This game would look totally different if PGI had just chosen Unreal at the start.

[Jay Leon Hart]

My 5 year old (then mid-range, the weakest link being the CPU) PC runs it "OK"

"OK" being 20-30 FPS on High, 40-60 FPS on Medium.

But, as we all know, it's a mix of far too many factors.

This *does* remind me, though, that I need to treat myself to a new rig, so thanks!

[Wildstreak]

Last night, had an issue never seen before.
FPS drops and very noticeable lag.
Since getting my nVidia card in October, I normally hit 60+ FPS, I actually had to change settings to dial it to 60 from 100+.
Several matches last night at times I dropped to 20 or less with a VERY noticeable effect on visuals.
I used to get 14-20 before the nVidia card and it was never this bad.

[Tordin]

Glad you made this thread OP.
I also have been havingworse and worse performance. My laptop is what.. 3 - 4.5 years old, but played MWO just fine and dandy 1, 2 years ago on medium to medium/ high settings. My laptop should handle MWO with a good margin. Somewhere between min and recommended specs.

Now.. Well, its like trying to drive a car on the last drops of fuel.
Its like, how should I describe it.. Stuttering, the game goes smooth once in a match, but then this odd lagging occours, then it goes smooth again. So I have to time it when confronting enemies etc. Its infuriating really and goes each 15-30 sec. Im amazed I get kills at all really. And NO, its not the internet connection. I've always had a steady 50-60 ping. Average 56 ping.
Everything is set to low settings, no anti aliasing and only textures are on medium, heck I've even turned off screen monitors..

I suspect and think this got worse after the forced Win10 update (been playing MWO since oktober/november 2014), the possible bad optimization and MWO patches might have made it worse for all I know. Yes I have run the MWO repair tool just in case, but havent noticed much improvement.

Right now Im actually saving up for a new gaming laptop.
Still I wonder whats up with the performance drops, my laptop and its guts havent changed at all, still using the same games and programs..

Edited by Tordin, 20 April 2017 - 07:23 AM.

[SlippnGriff]

My frames dropped in a brawl on river city and cost me (slower delayed input and obviously the lack of frames) but like it does effect gameplay tremendously sometimes. This game is too limited by its engine unfortunately

[Mister Glitchdragon]

razenWing, on 18 April 2017 - 09:26 PM, said:

With each patch, and with each pressing of F9, I get more and more depressed.

You are not alone; its happening the world over. Karl Marx described successful capitalist institutions as increasing profit margins by inevitably decreasing the quality goods and services while simultaneously increasing prices. In this way, we are slowly making our world shjtty and at the same time overpriced.

Communist philosophers call this phenomenon "immiseration."

Enjoy!

Edited for grammar.

Edited by Mister Glitchdragon, 20 April 2017 - 08:38 AM.

[razenWing]

Athom83, on 20 April 2017 - 08:00 AM, said:

Yah, we must have been really happy in the days before Capitalism where we didn't bathe for weeks/months, tossed our trash/urine/**** out onto the streets or in a hole out in the cold, starved en-mass, rarely lived past 30, etc. And Communist philosophy must be right as there are no dissenting opinions... No no no, don't look at that pit filled with hundreds of thousands to millions of people that used to disagree with us, that doesn't exist. Don't look at those kidnapped people being harvested for organs, its just your imagination. We'll beat that out of you soon enough, move along, long live the party.

How the fok did optimization turn into this? Reporting both of you guys for spamming...

Anyways, the screen lag is most noticeable during push situations. Yesterday, had a huge 12v12 brawl (we went all close range Novas and just pushed right into enemy position), so the whole time, it's no less than 10 mechs on screen with particles going off everywhere. Screen lag is not fun when your timejump a few milisecond and finding yourself small lasering your own teammate instead of the baddies.

I have given up on "ultra" video game performance. It's funny because even Nvidia Experience recommendation tells me that my machine should be able to handle 4k resolution on with Ultra on all settings. So, obviously PGI did something that prevent that from happening. I checked the different settings guide to see what stuff like "alias" mean and pretty much turn everything that I don't think I will notice during the heat of the battle to low.

(stuff like shadow, shade, particle effect, terrain, etc etc)

I am not happy, but whatever I guess.

(And yesterday, I was watching Sean Lang stream. I mean, f-ing Sean Lang, like the biggest supporter of MWO. Do you know what setting he runs? F-ING LOW. God damn Sean Lang, like your biggest fanboy/collaborator can't run this game on High, what does that tell you about your game, PGI??)

Edited by razenWing, 20 April 2017 - 08:09 AM.