FPS in Cities

[Wheunis 228]

That's a lot better than I get around and in big cities, what settings are you using? I'm at 2560x1440 but all my settings are on mostly normal (except texture settings, which I have on high) and I get between 18 and 25 fps in places like those. :( I'm also not using any edits in my config files apart from the ones for GPU render ahead.

 

Resolution 1080 (slightly crappy monitor).

The 2 render settings are High and Normal.

The quality settings I run from top to bottom: High, High, Normal, Normal.

HDR setting is Low (highest it can go, choice of Low or Very Low...)

Antialiasing on 4x.

Post effects I turn off coz they give me a bit of a headache...

Vsync is always on for anything I play (i cant stand tearing!)

 

I'm forgetting one of em...

uhhhrrrrr...

 

OH! The trees+grass thing I switch off (causes glitches, i think i need a driver update)

 

And I did the Renderahead on 3.

The other setting with it I set to 1.

 

And i use this for launch settings in Steam:

-nosplash -skipIntro -maxMem=2047 -maxVRAM=2047 -cpuCount=4 -exThreads=3

 

For some reason that someone explained in another forum, DayZ really has some sort of problem with memory over 2GB.

Has no impact on quality as far as I could tell, but did push my performance pretty neatly upwards.

[DarkwaveDomina 1099]

I'll try setting my -maxMem to 2048 and see if that helps, I currently have it on 4096. Everything else looks a bit similar other than me using the ATOC on trees and grass (doesn't seem to affect my framerate at all and thankfully I don't get the glitches people mention, I think that might be an AMD issue).

[Wheunis 228]

I'll try setting my -maxMem to 2048 and see if that helps, I currently have it on 4096. Everything else looks a bit similar other than me using the ATOC on trees and grass (doesn't seem to affect my framerate at all and thankfully I don't get the glitches people mention, I think that might be an AMD issue).

 

Lemme know how that goes, k?

Anything I can change on my side for some extra oomph without losing eyecandy would be awesome as well.

[Corto 34]

Running a similar system with an overclocked 955BE and r9 270.

 

I have absolutely no doubt you're full of sh*t. Spreading bullsh*t like this is only going to create confusion and slow down the optimization process. Kindly knock it the hell off.

 

Although I don't agree with your way of letting him know that he's lying, I agree that with those specs he couldn't possibly not notice frame rate drops in the cities. I have almost everything in low, and I go from more than 100 fps in the country to as low as 40 fps in the cities. It's clear to me that the game, since it's in alpha, has not been optimized at all. Just remember how the beta for BF4 performed compared to how it performs now. Most games, when compiled for alpha or beta testing, have a lot of extra code, debugging symbols and other stuff that make the games run much slower (even a game as old as Jedi Knight 2 runs really slow when I compile it for debugging). Anyway, the devs have been showing that it is possible to optimize the graphic performance of the game, so I'm very positive with the future of this game.

[Corto 34]

Try disabling the Steam Community In Game. I don't know if it was placebo or it really improved the FPS, but I think it did. Could someone else try that and let me know if it's really placebo? Thanks.

[ChimpyGlassman (DayZ) 51]

So is it a CPU or a GPU issue?

 

GPU I assume?

[jrussell4402 21]

Running a similar system with an overclocked 955BE and r9 270.

 

I have absolutely no doubt you're full of sh*t. Spreading bullsh*t like this is only going to create confusion and slow down the optimization process. Kindly knock it the hell off.

 

Thank you.  I started reading this thread and I am seeing these numbers people are throwing out there.  This lead me to searching through this entire forum, google, etc. to find out why I am not getting the frames these people are seeing.

 

I currently run:

I7 870 @ 3ghz

8GB RAM

2 x SSD in Raid 0

R9 270X (upgraded a few weeks after release of DayZ)

 

AA: Low

Alpha to coverage: disabled

FXAA: Normal

HDR: Low

Ambient occlusion: disabled

Post process: Low

Bloom: Pretty low on the slider

Blur: Off

 

Objects: High

Terrain: High

Clouds: Low

Shadows: Low

 

Texture Detail: Normal

Texture Filtering: High

 

Vsync: Enabled (to eliminate tearing)

 

I ran through the FPS enhancer guide and tweaked the config files, but ended up back to default as they didn't make much of a noticeable difference.

 

Running around outside of cities I see consistent 50-60 fps, if I enter Elektro, Cherno, Svelto or Zeleno I grind down to around 20-25 fps sometimes dipping into the teens.  

 

I had considered that maybe because I am on a Asus Maximus III Extreme P55 mobo that has a PCIE 2.0 slot, the card is saturating the bus, but this is not the case.  In my research I have found through a few articles that even the high end PCIE 3.0 cards will not saturate the 2.0 bus currently.  Before the upgrade to the R9 270X I had the Radeon 5870s in crossfire, and with that setup only one card was used.  The settings were very similar to what I have here with the exception of FXAA set to Low, Texture Detail set to Normal, Objects and Terrain set to Normal.

 

Am I missing something in my settings?  Any thoughts on what I could change to increase performance?  CPU utilization never pegs 100%.

[DarkwaveDomina 1099]

So is it a CPU or a GPU issue?

 

GPU I assume?

I think it's hard to say unless a dev says something, but GPU usage dropping from 99% to 50% for me makes me want to blame GPU optimisation.

[Corto 34]

So is it a CPU or a GPU issue?

 

GPU I assume?

 

It seems like it a little bit of both actually. They are not interacting in the best possible way. It's like if when you enter a city a lot of the rendering workload goes to the CPU (which is not meant for rendering) and the fps drop dramatically. We have all played games with way more polygons/objects on scene than DayZ and the FPS do not go under 60. There is a cvar in BF3 which sends some DX11 calculations either to the CPU or the GPU if one is bottlenecking the other. Before I was able to change my video card to an R9 280x, using that cvar to send those calculations to the CPU gave me a 30 fps boost (yes, that much). So I kind of see how a bad interaction between CPU and GPU can kill performance. They will fix this in time, I'm sure.

Edited February 20, 2014 by Corto

[TheScruffyBandit 382]

So is it a CPU or a GPU issue?

 

GPU I assume?

 

There seems to be a issue with GPUs currently as demonstrated in Darkwave's post earlier in the thread. There may also be an issue with CPU optimization and ineffective Multi-threading, but it seems to me that it's the issue with dropping GPU utilization around towns that's responsible for the worst of the city/town framerate issues.

[Wheunis 228]

So is it a CPU or a GPU issue?

 

GPU I assume?

 

Am I missing something in my settings?  Any thoughts on what I could change to increase performance?  CPU utilization never pegs 100%.

 

Same answer to Both.

The game is HEAVILY unoptimized and raw at the moment.

 

CPU is being overutilized while GPU is being underutilized.

The problem becomes EVEN worse in large cities where the CPU become so overworked, that the GPU starts to fall short on "work to do".

 

All this will rapidly improve over time, as they refine stuff.

 

For now though, the stronger your CPU, the better it will utilize your GPU and you will see less lag.

 

 

Edit-add: just to clarify... windows CPU usage % indicator is a pretty bad indicator of CPU work being done. It does not take into account extra work the CPU does when all the extra registers are not being used. This in DayZ is mostly due to raw code not being specifically detailed for each different instruction set,

Edited February 20, 2014 by Wheunis

[terminal_boy 860]

GPU usage on my GTX 760 drops from 99% to ~50% when I go in to a city that causes a substantial performance hit, and FPS drops to 18-24. I wish I could say that CPU limitation was the problem but at both 3.3GHz and 4GHz my i5 2500k usage never goes over ~70%, mostly on core 0 but never utilising 100% of any core.

 

Saw this at the weekend with my R9 290. I also run a i5 2500K (at 4.3GHz) and never seen high CPU core loading.

 

I actually increased Texture and Detail qualities to Very High and GPU usage went back to a steady 98-100% and now get slightly better frame rates than before at higher graphics settings.

 

Very odd.

[deebz1234 243]

I see absolutely no difference from overclocking my i7 2.67 to 4.0

 

So, I've just reset it in order to keep it cool.

this is a ridiculous statement. Arma, toh, etc engines all rely on CPU heavily.

 

i overclocked from 2.6 to 4.25 and saw +20 fps on dayz mod.

 

am happy playing SA with 30fps cities and 60 fps outside.

consistently.

 

you need a cpu water system if you are overclocking that much.

 

for example an antec khuler 620 is the best on the market for all in one single coolers.

and its only $50

 

my temps are lower overclocked then they were un-overclocked with just a fan

[DarkwaveDomina 1099]

Saw this at the weekend with my R9 290. I also run a i5 2500K (at 4.3GHz) and never seen high CPU core loading.

 

I actually increased Texture and Detail qualities to Very High and GPU usage went back to a steady 98-100% and now get slightly better frame rates than before at higher graphics settings.

 

Very odd.

I might give this a try. Currently I leave my texture/detail settings on high because that seems to be the default when you set the video memory to 2GB.

[Corto 34]

Saw this at the weekend with my R9 290. I also run a i5 2500K (at 4.3GHz) and never seen high CPU core loading.

 

I actually increased Texture and Detail qualities to Very High and GPU usage went back to a steady 98-100% and now get slightly better frame rates than before at higher graphics settings.

 

Very odd.

 

I have read somewhere that increasing settings to high or very high sends stuff to the GPU instead of unloading them to the CPU, thus increasing FPS instead of decreasing them. I haven't honestly tried that, but I will as soon as I can.

Edited February 20, 2014 by Corto

[ChimpyGlassman (DayZ) 51]

Saw this at the weekend with my R9 290. I also run a i5 2500K (at 4.3GHz) and never seen high CPU core loading.

 

I actually increased Texture and Detail qualities to Very High and GPU usage went back to a steady 98-100% and now get slightly better frame rates than before at higher graphics settings.

 

Very odd.

 

My friend Manbearpig87 tells me exactly that!

 

Comepletely counter intuative but I may give that a go tonight.

 

Perhaps more means less, so to speak.

[ChimpyGlassman (DayZ) 51]

this is a ridiculous statement. Arma, toh, etc engines all rely on CPU heavily.

 

i overclocked from 2.6 to 4.25 and saw +20 fps on dayz mod.

 

am happy playing SA with 30fps cities and 60 fps outside.

consistently.

 

you need a cpu water system if you are overclocking that much.

 

for example an antec khuler 620 is the best on the market for all in one single coolers.

and its only $50

 

my temps are lower overclocked then they were un-overclocked with just a fan

 

I have a water cooled CPU...

 

I saw no difference.

[TheScruffyBandit 382]

Am I missing something in my settings?  Any thoughts on what I could change to increase performance?  CPU utilization never pegs 100%.

 

No, you're getting similar framerates to myself and everyone else who shares legitimate FPS information.

 

I often play with a friend who uses a 2500k and GTX760, (the cpu in particular is much faster than my nearly 5 year old 955, their GPU is still faster, but much less so than the difference in CPU performance) and we get almost exactly the same framerates as each other, I rarely fall more than acouple of FPS behind her much more powerful system in the same area.

 

I doubt it's anything to do with hardware, if that were the limiting factor people would be reporting much wider differences in FPS between high end and older systems. I've yet to come across a tweak or setting change that has any real effect on boosting city FPS, so for now I'm afraid we're all going to have to live with low 20s fps in big cities.

[terminal_boy 860]

That's always been the case with the RV Engine, I believe.

 

The odd thing was that I'd previously spent a lot of time getting the best looking DayZ while maintaining a good frame rate with 98-100% GPU load.

 

So seeing frame rates and GPU usage change after the latest patch was just strange.

[DarkwaveDomina 1099]

this is a ridiculous statement. Arma, toh, etc engines all rely on CPU heavily.

 

i overclocked from 2.6 to 4.25 and saw +20 fps on dayz mod.

 

am happy playing SA with 30fps cities and 60 fps outside.

consistently.

 

you need a cpu water system if you are overclocking that much.

 

I have a water cooled CPU...

 

I saw no difference.

Seconded, overclocking my CPU from 3.3 to 4.0 made zero difference to my framerate. I'll try higher, but should have seen something by now if it worked.

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

My friend Manbearpig87 tells me exactly that!

 

Comepletely counter intuative but I may give that a go tonight.

 

Perhaps more means less, so to speak.

Well it seems that lowering graphic detail tends to put everything more onto the CPU than the GPU.  I am not 100% sure if this is the case for the RV engine but if you have a weak CPU and a decent GPU increasing certain details takes the load off of CPU and puts it onto your GPU.

[naraga 45]

Wish I had your problem, my game completely freezes for seconds when im in any town with more than 5 buildings.

[jrussell4402 21]

Some good information going on back and forth here, I don't feel so alone.  I figured it was just the same old same old Alpha line, and we will just have to wait a while for the optimizations to be put in place.  I am going to try the higher detail tonight and see if the load on the GPU increases and frame rates go up.  I should have added to my post that I use the -maxMem=4095 -maxVram=4095 -cpuCount=4 -exThreads=7

 

-maxVram=4095 because I have the Gigabyte R9 270X 4GB card

-cpuCount=4 -exThreads=7 because I have hyper threading enabled on the 4 core i7

 

Also note, in the Catalyst Control Center all graphical settings are set to application specific so that each game manages its own settings rather than forced by the driver set.  I wonder if forcing AA/AF, rendering, detail and buffering would help at all?  Does anyone have any experience with forcing these for DayZ?  I have in the past used these settings to force in game when I ran lower end hardware (disabled and set for performance over quality), but have since stopped doing so within the last few years.

[jrussell4402 21]

Wish I had your problem, my game completely freezes for seconds when im in any town with more than 5 buildings.

What hardware are you running on?

[jrussell4402 21]

My friend Manbearpig87 tells me exactly that!

 

Comepletely counter intuative but I may give that a go tonight.

 

Perhaps more means less, so to speak.

 

Or more means more!

 

When he says texture and detail qualities to Very High, are we speaking of the Texture Detail and Texture Filtering? or do you mean all Rendering, Quality and Textures?

 

Use this link for reference to the in game graphical settings, sorry for it's size, I am borrowing it from another poster on another forum.  If a mod has an issue with this go ahead and delete!