(0.632) FPS rate issue

[Wanderer]

I can't nail down the cause to this. Every time I think I figured out why I get it, I get the problem and it's not that. Allow me to describe the symptoms.

I play with all video options on, graphics at 50% in the config file, and anti-blue rock setting on (bmp=1).

I can get, on average, 24 fps, rather good for me. It slows heavily during the initial load up, not a big deal, then we're good to go.

Maybe every second or third fight, however, I get a massive lagstorm... whenever the enemy is in my 'viewrange'. They could be on the other side of a hill, but if they're in that direction, I go down to between 5.6 and 7.2 fps. The game chops VERY heavily.

So, I try turning off all my video options. Even restart mount and blade.

Doesn't help worth dang. Same issue pops up every second or third fight. It's a little better, I'm up to 6.3-8.4 fps. Still quite choppy though.

Here are the items I've attempted to disprove as the cause:
-Water Graphics. Can happen when noone's in the water.
-Time of Day (thought this because of shadowing and the like). Dawn, dusk, midnight, doesn't matter.
-Archers (I can't COMPLETELY disprove this one.)
-Thrown items
-All horse, all infantry
-Mixed horse/infantry
-Huge hills/flatlands
-Abnormal amount of trees (don't ask, I swear I ended up in the Black Forest on one of these maps...)
-Enemy using lances
-Friendlies using lances

I just can't nail it down. I'd be more then happy to test anything you recommend, Armagan, as to finding the cause. It seems almost... random.

 

[armagan]

Hi Wanderer,

This looks like one of the knowns issues. It should be (temporarily) fixed by hitting Alt+Enter twice.

 

[Wanderer]

Alt-Enter seems to help, MOST of the time. Thanks for the tip. Occassionally, though, and it seems to be mostly against Mountain Bandits and Khergit Raiders (but not only, Vaegir prisoner train same issue), it absolutely refuses to release.

I've been leaving my video options off as a constant test, and it will happen even when nothing is on. It seems to occur mostly at dawn/dusk battles, but again, I keep getting exceptions to that rule.

 

[Wanderer]

Addendum:

The problem never recurs if I turn off all graphic options before entering the world map on a fresh restart of M&B.

 

[Winslow]

I envy your counts...I never get above 11 fps. I do find it very annoying when it drops to 2 or 3...

 

[XsethikX]

I get the exact same thing. I normally run 100-150 fps on the world map and in town, 70-100 was the usual in battle. But like Wanderer said, ever third or fourth fight frame rates drop to 20 and below. Sometimes as low as 2 or 3. I've even had a .5 fps rate in one instance!

Alt+Enter doesn't seem to work well for me. Any other suggestions?

 

[Wanderer]

Here's what I've found works for me to completely remove the issue:

In the configuration file, set texture_detail to 50, no_dot3_bumpmap = 1.

Before entering the world map, drop your battle slider to JUST below half.

Switch your video options, all of them, to off, again, before restoring the game.

I haven't repeated the every 3rd fight lagstorm since.

 

[Winslow]

What graphics card (or whatever) are you guys using to get that kind of performance? Or is it just something about my computer which causes things to run extremely slow (it's no slow beast...2ghz P4...)

 

[XsethikX]

Another thing I noticed is that this bug only happens on my computer and I don't think this is the only game effected. I remember WoW used to have serious major slow downs. The only way I'd be able to get it to work again was if I restarted the comp.

Also my sound stops working on my computer. Not WMP, nor winamp. The only way to get sound back is to restart. I think this is a bug that has more to do with my computer than the game. I always keep my drivers up to date. It might have something to do with DirectX though.



I have an AMD Atholon 2100+ XP (1.8 ghz), 128 mb Gforce4ti, and 512 DDR ram.

Note that AMD processors are geared towards processing graphics which means it'll run games much faster than Pentium. But Pentium is faster for running applications.

 

[Wanderer]

I run a 1.44 ghz AMD with a GeForce II card.

 

[Fossi]

i also experience this and i run a GF2 too. since it's the GTS version it handles the game pretty well (~50 fps). two further experiences:

- in the laggy fight 'alt-enter' does *not* help. the fps gets better for a second (lower resolution?) and drops as i go back to fullscreen again.

- i get a very heavy lag (5fps) in zendar, but only when i look in the direction of the two market stalls. and it only occures on some times of the day (for example in the morning when you start a new game). i've had times i could run around without a problem.

prolly some feature the engine uses that's not that well-supported by gf2 cards (lighting related?).

 

[etalian]

I tried tons of things such as turning off shadows, DOT3 bumpmaps and other fancy graphics options to get a playable frame rate in large battles. I still get a slideshow framerate even though I have 6600 GT. I think the main issue has to due with sloppy, unoptimized graphics code. My computer runs games like Farcry, Halflife 2 and Doom 3 at 1024*768 with no performance problems and high graphics settings.

It's also interesting that the battles have no load screen. Will most PC FPS the load screen is there since the game engine is caching textures on the harddrive. This means that when you die, your game loads much faster. The current method might be really crude and what programmers call "hacks" (crude, sloppy solutions to coding problem). Or maybe the game engine does not clear out texture memory on the graphics card after a battle leading to terrible performance in later battles. Overall the 3D engine needs to be optimized and clean up to allow much larger battles.

Right now the slide performance in large battles even on modern 3D graphics cards is the main thing that needs to be fixed in Mount&Blade.

 

[Fossi]

just to make it clear, the *bug* we are reporting has nothing to do with general poor performance. i'd rather say the game/engine does pretty well.

- another thing i experienced was that the lag was related to the used skybox/lighting. one afternoon entering zendar is ok, then tabing out and entering again it's all laggy (different light/skybox). i was able to repeat the process.

i made some screenshots to show of the problem. (200k each)

http://mw3d.ath.cx/temp/afternoon_ok.jpg
http://mw3d.ath.cx/temp/afternoon_laggy.jpg

some further shots to show of which region causes the problem:

http://mw3d.ath.cx/temp/view_right_ok.jpg
http://mw3d.ath.cx/temp/view_up_ok.jpg
http://mw3d.ath.cx/temp/view_left_ok.jpg

http://mw3d.ath.cx/temp/another_left_ok.jpg
http://mw3d.ath.cx/temp/another_right_ok.jpg

hope this helps

ps: another ok sky/lighting (evening): http://mw3d.ath.cx/temp/another_ok.jpg

 

[armagan]

Thanks a lot for your detailed feedback Fossi.

Your tests suggests that the laggy behavior comes out in the presence of an overcast sky, and when the halo of the sun is visible. There is a flare effect around the sun, which I suspect is related to the problem. In the next version, I am attaching the flare effect to the "enable particles" option so you'll be able to test it turning that option on and off.

If it is indeed related to the sun flare you should be getting some performance penalty when the sun is visible in other skyboxes (particularly with the dawn skybox, since that one also has pretty stong flare effect), and perhaps also in taverns when the torches are visible.

 

[etalian]

Thanks a lot for your detailed feedback Fossi.

Your tests suggests that the laggy behavior comes out in the presence of an overcast sky, and when the halo of the sun is visible. There is a flare effect around the sun, which I suspect is related to the problem. In the next version, I am attaching the flare effect to the "enable particles" option so you'll be able to test it turning that option on and off.

If it is indeed related to the sun flare you should be getting some performance penalty when the sun is visible in other skyboxes (particularly with the dawn skybox, since that one also has pretty stong flare effect), and perhaps also in taverns when the torches are visible.

You just need to look over the rendering parts of your game engine and try to optimize the code.

Have you tried techniques such as caching textures on the hard drive or other tricks to improve the performance of the game? Are there parts of your 3D code that could be improved or are there visual tricks such as a LOD (level of detail) drop-down to improve performance.

 

[armagan]

etalian: You can be sure that M&B's graphics code is exceptionally well optimized. Your problem seems to stem from the graphics driver.

 

[Cleitan]

Armagan, I was able to replroduce this problem actually. Even though the game runs fine in inns and looking at the sun I have learned that if I using the configuration file were to disable shader effects. I would then get horrible FPS from the sun and from the Inns.

Perhaps there is something wrong with the shader's implementation? Or the option itself, maybe?

 

[armagan]

Uhm... do you get the low FPS when the shaders are enabled or disabled? Can you clear that. It could be quite important.

My hypothesis is that the problem has to do with clamping. The sun halo and torch effects work by adding their color to the underlying color. So if underlying color value is 0.4 and halo color value is 0.3 the color on screen will be 0.4 + 0.3 = 0.7 . But if this value becomes greater than 1 (maximum) it will be clamped to 1 . So if underlying value is 0.8 and halo value 0.5 you will get:
0.8 + 0.5 = 1.3 , but then this will be clamped to 1 .

My guess is that in some graphics drivers/hardware, the clamping is slowing down the system.

 

[etalian]

Uhm... do you get the low FPS when the shaders are enabled or disabled? Can you clear that. It could be quite important.

My hypothesis is that the problem has to do with clamping. The sun halo and torch effects work by adding their color to the underlying color. So if underlying color value is 0.4 and halo color value is 0.3 the color on screen will be 0.4 + 0.3 = 0.7 . But if this value becomes greater than 1 (maximum) it will be clamped to 1 . So if underlying value is 0.8 and halo value 0.5 you will get:
0.8 + 0.5 = 1.3 , but then this will be clamped to 1 .

My guess is that in some graphics drivers/hardware, the clamping is slowing down the system.

Other people have had the same problem with other good 3D cards such as a 9800 Pro. I have a 6600 GT and am using the v66.71 drivers.
Right now slideshow performance issue with modern 3D cards is one the main problems with Mount&Blade in my opinion.

 

[etalian]

A interesting bit of evidence for clamping theory is I got slideshow performance and long load times ub Neverwinter Nights with my previous card (Geforce 2 MX). However when I turned clamping off in the OpenGL options the frame rate and load times improved. This just supports the theory that clamping issues are leading to frame rate issues.

Maybe adding in a clamping options in the video settings would fix the problem or allow people to test the clamping theory.