massive slowdowns

[jros83]

playing 1.143 on Steam.

I am experiencing major slowdowns during larger battles. No amount of nerfing my graphics settings and other video related options seems to fix this. I have tried reducing battle size (as I have noticed smaller battles, or after certain numbers of troops are defeated, the problem is gone) from 150 to 100, and that has not helped either (I really don't want to reduce it even less....)

Thing is, my rig is beyond decent.

i7 920
6gigs ram
GTX 580 (I mean come on...)
all drivers up to date

There's no good reason for this freezing up issue.

what to do?

 

[Kleidophoros]

If the freezing goes away when there are less troops on the map then it's probably related to pathfinding thus CPU; not the GPU.
Did you try forcing the game to use one core only? Should be under settings in the launcher.

 

[jros83]

If the freezing goes away when there are less troops on the map then it's probably related to pathfinding thus CPU; not the GPU.
Did you try forcing the game to use one core only? Should be under settings in the launcher.

this seems to have done it. thank you much. I would never have thought to try that.

 

[TuranianGhazi]

But shouldn't "Forcing Single Threading" on a multi core machine like i7 920 and most latest machines reduce performance?

So far, I'm testing it, that option is doing absolutely nothing positive or negative. With that option ticked/checked on, I tested by Ctrl+Alt+Del out to Task Manager, Processes, to M&BW executable, seeing is affinity ... it still was using all 4 cpus, meaning all four threads, not single threading. Therefore, this option seems to not perform as advertised.

What helped me the most were the following tweaks, I think:
1. Setting max refresh rate to 60. It was 120 previously. This alone made my overall map travelling crystal smooth. Jittery and stuttering before.
2. Turning the blood effects off completely. This alone I think is making sure that the initial clash between my army and the other army doesnt send me into the single digits fps zone. Instead, I'm staying comfortably 17+fps and above now, even at the busiest intersection of battle. After that, as units start dying off and getting spread out, back to 30+ and 40+ fps where I want it.

Here's my rig. Dell Studio 1558 laptop.
OS: Windows 7 64-Bit
CPU: Inter Core i5 CPU M 520 @2.40 GHz 2.40GHz (Dual Core processor with 4 threads)
GPU: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 1GB VRAM
(Latest 12.3 driver as of 4/1/2012) Core clock: 750MHz, Memory Clock: 800 MHz
RAM: 4.00 GB (3.86 GB useable)
OC with MSI Afterburner: Just setting fan at 100% from the get go. Keeping stock clocks. Found that raising clocks raises temperature through the roof. This way 3D games stay around 80-84 degrees Celsius, instead of 90+fps when OCed.

I can pretty much run everything maxed out, including 4x AA and high shadows. Estimated performance at 102%. Most of the time its 60 fps. Battles 40-60fps except that initial clash when I'm looking straiht into the thick of things, it gets to 17+fps (with forced threading or not). Before with blood effects on, the initial clash of armies made it crawl into the single digit fps. Yikes! At least I'm avoiding the single digits for the intense battles.

EDIT: Tried with blood back on. No difference. I guess the battle size is the difference. 150 is too high mebbe for my rig, going back to 100 or below 100 perhaps.
I wonder how people with battle sizes higher than 150. I hear a 200 vs. 200 battles. Their fps must dip at the initial first clash.

I'm still tweaking and trying to make M&B: Warband performance better since mods like 1257 AD would no doubt add more strain. So if you have any recent tips please do tell! I've tried nearly every other tweak out there by now (set affinity of cores, priority, VM having at 5934mb)

Best!

 

[jros83]

atually i agree that forcing single threading shouldn't change anything, and if so, it should be a negative change. and in that vein, i should recant on my earlier comment a bit; it only SEEMED like it helped, but it was probably coincidental as I still get slowdowns, only now they are not as frequent, and not every large battle. what's odd is i recall playing WB more than a year ago, on the same rig (different graphics card though) and this never happened.

it may well be an audio coding issue, as it tends to happen when large amounts of troops make their battlecry at the same time. who knows. it's not game breaking so I'm still content.

 

[Lord Rich]

I have this same problem, I believe its to do with your graphics card, I know one other guy with the same series card who has the same issue. Specifically your frame rate goes down pretty much linearly with the number of players/bots. At this point I can't think of anything else to do but wait and hope for new drivers that sort it out, I have tried every conceivable setting within Warband.

 

[jros83]

well just goes to show expensive does not always mean the best lol

(are you SURE he has a 580...?)

 

[TuranianGhazi]

Guys, I'm finding that turning off HDR is helping gain me about 5-10fps more, which is noticeable. My estimated performance went from 109% to 123% with HDR off, so the game is recognizing something there.

So, I'd suggest turning off HDR. It's not such a big graphic improvement I don't think. Besides, for this type of game, I'd much rather have more troops out on the battlefield duking it out, than all of them looking spiffy.

Any other settings which could be turned off without affecting graphics too much to improve performance?

 

[Kleidophoros]

Try ragdolls and number of corpses if you don't need fancy death animations and corpses everywhere.

 

[TuranianGhazi]

Try ragdolls and number of corpses if you don't need fancy death animations and corpses everywhere.

Thanks Kleidophoros. Number of ragdolls and corpses was one of the first things I looked out for. Currently set at 20 ragdolls and 5 corpses, I think. That is lower than average.

Mostly, my game is very stable, 60fps (capped with both VSync and Max Frame Rate settings) on travelling map, 45fps in towns/villages, 30+fps in battles. It's just at the initial clash, it dips into the 24fps zone, which I don't like. I'm mainly battling this sudden fps drop when the initial army clash strikes.

In WF&S, I just ran into an odd fps drop. Several enemy units were routed and were trying to escape the battlefield but glitched - continuously trying to run out of boundary but the battle not ending lol. My fps dropped to a horrendous 15fps ... yeah, this sort of bug never happened in Warband, which seems much more stable than WF&S.

 

[Kleidophoros]

Did you fiddle with "Load Textures on demand"?

 

[TuranianGhazi]

What do you mean by "fiddle"? I have it checked, ticked on. Should I uncheck it and then check it back, to make sure it works?

 

[Fehnor]

What do you think it means?

7.
to touch or manipulate something, as to operate or adjust it; tinker (often followed by with ): You may have to fiddle with the antenna to get a clear picture on the TV.

I kindly removed profanity from this post. I'm like a poster child of goodness. 

 

[Kleidophoros]

I mean turn it on, play the game a bit.
Then turn it off, play some more. So you can see how it affects the game and decide if you want it off or on.
As far as I know having it on means you will get slowdowns when you encounter many agents.

 

[TuranianGhazi]

With it off, I hit 15fps constant lol ... So I guess, with it on, it helps my rig. Very odd that it's the opposite for ya lol

Also, I have Vsync on ... should I get rid of it, since Max Frame Rate is already set anyways? Seems to be redundant, mebbe

 

[Kleidophoros]

Yes, I would get rid of vsync. I don't think it's good for anything.
Yet, after this point it's an experiment of a sort. Turn stuff on, try the game. Turn it back off, note the performance; compare and decide if you need it or not.

 

[TuranianGhazi]

Allrighty, what helped a lot was decreasing the shader model to low and shadows to low.

Testing a large battle, my troop of 338 veterans against the faction's 1045.

Wave 1: Great performance, in battle, lowest was 28fps, mostly 42+fps. Great!
Wave 2: Same good performance. Starts off at 33fps.
Wave 3: SLOW-DOWN. Starts off at 23 fps, dips to 15+fps and stays there, no higher than 24fps. Only if I look away from battle, then its 33fps, but still not even 45, 60fps that was before.

Checked my GPU usage. It was only at 30%. Shouldn't the GPU be more utilized in the thick of battle? Seems to me like a GPU or memory underutilization issue.

Next up, will try Vsync off, doubt it will resolve the decreasing performance slowdown.

 

[TuranianGhazi]

Vsync off helped some, but did not deflect the eventual slowdown by the 2nd or 3rd wave.

Here's a snapshot of what happens:

My GPU temps climb to 90+ degrees Celsius and my GPU usage climbs to nearly 100%. However, the slowdown is associated with when the GPU by itself dips down to 40% utilization and less. I guess this is just pure overheating maybe. I'll look into undervolting perhaps. However, I think it's something else.

What is strange, this only happens with F&S and not with Warband. Meaning that I can have the same large, prolonged battle in Warband and it wouldn't do this. Also, I can run Warband stably with all high settings (100 battle size) etc. So, it's gotta be something else.

EDIT: Just ran a similarly large Warband battle.
GPU temps 84-90, but never near 100 degrees Celsisus like with F&S.
GPU utilization made sense, spiking up to 60 percent and higher for the battles, than dropping down regularly, not always staying high like for F&S.
Yep, now I'm rather baffled about this.