Unexpected Low FPS

[Lord Rich]

Hey,

I recently upgraded my desktop pc (as the previous was a 4 years old or so). However I seem to be getting lower FPS than I would have expected.

When I host a game on ruins and set one team to have 200 bots I get about 40 fps. With no bots I get 120 fps solid on full graphics. Further increases in bot numbers result in a linear reduction in fps, 400 bots gets about 20 fps. This is when bots are effectively told to stand still as well.

The in-game graphics options estimate my system should have 95% performance on max graphics. With lowest graphics this goes up to 165%.

System specs:

NVidia GTX560 graphics
AMD Phenom II X4 955 processor (3.2Ghz)
Kingston 6 GB DDR3 ram
Asus M4A88T-M motherboard
Windows 7 home premium 64 bit

Turning graphics down to lowest has practically no effect on fps, I get maybe 10 fps more. When looking directly at all the bots my cpu usage does not rise above 70% (on one core, another remains below 50% and the other two don't seem to be used much) and my gpu usage remains below 20%. I am not maxing out either of these two, ram also is no where near maxed out. Yet my fps is still low, looking away from the bots returns the fps up to about the 100fps region but still doesn't max out.

This video shows that with a comparable system it's perfectly possible to play with good frame rates on good graphics with 5X as many bots. My system is reduced to <10 fps with those numbers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwAvZTOVSsw

I have updated my drivers to the newest version possible, M&B is updated to newest as well.

I have tried reinstalling.

I have tried juggling settings around in every conceivable way to try and find a cause.

I have tried the 2GB ram limit removal and increasing the render buffer size.

I have followed every trace of a suggestion already on these forums, I am honestly at a loss. I can't see any reason why my system should run the game so poorly (unless current drivers are mucked up somehow and need to be fixed), yet I can't seem to find any solution. Obviously the game runs ok for most online scenarios where lower player/bot numbers are involved. However I really feel that the performance should be significantly higher than right now. Is there a bottleneck in my system I am overlooking?

 

[Cez Ser Ykoe]

The same thing seems to happen to me on my BRAND NEW PC. It isnt as good as yours but i should get atleast solid 30 fps in direct x9 on lowest graphics, instead i get 10fps

 

[Lord Rich]

The same thing seems to happen to me on my BRAND NEW PC. It isnt as good as yours but i should get atleast solid 30 fps in direct x9 on lowest graphics, instead i get 10fps

What are your system specs? Maybe there's a problem related to a common piece of hardware in our systems.

 

[Cez Ser Ykoe]

http://www.emachines.com/ec/en/US/content/model/PV.NCW02.001

Full specs there.

 

[Lord Rich]

In your case while your processor should be more than enough and you have enough ram, your graphics card is an on board one, rather than a dedicated card. That may be the bottleneck in your own system.

To see if it is you might want to try downloading GPU-Z, you can monitor your GPU load with that, if its getting up to high percentages that might be the cause.

 

[Caba`drin]

The only thing I have to add at this point is that one shouldn't put much stock, if any, in the game's performance % value. It lets you know that setting things will lower performance, relative to not having that setting, and that is about it. Folks with decent systems can play without problems, despite the screen estimating 50% performance...other than that, Warband isn't the most optimized piece of software, and there are many reports of it running more smoothly on an XP system that was considered good 4 years ago than it does on these newfangled specs you are posting.

 

[Cez Ser Ykoe]

It did run much better on my XP, but that computer is a POS now.

 

[Lord Rich]

The only thing I have to add at this point is that one shouldn't put much stock, if any, in the game's performance % value. It lets you know that setting things will lower performance, relative to not having that setting, and that is about it. Folks with decent systems can play without problems, despite the screen estimating 50% performance...other than that, Warband isn't the most optimized piece of software, and there are many reports of it running more smoothly on an XP system that was considered good 4 years ago than it does on these newfangled specs you are posting.

I never have put much stock in the performance value, there is no way the games developers can account for the performance of every piece of hardware. However the problem with my system as I pointed out in my original post is that firstly other people with comparable hardware get much higher performance than mine. Second that my fps drops yet my hardware isn't being maxed out. My CPU and GPU don't even reach 50% of usage overall. That suggests to me that there is some other bottleneck, most likely in the render calls for players and bots.

 

[Cez Ser Ykoe]

What wattage is your power supply?

 

[Lord Rich]

500W I believe, but I would have expected any issues with that to have shown up more as glitches or stuff not working rather than a general reduction in performance.

 

[Cez Ser Ykoe]

Hmmm, just wondering because my PC is 220 watt. Id upgrade it if the tower had room but it has ABSOLUTELY NONE.

 

[? M]

As far as I can tell the game just runs like **** with a lot of bots even if you have a lot of unused cpu etc. Apparently those people who have large battle sizes also consider 20 fps playable. Sorry.

 

[Cez Ser Ykoe]

Ive seen people recording, while in max graphics and with 500+ bots. There wasnt a single bit of lag.

 

[Lord Rich]

As far as I can tell the game just runs like **** with a lot of bots even if you have a lot of unused cpu etc. Apparently those people who have large battle sizes also consider 20 fps playable. Sorry.

I posted a video in my original post showing someone playing with 1000 bots at above 20fps, while recording as well. The player also was nice enough to post their specs below the video. I have no doubt that practically no one could max out their frame rate with such numbers however it doesn't explain why a comparable system to my own has approximately 10X the performance.

Stuff doesn't just happen for no reason and there is a reason that performance deteriorates while system resources are unused. I just don't happen to know what it is.

 

[? M]

As far as I can tell the game just runs like **** with a lot of bots even if you have a lot of unused cpu etc. Apparently those people who have large battle sizes also consider 20 fps playable. Sorry.

I posted a video in my original post showing someone playing with 1000 bots at above 20fps, while recording as well. The player also was nice enough to post their specs below the video. I have no doubt that practically no one could max out their frame rate with such numbers however it doesn't explain why a comparable system to my own has approximately 10X the performance.

Stuff doesn't just happen for no reason and there is a reason that performance deteriorates while system resources are unused. I just don't happen to know what it is.

The video makes it pretty hard to see his performance because fraps is limiting his in-game fps to the highest multiple of his recording fps (30) it can, so 30. When he's looking at the enemy it seems to be more like 22-25. fraps performance impact isn't much of a factor when the game leaves so much cpu time unused for whatever reason and there isn't much disk access without on-demand texture loading either.

 

[Specialist]

Well, I have a screen res of 1920x1080 with a moderate graphics card. Warband runs fine in DX7, but DX9 always gives me issues (I use the desktop res). I have vista with decent specs, and I can make Warband DX9 work extremely well by lowering my in-game res to 800x600. Try that first...otherwise, get an older computer.

 

[Lord Rich]

Well, I have a screen res of 1920x1080 with a moderate graphics card. Warband runs fine in DX7, but DX9 always gives me issues (I use the desktop res). I have vista with decent specs, and I can make Warband DX9 work extremely well by lowering my in-game res to 800x600. Try that first...otherwise, get an older computer.

Both lower resolutions and DX7 have no effect on the frame rate. I had already tried testing both of them. The fps drop seems completely unaffected by any graphics changes

As I have said before, my general performance is fine, but the game seems to struggle with large numbers of objects where it shouldn't. For instance playing on EU_A_Roleplay server with the persistent world mod, on lowest graphics my system is reduced to 30 fps. That's when there are few people on as well.

There is obviously something at fault here, its not preventing me from playing the game but I want to know what it is and I would like to fix it.