SOE admits issues: Framerate Optimizations

[Shamoox]

In response to feedback that we have received regarding players' framerates, we have looked into performance data and identified some optimizations.....

Read more here:

http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/planetside/Forum8/HTML/005564.html

[rev]

The Microsoft mentality creeps into play with SOE... the only bugs that exist are the bugs that we admit.

heh... Let's hope they admit a few more over the course of the next several weeks.

[Shamoox]

On a lighter note I have achieved 45-60 FPS in large battles with my graphics nailed to max settings... If you are interested I will tell you guys how... if you ask... =)

[Cyrene]

On a lighter note I have achieved 45-60 FPS in large battles with my graphics nailed to max settings... If you are interested I will tell you guys how... if you ask... =)

Ok, I'll bite--How? 8-)

I have been fighting big battle framerate and stuttering issues since the 1.4 patch a week into retail, and am getting very tired of being a ground pounder at times (I was 95% a pilot in beta, and was forced to the ground by the 1.4 patch).

I've tried running in windowed mode--it hurt my framerate a bit, but seemed to improve the stuttering issues (which is the real killer--can't fly in a slide-show) enough for me to re-cert Alley in Mossy--but I'd looooove to get Cat back into the air again, especially with the hot airwar going on right now. As added aggro, it skips too much to gun a Mag properly, which was my second most favorite thing to do in PlanetSide.

For reference, my current config is:

P4 2.66b @ 2.9
1.5 Gb DC DDR on a 875 mobo
ATI 9800 Pro w/ 3.5 Cats
2x WD Raptors in a RAID0 array on the ICH5-R controller
XP Pro

This rig turns over 6,000 3D Marks in 3DMark'03, but only about 15 fps in a hot tower fight with some stuttering and has horrible stuttering/skipping when trying to fly over a hot base (or drive around it fast in a Mag). Since the patch, of course--before that I had no problems.

[Shamoox]

I found a little know fact that XP doesn't cache file reads below a certain size. I found a little tool that let me set read settings which forces XP to read the small files that cause the stuttering and low FPS rates while running around into the systems RAM cache. In other words when you enter a continent the first few minutes you get stutters from small reads (drive has to spin back up and seek)

After the first few minutes Planetside has run out of new files it is requesting for all of the mapping and from that point on playing on the Continent you are experiencing phenominal performance.

I also found a little know issue in SOE's netcode that allows people with slow connections to do shitloads of damage to us people who have fast pipes. To combat the difference I run on Low without any skipping, but pits me on the same footing as everyone else (better than others)

Basically I am not suprised by some dude warping in front of me etc.. I see them all ... all the time...

I may warp to others with big pipes but not on my screen and thats all I care about...

[Cyrene]

I found a little tool that let me set read settings which forces XP to read the small files that cause the stuttering and low FPS rates while running around into the systems RAM cache.

And this tool would be????

As for the other, are you referring to SOE's zero-ping implementation?

[Shamoox]

Yes, I am reffering to that in part but the implementation sucks because people with fast connections are actually the ones who suffer. The normal thought proccess would be Turn it up to get better performance, well in this case it is "turn it down"...

The tool is ... (I dunno its at home I will post it when I get home)

[Cyrene]

The tool is ... (I dunno its at home I will post it when I get home)

I shall wait with bated breath.

If I had had tuna for lunch, I could wait with baited breath, but since I had some ancient beef stew I found lurking in my fridge, it will have to be the beefy bated version.

This announcement by SOE, by the way, fills me with dread. I went and looked at the patch history, and it was actually the 1.2 patch that trashed my gameplay. Those patch noted included this entry:

"4) A large optimization to the way we process objects has been made. This should significantly improve framerate when near facilities and large battles."

I'm afraid any more "optimization" by SOE will make the entire game unplayable for me...

[Rahl]

They will get it right one day. UT2003 went from performing like crap on most machines to performing utterly horrible, then it got better, then it got great.

Maybe SOE is going for that path.

From what I've heard you guys say, and from what Shammox discovered with the disk caching, I would guess that they screwed up texture or wireframe-object caching. Somone probably forgot to include one of the guns, or a particular type of terrain feature in the list of "Things to Cache". So, everytime the game wants to render that object...its gotta grab from disk.

[Shamoox]

XP Smoker is the Application I used among others to tune my system .