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Horrible slowdowns in certain areas

John_Quays

By John_Quays
in TDM Tech Support

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John_Quays

John_Quays

Posted
Posted (edited)

Hey guys, I have a *little* problem lately - my fps are going waaaay down in certain areas, mostly open. I know that D3 engine have certain limitations regarding open areas/long corridors, but with my PC I supposed it wouldn't be a problem:

 

i5 3470 3.2 Ghz

4GB RAM

GF 660 2GB

 

Sadly, in missions like "No Honor Among Thieves" (part 1) and "Lords and Legacy", there's MASSIVE slowdowns in afromentioned open areas. Lowering the options (including "level of detail" to it's lowest) didn't help a thing, fps is "stable" 20. Any other case, it's stable 60 (vsync on). Can you guys help me fix this? :(

 

Oh, and by the way - your mod is the best, honestly. It perfectly matches the mood of the original Thief games - basically Thief 1/2 with T3 graphics (even better)! Thanks a lot :)

 

EDIT: For anyone else who will encounter this, if you have an nvidia card, simply change "power management mode" to "prefer maximum performance". Additionaly you can disable vsync, it helps too.

Edited by John_Quays
nbohr1more

nbohr1more

Posted
Posted

Are you seeing this in the Cave in NHAT?

 

Biker went a little crazy with the stalactites (etc) in there. (I suggested that he either make them LOD entities or set the LOD_BIAS spawnarg on them so they can be disabled...)

 

Are you running the latest version of Lords and Legacy (it was optimized for lower draw calls).

 

Just to be clear, you disabled Post Processing and set the Ambient and Shader options to the lowest settings?

 

Please post your Darkmod.cfg

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

AluminumHaste

AluminumHaste

Posted
Posted

Turn off VSync. Yeah you'll get screen tearing but you won't get massive drops from 60-30-20-15 etc etc. Also if you don't want to turn of vsync, you could try turning on triple buffering for OpenGL.

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

Bikerdude

Bikerdude

Posted
Posted
Biker went a little crazy with the stalactites (etc) in there.

The drawcalls in that location are still within acceptable limits despite the bling and its all visported well, so something else is going on...

bhm_banner.jpg

nbohr1more

nbohr1more

Posted
Posted

Sorry to differ, but every stalactite looks to be shadow-casting which means that z-fill rate is through the roof.

 

Sure, you could make the most detailed model in the world provoke one or two draw calls but if it has that much shadow

detail it's gonna hurt. Plus, the shape those stalactites is the most performance impacting shape... "a long narrow triangle".

 

I'll stop nagging now :)

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

  • 5 months later...
John_Quays

John_Quays

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

Hoooooly jesus.

 

I'm sorry for my archaeological abilites, but after these months, I FINALLY found the solution. I present you...

 

"Power Management Mode", by Nvidia. Bastards set this on "Adaptive" by default on *all* profiles. I simply selected "Prefer maximum performance" and voila - no fps drops at all, null.

 

I'm extremely satisfied and angry at the same time, because I had this PC for nearly 2 years now and always wondered what the heck is with the performance in some games... Gotta check those again, might be an entirely different experience this time.

 

Cheers! :)

 

EDIT: Dang, it seems it didn't disappear completely - I'm still experiencing slowdowns in "No Honor Among Thieves", particularly in first mission at the place with a big tree (I don't know how to call it :P); looking at this tree gives me 20-30 fps at max. It seems rather odd, because "old" places with these slowdowns are not a problem now. I don't know, if it's something with visportals, or maybe just my luck?

Edited by John_Quays
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John_Quays

John_Quays

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Put it as requested. Also, I found the ultimate fix for these additional slowdowns - turning off the vsync option. It pains me, because now I got this horrible tearing and microstuttering (that's the whole other story), but at least it's playable.

Lux

Lux

Posted
Posted

Also of note on Nvidia hardware, you should have 3D setting - "Threaded Optimization" set to OFF on the TDM profile.

John_Quays

John_Quays

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

What are your system specs btw.

 

Intel Core i5 3470 @ 3.20GHz

4GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz

Gigabyte B75M-D3V motherboard

Gigabyte GeForce 660 GTX 2GB

 

Also of note on Nvidia hardware, you should have 3D setting - "Threaded Optimization" set to OFF on the TDM profile.

 

Strangely the game runs faster when it's on "auto", turning this "off" gives me worse performance in certain areas; I didn't try it "on" yet. Strange thing this ID Tech 4 is. :P

Edited by John_Quays
John_Quays

John_Quays

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Hm, thats quite a good mid-spec machine. you should be gettiung massive slowdowns at all save for very large missions. What driver version are you running..?

 

332.21. I'll update them, but I don't think this will change anything. Still, it's worth a shot.

Lux

Lux

Posted
Posted

Strangely the game runs faster when it's on "auto", turning this "off" gives me worse performance in certain areas; I didn't try it "on" yet. Strange thing this ID Tech 4 is. :P

 

Interesting! :) I guess I'll try it ON and see how that goes. There was a bit in the install wiki that mentioned turning it off but it could be something Nvidia has addressed.

John_Quays

John_Quays

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

Aaaaaaaaaaaand... well, you can call me really stupid. Never turned down the LOD setting (well, once - but at the first time and didn't work - because of this "power management mode" thing) and had it on "high". Turned it to "normal" and NO slowdowns at all. Even in the forest in NHAT, where in quite a few places had terrible fps drops even without vsync. Well, I guess this thread is over. :)

 

Btw Bikerdude (and Goldchocobo!), outstanding work!

 

EDIT: Christ, this ride will never going to end :D "Lords & Legacy" lags horribly in few places containing guards with torches, but I guess this is it - turning off vsync on these occasions and living with it. ;)

Edited by John_Quays
rebb

rebb

Posted
Posted

You could also try enabling "Adaptive VSync" in the NVidia Driver options.

That shouldn't halve framerates when dropping below the thresholds like standard VSync does.

SteveL

SteveL

Posted
Posted
Well, I've already figured it out and binded vsync under F1 and F2 buttons - one for enabling, one for disabling. Works like a charm. :)

 

Thanks, that's a tip I'll be using.

 

Those 2 missions you used as test cases do push the boundaries a bit. I drop to 15fps in the cave in NHAT just like I do in water. It's not an action scene so I reckoned that was worth it for the visuals and didn't think anything more of it, but it's good to know that with a bit of tweaking it can be improved. I also always drop to 15fps in water *except* in Melan's missions where I seem to get full fps under water. I haven't yet worked out how he extends his magic to water.

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