Holy crud. Backend changes = awesome

sarrafeline
sarrafeline Posts: 152 Arc User
in General Discussion
I'm finally home from work, so I can play a bit, and... Let's just say I'm really shocked. I have a 3 year old middle of the road PC, i5, tons of RAM, GTX 980, and before the update last night, I was getting around 30-40 FPS in just about the quietest parts of the game, and 10-15 FPS in busy areas, 5-10 FPS in W Archo. That's with MAX settings. Stuttering galore, and MSI Afterburner reported that PWI was running in DX8 D3D mode.

Fast forward to tonight. I'm getting a solid 60 FPS, 55 FPS in W Archo, no FSP drops, no lag, no rubberbanding, and everything is just smooth.

This really rocks. [Bear Clapping Smiley cause I can't find it right now]

Comments

  • tek1nig
    tek1nig Posts: 793 Arc User
    I am also running a GTX 980 and was just saying this myself what was actually done back-end that caused this extreme jump in frames? I'm happy but nothing was mentioned in the patch-notes that indicated something like this would occur.

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  • sarrafeline
    sarrafeline Posts: 152 Arc User
    Pre-update, the game was still running in DirectX8. Post-update, it's now running DirectX9. Something in the game engine was either not working, not implemented, or broken, and it's been fixed so now the game renders in DX9, which is more efficient for newer hardware. Though... Video cards are now up to DirectX12, so it's not exactly up to date, by any stretch of the imagination.
  • dblazen1
    dblazen1 Posts: 1,177 Arc User
    >Game runs better apparently
    >After years
    >Not a single mention in notes
    I mean, I get that it's not interesting for the most part of a community, but it'd be nice to know what happened. Are they finally working on that engine?​​
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  • sarrafeline
    sarrafeline Posts: 152 Arc User
    Around 2 years ago, we got a 'big update' that was supposed to update the game engine from DX8 to DX9, and there was a lot of hoopla about it since a lot of people had to install an SDK, which was apparently difficult for some people to figure out (it's since been automated). For a while, the game actually rendered in DX9, then around 6-8 months ago, reverted back to DX8 render mode. I'm not sure what happened, but it's possible that something was broken in the code that disabled DX9 rendering, and the game reverted back to previous rendering, and the content update had a fix, either accidental, or intentional, that restored DX9 rendering.

    Either way, PWI now runs like a dream. I'm still only seeing like 30% of my GPU used, but the game is running at 60 FPS consistently.

    On this note... The VSync feature in the game control panel doesn't seem to actually work. I can run at 60 FPS max settings, but if I turn everything down, it's still locked at 60 FPS, regarless of if VSync is enabled or not in the control panel. This may be a bug, a rendering engine problem, a driver problem, or an intentional 'feature' (in which case... WHY is there a VSync option in the game options?), but... Unless a PWE employee asks the devs, we'll never know.
  • kokoot
    kokoot Posts: 55 Arc User
    I have noticed it when im entering instances. It is like 5 times faster to enter homestead or primal. Please sent the regards to the developers .good job guys !!!
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  • sarrafeline
    sarrafeline Posts: 152 Arc User
    DirectX9 has way better shaders than DX8, so it's not surprising the shadows are better. They're sharper, even out on the world map. Noticed it while doing BQ in the south west part of the world map.
  • kalystconquerer#0876
    kalystconquerer#0876 Posts: 1,421 Perfect World Employee
    I noticed there was some improved performance, but these were not directly mentioned to us in our patchnotes we receive from them. So unless we directly ask them about it, we wouldn't know for sure and speculating about performance would look bad on our end.

    I'll probably toss them a query anyways - I run much higher end computers now at home for me to compare from my years playing on a lower end machine. I hope though users who don't have nearly as souped up machines can still get a good experience!
  • sarrafeline
    sarrafeline Posts: 152 Arc User
    The last video cards that were DirectX 8 and under were brand new around 2006. Unless you have a machine from before then, this should be a big performance boost, regardless of hardware. Basically, anything newer than 2008 or so should see a big performance bump.

    If we were going from DX9 to DX12, then a lot of people would be left out in the cold.

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