Low FPS on AMD Cpu's (bottleneck o memory leak)

gaevsman

There is some odd rendering issues, in the FPS area with multicore option in the game, according to my tests, no difference is noted with this option on or off.. (Tested with task manager, and changing core affinity, to force one core, same results)

Before LOR there was a notorious difference, my CPU is an AMD a8, quad core, the game was over the 30 FPS, but after LOR cannot pass the 17-20 FPS, even deactivating all graphical options!

I know its not driver related, because I 'been doing some tests for months, with a lot of computers, and the results are consistent, every time I use a quad core AMD CPU, the frame rate is lower (it used to not be that way).

What i think is that the rendering path for multicore option for AMD CPU's is broken since LOR, as the drop in FPS was notorious then.. and keep on the lower side. Odd enough, before the last 2 patches, the performance improved, with steady 30 FPS or even more, but now we are back to square one.

The computers I'm testing this varies form i3 to i5 and from a8 to a10, with medium to fast graphic cards (8550M to r9 290).

No change in drivers whatsoever (i tested with different drivers for compatibility purposes), and the slow FPS is consistent with AMD CPUs, of course i tried reinstalls, fresh and clean installation of OS, minimal drivers for testing, and download a new copy of STO, deactivated ARC, Windows 8 and Windows 7, even test it on Windows 10 (works fine, BTW).

With this machines, i play Dragon Age Inquisition on medium settings, with steady 30 FPS (too crowded downs to 25 ish...) but its quite smooth, so its not hardware related.

Don't know what to think of it, to be honest, the problem is not killing me, but its annoying anyway.

Any tougths??

hypl

The UI in this game is also a notorious resource hog and is a main factor in FPS drops. Type /fpsgraph 1 in-game then shut off the UI (alt-f12) and see what the difference is. Try it in an instance like Crystalline Entity.

gaevsman

Standing in winter wonderland, an almost empty instance gives me 17 FPS... When it used to give me 30... Two computers with amd cpu's same problem?, one from 2 years ago, the other just buyed yesterday??, and the problem started two patches ago or 3...

I really smell a bug, and a showstopper, btw!

sinn74

Like the person with the awesome signature said. The HUD is awful. I managed to get better results by getting rid of as much of it as possible.

adamkafei

I'm running an 8 core FX series CPU and on the whole I have no issues with FPS, it is hell trying to do anything in Starbase 24 once it gets going and Crystaline Entity has it's moments but I put that down to the graphics engine as my system runs most up to date games on ultra without issue.

If it helps your testing I have everything maxed out in STO.

gaevsman

Thanks, that helps a lot, i need someone who has A8 or A10 Cpus, to see if the problem is present only on notebooks or something.

BTW, i already tested the GUI problem, but as i stated, a few patches ago, there where no problem al all, that why its so odd!

Thanks for the comments guys, you really help

rsoblivion

Well seeing as you are using a multimedia processor for gaming I wouldn't be too surprised as since DR dropped there's been a shader compilation error (message seen at start) that seems to be linked to poor gfx performance on some systems. I know I get sub-standard performance, but I've got a machine that can brute force it to decent FPS most of the time.

However it's not acknowledged by Cryptic at this time.

gaevsman

It could be that error, yes, but even with that, no more than 2 weeks ago, it was working fine!, and im not using the IGP, my PCs have a 8850 and a R7 260, so they are not slow, DA:I 35 FPS medium settings... As i said, the problems begun with the last two patches at least..

Thanks anyway for your input.

BTW, dont know if this has anything to do, but the slow down begun when they incorporated the physx libraries...

bravecatherine

Everytime i open the skills and reputation tab i can hear the titanic violinists playing.:(

Nearer my God to Theehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHsx1cvACkY

gaevsman

bravecatherine wrote: »

Everytime i open the skills and reputation tab i can hear the titanic violinists playing.:(

Nearer my God to Theehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHsx1cvACkY

Oh! the Legendary FPS Reputation Drop!.. yeah, happens all the time, anyway, i need them to acknowledge the bug, so they can check why the massive drop in FPS when there where none before (well, it was present, but not that big), I'm worried because now is notorious, the performance hit is quite big... and the worst part is that i don need to have the inventory open for it to happen!

cncshade

If you think you are gonna be able to run a game that has been upgraded time and time again on your same old hardware.....Think again. I would hope you get out of your denile and upgrade your system. I run everything at 300% and I run at like 70 - 97 fps.....Its your cpu not the game.

rsoblivion

cncshade wrote: »

If you think you are gonna be able to run a game that has been upgraded time and time again on your same old hardware.....Think again. I would hope you get out of your denile and upgrade your system. I run everything at 300% and I run at like 70 - 97 fps.....Its your cpu not the game.

Not at all. I can run STO on my Media machine (AMD Phenom X6 1090T) just fine. CPU's have little in the way of a potential blockage in the system until they hit single threaded game limits. STO is notorious for being poorly optimised on anything.

gaevsman wrote: »

It could be that error, yes, but even with that, no more than 2 weeks ago, it was working fine!, and im not using the IGP, my PCs have a 8850 and a R7 260, so they are not slow, DA:I 35 FPS medium settings... As i said, the problems begun with the last two patches at least..

Thanks anyway for your input.

BTW, dont know if this has anything to do, but the slow down begun when they incorporated the physx libraries...

In that case un-install PhysX and download the latest libraries from nvidia. Install those, restart and start up STO. See if that fixes the FPS issues.

Also try the 14.10 and 14.11 Catalyst drivers. If it was in the last few weeks it could be just a dodgy driver file or an update that is incompatible with STO for whatever reason.

coolheadal

OP you have A8 so you have APU 4/4 as AMD rates it CPU 4 core and GPU 4 core = A8. How much ram did you get with it? 8 GB or does it have 16 GB in there. You do know that the latest AMD driver Omega works much nicer on these APU. I own two AMD APU and three AMD PII X4 but they can't come as close as the APU does.

Before I play STO I run Wise Disk Cleaner 2x times on each feature it offers. Then I use Jet Clean run that until everything read no problem. That also frees up the current RAM.

Since I have 16GB of DDR3 XP RAM I am not using any swap file in this system to slow it down nor drag on HDD.

nicha0

gaevsman wrote: »

i need them to acknowledge the bug, so they can check why the massive drop in FPS when there where none before (well, it was present, but not that big), I'm worried because now is notorious, the performance hit is quite big... and the worst part is that i don need to have the inventory open for it to happen!

Good luck with that one

rsoblivion

coolheadal wrote: »

Before I play STO I run Wise Disk Cleaner 2x times on each feature it offers. Then I use Jet Clean run that until everything read no problem. That also frees up the current RAM.

Not a good idea to use the Wise Cleaner. I've seen what it can do to client's systems, similar to people using CCleaner without knowledge of how dangerous it can be. I really don't recommend using third party "cleaner's" like these.

coolheadal wrote: »

Since I have 16GB of DDR3 XP RAM I am not using any swap file in this system to slow it down nor drag on HDD.

Re-enable your swap file. Windows and many other programs are coded to expect it's existence. In the memory management structure it's use is minimsed the more RAM you have, but if the RAM needs to dump data it uses the swap file (in simplistic terms) as the initial dump, especially if it's going to reload it later. Leave it on Window's managed size or keep it at around 50% of your RAM at least whichever you prefer.

gaevsman

Thaks for all the suggestions, already done those, and yes 16 GB, no problem, and if i can play Frosbyte 3 games at medium settings and runs ok, is an engine problem, as i reinstaled everything clean before postin, as i said, i been doing tests since las week, always assuming it was a problem from my end, on teo computers, the last one new...

Anyway, thanks, i discarded the idea of physx, as i installed the latest drivers, problem persist, and STO installs his own in the directory, that are ver.3 from the sdk.

A little backgroud of me, im a Microsoft Certified Professional, on Server and Desktop OS, and also worked in a game development company, as a programer, QA, and support, so kind of i know what im doing, for the last 20 years (im 40 now).

It seems that the problem is software related, and from a few weeks ago, as it was not present before. They can add new effects and stuf, but is impossible tath DISABLIG EVERYTHING, the sistem still performs lower, when it used not to be that way.

Its not unplayable yet, what worries me is that if they dont solve this, the problem will affect the mayority of the player base as slowly but steady, the game is loosing more and more performance with every patch.

They need to check whats wrong with it, before some of us stop playing (My family and i buys a lot)
Because the game has become unplayable on rigs that actually plays every other game fast