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GTX 460: GPU usage without UI = 99% - with UI = 65%

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
I have made 4 RL photos for you:

they are showing my Logitech G15 LCD display with Everest and FRAPS so i can show Framerate and GPU usage, also a part of the Monitor is included so you can validate if the User Interface is active or not.

For this Test i deactivated Vsync and set the Frame Limiter under the advanced options to OFF.

I am sitting in a pretty much empty exploration map, only a few Asteroids and 2 Ships (including myself) on screen,
so it is not like this would be a fleetaction or PVP map or something that might be heavy on the System.


here are the pictures:

User Interface Active:

86 Frames per Second

GPU usage at 65%


...after ALT + F12 with deactivated UI:

98% GPU usage

139 Framse per Second


WHAT THE ..... !? :mad:




right now i am using a
MSI HAWK NX460GTX.... = Geforce GTX 460 with 1GB ram
Intel Q6600 quadcore @3,1GHz
4GB Ram (STO roughly uses 2GB... that is with windows 7 running in the background...)

dxdiag is attached as x86 and x64 version.


I can accept the argument that the User Interface needs some CPU and GPU power and therefore the frames drop a little...

but it is NO reason for the GPU usage to drop by 35% and stay half idle while the action is onscreen, in reality it should go up because the system has more to do!


Sorry but i just have to ask: is this "The way it's meant to be played (TM)" ?


//ticket nr: #983153

//edit:

it seems to be directly connected to how many icons or UI elements i have on screen, when i open the Inventory GPU usage drops to 50% !!!
I even can see a noticable diffrence by only switching the Powerbar Presets (you get the best frames with preset 3 if anybody wonders, probably because it removes the Bridge Officer hotbar.).
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Z3R0B4NG wrote: »
    Everything he said

    I have the same Nvidia card, game settings turned up to max, running the maximum supported resolution on a 40 inch monitor (1920 x 1080 I think?) and my system/vid card isn't breaking a sweat. I wonder if you have a hardware issue going on on your 460? Also, I had graphic studders when using the 258 series drivers. I am using beta 260.83 driver now and it cleared up a lot of my issues. Might try that?

    My system:
    Intel i7 CPU 2.67 Ghz
    8 GB RAM
    GTX 460/1 GB RAM
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    260.63 drivers are the latest beta drivers
    and i have installed them just before i tested this.

    i am pretty sure that i had the same issue with the GTX 260 that i had before that (it didn't show me the GPU usage in Everest but the frames dropped noticable when opening the inventory.)

    I can't go back much further with the drivers because the card isn't supported that long.
    The shadow flickering seems to be gone with the 260.63.

    i run 1680x1050 with everything pretty high, i just lowered some of the view distance stuff without realy gaining any frames ...no wonder if the real problem is the User Interface.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Z3R0B4NG wrote: »
    I can accept the argument that the User Interface needs some CPU and GPU power and therefore the frames drop a little...

    but it is NO reason for the GPU usage to drop by 35% and stay half idle while the action is onscreen, in reality it should go up because the system has more to do!

    Actually your first line there is the answer to the second. What's happening here is simple enough: the frame rate is being limited by inefficiencies somewhere in rendering the UI. It's not a lack of processing power, but rather that drawing the UI isn't very parallelisable and doesn't use very much of the video card's capacity - it probably happens all on the host CPU - but the frame can't be released until it's finished, so the frame rate drops. Since the GPU is rendering less frames, it has less work to do, so the utilisation (measured over time like your thing is doing) is lower.

    The thing which clinches it is the numbers you posted. 86/139 is 0.61, 65/98 is 0.66. Your GPU usage has increased by almost exactly the same proportion as your frame rate.

    None of this appears to be a problem. Why do you care?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Miiru wrote:
    None of this appears to be a problem. Why do you care?

    you do not realy ask me why i care that my (expensive) hardware isn't properly used?

    your theory would mean that the CPU is slowing down the GPU, which i find hard to believe.
    as you see in the pics the CPU usage is at 34% without UI and 41% with UI so that is only a 7% increase with lots of room to go up.


    Also keep in mind that this is an empty scene, in Fleetactions my frames can easily drop to 20 while my CPU and GPU are pretty much idle, so that is why i care.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Z3R0B4NG wrote: »
    you do not realy ask me why i care that my (expensive) hardware isn't properly used?

    Nothing that is going on here is improper. It's all pretty normal really.
    your theory would mean that the CPU is slowing down the GPU, which i find hard to believe.

    I have no idea why you'd find that hard to believe, because STO is primarily limited by CPU power and not by the GPU.
    Also keep in mind that this is an empty scene, in Fleetactions my frames can easily drop to 20 while my CPU and GPU are pretty much idle, so that is why i care.

    All the evidence you have collected conclusively proves that this loss of frame rate has got nothing to do with drawing the UI. Whatever is causing that, the problem is somewhere else.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    I don't see how you can come to the opposite conclusion with the same evidence, but ok let's play your game and deny that the actual problem is the UI and that it slows down the hole game by a third.

    So what else should i do?

    Throw more Hardware at the Software? :confused:
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    The GPU usage drops when more of the rendered scene is obscured by the UI, which is much simpler to present. Makes sense, actually.

    The framerate, however, is odd, but I'm sure Miiru is correct - increased CPU interaction when the UI is up knocks down the framerate. (Every window probably has its own listener...)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Naevius wrote:
    (Every window probably has its own listener...)

    Actually it's just that they do most of the UI rendering on the CPU, because current GPUs can't do this sort of thing very well.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Z3R0B4NG wrote: »
    I don't see how you can come to the opposite conclusion with the same evidence, but ok let's play your game and deny that the actual problem is the UI and that it slows down the hole game by a third.

    That's probably a false lead - it's capping the framerate to the speed at which the UI can be rendered, not applying a 1/3 slowdown in all circumstances. And 80+fps is a perfectly acceptable mean frame rate.

    Unless performance in busy fleet actions improves when you switch off the UI, it's not related to the actual problem.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Z3R0B4NG .

    chalk it up to a POS engine that has not been optimized. I run a very powerful computer system and I run into the same problems.. I've continued to hit my head off the wall because no one at Cryptic can figure out why people with WAY above recommended system requirements are having issues.

    If the damn engine was actually optimized, it would use a lot more GPU than CPU... or at least give the option to "relieve" the LOL CPU load off and put it more onto the GPU.

    Obviously Nvidia doesn't give a TRIBBLE about STO because the release notes never mention any new optimizations for it.

    There is absolutely no reason why this engine runs the way it does.. hell my FPS drops by 50 when I open the Fleet button to sse if my fleeties are online.. shrug.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Z3R0B4NG wrote: »
    Starbase 24 Fleetaction...

    judge yourself:

    This is just a set of photographs of some SMB status. It gives no indication as to whether there is a performance issue in the game.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    blumonday wrote: »
    If the damn engine was actually optimized, it would use a lot more GPU than CPU... or at least give the option to "relieve" the LOL CPU load off and put it more onto the GPU.

    Short answer: modern GPUs are designed for doing very specific tasks centered around FPS games. They just don't apply well to MMOs. Most of the things Cryptic are doing here cannot be done by a (directx9-era) GPU. UI overlays have always been a performance problem in modern games.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    blumonday wrote: »
    Z3R0B4NG .

    chalk it up to a POS engine that has not been optimized. I run a very powerful computer system and I run into the same problems..

    first response in this thread that acutally makes sense.

    UI overlays have always been a performance problem in modern games

    lol?
    i don't even know what to say to that...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    Sorry to bump this thread I still have issues with slowdown as the Topic Starter is describing.

    Can the devs have a look at stuff?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    Sorry to bump this thread I still have issues with slowdown as the Topic Starter is describing.

    Can the devs have a look at stuff?

    I think it comes under the heading "Devs havn't got a clue". I've been having problems with the UI dropping framerates by up to 50% at some point.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    Flyk wrote:
    I think it comes under the heading "Devs havn't got a clue". I've been having problems with the UI dropping framerates by up to 50% at some point.

    I only get this problem in heavy social areas like ESD and Qo;onos
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    I only get this problem in heavy social areas like ESD and Qo;onos

    I've had it happen in ESD, in orbit around planets in GOB and even just in clusters. Theres definitely a performance hit with the UI up, and it's quite drastic. It's just a lot more noticeable when your framerate is already dropping a bit.

    If you take a 30FPS hit to 90FPS+, you're still over the vsync cap of 60. If you drop to 60 in ESD due to clutter, suddenly a 20-30FPS hit is extremely noticeable.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    I just want to say that I have the same problem, too.
    I have a Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti

    Everytime I try to do a fleet action with a lot of units or go to a station where there are a lot of people, the UI kills my framerate. I use Alt + F12 to turn it off, and I get a massive framerate increase.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    The problem with your setup is your cpu, its bottlenecking your gpu, you should be able to attain a 3.4ghz overclock quite easily with the q6600, even though its 4 years old tech now its still a really good cpu, anyway overclock and this will lessen your bottleneck.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    Dicehunter wrote: »
    The problem with your setup is your cpu, its bottlenecking your gpu, you should be able to attain a 3.4ghz overclock quite easily with the q6600, even though its 4 years old tech now its still a really good cpu, anyway overclock and this will lessen your bottleneck.

    if your talking to me, i made this thread some time ago, i recently upgraded from my Q6600 (@3,1GHz) to a Core i5 2500K @ 4,6GHz

    now i can run the game MUCH better!

    but the fact remains that the UI is the bottleneck in the game engine.
    the lower-end your computer is the more you will notice that framedrop...
    and not everybody has a overclocked high end cpu

    also the best Core i7 is sold as 3,4GHz CPU... 4,6 is not even reachable without overclocking... you can't expect the *casual gamer* to have such Hardware and i can tell you a Q6600 is NOT enough for smooth 60FPS in the busy Zones like ESD or Quonos or in PVP.
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