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Serious S10 performance issues on certain maps
suaveks
Member Posts: 1,736 Arc User
There have already been several threads regarding performance issues that started with the release of S10. Some of them refer to ground maps, and others to space maps only.
Personally, I'm experiencing a huge FPS drop across numerous maps, both space and ground. Maps which worked just fine before the release of S10, I might add.
One thread has already mentioned the issues on ground maps. The best examples for me personally are the New Romulus Command, Kassae ground map, or Risa Summer Resort. The FPS drop is major, to the point of being unplayable. On maps such as the Kassae (Kuvah'Mah Episode) turning off "Show High Detail Objects" helps, as it removes all the grass. This does not work on New Romulus nor on Risa, sadly. I've tried turning EVERYTHING in the options menu to the absolute minimum, including the resolution, advanced settings etc. with no effect. The game looks terrible, yet doesn't perform any better than with everything on High.
There have also been reports of FPS drops in space maps, including many patrols. Personally I cannot play the Dyson Adventure Zone anymore because of this, while maps such as Kahless Expanse, Manek System, Zaria System, Raveh System, Argala and many others drop FPS dramatically, mostly when the camera is centered on asteroids or nebulas. Again, I've had no such issues before S10 launched, and many of these maps were running at 60fps even on my old(ish) machine.
As for other info:
- I did update my drivers
- I did reset everything in the graphics, display and advanced options to default and set it again.
- I'm running Win XP Home, DX9, Athlon II X2 240, GeForce GTX 560 Ti, 3,14GB Ram. I've been running STO on this configuration for years now, and maps which I had no issues with have become unplayable with the release of S10 (again, Risa, New Romulus Command, Dyson Sphere etc).
Ok, I get it that my specs aren't high end. I do plan on upgrading soon, but that doesn't change the fact that the game's performance has gone significantly down, and we've had little to no dev attention regarding this issue.
I encourage people who are also experiencing such issues to post it here, with their rigs specs and examples of maps they're having issues with. As not everyone is running STO on a high-end PC this shouldn't be ignored by the devs, especially since this hasn't been an issue before S10.
Personally, I'm experiencing a huge FPS drop across numerous maps, both space and ground. Maps which worked just fine before the release of S10, I might add.
One thread has already mentioned the issues on ground maps. The best examples for me personally are the New Romulus Command, Kassae ground map, or Risa Summer Resort. The FPS drop is major, to the point of being unplayable. On maps such as the Kassae (Kuvah'Mah Episode) turning off "Show High Detail Objects" helps, as it removes all the grass. This does not work on New Romulus nor on Risa, sadly. I've tried turning EVERYTHING in the options menu to the absolute minimum, including the resolution, advanced settings etc. with no effect. The game looks terrible, yet doesn't perform any better than with everything on High.
There have also been reports of FPS drops in space maps, including many patrols. Personally I cannot play the Dyson Adventure Zone anymore because of this, while maps such as Kahless Expanse, Manek System, Zaria System, Raveh System, Argala and many others drop FPS dramatically, mostly when the camera is centered on asteroids or nebulas. Again, I've had no such issues before S10 launched, and many of these maps were running at 60fps even on my old(ish) machine.
As for other info:
- I did update my drivers
- I did reset everything in the graphics, display and advanced options to default and set it again.
- I'm running Win XP Home, DX9, Athlon II X2 240, GeForce GTX 560 Ti, 3,14GB Ram. I've been running STO on this configuration for years now, and maps which I had no issues with have become unplayable with the release of S10 (again, Risa, New Romulus Command, Dyson Sphere etc).
- The only difference I've noticed with this patch is better sector space performance. None of the ground and system space issues were addressed.Resolved an issue that should make an improvement to the lag and drop in FPS some players are experiencing.
Ok, I get it that my specs aren't high end. I do plan on upgrading soon, but that doesn't change the fact that the game's performance has gone significantly down, and we've had little to no dev attention regarding this issue.
I encourage people who are also experiencing such issues to post it here, with their rigs specs and examples of maps they're having issues with. As not everyone is running STO on a high-end PC this shouldn't be ignored by the devs, especially since this hasn't been an issue before S10.
Post edited by suaveks on
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Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
So I have a GTX 760 overclocked, i5 4670k installed on an Republic of gamers motherboard and I never experienced any issues before until now. Only on ground maps so far. Been playing nonstop for the past week or so. Couple ground maps I can name off the top of my head are Kassae IV and Regulus IV. And the map where this talking portal sends you back in time to fix the timeline. Whatever that maps name is.
So my findings are. FPS is usually anywhere between 4-8 on these maps max settings. I found that unchecking Show Detailed Objects in the graphics tab increases the fps in these areas dramatically. Upto 45 definitely playable again. Even then I shouldn't be getting 15 fps drop from my vsync 60 Not going to argue with it though.
New Romulus is still a nightmare for me, running at about 5fps, while before S10 it was running perfectly fine at over 30 on my machine.
As for space maps, I've just done some KDF missions on my Delta Alt. Kahles Expanse and ChoS Nebula I've been playing years ago, even before STO went F2P without issues. Now though I experience a drastic FPS loss on both of them, and they're just examples.
I've heard there's some issues with nebula effects that may be causing this. And yes, many of these maps do have some sort of clouds or particles. Sadly, I can get my display, graphics and advanced options to the absolute minimum, and disable the UI, and the game's performance won't improve at all in these cases...
THIS WAS NOT AN ISSUE BEFORE SEASON 10 LAUNCHED. As such, can we get SOME dev attention here? Any kind of acknowledgment, or look into the case?
GT220 nvidia 1gb vid card
i know it aint so new but heck till s10 pooped out everything worked perfectly for me
devs either dont care or there arent checking at all the forums
at this point i DONT care if i get banned for this
they messed up yet another game
I started playing just before LoR came out and played for a few season after that before having a break. Never experienced a single crash at all. Came back just after season 10 and issues are all over the place. I can fly around in sector space and hang around Sol/New Romulus with out any issues but the moment I am in any kind of combat, crashes to desktop. I can't even complete "Blood of Ancients" as it crashes during the first space combat bit. Tried everything. Only thing I haven't tried is switch my AMD card for a nvidia card not like that would do anything... :mad:
8GB RAM
AMD Radeon HD 7670M (1 GB GDDR5 dedicated) + 2.6GB shared
SATA III HDD (7200 RPM, 150MBps)
I think, this should be enough for _any_ game on minimum graphics.
STO used to run smoothly on *almost* maximum (more resource-intensive settings a tad less than maximum setting - just to save my fan, everything else maxed out)
Before DR, everything was running fairly (25-60 fps), now, i'm dropping below 0.5 fps on some maps (at absolute minimum settings). What is really interesting, that i'm not noticing any change in fan rotation speed, it doesn't go any higher (although it can), so it means that neither the CPU or the GPU is being maxed out.
What I noticed, that when I log in, I see something like Quo'nos shipyards for a brief moment, every time.
This could also be related to fps throttling setting (there is such a setting, but i don't remember it exactly).
Since LoR, I also noticed, that some higher quality settings are pushed down towards the low end. (for example, 2x filtering is now on where there was off - there is no off setting now)
It's possible that as well as doing naughty things with directx on the logo-load screen (that whole CTD on startup bypass with safe mode) thing, they also 'improved' the shaders on some of the maps, hence constant crashes for many in some maps, and extreme fps drops for others.
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life...</b></size></center>
Guess I won't be participating in the event Cryptic wants us to participate so badly, due to this...
It was fine just before the Season 10 update (beamed down to Risa just for the hell of it and performance was great. Now its unplayable.) There's a problem and it needs to be fixed ASAP. Its bad enough that some missions aren't very playable because of it (so far I've found its basically anything with a large amount of plant life, save for the Dyson Ground Battlezone park.)
Expecting a major yearly event to work with these FPS drops is out of the question. This needs to be fixed imminently (if only so we can read the upcoming PR and expect to be able to participate.)
And just for the record
Nvidia GTX 460
AMD Phenom II X6 1045t
8gb DDR3 RAM
Windows 7
Direct X11 enabled
Medium-ish settings
No high detail objects
Trying that now. I don't have any expectations that it'll help but I'd like to eliminate it from the list of possible troubleshooting steps.
Update: nope. Same horrendous framerate drop for certain ground maps on even the lowest settings.
I did also try installing STO on my laptop. On the same settings as my gaming desktop (low while testing this) it doesn't have ground map issues, the framerate on risa is just fine. I'm going to try playing around with my GPU's settings to see if anything is up there (really doubt it) but I suspect cryptic has created some graphics issue which applies to a particular brand of hardware (ex. Nvidia GPU's. Kind of a big one to leave out, cryptic).
Here's my laptop's specs
Intel i5-2430M
Intel integrated graphics
4gb of Ram
Windows 7
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
- Cryptic will keep ignoring the issue at least until the summer event starts
- Once the event launches, more people will suddenly start to report framerate issues on Risa, crying they cannot participate in the event and get their new toy
- It'll take at least several weeks for Cryptic to acknowledge the issue and do something about it
- Meanwhile, THE METRICS will say players show little interest in the summer event, which Cryptic will certainly make a note of, despite the fps issue.
On a serious note, I do not by any means say this is some huge issue affecting the majority of players or configurations, but that doesn't change the fact that people do report framerate issues on numerous maps ever since S10 launched, while Cryptic keeps ignoring the issue. Some people try to point out maps, areas or objects which may impact the performance, but despite that there has been no official reply.
Honestly, I can deal with maps that start to run fine once I disable High Detail Objects, like Kassae ground map, but other MAJOR maps such as Risa Summer Resort or New Romulus Command are downright unplayable REGARDLESS OF THE GRAPHICS SETTING. I'm using the same rig I've been using for years to play STO, I've updated my drivers and tried numerous settings, yet maps which were running fine pre-S10 now drop fps like crazy.
Worst thing is, people with way better machines than mine report similar issues, so I can't even say that I'm tempted to upgrade my rig, because it may very well not solve the problem...
I'll report back with the results of the upgrade (as they pertain to this bug). If it fixes it, cryptic damn well should be able to sort what their issue with Nvdia is.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Update: nope. Same horrendous framerate drop for certain ground maps on even the lowest settings.
I did also try installing STO on my laptop. On the same settings as my gaming desktop (low while testing this) it doesn't have ground map issues, the framerate on risa is just fine. I'm going to try playing around with my GPU's settings to see if anything is up there (really doubt it) but I suspect cryptic has created some graphics issue which applies to a particular brand of hardware (ex. Nvidia GPU's. Kind of a big one to leave out, cryptic).
Well, at least you tried, and now we know.
Yah and I'll definitely post the results of my incidental ATI swap over. Because I've also correlated another maybe-texture-problem (crashing on outskirts) to GPU manufacturer (similarly nvida: problems. intel: no problems) I'm suspecting more and more there's a major environmental graphics problem in STO that only applies to Nvdia hardware which has various symptoms (including death, ie. crashing.)
We shall see in ~40 hours (wish the delivery van god speed).
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
It wont fix it. Its a (inefficient) coding error/flaw, and usually this results in sky-high cpu usage.
Why do you think the game crashes for so many players? Because of an insane amount of programming errors and what not. And programming errors == crash or inflated memory usage/cpu usage.
Probably not (its not why I'm upgrading or why I chose ATI) but when my laptop (with intel integrated GPU) runs fine [lower performance aside] while my desktop (with an nvidia dedicated graphics card) struggles in the same affected scenarios (even when using the same min settings) I'm going to look at this bug as maybe being less than universal.
Its something to look into and I'm incidentally doing just that. I won't bother reporting back on this point if we get something more official (which removes the need for amateur data collection) but given that we haven't I may as well let you guys know what the outcome is. If it definitely is "still the same" then its still good to know.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Same performance bug (factoring out the upgrade). Nvidia and ATI cards are both now confirmed to be affected.
I also played around with the Direct X settings (just to be sure it wasn't a combination of the two) including a verification that direct X is installed and working on my PC and certain ground maps (ex. Risa) still chug away with "inefficient coding.
Update 2 (5/17): same but after a some unconventional troubleshooting steps (at the scale of monkeys trying to reprogram a monoloth) which are probably still worth mentioning.
STO on my laptop is free of this specific glitch (reminder: severe framerate issues on certain ground maps regardless of hardware quality/setting) and unlike my desktop version its an older version of the game (pre-Arc just to provide context). So on the far-off chance that the performance difference correlates with installation (recent versus old), rather than hardware (ATI/Nvidia versus Intel integrated graphics), I went ahead and copied major game files (hoggs, items associated with direct x, anything that could be reasonably copied and pasted) from the unaffected laptop to my affected desktop version of STO. It should be worth noting that a few of the content-holding hogg files were significantly different from one another (fairly large size difference, suggesting different content) but [to no real surprise] there was no effect.
I did notice though that the texture and shader caches are specific to ATI and Intel hardware (obviously suggesting that the underlying systems are also GPU specific). Given that...
1. I couldn't reasonably hope to transfer them (so no fix from franken-filing games together is expected).
2. Those two things seem to be plausible causes of these framerate issues (texturing and/or shading systems),
3. That they [superficially] appear to be one of the more distinctive aspects between system types.
4. That difference correlates to bug symptoms.
...those (specifically non-intel-gpu shaders/texturing) are where I'd bet 10,000 quatloos is the issue (not in too much doubt before but after all this we're minus some alternatives.)
And because there's absolutely nothing that can be done on my end to tweak them, that's where my fiddling ends.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!