I have an FPS problem

[Rhisen]

Hello guys, i posted this here because i have a very big "low FPS" problem, it would be normal if i played on the highest settings but I play on normal and even low or lowest settings, only in "Lowest" it goes acceptably. That's pretty weird because in the same computer I play another MMORPG with very good graphics in normal settings with no problems at all. It's vey annoying having such a good game and not being able to play it right.

Thank you for answering


Good Bye.


PD: Sorry if it's dificult to read, english is not my natural language

[Aiwendil]

http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=37223.msg423443#msg423443

That's normal....


but to be more constructive...try turning of the shadows in the options in game...at least in guild houses this can make a huge difference..and I doubt you will miss the very pretty shadows anyway. Also the adaptive distance setting in the options might be worth looking at.

[weltall]

http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=37223.msg423443#msg423443

That's normal....


but to be more constructive...try turning of the shadows in the options in game...at least in guild houses this can make a huge difference..and I doubt you will miss the very pretty shadows anyway. Also the adaptive distance setting in the options might be worth looking at.

i wonder why you don't profile and gdb it as with way worse hw i've stable 60fp and 0 crashes (2 days uptime without crashing with players moving around - a lot, then i needed to take the laptop with me )

[Rhisen]

Oh I forgot to write my PC information, well it doesn't matter, I tried playing with normal graphics without shadows or grass, it stills goes slow as &%%$, and the game stops almost every five minutes. I haven't tried the adaptative distance option yet.

My graphic card is an: Nvidia GeForce 6150SE nForce 430

Operative system: Windows XP

It's ok if it does not have a solution, i would like to play on Lowest anyway, but it would be better to see the the game like it was meant to be seen.

[Aiwendil]

GForce GTX 280 - I can't complain about slow graphics....Sure, doom3 runs a lot better here but PS is somehow playable at least. The recompiling of the shaders takes some time, but gets better over the time with the shadercache. Too bad that you have to delete the shadercache every few days because it might avoid one of the many crashes an hour.

As far as I remember I said it runs at an acceptable speed on my hardware...But it's not the first post of someone complaining it is far too slow on hardware that isn't really old...neither will it be the last. I got enough people asking for help on how to improve the performance for the 0.5 version.

But that reminds me...another tip how to improve speed..try turning OFF vertex buffer objects in the pslaunch application...even on a nvida card. It can make a huge difference.

And it's nice for you that you don't crash weltall...and makes it easy for a dev to blame all crashes on the faults of others then. It's always the wrong drivers, too old hardware or whatever. Doesn't matter how many people complain...as long as it works for the devs everything must be fine. So is the game only made for the devs? Would make some things much easier for sure. And sure, maybe it is the users fault...but still too many complain to ignore the problem. I don't think I would get away with a "I don't know why it doesn't work in your company..the program I wrote works pretty fine here." Of course I know that the PS team has not the resources to test every imaginable configuration...but ignoring a obvious problem is also not a good solution. One could take it as a chance to see why so many people run in the same problems instead of telling everyone off who addresses the issue. But this thread isn't about the crashes but poor performance...

Profiling and debugging...and then? Posting it in the bugtracker to be told that such things should only be done under the supervision of a "real" PS programmer or that one should join the PS team first before doing something like this...no thanks.

[weltall]

if you know how to do them correctly it's not a problem.
miniguide:
first of all you need a self built and personally i don't see issues with using self built of the version released (same revision of cs and ps as explained in the build channel). Personally i'd be fine even with self built on head provided you know the pitfalls of this and understand that if you cause problems you should cease to use that version or update when the fix for the problem is released.
get oprofile and set it for your kernel (usually not needed and should get it by itself but in case)
opcontrol --reset
opcontrol --start
do what is slow or is taking too much cpu
opcontrol --stop
now opreport --symbols whereiscs/* whereisps/* > result and contact a developer with it except if you are able to figure by yourself the problem and then a bugreport could work too

as for gdb:
gdb ./psclient
run
then make it crash at this point you need a double bt and bt full one with thread (this usually means cs crash) and one without (this usually helps in ps crashes)
to do this you use bt and bt full comands and to get all the threads thread apply all bt and thread apply all bt full
this usually gives enough informations, in case you think something is fishy it could be useful to print various variables.

another thing to point while it's not ignoring the problem without a developer able to reproduce it's not possible to fix problems, if you really want your crash fixed when no one is able to reproduce it you need a developer expert in the area who works with you on finding the cause. you can't ask people unable to reproduce your problems to figure it out, even more if then it ends up being in crystal space in place of ps, actually reducing the number of devs even able to touch it.

an nvidia 6150 is a 5-6 years old low end card not designed for games but for home entertainment so you can't expect it to handle the big shader code which is issued at high levels of shaders, same goes if the card has a low amount of vram. passing data from the system ram to it will be extremely slow. while i agree that probably a texture downscaling would be nice if it was restored this isn't really the problem here
As ps is a game always in development and has been in development for 10 years it has the plague of old art not up to current engine and video cards architecture: slowing down the engine and making it look worse than it is, but having a worse texture doesn't make the rendering time lower so the engine won't show the performance you would expect from that gfx because it's indeed able to deliver more but till someone will have the time to redo hundred of textures with a team of just 10 people the new engine won't for sure provide any slightly nice effect as it should.

[Aiwendil]

Thanks weltall, but profiling PS or running it in a debugger wouldn't be a big issue at all...meaning of course one has an official permission to use a self compiled client on laanx. Would be pretty hard to reproduce some situations alone in NPCroom1 on a private server. Just the "It's not our fault...proof otherwise" attitude of the development team doesn't really help a lot to make people wanting to look into the issues. And even if one still goes through it then the next problem is what to do with the results? Give it to a dev to get into a discussion that lasts longer then the actual acquiring of the results just to point out that there is really a problem? Posting it on the bugracker to have it ignored? Getting told to join the PS team or stop wasting time? You know pretty well how fond I am of the ignorance of the PS team and their constant against-the-players attitude. This won't change...neither side has any interest in changing it at all so sorry, maybe a year ago I would have still went through all this...now I just don't see a point in it anymore. I was stupid enough once to believe that joining the GM team would allow me to support RP. Looking back now I have no clue anymore how I could be that stupid...the GM job description should be more: "Join the PS team and help us keeping players low and force them to go along with whatever we say...oh and to make sure that we have full control over what you say." Come on, the game isn't anything special..never was. It's the players that makes(made) one stay here...at least I think so. Hard for me to believe that anyone is that fond of the game mechanics or the graphics to stay playing for years.

One the bright side...thanks for your personal opinion weltall...this is very rare for a PS team member..and good that you pointed it out...it's sometimes really hard to get if a PS team members speaks for himself or for the whole team as they are expected to.

you can't ask people unable to reproduce your problems to figure it out, even more if then it ends up being in crystal space in place of ps, actually reducing the number of devs even able to touch it.

True for me as I might would have the chance to figure out what's the problem myself. But this isn't a possibility for most "testers" of PS. If you want it this way better make sure that only players are accepted to the game who actually can use gdb and read the sourcecode. And if you really would think this is true then the adding of sending bugreports back to the developers when PS crashes doesn't make much sense. Or was it only added to be able to tell people "You crash in the graphic drivers...not our problem!"?

an nvidia 6150 is a 5-6 years old low end card not designed for games but for home entertainment so you can't expect it to handle the big shader code which is issued at high levels of shaders, same goes if the card has a low amount of vram

In this case it seems to be even worse...as far as I understand it, a 6150SE is a onboard card without any own, fast vram.


And sorry to you Rhisen...I just don't care enough anymore to stay on topic of the thread...but I at least tried to give you some hints. There is a bit more in http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=36503.0...but I guess you also tried that already.

Edit: Typos

[weltall]

linux crash report are useless as we lack the debugging symbols we just get a bunch of psclient@0xdeadbeef as you might imagine we can't figure out things, plus breakpad isn't at the level to give a complete report so gdb and msvc reports still stay at top of the needs: in windows and macosx the maximum we get is the overall loaded dll (libraries) in the binary (dynamically linked) and the backtrace of the function names.
So while many bugs and crashes were identified by this and fixed another series of them remains obscure or not understandeable.

This to retain the importance of the actual backtraces.

as for bsod you've linked too. unfortunately due to how computers work i can only give the fault to the video card manufacturer or the hw it's not a matter of opinion or "we know all you know nothing" but it's how computers works.
As you probably know the infrastructure of an os is based in two parts usually (and this reflects also in any modern cpu architecture): a kernel or hypervisor and user the cpu enter in either modes too. The kernel is what maintains all the contacts with the hw and it's aided by the drivers, in windows services too can run in kernel mode (quite a security flaw but it's how it work). An user mode application should be able to do *ANYTHING* to the system and the system shouldn't crash or bsod or w/e in place the cpu traps illegal attempts and sends the control to the operating system which terminates the application  (segmentation fault/this application attempted an illegal operation/access). The same obviously doesn't happen in case of hw faults or video card drivers fault: nvidia had 3 releases of windows drivers last months which overheated cards and tended to freeze the system or bsod it and it didn't matter how the game was coded. The same happens in the case of ps making the system bsod: even if it's a path not used usually by other games (the most " fixable" situation as you might try another way) it's 100% fault of who produced the driver or the system which is overheating and making hw faults as a driver should never fall to an user mode app. now it's obvious that just like user mode apps kernel mode ones are, as they are both written by humans, able to commit errors. But values sent by the clients claimed the majority of people have drivers from the last year or even of 3 4 years ago. It's obvious where is the problem in these cases.

Personally i consider the correct implementation the NVIDIA one. As they are the ones who always were on edge on opengl and are major contributors to the kronos group (many of their extensions after all became part of the main opengl) so if it works on nvidia cards (provided you have proper shader support => see black environments which are essentially the card unable to handle the shader used by ps) i usually consider it ok. while ATI is well known to have really bad opengl implementations in their closed source drivers (i remember the last ati I had, to run blender on windows i had to substitute some opengl files with the ones shipped by nvidia else blender didn't start at all), opensource drivers in place are as known incomplete and still have a long road to go so I've to consider them unsupported. If you looked at the crash anyway of the graphic drivers the only crash listed are all from ati drivers other cards, yes including intel, are never listed there: what would you think it's your fault or the fault of a producer which for years failed to provide proper drivers and which is exactly the reason why those cards cost less?

[Aiwendil]

I see about the crash reports...how about shipping a binary build with debug symbols those who experience crashes can use? Yes, it will take time to make one that could be used to implement new features but shouldn't be debugging have the same priority?

This whole issue isn't about me...I just don't play anymore and it also wouldn't be a real problem for me to compile my own client with debugging symbols. This is about the ordinary PS player who gets told despite all other games working fine the problem is on his end. It doesn't matter where the real problem is. Sure, it might be on the users end...but other games obviously manage to get around it also. While I understand what you just explained me (in fact was aware of most of this already before) it's nothing you can expect from most users. For them it's just that others games work and PS doesn't..so it must be PS' fault. And telling them that the real problem is in the drivers won't help them a bit if they are already using the latest drivers. Those people come here to get help and all they get is a "We can't do anything, it must be your computer". These posts and bugreports should be a chance to pin down the problem and find a way around it. Saying "But it works fine for all devs" isn't exactly what makes people feel helped so that they stay with PS. If it's not possible to solve the problem from only the infos provided in the bugreports/posts then there maybe should be a strategy to acquire the needed infos that doesn't need the user to be a programmer or at least being proficient with the use of a debugger.

For ATI I have to trust you...not really hard since I always bought nvida cards exactly because of their pretty good openGL support. But that's again the same problem. The ATI drivers are buggy, nothing new. It was like this for years now and I wouldn't expect it to change soon. So there isn't much choice but to work around those bugs or do without the players that have an ATI card. 

Not sure what to say about the open-source drivers. It's understandable that PS doesn't work with them and as long as the closed-source drivers exist as an alternative (Not want to get into an argument that this isn't a really alternative since they are not open source...they exist and can be used. If someone doesn't want to it's his choice) I guess it's fine to demand them for PS...but on the other hand again, seems some games managed to work properly with the open-source drivers also.

The PoV that matters is the target user, not only with programming but everything else - it's obvious cork makers know much more about making corks than you could imagine, but it's no use if when you (who doesn't know better) open their wine bottles the cork breaks in your hand and sinks into the wine just because that where you live humidity rates are else than where the wine is made

Edit: again typos

[RlyDontKnow]

For them it's just that others games work and PS doesn't..so it must be PS' fault. And telling them that the real problem is in the drivers won't help them a bit if they are already using the latest drivers. Those people come here to get help and all they get is a "We can't do anything, it must be your computer".

it's not an "it must be your computer", most of the time it's an *it is* your driver/hardware which is recognizable in the backtrace.
anyway, as for the "other games manage to get around it": other games have a lot more ressources behind it to get rid of such things. the whole engine team(make it ps+cs) is pretty small after all and none works full time on this, so you really cannot expect the same you'd expect from a commercial game(however, that's just my 2 cents).

These posts and bugreports should be a chance to pin down the problem and find a way around it. Saying "But it works fine for all devs" isn't exactly what makes people feel helped so that they stay with PS. If it's not possible to solve the problem from only the infos provided in the bugreports/posts then there maybe should be a strategy to acquire the needed infos that doesn't need the user to be a programmer or at least being proficient with the use of a debugger.

there is such a strategy: answer the questions the developers/testers ask in the reports and if no solution can be found like that, join on irc and discuss it with a dev - just like weltall already outlined it in here.
I already had to close several reports because the users were totally unresponsive and didn't answer even a simple question after over a month.

For ATI I have to trust you...not really hard since I always bought nvida cards exactly because of their pretty good openGL support. But that's again the same problem. The ATI drivers are buggy, nothing new. It was like this for years now and I wouldn't expect it to change soon. So there isn't much choice but to work around those bugs or do without the players that have an ATI card. 

the drivers are improving since a while now, however - true - they won't change overnight. but at least issues are faster resolved than the intel ones

as a little summary:
I really can't strengthen often enough: if you want an issue to be resolved, you have to make a proper report or even better join on irc and directly chat with a dev
it's a lot easier to get the required information that way and tbh: you can count the users actually doing that on one hand - at least from my experiences so far
(that is not counting those joining - asking whether anyone is around and leaving the second after this)