Early game on HBZ server: good and consistant performance across the map (i have never been able to kill so many skulks!),
Late game on HBZ (lots of buildings/players): Performance takes a nose dive, still remains at a more consistent level
So this pretty much confirms what the devs have been saying, occlusion is preventing random drops in fps with an overloaded server being the main barrier to performance. The late game seems a little worse to me but its hard to tell if confirmation bias is at play. I also find that the new animation system makes the game feel a bit smoother and less jittery.
(Im on an upper mid range system; dual core 2.8 intel, GTX 275. I've only got 2gb of ram but memory usage has shunk alot in this release anyway and i've got 756mb of vram. If the games only 32bit doesnt that mean it can only address about 3gb anyway?)
<!--quoteo(post=1887266:date=Nov 27 2011, 11:40 PM:name=player)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (player @ Nov 27 2011, 11:40 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1887266"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Certain new games warrant graphics-driver updates. Rage for example: brand new method of texturing the world, without precedent on such a scale and complexity. NS2 on the other hand, what kind of state-of-the-art technique did it suddenly start to use going from build 187 to 188? Much less one that warrants a bloody BIOS-flash, jesus.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The things I suggested were things to try if you are having bad performance especially input lag. I dont mean every single person should, or need to. They may help some people, they may not. They are worth trying because 1) They are free and 2) Don't take up much time, and could possibly have a good effect of some kind.
Back on topic, it seems as though most people are having good performance with this build, if they are on a good dedicated server. I would suggect people try HBZ, Inversion, #156, Skulkrush or AUS-Pure and see how their performance is.
ArgathorJoin Date: 2011-07-18Member: 110942Members, Squad Five Blue
I think someone should point out the obvious...
We <b>already knew</b> that low server tickrate causes bad client performance.
We <b>already knew</b> that low PC specs cause bad client performance.
A lot of what is being discussed here is completely pointless.
The main issue is that people with good connections, good PC hardware and who got perfectly decent performance last patch have been suffering a <b>horrible</b> decrease in performance since the patch. Luckily mine was fixed with a driver update, others are not so lucky. There well may be several different issues (with different causes) that people are suffering from, but discussing problems that were known many patches ago is not helpful.
Note: Encouraging people to update their motherboard BIOS is irresponsible. Not only is it <b>incredibly</b> unlikely to have anything to do with NS2 problems, but if something (user caused or not) goes wrong during the process it will (for most users) render their PCs inoperable. Let the Devs work out if this is an issue first, then advise people to update, not the other way around.
Performance has increased and decreased with the new patch for me. The strange stuttering when you turn around on serveral points on the map seem now to be away completely through the new occlusion culling. But overall fps have decreased enormous for me.Even when i join the ready room in summit i got 20 fps less. If i stand still as marine i get not more then 30-33 fps.At infights with a skulk some turrents and an armory it goes down to 10-15 fps and sometimes even to 5 fps which makes the game completely unplayable again. Playing as alien gives me about 5 fps more overall. I play on the same server ( HBZ ) which gives me 30 ping in the server list (about 80ms ingame) since months and which is one of the best out there in my eyes.
My specs are decent but not worse:
AMD Phenom 2 X4 955 ATI Radeon HD 4890 4 GB RAM Windows 7
<!--quoteo(post=1887344:date=Nov 28 2011, 07:22 PM:name=Argathor)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Argathor @ Nov 28 2011, 07:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1887344"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think someone should point out the obvious...
We <b>already knew</b> that low server tickrate causes bad client performance.
We <b>already knew</b> that low PC specs cause bad client performance.
A lot of what is being discussed here is completely pointless.
The main issue is that people with good connections, good PC hardware and who got perfectly decent performance last patch have been suffering a <b>horrible</b> decrease in performance since the patch. Luckily mine was fixed with a driver update, others are not so lucky. There well may be several different issues (with different causes) that people are suffering from, but discussing problems that were known many patches ago is not helpful.
Note: Encouraging people to update their motherboard BIOS is irresponsible. Not only is it <b>incredibly</b> unlikely to have anything to do with NS2 problems, but if something (user caused or not) goes wrong during the process it will (for most users) render their PCs inoperable. Let the Devs work out if this is an issue first, then advise people to update, not the other way around.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
May I just mention that anyone with an AMD CPU would be highly advised as BIOS updates continually improve their functionality. That's not irresponsible, that's smart ;)
On topic however I tried AUS-PURE and got around 15FPS max. I'm stumped.
Well, before 188 I could play as marine (my post is comm) and alien on HBZ without having serious issues (but wasnt perfect). After the patch its much worse, its constant lagg, bugs and everything.
<!--quoteo(post=1887351:date=Nov 28 2011, 07:08 PM:name=konata)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (konata @ Nov 28 2011, 07:08 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1887351"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->May I just mention that anyone with an AMD CPU would be highly advised as BIOS updates continually improve their functionality. That's not irresponsible, that's smart ;)
On topic however I tried AUS-PURE and got around 15FPS max. I'm stumped.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A huge magic performance boost because of flashing BIOS for a new patch of a game :) ?
Ok i did it because they were really outdated and also installed newest gfx drivers.
<!--quoteo(post=1887363:date=Nov 28 2011, 09:45 PM:name=Yotopia)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yotopia @ Nov 28 2011, 09:45 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1887363"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->A huge magic performance boost because of flashing BIOS for a new patch of a game :) ?
Ok i did it because they were really outdated and also installed newest gfx drivers.
No change at all.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
When I want to check performance changes after upgrades on my computers I use the steam stress tests. There is one with counter strike source and one with lost coast. This might just be a test of the source engine and I’m comparing apples to aardvarks but both computers do fine. Win7 64 . AMD athlon IIx4 620 2.6g, gforce 8800gt 1g, 6gb mem. CSs 291fps avg. lost coast 120 fps avg. Win 7 64, Intel i5 760 2.8G, Geforce GTX 460 1g, 8g mem. CSs 291fps, Lost coast 239 fps avg. I haven’t tested 188 yet on both but played the amd on a server running tram and the lag was bad. I no longer bother to check r_stats because they’re not much use at this point. I run 20/30 fps on the amd and 30/50 on the intel.
Maybe<u> ALL</u> the playtesters should list what they are testing on, Playtesters should have multiple machines to compare the difference. Are there any Playtesters running dual core or older cards or more than two machines? I don't speak for everyone but My household has four machines that can play just about anything thrown at it albeit some of them struggle but they will do it with some adjustments. The reason I ask this is that all we hear is how great a playtest result was on twitter feed and yet nothing about issues found at patch release.
Please post specs of Playtester Machines and a performance report so we can get a better idea of what to expect from our set-up when a patch releases. Maybe a page on the website with the testing specs to use as reference rather than a forum thread to be lost or derailed (guilty as charged) like this thread.
I think Max's specs were posted a while back and let's just say that's not the type of machine you'd want to be testing on (it's 3 years old or something silly hardware).
AsranielJoin Date: 2002-06-03Member: 724Members, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
What happens in internal playtesting is that we usually have very good servers with a great ping. NS2 performance is HIGHLY sensitive to server tickrate AND ping. If either of those is bad, your client fps will suffer quite a lot. Specially during last release, there was a huge issue with the servers, because valve broke the server update tool. this lead to much less good servers and people had to play on slow servers. This lead to bad client performance.
One way to approach to this is probably to test more on remote servers during playtest. but i can tell you, we are more than busy identifying "real" bugs that are gamebreaking. Searching for this is simply easier on a fast server. But it gets better every release, so i'm very optimistic.
SN.Wolf, go update your drivers, far out. You shouldn't get so uppity when someone says you should patch your drivers, because a lot of the time, that fixes the problem.
It doesn't even take all that long to do, most of the time, nvidia and catalyst control centers detect new patches, download,and install them automatically anyway.
As for bios, if your computer is so old that a bios update is required to improve performance, you might want to consider getting a newer, better computer.
<!--quoteo(post=1887458:date=Nov 29 2011, 12:19 AM:name=Asraniel)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Asraniel @ Nov 29 2011, 12:19 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1887458"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What happens in internal playtesting is that we usually have very good servers with a great ping.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I hosted on my Q6600 Blade server right next to my leg and connected with a 14 ping online and i still get the same performance that I would if I connected to the Chicago servers and I'm on the west coast.
The Q6600 is a very good processor and the ping is low running on a 60Mb connection. If the Q6600 processor can't handle NS2 dedicated server then I might as well give up all hope.
<!--quoteo(post=1887459:date=Nov 29 2011, 12:33 AM:name=Ironsoul)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Ironsoul @ Nov 29 2011, 12:33 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1887459"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->SN.Wolf, go update your drivers, far out. You shouldn't get so uppity when someone says you should patch your drivers, because a lot of the time, that fixes the problem.
It doesn't even take all that long to do, most of the time, nvidia and catalyst control centers detect new patches, download,and install them automatically anyway.
As for bios, if your computer is so old that a bios update is required to improve performance, you might want to consider getting a newer, better computer.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No one was on the uppity up as you say, And to say my PC is OLD......Did you even read the above post's leading to the latest?....my specs are in there more than once.... This PC (X6) was a fresh build in march of this year, my dual core is 6 years old and the playability experience isn't much different between the two. Just to note I only built this PC to run NS2 as the dual core AMD 3800+ ran all my other stuff just fine.
In short, The playability/Performance Has gotten better but not so much to brag about how smooth it is. I Purchased several copies of this game, gifted them out and was told by the recipients the game was not very good even though there are numerous post's about how "smooth it played" during play-tests.
<!--quoteo(post=1887400:date=Nov 28 2011, 07:37 PM:name=SN.Wolf)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SN.Wolf @ Nov 28 2011, 07:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1887400"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Maybe<u> ALL</u> the playtesters should list what they are testing on, Playtesters should have multiple machines to compare the difference. Are there any Playtesters running dual core or older cards or more than two machines?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A lot of us do have a second system to test with, we even use different spec'd servers for testing. Half of the playtesters are running Core2Duo machines, or Core2 quad machines with an average of 2.4Ghz. The other half are running i5 or i7s. We have few AMD CPUs, but they tend to run ok.
My main system: Custom Built Desktop, Core i7 920 2.66Ghz (Overclock when needed), 12GB RAM, GeForce 470 (1.25GB GDDR5)
My second system for testing (much more average): Acer Laptop, Core2Duo 2.2Ghz, 4GB RAM, Geforce 240GT (1GB), 128GB SSD (Win7) & 500GB HDD (Games/Storage).
As you can see, my laptop is the 'average' gaming system according to steam with the exception of the SSD. I often test NS2 with it.
Edit: Just a reminder (again) that this game is still in development. It is a BETA. A <i><b>real</i></b> BETA. The game is not finished and will be optimized in good time. Things are moving much quicker now behind the scenes and we will see both client and server performance improve with time.
my pc hardware Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33 GHz to 2.43 GHz 8 GB RAM Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 OC HDD 1TB and 1.5TB Network connection 3,2 MB/s download 400 kb/s upload My FPS in ns2 20-30-40-50-60 FPS unstable
<!--quoteo(post=1887464:date=Nov 29 2011, 02:24 AM:name=Obraxis)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Obraxis @ Nov 29 2011, 02:24 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1887464"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->My main system: Custom Built Desktop, Core i7 920 2.66Ghz (Overclock when needed), 12GB RAM, GeForce 470 (1.25GB GDDR5)
My second system for testing (much more average): Acer Laptop, Core2Duo 2.2Ghz, 4GB RAM, Geforce 240GT (1GB), 128GB SSD (Win7) & 500GB HDD (Games/Storage).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited November 2011
<!--quoteo(post=1887139:date=Nov 27 2011, 12:54 AM:name=Obraxis)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Obraxis @ Nov 27 2011, 12:54 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1887139"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Try these and let us know if it helps:
1) Update yor BIOS 2) Update your Chipset Drivers. 3) Update Mouse drivers (if USB) 4) Update your Graphics card drivers 5) Go into your GFX driver control panel, create a profile for NS2.exe with all Filtering, AA and Buffering to OFF. 6) Report back here :-)
Some people are going to say steps 1 and 2 should not affect this, but input lag can in fact be caused by slow communication of devices so we must look at all aspects.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
desktop doesnt have the input lag. pretty sure its related to fps, as i noticed i was getting ~ 20fps with the laptop, but my desktop easily never dips below 50.
as for my laptop: newest firmware and drivers for everything as it was my weekend project to clean up the laptop with new install of win7 64 bit etc. that being said, the modded alienware m15x i made years ago is using a 9800m gtx, in which no graphics driver works other than the one provided by alienware (something like 180.63) otherwise its BSOD or no card found. (yes tried mobile driver line from nvidia site, many beta / whql, and even laptopvideo2go.com drivers with and without modded INF. took up an entire day )
so who knows.. that issue throws the experiment out the window especially considering the latest drivers take into account DICE's occlusion culling system and optimizations for it, which UWE is er...modeling theirs after? (Based on previous posts from max, dont know exact differences)
188 is smooth on desktop, with one second hitches occasionally during my own death. specs: (Desktop win7 64) i7 920 OC @ 4.0 with corsair water cooling h60 asus p6x58d premium 6 gb ddr3 @ 1600 evga geforce 570 HD 750 w corsair PSU SSD intel 80 gb 1 tb seagate
Any way this could be graphics card related? It seems that ATI folks are the ones having problems with build 188? I have Nvidia card and game was not playable in 187 due to memory leak problem.
Build 188 is giving me great performance.
i7 840 OC to 3.9GHz 8GB memory Two 480 GTX's in SLi 20 / 20 FIOS Fiber connection
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
I have a pretty hefty setup so my hardware is no where near the NS2 average: Intel i5 2500k (OC'd 4.3GHz) 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM AMD HD 6950 Windows 7 x64 1920x1080 @ high settings, no AA/AF Atmospherics off
However, as shown in <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=114557&view=findpost&p=1886726" target="_blank">this thread</a>, my fps has definitely improved over the course of the beta: BUILD / AVG FPS #1 / AVG FPS #2 162 / 55 / 58 164 / 50 / 51 188 / 63 / 67
That being said, I think people are mistaking performance gains as a strictly linear process (i.e. each patch should gain a little performance). In reality, performance can swing widely from patch to patch (especially after the inclusion of new feature/systems as in B188). However, as you can see from my benchmarking, client fps performance has measurably improved and, although I don't have a way to measure it, I feel server performance has too.
Then playing on a populated summit server (14 players) my frames were considerably worse, ~15 at the start of the game progressing down to 10 as the building count went up, and getting as low as 6-8 in cluttered areas or randomly when moving through some sections of the map. I've come to the conclusion 15 is playable (just), but 10 really isn't. Disregard the weird reported pings, my ping to both servers was around 50-60ms.
<!--quoteo(post=1887946:date=Dec 2 2011, 07:09 AM:name=Destroid)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Destroid @ Dec 2 2011, 07:09 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1887946"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->My performance has gone down somewhat from 187-189. I used to get about 15-20 frames game long, now it starts at 15 and goes down to about 10.
Your problem is your CPU is a MASSIVE bottleneck. Your GPU is actually very good, but you have a Intel Pentium E2180 which uses old architecture tech and has poor bandwidth compared to any of the iX series, even the Core2 series. Mhz or Ghz Speed doesn't equal good CPU performance. Underlying Technology, bandwidth and Cache sizes do.
I have a 2.2Ghz Core2Duo laptop with a slower GFX card than you, and I can run the game at pretty much double your framerate and at a higher resolution.
Comments
Create own server: very good performance ,
Early game on HBZ server: good and consistant performance across the map (i have never been able to kill so many skulks!),
Late game on HBZ (lots of buildings/players): Performance takes a nose dive, still remains at a more consistent level
So this pretty much confirms what the devs have been saying, occlusion is preventing random drops in fps with an overloaded server being the main barrier to performance. The late game seems a little worse to me but its hard to tell if confirmation bias is at play. I also find that the new animation system makes the game feel a bit smoother and less jittery.
(Im on an upper mid range system; dual core 2.8 intel, GTX 275. I've only got 2gb of ram but memory usage has shunk alot in this release anyway and i've got 756mb of vram. If the games only 32bit doesnt that mean it can only address about 3gb anyway?)
The things I suggested were things to try if you are having bad performance especially input lag. I dont mean every single person should, or need to. They may help some people, they may not. They are worth trying because 1) They are free and 2) Don't take up much time, and could possibly have a good effect of some kind.
Back on topic, it seems as though most people are having good performance with this build, if they are on a good dedicated server. I would suggect people try HBZ, Inversion, #156, Skulkrush or AUS-Pure and see how their performance is.
We <b>already knew</b> that low server tickrate causes bad client performance.
We <b>already knew</b> that low PC specs cause bad client performance.
A lot of what is being discussed here is completely pointless.
The main issue is that people with good connections, good PC hardware and who got perfectly decent performance last patch have been suffering a <b>horrible</b> decrease in performance since the patch. Luckily mine was fixed with a driver update, others are not so lucky. There well may be several different issues (with different causes) that people are suffering from, but discussing problems that were known many patches ago is not helpful.
Note: Encouraging people to update their motherboard BIOS is irresponsible. Not only is it <b>incredibly</b> unlikely to have anything to do with NS2 problems, but if something (user caused or not) goes wrong during the process it will (for most users) render their PCs inoperable. Let the Devs work out if this is an issue first, then advise people to update, not the other way around.
The strange stuttering when you turn around on serveral points on the map seem now to be away completely through the new occlusion culling.
But overall fps have decreased enormous for me.Even when i join the ready room in summit i got 20 fps less.
If i stand still as marine i get not more then 30-33 fps.At infights with a skulk some turrents and an armory it goes down to 10-15 fps and sometimes even to 5 fps which makes the game completely unplayable again.
Playing as alien gives me about 5 fps more overall.
I play on the same server ( HBZ ) which gives me 30 ping in the server list (about 80ms ingame) since months and which is one of the best out there in my eyes.
My specs are decent but not worse:
AMD Phenom 2 X4 955
ATI Radeon HD 4890
4 GB RAM
Windows 7
We <b>already knew</b> that low server tickrate causes bad client performance.
We <b>already knew</b> that low PC specs cause bad client performance.
A lot of what is being discussed here is completely pointless.
The main issue is that people with good connections, good PC hardware and who got perfectly decent performance last patch have been suffering a <b>horrible</b> decrease in performance since the patch. Luckily mine was fixed with a driver update, others are not so lucky. There well may be several different issues (with different causes) that people are suffering from, but discussing problems that were known many patches ago is not helpful.
Note: Encouraging people to update their motherboard BIOS is irresponsible. Not only is it <b>incredibly</b> unlikely to have anything to do with NS2 problems, but if something (user caused or not) goes wrong during the process it will (for most users) render their PCs inoperable. Let the Devs work out if this is an issue first, then advise people to update, not the other way around.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
May I just mention that anyone with an AMD CPU would be highly advised as BIOS updates continually improve their functionality. That's not irresponsible, that's smart ;)
On topic however I tried AUS-PURE and got around 15FPS max. I'm stumped.
My setup:
6gb ram
EAH 5870
Q9550
win 7 64 bit
My net is 25mbit dl
On topic however I tried AUS-PURE and got around 15FPS max. I'm stumped.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A huge magic performance boost because of flashing BIOS for a new patch of a game :) ?
Ok i did it because they were really outdated and also installed newest gfx drivers.
No change at all.
HBZ has usually decent 25-30 tick rate through the whole game.
After 1 hour maybe 15-20.
Ok i did it because they were really outdated and also installed newest gfx drivers.
No change at all.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I said to AMD CPU functionality, not to NS2.
Win7 64 . AMD athlon IIx4 620 2.6g, gforce 8800gt 1g, 6gb mem. CSs 291fps avg. lost coast 120 fps avg.
Win 7 64, Intel i5 760 2.8G, Geforce GTX 460 1g, 8g mem. CSs 291fps, Lost coast 239 fps avg.
I haven’t tested 188 yet on both but played the amd on a server running tram and the lag was bad. I no longer bother to check r_stats because they’re not much use at this point. I run 20/30 fps on the amd and 30/50 on the intel.
Please post specs of Playtester Machines and a performance report so we can get a better idea of what to expect from our set-up when a patch releases. Maybe a page on the website with the testing specs to use as reference rather than a forum thread to be lost or derailed (guilty as charged) like this thread.
NS2 performance is HIGHLY sensitive to server tickrate AND ping. If either of those is bad, your client fps will suffer quite a lot. Specially during last release, there was a huge issue with the servers, because valve broke the server update tool. this lead to much less good servers and people had to play on slow servers. This lead to bad client performance.
One way to approach to this is probably to test more on remote servers during playtest. but i can tell you, we are more than busy identifying "real" bugs that are gamebreaking. Searching for this is simply easier on a fast server. But it gets better every release, so i'm very optimistic.
It doesn't even take all that long to do, most of the time, nvidia and catalyst control centers detect new patches, download,and install them automatically anyway.
As for bios, if your computer is so old that a bios update is required to improve performance, you might want to consider getting a newer, better computer.
I hosted on my Q6600 Blade server right next to my leg and connected with a 14 ping online and i still get the same performance that I would if I connected to the Chicago servers and I'm on the west coast.
The Q6600 is a very good processor and the ping is low running on a 60Mb connection. If the Q6600 processor can't handle NS2 dedicated server then I might as well give up all hope.
<!--quoteo(post=1887459:date=Nov 29 2011, 12:33 AM:name=Ironsoul)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Ironsoul @ Nov 29 2011, 12:33 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1887459"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->SN.Wolf, go update your drivers, far out. You shouldn't get so uppity when someone says you should patch your drivers, because a lot of the time, that fixes the problem.
It doesn't even take all that long to do, most of the time, nvidia and catalyst control centers detect new patches, download,and install them automatically anyway.
As for bios, if your computer is so old that a bios update is required to improve performance, you might want to consider getting a newer, better computer.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No one was on the uppity up as you say, And to say my PC is OLD......Did you even read the above post's leading to the latest?....my specs are in there more than once.... This PC (X6) was a fresh build in march of this year, my dual core is 6 years old and the playability experience isn't much different between the two. Just to note I only built this PC to run NS2 as the dual core AMD 3800+ ran all my other stuff just fine.
In short, The playability/Performance Has gotten better but not so much to brag about how smooth it is. I Purchased several copies of this game, gifted them out and was told by the recipients the game was not very good even though there are numerous post's about how "smooth it played" during play-tests.
A lot of us do have a second system to test with, we even use different spec'd servers for testing. Half of the playtesters are running Core2Duo machines, or Core2 quad machines with an average of 2.4Ghz. The other half are running i5 or i7s. We have few AMD CPUs, but they tend to run ok.
My main system:
Custom Built Desktop, Core i7 920 2.66Ghz (Overclock when needed), 12GB RAM, GeForce 470 (1.25GB GDDR5)
My second system for testing (much more average):
Acer Laptop, Core2Duo 2.2Ghz, 4GB RAM, Geforce 240GT (1GB), 128GB SSD (Win7) & 500GB HDD (Games/Storage).
As you can see, my laptop is the 'average' gaming system according to steam with the exception of the SSD. I often test NS2 with it.
Edit: Just a reminder (again) that this game is still in development. It is a BETA. A <i><b>real</i></b> BETA. The game is not finished and will be optimized in good time. Things are moving much quicker now behind the scenes and we will see both client and server performance improve with time.
AMD Phenom II x6 1090t @ 3.6ghz
Corsair Vengeance 16gb ddr3 1333mhz
Gigabyte 560 1gb
Asus Crosshair IV Formula
OCZ Vertex 2E 240gb
the server is running on my root
root hardware
i7 950 3.07 GHz
12 GB RAM
Windows Server 2008 RC2 Enterprise 64-Bit
HDD 2*250 GB Raid 0
Network connection 1 GB/s
my pc hardware
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33 GHz to 2.43 GHz
8 GB RAM
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit
NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 OC
HDD 1TB and 1.5TB
Network connection 3,2 MB/s download 400 kb/s upload
My FPS in ns2 20-30-40-50-60 FPS unstable
Custom Built Desktop, Core i7 920 2.66Ghz (Overclock when needed), 12GB RAM, GeForce 470 (1.25GB GDDR5)
My second system for testing (much more average):
Acer Laptop, Core2Duo 2.2Ghz, 4GB RAM, Geforce 240GT (1GB), 128GB SSD (Win7) & 500GB HDD (Games/Storage).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is exactly what I was asking for,Thank you.
1) Update yor BIOS
2) Update your Chipset Drivers.
3) Update Mouse drivers (if USB)
4) Update your Graphics card drivers
5) Go into your GFX driver control panel, create a profile for NS2.exe with all Filtering, AA and Buffering to OFF.
6) Report back here :-)
Some people are going to say steps 1 and 2 should not affect this, but input lag can in fact be caused by slow communication of devices so we must look at all aspects.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
desktop doesnt have the input lag. pretty sure its related to fps, as i noticed i was getting ~ 20fps with the laptop, but my desktop easily never dips below 50.
as for my laptop:
newest firmware and drivers for everything as it was my weekend project to clean up the laptop with new install of win7 64 bit etc. that being said, the modded alienware m15x i made years ago is using a 9800m gtx, in which no graphics driver works other than the one provided by alienware (something like 180.63) otherwise its BSOD or no card found. (yes tried mobile driver line from nvidia site, many beta / whql, and even laptopvideo2go.com drivers with and without modded INF. took up an entire day )
so who knows.. that issue throws the experiment out the window
especially considering the latest drivers take into account DICE's occlusion culling system and optimizations for it, which UWE is er...modeling theirs after? (Based on previous posts from max, dont know exact differences)
188 is smooth on desktop, with one second hitches occasionally during my own death.
specs:
(Desktop win7 64)
i7 920 OC @ 4.0 with corsair water cooling h60
asus p6x58d premium
6 gb ddr3 @ 1600
evga geforce 570 HD
750 w corsair PSU
SSD intel 80 gb
1 tb seagate
(laptop win7 64)
alienware m15x
intel core duo @ 2.67
geforce 9800m gtx
4 gb ram
Build 188 is giving me great performance.
i7 840 OC to 3.9GHz
8GB memory
Two 480 GTX's in SLi
20 / 20 FIOS Fiber connection
Intel i5 2500k (OC'd 4.3GHz)
4GB DDR3 1333 RAM
AMD HD 6950
Windows 7 x64
1920x1080 @ high settings, no AA/AF
Atmospherics off
However, as shown in <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=114557&view=findpost&p=1886726" target="_blank">this thread</a>, my fps has definitely improved over the course of the beta:
BUILD / AVG FPS #1 / AVG FPS #2
162 / 55 / 58
164 / 50 / 51
188 / 63 / 67
That being said, I think people are mistaking performance gains as a strictly linear process (i.e. each patch should gain a little performance). In reality, performance can swing widely from patch to patch (especially after the inclusion of new feature/systems as in B188). However, as you can see from my benchmarking, client fps performance has measurably improved and, although I don't have a way to measure it, I feel server performance has too.
Intel E2180 Dual core@2.3ghz
AMD HD6850 1gb, catalyst version 11.11
4ghz ram
W7 64bit
Running the game in 1400x1050, medium settings, otherwise default.
Ran a few quick tests, on tram in an empty server I had a pretty solid 20fps.
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/gEEM4.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Then playing on a populated summit server (14 players) my frames were considerably worse, ~15 at the start of the game progressing down to 10 as the building count went up, and getting as low as 6-8 in cluttered areas or randomly when moving through some sections of the map. I've come to the conclusion 15 is playable (just), but 10 really isn't. Disregard the weird reported pings, my ping to both servers was around 50-60ms.
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/ZoyQY.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Also, wow does NS2 use a lot of bandwidth, 20kb/s, that's crazy!
Intel E2180 Dual core@2.3ghz
AMD HD6850 1gb, catalyst version 11.11
4ghz ram
W7 64bit<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Your problem is your CPU is a MASSIVE bottleneck. Your GPU is actually very good, but you have a Intel Pentium E2180 which uses old architecture tech and has poor bandwidth compared to any of the iX series, even the Core2 series. Mhz or Ghz Speed doesn't equal good CPU performance. Underlying Technology, bandwidth and Cache sizes do.
I have a 2.2Ghz Core2Duo laptop with a slower GFX card than you, and I can run the game at pretty much double your framerate and at a higher resolution.