Infestation performance issue resolution

private_jokerprivate_joker Join Date: 2012-11-11 Member: 169534Members
Facts:
-very many people are experiencing intermittent performance issues
-these issues are very strongly correlated with the presence of khaara infestation, even with graphics set to "Minimal"

I'm certain that the devs are working on fixing the issue, but for the time being I want to call on the community to come up with some solid workarounds.

FIRST, let's identify what we need to work on. What is infestation? It looks like what's commonly known as texture "decals". I know in the Half-Life engine (GoldSrc) and Source engine, any more than a couple dozen decals would hit performance pretty hard, regardless of your system's power.

If the problem is decals, what do they affect? Is it CPU or GPU? What can we do about that?

Possible workarounds I can imagine:
1. Overclock CPU
2. Somehow recruit GPU to take on some of the load of decal rendering
3. Significantly reduce the number of decals that have to be rendered

Again, I'm calling on the community to help with this. What kind of control do we have?

-Joker

Comments

  • private_jokerprivate_joker Join Date: 2012-11-11 Member: 169534Members
    Great job. Love the effort.

    -Joker
  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    edited November 2012
    The most likely cause for the problem is the game code behind the cysts that are causing issues. The graphics are only causing issues if you are GPU bottlenecked, meaning you're running an underpowered graphics card. Nothing on the NS2 player's end can fix this issue, it is basically up to de devs to somehow optimized the game code for this stuff


    Also what is up with your second post? :D
  • private_jokerprivate_joker Join Date: 2012-11-11 Member: 169534Members
    I'm running a GTX 550, I doubt I'm bottlenecked. The second post was bitter sarcasm, cause nobody replied to me. Incidentally, thank you for your reply. Have we determined that the cysts are actually the problem, and not the infestation? Is there a thread about this?

    -Joker
  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    <!--quoteo(post=2028214:date=Nov 18 2012, 10:41 PM:name=private_joker)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (private_joker @ Nov 18 2012, 10:41 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2028214"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm running a GTX 550, I doubt I'm bottlenecked. The second post was bitter sarcasm, cause nobody replied to me. Incidentally, thank you for your reply. Have we determined that the cysts are actually the problem, and not the infestation? Is there a thread about this?

    -Joker<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    It is known by the devs as a cause of this issue.

    Also props on that second post, it had me confused for a second of you being a bot :P

    "thanks for share" kinda post
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    Its definitely known.
    Though im not sure if its exactly the cause, during a late game (~40 minutes) of spreading infestation everywhere, type cinematics in the console and see what is taking up the majority.. ;)
  • mechtechmechtech Join Date: 2012-11-19 Member: 172376Members
    I was monitoring my CPU/GPU/FPS during recent games, and this is what I discovered:

    My setup is an overclocked GTX480 (GTX 570 performance), i5 750 @ 4.0GhZ, and 8GB RAM.
    I have infestation low, atmospherics/bloom/AA off, textures on high, 1920x1200 res, tex streaming off, multi-core rendering on, and I was getting 25-30 fps in lategame scenarios at times, which I found very unacceptable for even casual play. Drivers are up to date.

    I took a look at my CPU/GPU readout, and the GPU was at 40% utilization while my CPU was at 50% utilization. There's a very serious optimization problem here, over 1/2 of my computer's power was sitting unused while the game was chugging at 25fps. This is exacerbated by creep/tumors.
  • MuckyMcFlyMuckyMcFly Join Date: 2012-03-19 Member: 148982Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
    Wasnt there something about not using multicore correctly hence performace issues, Im not a tech head so could be wrong.
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