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Slow mo , frame rate dive issue found! devs? PART 2 ( Screenshots )

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Slow mo , frame rate dive issue found! devs? PART 2 ( Screenshots )

from Sins Forums
Further on from this
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?aid=175022#1447777

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Main menu start - 47FPS
http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii227/NeilsouthGames/MainMenu1.jpg

Main menu MP/SP more text icons on screen - 25FPS
http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii227/NeilsouthGames/MainMenu2.jpg

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Game screen - New Start - 129FPS
http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii227/NeilsouthGames/Planet1.jpg

Game Screen - New Start + With infocard open - 56FPS
http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii227/NeilsouthGames/Planet2infocard.jpg

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Now this is the part where the frame rates really dive out,i'd hate to have a slow system!

Game Screen lots of units - 93FPS
http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii227/NeilsouthGames/Planetandfleet.jpg

Game Screen lots of units + Coloured message appears - 30FPS
http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii227/NeilsouthGames/Planetandfleetcolouredmessage.jpg

Game Screen lots of units + Coloured message appears + Opened diplomacy window - 25FPS
http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii227/NeilsouthGames/PlanetandfleetcolouredmessageDiplom.jpg

8800GTS 740/1000 ( 1280x1024 ) - VSYNC OFF - Latest Nvidia Drivers - Latest soundcard drivers - Latest EVERYTHING! - XP
technical
34,531 views 67 replies
Reply #26 from Sins Forums Top
Got it here too:

XP, Dual Core P4 3.2 Ghz, nVidia 6800 Ultra. Latest drivers.
Reply #27 from Sins Forums Top
C2D e6400, 8800gts(driver 169.21), 2gb 667mhz ram...20-25 fps (60fps at main menu) :/
Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #29 from Sins Forums Top
Same problem here, Athlon XP 3200+ / 1,5 Gig RAM / 7600GT (driver 169.21) / XP SP2. It's particularly painful on such a slow machine; game runs pretty well without messages on screen but as soon as one appears, it slows to a crawl. Once the message goes away, it speeds up again. Kinda weird.
Reply #30 from Sins Forums Top
I think I'm having the same issue:

I've been playing a few games with friends, and noticed that after the game gets going (lots of combats going on, messages flying from pissed off AI etc) that the game will alternate between phases of 'running great' and stalled.

This is annoying since it takes about 2x as long as it should to get anything done since the game spends between 30 and 50% of time stalled completely.

Reply #31 from Sins Forums Top
Hey all, thanks for the info. We haven't forgotten about this, just haven't had any luck reproducing it yet.

Can somebody confirm for me that it happens when they press ALT with a few planets in the empire tree? (ALT should show the planet names instead of pip groups -> text -> slowdown... in theory)
Reply #32 from Sins Forums Top
Yes, pressing ALT causes slowdown too. However, not when zoomed very far out. Strangely, the notifications at bottom left of the screen ("Ship production at X complete" etc.) don't seem to cause slowdown for me. Also, simply activating the "Show Names" option in User Interface does NOT cause slowdown. However, activating the "Tactical Grid" option DOES cause slowdown.

So... whispers from other races and other text in that area = slowdown; Info cards = slowdown; Diplomacy / Research / Underworld screens = slowdown; Tactical Grid = slowdown; bottom left notifications = no slowdown; Show Names = no slowdown.

Text doesn't seem to be always connected to it. Perhaps it's some kind of overlay or transparency issue. However, why it shows up (and so badly) when only text from whispers is on screen is way beyond me.

A lot of staring at an empty planet while watching processor usage in Task Manager and frame rate in game led to this info. Hope it's useful.
Reply #33 from Sins Forums Top
Ok, thanks Crandaeolon... that is actually quite helpful. I think we're on the right track now. Some of those things are unfixable (for instance, if tactical grid slows down your computer, there likely isn't much we can do about it) but knowing that the slowdown on the AI messages is nothing to do with the actual text rendering is helpful.
Reply #34 from Sins Forums Top
It's probably the message log window overlay activating that causes the slowdown. If your overlays in general take so much CPU time, you can't probably fix that either. :)
Reply #35 from Sins Forums Top
I also get FPS drop under the same conditions and scenarios. That is, when ever text messages are sent by players or ai in game and also when text messages are made via the online lobby system; the greater the amount of text on screen via messaging systems the greater the FPS drop. Like the others this happens even when my gfx settings are set to high, medium or low.
Reply #36 from Sins Forums Top
http://img406.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sinsofasolarempire20080xq8.jpg
This is the one and only place i get slowdowns, i get no slowdowns with infocards, nor with text onscreen ingame. Chat text or text on the planets (i have that text turned on permanently in the user interface options).
Or when holding alt, or when 25 turrets show their radius with alt, nothing :)
Other than that game setup screen (prolly something in the 3d background, not the interface) its always stable at 75fps (vsync)

Core 2 Duo E6600, Gainward 8800gts, 4gb ram, vista 32bit. Unclocked.
Reply #37 from Sins Forums Top

I also get FPS drop under the same conditions and scenarios. That is, when ever text messages are sent by players or ai in game and also when text messages are made via the online lobby system; the greater the amount of text on screen via messaging systems the greater the FPS drop. Like the others this happens even when my gfx settings are set to high, medium or low.
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I've got exactly the same problem : /
It runs perfectly on high (without aa though), but when I hover over any info cards or when there's a message the framerate drops substantially.

Core2Duo E4500, x1950pro running on 7.12 Catalyst, 2gb ram, 32-bit XP.
Reply #38 from Sins Forums Top
If it helps...I notice that there is also slow down in the game main menu's too. There is slow down after selecting single player...the background(behind the alpha blended screen is laggy)...Oddly no lag after that screen(selecting factions etc)or the first main menu.

EDIT : Baleurions screenshot clearly shows the same lag in the single player menu and it only seems to happen in this screen.
Reply #39 from Sins Forums Top
Just tried with 8.1 catalyst.
The FPS dive issue still persists, but the performance gap was kinda reduced. When there's only a one-liner, like the construction finished messages, the dive is hardly noticeable but when there's a lot of text, e.g. the message you get if you make a screenie, and the AI sends you a message it still drops from ~60fps to tedious 10-20 :/
Reply #40 from Sins Forums Top
Greetings!

I also have this problem... Whenever i open something like the research window, whenever an infobox appears, whenever an AI message appears and whenever i have the tactical grid visible etc. etc. i get a serious drop in fps. I tryed changin my graphical settings, i changed nearly anything but it didn't help at all.

I have an old pc:
P4 2,4GHz
1024 MB RAM
Radeon 9800Pro 128MB with Catalyst 8.1 (had 7.3 previously but that had this very same bug too)
DirectX 9.0c - WindowsXP SP2 - SoaSE 1.02 (1.00 is bugged too)

The game basically runs very smoothly under medium settings, but whenever something of the above appears, i drop to like 15FPS.
Reply #41 from Sins Forums Top
Hey folks, I'm happy to report that the excessive frame-rate dive specifically caused by the chat messages (which seems to be the worst for most people) will be fixed in the next patch. Some of the other ones (tactical grid, info card, etc) are expected; optimizations may be done on them later, but they actually require some computation, so they will always cause a speed drop.
Reply #42 from Sins Forums Top
I never noticed any slow down until I updated to the latest Nvidia Beta drivers. I just reverted to the older ones and have yet to have any issue.
Reply #43 from Sins Forums Top
Awsome , thankyou psugar... Nothing worse than getting a severe slowdown just because of some coloured text :)
Reply #44 from Sins Forums Top
\o/ Thanks, guys! Keep up the great work!
Reply #45 from Sins Forums Top
Awesome...thanks.
Reply #48 from Sins Forums Top
Woo hoo thanks! That will help a lot!
Reply #49 from Sins Forums Top
Hey folks, I'm happy to report that the excessive frame-rate dive specifically caused by the chat messages (which seems to be the worst for most people) will be fixed in the next patch.
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Hey Psugar, would that also happen to fix the mass slowdown some people are experiencing on the research screen? There's a thread about that here: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?forumid=408&aid=175396
Reply #50 from Sins Forums Top
Hey folks, I'm happy to report that the excessive frame-rate dive specifically caused by the chat messages (which seems to be the worst for most people) will be fixed in the next patch. Some of the other ones (tactical grid, info card, etc) are expected; optimizations may be done on them later, but they actually require some computation, so they will always cause a speed drop.
End of quote
Thank you!