Problem with eye candy

[Entropy]

I finally got to test the eye candy client, and we have a problem with it: the fire alone will decrease the FPS by 30% (31 FPS at beam without eye candy, 20 with).

When there are other effects happening (people beaming, healings and stuff like that) it can drop to 10 FPS.

I have a very powerful CPU, AMD X2 4600+ (2.4 ghz), and a pretty powerful video card GF 7300 GS, 512 RAM.

Most of the players don't have such a system, and I can imagine that they will be even more affected by this.

My primary concern is in fight, where a lot of spells are cast. If the frame rate drops too low, fighting will become frustrating, and many players will turn off the eye candy.

 

Is there any way to optimize those things? Or reduce the particle or something? And I don't mean dynamic reduction, I mean in the config file/config menu somewhere.

 

Thanks

[Alia]

I finally got to test the eye candy client, and we have a problem with it: the fire alone will decrease the FPS by 30% (31 FPS at beam without eye candy, 20 with).

When there are other effects happening (people beaming, healings and stuff like that) it can drop to 10 FPS.

I have a very powerful CPU, AMD X2 4600+ (2.4 ghz), and a pretty powerful video card GF 7300 GS, 512 RAM.

Most of the players don't have such a system, and I can imagine that they will be even more affected by this.

My primary concern is in fight, where a lot of spells are cast. If the frame rate drops too low, fighting will become frustrating, and many players will turn off the eye candy.

 

I use the same video card and a bit slower CPU. I limit fps to 30 and it remains about 27-28 all the time I play with eye candy.

The only place (that i've found) where my fps drop to 20 is certain angles at certain points in portal rooms.

 

Maybe problem is with your configuration / drivers?

[ttlanhil]

while I agree that the eye-candy can slow down a system... I'm boggling at your FPS

my CPU is probably a bit faster than yours, and my vid card older, and uncapped I get 200-250 FPS in EL, depending on what's happening (I prefer the look of about 25 FPS, though, so it's usually capped)...

perhaps there's some other problem you should fix first

 

as foe EC being slow, karen has been working with the parts that slow it down a lot (when there are reports of what parts are slow, etc), so most of the time the effects don't cause much of an increase in CPU demand (at least here)

there is a particle percentage option in el.ini, although I don't know how much effect it will have on eye-candy (if not much, then it's probably something karen could use)

[Tanyia]

I went from 31 FPS to 10-13 with the beam campfire turned on. I have an NVidia GeForce 4. I have a 2.67GHz processor.

 

More info: While at beam, whenever another effect happens, my FPS drops temporarily to about 6. At some point today, I'll go test a fight and see what happens.

 

Hm. The harvesting effects don't seem to cause too many troubles, but this may be because there are no other players nearby. Spell effects cause my FPS to drop into the single digits, about 2-6.

 

Hope this is helpful Let me know if there is something I can play around with to help test this.

 

Note: I can't test the shadowmapping, my graphics card doesn't support it.

 

More info: Fountains kill me. Down to 1-3 FPS when I'm within range (maybe 3-4 screen lengths, if you know what I mean) of them. Checked for PV and WSC.

Edited April 26, 2007 by Tanyia

[Entropy]

Ok, some more info about my tests:

I use the old objects format.

Frame Buffer on.

Shadow map size, 2048x2048

Windowed mode, 1024x768, 32bpp

Testing at the beam.

Old client with the same settings give 30-31 FPS

New client with the eye candy option turned off, same FPS

New client with the eye candy on, no fire, same FPS.

New client with the eye candy on, fire, 20 FPS.

 

So can you guys test at beam with the frame buffer support on and a 2048 shadow map size?

[Beaverhunter]

Yes, effects/eye candy/good looks comes with a price, most of the time, as KarenRei has mentioned many times.

 

1. Eye candy is enable/disable feature. Low end systems can turn it off.

2. Eye candy system is suppose to adjust its LOD (Level of detail) based opon what FPS your getting on your system.

3. KarenRei seems to be working on improving this system.

4. I myself had to buy a new computer to be able to even run EL, I had 2.2ghz Celeron, GF FX5600. So I'm amazed that some of you can run it at all.

 

(5. I now run at 75 FPS all times;D (including at fires and with 4096x4096 sized shadow map also FPS limited by VSync 75hz )

 

Conclusion: KarenRei seems to be working on it + 50 other things.

Edited April 25, 2007 by Beaverhunter

[Entropy]

Well, ideally we should NOT have people buy new computers just for that.

One other problem is that disabling the eye candy also disables the already existing special effects, so someone that has to turn them off will see no particles whatsoever.

 

Now, I understand that all those particles come at a price, but a 30% speed reduction for a fire alone seems to be a little too much..

 

How many particles are in that fire? Maybe we can get rid of some of the smoke, or reduce their life period so the fire won't be so high, which means less particles, resulting in a higher FPS.

 

(5. I now run at 75 FPS all times;D (including at fires and with 4096x4096 sized shadow map )

You got to be kidding me...

[Beaverhunter]

Yes, of course, but I just meant that sometimes with the current technology we can choose from limit ourself to old techniques or we can go further and others have to follow. The user has to make a choice aswell, but I'm fully aware of your goal of keeping a wide spectrum of players, poor and rich, new to computers and gurus.

 

Yes, the system has to adjust in better ways as I said, ideal would be to be able to set a fixed LOD level, that user can change in options.

 

We got to reduce the particles in fire effect yes, the smoke is FAR too thick, it gives FPS drops and bad looks.

 

Sorry, but 75 FPS limited by VSync at 75hz=D Using Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2,4ghz, 2048MB 800mhz DDR2, Geforce 8800GTS. But I'm aware of that everyone cannot go and buy these...

[Entropy]

Oh, Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2,4ghz, Geforce 8800GTS

That would explain it

But that's a high end video card, and very few people have something like that (yet).

 

I think most of the players have the equivalent of your older computer or less, so we need to keep the game playable and enjoyable for them as well.

 

Our policy has always been to exploit the expensive hardware as much as we can, BUT keep the game compatible with the older hardware.

So in this case, the player has to chose between the nice looking SFX, or, if they don't have the hardware for it, they'd lose the things they already have (the old particle systems).

[Alia]

Ok, some more info about my tests:

I use the old objects format.

Frame Buffer on.

Shadow map size, 2048x2048

Windowed mode, 1024x768, 32bpp

Testing at the beam.

Old client with the same settings give 30-31 FPS

New client with the eye candy option turned off, same FPS

New client with the eye candy on, no fire, same FPS.

New client with the eye candy on, fire, 20 FPS.

 

So can you guys test at beam with the frame buffer support on and a 2048 shadow map size?

 

Yes, fire gives 20 fps for me too, when I have max zoom in and almost no effect in max zoom out.

It seems that bottle neck is CPU for me.

[peeper :)]

yes i've gone from 200-250 FPS to 5-30 at beam

[Entropy]

I suggest this test:

Comment out the OpenGL calls from the particles, and let's see how much the FPS drops, to see if it's a CPU or GPU issue.

[Alia]

We got to reduce the particles in fire effect yes, the smoke is FAR too thick, it gives FPS drops and bad looks.

 

I changed smoke particle rate to 5% instead of 16% (as in cvs):

1. Fire looks much better (at least for me

2. FPS remains the same, it doesnt drop to 20

[shanglo]

Could sombody post the link to dowload this client please?

Also i am running a 7600GT getting 60-61 fps, and 4096 shadow mapping, so i would like to see what the fire does to that.

[Entropy]

There is no link yet, there will be a RC soon, maybe in a week or so.

 

I changed smoke particle rate to 5% instead of 16% (as in cvs):

1. Fire looks much better (at least for me

2. FPS remains the same, it doesnt drop to 20

 

Can you post a screenshot?

[Alia]

Can you post a screenshot?

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/slava.pimenov/...468322954604850

http://picasaweb.google.com/slava.pimenov/...468322954604834

 

You can modify line about 224 in effect_camfire.cpp yourself to find out best smoke percentage.

[LabRat]

How about allowing the particles to have an adjustable percentage in one of the (admittedly overcrowded) option window tabs, to adjust the settings to your system capabilities?

 

I don't mean allow 100%, but 100% of the figure Karen has decided on (eg 100% of 15%=15%, 50% of 15%=7.5% etc).

 

The code would be a piece of cake, one global variable would take care of it.

 

I never noticed before (I wasn't watching for it) but my system loses 100FPS+ when a cavern wall hits me

[The_Piper]

Hm, not sure if this is the right place, but well.

 

I am using the CVS client from yesterday and i cant see burning fires anymore.

 

Using a CVS client which is maybe 4-5 weeks old, i can see burning fires.

 

I have a folder, EternalLandsTest. In that folder are 2 clients, elc (the 4-5 weeks old cvs client) and elc.new (the cvs client from yesterday). Using elc, i can see the campfire at beam burning, using elc.new, i cant.

 

Am i doing something wrong or does the new client has a problem?

 

Piper

[Entropy]

How about allowing the particles to have an adjustable percentage in one of the (admittedly overcrowded) option window tabs, to adjust the settings to your system capabilities?

 

I don't mean allow 100%, but 100% of the figure Karen has decided on (eg 100% of 15%=15%, 50% of 15%=7.5% etc).

 

The code would be a piece of cake, one global variable would take care of it.

 

I never noticed before (I wasn't watching for it) but my system loses 100FPS+ when a cavern wall hits me

 

This is overkill.

We need one dialog box thingy with 2 or 3 options: Particles: low/high and possibly medium.

[Sayre]

My big problem spots are at beam when the fire is going, and then watching people cast remote heal, or when people beam in, I go from capped 40fps down to around 5 when it happens

 

and the c2 portals room makes my computer want to cry

 

One other problem, to do with the eye candy toggle in settings. turning eyecandy off seems to turn off all the effects. I turned off eye candy at the ip fire, and the fire wasnt there any more, not even the old non-eye candy one. turned eye candy back on and the eye-candified fire was back.

 

S.

[Aislinn]

Hm, not sure if this is the right place, but well.

 

I am using the CVS client from yesterday and i cant see burning fires anymore.

 

Using a CVS client which is maybe 4-5 weeks old, i can see burning fires.

 

I have a folder, EternalLandsTest. In that folder are 2 clients, elc (the 4-5 weeks old cvs client) and elc.new (the cvs client from yesterday). Using elc, i can see the campfire at beam burning, using elc.new, i cant.

 

Am i doing something wrong or does the new client has a problem?

 

Piper

I see the fire with both yesterday's build I made and with one that is about 3 days old. I really hate to ask this but are you sure there was a fire lit? (And were you using the client I made?)

[KarenRei]

Sorry for not weighing in earlier -- I just noticed this thread. Just so you know, I regularly monitor the eye candy thread in Programming, but other threads are hit or miss for me. As essentially the only coder for Eye Candy thusfar, I'm the person you want to get your bug reports to

 

All earlier reports on performance in this thread are invalid. There was a bug that snuck in a while ago that prevented the Eye Candy system from lowering its level of detail (LOD) like it used to. It was patched in the commit that went in right after Berlios came back up. Anyone who had a problem needs to recheck and see if they still do. Anyone who still does should let me know, because *that* would be a bug.

 

If you want a performance config option, you don't want one that fixes the LOD at a certain value. That would be a Very Bad Thing**, as I've stated several times. There's already something better in there -- the system that adjusts it based on your framerate. What you really need is a config option is to set the bounds at where it reduces LOD. Last time Learner mentioned this, I told him how to do it: the function EyeCandy::set_thresholds. For an example of its usage, see ec_set_draw_detail in eye_candy_wrapper.cpp(). The function sets the maximum number of particles and the minimum framerate (the maximum framerate is assumed to be three times the minimum). If you're at or below the minimum framerate, your effects will be LOD=1 (minimum). If you're at or above the maximum, your effects will be LOD=10 (maximum).

 

** If your level of detail isn't responsive, it won't reduce when the number of effects becomes high -- say, people casting spells all over the place. That's why I coded the auto-LOD-reduction system. Too bad I didn't notice that it became broken a few weeks ago when I added in the requested ability to have it not limit itself when you cap your framerate. Before, let's say you capped your framerate at 10: you'd always get LOD=1 eye candy. It saw a horrible framerate and decided that your system must be lagged so it kindly lowered its level of detail However, the fix introduced a bug; LOD wouldn't lower at all.

 

Enabling/disabling eye candy vs. old effects: I didn't code the ability to enable or disable it; Lachesis did. Anyone can feel free to take a look at it; they'd have as much familiarity with it as me.

Edited April 26, 2007 by KarenRei

[Entropy]

Just so you know, our CVSes are very up to date due to the fact that we tested an unrelated bug on the test server.

My client was compiled on 24th of April.

 

I know that you implemented some LOD, but it doesn't seem to be working properly, on a few occasions my FPS dropped for a few seconds to 9 FPS (that's really, really low on my system). Besides, 30% CPU is WAY too much for just a fire, we need other stuff in the game too, like normal maps and all kind of cpu/gpu intensive stuff.

 

To conclude this, we need to have a manually adjustable particle LOD, just like most other games do. A low and high option should be enough, and a medium one should be even better.

[Alia]

As Beaverhunter said thick smoke make it run slower: with 16% smoke i have 20fps with LOD=1-2

with 5% smoke i have 28 fps (with limit 30) with LOD about 10.

 

And really, where have you seen such smoky fire? It seems like you put wet branches there

And have you looked at fireplace in PL storage, in RL it would be impossible to stay in such room.

[Aislinn]

And really, where have you seen such smoky fire? It seems like you put wet branches there

And have you looked at fireplace in PL storage, in RL it would be impossible to stay in such room.

This was my thought as well, there is way too much thick black smoke.