Miraculous multi-cores

[andrey12345]

I cant see it being a CPU, multi core issue,
I have a water cooled 3930k @ 4.0ghz, thats 6 cores, 12 threads, and it never gets past 16% of usage. (although the game doesnt use all cores anyway)

Yes of course Amdahl's law say for GTOS is 2-3 core in peak. 12 threads (cores) is 8% full load for one. 16 is approx 2 core/thread load.
Threads is really not usefull at all, and in most cases is bad.

So it has to be graphics related.
If i position my camera at ground level between a green field and brown grass field and rotate the camera (this is with no smoke and 1 unit per side in QB)

Yes fields and ultra high grass settings is experimental, not use it in real gaming, please

The FPS goes from 50-60 in the green field down to 11 in the brown field, and back up to 50-60 as the camera rotates.
Is it a Card issue? Lack of Ram maybe, mine only has 2GB. Or manufacturer, i have an AMD 6970? (with latest drivers).

Is too more grass blades (and more overdraw) in UH settings especially if you on ground level. If we have some of free time we remake grass algo for UH settings.

Anybody using a Crossfire/SLI set up get any better?

No, is too much for hardware (GPU) to draw it all. Too more overdraw at ground level. The same problem in case of dust/smoke - slow down if many pcs draw one over another.

[Schuck]

Andrey,
Thanks for the reply, that explains alot.
Will Mius be any different?
Utilise more cores, or tone down the grass abit?
I generally play the winter maps at the moment to avoid the issues, which is a shame, as i like the Shilovo map.
And the different Arty options (sWG 41!)
I'll just have to stay away from the grass!

[andrey12345]

Will Mius be any different?

In somthing yes, may be in some somthing.
Until we have not touched tacticals only game core and operational.

Utilise more cores, or tone down the grass abit?

No, as I say before is GPU problem called overdraw. Dont have any known good solution, only some hacks and fakes.
Even in last CryEngine wide grass areas in some aspects tuned by hacks.

I generally play the winter maps at the moment to avoid the issues, which is a shame, as i like the Shilovo map.
And the different Arty options (sWG 41!)
I'll just have to stay away from the grass!

I think in RTS/wargame most people fly over ground not on ground itself

[JamesX]

Hey everyone - option 6.16 "change game speed automatically" - set this to "disable" and you will see the difference!! My quad core machine also had the slow downs until I did this. Simple.

[Dane49]

I think in RTS/wargame most people fly over ground not on ground itself

I play this game mostly with the camera at ground level.That is where I enjoy watching and controlling my units in this game the best.
Other RTS games don't allow this that is why I don't play them.

I don't like the large battles because I have to lift the camera up higher to control all the extra units and that is why I don't play the campaigns much and prefer Quick Battles with smaller units.

Quick Battles account for 90% of the replay value of this game for me.
I would very much dislike this game if it turned into a European Escalation type RTS.
I also think the balance in this game is perfect as long as the campaign battles are not overly large and kept to regimental size at the most.

IMHO bigger isn't always better for this game unless we are talking about the map size.
The graphics are excellent in this game and having to put the camera up at a higher altitude destroys that perception along with the immersive value of this game.

This is my favorite game and I would hate to see it become radically different from what we currently have.

[Aces]

Hi folks,

I too have disabled auto gamespeed to off as I prefer it that way but it has never increased my framerates. The mission I've been using lately to test on the Shilovo map consists of two platoons of tanks on either side, so about 20 vehicles in total. The attacking tanks have to cross one of the brown flattened grass "fields" on their way to engage the enemy and it is this that mostly causes the framerates to be dragged down from an absolute  max of about 15/16 FPS to a maximum of about 6/7 FPS. I think that these brown grass areas are at least in part responsible for the big drop in FPS This is  happening without any fighting  taking place as the two forces are still closing on each other.

I too mostly play at low level as my interest is watching the action and doing movie capture, not that this is really possible when FRAP drags frames down by a minimum of another 2-3 FPS and therefore my captures can be as slow as 4 FPS which is totally useless for this purpose. I also don't wish to turn off too many graphics settings as this also defeats my purpose although there aren't many settings that really make any difference in terms of FPS except perhaps the dust/smoke which does win me a couple of frames without which movie capture would be totally impossible.

BTW. For any movie capture fans I've changed the hotkey that toggles the Key point flags to the same key that disables the HUD so that one keypress does both, I'd like to do the same with the function that displays the unit icons but that toggles through three states and thus one key press isn't enough. But it does help to quickly disable all on-screen indicators. I did a similar thing with Steel Fury and bound the disable HUD hotkey to the same key that turned of on-screen messages so hiding all onscreen indicators in that game too with a single key press.

I'd like to get one of these if and when funds permit "Avermedia Live Gamer Hd C985 - Video Input Adapter - Pci Express " as it gets very good reviews.

Kind regards

Aces

[cuca_]

I cant see it being a CPU, multi core issue,
I have a water cooled 3930k @ 4.0ghz, thats 6 cores, 12 threads, and it never gets past 16% of usage. (although the game doesnt use all cores anyway)
So it has to be graphics related.
If i position my camera at ground level between a green field and brown grass field and rotate the camera (this is with no smoke and 1 unit per side in QB)
The FPS goes from 50-60 in the green field down to 11 in the brown field, and back up to 50-60 as the camera rotates.
Is it a Card issue? Lack of Ram maybe, mine only has 2GB. Or manufacturer, i have an AMD 6970? (with latest drivers).
Is the game opptimised for NVIDIA?
Anybody using a Crossfire/SLI set up get any better?

Andrey, its worse in Shilovo and Volokonovka. Summer maps.
The number of units doesnt seem to matter (well not to me anyway)

Well that's what I'm saying, it doesn't utilize the cpu power of multicore systems, and it has nothing to do with the grass, drops are happening when there is a lot going on at the field, everyone is shooting, shells are falling, tanks getting hit, AI maneuvering across the battlefield, and changing graphical options doesn't do anything and yet cpu usage doesn't go above 25%.

[Aces]

"50-60 FPS"

Oh how I wish!

[chashka17]

I'm kinda surprised to see the highest grass settings called 'experimental'. 
Assuming this isn't a joke,  I can see why such a setting with all the drawing req'd would kill performance.  Even if it is experimental I still like to max settings & see what I can get to run, for me that's half the fun with eye-candy.  Also tells me when I need an upgrade...

& OT
On the subject of Process Lasso - yes there are many fake optimization tools about.
The logic that if there was a magic fix then everyone would do it isn't really fair.  e.g. How come Windows still 'needs' a third party defragger to defrag anything properly, surely if you are in the business of writing an OS you want to keep it running smoothly ...or maybe not?  Given the resources at MS I would have expected a lot better of tools like defrag & back-up a looooong time ago, yet 3rd party stuff is about & works.

As far as I can tell, games try to optimize the environment for themselves.  PL tries to wrangle the OS / PC in real-time for everything that is active.
The user can specify certain priorities etc for processes of his choosing.  So I right click an exe & assign some values & thats that.  ToW2 after the last patch was lousy with stuttering & grinding, used PL to turn off 'Win dynamic thread boost' & the game runs perfectly again. I also pushed it to use cores other than 0 & 1 which is what it is programmed to seek (but so is a whole lot of other stuff - hello bottle-neck...) I can now play the game.  So I know it helps in this case.

If this test isn't enough methodology/evidence:-
http://processpriority.com/
then my own findings were that it does work beyond any notion of a placebo.  In order to reach that conclusion I used it during it's trial & then uninstalled it.  (I could have just used the free version of course) then spent the next couple of weeks being annoyed at how badly my machine ran.
Put it back on & smooth performance was back. 
Installed it on an old laptop & suddenly that was also usable. So it's not all empty promises as far as I'm concerned.

Aces - easiest way is to start the game in question, tab out & open the main PL window, right click the exe  (& .bin for ToW) & select 'classify as game'.  For ToW I also click 'Priority class' & uncheck the thread boost option at the bottom of the dialog.  It's easy enough to play around with despite how it may appear to a new user.  Free version will also do this job.  You can also use options/configure games & MM procs & select/add any exes you like.

[Void]

I cant see it being a CPU, multi core issue,
I have a water cooled 3930k @ 4.0ghz, thats 6 cores, 12 threads, and it never gets past 16% of usage. (although the game doesnt use all cores anyway)
So it has to be graphics related.
If i position my camera at ground level between a green field and brown grass field and rotate the camera (this is with no smoke and 1 unit per side in QB)
The FPS goes from 50-60 in the green field down to 11 in the brown field, and back up to 50-60 as the camera rotates.
Is it a Card issue? Lack of Ram maybe, mine only has 2GB. Or manufacturer, i have an AMD 6970? (with latest drivers).
Is the game opptimised for NVIDIA?
Anybody using a Crossfire/SLI set up get any better?

Andrey, its worse in Shilovo and Volokonovka. Summer maps.
The number of units doesnt seem to matter (well not to me anyway)

Hmm I tried it and with high grass settings I have on the green field 60 fps and on the brown 53 fps.
But when I turn on HDR I have on the green 60 and on the brown field 34 fps.

I have Q9550 , AMD 6970 and 4gb ram

[Schuck]

Well,
It would appear to me  that alot of us have the same issues with the "brown fields" to various different degrees,
And as Andrey says, its experimental. Im not really sure what that means?
Im also not sure why you would include something in a game that no ones PC can run at descent FPS?
But for the playability of the game at ground level i hope its something that can be looked at.
I really dont want to play Muis from a "Gods eye" perspective, as this would kill the game for me, and by the looks of it for many other people to.
The game has such great eye candy, you just cant see it if youre up in the clouds!

[Aces]

Agreed

[Dane49]

The brownfields don't seem to be a problem for my PC as far as FPS are concerned.

The major problems for me are too many units and some optional graphics settings.
Such as-Ultra high grass,smoke and dust,shading  instead of simple shaders and
very heavily tree populated woods.

[Dane49]

I really dont want to play Muis from a "Gods eye" perspective, as this would kill the game for me, and by the looks of it for many other people to.
The game has such great eye candy, you just cant see it if youre up in the clouds!

My sentiments also.
Being able to play real time at ground level is what sets this game apart from other RTS games and why it is my favorite game to date.

Losing this feature would not only be a game breaker for me,it would be a very sad day for my personal gaming enjoyment as well.

[Void]

I really dont want to play Muis from a "Gods eye" perspective, as this would kill the game for me, and by the looks of it for many other people to.
The game has such great eye candy, you just cant see it if youre up in the clouds!

My sentiments also.
Being able to play real time at ground level is what sets this game apart from other RTS games and why it is my favorite game to date.

Losing this feature would not only be a game breaker for me,it would be a very sad day for my personal gaming enjoyment as well.

+1000!!!

[Aces]

+2000, I'll see your 1000 and raise you 1000!

[WallysWorld]

The only issue performance wise is with ultra high grass which lowers the frame rate down to about 30 fps and lower. Usually with everything cranked right up (shadows, HDR and so on), I get over 40 fps.

I'm also have option 6.10 (Force vidmem size to MB) to 1024.

Just to compare, I have the following PC: i7-920 at 4GHz with a 660 Ti 2GB card.

I don't have Shivolo yet so I can't say how that will run on my PC.