Re: Performance issue, very bad FPS and FPS drops

chemenski · ‎2013-12-15

Latest patch didn't seem to do anything for me

Chaz0r · ‎2013-12-15

And I really think that we will hear from EA this year anymore. Probably...if really hear from them....next year. So probably at least 2 more weaks without playing...

Chaz0r · ‎2013-12-16

Guys..Now things are getting crazy but I think I'm a step further to the origin of this problem:

I found something out where the overall performance is much better beside those areas where the framerate is crazy low.
Beside these areas (where I posted the screenshots some pages before) I got constantly 30 FPS. Not even 1 drop in the Framerate.

Then there are the areas where the drops are huge. The areas with my screenshots you can see on page 10. Lets take for example this area: http://abload.de/img/nfs142013-11-2719-50-helgz.png
My Framerate in this area was always 15-18 FPS. I was able to manage to reduce the drops to about 27-29 FPS. That's about 10 FPS more. But it didn't work every time. I didn't find out why it works sometime and the other time not. For example I was driving there and had no big drop in the framerate. Then there was a Host-Migration. On the new host I drove to the same location and I had these drops again.
I also restarted the game sometimes to check if something changed. Sometimes I got the drops, sometimes I didn't. One time I had a huge rendering problem of objects and textures. The drops of the framerate at these locations were crazy. Then I restarted my computer, tried everything again, the rendering worked fine and no drops in the framerate at this location again.

This is one of the other locations I mentioned on page 10 where I had huge drops of the framerate: http://abload.de/img/nfs142013-11-2720-09-i5kyf.png
I experienced no drops in the framerate everytime I was there. Not even one drop!

Then there are other places like the harbor: http://abload.de/img/nfs142013-11-2720-03-1icui.png
I experienced the same drops in the framerate again. Also with restarts I wasn't able to experience the improvements I was able to experience on the other places.

So to get that together: The overall performance beside the "huge-drop-areas" was great! Not even one drop.
In the areas with the huge framerate drops I was able to improve the framerate on some locations. At some of these locations the drops weren't as big as before at others there wasn't even one drop for me. And sometimes at some of the locations the performance was as bad as before (but not all the time!). And then there are areas like the harbor where I didn't notice any differences.

So here is what I did:

I installed the full version of Fraps. If you don't know that: It's a program to create screenshots or videos of the game you are playing. After that I rebooted my PC and started Fraps after the reboot.
Then I opened the "Movies" section of Fraps. I set the video capture settings to 30 FPS. Because the limit of the game is at 30 FPS.

I started the game left the hide and started to record a video. That's it.

The end result: some major improvements in the framerate that worked always for some locations, sometimes for other locations and not for even other locations. Beside these locations there was not even one drop in the framerate. And...yes...I got a 40GB video file xD

Next I wanted to know if the framerate is better if I set the FPS-cap of the game to 60FPS with the help of the command line. I also used another command so the game runs at 60FPS in normal speed (like it does on 30 FPS without the commands). Also I set the video capture settings in Fraps to 60 FPS.

In the world beside those "huge-drop-areas" I got about 50 FPS in average. Sometimes even 60, sometimes 45. And here and there just 35-40. A big noticable improvement! Without recording a video I'm not able to reach more than 40 FPS.

And the "huge-drop-areas"? The same framerate like the try with 30 FPS and recording a video. There are areas where the framerate droped to 35-40 FPS (which is okay if you stay at the 30 FPS limit) and there are areas like the harbor where I still get 15-18 FPS.

So lets get a conclusion: I was able to reach 50-60 FPS at certain locations while recording a video in 60 FPS with Fraps. There were drops to about 30-35 FPS. That means that the game is still pretty bad optimized. That are drops of about 25-30 FPS. You won't recognize them if you play on the normal 30 FPS limit. But there are huge drops. So the game is poorly optimized!
The other conclusion is that I was able to get a huge improvement while recording a video. I have no idea why. I think it has something to do with the hard coded framerate limit in the game engine and the framerate limit Fraps uses. But I'm not sure.

I think we hav to investigate more in this direction!

And now give me your opinion! ^^

scrble · ‎2013-12-16

@Chaz0r Excellent job!

Upon further troubleshooting, it still does slow down a lot in the exact same areas you pointed out in your screenshots, again, not quite as bad as before, but still well below 30 and in slow motion. I always play in offline mode, and at least the textures don't flip on and off like they used to, I will definitely try the Fraps thing, I usually use Riva Tuner, I'll see if this gives the same results too. Thanks for all of us who are willing to continue to work on figuring out what the heck is going on.

On a side note, I am getting very frustrated with some of the game mechanics for the Racer part of the campaign. Being busted and loosing all your points, while adding some tension, can also be very frustrating (not in a good way EA & Ghost!). Add in the fact you can't pause the freaking game, and it makes for a very tedius experience.

Gareth

HenriLoaded · ‎2013-12-16

@Chazor, well you're very late on that! There are tons of video recordings of people getting same framerate when recording and not.

Chaz0r · ‎2013-12-16

@henriloso wrote:
@Chazor, well you're very late on that! There are tons of video recordings of people getting same framerate when recording and not.

But why are ther differences for me?

It would be good to know which program they used. I will try another program and see if I also get differences.

Edit:

Here is more information:

I tried it with Fraps, with Bandicam, Hypercam and Playclaw. I was only able to notice improvements with Fraps. With the other screen capture tools there were no improvements or it got even worse.

So the question is: What is the difference between Fraps and the other programs.

I also had the rendering problems one time again while running Fraps. The first location in my long post above had a render problem while recording with Fraps. Right before I could go there the screen freezed, the buildings rendered for a few seconds and I wa able to play again - but with the normal frame rate drops.

So conclusion: Recording with Fraps has an impact while other programs don't make a difference or make it even worse. Fraps can improve the framerate pretty much but not allways on some of these locations. There is no difference in the harbor area. And sometimes, not that often, I have huge rendering problems while recording with Fraps. And when I do have these rendering problems, there are no improvements in the FPS. restarting the game helped every time.

So there must be something Fraps does which has impact on how the game engine behaves. It can improve the FPS and it can cause rendering problems.
The question is what. What does Fraps that other screen capture tools don't do. And what has this point to do with the game engine? I think the origin of this problem is somwhere in that area...

trickeh2k · ‎2013-12-16

The reason people do not see any improvement is most likely because their system is not on the high end, like chaz0r I noticed pretty much the same like he did. I got better overall FPS all around with the patch but even so it's no where near to be playable at 60fps unless you spend your whole time in the desert.

The texture issues happens at random and when they do occur there seems to be no remedy to it but restarting the game. I can’t however link it to FRAPS as it happens just as much without it. I’m assuming it looks something like this when it happens https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/1072390_10202258229450904_618808296_o.jpg. This does not just affect mountains in the distance but also textures around you on the road and on the side.

Also, the freezing issue where the texture just stops to load seems to be occurring to some people more than others. If you notice that the texture didn’t load, try and brake hard. If you manage to stop before you enter the area it usually loads quite quickly and you can resume driving. However, if you’re too far into the glitched out texture I have to force quit the game. It’s like you’re out of the “map” so that the game doesn’t recognize you to be in that area, thus not attempting to load and render it.

While the overall performance has increased, it’s not much for about 90% of the players and most seems to have the best impact on people already on good PC’s. It’s an interesting not about the FPS drop being higher depending on what other people are in your lobby. I only tried it out briefly so never really checked that since I just discovered it still was unplayable.

My theory is that whenever these freezes occur, there might be too much load on the hard drive at the time and thus not keeping up with the loading and rendering. It could also be related to the CPU, but looking at the load on my CPU it’s rarely even at 40% so I kinda rule that issue out. Next week I will be installing a new SSD and also migrate to Windows 8.1, hoping that it’ll also improve the overall performance.

I’m also wondering if the slow performance people are experiencing is the lack of usage on the GPU. If I launch the game with the normal settings my video card sits at 2D clocks and it’s barely even trying to use it. I do however (like chaz0r I guess) use the render resolution 2.0 setting which makes the game not only look great, but also actually uses my GPU and even spikes at 99% sometimes with the full overclock in place.

It might of course be that running the game normally requires so little resources that a higher clock than the one’s I have when I’m just browsing is not needed, but I can’t shake off the feeling that people who are having problem with the fps in normal mode might also have their cards at 2d clocks which would of course greatly impact their performance.

Chaz0r · ‎2013-12-16

@trickeh2k wrote:

My theory is that whenever these freezes occur, there might be too much load on the hard drive at the time and thus not keeping up with the loading and rendering. It could also be related to the CPU, but looking at the load on my CPU it’s rarely even at 40% so I kinda rule that issue out. Next week I will be installing a new SSD and also migrate to Windows 8.1, hoping that it’ll also improve the overall performance.

I don't want to make you false hopes, but I'm on 8.1 and also tried to play the game from my SSD. For me there was no noticable difference of the performance. Nothing better and nothing worse then playing from my HDD

trickeh2k · ‎2013-12-16

@Chaz0r wrote:
@trickeh2k wrote:

My theory is that whenever these freezes occur, there might be too much load on the hard drive at the time and thus not keeping up with the loading and rendering. It could also be related to the CPU, but looking at the load on my CPU it’s rarely even at 40% so I kinda rule that issue out. Next week I will be installing a new SSD and also migrate to Windows 8.1, hoping that it’ll also improve the overall performance.
I don't want to make you false hopes, but I'm on 8.1 and also tried to play the game from my SSD. For me there was no noticable difference of the performance. Nothing better and nothing worse then playing from my HDD

I'm mostly thinking of the freezing issues where the textures just stops to load. Playing the game from one disk and recording to another should be better no matter what. Oh, and I'm also not migrating just because of NFSR obviously

HenriLoaded · ‎2013-12-16

@Chazor, I saw no interest in recording when using both Fraps, DXTory and Mirillis Action. All locations were 30 fps is achieved still gives me 30 fps when recording. All places were drops are received still gets same framerate, maybe 1 down but that barely made a difference. It's only your problem! Because not all of us use Fraps (I use Action) and when I do use Fraps, I don't get any rendering problems.

Re: Performance issue, very bad FPS and FPS drops

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