here's why we have FPS slow downs and low res textures

[Lasse_B]

Found out what's the reason for all of this.

 

[tl;dr section]

Because of the game's inability to utilize more than ~1.3GB RAM. Even 32bit Windows versions can assign 2GB RAM to an application. So why the artificial 1.3GB limit?

[tl;dr section]

 

 

 

 

 

Long version:

 

In trying to find out which files the game accesses, I installed Process Monitor to view any file calls the game makes while running. I was baffled to see it's almost constantly reading files from the "assets" folder. It only stopped when my character in the game stopped moving and started again when my character continued on his path. So I took a look at the RAM requirements of the game at that time and found it to be around the 1.2GB mark. Nothing to it I thought since I had just started the game. Three hours later playing on the same planet, RAM usage had gone to 1.3GB but the game was still reading files like crazy. I then switched between Balmorra and Taris a couple of times to see if I can drive up RAM usage, but nothing happened. It always was around the 1.3GB mark. Even visiting the fleet didn't do anything. What remained constant through all this time was the assets files accesses.

 

So I wondered. With the game reading files all the time, does it require to read more files during the times FPS go down seemingly for no apparent reason? You know, CPU load is good, GPU load is good but FPS still go down? I fired up Windows Ressource Monitor ("start" -> "run" -> enter "resmon"), switched to the "Disk" tab and rode circles around the cantina area on the fleet station. Low and behold, it didn't take long to guess the frame rate according to how high the "Highest Active Time" counter went.

 

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. There are times while playing the game when it demands just too many file operations being completed in too little time. It's not just about how fast a hard disk can deliver data (usually measured in megabytes per second), it's also about managing all of that. The combination of these is what's making the game run so poorly at times. Add high res textures, and FPS would go down even more.

 

This could be helped if the game made use of more RAM, if available.

 

To understand that I've got to get technical for a minute. When a character in the game is 'seen' by another character - ie, gets close to your field of view - the client has to 'draw' that character for you to see. As the character is 'drawn' for you there are a number of what are known as 'draw calls' where the client pulls information from the repository it has on your hard disk, including textures, and then renders the character. Every draw call that is made is a demand on your PC, so keeping that number of draw calls low per character is important. With our 'maximum resolution' textures a large number of draw calls are made per character, but that wasn't practical for normal gameplay, especially when a large number of characters were in one place; the number of draw calls made on your client would multiply very quickly. The solution was to 'texture atlas' - essentially to put a number of smaller textures together into one larger texture. This reduces the number of draw calls dramatically and allows the client to render characters quicker, which improves performance dramatically.

 

The hard disk part is quite literal.

 

Back to you, Mr Reid (Anchorman style; no pun intended).

Edited February 17, 2012 by Lasse_B

[Andryah]

Not sure how you arrived at this conclusion. Maybe it is something specific to your system.

 

What are your computers key system specs?

 

I dont have fps slow downs and I routinely observe the game using in excess of 2 gigs.

 

As for textures, really????? Textures are defined by what they put in game, and what you select in your preferences from what they put in game. The highest textures are currently reserved for use in cutscenes (as stipulated by Bioware). That said, I find very little visual difference on my computer between the textures in the cutscenes and game textures outside of cutscenes (I have high textures set in preference, the Bioware deininition of high textures in the preferences panel, so don't go off on a hyperbole about me saying I have high res textures enabled).

[Calei]

Not sure how you arrived at this conclusion. Maybe it is something specific to your system.

 

What are your computers key system specs?

 

I dont have fps slow downs and I routinely observe the game using in excess of 2 gigs.

 

As for textures, really????? Textures are defined by what they put in game, and what you select in your preferences from what they put in game. The highest textures are currently reserved for use in cutscenes (as stipulated by Bioware). That said, I find very little visual difference on my computer between the textures in the cutscenes and game textures outside of cutscenes (I have high textures set in preference, the Bioware deininition of high textures in the preferences panel, so don't go off on a hyperbole about me saying I have high res textures enabled).

 

Dude. Come on.

 

The texture quality in this game is like 1998 quality. Turn shadow quality to max and my system is begging me to shut it down. There are FPS spikes, jitters and lag. Mix that with ability delay/animation bugs and its just one whole barrel of monkies.

[KazDvs]

Regardless, textures are stored in your graphics card's memory not your PC's RAM.

 

Slowdown is directly related to CPU performance, I went from a Athlon 64 x2 4600+ with 4 GB of RAM and a Radeon HD 4850 1GB to a Intel Core i5 2500k, with 8 GB of RAM, and the onboard Intel HD 2000 Graphics (still waiting on new video card).

 

I used to get 10-15 FPS on the Imperial Fleet, I now get 30-40 FPS with an inferior graphics chipset and less video RAM (512 MB dedicated from RAM). The reason is I now have a modern CPU which can handle all the computations of data being sent too and from the server regarding every player.

 

This is the reason that people get lag, your computer is not having great trouble rendering these people (tho it may be in part) it is having trouble keeping up with the data of where they are what they are wearing how fast they are moving etc. The way SWTOR was designed, a CPU from 2-3 generations back cannot handle this with ease.

[ChicksDigHarleys]

Not sure how you arrived at this conclusion. Maybe it is something specific to your system.

 

What are your computers key system specs?

 

I dont have fps slow downs and I routinely observe the game using in excess of 2 gigs.

 

As for textures, really????? Textures are defined by what they put in game, and what you select in your preferences from what they put in game. The highest textures are currently reserved for use in cutscenes (as stipulated by Bioware). That said, I find very little visual difference on my computer between the textures in the cutscenes and game textures outside of cutscenes (I have high textures set in preference, the Bioware deininition of high textures in the preferences panel, so don't go off on a hyperbole about me saying I have high res textures enabled).

 

You aren't looking very hard. You don't even have to go past character select to be stabbed in the eye with low rez textures. Ever ride a taxi on Coruscant? Just look at the textures on the cab.

 

I have a quad core @3.2GHz, 8 GB of ram, and a 3GB GTX 580. I have everything set to max except grass quality, because the way the game draws it while I'm moving at high speeds irritates the hell out of me. There are low rez textures out the rear in this game even at max settings.

Edited February 17, 2012 by ChicksDigHarleys

[Andryah]

You aren't looking very hard.

 

I think it's more a case of you are looking too hard. I play the game. I notice textures, especially on characters, to be quite good, in most cases. Sure there are exceptions to the case in such a large MMO. I have even seen broken textures while out exploring. Those are bugs that will eventually get flushed out.

Edited February 17, 2012 by Andryah

[Andryah]

Regardless, textures are stored in your graphics card's memory not your PC's RAM.

 

Slowdown is directly related to CPU performance, I went from a Athlon 64 x2 4600+ with 4 GB of RAM and a Radeon HD 4850 1GB to a Intel Core i5 2500k, with 8 GB of RAM, and the onboard Intel HD 2000 Graphics (still waiting on new video card).

 

Important and relevant key points being presented here. And why some people have no issues and other people have a lot of issues.

 

You need a lot of video ram for this game, because there is a lot going on graphially.

 

You need a modern processor because modern MMOs use processor power to spread the load in the game.

[CecilTellyn]

I think it's more a case of you are looking too hard. I play the game. I notice textures, especially on characters, to be quite good, in most cases. Sure there are exceptions to the case in such a large MMO. I have even seen broken textures while out exploring. Those are bugs that will eventually get flushed out.

 

I have to agree with this. I know that I'm probably one of the older players on here (*sigh*) but I'm not THAT old and to my eye, I haven't noticed a huge change in textures between game mode and dialog mode.

 

Not saying there isn't one, just that I don't really notice it. It makes the whole "OMG why don't I have high res textures nao!!!!111eleventyone" talk seem quite silly to me.

 

Again, not saying that the texture problem doesn't exist, just that I don't really "get it" I guess.

[Cedwyn-LotD]

This isn't the sole reason...

 

1) DX9. GameEngine doesn't support 10+; vista/win7+. Users have received 50-100% fps increase by turning on winxp compatibility mode. Sorry excuse for an engine.

 

2) NetCode. I don't know the details, but there are several areas that can be recreated in the game. Open/close your inventory rapidly while moving; massive fps hiccups. On Ilum, in massive battles, stay raidless or join a raid a see a huge fps drop - game trying to sync all the health bars to your client, same issue related to the inventory above. Note: This is not latency, this is client-server communication issues.

 

3) HeroEngine.

[archlad]

I can't believe no one really responded to the OP. This game runs poorly for the level of graphic detail displayed. I built a rig just to play this game and tested it before hand on other MMOs. In other games which have greater levels of detail and higher possible resolutions I had nearly flawless framerates. SWTOR looks sub par to those games (jagged edges, low res textures) and on Ilum especially has bad framerate. I can accept less realism in graphics if it amounts to frame rate preservation, but this is not the case.

 

So if the OP is correct and I have 6 gigs of RAM sitting idle instead of being utilized then Bioware needs to fix that crap.

 

I applaud the OP for looking into this.

 

/signed (petition to have RAM usage dynamically handled by the application)

[uziforyou]

Dude. Come on.

 

The texture quality in this game is like 1998 quality. Turn shadow quality to max and my system is begging me to shut it down. There are FPS spikes, jitters and lag. Mix that with ability delay/animation bugs and its just one whole barrel of monkies.

 

So.........because you and some others are experiencing these FPS spikes, everyone must be experiencing them?

 

Yeah, I agree with the guy you responded to. I haven't experienced this issue and I'm doubting that we're alone. So stop with the whole pretense that that game is broken for everyone. It's not.

 

I'm not poopooing that you and others ARE experiencing the issue just the dissing on some one who says they're not having the problem.

 

P.S. The textures aren't 1998.....WoW would like to have a word with you. Exagerating your point does not equal more validity.

[Kindara]

Dude. Come on.

 

The texture quality in this game is like 1998 quality. Turn shadow quality to max and my system is begging me to shut it down. There are FPS spikes, jitters and lag. Mix that with ability delay/animation bugs and its just one whole barrel of monkies.

 

Were you even alive in 1998? Because I was and .. these textures even if they are not of the highest res available on earth are still Hella good looking. They're like a 1000 times better than anything that was relieved in 1998.

 

I've played alot of games and i've played alot of MMOs and this is a damn good looking MMO with a might fine engine. I've yet to experience most f these supposed engine / graphic problems others have. Ever consider its something in your video card settings? Or maybe your computer or irts mother board is total crap? Maybe your overclocking and using crap drivers that only work for X games or maybe your used to only playing single player games that can handle running anything at super top tier because its not having to coordinate date for X 100s of players.

Edited February 17, 2012 by Kindara

[ChicksDigHarleys]

I think it's more a case of you are looking too hard. I play the game. I notice textures, especially on characters, to be quite good, in most cases. Sure there are exceptions to the case in such a large MMO. I have even seen broken textures while out exploring. Those are bugs that will eventually get flushed out.

 

Not really. More of a case of you not wanting to see what you don't want to see. I mean, just look at pretty much any robe at character select. Hard to not notice the low rez taxi when it literally fills half your screen sometimes.

 

Before I actually played this game, I compared the look favorably to LotRO...I take it back. LotRO looks far superior, except character models, which are equally mediocre. AoC is 3.5 years older, looks and runs better than TOR does.

Edited February 17, 2012 by ChicksDigHarleys

[duritz]

Regardless, textures are stored in your graphics card's memory not your PC's RAM.

 

Slowdown is directly related to CPU performance, I went from a Athlon 64 x2 4600+ with 4 GB of RAM and a Radeon HD 4850 1GB to a Intel Core i5 2500k, with 8 GB of RAM, and the onboard Intel HD 2000 Graphics (still waiting on new video card).

 

I used to get 10-15 FPS on the Imperial Fleet, I now get 30-40 FPS with an inferior graphics chipset and less video RAM (512 MB dedicated from RAM). The reason is I now have a modern CPU which can handle all the computations of data being sent too and from the server regarding every player.

 

This is the reason that people get lag, your computer is not having great trouble rendering these people (tho it may be in part) it is having trouble keeping up with the data of where they are what they are wearing how fast they are moving etc. The way SWTOR was designed, a CPU from 2-3 generations back cannot handle this with ease.

 

you mean to tell me that you run this game with onboard graphics? i refuse to believe this.

[wifeaggro]

Dude. Come on.

 

The texture quality in this game is like 1998 quality. Turn shadow quality to max and my system is begging me to shut it down. There are FPS spikes, jitters and lag. Mix that with ability delay/animation bugs and its just one whole barrel of monkies.

 

Seeing how every mmo released has been using high res textures since 2007 . I agree 100% this engine is a barrel of monkeys. They probably should stop letting those monkeys write code

[Nytak]

I can accept less realism in graphics if it amounts to frame rate preservation, but this is not the case.

 

^^ This.. One thing people seem to forget is back when the decision to use stylized graphics rather than a more photo-realistic rendering style, it was because they wanted to make the game playable on a wider range of systems, something about guaranteeing a level of performance across a broad spectrum of systems.

 

Yeah, somebody screwed *that* up.

 

Either way, I simply want my high res textures. They were in beta, and personally, I don't care if my machine slows to a crawl and cooks all the food in my freezer in an attempt to render it.

[Holden_Dissent]

Game uses all 4 cores and about 70% of my 4gb of ram when I play. I also do not have FPS slow downs.

[Holden_Dissent]

you mean to tell me that you run this game with onboard graphics? i refuse to believe this.

 

at work I have 2 PCs that run this game with onboard graphics. One is even Intel Onboard Graphics.

[TheRainstater]

I have every graphic option maxed out on my m14x and haven't had the slightest hint of low FPS. Game plays beautifully on my system. even in hi pop areas.

 

my specs are

6 gigs of 1600mhz ram

Intel i7 2630QM

nvidia GT555 with 3 gigs of video ram.

[Khryn]

I don't think this game has graphics that are as dated as Starcraft (1998).

 

 

Sure, this game has a few problems... But I was taking a taxi on Korriban the other night and it was beautiful. Just like advertised. On Taris last night I was enjoying the drab colors and just stopped for a moment to stare at the destroyed buildings.

 

 

Bottom line, to reach maximum player base, you aren't going to get Skyrim graphics for MMOs'.

[Rahl_Windsong]

All of the FPS issues are to do with the Hero game engine and it not being a 64 bit engine. Will it be someday? We can only hope.

[Khryn]

All of the FPS issues are to do with the Hero game engine and it not being a 64 bit engine. Will it be someday? We can only hope.

 

 

 

People throw this around like they actually know what they are talking about.

[Calei]

Game uses all 4 cores and about 70% of my 4gb of ram when I play. I also do not have FPS slow downs.

 

Then you my friend are a star.

 

I can get Battlefield 3 running with anti-ailaising in Directx 11 with full details at a smooth 60 FPS. TOR? Forget it. I find the game running badly with shadows OFF nevermind ON!

Edited February 17, 2012 by Calei

[Kourage]

The poor graphics are caused by the moonlight reflecting off the swamp gas. The assertion that the game can't use more than 1.3GB of RAM is just plain false.

[Mandrax]

you mean to tell me that you run this game with onboard graphics? i refuse to believe this.

 

You might refuse to believe it, but a friend of mine is running it on his i3 machine with the onboard graphics (HD 2000). It runs, not amazingly well, but he is getting 30fps on average. It's only a temporary thing for him as he is waiting until the end of the month to buy a new GPU, but it's working out well enough.