Darthater asks BW about engine optimization.

[PostalTwinkie]

The game runs great on my rig, thats all I know. I had problems earlier to release but I researched my personal computer and found the problem. In my case it was the router. I was angery and came onto the forums and did the same thing lots of people do but at the end of the day the truth was that I needed to take personal responsibility for some of the performance issues I was experiencing. The console customer base does not understand this but PC gamers know how unique and specific each individual rig can be.

 

You are confusing lag that was generated due to a deficiency in your connection with the frame rate issue being discussed here. We are discussing game engine and optimization, you are discussing your connection.

 

Additional, from a hardware perspective there aren't as many configurations as people believe. Most gamers are going to be in the Nehalem or SandyBridge on the Intel side and on the AMD side Deneb or Thuban. For video cards you have the AMD Northern Island and Evergreen (6000 and 5000 series respectively), for Nvidia you have the Fermi 400 series and the refreshed Fermi 500 series.

 

There will be a few with legacy systems (older), but for the most part gamers can be narrowed into the above categories. Developers don't have to optimize their game around the potential software installed on the customer system, but the hardware and architecture of it. It isn't like there is a skittle pack of different architectures they have to worry about. Computer hardware is generational and you have multiple offerings based off one architecture.

 

Which is why I mentioned earlier, this game struggles on systems that are sound hardware and software wise.

Edited March 15, 2012 by PostalTwinkie

[Newsinz]

Settings and memory access (and OS).

 

If Windows has pre-cached your game you won't see the hitching when opening UI elements, if it hasn't, it's hard fault to disk access. If you have an SSD, but its improperly configured, or if you have other disk access at the same time it will again, hard pause and wait. If you're running chrome/firefox/opera with SWTOR on decent settings and only have 4 gigs of ram, guess what, you have a lot of stuff in memory which will cause problems. An SSD in the wrong mode, with the wrong settings in windows or with the wrong firmware will also cause persistent hitching. SWTOR is really big.

 

It's sort of an engine problem, and sort of not. Ideally the engine programmers should know how to pre-fetch stuff on their own. The problem is that the game is already creeping up to a 2GB memory limit and it will just barf on a 32 bit OS if it does more than that, or if it can't find enough ram. How much should you pre-fetch? Well if you have low settings (really low settings for example, especially textures) then windows or the engine will have more memory to cache into main memory (i.e. RAM) and less hitching.

 

 

Something like crysis is a nonsense comparison. They have completely different performance profiles. The problem with something like SWTOR is that you have this hugely diverse collection of stuff that could show up on your screen at any time (every character, in every suit of armour). In crysis the programmer knows in advance exactly what can ever be on your screen and when.

 

 

Hero engine is really a content creation system. For example, the game is probably written in heroscript mostly (aka the Hero Scripting language). It's a fully OO language, but it runs on top of the Hero engine, I don't think it's compiled to bytecode directly. That's not a bad thing particularly, but it makes optimization inherently harder because the 'engine' isn't aware of what HSL code is going to do until it runs it.

 

Because of hero engine SWTOR can be really really big. But that means it will behave completely differently than most other games. You could try comparing to WoW, but the conversation system (specifically how jars you into a higher resolution view of yourself and a face close up) completely changes how the engine can perform. That, believe it or not, is a huge 'storytelling' idea, but a disastrously bad performance one, and theres probably no easy way to fix it.

 

It's also and online game, and they might be phoning home for a lot of things which don't necessarily need to phone home for. E.g. finding cover is a slow process because it has to query the server if it can go, and then go, rather than take cover, where you just tell the server you're taking cover here. You can actually watch the two, if you don't have a smuggler or agent, make one just to see the difference, that highlights just how the 'ask the server' causes hitching effects, and someone with a different latency connection to their server or who just happens to be on lower load times than you will experience completely different performance.

 

These days technically I'm an AI programmer, but have been an engine programmer. There are lots of things that could probably be improved in the hero engine as used in SWTOR, but without server monitoring tools it's hard to know where problems are.

 

Great Post! Thanks for the insight!

[AJediKnight]

You are confusing lag that was generated due to a deficiency in your connection with the frame rate issue being discussed here. We are discussing game engine and optimization, you are discussing your connection.

 

Additional, from a hardware perspective there aren't as many configurations as people believe. Most gamers are going to be in the Nehalem or SandyBridge on the Intel side and on the AMD side Deneb or Thuban. For video cards you have the AMD Northern Island and Evergreen (6000 and 5000 series respectively), for Nvidia you have the Fermi 400 series and the refreshed Fermi 500 series.

 

There will be a few with legacy systems (older), but for the most part gamers can be narrowed into the above categories. Developers don't have to optimize their game around the potential software installed on the customer system, but the hardware and architecture of it. It isn't like there is a skittle pack of different architectures they have to worry about. Computer hardware is generational and you have multiple offerings based off one architecture.

 

Which is why I mentioned earlier, this game struggles on systems that are sound hardware and software wise.

 

Great post.

[iceperson]

Then why does my laptop run fine in Alderaan?

 

yeah, something is fishy. i have 3 machines at home that all run the game fine, none of which are younger than 2 years old and they don't have any issues at all outside of ilum before it was officially killed.

[Kourage]

Source: http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/19981-guild-summit-interview-with-daniel-erickson/page-2

 

What strikes me is the first sentence:

 

Q: Where are you on game engine optimizations? Because I currently get about 5 to 10 frames per second on Alderaan and about 20 in Huttball and I have a PC that can run Crysis 2 at ultra. With no real explanation on what is going on.

 

A: "Wow. You should do some investigation, because that is not typical. [...]

 

 

 

 

HE needs to do some investigation ? Really Daniel ? The CUSTOMER should investigate issues with your engine ? You still officially blame it on OUR RIGS ?

 

Will this ever end ? o.O

 

 

 

Dude is right...

 

Something is wrong with his computer.

[VertisReaper]

A: "Wow. You should do some investigation, because that is not typical. [...]

 

This quote is taken wildly out of context, its not even funny. I'm not even a Bioware fanboy but it ticks me off when people start weaving these type of lies that only spreads misinformation.

Edited March 15, 2012 by VertisReaper

[PostalTwinkie]

yeah, something is fishy. i have 3 machines at home that all run the game fine, none of which are younger than 2 years old and they don't have any issues at all outside of ilum before it was officially killed.

 

This isn't anyway a personal attack on you, so I apologize in advance if it comes off that way.

 

The problem with this statement is that you say it "runs fine" but then say "outside of ilum". It isn't fine if the game doesn't function in all areas, performance should be even across the board in the product.

 

If my left hand is broken ignoring it or avoiding use of it doesn't suddenly mean I am fine. There is still an issue that needs to be dealt with. Ignoring one area of the game because it isn't functioning doesn't mean the game is fine. It means there is an issue and it needs to be addressed.

 

But this is a simple analogy of one specific issue of the many with the product.

Edited March 15, 2012 by PostalTwinkie

[Proksham]

Settings and memory access (and OS).

 

If Windows has pre-cached your game you won't see the hitching when opening UI elements, if it hasn't, it's hard fault to disk access. If you have an SSD, but its improperly configured, or if you have other disk access at the same time it will again, hard pause and wait. If you're running chrome/firefox/opera with SWTOR on decent settings and only have 4 gigs of ram, guess what, you have a lot of stuff in memory which will cause problems. An SSD in the wrong mode, with the wrong settings in windows or with the wrong firmware will also cause persistent hitching. SWTOR is really big.

 

 

I am experiencing hitching on my Samsung 830 while running on the latest firmware. I believed that I should be running in AHCI to achieve my highest performance, is this correct?

[PostalTwinkie]

I am experiencing hitching on my Samsung 830 while running on the latest firmware. I believed that I should be running in AHCI to achieve my highest performance, is this correct?

 

Yes. AHCI is what you want to run. Read this to help with the issue....

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=154568&highlight=RAMDRIVE

 

It is something the consumer is having to do to help with issues. This assumes your hardware is fine.

Edited March 15, 2012 by PostalTwinkie

[Drewser]

Are you for real? Do you even understand what that guy was saying? Everybody gets a quick freeze when the inventory bag is opened. You're a plant is what you are. Go ahead, try it. Auto-run your character then just hit your B key. Open and close your inventory. See what happens. If it doesn't happen to you I want to see a video of it.

 

I have it too but never noticed until this thread because I don't run around opening and closing my character screen. There is certainly a slight hitch when doing so and my system is WAY beyond min specs and I have zero FPS problems. I am usually 70-100 FPS at fleet.

[Esproc]

This isn't anyway a personal attack on you, so I apologize in advance if it comes off that way.

 

The problem with this statement is that you say it "runs fine" but then say "outside of ilum". It isn't fine if the game doesn't function in all areas, performance should be even across the board in the product.

 

If my left hand is broken ignoring it or avoiding use of it doesn't suddenly mean I am fine. There is still an issue that needs to be dealt with. Ignoring one area of the game because it isn't functioning doesn't mean the game is fine. It means there is an issue and it needs to be addressed.

 

But this is a simple analogy of one specific issue of the many with the product.

 

Sorry, made me have a good old laugh from memories of raiding X-Roads.

[Proksham]

Yes. AHCI is what you want to run. Read this to help with the issue....

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=154568&highlight=RAMDRIVE

 

It is something the consumer is having to do to help with issues. This assumes your hardware is fine.

 

Thanks for the link, I had already seen the RAMDISK thread before and tried the barebones script but really didn't notice any difference with my hitching. I will try again though after I upgrade from 8gb to 16 so I can pile on more assets.

[JerokTalram]

Which is why I mentioned earlier, this game struggles on systems that are sound hardware and software wise.

 

These systems are running XP, Vista and Windows 7, you can not guarrantee that any users' systems are sound software wise running microsoft software or microsoft software on a virtual machine with Bootcamp.

 

I've even read threads where people are talking about how much better SWTOR runs on Windows 8. Suggesting that part of the problem is Windows 7.

Edited March 15, 2012 by JerokTalram

[Danakar]

Very sorry to tell you guys, but on my system I have not had any problems at all. Game runs very smooth wherever I go. I only experienced problems back on Taris, which seems to have been fixed when I went there on an alt some patches later.

 

specs:

i5 2500K

Windows 7 Home Premium 64bits

8192MB DDR3/1333 Kingston CL9

GRF Palit nVidia GTX550 Ti 1024MB

 

So I'm sorry to hear about these problems, but to me it does not appear an issue with the game engine; but rather how your computer seems to handle (or bottleneck) the data.

 

[PostalTwinkie]

These systems are running XP, Vista and Windows 7, you can not guarrantee that any users' systems are sound software wise running microsoft software or microsoft software on a virtual machine with Bootcamp.

 

I've even read threads where people are talking about how much better SWTOR runs on Windows 8. Suggesting that part of the problem is Windows 7.

 

I am not sure how to address this, considering you are ignored the rest of my quoted post that touches on the architectures people are generally going to be running.

 

While OS does play into the situation a bit it isn't that much of a wild card. The Windows OS is very proprietary and is going to fall within even stricter margins than the possible hardware potential.

 

I guess I can sum it up as.....

 

Pretty much every other major publisher and developer is able to do it, why can't EA/BioWare? Hell SWTOR had at least a $50,000,000 higher budget than BF3 did, yet DICE was able to achieve performance. Yes they had an issue at first, and admitted to it, but they have resolved it.

 

SWTOR also had a much larger Beta, and was told of the performance issues in Beta. But what did BioWare do? They removed high resolution textures and many graphical customization features at the end of Beta. Instead of addressing the issues at hand, they tried to hide them. When we Beta testers called them out they pointed the finger at us and said it was our rigs.

 

Really?

Edited March 15, 2012 by PostalTwinkie

[iceperson]

This isn't anyway a personal attack on you, so I apologize in advance if it comes off that way.

 

The problem with this statement is that you say it "runs fine" but then say "outside of ilum". It isn't fine if the game doesn't function in all areas, performance should be even across the board in the product.

 

If my left hand is broken ignoring it or avoiding use of it doesn't suddenly mean I am fine. There is still an issue that needs to be dealt with. Ignoring one area of the game because it isn't functioning doesn't mean the game is fine. It means there is an issue and it needs to be addressed.

 

But this is a simple analogy of one specific issue of the many with the product.

 

ilum runs no worse on my machines than zerging drek in AV was these past 5 years

[PostalTwinkie]

ilum runs no worse on my machines than zerging drek in AV was these past 5 years

 

Can you translate the last part of that to English for me?

[Proksham]

Can you translate the last part of that to English for me?

 

World of Warcraft, AV was something like a 40 vs 40 pve'ish battleground. Drek would be the last "boss" so generally you had most of the battleground condensed in a small area around him.

[WindChill]

Source: http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/19981-guild-summit-interview-with-daniel-erickson/page-2

 

What strikes me is the first sentence:

 

Q: Where are you on game engine optimizations? Because I currently get about 5 to 10 frames per second on Alderaan and about 20 in Huttball and I have a PC that can run Crysis 2 at ultra. With no real explanation on what is going on.

 

A: "Wow. You should do some investigation, because that is not typical. [...]

 

HE needs to do some investigation ? Really Daniel ? The CUSTOMER should investigate issues with your engine ? You still officially blame it on OUR RIGS ?

 

Will this ever end ? o.O

 

I seriously don't understand this, I mean I am running this game on a very low end performance laptop compared to other gamers and I can run this game fine on medium to low settings. The only way I get FPS issues(i.e getting a constant average of 5-15 fps) is when I start messing into medium-high settings. How is it that my piece of crap computer can play the game fine but these ULTRA amazing rigs have problems?

Edited March 15, 2012 by WindChill

[iceperson]

Can you translate the last part of that to English for me?

 

the most popular MMO of all time had an area that turned into a slide show and still did as of last summer on the same computers that run swtor fine (other than ilum)

[PostalTwinkie]

World of Warcraft, AV was something like a 40 vs 40 pve'ish battleground. Drek would be the last "boss" so generally you had most of the battleground condensed in a small area around him.

 

Thanks!

 

I seriously don't understand this, I mean I am running this game on a very low end performance laptop compared to other gamers and I can run this game fine on medium to low settings. The only way I get FPS issues(i.e getting a constant average of 5-15 fps) is when I start messing into medium-high settings. How is it that my piece of crap computer can play the game fine but these ULTRA amazing rigs have problems?

 

The issue is that our "ULTRA" systems are running the game like YOUR system. When in comparison we are able to run higher demanding products at a much higher level.

Edited March 15, 2012 by PostalTwinkie

[Tservo]

So the answer is "Nothing".

 

Got it.

[iceperson]

So the answer is "Nothing".

 

Got it.

 

You should try reading.

 

Where we are on game optimization in general is we’ve got some crazy, crazy options that you can turn on in 1.2. I played running around on several of the planets at fully acceptable wonderful running framerates on min spec machines now, which was the thing I wanted to see.

 

What we got right now is a big texture package pass, and we did it in both directions. So we can say, “Hey, you can take the textures way down, run around, the game works.” We’ve also said, “Hey, you know those textures people keep saying they like so much in the promotional videos? You can turn those on too now.” Because now we figured out how to do it in a small area so it doesn’t try to do it everywhere.

The next big thing we have to hit is effects, and that’s just a standard of what games do is say, “Hey, you know all those crazy crazy effects that everybody else is drawing? Yeah, maybe I don’t want to see all of your lightning storms all at once.” We have a programming team now that literally that’s their only mandate is game run better. Long term target is you should be able to play on your laptop, you should be able to play on your second and third machine in the house. And we are fiercely dedicated to that goal.

 

Edited March 15, 2012 by iceperson

[TheOnlyKyrenS]

Source: http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/19981-guild-summit-interview-with-daniel-erickson/page-2

 

What strikes me is the first sentence:

 

Q: Where are you on game engine optimizations? Because I currently get about 5 to 10 frames per second on Alderaan and about 20 in Huttball and I have a PC that can run Crysis 2 at ultra. With no real explanation on what is going on.

 

A: "Wow. You should do some investigation, because that is not typical. [...]

 

HE needs to do some investigation ? Really Daniel ? The CUSTOMER should investigate issues with your engine ? You still officially blame it on OUR RIGS ?

 

Will this ever end ? o.O

 

I see you are one of those people that only see the negative in the post. He was refering to the abnormally low fps on Alderaan on a rig that can run Crysis 2 on Ultra. What you are saying is that my laptop is way better than that because I get 30-40 fps on Alderaan?

[ferroz]

When in comparison we are able to run higher demanding products at a much higher level.

clearly they're not higher demanding products eh?