Optimization Truth: It was NEVER my computer?

[Diet-Hutt]

After the release of this game, reports came back from players that they were having issues with game performance. Lag, huge drops in frame rates, and other problems were voiced online in many forums.

 

Bioware went on the offensive. Stating that not only are a majority of players not experiencing any sort of issues with gameplay, those having issues have crappy "low end" computers. Essentially blaming them for the problems.

 

James Ohlen told Eurogamer:

 

“The thing is, for the most part, 95 per cent – oh I can’t give you the exact percentage – most of our players aren’t really having performance concerns,” he said. “However, we know that it’s important that there is a smaller group of people usually with lower end machines that are having problems in some areas. And one of the most important things for us to grow our service is to continue to bring in more players, including those players who only have low-end machines.” PC Gamer

 

Ouch.

 

I personally BOUGHT this computer to play this game. I made sure it was well above requirements and ready to play any game that came it's way. In spite of this, I had major lag issues on the fleet, and other places where multiple players fought or interacted.

 

Despite the fact that others were having the same issues, even professional reviewers who PRAISED the game, Bioware/EA stuck to the story.

 

"My biggest complaint with SWTOR isn't that it apes World of Warcraft circa 2006 in every major gameplay system. That's a decent enough design by itself, and BioWare does a good job using those tools to create interesting encounters. The larger problem is the shoddy technical implementation.

 

There is no reason why my powerful machines framerate should chug in the low teens in hub areas."

 

- SWTOR: The Best SIngle Player MMO I've Ever Played, Adam Biessener

 

That's in praise of the game itself. I know that this guy isn't using Windows 95.

 

The "it's you not them" sentiments were even echoed on the forums, with members stating that everything was essentially fine, and the problems were all on the part of those complaining.

 

The truth that most weren't aware of at the time, is that EA licensed the Hero Engine in spite of being told that it was not optimized for this game, and was essentially unfinished.

 

“It’s not productized yet,” we told Gordon. “There are whole sections of code that is only roughed in and not optimized for performance or security. And there are very few comments and very little documentation.”

 

He didn’t care. “We are going to have tons of engineers. We can finish it ourselves. We’re going to want to modify your source code for our special project anyway.” Hero Engine Meets Star Wars

 

Bio/EA eventually started optimizing the engine that was perfect save for the "5% of the low-end gamers", and as stated officially by one of it's employees on these very forums.

 

MattBoudreaux

 

Hey all, I just wanted to pop in and say we are actively working on various optimizations (both server and client) and will continue to do so. It's extremely important for us to continually make improvements to our technology so we can have users across a variety of system specs and support large living worlds for those users to craft their virtual lives.

 

This is a step in the right direction, I applaud the fact that it is taking place, but one that was needed many months ago.

 

The only MMO I've played since December of 2011 until August 2012, has been this one. I invested time, money, and even support into this game. Id left the others behind because they became stale, and as a KOTOR fan, I thought this was the MMO for me. The performance issues were such that playing the game was one of the most annoying MMO experiences I've had to date.

 

Now, after playing Guild Wars 2, a substantially cheaper game, the evidence of the problems being on the side of Bioware and not me is overwhelming.

 

Participating in World v World and having 30 or 40 people spamming abilities against each other caused ZERO noticeable dips in frame rates or obvious lag. In fact, I've had very few problems with performance at all. That's the one thing the game got right, outside of some of the more expected problems.

 

The lesson here for Bioware should be that if you have costumers complaining of performance issues, and you KNOW for a fact that the engine you have was not optimized for your game, don't point the finger at them. We're on YOUR side. Otherwise we wouldn't have been there in the first place.

 

Were there gamers playing on low end computers? I'm sure there were and are. I however doubt that they don't realize this fact and are shocked that thier out-of-date computers are slower. The complaints I've read on these forums were from people with higher end computers based on the stats of the computer itself that they posted.

 

I shouldn't need to buy a $5000 computer just to make this game work as intended.

I applaud the fact that optimization has been taking place, and hope it continues, but I hope a lesson was learned here in blaming those who support you and how so many walked away because of the snail paced action.

 

If a free-to-play and less expensive game like GW2 runs smoother than this one you want people to pay to fully experience, you've really got to step up your game.

 

- DH

Edited September 6, 2012 by Diet-Hutt

[Helistin]

That first quote is just priceless.

But on the other hand what would you expect them to say?

 

' We spend 200 million dollars developing the game and all you got was unfinished mmo from the year 2006 that features a crappy engine'

[Thaltom]

Before this post I bet Bioware was all "Meeeeeeh" about optimization... but after I bet they are all like "WE NEED OPTIMIZATION NAO!"

[Ansalem]

heh I'm still waiting for this supposed optimization...they keep claiming they are improving the engine and game but the only change I have seen is that now they only allow 1 raid per denova instance...that tells me they know their game isn't optimized to handle multiple groups/mediocre amounts of people in the same instance...yet they still haven't fixed it! We saw the problems on ilum and fleet at launch....they still exist if you goto voss during peak hours with people competing over NP. When is bioware going to actually optimize the engine and the game so we can stop experienced lag and delays in combat? I play multiple mmos and there is a noticeable difference between combat smoothness between say WOW and this game. Please bioware figure out and fix the combat delays/ghost GCD skill activations and the lag whenever a guild wants to go kill a world boss. I really want to continue playing this game.

[TUXs]

Where are the specs to your computer?? And why are bringing up old news?? I mean seriously?? Do we really need to dredge up this dead horse again?? I mean, it wouldn't be so bad if you actually wanted to talk about your computer and your own performance.. All you did was post some old articles and QQ about it.. Why??

 

Because yesterday's patch has decreased performance for a large number of players. It's a fine post...if you don't like it, why bother replying?

[Jetronin]

Because yesterday's patch has decreased performance for a large number of players. It's a fine post...if you don't like it, why bother replying?

 

Because it is key to the post. If he has a PC that shouldn't run the game well then he is making a lot out of nothing. If his drivers are all out of date the same thing.

[TUXs]

Because it is key to the post. If he has a PC that shouldn't run the game well then he is making a lot out of nothing. If his drivers are all out of date the same thing.

 

I was commenting as to WHY this has come up again. And...do you really think someone who shouldn't be able to run the game would still be playing it 9 months after launch?! This isn't some isolated issue, nor is it a graphics driver as it's happening on both NVIDIA and ATI cards.

[anstalt]

If I remember rightly, this game is single-threaded, meaning all processing for this game will run through a single core on your processor. That is the bottle-neck for most people. It is also the reason why most people don't see a correlation between specs/age of their PC and their performance.

 

Due to single-threaded nature of the game, you will see the best performance if you have a CPU from the end of a previous generation. This is because by the end of a generation, the clock speed per core is quite high. When the next generation comes out with more cores, each core tends to have a lower clock speed.

 

Thats why people with CPU's with only 2 cores but a clock speed of 4 GHz are running the game better than people with 6 cores but a clock speed of only 2.5GHz.

 

To test this, run a CPU monitor whilst playing the game. My and my guildies have done this, and typically one core will reach 70-90% capacity whilst our other cores idle in the 5-15% range.

[Rogoo]

I love "Mr. Balls To The Wall" quotes. Priceless.

 

Performance is still shoddy in SWTOR.

 

On the funny side, Guild Wars 2 also suffers from terrible performance issues in open world PvP (sounds familiar ?).

 

So I posted:

 

"Please oh please, stop playing Bioware and don’t blame it on our rigs."

 

And I got an immidiate reponse from Arenanet saying:

 

"We are in no way blaming these performance issues on players’ systems which is exactly why we need to collect this information."

 

Looks like the Arenanet guys are learning from the mistakes of others.

[Kinop]

Yeah hi, research more. My game was running terrible on my 5 year old rig.

 

Recently bought a new rig (i5 3.4 over clocked to 4.4ghz, 16 gig RAM, windows 7 and a GTX 660ti) game now runs fine everywhere solid 60 fps everywhere because I keep vsync on. So yeah I used to be of the opinion the engine is bad now I know it's just not very good with old hardware.

[Andryah]

A few comments, directed at the topic, not at any particular poster in this thead:

 

There are a lot of factors that play into performance issues with MMOs. Some on the producer side and some on the player side. There are literally tens of thousands of configurations in users hands and all manner of user tweaking (which is notorious for making one game play better while another plays worse as a result). It's a complex interoperability equation any way you try to address it.

 

To go to either extreme view as to cause is senseless and hyperbolic. Such as the OP laying it all at the producers door. Using the word NEVER in any discussion about the game in a general discussion forum is taking an extreme view. The same is true for using the word ALWAYS. It's deliberate polarization to make a point.

 

Performance optimization in an MMO is a journey, not a destination, and it requires sensible analysis and adjustment by both player and producer. Players on an individual level, and producer on the macro level. Anyone who has played the genre over the years knows this. Some games come out the gate better then others. Some get better over time, some do not. And given the different styles, engines and coding of MMOs, comparing them is also largely apples to oranges.

 

Some people have performance issues with this game, some do not. Any patch where they tweak something in the graphics, some people suddenly have performance issues, and some do not. Personally, using stock hardware and stock drivers on a mid-range gaming laptop at 1920, I have never had a problem with this particular games performance as long as I keep shadows off. At the same time, I acknowledge that some player have/do have performance issues (sometimes they also have extreme expectations, such as it needs to run at 100 FPS). Shadows implementation in this game has always been broken as far as I am concerned and should be disabled until such time as they fix it IMO.

Edited September 6, 2012 by Andryah

[Qarran]

Well, I'm lucky. I have a computer that runs this game very well. It is a high end system with dual graphics etc. etc. I'm also running the game on my laptop and older system not designed for gaming and it runs fine after I tweaked down the graphics a bit (turn off grass, tress etc.)

 

So before we start discussing specs, I'd like to know the specs of your system OP. It is highly relevant to this discussion.

[Andryah]

So before we start discussing specs, I'd like to know the specs of your system OP. It is highly relevant to this discussion.

 

Quoted for truth, and sensibility.

[Jetronin]

I was commenting as to WHY this has come up again. And...do you really think someone who shouldn't be able to run the game would still be playing it 9 months after launch?! This isn't some isolated issue, nor is it a graphics driver as it's happening on both NVIDIA and ATI cards.

 

Sorry but it has everything to do with this. If he is posting and he has a PC which cant handle the game, that is why he is having the issue. I have played on both a low end and high end PC, surprisingly it works better on the high end PC/ Also if his drivers are not up to date that may well also cause issues. Without knowing what his specs are we don't have any context for this post. I myself play on an laptop (low end) and desktop (highend) . Both work how I would expect them to.

[Rogoo]

Yeah hi, research more. My game was running terrible on my 5 year old rig.

 

Recently bought a new rig (i5 3.4 over clocked to 4.4ghz, 16 gig RAM, windows 7 and a GTX 660ti) game now runs fine everywhere solid 60 fps everywhere because I keep vsync on. So yeah I used to be of the opinion the engine is bad now I know it's just not very good with old hardware.

 

Go to fleet at peak (say with around 200+ people in the instance).

 

Fraps it while you run around with the framerate counter on then post it.

 

Otherwise I call your "solid 60 fps EVERYWHERE" shenanigans.

Edited September 6, 2012 by Rogoo

[Kinop]

Quoted for truth, and sensibility.

 

On my phone so can't quote the parts of your previous post I agreed with will just echo that it is all about the hardware config I've seen 3 machines with similar specs play this game at different degrees of mediocre and I've now seen the game played at max settings everything on yes even shadows and seen how it should run. Everyone's rig is like a snowflake there's not a chance in hell you can guess how they all will handle the game as they are all subtly different. But now seeing from the other side of the fence and seeing that the game can actually run well. It just leaves me curious as well to what the OP's specs are.

[Kinop]

Go to fleet at peak (say with around 200+ people in the instance).

 

Fraps it while you run around with the framerate counter on then post it.

 

Otherwise I call your "solid 60 fps EVERYWHERE" shenanigans.

 

Feel free I'm not wasting my time setting up Fraps to prove this to you, you have my word take it or leave it

[Goretzu]

Strangely I've found SWTOR runs really well on a low-end computer....... but nothing seems to to run mass PvP well.

[SlimsPicken]

Because yesterday's patch has decreased performance for a large number of players.

 

This is certainly true for me.

 

And I run a very high end computer, played beta since sept 09, and never ever had lag issues until the 1.3 patch.

[Evensong]

Have pretty good rig, not the best but decent ( single card NVidia 580) and I run 60-100 fps most of the time on max settings with everything high - with resolution 2560x1600. Fleet in prime time 40 or more. Very rarely getting down to 20-30 for 1 or 2 sec. Edited September 6, 2012 by Evensong

[Insomnio]

Feel free I'm not wasting my time setting up Fraps to prove this to you, you have my word take it or leave it

 

Thats what they all say.

 

The game runs ok for the most part, but for a 2012 game with a 2005 skin, it has some really severe fluctuations in performance. Which unfortunately appear when a couple other players are on screen, which even to a MMO newbie is a glaring problem- a Massive Multiplayer Game that has problems running when there are other players onscreen?

[Diet-Hutt]

If he has a PC that shouldn't run the game well then he is making a lot out of nothing.

 

*sigh.

 

I already stated my computer was above the posted requirements.

Anyone that can read the games requirements (I do every time) should know whether or not they have a system capable of playing it.

 

I'm not stupid.

 

- DH

Edited September 6, 2012 by Diet-Hutt

[Rogoo]

Feel free I'm not wasting my time setting up Fraps to prove this to you, you have my word take it or leave it

 

As usual. Many people claim perfect performance, yet nobody can prove it.

[aeterno]

*sigh.

 

I already stated my computer was above the posted requirements.

Anyone that can read the games requirements (I do every time) should know whether or not they have a system capable of playing it.

 

I'm not stupid.

 

- DH

Having a system caple of playing something does not equate having a system running something smoothly under all ircumstances.

 

I have 2 rigs. PvP on ilum was smooth as silk with 560ti and 8gigs of system ram and a slideshow on the one with hd4850 and 2 gigs. I wasn't exactly surprised by that. Sure it met the requirements. Requirements that guarantee me I get into the game without CTDing. If you expect any more from them you must be new to gaming.

 

Which isn't to say hero engine is not bollocks, cos it is.

Edited September 6, 2012 by aeterno

[Diet-Hutt]

Having a system caple of playing something does not equate having a system running something smoothly under all ircumstances.

 

Hence why low-end computers can play this game.

 

Obviously, but the fact is, I am above the requirements to play the game and that should be enough not to have so many issues.

 

Otherwise change the requirements and state that the previous requirements aren't accurate for NORMAL gameplay.

 

What would be the point of giving those requirements if a player can't properly play the game if they match them?

 

Quoted for truth, and sensibility.

 

Just so we can get back to the actual subject of the engine not being properly optimized and being written about by professional gaming reviewers besides basic players.

 

SWTOR System requirements

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4000 or better / Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2.0 Ghz or better

Memory: At least 1.5 GB RAM for XP / 2 GB or better for Windows Vista/7

Graphics: ATI XT1800 or better / NVIDIA 7800 or better / Intel 4100 or better. 256 MB minimum video RAM, shader 3.0 or better fully compatible graphics card.

OS: Windows XP / Vista / Windows 7

DVD-ROM: 8x or better

 

 

WIndows 7 - 64-bit

3.1GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5

8GB RAM

AMD Radeon HD 6970M with 1GB

 

- DH

Edited September 6, 2012 by Diet-Hutt