Optimization Truth: It was NEVER my computer?

[Spatology]

Turn your graphics down.

[Kyse]

my gfx card is only a 9500 gt and i feel as if i run this game pretty good for what i got for gfx card anyways and i run another game and facebook and other stuff in the back ground so if u lag then it is your comp maybe u just so happen 2 have a gfx card that just dont like swtor or maybe u think u got a good comp but u really dont or maybe u got one of them junky dell comps and didnt build your own lol

 

i would say update your stuff as in drivers and junk if that dont fix it then the game just dont like what u got in your comp and u just going 2 have to live with it wait till it gets fixed by a driver update or swtor fixes it some how or just get a better comp

[Goretzu]

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?

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

WIndows 7 - 64-bit

3.1GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5

8GB RAM

AMD Radeon HD 6970M with 1GB

 

- DH

 

 

There's a lot that is strange with SWTORs performance. For instance with some messing around I've discovered that Win XP tends to runs it significantly better than Win 7 on the same spec machine (not high spec, but not low spec either) - this was the case with XP vs Vista in a lot of games for a long time, but since Win 7 came out not so much. Even on machines of higher spec (med-high) that should just be better irrespective of OS. Of course, YMMV.

[turjake]

I used to work in a big IT-company doing server and other support and admin work. When ever we wanted to start using some new software, like Oracle or SQL-server or whatever we needed to test both the software versions and the hardware together to make sure they all ran smoothly. Quite often there were some little optimization stuff to do even when we followed the software manufacturers suggestions. Occasionally the brand new hardware was broken. Sometimes it was some driver version or some version of libraries in the operating system.

 

Typical home computer is basically a pile of parts assembled and then operating system installed. Sometimes it is installed by a professional company and they might test the parts so that they work well together. They might even optimize the operating system for gaming, or whatever. On the other hand, most of the time you get what you get. Even with readily installed and tested rig some driver update might mess the system. Or some fancy program the user wants to use and installs himself.

 

For example, my old comp runs most games I play relatively good. Few months ago I upgraded the graphics driver to see if performance in some game became better. Instead it messed performance in some other game. Rest of the games were as they were before. I ofcourse did not go and complain in that games boards that all the other games work nicely and their game is unoptimized, since the problem was obviously the driver.

 

(tldr) So the point is: Even when you buy a new computer you cannot be sure it runs fully optimized in every possible situation (every game is a bit different).

[MajikMyst]

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.

 

^^

 

Quoted for truth.. Because so many people need to read this post.. Especially the OP.. To many times people want to sit back and blame Bioware their game performance woes.. They expect everything to be fixed for them..

 

I have spent $100's of dollars upgrading both my wife's and my computer, to make sure that we run this game well.. As of current, we both do.. Despite the post above, which I very much agree with.. My wife and I do run with shadows on..

[FreePrometheus]

Must admit, i haven't read the whole thread. Only the OP. But i bought this computer recently, to pretty much suit the tech spec, for this game. And it makes the game, for lack of a better word, wonderful (That is, more so than before.) No lag, no framerate problems. Nothing but crisp clear and smooth gameplay. I'm not trying to claim you are wrong. Per se. But perhaps there is a grain of truth in what has been claimed by others?

 

Just wanted to put my two penneth in.

 

[EDIT]: When i say i run the game well with no problems, i do mean at full graphics etc...

Edited September 7, 2012 by FreePrometheus

[exca]

You can try SWTOR Unleashed from my signature to reduce drastically your fps drops.

 

Regards

[Goretzu]

You can try SWTOR Unleashed from my signature to reduce drastically your fps drops.

 

Regards

 

Interesting.

[ripster]

It might be kind of tricky to find out what the power requirements of the card are if it came as an OEM install in a pre-built PC.

I mentioned before a problem I had with EQ2. Now I recall that I had just bought a new video card and had to worry about the power usage as I had a 250 or 300W and everything better than I had needed much more power. I found a decent card that claimed to work with my power supply but now that I think about it that may have still been an issue.

And lastly, for folks with newer computers this may not be an issue, but then again, it may be. The cooling systems of your PC are also very important. That means having the proper airflow, not blocking the vents on the system with papers or clutter and so forth. Making sure the vent areas are dust-free and open for clear flow-through.

I also had problems with SWTOR a couple months ago where I was getting really bad frame rates all of a sudden an even crashes. I started to notice my fan was much more active than normal. So I bought some canned air and popped the side and cleaned everything out and it has been a lot better since.

 

(Note: I'm not saying this is the problem for everyone or that this game can handle heavy populations in one area, but there are often times causes not quite apparent and I know the game runs well on lower end machines so it is not as simple as saying you need a $5000 PC)

[VarKoE]

Having the most up to date drivers is rarely a major issue. I have many times had to revert to WHQL cert'd drivers or older drivers because games crash when using the latest and greatest. Only dumb tech support people always harp on this as a real issue.

 

Dumb tech support... Nice

 

However he is not talking about video card drivers. He is talking about the os framework drivers. There is a thread ob this and for some folks this can help. I think it is the optimization thread that was started in april. (i think)

[islander]

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'

 

ding ding ding ding

[Frumyrfrenzy]

Must admit, i haven't read the whole thread. Only the OP. But i bought this computer recently, to pretty much suit the tech spec, for this game. And it makes the game, for lack of a better word, wonderful (That is, more so than before.) No lag, no framerate problems. Nothing but crisp clear and smooth gameplay. I'm not trying to claim you are wrong. Per se. But perhaps there is a grain of truth in what has been claimed by others?

 

Just wanted to put my two penneth in.

 

[EDIT]: When i say i run the game well with no problems, i do mean at full graphics etc...

 

So that means no dips to 20-25 fps at max settings, 1080p and in a 16 man operation or the Nightmare Pilgrim on Voss?

[Rogoo]

You can try SWTOR Unleashed from my signature to reduce drastically your fps drops.

 

Regards

 

It does NOT reduce framerate drops.

 

It DOES however reduce stuttering, observed when the game has to load data from your HDD (mostly happens on fleet and other crowded areas). Also helps a lot with loading times.

[LaVolpex]

In short, your Hero engine...well...sucks. It is poorly optimized, and the amount of hitching and slowdowns i experience as the game loads everything is downright frustrating..

 

heres an example:

 

flashpoint,you and your group "Wipe"

so now you have to resurrect at med center , one loading screen, just to appear at the entrance where i have to walk 2 steps forward to get back into the isntance.and thats ANOTHER LOAD SCREEN! why do i have to go thru 2 loading screens back to back ? why not rez me inside the instance?

 

going to a planet: ship loading screen, galaxy map, travel there, now exit ship, now load screen , now orbital station, now load screen , now shuttle, now load screen again , and finally im on the planet...

 

ive put up with it for so long because i like the game, but the poor implementation of the engine also makes me run at 24 frames per second generaly on a machine that runs skyrim, guild wars 2 , battlefield 3 , and a few other graphically intensive games with what could be equated to 200% better performance ...im left with no choice but to decide its your optimization on the hero engine and how it uses video card drivers

 

ive been puttin together PC's and gaming on them for the past 12 years, i still remember all my DOS commands and ive installed more video card drivers and copies of EVERY windows release than you can imagine, so im not some scrub with an adware ridden best buy pc speaking out of my butt, believe me when i say , that if you want your f2p model to work , you need to make it so that any regular joe can run it smoothly, because most f2p comers will NOT put up with this poor engine performance for months on end like i have, let alone invest 6 months into it...

 

anyways , i might be back as a subscriber if major overhauls are done to the engine and its optimization , if GW2 can do it with 2.0 shaders and 100 people on screen on this machine...then its not me , it swtor ...good luck !

 

^ my cancel statement, i love the game , but ive been gaming and putting together pcs for more than a decade, i KNOW its not on my end ...ill be back eventually if they optimze this, meantime i will be doing events @ 1080p on GW2 with a hundred people on screen running smoothly...not even exagerating

[Burtlebe]

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.

 

My computer is 3 years old but i do have vista 64 bit on it and 16 gb of ram. Other than some spikes in operations I have no issues running game on full graphics. I do think there are some optimizations needed but not as drastic as some make it. Also I wonder how much vista or 7 in 64bit makes for performance plus.

[WaywardOne]

For the first couple months after release I had to run the game at reduced res and it still caused my gfx card to heat up. But now I run it at full 2560x1600 windowed mode and there are no noticeable issues except when there are too many pcs or in some space missions. It has been optimized a lot.

 

But yea, mass world pvp fights will still have problems esp compared to gw2...

[BaronV]

I love how the self-appointed "YOU MUST GLORIFY BIOWARE AT ALL TIMES!" police immediately turn this topic into "OP is complaining about frame rates. What are your PC specs OP? Your PC must be crap because my game runs fine!"

 

In reality this thread was about bioware deception and lying about the game engine problems by blaming player's PCs:rolleyes:

 

I have been here since beta and EGA and virtually EVERY patch since launch has made fps worse. I used to be able to play on an older core2duo (2Ghz) laptop with a humble 9600mgt at 1280x800 and 4GB ram and get decent frame rates (40-50) throughout (PvE only since i dont PvP) with shadows on high, AA at 4x and bloom on.

 

1.2 took a huge chunk out of fps and I had to turn off bloom and shadows to have smooth play of around 25fps.

 

1.3 made the game nigh unplayable in many scenarios unless i really turned the graphics down. At that point i finally shelled 4 months salary for a spanking new computer and was happy to get around 112-120 fps in normal scenarios and 95-100fps in semi crowded fleet.

 

After seeing this post today I just checked my fps and its an apalling 64fps on Hoth with only 22 people on the server and nothing in sight but a few tauntauns as far as the eye can see...

 

And before you go whacking my new PC here are the specs

Ivy Bridge Core i7 3770K OCed to 4 GHz

Z77 motherboard

8GB Kingston HyperX running at 1600

Gigabyte Geforce GTX670 with windforce OCed to around 1080MHz (cant remb the exact figure)

Mushkin Chronos elite SSD connected to SATA3 bus (this is both my OS drive and the drive running SWTOR)

Windows 7 Home Premium x64 with all latest drivers and directX installed (even installed the latest DX9 known to help improve SWTOR performance)

 

So dont tell me its my system. I have seen the performance of the game steadily degrade with every patch released. The degradation of my laptop or new desktop hardware is far too miniscule to result in the fps drops - ITS THE SOFTWARE!!

Edited September 7, 2012 by BaronV

[Kubernetic]

I love how the self-appointed "YOU MUST GLORIFY BIOWARE AT ALL TIMES!" police immediately turn this topic into "OP is complaining about frame rates. What are your PC specs OP? Your PC must be crap because my game runs fine!"

 

In reality this thread was about bioware deception and lying about the game engine problems by blaming player's PCs:rolleyes:

 

I have been here since beta and EGA and virtually EVERY patch since launch has made fps worse. I used to be able to play on an older core2duo (2Ghz) laptop with a humble 9600mgt at 1280x800 and 4GB ram and get decent frame rates (40-50) throughout (PvE only since i dont PvP) with shadows on high, AA at 4x and bloom on.

 

1.2 took a huge chunk out of fps and I had to turn off bloom and shadows to have smooth play of around 25fps.

 

1.3 made the game nigh unplayable in many scenarios unless i really turned the graphics down. At that point i finally shelled 4 months salary for a spanking new computer and was happy to get around 112-120 fps in normal scenarios and 95-100fps in semi crowded fleet.

 

After seeing this post today I just checked my fps and its an apalling 64fps on Hoth with only 22 people on the server and nothing in sight but a few tauntauns as far as the eye can see...

 

And before you go whacking my new PC here are the specs

Ivy Bridge Core i7 3770K OCed to 4 GHz

Z77 motherboard

8GB Kingston HyperX running at 1600

Gigabyte Geforce GTX670 with windforce OCed to around 1080MHz (cant remb the exact figure)

Mushkin Chronos elite SSD connected to SATA3 bus (this is both my OS drive and the drive running SWTOR)

Windows 7 Home Premium x64 with all latest drivers and directX installed (even installed the latest DX9 known to help improve SWTOR performance)

 

So dont tell me its my system. I have seen the performance of the game steadily degrade with every patch released. The degradation of my laptop or new desktop hardware is far too miniscule to result in the fps drops - ITS THE SOFTWARE!!

 

You forgot to list the specs on your power supply. This is especially important for you as you're overclocking just about everything that I can see here.

 

Looks like your GTX670 requires a 500W supply without being overclocked. That you have everything else overclocked, I'm guessing you're going to need at least a 750W-800W supply in there to avoid any issues. But that's just a guess.

Edited September 7, 2012 by Kubernetic

[Malastare]

Looks like your GTX670 requires a 500W supply without being overclocked. That you have everything else overclocked, I'm guessing you're going to need at least a 750W-800W supply in there to avoid any issues. But that's just a guess.

 

And it's a pretty silly guess.

 

While the guy you're responding to is patently wrong (or lying), there's nothing about his system that would require a 750W PSU. I run a i7-2600K at 4.5GHz, with an extra hard drive, sound card, a few NICs and a full compliment of RAM and the whole thing needs only 350W from the wall while I play SWTOR. Yeah, he's got a 670 instead of my 560Ti, but I promise you that there isn't a 400W difference between the two. It's foolish to try and use manufacturers PSU recommendations like you did up there. In most cases, the 500W requirement is for the system, assuming a same-class CPU. And overclocking modern CPUs and GPUs does not increase overall system (fixed) power consumption by 50%.

 

That's said: The previous poster was, again, very wrong. There have been quite a few improvements that drastically increased performance, very specifically improvements to high-congestion areas like Fleet. Want proof? Watch mobs or other NPCs in the distance. Anyone with decent vision will notice that their animation isn't being updated as frequently as stuff thats closer to you. That was one of the more drastic improvements that increased performance for lower-end systems. There have been plenty of others.

 

At the very least, I can match their "It ALWAYS gets worse" anecdote with two "It's gotten much better" anecdotes: Two of the people I regularly play with were using borderline-gaming laptops and saw significant improvements in framerates and reduced number of framerate drops across a number of patches between 1.2 and 1.3.

Edited September 7, 2012 by Malastare

[Insomnio]

The games performance is hit and miss. No need to yell at anyone, if you have a computer that works great with the game, congradulations.

 

Posting your specs to give people an example of what it takes to run the game smoothly at all times, or offering the people with problems some sort of advice is also a polite thing to do- blatenly calling them ignorant or telling them they need to upgrade withought knowing what system they are using is just rude.

 

I play on a phenom ii x4, ati 6870, with 16gb of corsair vengence ram (and a 700w power supply to the power guy). I have problems with the games performance frequently enough, not 100% of the time, but in most instances where there are a number of people I do get some drastic dips.

[VarKoE]

And it's a pretty silly guess.

 

While the guy you're responding to is patently wrong (or lying), there's nothing about his system that would require a 750W PSU. I run a i7-2600K at 4.5GHz, with an extra hard drive, sound card, a few NICs and a full compliment of RAM and the whole thing needs only 350W from the wall while I play SWTOR. Yeah, he's got a 670 instead of my 560Ti, but I promise you that there isn't a 400W difference between the two. It's foolish to try and use manufacturers PSU recommendations like you did up there. In most cases, the 500W requirement is for the system, assuming a same-class CPU. And overclocking modern CPUs and GPUs does not increase overall system (fixed) power consumption by 50%

 

it may not need 750 however, you wall measurement is an average draw. It should deliberstely filter millisecond spikes out. The reason you want higher power than average draw is to limit the instance of the rails being saturated which creates heat. (Technically a square wave) same thing introduces distortion in sound equipment.

 

So while your right, it can be detrimental to your system to be underpowered and can result in some performance loss. How quantifiable that is....no idea.

[Rafaedrin]

Just wanted to chime in.

 

Higher wattage doesnt guarantee it will work better. PSU's also some with rail ratings. There are a great deal of 750w+ PSUs that will not perform better than say a 600w PSU, and in a shocking high number of cases will perform worse.

 

This is where ratings coming in. Wattage alone only tells you that they can provide x amount of juice to any particular component. It doesnt tell you if they are going to do so consistently, even when all components are under load. Many PSU manufacturers include either a percentage or bronze, silver, gold, platinum style rating indicating that their PSU with X wattage will deliver that wattage with Y consistency.

 

9/10 times your prebuilt namebrand PC has the absolute cheapest components in it the company can find. Especially when it comes to PSUs. Its how they increase their bottom line. The result is that those specs they sold you on are beyond deceptive and often wont be delivering 1/3 of the performance you would expect.

Edited September 7, 2012 by Rafaedrin
I speel gud

[VarKoE]

Edited to remove a duplicate post - not sure how that happened. Edited September 7, 2012 by VarKoE

[Kubernetic]

Just wanted to chime in.

 

Higher wattage doesnt guarantee it will work better. PSU's also some with rail ratings. There are a great deal of 750w+ PSUs that will not perform better than say a 600w PSU, and in a shocking high number of cases will perform worse.

 

This is where ratings coming in. Wattage alone only tells you that they can provide x amount of juice to any particular component. It doesnt tell you if they are going to do so consistently, even when all components are under load. Many PSU manufacturers include either a percentage or bronze, silver, gold, platinum style rating indicating that their PSU with X wattage will deliver that wattage with Y consistency.

 

9/10 times your prebuilt namebrand PC has the absolute cheapest components in it the company can find. Especially when it comes to PSUs. Its how they increase their bottom line. The result is that those specs they sold you on are beyond deceptive and often wont be delivering 1/3 of the performance you would expect.

 

Thanks for chiming in on this. I know that the rail set up is important, but am not really technically savvy enough to speak on it. But I did mention in a previous post that the PSUs are not identical, and that it's important to make sure you've got a good brand with a good design.

 

As to the others, it was simple deduction. They say they have a GeForce GTX670. The specifications for that card say it requires a 500W power supply, and this of course is a minimum standard chosen by the manufacturer. I'm pretty sure they didn't just toss a dart at a board, and it hit the "500" mark. They chose it specifically because they feel it's the best amount of power to make sure the card is functional. Going under that amount is at your own risk of performance.

 

Now I may be wrong, but it seems to me that if the minimum power requirements are 500W, and you've overclocked the card, your performance requirements may be different than the manufacturer specified... i.e. greater than what was listed. As they also say they have an overclocked processor, and RAM, and quite possibly the FSB as well, I don't think it's a stretch to say that they should be shooting for a nice quality power supply that is over the 500W rainbow somewhere. Maybe a 600W would do it, maybe a 650W. I chose a 750W just because personally I'd rather have more power than I could use up rather than trying to skirt the minimum requirements.

 

If you're trying to get away with overclocking your system to the maximum and still using the stock supply (or the one specified in the system requirements based on it being run at the proper speed, and not overclocked to hell), you're going to run into trouble, especially in a highly graphics intensive game in the most extreme circumstances.

 

The thing that was most curious to me was that here was yet another poster who knew the stats on every part of the system, and were ready to read them off, yet the power system and its particulars is nowhere in sight...

[Rafaedrin]

Apologies if what I said seemed directed. Just meant to show that just because something says it will work on someones piece of paper, doesnt mean it will.