Optimization Truth: It was NEVER my computer?

[Jetronin]

Dxdiag so we can see your drivers 2 please

 

BTW, I do believe you, its just that Id also like to help you if possible

 

And yeah, mass PvP doest work so well, I believe they even aid so and thats why Ilum is gone for now. Thats the only place I ever had issues

 

Edit: You play on a laptop? Could you also link the laptop Model, sometimes laptops(even ones with good cards) have issues as they overheat and so cant run at the full settings.

Edited September 6, 2012 by Jetronin

[Diet-Hutt]

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

 

What's funny is that so many people are still blaming the user when the fact is, they are still optimizing the engine because of the issues. The creator stated the fact that the engine WOULD have issues (can't blame them really). Other established game reviewers reported similar issues on their high end machines.

 

Still...the finger is pointed at the user...by other users in denial.

 

- DH

Edited September 6, 2012 by Diet-Hutt

[Krewel]

As I said repeatedly to people who claim they play with 60 fps on High or even 100+ fps during 16 man ops/Nightmare Pilgrim - post some pictures, videos to witness this stellar performance. What's even more sad/retarded is that for a lot of people who still persist in this game buying a 2k-3k-dollar comp to play a MASSIVELY multiplayer game normally is supposed to be a norm.

[Diet-Hutt]

Yeah hi, research more.

 

Why?

What kind of response is that anyway?

 

Aside from the quote from Gameinformer, those quotes were from Bioware/EA and the creators of the engine they use.

 

The creators said the engine wasn't finished or proper for use with SWTOR and after release people had issues.

 

Derp.

 

My game was running terrible on my 5 year old rig.

 

Thank God I bought mine brand new and last year.

 

- DH

[Diet-Hutt]

What's even more sad/retarded is that for a lot of people who still persist in this game buying a 2k-3k-dollar comp to play a MASSIVELY multiplayer game normally is supposed to be a norm.

 

I addressed that point before where a guy said the game runs perfect on his $5000 rig.

Is that what I need to spend to play SWTOR as intended??! That's ridiculous.

 

That would be twice what I spent on mine and it was new and above the requirements.

 

Not worth it at all. No way.

If this game was made for people with computers that are 5k and over, then it will fail.

 

- DH

Edited September 6, 2012 by Diet-Hutt

[ripster]

It seems like the quote that is most offensive is not saying that the only problems are low end machines, but most or a significant chunk of that 5% are low end machines, which leaves whatever remains as other like higher end machines. Just because he didn't explicitly mention you machine doesn't mean they are blaming you.

 

Of course no engine is truly optimized for PC gaming since it is a moving target. They are 'optimizing down' because they feel they are missing out on a large number of people with old games who do know they can't play the game so don't (I don't get where you paint this as people complaining they bought a game they can't play, but even for those who did that, EA/BW feels there is enough of a customer potential there to lower the specs).

 

Don't get me wrong, I've been through the same thing with various games. I had to stop playing Asheron's Call because it wasn't compatible with my internet connection, I stopped playing City of Heroes because I started getting this weird flickering I later found out was caused by a wireless remote I had plugged in for my ATI card, and Dawn of War 2 was unplayable with more than 10 units on the screen because of my sound card. However, I was most frustrated when I had just bought a new video card to play EQ2 Extended and everything looked amazing for such an old game, except for all the missing graphics. I never figured out what caused that, although I am sure I could blame the unoptimized engine, but the reality is that sometimes some hardware configurations just don't play nice with some software.

 

(On a related note, I recently had an issue with a Blu-Ray disc not working anymore in the same player that I watched in on before and found that there plenty of cases where Sony Blu-Ray players are not able to read particular title discs. If something as straightforward as that can't hit 100% compatibility, you have to realize that for stuff like PC games it is much more likely to have issues)

[ripster]

Not worth it at all. No way.

If this game was made for people with computers that are 5k and over, then it will fail.

My computer cost about $500-700 over a year ago, so it wasn't even top of the line then, and it plays SWTOR just fine. No, I don't have every option set to MAX/ULTRA, but I don't need to. Just because they include those settings doesn't mean they have to be selected, and certainly not if you spend most of your play time in 'laggy' areas like Fleet, PvP or Ops.

[Andryah]

I addressed that point before where a guy said the game runs perfect on his $5000 rig.

Is that what I need to spend to play SWTOR as intended??! That's ridiculous.

 

That would be twice what I spent on mine and it was new and above the requirements.

 

Not worth it at all. No way.

If this game was made for people with computers that are 5k and over, then it will fail.

 

- DH

 

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.

 

And to add..... my laptop was $1300, is now a year old, and plays the game just fine. 40 FPS on a busy Fleet, and 60-100 out in the planets.

 

Sincere Question: Did you start this thread to complain, or to get assistance from others on addressing your FPS issues? At first I thought you wanted help, but based on your follow-up responses, if feels like you just want to take swings at the game producer.

Edited September 6, 2012 by Andryah

[Durasturan]

Why?

What kind of response is that anyway?

 

Aside from the quote from Gameinformer, those quotes were from Bioware/EA and the creators of the engine they use.

 

The creators said the engine wasn't finished or proper for use with SWTOR and after release people had issues.

 

Derp.

 

 

 

Thank God I bought mine brand new and last year.

 

- DH

 

No, really, you need to research more. These "problems" have been rehashed so many times they aren't funny. Do you think you're the first person to bring them up? honestly? there are hundreds of threads out there that discuss these problems AND their solutions. Yes, solutions as well.

 

Use a SSD

Load from RAM

Run a program like gamebooster to limit excess drag on CPU

Overclock your CPU

 

The engine is singlethreaded, this has been known since day 1, which means if you have a 1.7GHZ quadcore, it's going to run substantially worse than on a 2.4GHZ dual core.

 

Quit crying and DO something about the problems you're experiencing, because I've read so many posts from you and you act like "OMG TEH WORLDZ IS ENDING!!!!"

 

There are simple solutions to vastly improving the quality of the game and they aren't JUST for this game either, they will improve the performance of EVERY game and utility you run.

 

TL : DR

Stop complaining and try and fix and upgrade what you can, in all cases it's either extremely cheap or even free and will improve your computer for every use, not just SWTOR.

Edited September 6, 2012 by Durasturan

[Kinop]

Thank God I bought mine brand new and last year.

 

- DH

 

And I bought mine 2 weeks ago... your point is?

 

If you had read my full post instead of just the sections you decided to quote... I was first stating I did used to have problems with performance, due to my outdated machine, I have since updated my machine and the difference is like chalk against cheese.

 

Also to others I never said I had perfect performance... but its light years ahead of what I had on my old machine... so in my own specific case and my own opinion which is the only one I am qualified to talk about... for me it was my machine that was the problem, I replaced my machine and now the game plays the way I would expect a game of this type and class to play.

 

As in not 2-12 fps in warzones... lockup every 3 seconds walking around fleet waiting for the graphics to render... staring at a black screen everytime waiting for the world to load coming up to the main fleet area from my hangar. Oh yes and my personal favourite waiting 10 minutes for the game to shut down when using the "Exit Game" button.

 

So yeah... I been there experienced all the problems I replaced my machine now I don't have them simple. Lets just say it makes you think that maybe there is an essence of truth in what they say much as I hate to generally believe a word EA spoon feeds their gamers... but yeah through my experiences it makes me think there may be a grain of truth behind the whole "The game works just a few people have problems due to their hardware"

[Bloodstealer]

Dxdiag so we can see your drivers 2 please

 

BTW, I do believe you, its just that Id also like to help you if possible

 

And yeah, mass PvP doest work so well, I believe they even aid so and thats why Ilum is gone for now. Thats the only place I ever had issues

 

Edit: You play on a laptop? Could you also link the laptop Model, sometimes laptops(even ones with good cards) have issues as they overheat and so cant run at the full settings.

 

Yep they can but that said I play this game off two systems..

1- Laptop - - HP DV9595.. 4gb DDR2 RAM, nVidia 8600M GPU (Yes the infamous GPU with inherant overheat issues), Intel T7500 Core2 Duo CPU.. running on a boig standard SATA HDD. and Windows Vista Ultimate 64Bit.

Runing mid settings with Shadow Quality and Bloom OFF, Character detail, Character Atlasing and Visible characters in view in view set LOW - -

Fleet I get around 25-40 FPS with some spiking in really busy instances but not too bad.... on planet side I get 50-80 FPS which is more than I can expect. In WZ i get 20-30 FPS, Illum was always a train wreck for me on this rig.. lucky if I got over 10FPS on a good day.

 

2- Desktop - - Intel i3700, 16GB DDR3 Ripjaw RAM, dual nVidia 560Ti Graphics Cards runing in SLI and the game is run off a Mushkin 120GB SSD. - Win7 UltimateN 64Bit

Running in High settings with Bloom OFF, Shadow Quality OFF, Character Atlasing and Visible Characters in View set to LOW - -

Fleet is patchy at best normally 20-30FPS with large spikes and troughs which can often see single digit FPS.

Planet side I get 40-70FPS depending on the planet.. alderaan is a pain sometimes, as is Illum still.

WZ's - Mixed bag from train wreck single digit figures to maybe 30FPS max but the drops are fast and furious.

 

VSync on or off makes no real difference..

My Latency is 23-30ms of a 24Mb connection which suffers no more than 0.3ms Jitter, and regularly tests a max Packet loss of 0.2% (find me an ISP that can deliver me something better than this to the SWTOR servers and Ill swap in a heartbeat )

But I do get some improvements when tweaking my nVIDIA Panel and running game as admin in Win XP3 compatability.

 

So my old HP laptop runs it fine on pretty decent settings and even with its inherant GPU overheat design flaw, whereas my xpensive higher end desktop (which inceidently runs many all the other games and applications that I use/play on max settings without issues) seems to suffer alot more.. not always (when instances are lighter normally:rolleyes: )

[Jetronin]

2- Desktop - - Intel i3700, 16GB DDR3 Ripjaw RAM, dual nVidia 560Ti Graphics Cards runing in SLI and the game is run off a Mushkin 120GB SSD. - Win7 UltimateN 64Bit

Running in High settings with Bloom OFF, Shadow Quality OFF, Character Atlasing and Visible Characters in View set to LOW - -

Fleet is patchy at best normally 20-30FPS with large spikes and troughs which can often see single digit FPS.

Planet side I get 40-70FPS depending on the planet.. alderaan is a pain sometimes, as is Illum still.

WZ's - Mixed bag from train wreck single digit figures to maybe 30FPS max but the drops are fast and furious.

 

Thats odd. Thats pretty much Identical to my machine other than I have a slightly better processor and I have very few issues. It drops a bit in a busy fleet (On the WZ Terminal with ppl spamming abilities). [i know thay are but ill ask in case, drivers all up to date?

[Kinop]

Thats odd. Thats pretty much Identical to my machine other than I have a slightly better processor and I have very few issues. It drops a bit in a busy fleet (On the WZ Terminal with ppl spamming abilities). [i know thay are but ill ask in case, drivers all up to date?

 

Just have to say that lag can also depend on your internet connection and any traffic on your network... that can account for slight fluctuations in similarly specced machines.

 

But this game from beta always seemed to be heavy on the processor usage so in general it seems the better your processor is the better your game handles itself.

[Andryah]

But this game from beta always seemed to be heavy on the processor usage so in general it seems the better your processor is the better your game handles itself.

 

/Agree.

 

That and lots of video ram. As in more then 1Gig. Not shared memory with the processor, but actual video ram.

Edited September 6, 2012 by Andryah

[Subzz]

Myself I run a AMD A8 Black 3.5 with a HIS 6950 which is slightly oc'd with 16g RAM on a led screen, on the fleet I do get low FPS upon arrival at the main level then it comes and go's, as for rest of the game no issues at all from single play to 16 man Ops.

If you look on the back of the game it tells you two (2) settings, min and rec, if you have just the bare gear hitting the min I would imagine you would have some issue's if you meet or exceed the rec settings then one could question.

I'm hoping that what I have now will run SW 1313 at the max settings!!!!!

[Mireleni]

I had low frame-rate issues for a long time (10-15 fps was normal in most areas, though crowded areas it would drop to 6-8 fps). My laptop is 3 years old, but runs everything else I've done on it just fine. Then, I happened upon some thread in the forums that recommended checking to make sure your DirectX 9 drivers are up to date. A lot of newer games will use DirectX 10, for instance, so you might not have updated DirectX 9. WOW, that made a HUGE difference. I can't say that will fix everyone's issues, but it certainly fixed mine. Edited September 6, 2012 by Mireleni

[Quinlynn]

Dxdiag so we can see your drivers 2 please

 

BTW, I do believe you, its just that Id also like to help you if possible

 

And yeah, mass PvP doest work so well, I believe they even aid so and thats why Ilum is gone for now. Thats the only place I ever had issues

 

Edit: You play on a laptop? Could you also link the laptop Model, sometimes laptops(even ones with good cards) have issues as they overheat and so cant run at the full settings.

 

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.

[Krewel]

Please, someone show me 60 fps at Nightmare Pilgrim or in Explosive Conflict AoE-ing those Ugnauts right after Zorn & Toth ...

[Kubernetic]

WIndows 7 - 64-bit

3.1GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5

8GB RAM

AMD Radeon HD 6970M with 1GB

 

- DH

 

And what's the power supply contained in that bad boy? Is it the stock supply that came with the computer, or did you upgrade it?

 

The hardware will perform at a substandard level if the power supply can't provide the juice. I think it goes without saying that whenever a product lists required hardware, that means the hardware has to be adequately powered.

 

The stock PC I purchased, although it's great for a lot of purposes, was woefully inadequate to handle newer graphics cards, coming with only a 300W generic brand.

 

I swapped that out for a Corsair 550W power supply and I haven't had problems with performance except in a few certain situations. I don't get noticeable lag or slide shows when world pvp occurs on Black Hole, even with lightning shooting everywhere and abilities spamming off from every corner.

[LordArtemis]

What they said initially was lip service no doubt as many reviewers (with absolute top end machines) have proven without a shadow of a doubt. The game does not run well, period, ESPECIALLY with ATI cards.

 

I am not surprised, however, as many games have had issues with ATI cards and optimization. What I am surprised about is the lack of being forthcoming about something they must have known was an issue, instead blaming it on players to some degree.

 

Sure, you dont want to put down your own product. At the same time, when proven dead wrong, you shouldnt stick to the same old story. The engine is in rough shape, the evidence exists every time I play, and has existed since launch.

 

Lets hope that they at least find some way to fix it.

[Kubernetic]

For those that are having problems with the game lagging out and becoming a slideshow, I'd also like to know one other crucial factor, in addition to the type of power supply you have in your rigs (as well as the stated power requirements on the video cards in question).

 

What screen resolution are you trying to play the game in? Is your computer bogging down because you're trying to squeeze out a 1920x1080 resolution with full quality on everything? What happens when you size the game screen down to a more modest 1280x1024?

[Diet-Hutt]

What they said initially was lip service no doubt as many reviewers (with absolute top end machines) have proven without a shadow of a doubt. The game does not run well, period, ESPECIALLY with ATI cards.

 

I just hope they iron out the problems and get the engione working properly, because that's one of the main reasons I felt like leaving in the first place. I know the fact that the issues occur on high-end machines of these gaming reviewers make me feel like I am not alone.

 

Sure, you dont want to put down your own product. At the same time, when proven dead wrong, you shouldnt stick to the same old story. The engine is in rough shape, the evidence exists every time I play, and has existed since launch.

 

Truth.

 

- DH

Edited September 7, 2012 by Diet-Hutt

[Diet-Hutt]

And what's the power supply contained in that bad boy? Is it the stock supply that came with the computer, or did you upgrade it?

 

I haven't changed the power supply.

I wasn't aware that I needed to to be honest.

 

The only two games I've played so far on it have been SWTOR and GW2.

The only one giving me problems has be SWTOR.

 

If I play another game and between the 3 it's still SWTOR, I think I'll just drop that game from the list because I don't want to upgrade my computer just for this one specific game when those issues could likely be solved via the engine itself.

 

The stock PC I purchased, although it's great for a lot of purposes, was woefully inadequate to handle newer graphics cards, coming with only a 300W generic brand.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

I hadn't really considered doing this, but I am sure it would likely boost performance but again, I am not convinced yet that I need to further upgrade my computer for this specific game. Especially with them still working on optimizing the engine as of this date.

 

Was there any indication of the level of "power supply" indicated in the SWTOR requirements or did they just assume we'd all have a specific one/type?

 

As I said, I usually follow the requirements for any game I get, and being above them has ever caused me issue at all. Until now.

 

- DH

[Diet-Hutt]

What screen resolution are you trying to play the game in? Is your computer bogging down because you're trying to squeeze out a 1920x1080 resolution with full quality on everything? What happens when you size the game screen down to a more modest 1280x1024?

 

First, thanks for being proactive and offering potential solutions.

 

I set everything to low the minute I had issues. I would love to run this thing full force but I cannot.

I tried a number of things to get it to work right but I just ran out of patience with the matter.

 

When I first logged on to GW2 I expected I'd have similar issues but to my surprise I had absolutely none.

I'm still trying to figure out how there is such a radical difference between playing the two. GW2 looks great and so does SW, but playing the two of them generates different experieces.

 

It's not constant mind you, but within certain planets (Corellia, Voss) and hub areas. Occasionally in PVP the lag is bizarre and I have people disappearing and reappearing. It can cause some serious issues.

 

I appreciate you giving us options though, as this may work for some people in helping make their gameplay better.

 

- DH

Edited September 7, 2012 by Diet-Hutt

[Kubernetic]

First, thanks for being proactive and offering potential solutions.

 

I set everything to low the minute I had issues. I would love to run this thing full force but I cannot.

I tried a number of things to get it to work right but I just ran out of patience with the matter.

 

When I first logged on to GW2 I expected I'd have similar issues but to my surprise I had absolutely none.

I'm still trying to figure out how there is such a radical difference between playing the two. GW2 looks great and so does SW, but playing the two of them generates different experieces.

 

It's not constant mind you, but within certain planets (Corellia, Voss) and hub areas. Occasionally in PVP the lag is bizarre and I have people disappearing and reappearing. It can cause some serious issues.

 

I appreciate you giving us options though, as this may work for some people in helping make their gameplay better.

 

- DH

 

Thanks for your comments in return!

 

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. Best case would be to consult the specifications in the manual. Somewhere in the back it should note the exact power requirements. It might require a call or email or chat with a customer service rep with the company that built the PC.

 

The companies that build them, like HP, Dell, and so forth, all try to cut costs as often as possible. Sometimes they may even have the video card manufacturers build specific card offshoots that have a slightly lower power requirement so they can get away with the cheapest supplies. In most cases, most users would never know the difference.

 

But when you get "hot and heavy" in a graphically intense game, the performance might suffer. There are times when the effects max out that the pipeline gets full and if the power isn't there, the only thing left to do is to slow down the action and chop it up so the hardware can try to keep up. When the power is there, and specifically when it's overpowered, that isn't going to happen.

 

With my card, the Radeon HD 6670, it specifies that it needs a 400 watt power supply in order to function properly. Since I threw a 550W Corsair supply in, I'm pretty confident that the power is never going to be the lagging issue.

 

Overclockers need to worry about this even more. Your card's specs are geared to the stock settings. If you have a card that requires 400W of power and you've overclocked by by 10-20%, you very well might now require a 450W supply. The same if you're overclocking the processors and the RAM or the front side bus. The PC manufacturers get away with this by instructing you not to overclock the machine.

 

The power supplies themselves have differences as well. A name brand like Corsair might very well perform better than a no-name generic model from the corner computer store.

 

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.

 

And there are also issues with variable-speed cooling fans. Some of the power-saving requirements these days lead them to use variable speeds on the fans which can lead to the card heating up for a short time before the fans kick in at a higher speed to cool them down. In that interim time, you can experience slowdowns as the hardware heats up and performs less efficiently under added stress. You can set the fans (in many cases) to operate at the higher speed all of the time. This may make the machine a little louder, but the cooling will be there all the time, and when the action gets intense and the hardware heats up, you won't have to go through that momentary lapse of cooling.

 

Finally, just about the crappiest kind of thermal cooling paste that you can find is thrown into these pre-built machines at the factory. Instead of a nice applied layer of the highest quality paste, you might wind up with a sub-standard strip that almost looks like a kind of tape. If you're experiencing slow-downs, it might make sense to pry that CPU apart from the cooling fan and (PROPERLY!) remove the existing thermal paste or tape and apply a fresh, new layer of high-quality paste. If the cooling grease isn't properly transferring the heat, the processor will overheat and once again, slow down under stress.

 

For people with older machines that have been around for a few years, the thermal paste is not invincible. Over time, continued use will cause that original stuff to bake itself to nothing, and performance will suffer. After about 3 years, I noticed my machine was sluggish as hell, and eventually got to the processor to find that the installed thermal tape had pretty much been reduced to powder. After applying new thermal paste, whatever the most recent Arctic Silver was, it ran like a champ again.

 

They can't really put all this stuff on the "Requirements" section because it's really not their issue. They presume your computer was built properly and maintained properly, and trying to add all of this in for every machine would be impossible, or possibly open them up to liability, such as if you get overly zealous and damage your processor while you're prying your system apart.

 

For those who build your own machines, you probably go through this stuff as a matter of course. For those of us who don't build our own machines, and buy them off the shelf, we have a bit more work to do to go back and reverse-plan the system to make sure that our OEMs haven't ganked us with bad hardware in the mix.

 

AS TO GW2, I haven't played the game, but the screen shots that I see of it suggest that as the environments are more along the lines of medieval areas rather than urban cities and futuristic environments, is it possible that the general environments are more complex in terms of geometry in SWTOR than they are in GW2? Even if the abilities are all as sparkly and shiny and complex, if the environments are really that different, and there's more "clutter" in the world in SWTOR, then in those instances when the game is stressing the system out the most, I can see why the more cluttered environments would end up placing a greater strain on the rendering systems than the more serene and clean environments. Just a thought. Like I said, I haven't played GW2 so I'll have to defer to those that have played both as to the relative complexities of the worlds in each.

 

Anyway, good luck to everyone dealing with these issues!

Edited September 7, 2012 by Kubernetic