Re-Optimize This Game

[linkinforcer]

Does anyone know if they plan on re-optimizing this game before or after the expansion release? Ever since the stutter issue with the game that they "fixed" I've still be having issues planing they game even on lower settings. I was wondering if anyone else was still having issues. And yes I am running a high end machine with everything updated to the latest drivers.

 

It's not a big deal but I remember being able to play the game without any issues what so ever.

[ZombiePete]

Runs perfectly on low settings on my Intel HD 4000 HP laptop. The low settings even look decent enough that I'm not constantly yearning for it to look better. The only things that irritate me about the game graphically are disappearing taxis and Kira leaving her lightsaber on when she has it strapped to her belt.

[Jedirep]

Runs perfectly on low settings on my Intel HD 4000 HP laptop. The low settings even look decent enough that I'm not constantly yearning for it to look better. The only things that irritate me about the game graphically are disappearing taxis and Kira leaving her lightsaber on when she has it strapped to her belt.

 

How do you define perfect? Like what frame rates are you getting?

[Frostsaeber]

Runs perfectly on low settings on my Intel HD 4000 HP laptop. The low settings even look decent enough that I'm not constantly yearning for it to look better. The only things that irritate me about the game graphically are disappearing taxis and Kira leaving her lightsaber on when she has it strapped to her belt.

 

Many PC gamers have beastly towers (like mine), while the only thing bottlenecking them is the programming of the game itself.

[ProphetScourge]

I was able to run on full high settings before a patch, don't remember which one, but after said patch, I was having massive lag spikes at random times (especially, of course, in high-population zones).

 

I figured out a solution though, don't know if it will work for everyone, but I turned off scaling nameplates. Now, I'm back to full speed, high settings and super happy!

 

Settings > Preferences > Name Plates > uncheck Scale Nameplates with Distance > Save/Apply

Edited January 7, 2013 by ProphetScourge

[Malastare]

Many PC gamers have beastly towers (like mine), while the only thing bottlenecking them is the programming of the game itself.

 

If the bottleneck was the code, then everyone would see it.

 

I routinely get 50-60fps at High Detail with shadows and extra AA enabled. I don't have a beastly tower (Cost: $1300, two years ago). If I can get the game to run smooth with more detail than the engine supports, then the code seems to be fine. If you run three monitors with triple-SLI, then you have to accept that you're going beyond the testing scenarios and you may not get perfect performance. If this is surprising to you, then it's a good time to learn that lesson before you buy another $4000 computer.

 

From what I've seen, the bottlenecks for this game are still most likely the same bottlenecks of every other PC game: Memory performance, CPU performance, GPU performance. Yes, they've had some big optimization problems, but the vast majority of them have been fixed fairly quickly (less than a month). The ones that exist now (Crossfire, 32bit windows) are only problems for a comparatively small number of people.

[Eszi]

I, like others in this thread, run this game maxed out on a calculator and never drop below 10000000 trillion fps, therefore it must be your pc.

Aren't 4 gtx 680s a standard nowdays anyway?

 

Also, this game is a technological marvel, go back to wow hater.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Eszi

[Nythain]

This game actually runs worse for me now, on better hardware, than it did a year ago on worse hardware...

Then:

Core2Duo 2.3ghz

2GB DDR2

Nvidia 8400GS

 

Now:

Core2Duo 2.8ghz

6GB DDR2

Nvidia 9800GT

 

Sure, even my "better" hardware is fairly antiquated, but the fact that it runs WORSE on BETTER hardware after they've had a year to tweak optimization = epic fail in the optimization department. Also still leaks memory like the Titanic.

[Frostsaeber]

If the bottleneck was the code, then everyone would see it.

 

I routinely get 50-60fps at High Detail with shadows and extra AA enabled. I don't have a beastly tower (Cost: $1300, two years ago). If I can get the game to run smooth with more detail than the engine supports, then the code seems to be fine. If you run three monitors with triple-SLI, then you have to accept that you're going beyond the testing scenarios and you may not get perfect performance. If this is surprising to you, then it's a good time to learn that lesson before you buy another $4000 computer.

 

From what I've seen, the bottlenecks for this game are still most likely the same bottlenecks of every other PC game: Memory performance, CPU performance, GPU performance. Yes, they've had some big optimization problems, but the vast majority of them have been fixed fairly quickly (less than a month). The ones that exist now (Crossfire, 32bit windows) are only problems for a comparatively small number of people.

 

The bottlenecks are massive performance drops in high population areas, which have no explanation, other than a server issue or poor coding.

 

This game and TF2 are the only games where lots of players = strange performance issues. Both are notorious for being poorly written.

[Eszi]

The bottlenecks are massive performance drops in high population areas, which have no explanation

This.

[JefferyClark]

The bottlenecks are massive performance drops in high population areas, which have no explanation, other than a server issue or poor coding.

 

QFT. After 1.4, my performance on both my desktop and my laptop (which runs lowest settings for heat/battery issues) decreased. The fact that after a patch the machine with the lowest possible settings decreased in performance tells me that they messed something up. Note, that 1.4 is the 1st patch after they fired most of their developers and other staff. It's when the game really began going down the toilet.

[Fornix]

The bottlenecks are massive performance drops in high population areas, which have no explanation, other than a server issue or poor coding.

 

This game and TF2 are the only games where lots of players = strange performance issues. Both are notorious for being poorly written.

 

Server isn't the thing, the issue lies client side. With TF2 I take it you mean Team Fortress 2?

 

What people quickly forget with games which have a cartoonified look, is that that definitely doesn't mean the models are of low quality. For example with TF2, the average model is roughly 8k polygons in high detail on close distance. That excludes any items, so including items, it'll come up to roughly 12k polygons.

 

For SWTOR, I'd expect those figures to lie at around 4k for the character models (as for reference, Worgen poly counts in Cata were around 3k naked), with about an additional 4k in armor design on high quality.

 

If you then have 30 people in close proximity, you need to be able to render 240k polygons on characters alone per frame. If you want to run with 60 fps, that means per second you need to be able to render 14.4 million polygons per second. If you double it to 60 people, make that 28.8 million polygons per second.

 

Now of course if you have a recent gen card which can render hundreds of millions of polygons per second, that ought to be no issue. However, that requires the game to directly tell the GPU to rener those polygons.

 

DirectX 9 does NOT do that. DirectX 9 first tells the CPU, let's the CPU calculate the planes which need to be rendered and that then lets the GPU render those planes. And therein lies a major issue. As these polygon per second counts are just character models, not even environments to be added to it.

 

CPU's have never been optimized for this task. That's the entire reason we have GPU's doing it for us instead. Sure, a CPU is capable of doing it in the end. But it's like trying to write a manuscript on your Ti 83+ calculator. Due to this, polygon counts still form the limitation of fps in such older games, in contrast to complex shading tasks, lightning, effects, physics, etc.

 

This will ultimately only be able to be truly resolved by upgrading the client to support DirectX 11 efficiently, which would allow for the game client to directly interact with the GPU when it comes to telling it to render.

 

QFT. After 1.4, my performance on both my desktop and my laptop (which runs lowest settings for heat/battery issues) decreased. The fact that after a patch the machine with the lowest possible settings decreased in performance tells me that they messed something up. Note, that 1.4 is the 1st patch after they fired most of their developers and other staff. It's when the game really began going down the toilet.

 

In 1.3 and 1.4 they threw in some additional graphics options. With 1.3 they added the new high res character models. In 1.4 they added improved shading and optimized the shading code a bit. However, with 1.4 they also reset the graphical settings.

 

So if you simply went for max again there, you started off with higher res character models than you did before if you didn't set those manually, and you started off with a higher level of shading. Two things which are expected to give a performance hit.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Fornix

[Goretzu]

Does anyone know if they plan on re-optimizing this game before or after the expansion release? Ever since the stutter issue with the game that they "fixed" I've still be having issues planing they game even on lower settings. I was wondering if anyone else was still having issues. And yes I am running a high end machine with everything updated to the latest drivers.

 

It's not a big deal but I remember being able to play the game without any issues what so ever.

 

Framerate is fine, however the CTDs they introduced with the F2P patch and the loading screen length still leave a LOT to be desired.

 

As for RvR performance, we'll have to see what Ilum is like.

[Toweleeeie]

Server isn't the thing, the issue lies client side. With TF2 I take it you mean Team Fortress 2?

 

What people quickly forget with games which have a cartoonified look, is that that definitely doesn't mean the models are of low quality. For example with TF2, the average model is roughly 8k polygons in high detail on close distance. That excludes any items, so including items, it'll come up to roughly 12k polygons.

 

For SWTOR, I'd expect those figures to lie at around 4k for the character models (as for reference, Worgen poly counts in Cata were around 3k naked), with about an additional 4k in armor design on high quality.

 

If you then have 30 people in close proximity, you need to be able to render 240k polygons on characters alone per frame. If you want to run with 60 fps, that means per second you need to be able to render 14.4 million polygons per second. If you double it to 60 people, make that 28.8 million polygons per second.

 

Now of course if you have a recent gen card which can render hundreds of millions of polygons per second, that ought to be no issue. However, that requires the game to directly tell the GPU to rener those polygons.

 

DirectX 9 does NOT do that. DirectX 9 first tells the CPU, let's the CPU calculate the planes which need to be rendered and that then lets the GPU render those planes. And therein lies a major issue. As these polygon per second counts are just character models, not even environments to be added to it.

 

CPU's have never been optimized for this task. That's the entire reason we have GPU's doing it for us instead. Sure, a CPU is capable of doing it in the end. But it's like trying to write a manuscript on your Ti 83+ calculator. Due to this, polygon counts still form the limitation of fps in such older games, in contrast to complex shading tasks, lightning, effects, physics, etc.

 

This will ultimately only be able to be truly resolved by upgrading the client to support DirectX 11 efficiently, which would allow for the game client to directly interact with the GPU when it comes to telling it to render.

 

 

 

In 1.3 and 1.4 they threw in some additional graphics options. With 1.3 they added the new high res character models. In 1.4 they added improved shading and optimized the shading code a bit. However, with 1.4 they also reset the graphical settings.

 

So if you simply went for max again there, you started off with higher res character models than you did before if you didn't set those manually, and you started off with a higher level of shading. Two things which are expected to give a performance hit.

 

Thanks for this post. Learned something new.

[phill-fry]

Server isn't the thing, the issue lies client side. With TF2 I take it you mean Team Fortress 2?

 

What people quickly forget with games which have a cartoonified look, is that that definitely doesn't mean the models are of low quality. For example with TF2, the average model is roughly 8k polygons in high detail on close distance. That excludes any items, so including items, it'll come up to roughly 12k polygons.

 

For SWTOR, I'd expect those figures to lie at around 4k for the character models (as for reference, Worgen poly counts in Cata were around 3k naked), with about an additional 4k in armor design on high quality.

 

If you then have 30 people in close proximity, you need to be able to render 240k polygons on characters alone per frame. If you want to run with 60 fps, that means per second you need to be able to render 14.4 million polygons per second. If you double it to 60 people, make that 28.8 million polygons per second.

 

Now of course if you have a recent gen card which can render hundreds of millions of polygons per second, that ought to be no issue. However, that requires the game to directly tell the GPU to rener those polygons.

 

DirectX 9 does NOT do that. DirectX 9 first tells the CPU, let's the CPU calculate the planes which need to be rendered and that then lets the GPU render those planes. And therein lies a major issue. As these polygon per second counts are just character models, not even environments to be added to it.

 

CPU's have never been optimized for this task. That's the entire reason we have GPU's doing it for us instead. Sure, a CPU is capable of doing it in the end. But it's like trying to write a manuscript on your Ti 83+ calculator. Due to this, polygon counts still form the limitation of fps in such older games, in contrast to complex shading tasks, lightning, effects, physics, etc.

 

This will ultimately only be able to be truly resolved by upgrading the client to support DirectX 11 efficiently, which would allow for the game client to directly interact with the GPU when it comes to telling it to render.

 

 

 

In 1.3 and 1.4 they threw in some additional graphics options. With 1.3 they added the new high res character models. In 1.4 they added improved shading and optimized the shading code a bit. However, with 1.4 they also reset the graphical settings.

 

So if you simply went for max again there, you started off with higher res character models than you did before if you didn't set those manually, and you started off with a higher level of shading. Two things which are expected to give a performance hit.

 

What your saying makes the most sense to me, being a student currently studying game development I have been recently studying DX9 and DX11, This would certainly improve things for performance its just depends on if Bio ware can change to DX11 however I wouldn't expect that for a while. For Now they should keep up with the quality of life improvements which actually do make a difference in the long run even if people don't notice it.

[Arlbo_Nabbins]

The bottlenecks are massive performance drops in high population areas, which have no explanation, other than a server issue or poor coding.

 

This game and TF2 are the only games where lots of players = strange performance issues. Both are notorious for being poorly written.

 

What do you mean no explanation? That exact thing happens in every single MMORPG I have ever played. The reason for it is that animating individual player characters is more intensive (due to more variety in both appearance and movement) than animating NPCs.

 

The explanation is also poor PC configuration. My PC is mid range (£600) and still maintains 60FPS+ on fleet with the number of people drawn maxed (110FPS is the norm elsewhere). The only thing that does affect FPS on my PC is shadows.

[Fornix]

What your saying makes the most sense to me, being a student currently studying game development I have been recently studying DX9 and DX11, This would certainly improve things for performance its just depends on if Bio ware can change to DX11 however I wouldn't expect that for a while. For Now they should keep up with the quality of life improvements which actually do make a difference in the long run even if people don't notice it.

 

I wouldn't expect it either, converting from DX9 to DX11 is a massive undertaking, even for a relatively small project. Let stand for a major project such as this.

 

Additionally, as quite a lot has changed, not all your developers may be familiar enough with DX11, this would require extra resources to be spent on the time they take on getting up to date.

 

Furthermore you will be challenged with the difficult choice on whether to keep supporting both DX9 and DX11, risking to run into DX specific bugs which then quickly get the notion of simply to play with e.g. DX9 (as most commonly its DX11 running into issues, due to many developers being inexperienced with it). Prime example to this is TSW, of which the DX11 client has been perhaps one of the most buggy DX11 applications till date, for many people simply not even launching.

 

The other option is to fully switch over to DX11, but then you face the issue of minimum requirements for the game skyrocketing, as you'll need at least Windows 7. Or Windows 8 in terms of DX11.1, not to mention the requirement of a DX11 capable GPU.

 

Which makes it a hard decision to make:

 

1. Losing further development time by needing to code for 2 APIs simultaneously, and risking an increment of API specific bugs. Which may even further increase if OpenGL support is ever considered to allow for Mac support.

2. Cutting off a major part of your player population by ditching DX 9 support as EA is doing with certain other franchises which make use of the Frostbite 2 engine (this engine only support DX10 and DX11, these two versions of DX are much more similar to each other and hence easier for programmers to support simultaneously); e.g. Dragon Age III for the BioWare fans.

[Lyability]

 

The explanation is also poor PC configuration. My PC is mid range (£600) and still maintains 60FPS+ on fleet with the number of people drawn maxed (110FPS is the norm elsewhere). The only thing that does affect FPS on my PC is shadows.

 

Yes, because we all know there are 1000+ people in combat, calculations being processed on hit/dodge/crit chances, multiple mobs being rendered in combat on Fleet, right?

 

You sir are a genus!!!! Thank you for contributing.

[poosticks]

I was able to run on full high settings before a patch, don't remember which one, but after said patch, I was having massive lag spikes at random times (especially, of course, in high-population zones).

 

I figured out a solution though, don't know if it will work for everyone, but I turned off scaling nameplates. Now, I'm back to full speed, high settings and super happy!

 

Settings > Preferences > Name Plates > uncheck Scale Nameplates with Distance > Save/Apply

 

Hmm, interesting. I have had to make concessions on my graphic settings in this game to improve performance (a first), I shall give this a bash, thank you.

[Goretzu]

I wouldn't expect it either, converting from DX9 to DX11 is a massive undertaking, even for a relatively small project. Let stand for a major project such as this.

 

A massive undertaking I'd like to see is fixing whatever they broke in the F2P patch so I don't CTD at least 1 an hour.

[Jedlosson]

Does anyone know if they plan on re-optimizing this game before or after the expansion release? Ever since the stutter issue with the game that they "fixed" I've still be having issues planing they game even on lower settings. I was wondering if anyone else was still having issues. And yes I am running a high end machine with everything updated to the latest drivers.

 

It's not a big deal but I remember being able to play the game without any issues what so ever.

 

Have you tried this?

http://windows7themes.net/how-to-improve-latency-in-wow-in-windows-7.html

[Frostsaeber]

Have you tried this?

http://windows7themes.net/how-to-improve-latency-in-wow-in-windows-7.html

 

Is it known to do anything useful?

[PlayLoud]

Specs are in my sig.

 

I run SWTOR at 1920x1080, with all options maxed (including anti-aliasing).

 

For the most part, the game usually runs at 40-60fps for me, though my video card is taxed more than ANY other game I have played. There are areas in the game (Tython/Alderaan/Section X... Basically grass/tree areas) where my video card is running at 100% load. I have to undervolt my card, as well as give it a slight underclock (though to be fair, my card comes with a large factory overclock). On the planets mentioned, the fan spins very fast (annoying), and the card runs at a toasty 82C. This is with a decent undervolt!.

 

No other game does this for me.

Mass Effect 3 (all options maxed)? Cool and quiet.

DA2 (DX11 and all options maxed)? Cooler and mostly quiet.

SWTOR? FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF! (that's the sound of my GPU fan)

 

Now, I love the look of SWTOR, and it does run at an acceptable frame rate on my system. However, it does so at a very high demand on the GPU, unlike ever better looking games I have tried.

 

If there is anything they can do to optimize the game, to make it look as good as it does now, while not taxing my GPU to much, that would be great. I love the look of the game fully cranked. I just want it quieter =)

[CritasStorm]

TOR is useing the alpha hero engine client,

 

No im not fracking kidding, wish was.

 

Its not even the beta version, let alone the regular version or the hero engine 2.

[bahdasz]

The thing is, once the game is built around the current engine is it even possible to upgrade that engine without redoing the whole game? I mean, you'd expect ugrading the engine would cause at least some of the aspects of the game that depend directly on it would need to be upgraded to still work properly. How much time/money would something like that cost? I'm no computer expert, but I can't imagine that it would be anywhere near as simple as installing an windows update.