Cupelixx Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 (edited) I took some time away before the Revan expansion. Before that I used to have the same FPS issues many people did. Random stutters, FPS loss in certain areas (pvp etc). I had run the gamut of fixes and workarounds and got things in a pretty playable condition. Question was generally no problem and PvP was in a good place. Not great, but very playable. Flash forward to now, and out questing in the world fighting ONE silver mob and my FPS drops from over 100 down into the 40s. If there are 3-4 normal mobs, drop that down to the lower 30s. I am not running a slouch of a PC. i5 2500k @ 4.8ghz 8GB DDR3 (with ramdrive for SWTOR) SLI GTX 770 So what's going on here? There's a patch note recently about the user interface gobbling up CPU cycles and pulling down performance. Supposedly the problem was fixed (or partially fixed). Interesting. So after pulling my hair out over why my system drops into the 30fps range just questing after setting every graphical property to the bare minimum, I tried something. "Let's hit ctrl-U to shut off the UI and see what happens in combat". So I do. Action bars no longer work, but out fighting quest mobs my FPS doesn't drop below 95. Huh. Turn it back on and sure enough, FPS drops by more than 50% as soon as combat starts. Before any abilities are flying, no less. "Let's turn all of the graphics settings back to maximum, disable the UI again and start combat". So I do. Surprise, surprise. FPS at 100 in combat with the occasional dip to the upper 90s. This is unacceptable. I don't know what you guys have done to the UI with the 3.0 update but clearly, it's severely broken. I have replicated this on my other systems and it's the same story. As soon as combat starts, instant FPS loss if the UI is enabled. I can customize the UI so that the only things on screen are the chat window and CM icon (seriously, we still can't hide this?) and it makes no difference. Guess what happens when I shut the whole UI off in a warzone? Average FPS in the triple digits with the occasional drop to the mid 90s. This needs to be fixed and soon. For a UI that offers such basic functionality, it's downright shocking that it's such a massive performance drop when combat starts. Edited February 14, 2015 by Cupelixx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Korevas Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 It was always broken, but apparently since 3.0 it shows even more. If you want to cry a little, go to fleet, talk to a craftskill trainer and hover over the recipes. Nothing else. This alone kills fps for me already. The problem is, swtor is still coded as a 32 bit application that doesn't multithread to more then 2 cores or use more then 4gb of ram, and it does even that only in a kinda awkward way that eats up a lot of performance for no real gain. They have been piling new stuff up on this weak foundation for years, and it's starting to show more and more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cupelixx Posted February 14, 2015 Author Share Posted February 14, 2015 It was always broken, but apparently since 3.0 it shows even more. If you want to cry a little, go to fleet, talk to a craftskill trainer and hover over the recipes. Nothing else. This alone kills fps for me already. I've noticed things like this too even before 3.0. And I can live with the interface being slow in general for things that don't involve combat/PvP. But for FPS in combat to drop more than 50% because of a basic UI is ridiculous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nitblade Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 Coming Soon tm UI FPS Fixer 3200 CC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brutall Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 i also started having fps problems after 3.0 places where i lag is warzone and 16 man ops and turning down graphics dont work at all same ****.. my setings gtx 980 4 gb i7 3770k oc 16 gb ram ssd before 3.0 i had no problems at all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadDutchman Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 Another game I play (Planetary Annihilation) which had the same kind of UI issues back in beta solved this issue by spawning a new process for each major UI element. It didn't do too much for the folk running on dual cores but for those running quad and up it was amazing (the recommended specs were for quad core so not a big deal there). Optimization is ideal, but sometimes the easiest and fastest way is to just throw more computing power at it. It's 2015, time to start using multi-core machines properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Undeadcenturion Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 Same issue. Cutting off UI and it's as smooth as a baby's bottom. They talk talk talk talk talk and do nothing ... well, they add items to buy in the CM but that's about it. How this isn't a number one fix it first is beyond me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedip_enguin Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 I agree the performance hit is egregious but they have said they are aware and working on it, so all we can do is wait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cupelixx Posted February 15, 2015 Author Share Posted February 15, 2015 Same issue. Cutting off UI and it's as smooth as a baby's bottom. They talk talk talk talk talk and do nothing ... well, they add items to buy in the CM but that's about it. How this isn't a number one fix it first is beyond me. Exactly. If they were more open to letting players control the interface and exposed the framework, we might be able to do something about it ourselves. Until then they say "We know it's a problem" and then go dead silent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cupelixx Posted February 15, 2015 Author Share Posted February 15, 2015 I was able to slightly mitigate the problem by updating Adobe Flash, but only slightly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedip_enguin Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 I was able to slightly mitigate the problem by updating Adobe Flash, but only slightly. Say what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cupelixx Posted February 15, 2015 Author Share Posted February 15, 2015 Apparently, the UI in this game is some kind of Scaleform which is based on Flash. I figured what could it hurt to try updating Flash. The FPS drops are still massive but instead of dropping to the 40's, I now drop to around 45 in many cases. Nothing else was changed. The UI is still out of control and needs to be fixed, but this might help some more than it helped me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrintoSFJ Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 I was able to slightly mitigate the problem by updating Adobe Flash, but only slightly. DId you install the flash player for internet explorer? or other browser? because i don't use IE and use both mozilla firefox and chrome so non-IE adobe flash player are always updated every few days. let us know which one you installed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrintoSFJ Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 Coming Soon tm UI FPS Fixer 3200 CC Even though you are being sarcastic observing EAWare i think it might happen, they after all are monetizing UI option quickbar and providing it as "subscriber perk". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cupelixx Posted February 16, 2015 Author Share Posted February 16, 2015 DId you install the flash player for internet explorer? or other browser? because i don't use IE and use both mozilla firefox and chrome so non-IE adobe flash player are always updated every few days. let us know which one you installed. I just allowed it to update when it popped up and said there was an update. I wasn't in a browser, though I normally use IE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerba Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 (edited) Not sure if the OP is still reading this, but since it hasn't been mentioned ITT yet: Most of the UI lag appears to be related to half-transparent UI elements. If you set a alpha value with the interface editor months/years ago, you may get increased lag with 3.0. Try switching to one of the default interfaces (they all have transparency turned off) and see if it helps. Edited February 16, 2015 by Jerba Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sikknasty Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 Not saying any one here is wrong, but I have had some lag recently but it is defiantly not UI/FPS lag. I pay close attention to a few things like what happens when it seems to lag, the connection bars, how often character freezes or things on screen freeze. a lot of the lag is because when 3.0 hit, they had 2 major things release at once, bounty contracts and 2x exp. so ofc every 1 is playing and servers are not use to the load. just my 2 cents Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedip_enguin Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 Not saying any one here is wrong, but I have had some lag recently but it is defiantly not UI/FPS lag. I pay close attention to a few things like what happens when it seems to lag, the connection bars, how often character freezes or things on screen freeze. a lot of the lag is because when 3.0 hit, they had 2 major things release at once, bounty contracts and 2x exp. so ofc every 1 is playing and servers are not use to the load. just my 2 cents BW themselves have made reference to the UI causing performance issues since 3.0. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sikknasty Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 BW themselves have made reference to the UI causing performance issues since 3.0. which is true for some, like I some what stated. just making sure people pay attention to their lag during this week. also, this game is not nearly as bad as 3 others I played for fps issues due to UI. the only Ui lag I get is from when I unmounts from rocket boost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cupelixx Posted February 16, 2015 Author Share Posted February 16, 2015 Not sure if the OP is still reading this, but since it hasn't been mentioned ITT yet: Most of the UI lag appears to be related to half-transparent UI elements. If you set a alpha value with the interface editor months/years ago, you may get increased lag with 3.0. Try switching to one of the default interfaces (they all have transparency turned off) and see if it helps. Was worth checking into. Every element I have on screen is already set to 100% alpha. Plus when I came back I nuked all of the saved settings including the custom UI profiles I had configured. Setting to one of the default UI settings did not help either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toweleeeie Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 Disable SLI and run it with one card. See if it makes a differents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pagy Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 bioware doesnt care unless they can sell it on the cartel market improved UIs that boost fps, sounds like a good idea! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calypsissmexy Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 Is the UI the reason everything freezes for a second when you level up? If it is I hope that gets fixed when/if they fix the UI issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Korevas Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 Not saying any one here is wrong, but I have had some lag recently but it is defiantly not UI/FPS lag. I pay close attention to a few things like what happens when it seems to lag, the connection bars, how often character freezes or things on screen freeze. a lot of the lag is because when 3.0 hit, they had 2 major things release at once, bounty contracts and 2x exp. so ofc every 1 is playing and servers are not use to the load. just my 2 cents Server load is completely independent from the fps drops people are seeing. they may coincide because displaying more players will generate more load for your machine locally as well as for the server, but they are not the same thing. This is why I still think terms like "fps lag" are misleading and shouldn't be used by anyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vexxy Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 I have the same problem and I run the game with a beaast of a computer. Tried disabling SLI, made tweaks in the nvidia settings, played on low, changed modes...nothing worked. To be honest, I'm not really sure if this is an UI issue, yes the UI plays a role somwhat (since it micro-freezes your game when you open a menu when you run for example), but I think only 16 man content is affected greatly. For me, besides ranked warzones, in pvp, everything else is pretty unplayable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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