Is Anet ever going to adequately address the poor optimization of the game engine?

[dace.8019]

Just a small point: people keep bringing up DX11. We're now onto DX12.

[GreyWolf.8670]

> @"Wander.5780" said:

> > @"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:

> > > @"Wander.5780" said:

> > > I think the elephant in the room here, is that aside from being a DX9 game in 2018

> >

> > This is irrelevant. I know, the persistent meme that bigger numbers magically mean better performance is everywhere, but the truth is, it is no more true now than when people were crying because DX9 was being replaced by DX11 clients, and people *didn't* want that to change.

> >

> > > I get much higher FPS in more graphically intensive games with way more going on at once like I do in ESO. That alone points to this game having optimization issues.

> >

> > This is a known problem. The developers at ANet have explicitly acknowledged it, and have been actively working on improving things. Which has happened; a few years back it would use two cores, not it pushes four, because of improvements to the engine.

> >

> > Anyway, if you believe that DX9 is in any way related to this, you are directly contradicting the stated position of the developers, who agree that this is, in fact, an issue with too much work being stuck on a single thread, making the character model count one of the biggest contributors to performance limits, and single threaded CPU performance the hard blocker if you put every other bit of hardware at a level it stops slowing things down.

>

> Are you really going to sit here and tell me that DX9 is fine and not a problem? It’s a piece of crap API. Try playing any DX9 game full screeen, and tab out and back in, and time it. The source engine, which valve has managed to drag out for 14 years, was built on DX9, and still has issues that have to be patched from time to time. The devs deflecting blame from the API is not an indication that its without fault, its just them defending their project because they know what a monumental task it would be to move it to something more modern. Hence, why the game should’ve been built on the latest Microsoft API.

 

DX9 is not the problem. Also, if they updated to anything past it they would start losing players. DX11? I'm out. I'm not buying a $500+ video card.

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"crepuscular.9047" said:

> GW2 is a tab targeting MMO, not an action MMO, so FPS isn't that important, 24-30FPS is fine

>

> the game engine is still in good shape handling the latest hardware

 

No, but Response time still is important, and the game very easily hits sub-30 performance when activity spikes. The only reliable work around we have is aggressive culling, but that directly affects game play in any situation that isn't 1 vs Many scenarios (ie World boss fights), because its only in those that you can easily prioritize Effects by entity ownership. But you step into something like WvW, or wave spawning events, and not being able to see the multitude of targets, attack indicators, and field effects due to them being culled out, creates a huge hazard situation for the player. But the alternative is the client becoming unresponsive, in a combat system where fast reactions is important.

 

So yeah, we use tab targeting.... but we also have "I frames", projectile physics and collision, a split client/server trust system (rather then full server authoritative), and a LOT of client/server error tolerance in some areas, but very little in others. Its very clearly an action game as, basic hit detection is physics based and not RNG/table based;but I will grant you that its allowed an insanely large amount of discrepancy, because there is too much data to keep network synced for ultra high accuracy.

[aspirine.6852]

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> I like how anytime someone's performance drops, it's Anet's fault.

 

I can try and blame blizzard next time?

[Devilman.1532]

Its an old engine from 2012 actually before that.. anyway my rig runs this game flawlessly with max settings in everything. The only limit I run into is the somewhat primitive engine.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

> @"GreyWolf.8670" said:

> > @"Wander.5780" said:

> > > @"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:

> > > > @"Wander.5780" said:

> > > > I think the elephant in the room here, is that aside from being a DX9 game in 2018

> > >

> > > This is irrelevant. I know, the persistent meme that bigger numbers magically mean better performance is everywhere, but the truth is, it is no more true now than when people were crying because DX9 was being replaced by DX11 clients, and people *didn't* want that to change.

> > >

> > > > I get much higher FPS in more graphically intensive games with way more going on at once like I do in ESO. That alone points to this game having optimization issues.

> > >

> > > This is a known problem. The developers at ANet have explicitly acknowledged it, and have been actively working on improving things. Which has happened; a few years back it would use two cores, not it pushes four, because of improvements to the engine.

> > >

> > > Anyway, if you believe that DX9 is in any way related to this, you are directly contradicting the stated position of the developers, who agree that this is, in fact, an issue with too much work being stuck on a single thread, making the character model count one of the biggest contributors to performance limits, and single threaded CPU performance the hard blocker if you put every other bit of hardware at a level it stops slowing things down.

> >

> > Are you really going to sit here and tell me that DX9 is fine and not a problem? It’s a piece of crap API. Try playing any DX9 game full screeen, and tab out and back in, and time it. The source engine, which valve has managed to drag out for 14 years, was built on DX9, and still has issues that have to be patched from time to time. The devs deflecting blame from the API is not an indication that its without fault, its just them defending their project because they know what a monumental task it would be to move it to something more modern. Hence, why the game should’ve been built on the latest Microsoft API.

>

> DX9 is not the problem. Also, if they updated to anything past it they would start losing players. DX11? I'm out. I'm not buying a $500+ video card.

 

You shouldn't need to, as the DirectX version support is a property of the driver, not the hardware, and anything that comes in a generation or two **under** the current minimum requirements delivers that API.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

> @"dace.8019" said:

> Just a small point: people keep bringing up DX11. We're now onto DX12.

 

This is partly because people don't really understand the meaning of the things. I think the secondary path is that DX11 is the "current hotness", so the same way people demanded "stick with DX9" when 11 first launched, they are now split between "12 is a higher number, must be betterer" and "11 is used by many things, must be betterer".

 

The exact same comments about what is, and is not, going to be effective apply to 11 and 12 equally, for the record, and also apply equally to Vulkan, should someone wish to start advocating for that API in preference. (Also, metal, for the macOS users out there.)

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

> @"Devilman.1532" said:

> Its an old engine from 2012 actually before that.. anyway my rig runs this game flawlessly with max settings in everything. The only limit I run into is the somewhat primitive engine.

 

It's granddaddies game engine, from 2012! Sure, they replaced huge parts of it, they changed around how a bunch of stuff is handled, they invested on improvements, but at heart it is still a 2012 engine!

 

PS: If you really want, you can go further, since it shares some history with the GW1 engine, so technically this is great-granddaddies 2005 engine!

[GreyWolf.8670]

> @"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:

> > @"GreyWolf.8670" said:

> > > @"Wander.5780" said:

> > > > @"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:

> > > > > @"Wander.5780" said:

> > > > > I think the elephant in the room here, is that aside from being a DX9 game in 2018

> > > >

> > > > This is irrelevant. I know, the persistent meme that bigger numbers magically mean better performance is everywhere, but the truth is, it is no more true now than when people were crying because DX9 was being replaced by DX11 clients, and people *didn't* want that to change.

> > > >

> > > > > I get much higher FPS in more graphically intensive games with way more going on at once like I do in ESO. That alone points to this game having optimization issues.

> > > >

> > > > This is a known problem. The developers at ANet have explicitly acknowledged it, and have been actively working on improving things. Which has happened; a few years back it would use two cores, not it pushes four, because of improvements to the engine.

> > > >

> > > > Anyway, if you believe that DX9 is in any way related to this, you are directly contradicting the stated position of the developers, who agree that this is, in fact, an issue with too much work being stuck on a single thread, making the character model count one of the biggest contributors to performance limits, and single threaded CPU performance the hard blocker if you put every other bit of hardware at a level it stops slowing things down.

> > >

> > > Are you really going to sit here and tell me that DX9 is fine and not a problem? It’s a piece of crap API. Try playing any DX9 game full screeen, and tab out and back in, and time it. The source engine, which valve has managed to drag out for 14 years, was built on DX9, and still has issues that have to be patched from time to time. The devs deflecting blame from the API is not an indication that its without fault, its just them defending their project because they know what a monumental task it would be to move it to something more modern. Hence, why the game should’ve been built on the latest Microsoft API.

> >

> > DX9 is not the problem. Also, if they updated to anything past it they would start losing players. DX11? I'm out. I'm not buying a $500+ video card.

>

> You shouldn't need to, as the DirectX version support is a property of the driver, not the hardware, and anything that comes in a generation or two **under** the current minimum requirements delivers that API.

 

The shader models are different. While there is some backwards compatibility the hardware itself has to support the newer SMs.

[SkyShroud.2865]

They would have to rewrite the engine if they want to optimize it. Likewise, review every single texture and vector.

 

Also, a important thing to note is the game is getting more demanding over years throughout the patches.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

> @"SkyShroud.2865" said:

> They would have to rewrite the engine if they want to optimize it. Likewise, review every single texture and vector.

 

This is absolutely not true. They have to rewrite parts of it, but it is absolutely not necessary to replace the whole thing in a single big bang.

 

I'm unclear why you think a reexamination of every texture and, presumably by vector you mean 3D model, would be required for this.

 

> Also, a important thing to note is the game is getting more demanding over years throughout the patches.

 

As has the performance of the engine improved, without the big bang. It's up to four cores solidly used now, from two some time back.

[Blocki.4931]

30 FPS are far better than having huge fluctuations. So yeah, I would definitely consider that stable lol I played on 30 fps lock for a long time because jumping between 30 and 60 all the time felt worse than just 30 at all.

[Malediktus.9250]

> @"AegisFLCL.7623" said:

> > @"Malediktus.9250" said:

> > > @"Wander.5780" said:

> > > > @"Malediktus.9250" said:

> > > > You should get the Samsung B-Die based DDR4 RAM and overclock and tweak it as good as you can. Gives more FPS boost than anything else for this game. It is a lot of work since RAM has so many different timings and 3 different voltages that need to be adjusted, but its worth it.

> > > > That is assuming you did not bought a cheap mainboard. RAM overclocking resuls also greatly vary by mainboard quality.

> > >

> > > I’ve worked in IT for 10 years and I’ve been building gaming PCs since I was 13 years old, (I’m 30 now)

> > > and not once have I ever heard of the need to OC RAM to make a 6 year old game run well... that is just ridiculous and should be totally unnecessary. My experience with messing with RAM voltages has always been inconsistent, and the performance benefit has always been totally negligible when comparing it to overclocking a CPU or GPU. If we have to jump through these hoops to make a 2012 game run well in 2018 hardware, that is ridiculous. If I can’t change the in-game graphics settings to yield a better framerate, with state of the art hardware, then I’m sorry but that is 100% on the developers.

> > >

> >

> > The thing is modern CPUs are RAM latency and bandwith starved. Tuning your RAM to the maximum can easily give +20% FPS compared to even 4266CL17 XMP profiles

>

> Not entirely true. You won't see a large improvement in average FPS but you generally see a solid improvement in minimum FPS.

>

> I can't remember which rig I had at the time, but I specifically tested this within LA around the MF and Crafting areas. The gain on minimum FPS was around 5-7 FPS from overclocking my ram; pretty sure it was on my 4670k @ 4.5, and samsung wonder ram @ 2400mhz. It brought me from the low 40s, to the low 50s which was a massive improvement for densely populated areas.

>

> **This reminds me you can also reduce the range on your FOV setting to gain back a decent amount of FPS, if you've adjusted it from its default position that is.

 

Min FPS increase most because then the CPU bottleneck is usually worst. So feeding your CPU with data faster helps

[Maze.3825]

~~1. * ~~> @"Wander.5780" said:

> I've tried all of the suggestions here... disabled shadows entirely, set character model limit to medium, set LOD to medium, set sampling to Native, nothing makes a difference and I still can't get above 45-48 FPS at best in LA. If the devs aren't going to actually work on optimization, maybe they can at least give us a concrete method of raising our FPS to a level that is acceptable with our hardware configurations in 2018.

 

If this is true you are using a massive resolution and or are screwing something up somewhere else. This means user error.

With a coffee lake and even average DDR4 + anything even remotely close to a 960 Gtx would give you higher than 45 fps with low settings. Please realize there are a few settings that affect performance significantly on their own & they're not exactly in the common graphic settings area; one is Field of View.

But, again if you're on low settings with general coffee lake + other components running normally (at stock) you will yield higher in LA.

 

FYI: I have a lesser coffee lake than the 8700k and play with settings. Proof of the LA scenario https://ibb.co/iimDFT

Do you even possess a discrete video card w/ that processor?

[MrFayth.3546]

> @"Wander.5780" said:

> I've tried all of the suggestions here... disabled shadows entirely, set character model limit to medium, set LOD to medium, set sampling to Native, nothing makes a difference and I still can't get above 45-48 FPS at best in LA. If the devs aren't going to actually work on optimization, maybe they can at least give us a concrete method of raising our FPS to a level that is acceptable with our hardware configurations in 2018.

 

I'd still like to see a GPU-Z Screenshot [like this](https://imgur.com/no8Wdyc "like this") to assure your bus speeds are correct.

 

Gw2 is much more sensitive to a 1.0 x1 PCI-E throttle than other games i've tested. I'm not exactly sure why.

 

iirc, slippy had a plausible explanation for it. Either explained on here or on Reddit.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

> @"MrFayth.3546" said:

> > @"Wander.5780" said:

> > I've tried all of the suggestions here... disabled shadows entirely, set character model limit to medium, set LOD to medium, set sampling to Native, nothing makes a difference and I still can't get above 45-48 FPS at best in LA. If the devs aren't going to actually work on optimization, maybe they can at least give us a concrete method of raising our FPS to a level that is acceptable with our hardware configurations in 2018.

>

> I'd still like to see a GPU-Z Screenshot [like this](https://imgur.com/no8Wdyc "like this") to assure your bus speeds are correct.

> Gw2 is much more sensitive to a 1.0 x1 PCI-E throttle than other games i've tested. I'm not exactly sure why.

 

Ah, it's down to how the engine manages textures, basically. A bunch of games load them all to the VRAM on the graphics card during the loading screen, and never move anything back or forth again, so you get slow loading but fine gameplay, with that slow connection. Others, including but not only GW2, ship stuff back and forth more often, for whatever reason, and during gameplay as well as at the loading screen. Normally nobody notices because it is so little work for the bus, and it has no significant load on either CPU or GPU.

 

Root cause is usually a card that has partly slipped out of the socket, and unplugging it, then plugging it back in, normally solves it. :)

 

(I think we will see less games hurt by this these days, btw, because when everyone and their dog uses the same couple engines, optimizing them intensely for things like bus bandwidth is more cost-effective, even if it is a really, really marginal gain most of the time, like only for loading screens.)

[TheQuickFox.3826]

> @"dace.8019" said:

> Just a small point: people keep bringing up DX11. We're now onto DX12.

 

As long as MS only allows DX12 on Windows 10, and as long as many players run Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, DX12 support will not happen.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

> @"TheQuickFox.3826" said:

> > @"dace.8019" said:

> > Just a small point: people keep bringing up DX11. We're now onto DX12.

>

> As long as MS only allows DX12 on Windows 10, and as long as many players run Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, DX12 support will not happen.

 

Windows 8.1 is end-of-life on January 9, 2018, a date we have already passed, and the end of extended support is January 10, 2023, the final drop-dead date.

 

So, it is already past the end of any new development, will gradually be less and less supported, and will receive only higher priority fixes. It is not unreasonable to say that players not yet on Windows 10 are on borrowed time, at best.

[Jimbru.6014]

Anyone who isn't running on Win10 at this point is a technical dinosaur who deserves what they get.

 

My system an i7-3770, 16 GB RAM, GTX-970 GPU, 20% overclocked. For resolution, I run 1920x1080 on the highest settings, 60 FPS sync'd with my monitor. The only time I ever notice any loss of FPS or other video issues, is when there's dozens of people blazing away in big group fights. That's just basic visual overload, which will happen in any game on any machine.

[Maulclaw.4365]

My performance has taken a dump in two years on the same computer.

[Straylight.7529]

> @"Jimbru.6014" said:

> My system an i7-3770, 16 GB RAM, GTX-970 GPU, 20% overclocked. For resolution, I run 1920x1080 on the highest settings, 60 FPS sync'd with my monitor. The only time I ever notice any loss of FPS or other video issues, is when there's dozens of people blazing away in big group fights. That's just basic visual overload, which will happen in any game on any machine.

 

So you don't have any fps loss when standing in or anywhere close to Amnoon? Or Village of Purity and Mouth of Torment in the Desolation? Or Vehtendi Arena, Kodash Bazaar and Garden of Seborhin in Vabbi? Smooth 60 fps in all those places? Oh and let's not forget Istan.

 

Curious...

 

 

[Purple Miku.7032]

@"Wander.5780" do you have windows 7 or windows 10? With your hardware you should not be chugging at 40 FPS in LA.

 

I'd need to be able to assess your rig in person but I'm guessing you know how to run performance analytics and hopefully determine what is causing the problem for you. I have a 3 year old laptop and I only get lower FPS in LA than you do if I turn supersampling on with shadows/shaders to highest.

 

Anyways, something worth looking into is whether or not you have superfetch enabled. Superfetch is a part of Windows' memory manager and when I was helping my brother figure out why his Overwatch was so chuggy it turned out to be due to that particular setting. It's a shot in the dark but perhaps that could be the problem for you, so I recommend you try it out if you haven't:

 

* Hold the Windows Key, while pressing “R” to bring up the Run dialog box.

* Type “services.msc“, then press “Enter“.

* The Services window displays. Find “Superfetch” in the list.

* Right-click “Superfetch“, then select “Properties“.

* Select the “Stop” button if you wish to stop the service.

[Jimbru.6014]

> @"Straylight.7529" said:

> > @"Jimbru.6014" said:

> > My system an i7-3770, 16 GB RAM, GTX-970 GPU, 20% overclocked. For resolution, I run 1920x1080 on the highest settings, 60 FPS sync'd with my monitor. The only time I ever notice any loss of FPS or other video issues, is when there's dozens of people blazing away in big group fights. That's just basic visual overload, which will happen in any game on any machine.

>

> So you don't have any fps loss when standing in or anywhere close to Amnoon? Or Village of Purity and Mouth of Torment in the Desolation? Or Vehtendi Arena, Kodash Bazaar and Garden of Seborhin in Vabbi? Smooth 60 fps in all those places? Oh and let's not forget Istan.

>

> Curious...

>

>

 

None that I have noticed. Not saying there isn't ANY FPS loss; it does take a certain amount to become noticeable. But certainly not enough to affect my game experience.

 

[Wander.5780]

> @"Purple Miku.7032" said:

> @"Wander.5780" do you have windows 7 or windows 10? With your hardware you should not be chugging at 40 FPS in LA.

>

> I'd need to be able to assess your rig in person but I'm guessing you know how to run performance analytics and hopefully determine what is causing the problem for you. I have a 3 year old laptop and I only get lower FPS in LA than you do if I turn supersampling on with shadows/shaders to highest.

>

> Anyways, something worth looking into is whether or not you have superfetch enabled. Superfetch is a part of Windows' memory manager and when I was helping my brother figure out why his Overwatch was so chuggy it turned out to be due to that particular setting. It's a shot in the dark but perhaps that could be the problem for you, so I recommend you try it out if you haven't:

>

> * Hold the Windows Key, while pressing “R” to bring up the Run dialog box.

> * Type “services.msc“, then press “Enter“.

> * The Services window displays. Find “Superfetch” in the list.

> * Right-click “Superfetch“, then select “Properties“.

> * Select the “Stop” button if you wish to stop the service.

 

I've disabled the superfetch service in Windows 10, no difference. At this point I'm just going to accept this game's abysmal performance and roll with it. 22-30 FPS in the new LS4e3 map across the board, with spikes up to 45 FPS. Totally unacceptable... but I haven't gotten any concrete answers here, and it seems like the consensus is that "yeah this game doesn't run that well, but here's X you can do to **_possibly_** get 5-10 more FPS on average. Why does this game run so poorly on modern hardware if DX9 is not the core issue? Everytime I load up ESO at max settings, even in Cyrodiil where theres dozens and dozens of players on screen with spell effects everywhere, and even there the lowest FPS I'll hit is in the high 30's, where as everywhere else is a solid 60+. If this game is still this poorly optimized 3-4 years from now, while looking as dated as it currently does, they will have problems retaining players like myself.

[geist.9173]

I'm not sure what happened in the last four month, but since then GW2 (especially EBG) runs like shit. I had no fps problems ever in any borderland. I really don't know what's wrong.

Maybe delete scourge fields or something and see if it helps.