High CPU usage

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Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Sun, 26. Jun 16, 12:40

@ projix: Maybe try with a lower cpu overclock. I know that sounds counter-intuitive but if your cpu voltages and temperatures are getting too high then the cpu *may* be being auto-throttled back for safety, lifetime and stability. In this overclocking limit area, a lot will depend upon your individual cpu characteristics, your cpu cooling and psu efficiencies.
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Post by YOYOMAN_MODDER » Wed, 29. Jun 16, 10:31

I cant load XR to 100% CPU usage. Why?
I have dual cpu server system with 2 4 core cpu Intel Xeon E5430 2.7 ghz 12 mb L2 cache.
Why MSI Afterburner show floating float result of all 8 CPU cores? Range 10-40/60% NOT 100%

I have bad videocard as 450 GTS. So i lost many frames in HOL sectors or Albion :(
Can Egosoft may tweak engine to real multythreading usage? i want see cpu usage on all 8 cores to 100%

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Post by Alan Phipps » Wed, 29. Jun 16, 11:56

One exe loading all cores/threads to 100% sounds like a very bad idea to me where the game is designed to run on standard PCs rather than on dedicated game servers.

For a PC, what is left to run the essential OS, services and drivers, let alone any background applications? Also if all threads are fully committed then the hand-off between different threads could never work to make the game handle events and actions in the correct sequence, nor their input/output needs, without pauses or freezes.

Whilst I agree that further optimising of cpu and thread usage would be a valid goal for any game or intensive application, a universal 100% thread usage would probably not be such a good thing. That is even assuming constant universal 100% loading would not cause hardware cooling or lifetime issues.

IIRC, Bernd advised before release that 4 real cores were required to play Rebirth with decent gameplay (clockspeed allowing). There was no indication that the game would fully commit all cores though.

There will probably be further engine optimisations for the next game hopefully.
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Post by YOYOMAN_MODDER » Wed, 29. Jun 16, 17:09

2 Alan Phipps
So Egosoft will provide 6 realtime core support? 2 cores enoth for OS. if Egosoft can split heavy calculations to 2 additional threads it will help for better perfomance. In UE4 multythreading works very fine.

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Post by CBJ » Wed, 29. Jun 16, 17:17

Alan is a volunteer moderator. He's not party to our technical development plans. ;)

We are always looking for ways to improve our use of multiple threads, but in a game engine where objects in the universe are very heavily interconnected for all sorts of different reasons, it's not always as simple as splitting "heavy calculations" into additional threads. As such we have no plans for any major changes in this area in XR, but minor tweaks are always possible.

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Post by YOYOMAN_MODDER » Thu, 30. Jun 16, 11:23

2 CBJ

Hmmm. i uderstand, this , i have question. So, XR Engine map System using analog feature to UE4 World Compositions/Level Streaming, so all maps with clusters and sectors exists in always loaded Current (Persistent Level)? In this case sublevel automaticaly load and unload. Its too hard understand for me how XR Engine works :(

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Post by projix » Sun, 3. Jul 16, 12:25

Alan Phipps wrote:@ projix: Maybe try with a lower cpu overclock. I know that sounds counter-intuitive but if your cpu voltages and temperatures are getting too high then the cpu *may* be being auto-throttled back for safety, lifetime and stability. In this overclocking limit area, a lot will depend upon your individual cpu characteristics, your cpu cooling and psu efficiencies.
I know you mean well, but I know what I am doing. The CPU is not being throttled. The temps do not exceed 70C, which is far away from TJmax. Voltage is within Intel specifications as well (<1.52v). Good chip. X:R is not the only game I play too. (1.48v for 4.9, <80C Prime 95).

I think the engine is just badly optimized, so even if I got a golden sample skylake and overclocked that - I doubt my FPS would improve a lot.

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Post by ezra-r » Mon, 4. Jul 16, 20:22

The micro-processor of the OP is quite old and slow compared to the GPU he is using, no wonder he feels the CPU usage with this game.

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Post by projix » Mon, 4. Jul 16, 22:10

ezra-r wrote:The micro-processor of the OP is quite old and slow compared to the GPU he is using, no wonder he feels the CPU usage with this game.
Before commenting, you might want to familiarize yourself at least even so slightly with the subject matter.

Clock for clock even in the best optimized titles a Skylake CPU shows about 30% better IPC (meaning faster at the same frequency) than a Sandy Bridge. Generally the difference is about 20-25%. This is in games that utilize all of the games cores to the fullest.

A 6700K which is a top end Skylake CPU is clocked at 4.2ghz boost clock. That is roughly as fast as a 5.25ghz Sandy Bridge (25%).

This means the OP's CPU at 4.4ghz would be 16% slower than a current top of the line processor.
My CPU at 4.9ghz would be 6.7% slower.

So what, I am going to go buy a top of the line brand new CPU so my frame rate goes from 30 fps to 32 fps?

Even if I OC-d the Skylake to 4.6ghz (which is reasonable on air), it would make my CPU performance ~17% better. So yay, my FPS would go from 30 to 35 FPS.

Once again, the problem is not hardware. The problem is crappy optimization in the game (or the lack of it). Throwing hardware at it is not going to solve the problem. I don't think there is any game on the market which you can not play with a 2500K at 4.4ghz (or 4.9ghz) in my case. Certainly those CPU's were top of the line with insane overclocks when the game came out.

As the game does not benefit from SLI my hardware setup is even better with the 980ti. And in fact my GPU does not even go over 40C with this game, because there is no utilization whatsoever. It is all the CPU, yet the CPU usage hovers around 40% on 4 cores.

I don't think anything is ever going to change about this - the worst system for me is Albion. All those rocks seem to take a huge toll on the framerate. It is a good thing that this thread exists, so that people who are contemplating of trying the game do not get swayed by lots of propaganda as "how good it is with 4.0+". The gameplay is quite alright, but unless you own an absolutely top of the line CPU you will not be able to run this at a playable framerate, especially towards the endgame when more is going on.

TL;DR:
This is not enough to stay above 35fps, and that is a problem:
[ external image ]

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Post by BigBANGtheory » Mon, 4. Jul 16, 22:33

running at 4k actually helps... no I'm serious I get better min framerates than I do at 1080p!

XR is not CPU bound it is thread bound imho because my CPU is barely 50% utilised there is a lot of wait time and that holds back the rendering pipeline.

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Post by projix » Tue, 5. Jul 16, 18:50

Poor optimization...

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Post by ezra-r » Sat, 9. Jul 16, 21:30

projix wrote:
ezra-r wrote:The micro-processor of the OP is quite old and slow compared to the GPU he is using, no wonder he feels the CPU usage with this game.
Before commenting, you might want to familiarize yourself at least even so slightly with the subject matter.

Clock for clock even in the best optimized titles a Skylake CPU shows about 30% better IPC (meaning faster at the same frequency) than a Sandy Bridge. Generally the difference is about 20-25%. This is in games that utilize all of the games cores to the fullest.

A 6700K which is a top end Skylake CPU is clocked at 4.2ghz boost clock. That is roughly as fast as a 5.25ghz Sandy Bridge (25%).

This means the OP's CPU at 4.4ghz would be 16% slower than a current top of the line processor.
My CPU at 4.9ghz would be 6.7% slower.

So what, I am going to go buy a top of the line brand new CPU so my frame rate goes from 30 fps to 32 fps?

Even if I OC-d the Skylake to 4.6ghz (which is reasonable on air), it would make my CPU performance ~17% better. So yay, my FPS would go from 30 to 35 FPS.

Once again, the problem is not hardware. The problem is crappy optimization in the game (or the lack of it). Throwing hardware at it is not going to solve the problem. I don't think there is any game on the market which you can not play with a 2500K at 4.4ghz (or 4.9ghz) in my case. Certainly those CPU's were top of the line with insane overclocks when the game came out.

As the game does not benefit from SLI my hardware setup is even better with the 980ti. And in fact my GPU does not even go over 40C with this game, because there is no utilization whatsoever. It is all the CPU, yet the CPU usage hovers around 40% on 4 cores.

I don't think anything is ever going to change about this - the worst system for me is Albion. All those rocks seem to take a huge toll on the framerate. It is a good thing that this thread exists, so that people who are contemplating of trying the game do not get swayed by lots of propaganda as "how good it is with 4.0+". The gameplay is quite alright, but unless you own an absolutely top of the line CPU you will not be able to run this at a playable framerate, especially towards the endgame when more is going on.

TL;DR:
This is not enough to stay above 35fps, and that is a problem:
[ external image ]
i7-4930k + 780 gpu here, no OC, monitor max is 60hz and vertical sync is on.

My worst place to be are usually some zones at Omycron Lyrae with 26-35fps. While on albion I usually go from 35-60 fps.

I merely checked the op CPU stats against mine and saw what I was getting and he was getting. No need to go on the offensive.

Game could take optimizations? Sure. But cpu-wise he could do better. And clearly that cpu is not leveled to match the gpu imo. I bet that cpu is not only suffering against this game.

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Post by projix » Mon, 18. Jul 16, 20:55

ezra-r wrote:My worst place to be are usually some zones at Omycron Lyrae with 26-35fps. While on albion I usually go from 35-60 fps.
And you think 26-35fps is ok?
My FPS rarely ever drops below 35, but I don't consider that good. Anything below 50fps is really annoying for me, and it is not like this game came out yesterday.
Game could take optimizations? Sure. But cpu-wise he could do better.
Not unless he buys a top of the line Skylake. With his OC his CPU is faster than almost anything out there. Including yours.

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Post by BigBANGtheory » Thu, 28. Jul 16, 01:06

CBJ wrote:The game is extremely demanding on the CPU, and on a system with higher-end GPU hardware it will be CPU-limited unless you do something like run it at 4K. It's also true to say that framerates will vary due to the very nature of the game; it's not like most games which have limited "levels" with just a few objects being simulated at any one time.

If you're looking for more specific analysis of performance on your particular system then you need to post the information requested at the top of the forum, including a DXDiag report, information on what mods you are using, if any, and so on.
I don't understand the logic but I can confirm that high end CPU + decent GPU + 4k actually improves the frame rate in some areas! TBH I can only think there remains a problem in the architecture and rendering pipeline.

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Post by xanfus » Sun, 14. Aug 16, 14:53

High CPU usage can be connected with so called "small batch problem".

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Post by DollarDeath » Tue, 13. Sep 16, 19:11

BigBANGtheory wrote:
CBJ wrote:The game is extremely demanding on the CPU, and on a system with higher-end GPU hardware it will be CPU-limited unless you do something like run it at 4K. It's also true to say that framerates will vary due to the very nature of the game; it's not like most games which have limited "levels" with just a few objects being simulated at any one time.

If you're looking for more specific analysis of performance on your particular system then you need to post the information requested at the top of the forum, including a DXDiag report, information on what mods you are using, if any, and so on.
I don't understand the logic but I can confirm that high end CPU + decent GPU + 4k actually improves the frame rate in some areas! TBH I can only think there remains a problem in the architecture and rendering pipeline.
Yup this actually works. Not so much as to increase fps but rather smooth it out, as the dpi require more mouse movement and the increment movement is smoother. Especially when one is using the supercharged engine as opposed to the sidewinder.

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