Frame Rate, does not make any sense

[ifnh573]

Below is my computer spec:

CPU: Q6600
Ram: 4 G
GPU: 8800GT SLI
Motherboard: 680i SLI
OS: Vista Ultimate

I am runnin at 1600x1200. Even if I lower my resolution to 1024x768, frame rate does at improve if I load saved game.
I saw similar post, and looked through them, and could not find other similarly configured computers' frame rates.

I tried lowering texture to medium, I still get around 10~15 fps.(at not busy sector. 5 stations, around 15-20 ships. Trying high texture yields same results.
I have about 15-20 sectors explored. If I start new game, I get around 75fps.

Obviously, forcing SLI does not help. I guess it's not just optimized for SLI.

My cpu utilization rate stays at 30%. I even used ReadyBoost as other people suggested. Did not help. I am using fresh install of Vista + SP1.

I don't consider my spec to be low end. If my spec yields 10fps, I wonder what other people get with lower spec?

Do I need $1000 extreme processor + DDR3, $600 video card to just play okay?

Please post what you get, and what your specs are to help people like me can find out if it's system spec or software environment wihch causes game slow downs.

[pr0nflakes]

I don't consider my spec to be low end. If my spec yields 10fps, I wonder what other people get with lower spec?

I get about 30-40 fps in clear sectors about 10-20 in sectors with lots of rocks.

[Sandalpocalypse]

SLI does not help because the game is CPU limited not GPU limited. CPU utilization remains at 30% because the game has only limited multithreading therefore you are not getting any better performance than a dualcore of comparable speed.

[pjknibbs]

And a Q6600 is relatively slow--2.4GHz, IIRC.

It does depend where you are and what you're doing, too. On my machine (currently clocked at 2.7GHz) the only time I notice severe slowdown is when I'm approaching a Terran shipyard...frame rate goes to heck in that case. I am running on Medium textures, though, which helped frame rate a lot compared to High; I'm also not as sensitive to low frame rates as some people are (15fps generally looks fine and dandy to me).

[ezra-r]

And a Q6600 is relatively slow--2.4GHz, IIRC.

It does depend where you are and what you're doing, too. On my machine (currently clocked at 2.7GHz) the only time I notice severe slowdown is when I'm approaching a Terran shipyard...frame rate goes to heck in that case. I am running on Medium textures, though, which helped frame rate a lot compared to High; I'm also not as sensitive to low frame rates as some people are (15fps generally looks fine and dandy to me).

You sound as if you dont experience the same framerate issue not related to GPU capacity that almost everyone else is experiencing.

I even enter Maelstron and I have slow framerate and get the same thing even though my GPU is not busy at all.

Care to share your setup and game config with us?

[fireslide]

I can't help but notice that ppl with quadcore+vista seem to be harder hit by this problem.

I have a dualcore + xp and haven't had a framerate drop yet (2.5 days gameplay)

[em3e3]

Starting to look like a CPU frequency issue - no major slowdowns on my 4GHz P4.

[Battlerat]

I had some framerate issues too. Quite heavy problems in Aladna Hill with patrol mission and so on.

I did some tweeking with my CPU and memory clocks in BIOS. Those migh have been somewhat random numbers exept for the CPU itself (Auto settings). Anyway after all the hassle this game runs much better yay

Running on Medium settings also. Haven't tried with high settings yet if it runs ok with those also with these tunes.

My PC is
Q6600 @2.76GHz
EVGA 680i SLI
EVGA 8800GTX
8Gb RAM
X-Fi Titanium

[BugMeister]

@ ifnh573
could you post a DXDiag, this might show something..??

- cheers..

[frymaster]

yes but there was no slowdown on my e6400 c2d either (2 core, slower than the chip of the OP)

I say "was" because i'm overclocking it now; however, I never noticed a slowdown when I wasn't

mitigating factor: I have vista64 and 8 gigs of RAM, meaning the game's 2 gigs of virtual address space can sit in RAM comfortably along with the OS and a very meaty disk cache

[pjknibbs]

You sound as if you dont experience the same framerate issue not related to GPU capacity that almost everyone else is experiencing.

Define "almost everyone else"--I suspect it means "me and a few people I've read about on the forum". Even in the threads discussing this issue there are no more than a few dozen people posting, so unless Egosoft sold less than a hundred copies of the game, "almost everyone else" is a slight exaggeration, wouldn't you say?

Anyway, since you asked for my specs:
Core 2 Duo E4300 (overclocked to 2.7GHz, possibly going higher in the next week or two)
ATI X1950Pro 512Mb graphics
Creative Audigy 4 sound
6Gb of RAM (running Vista 64, so it can use all of it, although X3 will be limited to 2Gb being a 32-bit application).

[AkrionXxarr]

Even in the threads discussing this issue there are no more than a few dozen people posting, so unless Egosoft sold less than a hundred copies of the game, "almost everyone else" is a slight exaggeration, wouldn't you say?

Well you're also assuming that everybody having this issue has come on the forums and said something about it by now. Which I highly doubt is true. You're also not taking into account the people having this issue over in the german forums.

If you want to use how many people are regulearly on these forums as a guage to how significant or insignificant this problem is ... (Most users ever online was 575 on Mon, 27. Oct 08, 18:32) ... then I can just as well use your own example against you, saying "so unless Egosoft sold less then a thousand copies of the game, your reasoning for why this framerate problem couldn't possibly be affecting more then a dozen people is flawed.".

The people posting on the forums are only going to be a small fraction next to the total number of people who will have bought this game.

[ezra-r]

It certainly looks to me like more than 12 people are complaining about choppy framerate and everyday someone opens a new thread about it from a different aspect or point of view so yes, I warranty there is a problem in the game in which after a while your performance decreases and decreases.

Also, pjknibbs, I did another question to you that you didnt see or didnt want to answer.

Have you experienced this decrease in performance? yes or no.
Have you tried a new game and compared its performance with your actual game? yes, no?

Do you have the warp tunnel effect on? yes, no? (since some people are suspecting there might be some kind of relation with the warp tunnel effect and the choppy performance after a while, although nobody is 100% sure).

I surely hope egosoft is looking into it as something important and not something like a lil problem only 12 isolated people are having...

If you dont believe me and want to experince it by yourself (if you still havent) I can send a copy of my saved game so you or egosoft staff can see how choppy the performance is.


--

Threads related to the framerate/performance issue:

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=220159
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=220154
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=218622
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=220088
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=220030
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=220034
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=217024
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=219398
^^
these just on page one... (surely more than 12 people).

--

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=219663
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=219165
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=219593
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=219078
.
.
.

Should I go on?

Ps: now please.. still believe its just a dozen of people?

[AkrionXxarr]

Another thing I just thought about..

For a simple example
If there's an average of 200 people a day posting on the forums with approx 290,000 registered .. (so you're only hearing from a very small number of people who have bought this game) .. if you were to say 'just a few dozen people' are posting about this problem then if you expanded this 24 of 200 to match 290,000 then you might be able to say about 34,000 people could be experiencing this framerate issue.

Obviously not an accurate example by far but it should help show that this problem will be hitting alot more people then just a few dozen.

[BlackRain]

I can definitely say my game has suffered from FPS issues. New game with same amount of ships in the univers = anywhere from 65-85 depending on sector. Now my game is running anywhere from 20-35 depending on sector, same number of ships. I would say that is a BIG difference.

[frymaster]

just to add to my own spec from above, i have warp tunnels turned on and am not experiencing slowdown

e6400c2d @ 2.8GHz, 8GB RAM, Vista 64, 8800GTS 640 (the older, not as good one)

[fireslide]

Do you have the warp tunnel effect on? yes, no? (since some people are suspecting there might be some kind of relation with the warp tunnel effect and the choppy performance after a while, although nobody is 100% sure).

Give up on the warp tunnel mate, it's mission related most probably.

That or some weird kind of corruption.

[Manddrack]

Hi there

Just a little post to tale about this frame rate issue. I'm currently running TC on a Core 2 duo 6750@3.4 GHz, with 2 GB of ram, 8800GT and vista ultimate 64.

My resolution is 1280x720. 4xAA and 8xAF

i'm not on my computer so i'll add later the Dxdiag

but just to let you know that i have also frame rate drop quite often, it goes even to with game freeze while doing combat. i don't think my rig is a war machine but still it does handle games pretty well so why does X3 TC having such issue? i mean the computer seem to always swap when the game freeze, it seem that it doesn't preload data properly.

Also it seem to be worse when i go further from my start system (terran start game)

any thought on this ?

[Grimm Spector]

It certainly looks to me like more than 12 people are complaining about choppy framerate and everyday someone opens a new thread about it from a different aspect or point of view so yes, I warranty there is a problem in the game in which after a while your performance decreases and decreases.

Also, pjknibbs, I did another question to you that you didnt see or didnt want to answer.

Have you experienced this decrease in performance? yes or no.
Have you tried a new game and compared its performance with your actual game? yes, no?

Do you have the warp tunnel effect on? yes, no? (since some people are suspecting there might be some kind of relation with the warp tunnel effect and the choppy performance after a while, although nobody is 100% sure).

I surely hope egosoft is looking into it as something important and not something like a lil problem only 12 isolated people are having...

If you dont believe me and want to experince it by yourself (if you still havent) I can send a copy of my saved game so you or egosoft staff can see how choppy the performance is.


--

Threads related to the framerate/performance issue:

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=220159
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=220154
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=218622
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=220088
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=220030
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=220034
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=217024
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=219398
^^
these just on page one... (surely more than 12 people).

--

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=219663
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=219165
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=219593
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=219078
.
.
.

Should I go on?

Ps: now please.. still believe its just a dozen of people?

I have the warp tunnel effect off, however, which by the way is the worst effect ever because your system has to stop to load it, with a black screen up while it does, then stop to unload it and load the sector with another black screen...the idea should be that you get something to look at WHILE the sector loads...

in addition it's not a full black screen, my display is slightly larger than it should be vertically physically, and shows a few extra drawn pixels under the nice black DRAWN surface, instead of using a passively drawn DirectX surface they're actually drawing a fully black screen...and there's something underneath it...WTF!!!!

To make things worse, the longer I play the worse FPS gets everywhere, most notably in systems with lots of rocks, AND when I jump into a system with a lot of rocks after I've explored a few dozen systems the FPS is SO BAD that I actually pass through the warp so "late" after spawning in the system due to the decreased FPS that when I hit the warp gate from the back as I come through it, it warps me back into the system I came from, and of course as you all know at this point your controls are still locked so you can't avoid it whatsoever....

FIRST OFF Egosoft needs ot have collisions disabled on the player ship when they first enter a system, to avoid both this and the really stupid problem of having another ship being in the way when you come through or worse coming through behind you and running you down before you can move....

Second off, the most notable FPS decrease comes clearly from two sources after looking at all threads and playing with it in my own games, 1. the number of systems that have calculations going on for them regardless of what you have in them.
2. the number of asteroids in a system

yes some stations decrease FPS but that's a GPU problem not a CPU problem which these other two are...

Obviously the optimization for asteroids and rocks is less than ideal, it's causing serious issues with display and physics calculations somewhere along the line...why I don't know, I don't have the code, but it's something that must be fixed to make the game properly playable...

As for issue #1, the same issue I'm told was present in X3:R to a lesser degree, I'm guessing not much of the OOS code has been changed, maybe it should be something you go back and look at?

I might suggest using SQL or another LITE query language and a simple fast running database to store and run calculations for OOS data, it's more complex than say XML or whatever it is you might be using now, but it's extremely fast, and has parity checking and what not built in...

Of course, Egosoft doesn't read this section but maybe if I'm lucky one of the closer mods on their team like Cycrow will see it and get an idea...a guy can dream right??

[homerdog]

Even in the threads discussing this issue there are no more than a few dozen people posting, so unless Egosoft sold less than a hundred copies of the game, "almost everyone else" is a slight exaggeration, wouldn't you say?

Well you're also assuming that everybody having this issue has come on the forums and said something about it by now. Which I highly doubt is true. You're also not taking into account the people having this issue over in the german forums.

Add me to the list of users who have severe framerate problems but haven't spoken up yet. There are so many other threads and posts detailing the problems (high textures are borked, FPS gets lower and lower the more you play) that I just figured it would have to be fixed with the next patch. I'll gladly supply a DXDIAG if requested, but there is nothing wrong with my computer, codecs, etc. I am anal about that stuff.