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Issues, Workarounds & Localization

 
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New explosion effects causing massive FPS drop.
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Morar Santee
#1 - 2012-12-15 03:14:14 UTC

I have noticed heavy FPS drops during ship explosions. This occurred while running missions, so other graphic effects were also activated. With some clouds, missile and turret effects, framerate was stable at around 30. The moment a ship exploded, framerate dropped down to 5 FPS for the entire duration of the explosion.

This never happened with the old explosions, as far as I can tell. Never noticed any considerable impact on perforamce with those - not even in mid-scale fleet engagements. In the current state, I couldn't even think of leaving explosion effects activated during PvP.

I couldn't find a related thread in issues and workarounds, so I'm wondering wether this is related to system specs or a more common issue.


OS: Windows 7, 64-bit

CPU: Intel Core i5 650 @ 3,2 GHz
RAM: 6 GB
GPU: Nvidia GeForce 405
Sound: Onboard
Fragneon
Perkone
Caldari State
#2 - 2012-12-16 18:05:57 UTC  |  Edited by: Fragneon
Is that really a GeForce 405 that you have (and not a type for a 450)? It's definitely on the low-end. and I'm surprised it's paired with that CPU, and definitely surprised that you've run smoothly so far. Find out how much video memory (VRAM) it has, using something like GPU-Z. That's my first thought.

Do you have any applications to monitor your gpu and/or cpu usage? Something like MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision? Both of them not only give the option to show your GPU usage and framerate ingame, but also keep a running graph in the background. I would suggest running MSI Afterburner (it's used for overclocking and overvolting, but you don't need to touch those settings), watching a few explosions, and tabbing out to look at the usage graph. If you're seeing that the GPU suddenly hits max usage or possibly even saturates the VRAM (this is more often the cause of that dramatic of an fps drop), then it's probably that it's simply overtaxing your GPU.

If you see usage drop, then it's some sort of software glitch. You can try different drivers (making sure to do a clean install every time).
Morar Santee
#3 - 2012-12-24 14:15:40 UTC
I wanted to drop by real quick and thank you for your reply - and apologise for not getting back earlier. I didn't get the chance to do any thorough testing during the last week. 'will try to go through your post point by point.

Yes, it really is a GeForce 405, that's not a typo. As far as I can tell, it's an OEM version and sits at 1.5GB onboard memory with another 1.5GB virtual memory. Clocked at 589 MHz.

I'm already using MSI Afterburner for debugging purposes, and had a closer look today. Yes, GPU usage jumps to 100% quite readily with the EVE client. Looking at empty space has it at about 75% (FPS being a stable 60). As soon as it comes under any kind of load, GPU usage jumps to 100% and FPS drops. (Memory usage looks just fine, 280-400MB.)
This isn't entirely unusual, and I had lowered framerates during missions previous to the new explosion effects as well - just never to this extent. Small- to mid-scale fleet engagements were usually rock stable because there were no clouds or nebulae involved further taxing the GPU.

But now any form of close-up explosion is enough to just about force my client to a stand-still. Even closeby missile explosions are bad (with GPU Particle effects already disabled).. and as soon as a battleship blows up anywhere below 10km, the framerate drops through the floor.
I also tried disabling "Effects" and "Trails" without much changing for the better.

I'll have to admit this is frustrating. Of course I could completely disable missiles and ship explosions, but I don't see the point in blowing up stuff if I can't see it blow up.
'could be wrong, but after running several missions today for testing purposes, I could swear the all of the particle processing became more taxing on my GPU. Ran into some clouds that I never noticed before, and had the framerate drop through the floor.
Eraza
Fuzzyness Enterprizes
#4 - 2012-12-25 23:17:48 UTC  |  Edited by: Eraza
i think it's a bug, not a factor with the new explosions, i have an ati 6850 and i sometimes see fps drop to 15, when nothing is happening, and stay there, regardless of activity, untill i switch the game to window and then back to fullscreen, and then my fps goes to it's normal, at being locked at 60 everywhere

started a couple of patches ago, at the same time as a bug that i now MUST exit eve in window mode, if i close eve in fullscreen, it's completely crashed, cant end task, and even 3rd party force close apps don't work, forcing me to reboot to clear that 1-1.5gb of ram it's using
Morar Santee
#5 - 2012-12-28 17:47:56 UTC
That's another thing I noticed, by the way.

Every once in a while, the client suddenly gets caught in some sort of GFX-related "loop". I couldn't narrow down what is causing it, but the symptoms go as follows:

I look at empty space. FPS is 60 for 2 seconds, then drops to 35 for 2 seconds, then back up to 60, then back down to 35 in two second intervals. This is looking at empty space with absolutely nothing happening.
Now, if I press "ESC" and bring up the menu, then close it again.... everything is back to normal with a stable 60 FPS. No more drops in intervals.

Seriously, I don't understand what is happening here.