Issues, Workarounds & Localization

Hello

Laptop specs:
Intel® Core™ i7 4720HQ Processor,
8GB DDR3L 1600 MHz SDRAM
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 960M 4G GDDR5
256GB SSD Samsung
Windows 10, pretty clean system - just essentials, eve, steam, 2-3 steam games, some developer enviroments which are not turned on during play (no servers / services running)

Now I am not even running all the things on graphics, like asteroid environment and post processing is turned off. Client is set in borderless window 1920x1080px

If I run 1 client, it runs on 54-60 FPS. If I run 2 clients and alt-tab between (2nd client gets minimized on my setup, so it is not in background, mouse button is running 'windows+arrow down' shortcut to put it down so I see desktop and then I click on other client) they run at about same FPS.

Now problems arise when I connect external screen. I connect it with HDMI cable and try to run 2 clients side by size.
Which ever client has focus (I click into it) runs at about 50fps, but the other client drops to 10-15fps. If I click in the other client it gets to 50fps in about second and the other one starts dropping to 10-15fps and reaches that in about 5 seconds.

I've suspected that HDMI cabel might be issue, but considering I can get either external or internal to 50-60 fps by itself, it most likely is not the issue here.

So, any ideas why non focused client is not getting any love?

Update : it's not only EVE. We giving focus to my client on one screen, I have a huge FPS drop on a youtube video playing on the other screen.

So basically, giving focus to EVE slows everything else down.

I have a driver update ready for my GPU, I will install it during DT and see if it changes something... :)

Actually it's not slowing everything down, rather everything that uses the GPU. I believe the HTML5 player from Youtube uses the GPU, I've not tried with other games but I'm pretty sure it would have the same effect.

[Updated] Statement bellow is not true, I have not tested with the FPS displayed and felt it was solved but it's not.

Now as far as I'm concerned installed the latest GeForce driver (373.06) solved the issue.

Errata : looked like it solved the issue this morning but a few hours after it's lagging again.

Some data :

Character 1 in station, with focus : 110 fps
Character 2 in station, without focus : 12 fps

Character 1 in space, with focus : 120 fps
Character 2 in space, without focus : 16 fps

Overwatch on one screen : 60 fps
Character 1 in station without focus : 50 fps

Overwatch (menu mid-game) : 60 fps
Character 1 in station without focus : 30 fps

Character 1 in station with focus : 102 fps
Overwatch without focus : 25 fps

Youtube vid on one screen
Character 1 in station without focus : 90 fps

Two EVE clients with DirectX 9 : 60fps each, exactly... Looks like we have a workaround ! (and a potential suspect, let me check if there is an update of DX11 available somewhere... :)


So it looks like part of the performance drop is caused by the load on the GPU, but with a regular 3D game it still leaves enough fps to an out of focus EVE client to run smoothly. But have another EVE client on focus and it totaly kills the fps everywhere else, even an HTML5 vid !


And lastly, so we can compare symptoms... I've noticed something :
- With DX11 when you switch focus from one client to the other, the first click on the previously non-focused client does nothing (appart giving the focus). Like you're playing on client 1 and need to activate a module on client 2 : first click does nothing, second click activates the module.
- With DX9 the first click is immediately effective.

Seems like with DX11 does not handle focus the same way as DX9 (or the EVE implementation doesn't).

I used to have this problem on AMD R9 390 until I disabled the power efficiency option within the driver and then it went away. With todays Oct 11th patch the problem is not only back (particularly when docked in stations) but is much worse than before. FPS performance while in stations is WAY down.

Ok, tested

DX9

1 client run:
Client with focus: 60FPS
Client without focus: 60FPS

2 client run:
Client 1 with focus: 40-50 FPS
Client 2 without focus: 32-38 FPS
Both clients without focus: 38-40 FPS

DX11

1 client run:
Client with focus: 60FPS
Client without focus: 60FPS

2 client run:
Client 1 with focus: 60 FPS
Client 2 without focus: 12-18 FPS
Both clients without focus: 33-38 FPS

Never in the test did my CPU pass 23% usage and my RAM stayed at 54%
Disk is no issue since it SSD and never passed 1-2% usage


So any CCP employee that could confirm that CCP is even aware of this?

My clients have always throttled inactives, but maybe this is something new. I'll check in a bit.

some problem for me with comparable framerates :(

videos (youtube etc) only starts dropping frames when i launch the second client.
If i focus on the stream/video framerates for both clients goes even with 33-38 FPS and the video stops lagging

I've always assumed this is a feature. EVE slowing down the non-focused client to preserve resources for the active client and/or keep system load and heat as low as possible. This happens to me too (DX11).

I've been having this issue too since October 5th, 2016. My client was working great and came back after about 30mins from being afk and the FPS where ranging from 1-10 fps.

I cleared cache multiple times but it hasn't helped. Hopefully someone finds a fix for this soon.