Performance issues on some tracks

[Fernando Deutsch]

Bought the European track pack and while testing SPA I got very worried, as I have very bad FSP on many parts of the track. I initially though it has to do with my hardware and start to tweak my settings, only to realize two hours later the real problem is the SPA track itself.

Besides SPA and the Moscow Raceway, the rest of the tracks has good FSP performance. Its a shame as SPA is probably an all favorite to everyone. Does anyone else has the same situation with these tracks?

Also, is there any config guide for graphic settings around?

 

[Alex Townsend]

If you are running a large grid of AI, the limiting factor here will be your cpu, 100% of the time. Even a 3770k is gonna be no match for a huge grid.

The game engine is old, and doesnt really do multi-threaded stuff well, so having the fastest and most powerful cores you can to brute force your performance higher is going to be key. Even if you only have 2-4 cores.

I dunno, the lowly 3770k seems to be doing me proud with 32 AI on the tracks I've tested so far.
I know I'm behind the times with my CPU but putting big Sim Rig spends to the boss, aka bank manager, aka wife, it a little difficult to put it mildly.
I want to use the guts of my current sim rig to make our home media centre faster and able to transcode to multiple viewing areas in the house. She's slowly coming around to the idea, but not sure how it's going to go when I release details of the costs involved for a new z270 motherboard, i7 7700K and 16GB DDR4 for my machine...

 

[Fernando Deutsch]

I can’t remember if I read about this in an R3E or AC graphics guide, but I’m sure the same applies to both. I think tracks surrounded by lots of trees, such as Spa, can put quite a dent in your FPS because of the extra processing power required for all the shadows amongst the trees. May have nothing to do with what you’re seeing, but it might be worth dialling down the shadows on densely vegetated tracks and see if that helps!

Yes, I have the same feeling. SPA has a lot of trees and there are parts on track where the viewport covers very big areas of forest. Still, there are similar tracks where the FPS issue is not present, so that makes me think that SPA might not be properly optimized. With just 1 car and on lowest settings I am having bad performance, which I think enforces the theory.

 

[Fernando Deutsch]

Turning shadows off (track shadows, cars shadows on low) considerable helped.

 

[Deleted member 387850]

Turning shadows off (track shadows, cars shadows on low) considerable helped.

That’s good to know! Did it make a noticeable change to the visuals? I haven’t really experimented with the graphics settings, I tend to just pick the “Medium” preset and run with that. I can run on “High” but the FPS drops a bit lower than I’d like and to be honest when I’m racing I don’t notice much difference anyway!

 

[UMC 22]

Shadows often result in quite a large performance hit in games. Unfortunately, they can also be one of the major graphical options that add or remove immersion as when things don't cast shadows it just looks "wrong". To me it does anyway. I usually try to find other performance hogs to disable instead, things that have less impact on immersion. That's quite easy for me personally because I've never been a pixel-crack junky.

Here's a few other options you can play with. If you're not already, run the game Fullscreen instead of Borderless Window. If you don't mind a bit of potential tearing, disable V-Sync. Reduce Particle Quality settings. (smoke, dust, etc can be very demanding.) Set Car Reflections to low. (on high they are more demanding since the latest patch.) Turn Track Animations off. Reduce the number of Contact Shadows. Turn off Multi-Sampling, Bloom, Depth of Field, and Light Shafts. Reduce number of Visible Opponents. Turn Opponent Cockpits off.

Quite a list there, but for me all have minimal impact on immersion while having a large (combined) impact on performance.

 

[Case_]

I dunno, the lowly 3770k seems to be doing me proud with 32 AI on the tracks I've tested so far.

I did a 99 AI car GT3 race on the Nordschleife with my ancient 2500k (somewhat overclocked) recently while recording with OBS. So yeah, i7 should have no issues.

 

[Alex Townsend]

I did a 99 AI car GT3 race on the Nordschleife with my ancient 2500k (somewhat overclocked) recently while recording with OBS. So yeah, i7 should have no issues.

So natedogg wasn't really advising appropriately with regards to the power requirements of the CPU then?
I thought it was odd as I noticed no issues at all with 32 AI yet he advised the 3770k should be no match for large grids. maybe my grids aren't that large?
Who knows, seems fine anyway

 

[Case_]

@Alex Townsend I honestly wasn't sure how that "no match" remark was meant. Not being a native speaker, I thought it could've been meant both "should have absolutely no problems with" or "will have big problems".

 

[natedogg1867]

@Alex Townsend I honestly wasn't sure how that "no match" remark was meant. Not being a native speaker, I thought it could've been meant both "should have absolutely no problems with" or "will have big problems".

Ahh, that was said in the sense that (any) cpu is going to have problems with 99 AI or other large grids.

With a ton of AI come a ton of physics calculations, etc. that the cpu needs to do. So, you are putting severe load on the cpu, and in this scenario, the cpu will always be the limiting factor.

To explain that a bit further, RR is not a heavily multi-threaded game, and does not fully utilize lots and lots of cpu cores. So having a cpu with 4 cores/8 threads isnt going to pose much of a benefit over a 2 or 4 core cpu. So, you basically want your cpu to excel in single core performance. And in that sense, I can compare the 3770k at 3.5GHz to my own 4670k at 4.4GHz. My cpu has slightly better single core performance, and it is also clocked ~25% higher. And even this is a huge bottleneck when running large grids.

I thought it was odd as I noticed no issues at all with 32 AI yet he advised the 3770k should be no match for large grids. maybe my grids aren't that large?

Yeah, I was specifically talking about massive grids. Like 70+ cars. 32 cars should be no problem and not be too much of a performance hit.

Specifically running 99 cars though is going to be extremely taxing no matter how powerful of a computer someone has.

 

[Case_]

So I just did a test (again). 15 vs 99 AI GT3 cars at the Nordschleife, on my 2500k, overclocked to 4.3 GHz. Everything else kept the same (reasonable graphics settings, 25 visible cars I believe). Rolling start, kept myself in 16th place, looked at the CPU and GPU usage at the exact same spot (at Flugplatz, to give the game a bit of a time to "settle down" after the start).

15 AI cars: 65-70 % CPU usage, 55 % GPU usage
99 AI cars: 70-75 % CPU usage, 57 % GPU usage

 

[Fernando Deutsch]

That’s good to know! Did it make a noticeable change to the visuals?

On my personal view, not that much. You still have shadows on cars which gives some good immersion.

ancient 2500k

I still use this CPU for many games/sims and still I do not see a good reason to upgrade it. 4cores, 6MB cache and easily overclock it above 4.0Ghz.

 

[natedogg1867]

So I just did a test (again). 15 vs 99 AI GT3 cars at the Nordschleife, on my 2500k, overclocked to 4.3 GHz. Everything else kept the same (reasonable graphics settings, 25 visible cars I believe). Rolling start, kept myself in 16th place, looked at the CPU and GPU usage at the exact same spot (at Flugplatz, to give the game a bit of a time to "settle down" after the start).

15 AI cars: 65-70 % CPU usage, 55 % GPU usage
99 AI cars: 70-75 % CPU usage, 57 % GPU usage

This looks like an 'average cpu usage' which wont really tell the full story. You need to look at the individual core cpu usage.

What's happening is, 1 of your cores is being maxed out at 100%, which means all of your other cores wont be working at their maximum. Which is where the cpu is bottlenecking.

Not that this matters a whole lot, since there isnt really anything that you can do about it. A new game engine that properly multi-threads would be needed to make better use of the cpu. Hopefully that switch to UE4 can hurry up and get here

 

[Case_]

You need to look at the individual core cpu usage.

What's happening is, 1 of your cores is being maxed out at 100%, which means all of your other cores wont be working at their maximum. Which is where the cpu is bottlenecking.

I did, and none of my cores was maxed out. I have a simple CPU monitor permanently open on my second monitor, so I can always see what's happening there. The number is indeed the overall (I guess you can say average) CPU usage, simply because it's much easier to read at a glance.

Also, I don't really understand why do you think my CPU was bottlenecking/maxed out and a new engine would be needed to make better use of my CPU? Based on these numbers (and on what I've seen during the test and what I generally see when racing in R3E), the CPU handles all the AI the game can throw at it just fine with the CPU usage being barely raised at all.

 

[natedogg1867]

I did, and none of my cores was maxed out. I have a simple CPU monitor permanently open on my second monitor, so I can always see what's happening there. The number is indeed the overall (I guess you can say average) CPU usage, simply because it's much easier to read at a glance.

Hmm, I imagine you might be using Vsync? At least 1 core should definitely be maxing out with 100% load. With Vsync on and your fps limited though, this may not be as likely to fully load up the cpu.

Also, I don't really understand why do you think my CPU was bottlenecking/maxed out and a new engine would be needed to make better use of my CPU? Based on these numbers (and on what I've seen during the test and what I generally see when racing in R3E), the CPU handles all the AI the game can throw at it just fine with the CPU usage being barely raised at all.

The point I was trying to make wasnt that anyone needed a new cpu, or that the game engine needs to be redone. I was more so just responding to the point that in certain situations, your cpu will be the limiting factor.

Mainly, with more AI come a lot more physics calculations, which means a lot more load on your cpu. That was mostly the whole point. Beyond that point though, there are some things that are true about RR. Namely, it is built on a very old game engine that doesnt multi-thread as well as more modern game engines. So those people with an 8 core cpu for instance, arent going to be making full use of their cpu, because the game just cannot utilize all of those cores to 100% usage. The game mostly uses 1 or 2 cores, and will ping those at 100% usage, while your other cores will show far lower usage.

A rather notorious example of this is the original Crysis. Yes, from the "Can it run Crysis?" fame. That game is well known for relying on single core performance. It basically puts all of the calculations on only 1 core, and then that core is doing all of the work. So it will be around 100% load while any other cores you have arent going to be contributing at all. So, it doesnt matter if you have a 16 core processor or a 2 core processor, the game simply doesnt make use of all your cores equally. So to finish the thought... it is better to have 1 or 2 cores that are very powerful and clocked very high, rather than having a ton of cores that are clocked really low.

This was all pretty off topic from the point of this thread though and probably not explained in the best way, whoops

 

[Fernando Deutsch]

Solved performance my issues, https://forum.sector3studios.com/in...issues-on-some-tracks.9809/page-2#post-136595

 

[Kenny Paton]

Solved performance my issues

Good news and I will have a look at mine just to check.

 

[Kurupt CDN]

I haven't changed my settings Ross. But much lower FPS since using 64bit version for whatever mysterious and unexplained reason.

I started noticing performance issues back in the summer after one of the builds...think it was the build that fixed reflections, and since the big 64 bit build release performance has been terrible....reported it a while back and tried all the usual fixes but nothing changed using low or high settings.
Even upgraded my cpu, added a second gtx 970 ssc (no sli support) and mobo but didnt make a difference?
Use to be able to get 90-110 fps on high but now i can barely maintain 60 fps when on track by myself and 40-50 with opponents.
May have to do a clean install and see if that sorts things.
Wonder if the issue has something to do with the windows 10 fall update?

 

[Case_]

I'm not going to continue here, but just to respond:

Hmm, I imagine you might be using Vsync? At least 1 core should definitely be maxing out with 100% load. With Vsync on and your fps limited though, this may not be as likely to fully load up the cpu.

Nope, always Vsync off, not interested in lag. But yeah, I do limit my fps, because there's really no point to have my CPU and GPU working to the max all the time for something I won't even be able to see/take advantage of and would only cause stuttering/tearing.

Mainly, with more AI come a lot more physics calculations, which means a lot more load on your cpu. That was mostly the whole point.

Yes, but my point was that even my old CPU is more than enough to deal with the worst case scenario R3E can throw at it AI-wise (and track-wise) and it doesn't even stress the CPU noticeably more than a standard number of AI cars. You can't make the game run more than 99 AI cars, so there will never be a situation when you'd need more CPU power. So there's absolutely no need for a faster/more powerful CPU here, there's nothing to be gained, and a more powerful CPU (like the i7 we were talking about here) should obviously be able to deal with the task with even more ease than my i5.

 

[Furnace Inferno]

I've never had any issues running maxed graphics with a 980Ti and full grids with at least 60fps, the only issue I had was in-game V-sync is broken and causes a lot of stuttering/slowdown, turned it off and I was getting over 100fps in the same places, so I forced it on in the Nvidia control panel then it ran fine at locked 60.

VR is another matter though that just kills my CPU dead like all the other sims .

 

[RasmusP]

I'm just going to throw in that I had to retire to pits due to headache in my first race in months, the awesome gt3 race last Sunday because my fps went down the drain the moment the cars got visible.

I tested with AI and with maxed out graphics my gpu (1070) was around 50% so definitely not a problem.
Above 40 AI my fps went down to 50-60 fps, in Cockpit view even lower.
I read out the threads usage of the CPU with process explorer and there were 2 threads. One at 12.5%, which is the maximum for a single thread on 8 thread CPUs (I7 2600k). The other thread was around 8-11%.
No core showed more than 50% load and overall CPU load was at 30-40%.
It's still the limit and therefore bottlenecking!

All these Hardware monitors don't show the single threads but the more I check games with process explorer for their fps limit on low graphics settings and without limited fps, the more I find poor multicore support.

@Martin Fiala no idea how you get steady 60 fps, I thought it wouldn't be a problem in multiplayer but apparently AI numbers aren't that important but instead some graphics settings induce high single thread loads. Could you post your settings maybe? I really don't want to test for another hour or miss a great race because everything starts to stutter
Would be appreciated!

PS: put all settings to lowest and fps were a lot higher. No idea how a good mix looks like though...