Really awful performance

Matrix Games Forums

Forums Register Login Photo Gallery Member List Search Calendars FAQ

My Profile Inbox Address Book My Subscription My Forums Log Out

Really awful performance

View related threads: (in this forum | in all forums)

Logged in as: Guest

Users viewing this topic: none

Printable Version

All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Brother against Brother: The Drawing of the Sword >> Tech Support >> Really awful performance

Page: [1]

Message

<< Older Topic Newer Topic >>

Really awful performance - 4/23/2015 1:49:27 AM

chrisleko

Posts: 34
Joined: 4/23/2015
Status: offline

Has anyone else had really bad performance from this game? When clicking on anything the game is really sluggish to respond, and scrolling seems to happen 1-2 FPS at a time. It really makes trying to even play this a really unenjoyable experience.

I'm running it in bootcamp on a Mac. The specs should be more than enough to handle this:
i5 3.2ghz with 8 gig of ram and a 64 bit Windows 8.1 install.

Post #: 1

RE: Really awful performance - 4/23/2015 1:51:27 AM

Gil R.

Posts: 10821
Joined: 4/1/2005
Status: offline

Eric will have to address this, as it's a technical issue, but I believe that based on a change he is making on the patch we are currently working on things should improve for you.

(in reply to chrisleko)

Post #: 2

RE: Really awful performance - 4/23/2015 2:16:58 PM

FroBodine

Posts: 872
Joined: 5/5/2007
From: Brentwood, California (not the OJ one)
Status: offline

The sluggish scrolling is also there when playing on a PC, Windows 7 64 bit with 8GB RAM. So, it's definitely not just a Mac issue. I sure hope they come up with an improvement to the scrolling and zooming.

(in reply to Gil R.)

Post #: 3

RE: Really awful performance - 4/23/2015 3:31:13 PM

ericbabe

Posts: 11927
Joined: 3/23/2005
Status: offline

Sorry it's running slowly for you. We haven't seen anything like this on any of our machines. Assuming your computer is fast enough to draw the screen at the specified frame rate, I'm not quite sure what might be causing it to scroll slowly. The scrolling happens when the timer updates, and this happens several times per second -- fast enough to scroll well if it's working properly. I'm going to try doubling the timer rate for the next update and perhaps will help improve performance for you. Does the game take a long time to move the screen when you click on the mini-map?

_____________________________

(in reply to FroBodine)

Post #: 4

RE: Really awful performance - 4/23/2015 4:34:02 PM

Erik Rutins

Posts: 37503
Joined: 3/28/2000
From: Vermont, USA
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: jglazier
The sluggish scrolling is also there when playing on a PC, Windows 7 64 bit with 8GB RAM. So, it's definitely not just a Mac issue. I sure hope they come up with an improvement to the scrolling and zooming.

What he's describing, 1-2 fps when scrolling, is certainly not normal for the PC as you can see from the Twitch stream at least. If you are experiencing that, then something is wrong. The original poster's issue sounds like a system specific, perhaps Mac-related issue.

The game in general performs quite well on our systems. The various animations are deliberately slowed down for engine purposes. We're going to try to speed those up in the next update to see if that helps, but that may also strain some lower end systems as well.

Regards,

- Erik

_____________________________

Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.

(in reply to FroBodine)

Post #: 5

RE: Really awful performance - 4/23/2015 9:55:08 PM

ncarson

Posts: 53
Joined: 11/12/2006
Status: offline

I am also getting really slow performance, and sometimes I'm not even sure the mouse is selecting anything. I've not gotten much further than 2 or 3 turns before a CTD ends it all. I am using Win 7, fast computer (i7) and NVidia graphics card. I have all the latest updates for drivers...

(in reply to Erik Rutins)

Post #: 6

RE: Really awful performance - 4/23/2015 10:47:22 PM

Rosseau

Posts: 2757
Joined: 9/13/2009
Status: offline

My system is pretty bad - Win7, 3 gigs ram, 2.4gz quad core, HD4650 video card. Yet, I haven't noticed any slowdowns. It can be maddening when people have such fast computers and some glitch messes things up. I am way under-spec to run Endless Legends, and yet it runs - on smaller maps anyway. BvB is obviously much less demanding performance-wise.

(in reply to ncarson)

Post #: 7

RE: Really awful performance - 4/23/2015 11:50:50 PM

chrisleko

Posts: 34
Joined: 4/23/2015
Status: offline

Since it's running through bootcamp there should really be no difference between my computer and a "PC", as its mostly the same specs.

Possible issues are that it's deciding not to use my GPU (which isn't the greatest, to be honest), or my screen resolution is too high (2560x1440). I don't remember if there's an option to change screen resolution.

It does move really sluggishly when clicking on the minimap, and there's a lot of slowdown when I click units in general (e.g., the UI is generally unresponsive).

It MIGHT have something to do with the resolution, as when I played it on my surface Pro 3, which is not good for gaming (2 gig ram, i3 processor) it ran about the same level of poor (the surface pro 3 uses the same resolution).

(in reply to Rosseau)

Post #: 8

RE: Really awful performance - 4/24/2015 1:40:40 AM

Gil R.

Posts: 10821
Joined: 4/1/2005
Status: offline

Please try out the public beta patch we'll be releasing tomorrow, since that increases draw rate.

(in reply to chrisleko)

Post #: 9

RE: Really awful performance - 4/24/2015 1:54:22 AM

FroBodine

Posts: 872
Joined: 5/5/2007
From: Brentwood, California (not the OJ one)
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

What he's describing, 1-2 fps when scrolling, is certainly not normal for the PC as you can see from the Twitch stream at least. If you are experiencing that, then something is wrong. The original poster's issue sounds like a system specific, perhaps Mac-related issue.

The game in general performs quite well on our systems. The various animations are deliberately slowed down for engine purposes. We're going to try to speed those up in the next update to see if that helps, but that may also strain some lower end systems as well.

Regards,

- Erik

Ok, my screen scrolls just a tiny bit faster than on Erik's Twitch stream. That to me is still very slow and choppy. It certainly is not up to Panzer Corps or Battle Academy smooth scrolling. I realize they are different engines, but still I'm hoping for smoother/quicker scrolling.

To answer Eric's question - the mini map is very responsive, and jumps immediately when clicked. So, that's good. It's just the scrolling that is slow.

I will check out the update tomorrow and see if it improves. Thanks again!

(in reply to Erik Rutins)

Post #: 10

RE: Really awful performance - 4/24/2015 8:00:02 AM

AlessandroD

Posts: 381
Joined: 12/28/2014
From: Italy
Status: offline

Is it possible to add a setting that adjust the scrolling speed? (i.e. a scroll bar)

(in reply to FroBodine)

Post #: 11

RE: Really awful performance - 4/24/2015 8:28:02 AM

zakblood

Posts: 22687
Joined: 10/4/2012
Status: offline

as the game was designed and fully tested on and product pages even states requirements, first of, tbh a pc is one thing, a Mac is a totally different thing altogether, if using bootcamp or wine or even Parallel is emulators and not full blown windows, and the performance can't be guaranteed, same as any future patches, these will be fully compatible with windows based pc's, but may or may not fully support emulation mode, as there just to many to product test with regarding hardware and software, ao will always be hit and miss with mac's, that why it doesn't say supported on the hardware page either.

quote:

Minimum System Requirements
Windows XPSP3/Vista/7/8

http://www.macping.com/top-10-windows-emulator-for-mac-that-will-allow-convenient-access-of-windows-applications-on-your-mac/

mac emulators ^^ price and performance differences, not based on hardware, but software and drivers used, plus hardware in mac to start off with, add a % chance some may work better than others, while some may not work at all.

bootcamp wouldn't be most mac users first or best call imo either.

performance on pc's is video dependant and also on what back ground tasks are running also, plus a % variable of cpu + mem + hard drive space and type times resources free / used etc, and state of O/S, as most problems can be sorted out with either a clean install, more space, defrag, freeing up more resources etc eg having less loaded for your game to use etc etc

< Message edited by zakblood -- 4/24/2015 9:35:51 AM >

(in reply to AlessandroD)

Post #: 12

RE: Really awful performance - 4/24/2015 11:19:11 AM

Erik Rutins

Posts: 37503
Joined: 3/28/2000
From: Vermont, USA
Status: offline

Actually Boot Camp is Windows, not an emulator, but it is running on different hardware and it's possible that is causing an issue. It's also possible that this is simply subjective and a matter of perception and expectations. We're investigating, but the results from the first public beta update (due out later today) will help us determine which it is.

Regards,

- Erik

_____________________________

Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.

(in reply to zakblood)

Post #: 13

RE: Really awful performance - 4/24/2015 10:39:53 PM

chrisleko

Posts: 34
Joined: 4/23/2015
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Actually Boot Camp is Windows, not an emulator, but it is running on different hardware and it's possible that is causing an issue. It's also possible that this is simply subjective and a matter of perception and expectations. We're investigating, but the results from the first public beta update (due out later today) will help us determine which it is.

Regards,

- Erik

Exactly, I'm running Windows. Not an emulator of windows. It's a dual boot, just as if I were running Windows and Linux on separate partitions.

I tried the patch today and performance seems quite a bit better, scrolling has improved and unit animations are smoother. I'm still noticing some weird issues with the end of turn combat calculations and sound (there's a lot of sound skipping). I know there's a LOT of calculations going on under the hood (something that I think makes this game really stand out), but I still don't think sound skipping should be an issue. So I popped open windows' performance monitor to test some things with core affinity and processing priority.

I tried 1 core, 2, 3, and 4 cores and for all combinations of settings CPU usage never exceeded 30%. This was noticeable during my turn (where usage sat at 30% all the time) and then during the calculations between turns it sat at 30%, then dropped to 0 when waiting for me to click OK on the box. I'm not sure if there's something in Windows that's limiting how much of the processor it can use, or something in the game code (or that 30% just seems about right for a 3.2ghz i5 processor).

*edit* I just played the tutorial (for the 3rd time... I suck at this game, but am loving it) on my Surface Pro 3 (with the i3, so it's not really a fancy or "good" computer) and the game ran at pretty much the same speed as my desktop, and took up about the same % of my processor (between 28% and 35%). I had a few hangs on end of turn calculations, but just gave it a minute or two for it to continue. The unit graphics were a bit slow, but I ended up switching to the chits anyway (I prefer the aesthetic of the chits as I <3 tabletop wargames). For some reason I didn't have the problems with the sound skipping. So I'm going to reinstall on my desktop from scratch to see if that does anything.

*edit the second*

Deleted and reinstalled on my mac and still having the same performance and sound issues. game also seems to be soft-locking the computer when I exit out of it.

< Message edited by chrisleko -- 4/25/2015 3:29:54 AM >

(in reply to Erik Rutins)

Post #: 14

RE: Really awful performance - 4/25/2015 3:43:30 PM

Erik Rutins

Posts: 37503
Joined: 3/28/2000
From: Vermont, USA
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: chrisleko
I tried the patch today and performance seems quite a bit better, scrolling has improved and unit animations are smoother. I'm still noticing some weird issues with the end of turn combat calculations and sound (there's a lot of sound skipping). I know there's a LOT of calculations going on under the hood (something that I think makes this game really stand out), but I still don't think sound skipping should be an issue. So I popped open windows' performance monitor to test some things with core affinity and processing priority.

Ok, that's great news that we're at least heading in the right direction. Hopefully we can make some more of these improvements in 1.03 and see if that gets us to where we need to be on your system.

Thanks for the additional testing information as well.

Regards,

- Erik

_____________________________

Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.

(in reply to chrisleko)

Post #: 15

RE: Really awful performance - 4/25/2015 4:08:52 PM

ncarson

Posts: 53
Joined: 11/12/2006
Status: offline

OK, I was trying this out on my office computer. Rebooted the computer, got off to a fresh start, and everything worked well. Finished the tutorial with no CTD. So there must have just been something in my residue of daily work that caused problems. Tried it on may Win 8 machine at home, program ran fine, but Matrix's screens and updates would not work. That seems to be a common thing on Win 8.
Anyway, I am happy at this point. Looks like a fine game, worth learning. Love the period music.

(in reply to ncarson)

Post #: 16