Poor Graphics Performance (Full Version)

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Konflict -> Poor Graphics Performance (6/24/2017 4:29:54 AM)

Hi Matrix

Been watching this game for some time now. Finally Steam Summer Sale and I grabbed it :)

The game seems to run just fine but scrolling around is very sluggish and so is zooming in and out.
The game appears to be at version 1.06, fresh download from Steam today, no updates available.

My system is not really a gamer system, but rather a workstation.
Motherboard: ASUS Z10PE-D16 WS
CPU: 2x E5-2699v3
RAM: 256GB DDR4
GPU: ASUS Strix gtx1080 TI OC
OS Drive: 2x 1TB SSD's in Raid 0
OS: Windows 10 Pro

Any ideas on sluggish graphics performance ?

Thanks for your input.



Konflict -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/24/2017 4:33:13 AM)

Forgot to add...
My display is 3840x2160, full screen.



zakblood -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/24/2017 5:16:44 AM)

quote:

Display Tab 2: The file Unknown is not digitally signed, which means that it has not been tested by Microsoft's Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL). You may be able to get a WHQL logo'd driver from the hardware manufacturer. There is a problem with Microsoft Basic Display Adapter device. For more information, search for 'graphics device driver error code 31'


Card name: Microsoft Basic Display Adapter
Manufacturer: (Standard display types)
Chip type: Unknown
DAC type: Unknown
Device Type: n/a

sorting this one out may help ^^

Open the Nvidia Control Panel and locate Manage 3D Settings. Change, in both Global and Program, the Preferred Graphics Processor to High Performance NVIDIA Processor.

eg

-Go to the NVIDIA/ATI Control Panel by right clicking on your desk top and clicking on "NVIDIA or ATI Control Panel".
-In the default screen that pops up (it should be "manage 3D settings", and the "Program Settings" tab should be automatically selected), under "1. Select a program to customize:" hit the "Add" button.
- From here, navigate to the game exe. Typically located in: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common (add this bit yourself for where game is installed etc) Select it, and open.
- Then, under "2. Select the preferred graphics processor for this program:" open the drop-down menu and select "High-performance NVIDIA/ATI processor".
- Finally, hit apply in the far bottom right corner, and you should be good to go!

plus,

Realtek High Definition Audio

Driver Name: RTKVHD64.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.0001.7661 (English)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
Date and Size: 11/10/2015 12:00:00 AM, 4655872 bytes

drivers out of date

latest version is

quote:

Driver Name: RTKVHD64.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.0001.8036 (English)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
Date and Size: 05/01/2017 00:00:00, 5545472 bytes


64bit 

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsview.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=14&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false



zakblood -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/24/2017 5:32:27 AM)

Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2699 v3 @ 2.30GHz (36 CPUs), ~2.3GHz
Memory: 262144MB RAM

is more than enough for the game, but a Xeon isn't a gaming chip, it's a server chip, high end it maybe and a good one 

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E5-2699+v3+%40+2.30GHz


http://wccftech.com/intel-haswell-ep-xeon-e52699-v3-18-cores-benched-haswellep-xeon-e5-cpus-spotted-retail/


but price per speed value is low, as the 2.3GHz per core making it a slow single thread cpu, so anything which isn't programmed to use more than one core, which is almost 90+% of games, which mostly are 32bit anyway, not 64bit coded will be slower on this, so rather a high end and expensive chip, used well in servers on server apps and a server O/S, but related to gaming, it's not as hot either and for almost all games, is of little use, where as the VGA card installed is very good
quote:

My system is not really a gamer system, but rather a workstation.
as you already know and have mentioned, i've just added why, how to help it, well that's another story altogether.

as anything mentioned by me would maybe help the game, but not the workstation side of things either, this is one reason Xeon chips haven't gone mainstream in games, not only the price, but for 1/10 of the cost of it, you can have 10x + the performances in a gaming chip, but would be a lot slower in a server / workstation use environment, more cpu's aren't as good as faster clock speed in games, but more cores are better in server / workstation use environments where less GHz clock speed isn't as important mostly, fast GHz and more cores are nice, but the cost is way higher




zakblood -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/24/2017 5:39:20 AM)

game should be fine imo on the hardware with nothing altered, but as it's not, check this when game is running as this will point to where the error maybe



[image]local://upfiles/43185/F8417D3188424B72B89281552E18E5E6.jpg[/image]

open what' shown above and then run the game, for me i'd use first your standard display size then try windowed so you can check the speeds and cpu use when game game is running, if it's maxed at 100% on one core, and other cores are hovering at 1 to 10% then the game is single core, and the rest aren't being used by the game, but maybe by windows only.

as the % of cpu use increases to help the GPU, the higher the resolution used, the higher the memory and cpu needed to run, it gets to a point, and tbh shouldn't apply to this game either, where there is a slow down in the system as the GPU takes more memory and resources away from the cpu and slows that down, but post results, if it never gets to 100% on a single core, then it's something else altogether, which could be background apps and programs running etc.

like i've mentioned and said, your spec is more than enough so none of this should be needed either.

ps and edited again. i'm not support either, just a forum user same as you, just posting my thoughts, staff support and or a developer may give a different answer and reply if you wish to wait, thanks and sorry for your issues, hope at least some of my post / comments helps



Konflict -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/24/2017 5:58:49 AM)

Hey Zak, thanks for getting back to me so fast !

Ok first, I do not seem to have the...
Select the preferred graphics processor for this program:" open the drop-down menu and select "High-performance NVIDIA/ATI processor".
In my NVIDIA Control Panel for some reason.

Yeah I know about the CPU's, I am a server/workstation guy so these are the things I use. This is my main rig that I do everything on and it does game very well believe it or not. I have a large number of steam games which all seem to work very well. Gaming now a days is more related to GPU's for performance. I have another workstation sitting besides me, its in a big Supermicro 4U tower case, inside is a ASUS X99-E-10G WS with a 5960x for a processor. I did do gaming tests before I swapped over to the dual cpu rig. Same games, same GPU, and I found little to no difference between the rigs. I am from servethehome, I review equipment there so I do all kinds of crazy stuff.

I have several other matrix slitherine games that play very well, Matrix Decisive Campaigns and others.

Now why can't I add an attachment here...

I think I did find the problem tho. It seems this one does not handle NUMA very well. I have run into this before, GTAV for one so I will take a look at cutting back cores to get the game to run on one CPU.




Konflict -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/24/2017 6:01:25 AM)

Here it goes, found it.

You can see its really using a lot of CPU cycles.



zakblood -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/24/2017 6:08:35 AM)

yes more than one issue there it seems


[image]local://upfiles/43185/6F9B0B16FB75471D8E63A10655B9AFB1.jpg[/image]



zakblood -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/24/2017 6:16:20 AM)

as you can see from my picture to yours, i'm using a custom made pc, which came pre overclocked at place of build, so it shows my core speed as 3.50Ghz but as it's overclocked it's working per core 4.17 Ghz, can do 4.2Ghz with ease but temps for 24 hours a day use made me slow it back down, as now it's steady at a lower temp than a standard non overclocked chip.

where as your's is a 2.30 Ghz model, but only running at 1.70Ghz per core, so no turbo mode then it seems, the 5960x is an epic gaming chip, try that one and see the difference

Performance
# of Cores 8
# of Threads 16
Processor Base Frequency 3.00 GHz
Max Turbo Frequency 3.50 GHz
Cache 20 MB SmartCache

against the Xeon

Performance
# of Cores 18
# of Threads 36
Processor Base Frequency 2.30 GHz
Max Turbo Frequency 3.60 GHz
Cache 45 MB SmartCache

either the board or bios version or settings in bios or even windows 10 isn't using the turbo boost mode which would double the core speed and help in single and tbh multi core use imo.

with the amount of threads and handles open on the Xeon as well from the above picture, you have a lot of stuff running in the background as well, like i said, i can help with the game part and increase a % resource give back, but that would or could impact on the server workstation side of things as it's stopping and closing apps on boot and making a cleaner profile which would help this game, but maybe not the whole system for other uses, so also not recommended, no idea why this game performs any worst than any other installed either, not seen it on my tests, and i was on the beta of the game, no longer have it mind you as don't play games much anymore, only test them, and having more than a few pc's helps with this.

while the cpu cycle isn't at max in the shot above, the graph shows it has been almost maxed out when running in the last 60 seconds etc, as if you window the game and not full screen it, the game still runs while you test it, if you alt tab in and out, it's drops or lessons the amount of cpu use while minimized etc.


[image]local://upfiles/43185/C783059EB0494A69B398EAF203F7EADA.jpg[/image]

just to prove a point, 3 steam games loaded and alt tabbed between them, showing cpu and memory use, on games that do work well on multi core use, when minimized, some do some don't, not sure if it's a engine thing, a O/S thing, or settings / apps and or programs loaded etc, could be a combo on some or all of them, but it's trial and error to work out what i'm sorry to say, the developer and staff support may offer more advice on this or what to try next, but anything altered my improve the game performance but lesson the workstation side of things also, unless maybe a gaming profile is setup, so it's doesn't alter your main task etc



Konflict -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/24/2017 6:28:57 AM)

Yeah I know all about Xeons vs i7's, I have been an overclocker for a long time... my handle is Buckeye over xtremesystems.

Like I have said, I ran tests on the rig next to me that has a single 5960x with the same GPU's. There is little to no difference in game performance between the two, using the same game/GPU's, just different processors setups. Been doing this for years now, this rig handles gaming just fine. Battlefield 1, DOOM etc, all over 100FPS. Star Citizen puts the biggest hurt on the system, but that went away when I started using the ASUS Strix gtx 1080 TI OC.

I will look for at this issue tomorrow as its getting late here.
Is there a config file in the install folder ?

Thanks for your help Zak !



zakblood -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/24/2017 6:34:48 AM)

ok see you tomorrow, and by then more information like settings and other comments hopefully will be posted for you, good luck and it will get sorted in the end so sorry for your issues

edited,

if any of them games work well on the system that this one doesn't, as you already know, this game is minor compared to the likes of Star Citizen etc, as that's a beast of a resource user on any system[X(]

i'm sure the developer will have a better advice and options for you on your return

quote:

Find a file named SC3.ini and open it (you can use Windows Notepad).

^^ ^^
quote:

Is there a config file in the install folder



sPzAbt653 -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/24/2017 7:31:26 AM)

quote:

scrolling around is very sluggish and so is zooming in and out

The map and text refreshes during both operations, which usually makes things appear to be too slow. Try messing with these Options > Advanced settings to see if it helps, my settings pictured below:

[image]local://upfiles/24850/6B069435F49347528F09C8DE4B25AA29.jpg[/image]



zakblood -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/25/2017 12:30:43 PM)

any luck as yet with any of these suggestions Konflict ?



Konflict -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/25/2017 12:59:53 PM)

Oh sorry, had a ton of stuff to do and more yard work today.

I vegged out last night with Steel Divisions of Normandy... Set to Insane Graphics and pull 80FPS.

Going to get SC3 installed on my other single socket system and see how it runs on that, I suspect it will be fine with my issue being a dual cpu system.



zakblood -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/25/2017 1:38:19 PM)

ok thanks for the update, must admit didn't enjoy Steel Divisions of Normandy, then again don't play online so maybe that's it for me, if it was single player, might have tried it, but also not a RTS fan either, too old and slow now days for the fast action stuff, more into the slower counter based games, with a speed of what i can handle[:D]

let us know if you have an issue on the other single socket setup and fingers crossed you don't need it, enjoy and good luck, there's always someone here if needed[;)]



Konflict -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/25/2017 2:26:02 PM)

Oh I hear you on that about being old and slow LOL
I almost never play FPS games anymore, I am just fodder for other players :)
I am not a super hardcore gamer, many of these types of games take a huge time investment which is something I do not have a lot of generally.

Ok so I got SC3 installed on my other rig... 5960x - ASUS Auto OC in the BIOS and ASUS Strix 1080, 4K display.

Its better but I still see the same issue... here is my thoughts.

Its seems that when you scroll the map around it updates the map by hexes, not by scan lines ?
This makes it appear clunky. My FPS is very good tho. but just appears sluggish.
My Dual CPU rig this is much more noticeable.
Games like Heart Of Iron IV, Commander Europe, Decisive Campaigns, Unity of Command are all very smooth for me, zooming in and out is fast and smooth.
It seems to me that SC3 has a lot going on in the background which also hogs it down a bit.

Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining. My system is hugely different than what most sane people would use. I am going to play SC3, it appears to be very good :)

Just asking... any others play at 4K ?
When I look at the config file I do not see my display resolution... 3840x2160.
The Max it shows in the config is 2560x1440
I did change this in the config file but it didn't help. Maybe the game engine is not optimized for 3840x2160 and that would explain why I see the same issue on both systems here. Just a thought.



zakblood -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/25/2017 3:59:50 PM)

while many games will work at higher res, it's the DPI that matter more than anything, as some things scale very well while others don't

while i have 8 test pc's, some older dual core ones rarely gets used much now days, same as monitors, my basic one on the server is a 19" lcd, my smallest, which runs at 1920x1080, then again the others range from 22" to 27", then 29" and just got a 32" and 40" monitor, all are IPS LCD's so good for the eyes and wallet (high end means high costs), as none except one can go higher than 1920x1080 either, not needed for me, and as i don't like dual cards, or dual displays either, one suits me fine, we are all different, same as dual chip M/B's, also not needed for what i do the most, which is game testing, so unless things change a lot in the next few years, can't say i'll be getting on the high end bandwagon anytime soon either, not old school, as i live a modern O/S, always use the latest one, and have imaged every pc i own for all others as well and can reimage them right of the network and server if a given test needs to be done on a given O/S or hardware, as while most of my pc's are intel, they mostly all have Nvidia cards as well, but have a few spare AMD ones to throw in if needed.

4k for me isn't for war gaming as yet, as most wargamers are still either xp or vista user with half maybe win 7 also, the other half is what's left with win 8 and 10 etc.

war games on the whole are done for passion, not to make money, if a developer wants to make money, then they make others types of games, FPS or other types etc, as the numbers sold do not warrant the investment or time.

i5 3230m-3.0ghz 4gb of ram onboard vga chip

i7 2700k cpu with 16gb of ram

i7 3960X cpu with 32gb of ram

i7 5960X cpu with 16gb of DDR4 ram

Win 10 64 bit 1920x1080

quote:

Just asking... any others play at 4K ?


there are some coming along in dribs and drabs, but on the whole, they tend to be the newer guys and younger, who play other sorts of games as well, as i'd still say 80% of games may yes have it in, but like 32bit / 64bit gaming etc, it's still not mainstream

quote:

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey





[image]local://upfiles/43185/F9DDD2BF92E248F5A307E885C4FA02F2.jpg[/image]

14,010,669 users test results ^^



zakblood -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/25/2017 4:03:09 PM)

like most surveys it changes with times and over the next few years, this post will alter loads i'm sure


[image]local://upfiles/43185/CFF5D3A1DDE9412AB94D1E0DE1F32188.jpg[/image]

like windows 10 for an example ^^ holds 49% of the steam market, but loads still hate it, but you don't buy the latest gear and load it onto a 4 or 6 year old O/S unless you're really really love the older versions, and live with the quirks

quote:

Without Vsync as you lower resolution the GPU can render more and more frames due to the lower load of each frame, thus the CPU needs to feed that hungry sucker more and more data. Once you hit 100% cpu utilization (still lowering resolution) your GPU utilization will begin to drop. This is where you hit your CPU bottleneck, it simply can't feed the GPU any more. Raise that resolution and the opposite occurs. GPU utilization will hit 100% and CPU utilization will drop as you add more and more load to the GPU. This is your GPU bottleneck. Somewhere in between is your happy place. This is a generalization and different rendering engines can react well, differently. Also note that general "smoothness" can be affected by monitor type/brand etc and is subjective. Use FRAPS or some other utility to measure FPS.


rule of thumb for me, if lowering a given resolution makes something work better, quicker, smoother and fast in FPS, then it's points to one thing, it doesn't like the one used, if taking it down one setting doesn't help., but 2 does, then you have your answer, the game doesn't like a given one, or the system used can't handle the higher one etc etc

last edit lol[:D][;)]



Konflict -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/25/2017 4:27:58 PM)

dang... I had a nice reply here but had a link in it, it said no links and dumped me back and all was gone :(
I will redo it in a bit I guess.



zakblood -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/25/2017 4:52:37 PM)

you can always pm me it and i'll post it, it's a joining date issue, once passed so many days and post, you get full site access, until then, it's kind of a spam protection etc



Konflict -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/25/2017 10:13:23 PM)

Sent you a PM Zak

Yes 4K has been interesting. I picked up a ASUS display up at Fry's when it was on sale a few years ago and never looked back. I run two now.
Pros and Cons about 4K

Pros:
Huge display so you can have tons of windows open.
Games and movies look fantastic.

Cons:
Text becomes very small. I have mine adjusted so Icons and desktop text is larger, its much better after doing that.
Not all game UI's scale so menus and what not are very small. Mostly related to older games tho.
Takes a beefy GPU to get good FPS out of a lot of games... like Battlefield line etc.
Some games do not support 4K resolutions. You can switch to lower resolution but doing so will often reset your desktop, even if you run the game in window mode, or it will be small on your screen.

I would say stay away from 4K for gaming right now.



zakblood -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/26/2017 5:48:50 AM)

quote:

I would say stay away from 4K for gaming right now.


agreed, until full support with the game i play, i won't be going down the hardware route for a few more years as yet either



n0kn0k -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/26/2017 7:08:56 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Konflict

Hi Matrix

Been watching this game for some time now. Finally Steam Summer Sale and I grabbed it :)

The game seems to run just fine but scrolling around is very sluggish and so is zooming in and out.
The game appears to be at version 1.06, fresh download from Steam today, no updates available.

My system is not really a gamer system, but rather a workstation.
Motherboard: ASUS Z10PE-D16 WS
CPU: 2x E5-2699v3
RAM: 256GB DDR4
GPU: ASUS Strix gtx1080 TI OC
OS Drive: 2x 1TB SSD's in Raid 0
OS: Windows 10 Pro

Any ideas on sluggish graphics performance ?

Thanks for your input.


Nice rig!
There is a rather complex explanation for this. It was once discussed in Beta I believe.
You seem to have a PC config combination from hell for this game. [:(] But I might have a workaround that's acceptable.

The game doesn't use 3D rendering, so the 1080ti won't do you much good i'm affraid.
So the bigger the resolution, the more it needs to render at the same time, so the slower it gets.
Especially for the CPU. It draws layer over layer I believe. You can see some of it as the names get drawn on the screen.

I run at 2560x1400 and 1920x1080 on my other PC(same specs) and there's a big difference.
My suggestion would be to set the scaling setting in the Nvidia panel to Monitor scaling instead of GPU scaling.
Then set the desktop resolution to 1920x1080 so you get a perfect x2 scaling on your 4k monitor.
The game gets forced to the desktop resolution, so i'm affraid this is the only way to get a proper lower resolution fullscreen image on the 4k monitor.

As you move the engine renders the whole map again, including all the names on the screen.
If you go to options, and then advanced, you will see the setting xx scrolls before text hides.
1 is fast 50 is slow, as it renders upto 50 hexes off screen already with names.
As you can imagine, 50 hexes along all edges on a 4K screen is alot heavier then on a 1080p screen.
Now factor in the rather low core speed, and you get the results you have atm.
Try to set it to 1 as a test.

As you drag the map with the mouse, it will move with 2 hex at a time(just test it with a small movement).
That's why it feels sluggish, it's actually skipping a hex each time and not related to the rendering at all.
I think this is done to prevent rendering the map again on each hex move and actually making it lag.
But Hubert may correct me if that's not the reason. I can't recall the full explanation tbh. :)




zakblood -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/26/2017 7:27:25 PM)

makes more sense to me, thanks

i'm sure Konflict would like to know why some games played better and others didn't on his rig, and yours makes more sense than my efforts[;)]



Konflict -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/26/2017 11:31:56 PM)

Hey n0kn0k, thanks for the reply.

I think you are correct and the CPU's are doing all the work. I wish we could run this in windowed mode where I can scale the resolution down. I seem to remember a command I used on some other game that you enter in the .exe properties, I might be mistaken on that.

I will try running it in a VM that has lower resolution and see how it goes. Sadly if I lower my main rigs resolution it will reset all my desktop icons every time.

I just tried setting xx scrolls to 1 like you suggested, it works like a charm !
So much better now !
Thank you for that tip !

4K display is the real issue it seems, I even had this lag on my other rig with a 5960x for a processor. It was not as bad but still noticeable.

Well that did the trick and I can now play SC3 without all this lag !

Thanks again !!



n0kn0k -> RE: Poor Graphics Performance (6/27/2017 4:34:50 AM)

Good to hear. Have fun.



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