Poor performance in quad sli?

[Daniel Joy]

Hi i was wondering if there is anyone who has some ideas on how to improve the performance of my system with this game:
System:
I920 overclocked to 4ghz
Asus Rampage Extreme II
2 Ge-force gtx 295 in Quad SLI overclocked. latest drivers
12gb ddr3 2000mhz ram
Intel SSD in RAID 0
BR RW
Sony surround sound
Mitsubishi 65" DLP HDTV
NVIDIA 3D Vision
(i did a copy paste)

I am running the game at 1080p and i can get it to run with no problem at maxed out setting but the frame rate is too slow in combat. i can only run low settings to get a decent frame-rate (30-50)(no AA or other pretty effects). I turned on the SLI indicator and noticed that it is showing that the computer is cpu bound. so i logged the cpu usage and it is barley using two cores at 100percent- other six cores are nearly at idle.

I have 3d turned off in the control panel and even tried physx turned off and did not notice much difference in performance. I even tried playing with some of the SLI modes in the control panel- and none really seemed any different.

I really like this game- a super bargain for 10$ and its very pretty. I am surprised that it performs so slow on my computer though- maybe quad SLI just sucks or the SlI indicator is not working on this game. I do wish it worked better with 3d vision also- i can get it to run but there are weird shadows and its not worth running for the frame rate loss.

any help would be greatly appreciated.

[FM_Jarnis]

3D Vision is currently not supported, so issues with it are not suprising.

Quad SLI is "untested" - I guess your problems may be driver code related. I do know that normal SLI / one GTX 295 works fine, but no idea about 2x GTX295 sorry.

[mjke]

Pretty sick 'puter you got there though.
I suppose try what Jarnis said, just use one of your cards and see how that goes.

[mattdamonsblues]

In another thread FM said that SLI does not make any improvements in the game.

So, if you are scoring at home, this game won't run well if you have decent equipment and it run well if you have too much good equipment.

Bad code is bad code.
Its not a 60 fps cap, its a programming blunder that says at BEST you hit 60, but even with the top of the line components, you really are likely to see 40-50 fps.

[FM_Jarnis]

60fps cap is not a blunder, it was designed as such. You may disagree with that decision, but it is a decision, not an error.

SLI does give you very tangible benefits.

However, Tri/Quad SLI is far more complicated (both from the game standpoint and from the driver standpoint) and I honestly don't know what the situation is with the scaling past 2 GPUs.

[MikeHaggarKJ]

Nice to see the devs helping out on the forums and caring about their game!

[Daniel Joy]

3D Vision is currently not supported, so issues with it are not suprising.

Quad SLI is "untested" - I guess your problems may be driver code related. I do know that normal SLI / one GTX 295 works fine, but no idea about 2x GTX295 sorry.

i really appreciate formal feedback. it does not surprise me that quad sli is poorly supported- i have been dealing with this for a while. I cant wait for a simpler fermi sli set up.

what kind of FPS and detail levels should i get from one gtx 295? I tried some initial testing quickly by disabling one card in the device manager and video control panel- and did not notice any improvement in FPS- i have to run low settings to get a playable framerate. ill try some more testing in a bit.

thanks.

[Daniel Joy]

60fps cap is not a blunder, it was designed as such. You may disagree with that decision, but it is a decision, not an error.

SLI does give you very tangible benefits.

However, Tri/Quad SLI is far more complicated (both from the game standpoint and from the driver standpoint) and I honestly don't know what the situation is with the scaling past 2 GPUs.

the thing that really has me baffled is why so little of the cpu is being used. I have hyper-threading still on with this overclock- so i have six cores being unused. would i benefit more by disabling the hyper-threading and running a higher clock speed on only 4 cores?

im going to guess that the game is GPU bound at the moment.

[Daniel Joy]

ok did some more testing....got it running a bit better. the game defiantly works better in sli mode. quad sli was not helping at all. i can max out all settings with AA off and play the game well- 30-50 FPS. WOW this games graphics are amazing!

I had to disable quad sli first in the control panel- then disable my bottom two GPU's. then upon reboot- i had to enable regular SLI mode- i also turned of PhysX while i was in the panel.

What can i do to get this game working better in quad sli? is this a issue for NVIDIA drivers? Should i post in their forums? I would lend my system for any beta testing if it helps. This game is too cool to run on only 2 GPU's.

Thanks again for the tips to get a decent frame rate!

[Isodus]

If you're not going to be using that other GTX 295, mind sending it my way ;P

(I don't really have anything to say on the matter, I don't know enough about computers to help you. I'm still debugging my latest build >.<)

[FM_Jarnis]

I'm not sure, but I'd venture a guess that this is a driver issue, so feedback to NVIDIA would probably be helpful.

[mattdamonsblues]

The problem is, I only have an ati 4870 1gb ddr5, conroe @ 3.4, x48-dq6, pc2-9600x8gb and I get as good as frame rates as someone who spent the money on quad sli, that doesn't make sense to me.

I'm a day away from my 2nd (cheap) 4870 coming in.
I am looking forward to the performance increases I will see in all of my games @ 1920 x 1200 resolution and higher AA, but I do not expect a change in the frame rate in this game.

I really think the bottle neck comes from design and not hardware.
Again, I don't understand the thinking behind making a game that doesn't run well even with the highest dollar PC available. Dumb.

Also, I bought this game (preorder) because it was a PC exclusive, not a port. Console players have to deal with games that run at MAX 60 fps and choke to 20-30. I don't play a console. I play a PC so I dont have to see those garbagey choke downs that KILL multiplayer play/accuracy. I don't play a console because I want dedicated servers without lag.

Again, quit pointing to console players 1950s study on frame rate and the human eye. We don't see frame rate, we see MOTION. You can't even argue it, when the game chokes from 60 to 50 fps, your eye notices the choppier play that didn't exist at 60. I can notice my game plays very smoothly, visually, with explosions,etc... in games and looks noticeably better at 80 fps than 60 fps.

Your eye notices motion differences, you can noticeably see different motion from a 80 fps, to 60 fps, to 50 fps, to 90fps, etc..

I am stunned that you would DECIDE to make a 60 fps cap while you DECIDED to make a PC game - they conflict.

Sounds like you should have either had a better understanding of PC games and gamers or had made a better decision to make a console game instead.

[mattdamonsblues]

btw, I searched for FM and SLI answers, and I found one of your forum mods wrote (quote):
"
SLI and this game have issues. Try running with SLI off. Also, disable ambient occlusion and turn post-process FX down as low as you can.

Also, disable the VSYNC stuff as they can limit your upper FPS.
"

[FM_Jarnis]

Could you provide a link to the post you are referring to?

VSYNC thing was true before the first patch (there was a VSYNC-related bug that was fixed).

And I won't get dragged into this 60fps fight, so this will be my only post on it:

Fact is, on a 60hz TFT display (most common display today), you cannot possibly see any benefit from framerates above 60fps as your display physically does not refresh the screen more than 60 times a second.

There may, in theory, be some change in "feel" if the underlying game state processing updates faster than 60 times a second, but it is very hard to measure. Visually, you cannot see any difference because no matter how many frames per second the card draws, your monitor displays only 60 per second, skipping the rest.

Granted, there would be potential visible benefits on new 120hz TFT displays, but they are currently just a small fraction of the market (and didn't exist when the engine coding started). If you have one, I admit that you have a case to say "I'd like to see more than 60fps". If not, you cannot see any benefit beyond 60fps, because your monitor doesn't display it.

At this point, you may give your feedback on the 60fps cap in GetSatisfaction. That feedback will be used to determine prioritization of future updates and patches. I have no idea if "fps uncapping" is feasible. All I do know is that it isn't a simple variable "draw max 60 frames per second" but instead it is tied to the game state updates, server state updates and physics simulation "ticks", and going beyond 60fps would require changes in many places, potentially increasing CPU load. No idea how much, no idea how hard, not a programmer.

[Daniel Joy]

well unfortunately i am back down to 10-20FPS even with the single overclocked GTX295 and physX disabled. i think there is a big difference in frame rate for the different maps. I even tried overclocking the cpu to 4.1ghz with hyperthreading off- and its still too slow for me to get a kill.
Is this just how the game runs? or is there something wrong with my setup? This is the first time i have had an issue like this with anygame.

[mattdamonsblues]

Again, your frame rate visual theory is completely innacurate and disproven.
We do not see at frame rate and we can measurably see the difference between even 1 frame depending on what is happening in a virtual moving environment.

Your 60 tft especially only caps itself if you are using vertical sync as well. Your refresh may stay at 60, but you are still drawing more frames and pulling and exchanging more visual data.

I appreciate your feedback regardless, but please stop using old innacurate data, its a straight lie and people have tried to push that from console arguments all the time - your argument is literally based on a frame rate study done by hollywood in 1958. Its been proven wrong 30 years ago.
Please stop pinning pinning excuses on other companies like steam, ati, or nvidia as all gamers here have many other games that don't go through this level of support needed to just get the game working and to fire a single shot.

Also, crt monitors have always had refresh rates well over 60 and they are now 30 years old yet still prevalant in the gaming community.

Link for the SLI post is easily found via SEARCH FORUM:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1152852&highlight=sli

[mattdamonsblues]

Let me know note a comparable game and example regarding fps, caps, and player bases.

Star Wars Battlefront, similar game in mechanics in some important ways (360 fighting), first came out and the dedicated server files had a 30 fps cap, CODING design by lucas arts.

We were told it was unchangeable due to code. People were outraged because 30 fps battlefront looked like crap compared to 60 fps battlefront (single player).

After much outcry and a declining player base, lucas arts released 1.1 and 1.2 patch that eventually fixed this.

This game came out in 2000, it is still used competitive leagues in EU, but sadly, is just now dying out.

Battlefront 2 came out, and was much maligned because although it was redesigned and newer tech and hardware was out, it played at 60 fps only and dipped radically (on all hardware) on some maps to 10-30 fps.

This game never grew anywhere near as popular as battlefront 1 and was not adopted into the major competitive gaming leagues.

This is an important case study for you FM.

Your testing software has instances where your frame rate is crippled to 1-5 frames, i think they are the shootout scene and the mt scene.
No one cares this happens in testing software, because its the same for everyone, its a benchmark, it just has to run the same for all and measure it.

BUT, in a game, these designed bottlenecks that cripple our frame rate frustrate a system builder who realistically can't overcome it with even a 10,000 system.

That is inexcusable, especially in a game that doesn't necessarily look anywhere near even a L4D2 or HLep2, which are much older engines.

[blueyes77]

Matty is loose again:D what a suprise.

I just have to say that there would be number of reasons why this game is slow on someone.

My sons framerates dropped from 60 to 20/15 fps one day and supprise it was overheating problem, motherboard limited speed because CPU was running very hot.

Now that overheating problem is solved fps is 60 again.

MattD you would try to cool your allmighty knowitall mentality and try to check all possible reasons why things are not working.
and try to help, it is really easy and you will get better feeling afterward about yourself, or go and attack big titles because your large hate muscles!

[Daniel Joy]

Matty is loose again:D what a suprise.

I just have to say that there would be number of reasons why this game is slow on someone.

My sons framerates dropped from 60 to 20/15 fps one day and supprise it was overheating problem, motherboard limited speed because CPU was running very hot.

Now that overheating problem is solved fps is 60 again.

MattD you would try to cool your allmighty knowitall mentality and try to check all possible reasons why things are not working.
and try to help, it is really easy and you will get better feeling afterward about yourself, or go and attack big titles because your large hate muscles!

thanks, checked my temps and blew out the cpu cooler and its still the same. im thinking that there is some bug that is running the gpu without any sli now- the sli indicator stopped working. I dont think the drivers liked having a whole card disabled- now they wont even turn on quad sli. I have to remove the drivers and reinstall- im too tired now.

It looks like ill have to decide if i want to just pull out the quad sli and run the single 295sli. This might not be a bad idea seeing how the new cards are coming really soon and NVIDIA never delivered on the 3d vision quad sli drivers- and game support sucks for quad sli. the only game i notice it working in is crysis- i can run it all maxed out- even the AA at 16XQ!!

bummer, i just want to kill some astronauts.

[blueyes77]

thanks, checked my temps and blew out the cpu cooler and its still the same. im thinking that there is some bug that is running the gpu without any sli now- the sli indicator stopped working. I dont think the drivers liked having a whole card disabled- now they wont even turn on quad sli. I have to remove the drivers and reinstall- im too tired now.

It looks like ill have to decide if i want to just pull out the quad sli and run the single 295sli. This might not be a bad idea seeing how the new cards are coming really soon and NVIDIA never delivered on the 3d vision quad sli drivers- and game support sucks for quad sli. the only game i notice it working in is crysis- i can run it all maxed out- even the AA at 16XQ!!

bummer, i just want to kill some astronauts.

Dude, my son has nvidia 8800 gt and has 60 fps:D and he is having so much fun in SH, so keep trying and hope to see you in zero-g!

I have single gtx 285 and 60 fps, i have noticed that newest drivers are not good as older ones.

edit: i asked, with new maps he is having 45 fps, but older are same as before.

[FM_Jarnis]

Link for the SLI post is easily found via SEARCH FORUM:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1152852&highlight=sli


Heh. Please check who posted that. He may be a mod on Steam forums, but has nothing to do with Futuremark.

[Daniel Joy]

Heh. Please check who posted that. He may be a mod on Steam forums, but has nothing to do with Futuremark.

any interest at Futuremark in supporting quad sli? I have experience doing QA on software- id be willing to donate my time. Might be a good idea to support it- im sure NVIDIA will eventually sell quad sli Fermi.

Otherwise im going to sell the setup and get ready for Fermi SLI. no point in keeping quad if my favorite game runs poor on it.

[mattdamonsblues]

Blueyes, I understand English is your Third language (gathered from reading your posts), but if you can't read a post, then don't reply to it - you are a troll.

I have posted information to help people make an intelligent decision regarding purchasing a broken game. I have posted according to the rules of the forum and I have been honest.

You have struggled hiding your love for futuremark, and at this point trolling a forum as either a worker of futuremark or a tester for futuremark, either way you're tainted and a F A N boy.

For those interested in the game - right now is a SATURDAY in the USA, 2:30pm - PRIME GAMING TIME, here are the server stats on current players:
1 server
28 recent active players

Not good.
check yourself:
http://stats.shatteredhorizon.com/stats/listPlayers.action

And if you have an education, go back and read the posts and post something relevant, topic is this game is broken.

[blueyes77]

Blueyes, I understand English is your Third language (gathered from reading your posts), but if you can't read a post, then don't reply to it - you are a troll.

I have posted information to help people make an intelligent decision regarding purchasing a broken game. I have posted according to the rules of the forum and I have been honest.

You have struggled hiding your love for futuremark, and at this point trolling a forum as either a worker of futuremark or a tester for futuremark, either way you're tainted and a F A N boy.

For those interested in the game - right now is a SATURDAY in the USA, 2:30pm - PRIME GAMING TIME, here are the server stats on current players:
1 server
28 recent active players

Not good.
check yourself:
http://stats.shatteredhorizon.com/stats/listPlayers.action

And if you have an education, go back and read the posts and post something relevant, topic is this game is broken.

I fan of this game, i have not deny it and also try to help people who are willing to try new kind of shooter, but you have not done any good for new title to succeed, it's the otherway you go.

But enough for me trolling anywhere, i really dont get who likes your behaving at all?

I don't care what you think of me, try real world and get some air, it must be sad that this is all you can do these days.

[Daniel Joy]

please dont hijack my thread

[Lithen]

I'm surprised by how many people are having FPS issues with this game, tried the game on both my machines, one being a "Core2Quad Q6600 2,8GHZ + 8800Ultra" and the other a "i7 920 3,8GHZ + HD4870x2" and both of run the game fine, 8800ultra at 45-60fps medium/high settings and the 4870x2 at 50-60fps high settings(no AA), both of them at 1680x1050 and newest drivers.

Cheers

[Daniel Joy]

i uninstalled the quad sli set up and ran one 295 and i could max out all settings including AA and play the game just fine. But when im using quad sli i get no more that 50% of each gpu working- and i get slower performance than just 2 gpu's. Im still playing with it- if i figure anything out ill post it up. im only running 3.8ghz right now.

It sucks seeing less than 50% of the cpu and the GPUs being used.

[Saijin_Naib]

Jarnis is right, I do not work for Futuremark. However, from reading the posts in this subforum and looking at the data, I came to the conclusion that SLI and this game netted no performance benefit and in many cases decreased performance for the players. This can be true for some SLI setups and many game engines.

If I am mistaken or have mis-represented Shattered Horizon in this regard, I apologize. This was certainly not my intention.

[Daniel Joy]

sli is great much better than a single gpu. all of which i have tested in my quest to get quad working super dope. I would not recommend quad sli to anyone. Its too much of a niche product- as soon as fermi comes out im ditching quadsli

[Saijin_Naib]

Daniel, have to tried the latest Nvidia drivers? Came out earlier today/yesterday. Nvidia has said to expect large performance gains across a lot of games and has added SLI profiles for a ton more games.

I've been reading on the AVP subforum that these drivers have greatly improved the performance of that game and they may help here.

New in Version 196.75

* Adds support for Next Generation ION.
* Adds support for GeForce GT 320, GeForce GT 330, and GeForce GT 340.
* Upgrades PhysX System Software to version 9.10.0129.
* Upgrades HD Audio driver to version 1.0.9.1 (for supported GPUs).
* Increases performance in several PC games from v196.21 WHQL. The following are examples of measured improvements. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration:

o Up to 13% performance increase in Crysis: Warhead with a single GPU
o Up to 30% performance increase in Crysis: Warhead with SLI technology
o Up to 13% performance increase in H.A.W.X with single GPU
o Up to 15% performance increase in H.A.W.X with SLI technology
o Up to 30% performance increase in Left 4 Dead with single GPU
o Up to 28% performance increase in Left 4 Dead with SLI technology

* Adds SLI and multi-GPU support for top new gaming titles including Assassin Creed II, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Command and Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight, Grand Theft Auto IV: Episodes from Liberty City, Mass Effect 2, Napoleon: Total War, and Zombie Driver.
* Enhanced SLI support for World of Warcraft and Unigine.
* Adds override anti-aliasing support for Mass Effect 2.
* Includes numerous bug fixes. Refer to the release notes on the documentation tab for information about the key bug fixes in this release.
* Users without US English operating systems can select their language and download the International driver here.

[AFireEternal]

I got the new drivers (mainly for AvP) and they didn't really seem to help this game much. I still get some pretty considerable slowdown, even with Ambient Occlusion off and no AA. Running at 1920x1200 on 2 GTX 280s in SLI, Core i7 920 @ 3.8 GHz, 6 GB RAM. Even before when I was running it on a different monitor at 1680x1050 I was still getting some random slowdown/stuttering.

[Daniel Joy]

i have not tried the new drivers yet. They have been yanked for the site for some fan control problem- and i have to wait for the 3d vision version anyway. I did however get the quad sli working better than SLi. i can now run max settings and visuals in most maps- but the few that are harder on the computer i have to turn down the AA to 2 or 4 for a fast frame rate.

This game is impressive on max settings.

I downloaded Nhancer and played around with the different settings until i found some that worked well. The nvidia control panel 3d settings were not working for me- but Nhancer works really well. I still only see 50 percent of any GPU working, and maybe 30 percent of my cpu being utilized. It is frustrating that i have such a fast computer that no game can even come close to tapping its potential. It must be tough to code a fame for so much different hardware.

Someday i will disable the hyper-threading and go for a much higher OC. im only running 3.8ghz now- Ive had it up to 4.1 with very little tweaking, so im sure i could run that and maybe even a bit more. Maybe that will give me a edge over max settings. I just need some free time to do it. Im hoping fermi will bottleneck the cpu at max settings- right now the gpu are holding me back.

thanks all.

[LoganDougall]

Glad to hear you've solved your troubles. Perhaps post some info on exactly what settings you've changed around so that others with similar issue will have an idea on which direction they need to go.


Might as well leave AA at 2 or 4, not much visual difference with 8x for the performance loss imho.
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o240/walkingdog/ati%20and%20nv%20aa%20comparison/4aa.jpg
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o240/walkingdog/ati%20and%20nv%20aa%20comparison/8aa.jpg

[RageRiot]

I always beleivex 75 hz is a common TFT refresh rate.

Fps above you refresh rate is NOT seen. That's why I Use v sync now on all my games.

[Saijin_Naib]

Many game engines interpolate movement based upon frame-rate so locking your frame-rate will hinder your game play. Think any IDTECH3 or below based game and others.

[Daniel Joy]

[QUOTE=LoganDougall;13864587]Glad to hear you've solved your troubles. Perhaps post some info on exactly what settings you've changed around so that others with similar issue will have an idea on which direction they need to go.


i forced 4 way alternate frame rendering in nhancer and clicked all the crysis compatability tags. the game definatly runs faster now in 4 wayAFR than 2 way AFR.

Anyone have any ideas why the game is utilizing only 30% of the CPU? and 50% of the GPU? im thinking that quad sli does not scale well leaving the cpu unused ( i see the same gpu usage in Crysis). Or maybe the game is not coded well for multi cores and hyperthreading. I am hoping that a fermi sli will allow for the cpu to be fully utilized.

I am running lower AA visuals for now. :(

Look for Black951 floating in space... thats me

[Daniel Joy]

happy to report the latest drivers have increased this games performance in quad sli. thought you all would like to know.

[suntox]

Fact is, on a 60hz TFT display (most common display today), you cannot possibly see any benefit from framerates above 60fps as your display physically does not refresh the screen more than 60 times a second.

There may, in theory, be some change in "feel" if the underlying game state processing updates faster than 60 times a second, but it is very hard to measure. Visually, you cannot see any difference because no matter how many frames per second the card draws, your monitor displays only 60 per second, skipping the rest.

Granted, there would be potential visible benefits on new 120hz TFT displays, but they are currently just a small fraction of the market (and didn't exist when the engine coding started). If you have one, I admit that you have a case to say "I'd like to see more than 60fps". If not, you cannot see any benefit beyond 60fps, because your monitor doesn't display it.

At this point, you may give your feedback on the 60fps cap in GetSatisfaction. That feedback will be used to determine prioritization of future updates and patches. I have no idea if "fps uncapping" is feasible. All I do know is that it isn't a simple variable "draw max 60 frames per second" but instead it is tied to the game state updates, server state updates and physics simulation "ticks", and going beyond 60fps would require changes in many places, potentially increasing CPU load. No idea how much, no idea how hard, not a programmer.

Sorry if this has been said before (didnt read the whole thread) but most of what you say here is wrong. Its true that with more then 60 fps the cpu load would increase due to more interpolation and whatnot. The server would still run at the same tickrate (20 in most games) though.

And that more then 60fps has no effect on a 60hz monitor is totaly incorrect unless you have vsync enabled. Your monitor only draws a total of 60 images per second at 60hz, but if vsync is disabled new data is drawn the moment its avaiblabe.

As an exaggerated example, if the game would run at 600fps, each frame you see on your 60hz monitor would be made up by a total of 10 images. Thats what causes the screen tearing that vsync fixes at the price of hefty mouselag. If you look at the method PRAD uses to determine input lag on monitors, you get the idea.

For a casual player who plays a shooter with vsync on, this surely wont make a difference. But for serious gamers having a lot more then 60fps is an advantage that gets bigger the faster the game is, even on a 60hz monitor.

[suntox]

Anyone have any ideas why the game is utilizing only 30% of the CPU? and 50% of the GPU? im thinking that quad sli does not scale well leaving the cpu unused ( i see the same gpu usage in Crysis). Or maybe the game is not coded well for multi cores and hyperthreading. I am hoping that a fermi sli will allow for the cpu to be fully utilized.

I am running lower AA visuals for now. :(

Look for Black951 floating in space... thats me

The game appears to be purely single core. On an i920 you might see 2 bars at 100% cpu load but afaik that is because its 4 cores with hyperthreading, which means 8 threads total. So if a game does not support hyperthreading and only runs on one core, it still seems to occupy 2 threads on an i920 if you look at a cpu load meter, because the active core designates all ressources to that thread.

On a q9550 for example only 1 of the 4 cores/threads get used (no hyperthreading on that cpu, so its 1 of 4 bars if you look at a cpu meter).