Do I Need Better Specs, or Better Internet?

[Gamer_Auto]

Okay. So Orb Vallis absolutely murders my computer whenever I leave it. And now the Plains of Eidolon is starting to do the same. And this is worrying to me, as the new update is coming soon, and it'll have a new "open world". So I'm wondering if my specs are the issue, or if it's an Internet Connectivity problem. Here are the specs, for reference:

OS: Win10 Home 64bit (10.0, Build 17134)

Processor: Intel i5-4460 CPU @ 3.20GHz (4 CPUs)

Memory: 8192MB RAM

DirectX: 12

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GT 720

GPU Memory: 5056 MB

Display Memory (VRAM): 984 MB

 

EDIT:

I just did Performance tab on Task Manager. Here are the results with my settings.

Graphics Quality Settings: Preset Low

Display Settings: Windowed, 1920x1017, scaled, refresh rate/max frame-rate 60 hz locked

Online Status: Solo

I logged into Cetus 3 and Fortuna 4 before going into either world, just to get the full experience. I went through the doors and into the open worlds. After spending about 30 minutes in each just goofing off while keeping an eye on my performance window (dual screen ftw), I can tell that it's most certainly hardware related. My GPU rarely went over 50%. But my CPU and HD usage would frequently max out, even if I didn't always feel it, and my RAM would get uncomfortably close. And when closing the program, it would hang out as a background process for a few minutes before finally turning off. The whole time, Warframe would take up the vast majority of my computer's resources. The Power Usage columns remained in the red for just about the whole time. Though because it's a tower, that's not something I feel like I should be worried about.

So I'm getting the feeling I need to either upgrade my CPU, RAM, and HD, or get a new comp altogether.

[YUNoJump]

If the game is only being slow when you leave the open worlds then I’m inclined to believe its a network issue. The game has to load in all the players and connect to the instance’s server when you get back to town so that could be slowed down considerably by your network speed.

 If the areas themselves are fine when you’re in them doing stuff, in regards to frame rate and such, then its probably not your computer, and your specs seem fine. You could probably test the issue by turning all the settings down to minimum and see if load times are significantly affected.

[DrivaMain]

Oof Your GPU needs an upgrade, badly. the entry level GTX 700 series or greater should do the trick. But I recommend the GTX 1650 because newer graphics card gets driver support longer and it’s a cheap entry level card. You can run Orb Vallis in medium-high with a stable frame rate.

[Gamer_Auto]

6 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

Oof Your GPU needs an upgrade, badly. the entry level GTX 700 series or greater should do the trick. But I recommend the GTX 1650 because newer graphics card gets driver support longer and it’s a cheap entry level card. You can run Orb Vallis in medium-high with a stable frame rate.

Yeah. The GT is already an upgrade from Stock. I could honestly run better. Maybe even a new Processor at some point.

40 minutes ago, YUNoJump said:

If the game is only being slow when you leave the open worlds then I’m inclined to believe its a network issue. The game has to load in all the players and connect to the instance’s server when you get back to town so that could be slowed down considerably by your network speed.

 If the areas themselves are fine when you’re in them doing stuff, in regards to frame rate and such, then its probably not your computer, and your specs seem fine. You could probably test the issue by turning all the settings down to minimum and see if load times are significantly affected.

Everything's at the lowest presets already. And I even take a while to load into the Vallis and the Plains regardless of whether or not I'm alone. It'll even have occasional freeze-ups when playing. It's weird, but on rare occasion other missions will do that. So I'm thinking it might be something on my end.

[Aazhyd]

Its most likely your graphics card. I have similar issues, but mostly when I _enter_. Orb Vallis is worse than PoE.

However, when I'm inside and playing, there is no problem. Also going solo without mission or with a group with a selected mission makes a huge difference.

[Graavarg]

2 hours ago, Aazhyd said:

Also going solo without mission or with a group with a selected mission makes a huge difference.

That sounds more like an internet issue (= taking a "longer than normal" time transferring data between squad members). If you often play with the same friend(s), it might not even be your connection.

Hardware-wise your weak link is clearly the GPU, but your problem might very well be memory size-linked more than the "gpu speed". Depends on the driver and your settings, but if you start swapping graphics you are doomed, fps-wise. Also, if I remember correctly the 720 GT was available only in 1 Gb and 2 Gb, so your stated "GPU Memory: 5056 MB" seems wrong to me. However, the reason your graphics bogs down might also be temperature-related, if the gpu gets hot enough it will start to throttle speed (which produces effects like the ones you describe). The heat might come from the gpu cooling being inadequate, or from the the ambient temp inside of your case "hotting up". 

Also would like to make sure your stated resolution ("1920x1017") is a typo, if not you could try changing it to a "really standard" one (1280x720, 1366x768, 1600x900 or 1920x1080) and go "full screen". You also need to manually disable/reduce graphic effects, anisotropic & trilinear filtering and anti-aliasing in the game graphics settings (you can try increasing when you get the game running more smoothly). I would also deselect vsync and the locked fps (if you gpu simply isn't fast enough it isn't, and those settings might do more harm than good). If I were you I would test most resolutions/combos, since together with removing filtering & anti-aliasing the graphics will change a lot (1920x1080 should actually work pretty well if you get everything else set right). I would also make sure all the following are disabled: Dynamic resolution, High dynamic range, Adaptive exposure, Glare, Runtime Tessellation, Local reflections, Ambient Occlusion and High Shader Quality (and maybe some others as well). And that the following are set to "low": GPU Particles, Particle system quality, Geometry detail, Shadow Quality. And that Texture memory is medium or low (which looks pretty bad). As a caveat, I might have forgotten some important setting 🙂. When you get the game running better, you can start playing around with increasing some of the settings again. 

And just to be sure, check that you have the correct and latest Win10-driver for the card (if not, running a game in windowed mode might be really slowed down). And the latest Nvidia-driver as well. You can also try changing the Steam startup-command (called "launch options", if I remember correctly) by adding the in-line command "-high", which will run the game at higher priority (in Windows), which might help a lot if Windows or other programs are doing stuff in the background.

During summer I am playing Warframe on a Surface Pro pad (gen. 5), and I had to tinker quite a bit with the graphic settings to get the game smooth enough to play (avoiding co-op hardcore missions, but anything normal or solo works fine with the right warframes/playstyle). While that hardware is very different from yours, the three biggest bottlenecks were using a "not-so-standard" resolution (multiple based on screen pixel-resolution), not minimizing the settings and overheating the Surface (gaming with it in my lap where the airflow was "less than stellar"). However, the most amazing thing about Warframe is that it runs pretty well on 3-year old Surface pad (when the settings are set correctly).

[Urlan]

10 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

Okay. So Orb Vallis absolutely murders my computer whenever I leave it. And now the Plains of Eidolon is starting to do the same. And this is worrying to me, as the new update is coming soon, and it'll have a new "open world". So I'm wondering if my specs are the issue, or if it's an Internet Connectivity problem. Here are the specs, for reference:

OS: Win10 Home 64bit (10.0, Build 17134)

Processor: Intel i5-4460 CPU @ 3.20GHz (4 CPUs)

Memory: 8192MB RAM

DirectX: 12

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GT 720

GPU Memory: 5056 MB

Display Memory (VRAM): 984 MB

 

EDIT:

I just did Performance tab on Task Manager. Here are the results with my settings.

Graphics Quality Settings: Preset Low

Display Settings: Windowed, 1920x1017, scaled, refresh rate/max frame-rate 60 hz locked

Online Status: Solo

I logged into Cetus 3 and Fortuna 4 before going into either world, just to get the full experience. I went through the doors and into the open worlds. After spending about 30 minutes in each just goofing off while keeping an eye on my performance window (dual screen ftw), I can tell that it's most certainly hardware related. My GPU rarely went over 50%. But my CPU and HD usage would frequently max out, even if I didn't always feel it, and my RAM would get uncomfortably close. And when closing the program, it would hang out as a background process for a few minutes before finally turning off. The whole time, Warframe would take up the vast majority of my computer's resources. The Power Usage columns remained in the red for just about the whole time. Though because it's a tower, that's not something I feel like I should be worried about.

So I'm getting the feeling I need to either upgrade my CPU, RAM, and HD, or get a new comp altogether.

Right here while some more system RAM would be nice in the future for smoothness; the video card is your culprit. I would replace it with a 1050TI or a similar card within budget depending on case space limits and power draw. Do you know what make and how much power can be made available from your power supply? That could help narrow down a ceiling to what cards might be best fits.

[Gamer_Auto]

On 2020-08-11 at 3:26 AM, Graavarg said:

That sounds more like an internet issue (= taking a "longer than normal" time transferring data between squad members). If you often play with the same friend(s), it might not even be your connection.

Hardware-wise your weak link is clearly the GPU, but your problem might very well be memory size-linked more than the "gpu speed". Depends on the driver and your settings, but if you start swapping graphics you are doomed, fps-wise. Also, if I remember correctly the 720 GT was available only in 1 Gb and 2 Gb, so your stated "GPU Memory: 5056 MB" seems wrong to me. However, the reason your graphics bogs down might also be temperature-related, if the gpu gets hot enough it will start to throttle speed (which produces effects like the ones you describe). The heat might come from the gpu cooling being inadequate, or from the the ambient temp inside of your case "hotting up". 

Also would like to make sure your stated resolution ("1920x1017") is a typo, if not you could try changing it to a "really standard" one (1280x720, 1366x768, 1600x900 or 1920x1080) and go "full screen". You also need to manually disable/reduce graphic effects, anisotropic & trilinear filtering and anti-aliasing in the game graphics settings (you can try increasing when you get the game running more smoothly). I would also deselect vsync and the locked fps (if you gpu simply isn't fast enough it isn't, and those settings might do more harm than good). If I were you I would test most resolutions/combos, since together with removing filtering & anti-aliasing the graphics will change a lot (1920x1080 should actually work pretty well if you get everything else set right). I would also make sure all the following are disabled: Dynamic resolution, High dynamic range, Adaptive exposure, Glare, Runtime Tessellation, Local reflections, Ambient Occlusion and High Shader Quality (and maybe some others as well). And that the following are set to "low": GPU Particles, Particle system quality, Geometry detail, Shadow Quality. And that Texture memory is medium or low (which looks pretty bad). As a caveat, I might have forgotten some important setting 🙂. When you get the game running better, you can start playing around with increasing some of the settings again. 

And just to be sure, check that you have the correct and latest Win10-driver for the card (if not, running a game in windowed mode might be really slowed down). And the latest Nvidia-driver as well. You can also try changing the Steam startup-command (called "launch options", if I remember correctly) by adding the in-line command "-high", which will run the game at higher priority (in Windows), which might help a lot if Windows or other programs are doing stuff in the background.

During summer I am playing Warframe on a Surface Pro pad (gen. 5), and I had to tinker quite a bit with the graphic settings to get the game smooth enough to play (avoiding co-op hardcore missions, but anything normal or solo works fine with the right warframes/playstyle). While that hardware is very different from yours, the three biggest bottlenecks were using a "not-so-standard" resolution (multiple based on screen pixel-resolution), not minimizing the settings and overheating the Surface (gaming with it in my lap where the airflow was "less than stellar"). However, the most amazing thing about Warframe is that it runs pretty well on 3-year old Surface pad (when the settings are set correctly).

No, that resolution is not a typo. In Windowed Mode and expanded to fit the screen (pseudo-Full Screen), that's what it marks as my resolution. And going into Properties on My Computer tells me that my GPU Memory is 5056 MB. Maybe some of that is coming from the Processor? IDK how this stuff works in tandem.

And Internet SHOULDN'T be a problem. I'm getting a Ping of 11 and both a Down and Up or around 20-and-change mbps on a good day.

[KCToxic]

I definitely wouldn't ignore the possibility of upgrading your RAM. I had a lot of trouble with leaving Orb Vallis for Fortuna for a long while until I upgraded my RAM (was originally 8gb), and then it started loading a lot easier when leaving. I also used to experience Warframe hanging in the background after closing before upgrading RAM. 

[JeranTek]

On 2020-08-11 at 8:50 AM, Gamer_Auto said:

But my CPU and HD usage would frequently max out, even if I didn't always feel it, and my RAM would get uncomfortably close.

That behaviour is indicative of the computer running out of RAM and pushing less-recently-used items from RAM onto disk. Somewhere between 80% and 90% RAM util, Windows panics and starts shoving everything it can onto disk to keep itself alive. You get horrible slowdown when that happens.

Personally I'd go with more RAM as a first step.

(caveat - I do server performance troubleshooting for a job so while I know the innards of server performance, I know very little about GPU problems, so I tend to see problems that are related to what I know 🙂

[Graavarg]

9 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

No, that resolution is not a typo. In Windowed Mode and expanded to fit the screen (pseudo-Full Screen), that's what it marks as my resolution. And going into Properties on My Computer tells me that my GPU Memory is 5056 MB. Maybe some of that is coming from the Processor? IDK how this stuff works in tandem.

And Internet SHOULDN'T be a problem. I'm getting a Ping of 11 and both a Down and Up or around 20-and-change mbps on a good day.

Well, if you internet is ok then, although there isn't that much to go on I would dig into the graphics settings. The freezes/slowdowns might be indicative of your computer swapping parts of memory to your hdd (and back). This is what your OS (in this case Windows) does when your RAM fills up. I would start with checking your reallyreal specs for your GPU, if it has 1Gb or 2 Gb onboard graphics memory, the rest of your 5 Gb comes from somewhere else, probably your RAM.

If you have 1 Gb on the GPU (the most common versions of the GT 720 had 1 Gb GDDR3) and have reserved half of your RAM (the other 4 Gb indicated as "graphics memory") for graphics use that would mean that your GPU (together with your CPU) is continuously swapping stuff between it's own onboard memory and your RAM. It would also mean that you would have only 4 Gb RAM left for "everything else" (Windows, apps, Warframe), which in turn might lead to Windows continuously swapping stuff between that available RAM and your HDD.

As to the resolution, all graphics drivers and GPU hardware architecture are designed to handle the "standard" resolutions (resolutions dividable by the classic bit-numbers: 8, 16, 32 and 64), so going "fullscreen" and using one of those will make your GPU handle everything faster. The other alternative is using a window in one of the standard resolutions. Fullscreen is generally better (if graphics is a bottleneck), since processes related to the "fullscreen program" gets prioritized handling in your OS. 

[taiiat]

Earth/Venus Landscapes do have considerably higher minimum requirements than 'normal' Missions do, due to being Open Worlds rather than linear Dungeons floating in an empty void.

for your particular system, your Processor(CPU) is decent, but your GPU is quite anemic, yes. it would behoove you to look to replacing it, even just out of principle because your Media Accelerator is not designed to be used for Video Games, it's made basically just to have something to connect another Display to if you run out of Ports.

to put it in context, your GT720 is essentially the same performance as the iGPU that's built into your Processor. on paper it's actually ~10% slower, but reality is never that simple so the estimate is best seen as the same performance.
quite simply, i won't even bother mentioning Setting adjustments to try and optimize performance - you're effectively playing Warframe on a potato in the first place, no amount of Setting tweaking will change that.
well i mean you could enable Dynamic Resolution, but i would still expect some performance problems due to the target iGPU's for Dynamic Resolution being a bit faster to begin with, plus that you have other aspects limiting your performance. but it might still have a bit of an impact.
though you could try to not have extra unnecessary stuff in the background. don't have 20 tabs open in your Web Browser, don't have a bunch of bloated Applications like Discord/Skype/Et Cetera all running (pick one at a time at most), Et Cetera. that might make an impact at times.

 

if you're in a position to look for an upgrade, based on your existing Hardware you're not made of money, and the most economical upgrade for you i could possibly suggest, would be a used GT 1030 (make sure it's a GDDR5 model, not a DDR4 model). now, normally i wouldn't be recommending a Media Accelerator, but the GT 1030 actually isn't a Media Accelerator, it just got named that way. what it actually is, is a decent entry level GPU. it's not amazing, but you'd be able to play most games at 1080p60 at modest Video Settings. in my region (the US), i can see listings of used GT 1030's in the $70-80 area, which is a little higher than i would want to pay but it's still a decent price.
_{there are a few other slightly older GPU's that could also be good deals used such as a used GTX 970 (this would actually be a pretty amazing deal, basically the same used price as a GT 1030 but just shy of quadruple the performance), but i do not know if you're working with a very limited Power Supply, so i don't know if i can recommend them or not. so my main recommendations are sticking with GPU's that don't require much additional Power.}

if you have a little more budget flexibility than that, a GTX 1660 or GTX 1660 Super would be appealing options for something actually quite good, but still modestly priced. that would be able to offer 1080p60 in most games at relatively high Video Settings(generally higher). pricing currently for either of these would set you back in the area of $220-230.
maybe a GTX 1650 if you're limited by Power Supply. not as good a deal for the performance, however. but it would run you ~$150.

however that's about the limit of where i'd think of going for GPU upgrades to your system, going higher performance than that with the GPU would not currently be worth it due to your Processor having <8 Threads. if you don't actually play that many games this may not actually impact you that much, but i will go on the assumption that you play a few different games across Genres here and there.

 

 

also your Internet Connection is completely irrelevant for this problem, no need to worry about that.

On 2020-08-11 at 4:26 AM, Graavarg said:

GPU Memory: 5056 MB" seems wrong to me.

it's just Windows including Shared Video Memory into the number it will display as the maximum, it's pretty normal. 2GByte was the maximum Capacity any GT 720 was ever offered with, yes. he probably has a 1GByte model based on the Shared total figure, as Windows is more likely to allow 4GByte to be Shared than 3.

however Shared Video Memory is simply available, it is not being used at all times and most certainly not preferentially. exceeding vRAM capabilities will make use of it, but if not, then that Shared Memory will not be used at all.
however you do make a good point as even several years ago(would only be higher now with non standard zones that have higher requirements, Et Cetera), setting the games' Textures to the highest setting would peak at around 1300MByte of vRAM, therefore making 1GByte GPU's not very compatible with the highest setting. the next step down was somewhere around 750MByte IIRC, so it was much more favorable for smaller vRAM capacities.

[(XBOX)chriszewski]

17 minutes ago, taiiat said:

if you have a little more budget flexibility than that, a GTX 1660 or GTX 1660 Super would be appealing options for something actually quite good, but still modestly priced. that would be able to offer 1080p60 in most games at relatively high Video Settings(generally higher). pricing currently for either of these would set you back in the area of $220-230.
maybe a GTX 1650 if you're limited by Power Supply. not as good a deal for the performance, however. but it would run you ~$150.

And here i was, going to scream and yell at OP to never plunk down money for a ##50 GPU, but PS limitations were something i hadn't considered. shakes fist at small-form Dells/HPs

 

[taiiat]

40 minutes ago, (XB1)chriszewski said:

And here i was, going to scream and yell at OP to never plunk down money for a ##50 GPU, but PS limitations were something i hadn't considered. shakes fist at small-form Dells/HPs

you have the right idea mostly, though GTX700 and GTX1000 offered some x50 models that were quite appealing performance for the price. (GTX900 had a decent one too but pricing wise was so-so and also failed at power budget)
while previously x50 models were definitely an avoid if you can situation, usually being rebrands of midrange Cards from the previous Generation or just otherwise being only marginally better than Media Accelerators.

but with those two particular Generations, the models offered under those names really shook things up!
for the 750 and 750Ti, what they brought to the table was for the first time ever, a GPU at <=75Watts was truly good! offering acceptable 1080p60 performance in the majority of games on med-high. this was such a game changer that us in first world regions can't even begin to actually comprehend. these models allowed third world Counties and Countries starting to develop Technology wise to have access to Video Games in any real capacity. it was the first time these regions of the world could play Video Games (we're not going to call absolute minimum settings 720p or lower and still getting like 15FPS a reasonably playable experience for the purposes of this discussion). the GTX750 and 750Ti, brought Video Games to everyone. while popular in the usual North America/Europe, the real big sales happened in those less fortunate Countries, where countless tens of Millions of them were sold.
the pricing drove this too, mind, with the MSRP's being $150 USD and $120 USD respectively, meaning almost half of what would usually be considered usable for Video Games even just one year before.
brought water to my eyes at the time, thinking of the 50+ Countries that overnight gained access to Video Games when before they were completely out of reach.

the 1050&1050Ti don't get quite a gushing story, since 750/750Ti already existed. but, they did offer roughly double the performance of those previous two models while still hitting the <=75Watts mark. even being priced at an MSRP of $140 and $110 respectively, so slightly lower.
still something of a big deal as the less fortunate Countries would have the option of potentially being able to afford the upgrade for a pretty significant performance increase, and i'm sure numerous took advantage, but yeah it's hard to live up to your predecessor that revolutionizes something on a global scale and you "only" offer a significant improvement to that already laid out legacy.

 

as for the GTX1650 - it's not an amazing deal, the MSRP is a little bit high for the actual performance if you ask me, but it's still the best option in that 'family' of <=75Watt Products. just a little bit more expensive for somewhere in the ballpark of 25% more performance. much more modest than its predecessors, and as so like i aforementioned, not as great as a deal but a slight price:performance compromise to fit into that limited power budget.