Update: 12.4.0 - Very Poor Performance

[Bazools]

The optimization of the earth levels released levels helped a bit but the perfomance issues seen throughout the game are also present in the Voids and the Derelict Voids.

 

This issue as become present and evermore serious since Update 12, with constant and sudden drops in framerates and performance. 

 

I hope that the optimizations that DE_Steve talked about in the last livestream are coming soon because some times this issue can become very aggravating.

 

P.S. And please don't tell me its my setup cause this machine can run the Crysis Series (and we all know what the Crysis Engine does) and other stupidly awesome games without a problem. Oh and please take note that after U11.5 Warframe's ram usage got a bit higher than before, with or without the multithreading option activated.

Edited March 15, 2014 by Bazools

[Takai]

Nvidia 320M, meaning you your using a mobil GPU on a laptop.

 

Whats going on as they update the game and run optimization passes is (I  suspect) is "soak testing" and maybe adding bit-field operations to status effects (but I dont know that for sure).

 

Soak testing is testing a game or high functioning program's dynamic objects (the map in this game is a dynamic object, as well as all the enemies, mods, drops ect) for memory leaks.

 

Memory leaks are basically, un-deleted (un-freed) dynamic object pointer objects. For example, you kill 20 enemies that spawned from a rng spawn in a room from a range of 20 possible spawns (or more its dynamic). After you destroy this array of enemies, they array has to be deleted, if not it remains in the RAM, and a new objects are created elsewhere in the heap. If this happens enough and long enough, you can slow down or even run out of space in the heap.

 

Thats what I suspected happened in the Void: When you load the map, it was loading too many large rooms dynamically, then two or one rooms before you enter the room, it would spawn alot of enemies (which is fine for high end CPUs with lots of RAM to store their information), not good for slow processors to calculate the  properties  of the objects inside of the large room. I do not know too much about the 320M but I strongly suspect your chip was bottlenecked by the generation of the objects.

 

The Earth and Substation (the new tileset) are relevantly new, and the devs  probably  want to see what a median of the population is  comfortable  with hardware wise, while also looking for areas they may have left a dynamic object floating and or dangling in the RAM. There is more to it for sure, like the  efficiency of the shader loops used in the engine, how many dynamic objects can be generated per size of the specific tile, spreading the processes of drawing and calculating over the threads of the CPU... ect. They just have to test them and have us test them aswell.

 

I know for a fact it is a pain in the &#! to look for memory leaks (software helps but can only find so much).

 

With a dual-core chip, I would recommend, 32Bit operations (I think of 4 and 6 core as unanimous with 64bit), and the frequency modifications you can do to that chip (if you cannot change it), backround operations and  priory of operations in your OS while the game plays, disabling heavy phyx effects, try hyperthreaded operations (in the client options, it can really help out dual cored chips), Updating the GPU drivers (it may help, if not you can roll back), and remaining patient as it takes time to figure these things out in a beta game with a live audience.

 

honestly, i find it really hard to believe you were getting over 100 fps during the 11.1 days with that same setup, I would have thought the void unplayable as it was loaded with dynamic objects, during  Mobil  def in the update 9ish days (right when Nova came out) I would drop to a crawl on a overkill system because there was a  continuous  generation of enemies and drops that never were freed or were too slow to free. By overkill setup, Im talking OC'd 3770k @ 4.2ghz, 12 gb of corsiar air cool dominator RAM, and a SLI configuration of 670 3GB's liquid cooled. 

 

Atm, I am having zero issues in the void, the event test tileset, on Earth and on Phoboes, it is running pretty smoothly and is freeing most of the dynamic objects (ie: I check my RAM use before and after the game plays and closes, and it remains  relatively the same). Only change I made and would also recommend to other users is the newest Nvidia drivers (335.23 i think, the non-beta ones that came out on 3-10-14), give those a shot.

Edited March 15, 2014 by Takai

[Shehriazad]

You have Win 7 Professional, Its not meant to run games well.

Why would Win 7 not run games well....in performance comparisons it pretty much just trades blows with win 8 o.O

[GodSlayerXXX]

Something must be wrong with your computer or internet connections.I have had no problems after the last update. Neither has anyone in my clan. 

 

just saying.

 

And the devs don't have the time to go through all of our complaints. They check threads that have a lot of comments because that indicates it is a big concern. 

[Magister_Zel]

You have Win 7 Professional, Its not meant to run games well.

Never have problems on my rigs.

[Zachles]

I love how people instantly assume it's the user's fault.

 

I, too, have been experiencing recent FPS drops. However, I can play other games (Aion, Eden Eternal, et cetera) with little to no lag whatsoever. Warframe, however.... I think it is plausible to consider, every once in a while, that it might be the game itself.

[Luminati07]

I am having heavy fps drop problem too, the screen is keep freezing... no matter which map is.

Me too, since like...U11 or U12. Whichever.

 

I used to run this game at a constant 60-90+ fps. Usually close to the 90 mark.

Since one update (can't remember, but it was a while back), I've been sitting at around 40, with frequent drops to 15, and common drops to ~5 fps.

Happens in the Void, Derelict, Corpus ships, Grineer ships. Name a tileset, it happens there.

 

Not my hardware because every single other game I play runs just fine. FF XIV still runs at 60 FPS, Guild Wars 2 still runs at 60 fps, Unreal Tournament still runs at 50 billion FPS.

 

Warframe has some serious optimisation issues.

[SPiRALFACToR]

yeah, a buddy of mine had to stop playing after update 12 because his fps tanked.

hes got a 5770 and a i5 870 and before update 12 he got very good fps but after its unplayable.

 

i also had an issue after update 12 with my twin 5970 system with a i7 980x but resolved it by turning off dynamic lighting and local reflections.

still get bad drops but its playable.

 

funny thing is, my clevo x7200 with a 980x and dual GTX 480m's plays it with almost double the fps as my desktop now even with physx turned on at 1920x1080.

 

something is clearly wrong here if a mobile gpu beats a desktop gpu so handily.

[Dataz]

My hardware:- Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 2,4Ghz- nVidia GeForce 320M

 

Sorry but your machine is a lot below minimal requirements. You shouldn't be even able to launch this game on thing like 320M..I have core i7 and brand new Kepler card and this game rarely allows me to get 60fps.

[Pure]

The game isn't really optimized, it hardly reaches more than 40% of my gpu.  Games like league of legends use more of my gpu than warframe.

 

Alot of it comes from map design too.  It will try to load the whole map and a giant background of space.  Which isn't really needed.  Common mmo's have a distance where it starts loading.  If you change your display while playing you can see through walls for a few seconds and see that it loads more textures than it should.

 

So in 4 man missions you have your team, thier projectiles, the enemies that you can't even see yet, and their projectiles that you can be to far to see.  Since the game uses mostly cpu and cpu calculates projectiles it really strains the cpu.  Whiel the gpu just sits there.

 

There are other ways they could help increase fps for players like disable particles and map shadows.  Map shadows for the whole loaded map is like double dipping the work.

[Jag272]

U11 and even more so U12 have brought ridiculous performance issues to me too, most maps are fine but earth used to be quite bad, havent been back since the hotfix, and any type of void risks crashing especially those with high amounts of enemies. I had to buy a rhino prime helmet because T2 MD simply wasnt playable anymore yet in the past i could play it fine, im even running on lowest graphics options now which i wasnt before and still suffering these issues.

 

Game needs a good sweep of optimisation, quite frankly while fog and such can look ugly on a game i think it would help alot too, the impression due to mentions of void orbs in the livestreams is that the entire map is constantly rendered, fog could work wonders in this regard allowing earlier parts of the map to be unrendered unless we have to run back later.

Edited March 15, 2014 by Jag272

[Althix]

OP, I notice all your screenshots are on the Earth level, which had a performance pass with the last hotfix, has it helped?

Rebecca issue is not with Earth, issue with the game as whole. Perfomance after U12 is horrible.

I can't play certain missions on my work pc and work laptop. but i can play other type of missions on this very same tileset for hours just fine.

 

Like i can't play Void MD but i can play any other mode in Void for hours. And why i can play Survival for hours in the void when i can't play even 10 mins on MD there? Game just crash, with 70 fps. Crash.

 

Even if i can play game for 100% on my home pc, there is a fps loss like 50%.

 

U12 is a major blow on perfomance of the game.

Edited March 15, 2014 by Althix

[NightmareT12]

I'll repeat, everyone try turning off DX11 completely and see if the improvement is great. My PhysX particles run like at slow motion when DX11 is on,m but at normal speed when DX11 is OFF. Also Void performance is increased. So something must be going on.

[TheRipper7]

well i got a quad i7 and a nvidia GT640m and i run on high i would usually get 65 above fps but since update 12.x i noticed it would go down to around 35 and also for some reasons every time i turn on physx my game crashes why ?

[Hupsis]

Likewise, had fps drop somewhere between U11 and U12 as well and it hasn't gotten back to normal amounts after that. Currently running around 150fps and before 350-400fps. I remember when I started playing this I kept wondering how this game runs so well and still graphics are pretty good.

[paul62626]

i also am having this issue, it doesn't matter what planet, or what type of mission after i play two missions i cant play anymore, its client lag. the FPS drops to a very unplayable level. after the optimization update i haven't been able to play more than a few missions without having to restart the game. i agree with OP something is wrong with the optimization. even if i run it with lowest settings it only gives me 1 or 2 more missions before the drop.

 

i also want to note that this isnt just in a game, my cursor on the opening screen is very slow/it jumps alot. its not an issue with my computer or internet, its simply something in the game, i would be happy to send my info to the support desk, but i couldn't find the right place for it. (subtopic)

 

my specs are:

Win 7 Home Premium.

Intel Core I5  3.4Ghz-3.8Ghz

Geforce GT 640

16GB Ram

Edited March 15, 2014 by paul62626

[Amazerath]

Rebecca issue is not with Earth, issue with the game as whole. Perfomance after U12 is horrible.

I can't play certain missions on my work pc and work laptop. but i can play other type of missions on this very same tileset for hours just fine.

 

Like i can't play Void MD but i can play any other mode in Void for hours. And why i can play Survival for hours in the void when i can't play even 10 mins on MD there? Game just crash, with 70 fps. Crash.

 

Even if i can play game for 100% on my home pc, there is a fps loss like 50%.

 

U12 is a major blow on perfomance of the game.

 

U12 didn't do anything of the sort for me. I noticed a bit of stuttering here and there during void missions, but all other maps seem to be working as good as they were prior to U12.

 

I think it would be nice if everyone having this problem could post a bit of info about their systems. It could help DE to figure out what's causing it. A screenshot of the in-game video options could maybe also help.

[DitsyPixie]

Like is posted earlier doing a rollback of my graphic cards drivers fixed the issue for me. I have since updated to the latest drivers (nvidia) and now its still ok.

So i guess you could try

-updating to the most recent drivers

-doiing a rollback

-switching dx11 off

 

and like others have stressed its not the users fault even if his gpu is on the low end. If he was able to play WF at 120 fps before u12.4 and only since then had these issues; plus there are a whole bunch of ppl who have suffered from this issue with 12.4/12.4.1

[Guest]

I've been sitting at around 40, with frequent drops to 15, and common drops to ~5 fps.

 

The Lotus is not pleased with your performance.

[drunkpunk222]

performance is bad everywhere, lowest or highest settings almost not impact fps, before was much better no matter what map even earth fps was good but freezes, going to try without dx11, without dx11 same.

Edited March 15, 2014 by drunkpunk222

[Althix]

U12 didn't do anything of the sort for me. 

look i was playing this game for 10 months. and in 10 months i had.. well.. maybe 5 crashes in total.

after U12... well... much, much more.

 

as for my home pc configuration:

Intel Core i7-3970X Extreme, 3.5 GHz

64GB (8x8GB) DDRIII 

SSD 120G / 1TB SATA II

2x NVIDIA GeForce GTX680 4Gb (now)

Windows 7 Pro 64-bit

 

so tell me how on this little boy i can have 40 fps?

 

My work pc is much worse, but i had no problems with the game until U12.

Edited March 18, 2014 by Althix

[Amazerath]

 

look i was playing this game for 10 months. and in 10 months i had.. well.. maybe 5 crashes in total.

after U12... well... much, much more.

 

as for my home pc configuration:

Intel Core i7-3970X Extreme, 3.5 GHz

64GB (8x8GB) DDRIII 

SSD 120G / 1TB SATA II

2x NVIDIA GeForce GTX680 4Gb (now)

Windows 7 Pro 64-bit

 

so tell me how on this little boy i can have 40 fps?

 

My work pc is much worse, but i had no problems with the game until U12.

 

 

I don't know why you're getting 40 FPS, but I never suspected your hardware to begin with. I was simply pointing out that not everyone is experiencing that same FPS drop. So the problem can't be something generic otherwise it would be affecting everyone in the same way and this thread would have 50 pages already. It's more likely to be a specific addition that shipped with U12 and that is not behaving well with some PC configurations, drivers, video settings or whatever.

 

The fact that my PC is less powerful then yours, yet does not display the same problem, also indicates that your hardware is probably fine. But the problem may still be related to it somehow. That's what I'm saying.

 

If you don't want to wait for DE to figure this out, I would suggest messing around with video settings, both in-game and on your GPU (if you haven't done so already). Things like turning anti-aliasing off, disabling SLI (if you're using it) and the like. Trial and error. Not a "solution" by any means, but there is always a chance you will get lucky and find out what the source of your problem is. I'll post my specs and configurations just for reference.

 

- i7-3770 3,5GHz

- 8GB RAM

- Nvidia Geforce GTX 660 Ti 2GB

- Not using any SSD whatsoever

- Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

- GPU driver version: 320.49

- Not using SweetFX or any other shader

 

Warframe launcher settings:

- DirectX 11 on

- 64-bit mode on

- Multi-Threaded Rendering on

 

Warframe in-game video settings (they are all on except for the following):

- Antialiasing off

- Depth of Field off

- Motion Blur off

- PhysX off (<- known for causing trouble)

- Shadow quality low

- Particle quality medium

- Texture memory High

- V-sync auto (it's probably on)

[xkillo32]

woah

u guys having 100+fps o.o

most im getting is 60 and i thought that was normal

[K147]

I've noticed a similar thing, a few updates ago my system ran flawlessly... now it runs like a dog. the only thing that changed was the game itself, really annoying as I cannot play in a group anymore and forget about trying to run a void mission with others... totally painful.

[Althix]

@ Amazerath - just check posts about these issues. like 28-30 days old. right after U12 release. people have these issues since then. fps loss, crashes.

 

Why would i even try to adjust my system for this game when my configuration is just more than enough to run this game?

 

i also must note that 12.4.1 fixed issue with fps for my home pc and fixed crash issues for my work pc.

when with 12.4.2 game crashed 8 times of 8 when i was trying to run void MD.

 

and now with 12.4.5 i have fps issues even on Kappa. When on void i have 80-120 fps at home and 70 at work(but i still crash).

 

My pc configuration is the same for last 10 months, and only bought these new nvidia video adapters instead of single radeon a week ago.

 

Just understand me right, i have no argue with you and offence intended. But this entire situation is rather strange and voices in my head are telling me that pc configuration have nothing to do with the problem.

 

(not only for me, but my clanmate as well and his pc is better than mine, after 3 minutes on MD he can observe the very same fps loss. 30-50%. but he is using Radeon)

Edited March 15, 2014 by Althix