Inconsistent Framerate, Cause Unknown

[PositronicSpleen]

The turn-around on support tickets can be a while, so I thought I'd check here first.

 

 

Just before update 8 hit I had to reformat my laptop because of certain weird licensing restrictions related to software I had. After reformatting and running windows update until it couldn't update any more, I reinstall Warframe to find that it has incapacitating bouts of low framerate for no apparent reason whatsoever, even in solo. Prior to this, I could run the game at about 60 FPS with most settings active.

 

My first thought was to update my video drivers, since maybe I missed doing that with the Windows Updates. The problem persists.

 

My second thought is to turn down all the visual setings. All of them. I even set it to DX9 mode, even though it can totally handle DX11. The times of good framerates are better, but it still dips down to ~10 FPS seemingly at random.

 

I test another game, something recent and fairly demanding, Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon. The game has no problems. It is something related to Warframe and not my hardware or drivers.

 

I consider that maybe it's a network problem. I don't know how that would affect framerate, but what else could it be? First instinct is to Control Panel > Internet Options > Connections > LAN settings > Uncheck automatically detect settings. It made a huge boost to Steam's responsiveness, and it was active before. The problem persists.

 

My only remaining ideas are that it's A) something that changed in the update that my graphics card and/or processor just inherently hates, or B) it has to do with how I connect to the internet. Before my internet was a wired university connection, now it's a wireless residential connection. Although it's no slouch, I can stream 1080p video no problem, it should handle Warframe too. Maybe a router setting is the culprit? I'm connecting to a Linksys, and my ISP is Charter. I never had to forward any ports before, it would have been impossible with the university connection.

 

I'm using an HP Elitebook 8560w with AMD FirePro M5950 and some variant of Intel i5.

Here's the dxdiag: http://pastebin.com/ec8xD4c7

 

Does anyone have any ideas I should try?

Edited May 30, 2013 by PositronicSpleen

[DanPaul7]

Couldn't be bothered reading all because i'm lazy.

For some stupid reason, turning on 'Colour Correction' makes my framerate improve by about 30 in big firefights.

Hosting lowers your framerate, especially if your processor can't handle the information being sent to it, which will also cause the other players to experience lag.

Dx11 is actually supposed to run faster than Dx9.

Don't think low frame rate can even be caused by a router setting since that has absolutely no effect on your computers ability to process graphical data.

Most probable cause: Laptop.

Huh I actually read it all eventually...

Edited May 30, 2013 by DanPaul7

[PositronicSpleen]

Yeah, but it worked perfectly a week ago. I'm not sure if it was the update or some setting I missed. Drivers are up to date and everything.

 

It's not exactly a laptop, it's a mobile workstation. It has a discrete graphics card.

[SirIsaacNewton]

I got a strange drop in my fps too...but it was once,and it was like,4 fps,i even thought it was an overheat,but afterwards it got all normal.Just once that happened.

 

Try to set the settings to default.

[Athros]

Maybe because it's a fresh installation, there are some optimization steps that you forgot? Anyway, just check this topic; maybe there are some information about your problem :

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/43711-tips-to-improve-performance-in-the-game/

[Morcant]

It's not exactly a laptop, it's a mobile workstation. It has a discrete graphics card.

 

A "mobile workstation" is still subject to many of the constraints of a laptop. Yours is a very nice model, but still a fairly different animal than a desktop PC/workstation. =)

 

I'm a little rusty in dealing with laptop configurations, but I'd try a few things in this order:

Check your power management to make sure the CPU isn't throttling down; Warframe tends not to overburden the CPU even when it should, so it could drop below the threshold to trigger this.

Check Device Manager, to make sure no esoteric system device drivers are missing.

Check to ensure any software antivirus isn't chugging real-time scans in the background.

Try reinstalling your GPU driver.

Try defragmenting the hard disk, which sounds absurd, but can help (and should be done after a Windows reinstall anyway).

 

As for the router configuration, you shouldn't need any port forwarding if you've been able to login and join network sessions, see contacts, etc. already. UPnP takes care of everything in most cases, and it sounds like it's working for you. Check your wireless adapter's driver, though, your dxdiag lists the driver as "n/a," which kinda blows my mind.

 

Sorry that this may not be much help. For what it's worth, some of the new environments (and some animation glitches) in Update 8 do cause lower performance in general, but I don't think that accounts entirely for your problem.

[matrixEXO]

Running on a desktop and have this issue as well. It's related to the U8 update. Even in the non-Orokin tilesets, I have FPS that fluctuates when playing alone. I happened to have my game screen freezing on me (0 FPS) for a short time. It rarely occurs and I don't really know why. When I play with other people, things start to go haywire. I get more noticeable FPS dipping every now and then and at random times my game just crashed into the report screen.

 

So, people thinking that my Leadtek GTX 670 is having problems when it's only 3 months old since purchased, do come up and voice your opinions as well.

Edited May 30, 2013 by matrixEXO

[Bones98]

Warframe used to run really smooth, over 60 fps before the latest updates. Now it runs on average 40 fps and sometimes slower in populated orokin areas.

[PositronicSpleen]

Just a reminder if people missed this, but the game ran perfectly for me prior to update 8, before I reformatted. I could even run Metro 2033. That it isn't running the same now is the mystery to be solved.

 

I saw confirmation that player lighting was made threaded in U8, so perhaps that is the culprit? I'll also look into CPU throttling since I don't have any other leads at the moment.

[PositronicSpleen]

Okay, I'll make another post since I think it got resolved.

 

It was the CPU throttling. I think what happened is before the character shadows were threaded, there was enough burden on one core to avoid the throttling, but when it got split across both there wasn't enough demand to keep the processor's clock rate high.

 

So I went into control panel > power options > edit plans > advanced > active plan > processor power management > minimum > plugged in > 100%

 

This would be a terrible idea on the power hog called i7, but I'm using an i5, what could go wrong?

 

 

So basically this either fixed the problem, or the computer fairy made a very coincidental visit.

Edited May 31, 2013 by PositronicSpleen

[OldSnakeMGS4]

Running on a desktop and have this issue as well. It's related to the U8 update. Even in the non-Orokin tilesets, I have FPS that fluctuates when playing alone. I happened to have my game screen freezing on me (0 FPS) for a short time. It rarely occurs and I don't really know why. When I play with other people, things start to go haywire. I get more noticeable FPS dipping every now and then and at random times my game just crashed into the report screen.

 

So, people thinking that my Leadtek GTX 670 is having problems when it's only 3 months old since purchased, do come up and voice your opinions as well.

 

I got exactly the same and my wife, too - it is runnung pretty good, some void missions are running pretty bad though, it won´t even hit 60 fps in the starting room in this case while most void missions do run perfectly fine.

The weird thing is this drop down to 1 fps for some secs and after that it is running normal again - since there are several people having this now, it is the update, I am pretty sure.

 

I am using a 2600k with GTX590 and my wife 2600k with GTX580, both having the same issue.

Edited June 4, 2013 by OldSnakeMGS4