Downward Spiral In Game Performance

[Jax_Cavalera]

Has anyone else noticed the consistent downgrade in frames on levels that use to run smooth as butter?  I don't know what is going on at DE but this game exclusively has been performing worse and worse at the introduction of every new hotfix and update.  What the heck is going on here?

 

I've made a ticket report for a problem with lan spikes that temporarily lock up the game and drop any clients from my sessions.. 4 days ago now and it still hasn't been assigned to a staff member!!

 

Is there any other players experiencing a drop in game performance on maps like Jupiter - Io ?

 

 

[PsychedelicSnake]

My FPS and performance has actually gotten better, personally.

[omagawolf]

Same as psychedelicSnake, I couldn't run the void's water whenever I would run in them, but now I can so yay~

[Jax_Cavalera]

Hmm I wonder if it's related to the hardware I'm running.  They may be moving towards using different approaches for performance tweaks.

 

I'm running :

 

Intel i7 -  2.9 GHz

16GB Ram

Intel HD4000 Graphics

 

Before update 9, I was able to lower the game resolution and this would boost my framerate.. since the introduction of Fullscreen, Fullscreen Borderless, Windowed.

 

It now makes no difference.  I like how the gameplay area doesn't clip anymore though if it means a hard hit to my framerate and game performance.. then I'll take missing the outer edges of my gaming area any day for a playable game.

 

EDIT : I also acknowledge that in the VOID .. this is the only place I've noticed a performance increase.. and it's likely due to them removing half the shaders and removing excessive lights.

Edited July 19, 2013 by Jax_Cavalera

[El_Chino33157]

I agree with Jax_Cavalera, what the hell is going on. Also the game is giving ALL kinds of errors lately (at least to me)

 

Like: 

 

"Missions cannot be entered until the update version of Warframe is installed. Please exit and run the launcher" and yet I have the latest update.

 

Or

 

"The evolution engine has stopped working"

 

Have any of you guys experience anything like this???

[PsychedelicSnake]

I agree with Jax_Cavalera, what the hell is going on. Also the game is giving ALL kinds of errors lately (at least to me)

 

Like: 

 

"Missions cannot be entered until the update version of Warframe is installed. Please exit and run the launcher" and yet I have the latest update.

 

Or

 

"The evolution engine has stopped working"

 

Have any of you guys experience anything like this???

 

I haven't. I'm just lucky I guess?

[Tr1ples1xer]

its the increase in enemy numbers, It was smooth has butter but now it chugs a little bit when hordes after hordes, I think DE did not consider the change in enemy number too much and it is affecting performance and people are reporting more and more crashes good thing I ''only'' have a 580GTX.

[Krotalon]

I just experience MASSIVE fps drop in void missions and Grineer galleon mobile defense, I don't know why exactly, but it happened since Update 9.

[Jax_Cavalera]

I didn't know that they have increased the number of enemies spawning in packs.  This may have something to do with it definitely.  Actually now you mention it, back during the Grineer Informer competition, I noticed insanely larger packs of enemies, but figured it was just a glitch due to me running back and forwards through rooms.. maybe that's not the case it might have been the start to this increase you are talking about.

[Helljack84]

I'm running this game on a really old rig and was amazed how smooth it was running on max settings until i entered the void.

For some reason cryo floor kills my fps (no problems with smoke, fire, icelevels etc).

More problems when i try to host a voidrun. The game froze several times and turned into a lagfest for my buddies, no problems when running void solo or hosting any other map. Switching the settings to lowest didn't change a thing.

[PsychedelicSnake]

I'm running this game on a really old rig and was amazed how smooth it was running on max settings until i entered the void.

For some reason cryo floor kills my fps (no problems with smoke, fire, icelevels etc).

More problems when i try to host a voidrun. The game froze several times and turned into a lagfest for my buddies, no problems when running void solo or hosting any other map. Switching the settings to lowest didn't change a thing.

 

Yeah, everything is smooth for me except the void. I crash completely at random times.

[CosyPigeon]

The most recent updates for me have been pretty good to my frame rates. I've been seeing noticeable improvements, especially on the larger tile sets. 

[Jax_Cavalera]

I wonder what is causing the inconsistent reports towards performance?  I'm running a shared graphics unit hence the HD4000.. Are others running shared graphics having more issues now than before, or is this problem random and doesn't matter what type of graphics you have be it dedicated or shared?

[theammostore]

Has anyone else noticed the consistent downgrade in frames on levels that use to run smooth as butter?  I don't know what is going on at DE but this game exclusively has been performing worse and worse at the introduction of every new hotfix and update.  What the heck is going on here?

 

I've made a ticket report for a problem with lan spikes that temporarily lock up the game and drop any clients from my sessions.. 4 days ago now and it still hasn't been assigned to a staff member!!

 

Is there any other players experiencing a drop in game performance on maps like Jupiter - Io ?

 

Nope. I'm getting better performance.

[Jax_Cavalera]

What type of graphic card do you have, dedicated or shared?

[DaemonKaizen]

Intel HD4000 Graphics <- This...

 

The reason why your Frames (per sec) are DYING is because Warframe is now using GPU Physics and advanced shaders/post fx. Which your "on-board" is having trouble coping with. You need a "Discrete" aka. seperate - videocard to really run it with the increased complexity of shaders used following the new updates.

 

Get one of the ff:

 

Budget - GTX650Ti Boost

Value - GTX 760/760Ti

FIlthy Rich - GTX780/790

Edited July 20, 2013 by DaemonKaizen

[PsychedelicSnake]

Intel HD4000 Graphics <- This...

 

The reason why your Frames (per sec) are DYING is because Warframe is now using GPU Physics and advanced shaders/post fx. Which your "on-board" is having trouble coping with. You need a "Discrete" aka. seperate - videocard to really run it with the increased complexity of shaders used following the new updates.

 

Get one of the ff:

 

Budget - GTX650Ti Boost

Value - GTX 760/760Ti

FIlthy Rich - GTX780/790

 

I personally use the GTX 780M. I'm not filthy rich though, I was saving up a ton of money for a previous card, but when this was released I spent it on that instead.

[Jax_Cavalera]

As I'm using a laptop, with soldered graphics we don't exactly have the same scope as other players with desktops who can switch or upgrade to dedicated graphics.  This is very disappointing.  am glad I didn't invest more than the 200 odd dollars into this crap before finding that they were going to turn their backs on us casual gamers.

 

Makes sense though that they have done this.  Honestly, they need to bring back support so you can swap between the two options as not everyone will have the ability to use a dedicated graphics card.

 

 

The HD4000 is quite a powerful chip compared to it's older relatives and combined with the ram and processing power my computer has, was doing just fine before they started making these changes to only support dedi. cards.

Edited July 20, 2013 by Jax_Cavalera

[theammostore]

As I'm using a laptop, with soldered graphics we don't exactly have the same scope as other players with desktops who can switch or upgrade to dedicated graphics.  This is very disappointing.  am glad I didn't invest more than the 200 odd dollars into this crap before finding that they were going to turn their backs on us casual gamers.

 

Makes sense though that they have done this.  Honestly, they need to bring back support so you can swap between the two options as not everyone will have the ability to use a dedicated graphics card.

 

 

The HD4000 is quite a powerful chip compared to it's older relatives and combined with the ram and processing power my computer has, was doing just fine before they started making these changes to only support dedi. cards.

I have a Dell all in one computer, without a dedicated graphics card. I run the game just fine. It's actually gotten better over the time that i've played.

[Jax_Cavalera]

Is your Dell a Desktop?  What type of processor does it have, how much ram.  do you know the model of Shared Graphics it's running?

[DaemonKaizen]

I personally use the GTX 780M. I'm not filthy rich though, I was saving up a ton of money for a previous card, but when this was released I spent it on that instead.

 

GTX780"M" - So you're playing on a laptop? Yeah, it's still a dedicated card... Still way better than a HD4000

 

"M" versions are shrunk cards fit for Laptops, and although they do carry the same "model number" M variants are usually, 30% weaker than the non-"M"s.

 

As I'm using a laptop, with soldered graphics we don't exactly have the same scope as other players with desktops who can switch or upgrade to dedicated graphics.  This is very disappointing.  am glad I didn't invest more than the 200 odd dollars into this crap before finding that they were going to turn their backs on us casual gamers.

 

Makes sense though that they have done this.  Honestly, they need to bring back support so you can swap between the two options as not everyone will have the ability to use a dedicated graphics card.

 

 

The HD4000 is quite a powerful chip compared to it's older relatives and combined with the ram and processing power my computer has, was doing just fine before they started making these changes to only support dedi. cards.

 

Hehe, the HD4000 is actually "part" of the CPU itself now. The latest line of INTEL's are now called APU because of it... So, going back to the dedicated problem. There is actually a toggle in the options menu for the advanced Effects that - could be - causing your slow downs.

 

Turn off the FF: (At your discretion, try to reduce these one by one until your FPS gets better) 

 

High Dynamic Range - The Extreme Bright Effects - Sunlight, Explosions...

DOF/Motion Blur - The Movement Blurs

Nvidia Physx Effects - The Particle Effects

 

These are the ones optimized for dedicated video cards. All these effects will be brutal to integrated GPU's at high NPC counts. 

 

*Side Notes

I noticed you have 16gb of ram. Just in case, What OS are you using is it 32bit or 64bit, because 32bit OS - Can not - utilize 16gb, it only recognizes and uses below 4gb. You may see it on POST but the OS itself, will not be able to access it.

 

Also, games now-nowadays at max, will only use at most 4Gbs, unless you're running on EXTREME resolutions for 3 or more monitors. The Reason for that, is that the game has to load more textures because of the wider view range.

 

RAM's primary performance enhancement is mainly on LOAD TIMES not the FPS directly, It does help a small portion in reducing "Hiccuping/Stuttering" from "Loading the textures". But loading only happens once, haha (Unless you run out of RAM, which forces the game to offload Some of the unused textures, making the game re-load a new set.).

 

BUT the game engine will only use system RAM IF the VRAM runs out. 

 

The BEST RAM is still the VRAM embedded on the Video card (Which integrated GPU's do not have for they use shared RAM, and the regular RAM is much much slower vs VRAM.)

Edited July 21, 2013 by DaemonKaizen

[Jax_Cavalera]

As I'm running an i7 chip, I felt it best to also be running Win 7 Pro 64 which seems to work well.  Yeah I agree about the "extras" needing to be turned off... I've had everything turned off since I started playing way back and it's helped a lot though hasn't had much of an impact on improving FPS since this new batch of updates have swept through.

 

I put in a ticket to figure out if there is a way to make the game work better again with Shared Graphics but am worried it will suffer the same fate as my other bug report ticket.

[Jax_Cavalera]

Actually I think I know what else is contributing towards this issue... before the game use to allow you to stretch any resolution to fill your screen so I could run the game at 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768   but have it stretched widescreen to fit my laptop screen size.. of cause there was some clipping on the edges but this didn't really matter much for gameplay.. 

 

This has now been "fixed" to the point where it seems you can no longer stretch those resolutions and any full screen borderless resolution you pick that is not native to your actual monitor's optimum resolution will be discarded and swapped for the native resolution for your monitor.

 

What this means is that there is now no way to get those lower resolutions stretching for improved gameplay performance.. THIS is what has changed..

 

It only became obvious when I left the game a few times each time ensuring that I set the resolution to less than my native resolution ... only to find it starts back in the wrong resolution ensuring I confirmed the changes each time..

[DaemonKaizen]

Yeah, true enough... I think one prime suspect for the massive slow downs, is the malfunctioning ragdolls of the new INFESTED ANCIENTS. You see the massive stretch glitches? Those create extreme PHYSICS calc overheads from the excessive stretching and clipping. So, my hunch is that its - one - of the possible factors for the performance dips.

 

One other is the increased PHYSICS particles/debris being generated is not being "Culled" (unloading/disappearing when not in Line of Sight) properly. Following the increased number of enemy mobs spawned, that will definitely hurt the performance.

 

Lastly, even on a fairly beast of a system (Like mine, lol), the game does slow down... not because of our SYSTEM it's more on the game's ENGINE approaching its instancing limits.

 

You're right, I think the new updates caused a lot of Optimization issues for the Lower End. But they IMPROVED the performance for the mid/high-range.

 

If you closely observe, their engine now has VERY Aggressive LOD (Level of Detail) shifting of their models at a distance (Most prevalent on their doors, you see the 3D Mesh shift). That really helps advanced systems (The ones with discrete cards). But may prove too much for simple - integrated - machines. 

 

Because the CPU is not only handling its basic functions, it's also shouldering the GPU load as well. Add the fact that I believe Warframe, (Correct me if I'm wrong) might be only capable of utilizing only 2 Cores (as most with games using -some- DX9 features). So regardless of our systems packing i7's with 8 Logical Cores (4 Physical) there would still be a 2 core bottleneck from the ENGINE's limitation.. (If im right, that it can only use 2 cores...) 

[DaemonKaizen]

Actually I think I know what else is contributing towards this issue... before the game use to allow you to stretch any resolution to fill your screen so I could run the game at 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768   but have it stretched widescreen to fit my laptop screen size.. of cause there was some clipping on the edges but this didn't really matter much for gameplay.. 

 

This has now been "fixed" to the point where it seems you can no longer stretch those resolutions and any full screen borderless resolution you pick that is not native to your actual monitor's optimum resolution will be discarded and swapped for the native resolution for your monitor.

 

What this means is that there is now no way to get those lower resolutions stretching for improved gameplay performance.. THIS is what has changed..

 

It only became obvious when I left the game a few times each time ensuring that I set the resolution to less than my native resolution ... only to find it starts back in the wrong resolution ensuring I confirmed the changes each time..

 

Agreed, also contrary to popular belief... sometimes running on lower resolutions actually - reduces - performance, from the increased amount of anti-aliasing the game has to do, to smooth out the edges.

 

It is better to run the game at HIGHER Resolutions with LESS Anti-Aliasing vs the reverse.