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Lets track PC-Hardware and performance (Players & Devs)

Discussion in 'Technical' started by AlexSolo, Jun 7, 2012.

  1. AlexSolo

    AlexSolo Member

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    Greetings,

    Entropia Universe uses alot power of my machine.
    Entering crowded places needs time to load every single avatar, vehicle, items and so on.
    Lightning and Shadows ofc use alot resources which brings it down on high detail to around 15 frames/second.

    I run it on High Details at the moment with Shadows on Low and draw distance on middle settings to get it to 20-30 frames most the times and it runs quite ok in the field - laggy in cities as such celeste harbour and other places with objects around.

    As well in fullscreen and in window mode.

    So far I had a look at the network traffic but its really low. The exchange between the client and the other end seems almost nothing. I would assume the main part is done by my machine.

    When I started after the first installation the game was running very slow on window mode. I found out that the machine has set itself into a power saving profile when I changed from fullscreen into window mode.

    "Quiet Office mode" This mode regulates the clock of the cpu as well the physical memory down to save power.

    I could solve that with applying the ASUS power4gear tool which enables different modes I can switch through with some special hardware keys which are implemented on the laptop above the keyboard.

    The tool forces my laptop now to always run on highest performance no matter what is done and it brought alot.

    Use of memory on my machine:
    The Clientloader uses around 44,5 MB memory at all times.

    Entropia uses on planet between 1,2GB - 1,8GB physical memory
    While travelling in Space it goes down to 800-900 MB physical memory.

    CPU runs toggling between 60-85%.

    I run on an nearly 3 years old asus g71v which is a laptop.

    The Specifications are set as follows:

    Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 @ 2,4GHz
    Memory: 4 GB DDR3 1333 MHz SDRAM
    Chipset: Mobile Intel® PM45 Express Chipset +ICH9M
    Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® 9700M GT 512MB GDDR3 VRAM

    OS: Windows 7

    Other Applications usually running while playing:
    - Firefox
    - Skype
    - Entropiatracker
    - Winamp

    I believe at the moment that the graphics card is the bottleneck which prevents the game from running on complete very high settings.

    Currently thinking of upgrading is someone of you running entropia on very high settings configurations?

    Had a look at the new asus g75vw

    Intel® Core™ i7 3720QM Processor
    16 GB DDR3 1600 MHz SDRAM
    NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 670M with 3GB GDDR5 VRAM

    The plan is to set up configurations which could be in some way seen as solution to play on very high quality as well as performance.

    The devs are ofc sincerely invited to share experience with configurations used at the offices to run it. That would be great.

    Thanks,

    Solo
     
  2. Nor Alien

    Nor Alien Active Member

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  3. Cyborg Bill

    Cyborg Bill Well-Known Member Pro Users

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    I run EU on a frankensteined beast from Ibuypower that I have modded in original config and after market changes.

    curerently its an
    Asus P6t MB
    I7 920 processor
    Ati 5770 vid card out put to a visi 47 inch lcd and a go video 32 inch lcd
    12 gig ddr3 1600 corsair em
    OCZ agilityII 64 gig hd for OS and EU
    2 500 gig 7200 hd's as storage and back up one internal one external usb for back up.
    All custom fully liquid cooled except the northbrisge for which I couldnt get a decent water block to fit without stressing the bd or the water lines too much.

    I run EU with full on GFX in full screen mode at 1920 x 1080 with no lag at all usually. I run the vid card nearlly full on OC but will run the proc for normal mining runs at my under clocked power saver settings. When I hunt I will set that to a nromal clock. Most times I can hold stable 60-75 fps when out and about..on idle mode towns can drop as low as 11-25 or 30-40 fps if in normal mode.

    Lately I have been running in windowed mode more with the DJ thing as I now need to run dual screens to keep track of all the behind the scenes stuff and have not actively monitored performance as I am usualy just standing around dancing when I have time to refresh the emotes between chats and dj stuff.

    I can and have run EU with the beastie OC'd to 4.38 ghz for several hours with only a 10 c increace in temps but the performance change I got was not worth puttin the system thru that. ( works fine with WOT when the losers are spamming their mods as the system laughs at them)

    I have had no real problems at all with lag while on Ark but some of the Caly areas are extremely inefficiant for FR's. I even drop to 5 fps when standing in some of Calys tp's. The few times I hit RT to hunt the security gaurds those areas have been fine but the areas spammed with hundreds of barking merp ( AKA wolves) can knock 20-30 frames off till they all get loaded and stablize.

    hope this info helps in what you are seeking
     
  4. Puck

    Puck Adviser Pro Users Arkadia Adviser

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    Even IF the gfx team at MA passed along the polygon benchmarks to their planet partners, I'd be surprised if each planet's gfx team wasnt STILL getting familiar with Cry2's optimum poly counts.
     
  5. RexDameon

    RexDameon Active Member Pro Users

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    everyone has these insane beast of computers and me i've got a moderate computer and it runs Entropia just fine even when i'm doing something else on two monitors. I kind of wonder if having a 2 CRT monitors inproves performance over having LCD. Like last night i was playing on one screen and watcing PigBenis Twitch feed live and chatting in that chat. All while hunting beldaloth. Never died cause of lag. And my computer cost me less then 7000PED so i'm kind of happy about that. Just have a dual core with 4gb of RAM VISTA of all things, Nvidia 460. May switch to windows 8 when it comes out though.
     
  6. AlexSolo

    AlexSolo Member

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    Hi Rex,

    good point, I digged up an almost 11 years old Samsung Syncmaster CRT but it had no influence on the performance.

    Setting shadows on low it runs as same as on the laptops LCD.

    Yours NVIDIA indeed seems pretty much delivering more performance as this 9700M here.

    How much ram got your graphics card?

    Greets,

    Solo
     
  7. aj502

    aj502 Active Member Pro Users

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    Not sure exactly what kind of info ya want...I'm not 'puter illiterate, but no tech whiz either...

    I'll ref a couple old boxes I ran EU on then my current

    1st was an ancient Gateway "something" with an AMD "something...Musta been, oh I dunno...1.x GHz cpu?
    It had 16G ram but it was old...
    Used a nVid GTX 220 card for output.
    That sucker had to be on low settings and I'd be around 5-20 fps everywhere (5- Twins, PA, etc...10+ elsewhere).

    Brought back to life a Compaq Presario with a Celeron (1.8GHz?), threw the 220 in it and gave it 16G ram...Did better, could run hi setting but only if I didn't want to move.
    Was ok at low setting - no PvP.
    Might've eeked out 10-30 FPS on it.
    About as good as I expected so i was fine for what it was.

    EDIT: FYI - I did use a few different CRT/VGA srceens before i got a flatty, but it made no difference in game performance that I noticed...Just easier on the eyes.

    Just made this box a few months ago:
    It's an i5-2500K @ 3.3 GHz, 16G rammer and a PnY nVid GTX 680. I went to a SSD for boot drive, dunno if that makes a difference but think it does (it seems to load EU faster, but this box does everything faster than the others did).
    Always use 2 24" flattys and run all kinds or crap at the same time (SAM Broadcaster, bittorrent, streaming media, audio/video editors, pr0n, etc...)
    I have an ASUS board but doubt that'll make any diff on EU - Nothing on EU is going to bottleneck a mobo.

    I cruise around on very hi all the time @ 50-100+ FPS.
    Harbor and Quarry seem to get the lowest @ 50 minimum otherwise I am cruising at 70ish. (Note: there is a section @ Quarry where I bump 120 fps...Ironically Nutty...)

    It's not quite as "beastly" as Bill's but I also wasn't building a monster either...Just something to beat to death for another 5-10 years.








    Tippin'
     
  8. AlexSolo

    AlexSolo Member

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    Hi,

    thanks aj thats a good experience report. The 680 seems a real decent graphics card which does a great job.

    Im not looking for specific info in the thread all different Infos regarding very high settings and EU are welcome.

    Someone might find useful information about almost equal system configuration to his/hers to get EU running better by doing economic upgrading.

    If the thread turns into an experience report its ok. If someone shows up and asks about a performance problem which can be solved
    its also ok.

    We might even be able to proof that alot talking about "bad mindark servers" for being seen as reason for bad game performance can be taken out and declared as nifty.

    How about lag in Space with your machine? What happens when you step over what lot people tend to call "server borders"?

    I try to find a possibility to upgrade my GFX for a test. Not sure yet if it can be done with the laptop yet.

    Thanks,

    Solo
     
  9. aj502

    aj502 Active Member Pro Users

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    Space is fine for me, tho I don't frequent often.
    I was 20ish on old...Seems space was/is less laggy than planetside.

    And if you can afford, new Keplar nVidia vid cards are worth it,,,They'll last a long time - like my good ole gtx 220 did.









    Tippin'
     
  10. Cyborg Bill

    Cyborg Bill Well-Known Member Pro Users

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    gah double posted some how instead of edit
     
  11. Cyborg Bill

    Cyborg Bill Well-Known Member Pro Users

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    My system was built as a "Beast" when I had gotten money to be able to put it together as with my circumstances I will prolly never get to build another finacially. I did the build mainly for reliable recording when I thought the system out thtas why the bigger ram and not more umph on the vid card for gaming. If I want better performance I can double up on the 5770 really cheap now and tests benchmarked that set up to be better then the 5800 series cards at less then half the cost back when I built this near 2 years ago now.

    So far it has handled anything Ma throws at it reliably with minimal performance issues which where in isolated places around Caly. That leads me to believe its a dev thing not a system thing or the issues would be prevailant everywhere. As far as pvp stuff in the end it all boils down to ping times and latency between you, the server and the enemy FPS may play a slight role but if you are moving and the enemy is moving faster ping will win every time because that person shoots where you "are", and slower ping shoots where you "were".
    That simple fact is why I dont run this system on low settings and pvp because the ISP I use has over 36 hops to MA servers with a ping avg of 134 MS..cant compete with guys that are between 5ms and 35ms as posted in other threads.

    It all boils down to what you want from your game play. I prefer to have a lower FR most times and see all the wonders that can be seen on the best gfx settings. If I didnt like the pretty scenery I would have been sticking with console games and suffer the kiddies that play them for my entertainment dollars.
     
  12. aj502

    aj502 Active Member Pro Users

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    BTW @ OP:

    You might try to just chuck in another 4G ram...Vid games won't need more than 8 and it that might be a cheap workaround for the time being.

    Might actually be where it's 'necking at...


    But on diff note: Take a look at Bill's...There's a pic somewhere...It runs better in the picture alone than any box I've had!
    :D



    Tippin'
     
  13. RAZER

    RAZER Active Member Pro Users

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    OK here goes:

    Operatings.: Windows 7, 64bit
    System Board: MSI MS-7673
    Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.30Ghz
    Memory: 8Gb (forgot the speed)
    Video: Nvidia Gforce GTX 295
    Harddisk: Corsair Force GT SSD, 120Gb, SATA3 @ +/-500mb/s, and a few others for storage
    Display: Acer @ 1920x1080 and Samsung @ 1680x1050

    In most places I can run the game in High without much trouble and even very high is OK a lot of the time
     
  14. Cyborg Bill

    Cyborg Bill Well-Known Member Pro Users

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    Razer with that build I would think you should be able to rock very high settings full time if you wanted. Is that a prefrence to run lower or is there a performance issue forcing you to do so? If it is performance related I would say check the bios and make sure that processor throttling is turned off for the OS. Let the bios set it at run full on all the time and then use the mother boards software to under clock for lesser needed or dormant times to save power and wear on the system. I think that is many peoples problems they are letting to spped of the processors be managed by windows and the ime to ramp back up when needed shows a small lag so everyone steps down a bit in thier in game settings. this also does the same for Ram timings they sit idle and let windows change as needed. Contol all that from the MB software and you can elieiviate a few issues gimping the system.
     
  15. rick_janson

    rick_janson Well-Known Member Pro Users

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    OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64
    MB: ASUS M4A785-M
    CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 630 (2.8 GHz)
    Video: HIS ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB (500-625 MHz clock, 993 MHz memory) GDDR3, 256-bit
    RAM: 8 GB DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
    HDD: WD 320 GB (for OSes), WD 1 TB (for data and game content)
    Display: Acer x193w+ @ 1680x1050 (Game runs windowed at 1440x900)

    Windows has been installed for just over 2 years. Before I installed the graphics card in August 2010, I was limited to a mix of Low and Medium (shadows had to be Low to get any decent gameplay whatsoever, no matter what anything else was). As soon as I installed the card, I jumped to Very High with 40-50 FPS (was on RT at the time). Since then it's slowed down some. Not sure if it's the card, Windows, additions to the game, the hard disk, or a combination of everything. I still run on Very High and have very little impact at 30-35 FPS constantly.
     
  16. RAZER

    RAZER Active Member Pro Users

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    Well it is a choice I make for Arkadia to be honest.
    When I was on Next Island I could easily run at very High all the time and on Cyrene I could do that most of the time as well. Arkadia seems to have some spots that lag a bit, Celeste Harbour being one of them, but I also noticed in the middle of nowhere. My goal is to keep my fps above 40 and that seems to be harder on Arkadia then on NI and Cyrene for some reason. And to be honest the eye candy is nice, but not really necessary for me, so I don't mind lower settings.

    I will however check to see those Bios settings you mentioned.
     
  17. AlexSolo

    AlexSolo Member

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    Hello,

    I came across a software solution which could be interesting for anyone who can only play on mid settings to run on good fps.

    I set my graphics level to medium.

    After that I go to the advanced graphics options and put only the shading on high:

    [​IMG]

    I cant see any major decrease of FPS but a very nice change to the graphics quality.

    I can only recommend to all medium graphics users to check it out.

    If the gfx card can handle it you may experience a complete different game experience without any investment into hardware today.

    Greets,
     
  18. RexDameon

    RexDameon Active Member Pro Users

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    I've gotta find the time and remember to post my specs and performance. But we also are going to have to revive this subject when the next major VU comes out when they change the whole avatar system.
     
  19. rick_janson

    rick_janson Well-Known Member Pro Users

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    Alex: That doesn't work for everyone. On my old video card (the onboard one, before I bought a separate card) Shading and Shadows are what killed my framerates. I could get Medium and High on just about anything else without too much problem.

    On the instances, though, I have to drop to Medium for decent framerate and low lag. Could be me. My video card only has 512 MB on it. But it only cost me $100, so I don't care much. I can play on Very High everywhere else (with exception to Cyrene, where I got 12-15 fps on Safe Mode).
     
  20. KMax

    KMax Well-Known Member Pro Users

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    I actually have no issues in instances on high or medium if I set the particle effects, physics quality, post processing, shading, shadows, water and draw distance to (safemode high, low medium).

    I have a HD4870 1GB card, and runs smoothly now if I could just turn those stairs corners without running into the walls :D

    I believe the main issues in instances is the particle effects lots of water particles on walls if you look. Same issue with Celeste Harbour lag, setting particle effects to safemode there fixes all my lag issues. The other setting I reduced just to make things run even faster and more smoothly, I still get good graphics on avatars walls and mobs just could care less about the rest of the ambiance in the instances that causes lag.

    Just what I have found out about my computer, each person has to adjust to their own computer settings.