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8800GTX screenshots to help finding errors? (many images!)


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Hi!

I read this in the CM:SF forum ("What's your frame rate?" thread):

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

The problem with the 8800 is quite interesting. For the people that have problems with it (and not all do), there seems to be a 10fps or lower response to just about all scenarios no matter what the settings are. Something is obviously wrong with that! We're continuing to try and nail that down.

Steve

I just want to clarify that this is not the case (for me at least!). On some large maps (Allahs Fist etc.) the framerate is awful for me - IN SOME DIRECTIONS! On other maps it's just fine. As an example I've put together a "camera ride" from one end of the first campaign mission map to the other - and back again. I hope that it may be of some help in understanding the 8800GTX problems. Some LOD/Z-buffer problem maybe? Bad models of the Stryker? From one direction (see the jump in fps between image 7 and 8 - the only difference is that a corner of a Stryker is visible on image 7). When going in the other direction (image 22ff) there are no such differences.

Well, you have said you don't have any 8800GTX machine that behaves bad so if it's of any help here are the 26 images of the "camera ride".

NOTE! fraps fps number in top right corner...

My settings and hardware:

Game settings:

Resolution - 1280x1024

Models - balanced

Textures - better

Vertical sync - off

AA - nope

Hardware:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (@3.0Ghz - 1200Mhz FSB)

Asus Striker Extreme NForce680i SLI MB

Asus GeForce 8800GTX 768Mb (163.69 drivers)

2 x 1Gb Corsair PC6400 XMS2 XTREME CAS4 @900Mhz 4-4-4-15 2,1 Volt

1 x RAPTOR 150GB + 2 x Raptor 74Gb (raid 0) + Hitatchi T7K500 320GB

Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Fatal1ty Professional

Dual boot - Windows XP SP2+ and Vista64 Ultimate

Starting image - outside of map, looking AWAY from map:

1_out_of_map_looking_at_skybo.jpg

Turning around 180deg, looking towards the fort...

2_180deg_from_1.jpg

Moving closer...

3_closer.jpg

Moving closer...

4_closer.jpg

...

5_closer.jpg6_closer.jpg7_closer.jpg

Interesting leap in fps from above image (28->53) when the Stryker goes out of sight... 8_closer.jpg

(continued)

[ September 22, 2007, 04:06 PM: Message edited by: mazex ]

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you should start testing out with different map sizes, with and without units, and feature full or clean.

interesting screenshoots...

IMO the 8800 should be able to run with skyrocketed FPS from any point, hardware wise in any case, and much more with your settings (no AA and stuff)

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Ya.. I am running at 12 fps +/- on scenarios regardless of resolution or AA/Aniso with max textures and max quality..

The FPS should be skyhigh with the textures and quality maxed, regardless of AA/Aniso.. the graphics, while complex, aren't much compared to other games where I'm getting flawless framerates.

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Originally posted by KNac:

you should start testing out with different map sizes, with and without units, and feature full or clean.

You're naturally right. I did not intend to do the "camera ride" bunch of images at first, I just wanted to show that my fps was not at 10 all the time and realized that a "ride" like that may be interesting to the devs if they have no machine that behaves bad themselves.

Well, amazingly I haven't even fired up the editor in CMx2 yet so I did so to try it a bit more structured, to see which objects cause problems etc. It was easier than that. Just showing a plain 1600m x 1600m flat empty dirt map gets my fps down to 10.

Here's how I tested (see system specs and CMSF settings in my first post in this thread- yellow Fraps fps numbers in the top right corner):

First I did a plain 512x512 dirt map.

editor_512_512_dirt.jpg

And previewed it (going straight up from the "start" corner and looking slightly down against the other corner) - the fps is OK but an 8800Gtx card should do better on a plain surface just covered with textures:

preview_512_512_dirt.jpg

OK - I increased to 1024x1024. Already in the editor it was becoming a pain to work. The mouse lag is really annoying (8fps!)

editor_1024_1024_dirt.jpg

OK - a preview in the same way as before of the flat 1024x1024 dirt map:

preview_1024_1024_dirt.jpg

OK - lets go to 1600m x 1600m with flat dirt. I didn't go above this as the editor becomes completely unresponsive...

editor_1600_1600_dirt.jpg

Preview in the same manner - here we have those 10 fps. Does not matter with the number of Strykers etc or LOD of distant vehicles. Just painting the completey flat dirt causes the 10 fps!

preview_1600_1600_dirt.jpg

(continued)

[ September 23, 2007, 02:21 AM: Message edited by: mazex ]

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-> continued from post above...

OK so I tried out some other tiles to see if it was only some that caused the problems (using the map size of 1024x1024 at first)

Grass (drop to ~23 from the ~40 for dirt) :

preview_1024_1024_grass.jpg

Other stuff (rocks etc seemed to be like dirt, around 40). The highest performer I found was pavement2 ("plain" texture without small rocks and such like dirt and the others). Here it is on the 1024x1024 map - increase to 135... A lot better but still no good for a plain map though!:

preview_1024_1024_pavement2.jpg

OK, so I tried to go up to a 1600x1600 meter map with pavement2 (that cause 10 fps with dirt). Went from 10 fps to 65. The interesting thing is that from this altitude they look almost identical ;) :

preview_1600_1600_pavement2.jpg

OK guys. Look up how you render the plain tiles. Getting 10 fps for rendering a small square of dirt is NO good. Get some help as that must be really easy to fix. Do you have some array of all the tiles that is looped through and each tile is rendered as a new texture instance? Is it all the "small garbage" on the tiles that is still processed from FAR away? Whatever, it must be possible to fix. I would really like to see the FPS that Charles is getting when rendering a plain 1600m x 1600m map with dirt on the 8800GTX machine that you have no problems with. Rendering a flat terrain box on an 8800GTX should be running at 500+ fps or something.

Anyone else with another card that can try a 1600x1600 dirt map and post the fps?

Good luck! /Mazex

[ September 23, 2007, 02:24 AM: Message edited by: mazex ]

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OK - as there is a lot of talk about this problem beeing caused by bad drivers from Nvidia for the 8800GTX i tried the same test as above on my Media Center...

Computer:

A7N8X-Deluxe Motherboard

AMD Athlon XP3000+ 400Mhz FSB

2 x 512Mb PC3200 memory

Asus X800 Pro (256Mb) - Catalyst 7.9 drivers

MCE 2005

CMSF Settings - same as above but 1360x768 as that's what my LCD TV likes best (less pixels than 1280x1024 to render by ~30%)

First one with a plain dirt map 512m x 512m. The X800 produces 48 fps, the 8800GTX gets 152

preview_512_512_dirt_mceX800.jpg

1600 x 1600 meter dirt map. It runs at 14 fps while the 8800GTX gets 10 fps.

preview_1600_1600_dirt_mceX800.jpg

OK, the 8800GTX should increase it's lead instead of loosing it at the larger map - but still 14 fps for showing 1600x1600 meters of dirt for the X800 is REALLY bad to!

Fix the underlying problem and everyone will be happy. Stop blaming Nvidia...

/Mazex

[ September 23, 2007, 10:08 AM: Message edited by: mazex ]

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seriously ridiculous...

how much memory does desert texture take for example? and as for the number of polys, well that's out of question. a 1600x1600 map has 40000 8m grid squares, that makes 80000 triangles. The 8800GTX can render a lot of millions (can't find it now) of triangles and mroe vertices.

Gonna do the same tests as you with my system which is far inferior specially the 3dcard.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+

Asus A8N-E

2GB PC3200 DDR SDRAM

GeForce 6800 GS (256MB VDRAM)

Gotta upgrade my drivers to the ones you have first. As for the editor I think it may be a matter of the dualcore stuff, I've similar problems.

[ September 23, 2007, 05:50 AM: Message edited by: KNac ]

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Couldn't make any testing (sorry, soccer evening hehe), but there is an update on 1.04 on the main forum http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=52;t=003051

interesting news about imrpoved terrain rendering which as per this post a lot of problems seem to come from. yeah, nvidia drivers and interaction w/ the hardware may not be the best, but is obvious the game has got serious problems in that department and it's suboptimal, to say the least.

cheers

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Originally posted by KNac:

Couldn't make any testing (sorry, soccer evening hehe), but there is an update on 1.04 on the main forum http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=52;t=003051

interesting news about imrpoved terrain rendering which as per this post a lot of problems seem to come from. yeah, nvidia drivers and interaction w/ the hardware may not be the best, but is obvious the game has got serious problems in that department and it's suboptimal, to say the least.

cheers

Hmm, interesting... Right in line with the findings here as you say.

Did a small test scenario called "The 1600" centered around a very exiting battle over 1600x1600 meters of dirt in the middle of nowhere! It's some completely flat dirt with a house on each side and a tree in the middle to fight over. Company sized units on each side and free LOS naturally! I also did an empty version of the mission with no units, houses or trees, just those damned 1600x1600 meters of dirt!

See my tests below (Fraps fps score in yellow as usual):

First off, the empty version of the scenario, starting as Blue and looking at the startup view:

the1600_empty.jpg

OK, and then the sharp version, startup blue - before starting the mission timer:

the1600_prestart.jpg

OK, finally an image from the battle after starting the timer, lots of carnage!

the1600_in_the_heat.jpg

Anyone notice something that is the same on all three images?

These amazingly exiting battles are downloadable here (copy to "?\Combat Mission Shock Force\Game Files\Scenarios" directory):

The 1600

The 1600 (empty version)

/Mazex

[ September 23, 2007, 12:40 PM: Message edited by: mazex ]

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LOL

My results (GeForce 6800 GS 256MB VRAM):

- your settings

from default position w/o units: 32 FPS

from default position with units: 22 FPS

with units camera key 9 (top view): 15 FPS (with or w/o action not real difference)

- changing textures to "balanced"

from default position w/o units: 50 FPS

My card has only 256 MB of RAM that's why tried with lower texture setting, anyway the difference is too big I think anyway, but I don't know my card texture filling specs but only one texture, there is a problem there finally for rendering. I hope 1.04 does improve it.

[ September 23, 2007, 02:45 PM: Message edited by: KNac ]

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lol good one peleprodigy

seriously, i think there are problems with rendering code, but there are serious problems with the 8800. so there are two separate issues that make the game performance lower than it should.

thwe rendering stuff, seems to have been improved for 1.04, sow e all shoudl experince better performance with the patch BUT as for the 8800 problems, that may take a while to be fixed, cause I trust BF when they say it's a lot in hands of nvidia. there is a second possibility though, with new rendering code in place, these 8800 issues may niot happen anymore.

well let's wait for 1.04 (i hope iots released this week)

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There sure are problems with the rendering engine. Even though your 22 fps for a primitive map with a bunch of units is better than my 11 with the 8800GTX , it's still WAY to bad. It's not like the GeForce 6800 is a bad card. An old Geforce 2 card should be able to get a way higher score on a practically empty flat map like that...

Just my 2 cent's. I'm almost thinking of writing an example game that renders a map like that wuth a few tanks to see what fps I could get...

/Mazex

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