General Game Performance - Anyone Else Feel The Way I Do?

I don't have the best computer (only a 896mb video card and dual core), and the game really stresses my computer. I thought it was just because of my specs though.

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Originally Posted by User201109011315

I don't have the best computer (only a 896mb video card and dual core), and the game really stresses my computer. I thought it was just because of my specs though.

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i7-2600K 3.4ghz + 8GB ram + 2 5770 crossfire + SSD + Fiber internet

The game doesn't really stress out my system, it just doesn't run well in general.

I've never had much Lag, but when I do i've noticed its more of a connection issue. Resetting my router fixes it in most cases. But i must say that after the cable company replaced the highspeed line to my house it really improved the game performance. BTW My wife plays FFIVX on her laptop and it runs pretty well at a lower graphic setting.

I wouldn't say the game is stressful at all. I tab out to do all kinds of stuff and i never even turn off my anti virus. Then you have people that run two instances of the game on the same machine with minimal problems. I think most of the "problems" you are describing are just the way the game is made.

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Originally Posted by Riv

I wouldn't say the game is stressful at all. I tab out to do all kinds of stuff and i never even turn off my anti virus. Then you have people that run two instances of the game on the same machine with minimal problems. I think most of the "problems" you are describing are just the way the game is made.

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I would agree. I can run two instances on my machine, and they both run equally 'good' or equally 'bad' depending upon how you look at it, in other words, I don't really take a performance hit in either instance from running two or said another way, running two doesn't run any worse than running one.

The thing that is noticeable is how bad a single instance is. It becomes really obvious when you can run 2 instances side by side, and see it has nothing to do with the machine, but its the game code that is the root cause of poor performance, rather than a lack of system resources.

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Originally Posted by Riv

I wouldn't say the game is stressful at all. I tab out to do all kinds of stuff and i never even turn off my anti virus. Then you have people that run two instances of the game on the same machine with minimal problems. I think most of the "problems" you are describing are just the way the game is made.

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Or the way he put his computer together. I don't mean to offend him or anyone else, but if you got a computer that can't play music in the background while playing this game, there's a 90% chance the problem is not with the game, but with the computer... either via a hardware or software issue. Ok so he spent $1200 on a gaming rig... and he claims he can run any game out there. But yet, the only games he talks about playing (found by browsing his post history) is this and Starcraft 2... and Starcraft 2 isn't the most demanding game out there.

Not that I am disputing the game has issues... and some of those issues are in the optimization department. I'm simply suggesting that from what he is describing, the issue sounds like the game is taxing his hardware in a manner which is interfering with multi-tasking capabilities (which would only occur if the processor was at 80-100% utilization across all cores and memory usage was at 75% or higher)... something which shouldn't be a problem with a decent dual-core, quad-core, or hex-core system that has been setup properly and is equipped with 3-4GB's of ram (read: memory timings of the memory modules have been set properly) and is operating within normal operating temperatures (read: not being thermal throttled).

If it's due to temperature, the fix could be as simple as reapplying the thermal compound. About a month ago I noticed my computer was reaching 60 degree's C while playing a browser game (flash-based). Obviously there was something wrong, as there's zero reason for a processor to get that hot while playing a browser game. So I took the computer to the table with a can of compressed air, blew out the vents and heatsink... and then decided to pop the heatsink off to check the thermal compound. Sure enough, the compound had all but disappeared. 10 minutes later, the computer was back together and running fit as a fiddle... idling at 35 and hovering around 50 under full load... and said browser game barely made a dent, bringing the processor to a barely noticeable 40.

If it's due to the memory timings not being set properly (or even the memory modules not being placed in their appropriate channel sockets... such as putting a 2GB stick in channel 1A slot and another 2GB in channel 2A slot instead of putting the sticks in channel 1A and 1B slots), then the memory modules won't be operating at their designed specifications. Most motherboards won't properly configure aftermarket memory module timings... and if this is the case, his memory may only be running at 25-50% of their specs. And if he didn't install the modules properly, then he has created a memory bottleneck, since dual-channel mobo's are designed to utilize two modules per bank... and if you only use one module per bank and you use two banks, you end up cutting down memory bandwidth by 50-75%.

I don't buy the "the game is making my computer work so hard I can't listen to my music!!" argument. There's more to the story... whether the OP is intentionally leaving that out or he just isn't tech-savvy enough to realize there's more to the story is inconsequential.

I just thought the amount of info I gave about my computer would suffice. Again, this was never intended to be a discussion on what hardware I am using.

With that being said, I am glad people have responded with such interesting information. There seems to be a lot of people who say that their system isn't stressed, but they still feel the clunky effect of the game loading in new objects. This is definitely something that I wanted to zero in on and find out more about, with regards to how other players feel. If it's true that this is just how the system is designed then I hope that it would be continuously brought to the attention of developers. Having an issue like this stick to the game for it's entirety would be quite sad.

thanks all!

Can anyone who says they don't have a problem with the game running provide a video of them running through Uldah?

Let's say: Start at the crystal, and run to the levequest counter. No matter what settings I put it on, I always get lag. Also post your system specs so I can try and figure out where the problem is with mine. (I'm betting nvidia cards run better).

With crossfire disabled my primary HD5870 would probably burn if it wasn't watercooled. 100% usage and 40°C water temp. is pretty high. CPU and memory isn't used much but whenever I'm in town I can hear my HDD scream xD
Just imagine the loading lag with the PS3 bluray drive... epic failure if released like this.

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Originally Posted by goonMagi

I just thought the amount of info I gave about my computer would suffice. Again, this was never intended to be a discussion on what hardware I am using.

With that being said, I am glad people have responded with such interesting information. There seems to be a lot of people who say that their system isn't stressed, but they still feel the clunky effect of the game loading in new objects. This is definitely something that I wanted to zero in on and find out more about, with regards to how other players feel. If it's true that this is just how the system is designed then I hope that it would be continuously brought to the attention of developers. Having an issue like this stick to the game for it's entirety would be quite sad.

thanks all!

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So your not really interested in finding a solution to the problem... you just want people to be aware of the fact that your experiencing problems running the game.

One question for you then... why should the developers (or anyone else for that matter) give your situation any thought if your not willing to do the due diligence in isolating the cause of the problem? I don't disagree that the game has issues, but what your describing doesn't sound like a game issue. If it was truly a game issue, you would experience problems in the game that would be isolated to the game and wouldn't affect things outside the game.

I take it when you try listening to music while you play, you get a lot of audio stuttering and/or popping. Am I right? This is a classic sign of the hardware being overextended... either as a result of misconfiguration, insufficient resources, or thermal throttling. The game being choppy would have zero effect on other programs or processes running unless one of the the things I mentioned is occurring.

Yes the game has some clunkiness when it comes to loading new objects. But as myself and others have pointed out, it is only really noticeable in Ul'dah, which happens to be where most people happen to gather. Static geometry isn't causing the stutter, as if that was the case it would be occurring everywhere (oh wait, it's occurring everywhere on your machine... everyone else only experiences it in Ul'dah). The stuttering problem is most likely related to the texture buffer, which gets overloaded in highly populated areas that are full of models with different textures (as opposed to a standard "palette" of textures that would be present in an area that is full of copies of a specific set of textures). There are two causes for this problem:

1) The game's internal texture buffer sub-system isn't optimized to handle an excessive amount of unique textures being loaded all at once, requiring the game to load new textures to the buffer, display the model that uses the texture, then unload the texture to a cache in order to make room for a new texture to be loaded up... saving the textures in a cache so the texture can be recalled again when needed.

2) The game's default texture size is so large that it eats up the texture memory on a video card at a much faster rate, requiring the game to load textures to a cache on the hard drive (which is slower than loading into VRAM). There are reports of people using SLI/Crossfire setups that are not experiencing this problem, which makes sense since your standard SLI setup has access to 3GB's of VRAM (as opposed to a single card's 1.5GB's of VRAM) and your standard Crossfire setup has access to 2GB's of VRAM (as opposed to a single card's 1GB of VRAM). The more VRAM the game has access to, the bigger the game's internal texture buffer is.

It's entirely possible the problem is a combination of the two. But again, I must reiterate, this problem would affect the graphic performance of the game... not the general multitasking capabilities of your computer. The fact that your experiencing this problem everywhere in the game (regardless of where you happen to be) and your computer looses multitasking efficiency suggests your computer is overextended, which is exasperating the problem in the game.

But whatever... your not interested in finding a solution to your problem... you just want to complain and your looking for people that share the same opinion as you. Good luck getting S-E's attention... especially now that you've provided such a narrow scope for the conversation.