LOW FPS - GTX 660 Ti I5 2500K ~13 fps in towns

[Lithera]

Basically you may think there's nothing else around (PCs, mobs etc) but behind the batch of trees or rock walls you're looking at you might be in direct line of sight of an aetheryte camp or a large FATE and despite it not being visible on screen due to obstacles your computer is deciding it has to render the camp and the 100 people gathered around the crystal or render the FATE mob(s) and the 200 people doing the FATE. That could be very well what's happening with the panning vs strafing since strafing doesn't change your viewing angle and leaves that Camp directly to your left STILL directly to your left. You pan the camera and suddenly the game wants to render that Camp.

[Faiyez]

It's the nature of a graphically intensive mmo.

I have 2x gtx 680 and my framerate would drop to 27 when turning the camera at the crowd in front of the summoning bell. I also noticed that my GPU usage would drop to 50's. It's an optimization issue but probably very hard to address.

[Mashkar]

@up

That's for sure optimization issue - I wonder - will we get any official standing about this problems. As we see, clearly, lot of people having such problems.

[animapain]

Basically you may think there's nothing else around (PCs, mobs etc) but behind the batch of trees or rock walls you're looking at you might be in direct line of sight of an aetheryte camp or a large FATE and despite it not being visible on screen due to obstacles your computer is deciding it has to render the camp and the 100 people gathered around the crystal or render the FATE mob(s) and the 200 people doing the FATE. That could be very well what's happening with the panning vs strafing since strafing doesn't change your viewing angle and leaves that Camp directly to your left STILL directly to your left. You pan the camera and suddenly the game wants to render that Camp.

Even if I turn to directly face a solid wall? there have been instances where I've been next to a cliff face, turned to face it and the FPS takes a nose dive like the pictures I posted. Is this because the game forces my PC to render everything behind it also? Surely that's not right.

[Faiyez]

The water is badly optimized on max settings, even when the framerate doesn't show it, you can tell. You could be looking away from a crowd but at a body of water.

[Lithera]

Yes even if you stare directly at a solid wall. It's why there's an option in settings to tell the game not to render the non-visible items. If that isn't checked the game will basically render everything within draw distance regardless of obstacles. It minimizes pop-in in cases where that obstacle is a short rock for instance and you hit your jump key to suddenly be able to see over it.
+

[Mightynandui]

Basically you may think there's nothing else around (PCs, mobs etc) but behind the batch of trees or rock walls you're looking at you might be in direct line of sight of an aetheryte camp or a large FATE and despite it not being visible on screen due to obstacles your computer is deciding it has to render the camp and the 100 people gathered around the crystal or render the FATE mob(s) and the 200 people doing the FATE. That could be very well what's happening with the panning vs strafing since strafing doesn't change your viewing angle and leaves that Camp directly to your left STILL directly to your left. You pan the camera and suddenly the game wants to render that Camp.

If the game is really working as you are saying, it is really really poor optimized. There is no need to render anything that is not visible, that's one of the first concepts you get about game development. Anyway, I'll wait and see. To be honest I am not expecting it to get better even in 6 months, so I will just stick with the game until I can't take the drops anymore and then leave.

[Ranebow]

Now that is interesting! Could you explain some more about this? this is the 1st I've heard of " hot spots " so I'm intrigued.

I do understand what you are saying, I have played enough mmos in the last years to understand exactly what you saying. Unfortunately, it happens everywhere. It does not matter if I turn the camera to a wall and then back to another one or if a turn the camera to a "hot spot" like you called it or not. Sadly, I have already tested, tried and theorycraft everything possible about this issue and nothing solves it.

There's several things working in tandem here it seems.

Let's take stock :

A) Disable rendering of objects when not visible - This feature in system configuration DOES work to the effect that it will reduce performance when not enabled (ticked).
B) It's possible the culling of objects as per above is not working as intended, though what changed since BETA?
C) Some people only experience the panning camera issue when facing hot spots or congested areas. This suggests that the culling feature isn't working 100%.
D) Some people experience the panning camera issue wherever they are in the world, regardless of congestion.

I'd like to think it is all related and thus any fixes will subsequently solve everyone's problems.

Interesting food for thought ... remember in BETA when you'd leave (this is one of many examples), New Gridania to the Central Shroud. You'd come down the path with a fork to the left and one straight ahead to the bridge that then leads past the scorpions and onto Bentbranch Meadows. If you were to stay at the fork and face Bentbranch, your performance would take a hit during the day time, with the lighting and the shadows in full effect. If you turned to face the south path (towards the funguar mobs), you'd get back your performance. On screen neither direction had anything particularly taxing or different being rendered, however behind the trees was Bentbranch.

This situation is slightly different in that it degraded performance all around (not just when panning) and it only happened during day times or light intensive situations. When retail launched this was fixed, yet this other problem has replaced it.

The water is badly optimized on max settings, even when the framerate doesn't show it, you can tell. You could be looking away from a crowd but at a body of water.

Water is an odd one, so far :

A) There are spots where at high reflection setting, the performance drops noticeably. "Normal" setting resolves this. The waterfall beyond the bridge at Little Solace is an example.
B) There are spots where you are facing straight down at water[nothing else on screen] and the performance drops noticeably. Oakwood fishing spot in Upper La Noscea (where the crabs are), is an example.

Having said that, the issue of rendering 'behind the scenes' transcends any isolated issues that water has.

[animapain]

There's several things working in tandem here it seems.

Let's take stock :

A) Disable rendering of objects when not visible - This feature in system configuration DOES work to the effect that it will reduce performance when not enabled (ticked).
B) It's possible the culling of objects as per above is not working as intended, though what changed since BETA?
C) Some people only experience the panning camera issue when facing hot spots or congested areas. This suggests that the culling feature isn't working 100%.
D) Some people experience the panning camera issue wherever they are in the world, regardless of congestion.

I'd like to think it is all related and thus any fixes will subsequently solve everyone's problems.

Interesting food for thought ... remember in BETA when you'd leave (this is one of many examples), New Gridania to the Central Shroud. You'd come down the path with a fork to the left and one straight ahead to the bridge that then leads past the scorpions and onto Bentbranch Meadows. If you were to stay at the fork and face Bentbranch, your performance would take a hit during the day time, with the lighting and the shadows in full effect. If you turned to face the south path (towards the funguar mobs), you'd get back your performance. On screen neither direction had anything particularly taxing or different being rendered, however behind the trees was Bentbranch.

This situation is slightly different in that it degraded performance all around (not just when panning) and it only happened during day times or light intensive situations. When retail launched this was fixed, yet this other problem has replaced it.



Water is an odd one, so far :

A) There are spots where at high reflection setting, the performance drops noticeably. "Normal" setting resolves this. The waterfall beyond the bridge at Little Solace is an example.
B) There are spots where you are facing straight down at water[nothing else on screen] and the performance drops noticeably. Oakwood fishing spot in Upper La Noscea (where the crabs are), is an example.

Having said that, the issue of rendering 'behind the scenes' transcends any isolated issues that water has.

What is this type of feature supposed to achieve? it's the first time ( that I know if ) I've come across such a feature.

[Ranebow]

Here's a settings shot for you (upper half is most important for optimizing).
-Enable HDR rendering.... with it turned off, the quality of the sky including the color banding, fog and cloud detail as well as general blending is degraded. Turning it on smooths out the image.
-Disable rendering of objects ... this is what we've been discussing. With it disabled (not checked) you will lose performance and the game attempts to draw objects beyond your naked vision. 99% of people would leave this enabled.
-Use low detail models .... this is simply a case of quality vs performance. In most areas (not all, though most) you will gain performance by enabling it, particularly around buildings and hot spots.
-Cache LOD data only... I am not convinced this is working as intended or ever has been since Alpha/Beta. As it reads it should be used by people with low GPU and system RAM. Though it could be the other way around.
-Realtime reflections ... makes water reflect world geometry and objects. The higher the setting the more reflected.
-Edge Smoothing .... not a classic title I would have used as anti-aliasing has many flavors. However true to it's word it does smooth jaggies on edges of objects. It also has an additional transparency filter that smooths the edges of flora/bushes etc. making them more plush.
-Transparent Lighting Quality ...Normal and High seem to not vary, broken?
-Grass Quality .. believe this only covers grass density/thickness
-Map resolution... increases detail of the map/compass
-Shadows : With a good system three of these as indicated do not affect performance. However Other Npcs seems to give a noticeable hit and the shadows used on them are so visually weak, it's not worth keeping them on. Hide them for a possible performance boost!