Unofficial : Significant performance loss when panning camera [any angle, any arc]

[Kittra]

I just tested this with SLI in Costa del Sol, panning near the Aetheryte with a lot of fates going on in the distance (there were a lot of players participating).

My test system was:

CPU: Intel i7 2600k @ 4.6ghz
Motherboard: ASUS P8Z77-V PRO
Memory: Kingston Hyper X Blu 16GB @1600mhz
Hard Drive: Western Digital Blue 620mb @ 7200 RPM
Video Card #1: EVGA GTX 570 1.25GB (Overclocked to 800mhz)
Video Card #2: MSI GTX 570 1.25GB (Overclocked to 800mhz)
Power Supply: Cooler Master GX750watt Bronze Certified

Driver Information
nVidia drivers 327.23 WHQL installed as a clean installation via nVidia's driver install program.
I was running the 314.22 WHQL drivers previously before with decent results (a few crashes here and there).
I've tested the 327.23 WHQL drivers for about a week now without any problems in FFXIV:ARR (this includes my previously listed system as well as the SLI system).

Any Additional Information you feel might be relevant to the way your drivers are configured
Pretty much the same as my last listed system:
FXAA - ON
Antialiasing - Gamma correction - ON
Antialiasing- Mode - Application-controlled
Maximum pre-rendered frames: 1
Power management mode: Prefer maximum performance
Triple buffering - ON
Vertical sync - Use the 3D application settings

For pure FPS speed to monitor drops I'm using a BENQ 120hz monitor, and the game is set to "unlocked" for the FPS limiter (this is unaffected by driver Vertical sync).


Facing the Aetheryte in Costa del Sol, I started out at a solid 120fps without moving the camera. Upon panning the camera slowly to the left I experienced a slight FPS fluctuation between 115 and 109 (not a large drop at all), I then sped up panning to the left and the FPS counter stayed constant at 115-109fps. Panning almost in a complete circle the FPS suddenly dropped from 115-109 to 55-50fps.

I was a little shocked when it did this but I had a pretty good idea of what caused it. Upon opening the map I discovered my field of view indicator was set squarely on the Fate "It's not Lupus" (A high reward fate that yields between 10,000 and 30,000 EXP).
Panning away from that Fate, my FPS indicator shot back up to 115-109.

In systems I quickly locked my FPS to 60 to see if there was a difference in panning. The results were about the same as unlocked. I stayed at 60fps throughout the entire pan, the second I hit "It's not Lupus" my FPS dropped to 55-50fps. In this case it's clearly the Fate causing my FPS drops.


I then tried strafing to see if there was a difference (I re-unlocked the FPS). Strafing around the Aetheryte my FPS was a constant 120fps (about 119-120 but it was almost always a solid 120), facing "It's not Lupus" the results were about the same with panning (50-55fps), at the same time the Fate ended and after a few seconds my FPS went back up to 120.

TL;DR I see a drop while panning as opposed to strafing while using SLI but it is minimal at best, not nearly as bad as some people are reporting, and I'm still dumbfounded as to how your FPS can go from a solid 120 or 60 to barely anything (just by panning the camera) without facing a giant group of people off in the distance.

[Kittra]

I understand what you're saying Ranebow, but that drop isn't very different from what I experience in other games while panning, especially First Person Shooters like Planetside 2 (an online FPS).

The drop is fairly consistent and happens in the majority of Direct3D games I have so that's why I didn't believe I was experiencing the same drop that others were reporting.

I was under the impressing that the drop was from 120 or 60 fps down to 55 or 25 fps just from panning the camera. This scenario I could understand as a drop that large is definitely a problem.

[Ranebow]

I understand what you're saying Ranebow, but that drop isn't very different from what I experience in other games while panning, especially First Person Shooters like Planetside 2 (an online FPS).

The drop is fairly consistent and happens in the majority of Direct3D games I have so that's why I didn't believe I was experiencing the same drop that others were reporting.

I was under the impressing that the drop was from 120 or 60 fps down to 55 or 25 fps just from panning the camera. This scenario I could understand as a drop that large is definitely a problem.

Yes, you are correct, frames are being lost to wild amounts between twenty to thirty at times. As an example I have posted pictures standing in Gridania facing the Chocobo porter.
First shot is camera stationary, second shot is camera with a quick flick left (towards the Inn) and back resulting in the drop to 41.




Interestingly, and I may update this on the front page - I disabled occlusion culling so that it was rendering things 'off screen,' and my performance dropped as expected to right around the same speed that I get when panning the camera.
More and more I am convinced now it's something to do with the culling system.

[Skies]

Hrm... I had the mind to add one thing here, mentioning that when I updated my drivers (using an AMD card) the issue here vanished (the particular 'graphics lag when panning' issue). Howevre, Ranebow, what you just said made me think...
That updated improved my FPS as a whole, and now that you mention occlusion culling I think I might know WHY the panning suddenly drops your FPS and it's quite... Logical.

Occlusion culling doesn't renders things which are offscreen, that saves you on processing power and memory but it ALSO requires you to suddenly load and render everything outside your view range when you pan your screen.
Which means that when that is on you are causing a sudden spike in processing/memory requirements by asking a lot of new things to be rendered suddenly, causing a huge drop in FPS temporarily. Notice how your issue is worse the more things are there around you? (try that in Revenant's Toll, then try that in, say... Urth's Gift? Or, hum... Nym? Somewhere that is kinda barren playerwise)

[Ranebow]

Hrm... I had the mind to add one thing here, mentioning that when I updated my drivers (using an AMD card) the issue here vanished (the particular 'graphics lag when panning' issue). Howevre, Ranebow, what you just said made me think...
That updated improved my FPS as a whole, and now that you mention occlusion culling I think I might know WHY the panning suddenly drops your FPS and it's quite... Logical.

Occlusion culling doesn't renders things which are offscreen, that saves you on processing power and memory but it ALSO requires you to suddenly load and render everything outside your view range when you pan your screen.
Which means that when that is on you are causing a sudden spike in processing/memory requirements by asking a lot of new things to be rendered suddenly, causing a huge drop in FPS temporarily. Notice how your issue is worse the more things are there around you? (try that in Revenant's Toll, then try that in, say... Urth's Gift? Or, hum... Nym? Somewhere that is kinda barren playerwise)

Logical though several rebuttals:

A) If anyone plays without Occlusion culling disabled(which you won't find a lot as it eats performance badly), then every time they moved the camera, they'd have performance loss. Though we know this isn't the case as it doesn't affect everyone - occlusion or not.
B) Have to remember that ANY motion would induce this issue, not just panning the camera and in most games character movement as a whole will cause some performance degradation but standing still and turning the camera will not.
C) Memory is not exhausted so why the stutter?

As for player and object density, yes I do think there's a correlation. The other side of this coin though is that even when those things are not being drawn physically, you still lose the performance when facing that direction but ONLY when panning the camera, not when simply standing still or moving your character.

[Raist]

one important thing needs to be taken into consideration when testing for this, and that is to avoid the "hotspots" when panning. For instance, an earlier post mentioned a high FPS drop when the inn was snapped into focus. That inn might be one of the spots where there is a rendering issue in general that causes a major drop in FPS regardless if the view is snapped there or you move casually that way as you walk. I've only confirmed this to be an issue with Hawthorne Hut so far (it's where I tested my graphics settings), but I'm sure there are other locations on other maps that also cause a significant drop in frame rate when your camera angle is aimed towards it. If your panning angle cuts across such a location, it is going to make your frame rate dive suddenly because that location has come into the potential viewing angle--not just because you are panning.

[Ranebow]

one important thing needs to be taken into consideration when testing for this, and that is to avoid the "hotspots" when panning. For instance, an earlier post mentioned a high FPS drop when the inn was snapped into focus. That inn might be one of the spots where there is a rendering issue in general that causes a major drop in FPS regardless if the view is snapped there or you move casually that way as you walk. I've only confirmed this to be an issue with Hawthorne Hut so far (it's where I tested my graphics settings), but I'm sure there are other locations on other maps that also cause a significant drop in frame rate when your camera angle is aimed towards it. If your panning angle cuts across such a location, it is going to make your frame rate dive suddenly because that location has come into the potential viewing angle--not just because you are panning.

I have been through various high density areas where the frame rate is 60fps solid and established :

A) No camera movement and no character movement results in 60fps
B) No camera movement but with character movement results in 60fps
C) Camera movement results in XX reduced amount of frames.
D) Camera movement and character movement results in same amount of reduced frames.

Now in high density hot spot areas where performance is down simply due to strain, let's say around 45fps the following may happen :

A) No camera movement and no character movement results in 45 fps (no change)
B) No camera movement but with character movement results in 45 fps (no change)
C) Camera movement results in XX reduced amount of frames, but to a lesser degree.
D) Camera movement and character movement results in same amount of reduced frames.

In this second scenario where the performance was already degraded, the frame loss frame panning is not as significant.

Furthermore as per second to last post of mine, the disabling of Occlusion Culling drops the frames down to the same level equal to that of when panning the camera.
If my fps is 42 with it disabled, my fps will dip no lower than 42 when panning. This cannot be coincidence.


Lastly, there's been reports and claims that it affects some players anywhere in the game, even when staring at a wall that's bordering a zone line with nothing beyond it.

[Raist]

yeah.. was just more a thought about people who may be mixing in the hotspots when they are panning, and mistaking the major dip for being just because they panned their camera. The whole importance of isolation, consistency, and control so you can more accurately test if changing settings is affecting your panning problem or not.

[Ranebow]

yeah.. was just more a thought about people who may be mixing in the hotspots when they are panning, and mistaking the major dip for being just because they panned their camera. The whole importance of isolation, consistency, and control so you can more accurately test if changing settings is affecting your panning problem or not.

It's a plenty welcome suggestion and should be considered of course.

I *mostly* have this problem on two systems when facing the hot spots. Interestingly though are where some of the hot spots are. For instance, my screenshot is in relation to the camera pan towards the Adventurer's guild in Gridania ; yes at times there's a good amount of players in there causing an overall performance loss, but it doesn't have the same affect from all angles. If I am running from the Badger gate towards the opening to the Adventurer's guild, I get no resistance or performance loss until I reach the portion where the path forks onwards to the building or up towards the Aetheryte. However once I step inside the building at the first tables on the right, panning no longer results in fps loss.
Which means there is literally a X meters by X meters box of sorts where this happens if you stand in it. And like above, similarly when near the Chocobo porter, if I move down the ramp and do the same it doesn't happen.

I moved away from thinking this was a driver issue early on, when I confirmed that it doesn't happen in all areas of the game and it doesn't happen equally when facing the same hot spot e.g. standing on one side of the spot can result in something different.

[Boretalith]

It seems that there have not been any further posts about this concern being an ongoing issue. Because of this, we are considering it to be resolved. If this does continue to be a concern, please create another thread to further discuss resolutions or contact the Support Center at support.na.square-enix.com for assistance.