62 replies to this topic

[WagalyTaLk]

Tired of this issue...
The CB3 still have low GPU usage & low fps issue, I hope open beta can fix this.

Windows 7 x64
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T
AMD Radeon HD6870 1GB ( Driver: 12.11 Beta6 )
8GB DDR2 RAM

Resolution 1680*1050
Texture low
Quality low
Effect all off

The round only 2~3 player, if more people would be more slow.

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Edited by WagalyTaLk, November 24 2012 - 12:14 AM.

[Saint_The_Judge]

Yes, I even uninstalled it due to this extremely big huge serious lame issue. After 1000 attempts, I finally managed to get into this CB3 (launcher would not authorize me, had to fresh install 12, yes, twelve times) just to find out that low FPS, low GPU usage, low everything are alive and kicking more than they were before, in the previous stages.
Bottom line is this game is, at least for now, very poorly coded. I still have a little hope they fix it, optimizing it like it should be. A pity, cause game has its potential. Of course it's not that awesomeness promo videos made me think, but it's good. If it was at least playable...

[PhYrE]

I feel you mates, i have huge fps problems too, tho my rig should be able to handle this game easy. in fights it goes way below 10 fps for me, totally unplayable. i have low hopes on getting this coded out, for most people it seems running decent.

[DarkPulse]

Low GPU usage tends to mean a CPU bottleneck.

Considering AMD processors aren't quite in the same league as Intel, it's not too surprising. The devs probably do need to do some optimizations, but there's only so much they can do.

[PhYrE]

DarkPulse, on November 25 2012 - 02:25 PM, said:

Low GPU usage tends to mean a CPU bottleneck.

Considering AMD processors aren't quite in the same league as Intel, it's not too surprising. The devs probably do need to do some optimizations, but there's only so much they can do.

You already shot the other thread down with your politics. plz don't do the same here!!

[JuiceBox]

He does have a point. A 1090T is a pretty low on the cpu scale especially with that GPU.

Check your CPU usage when playing the game to see what its usage is in comparison to your GPU.

[DarkPulse]

PhYrE, on November 25 2012 - 03:05 PM, said:

You already shot the other thread down with your politics. plz don't do the same here!!

It's not politics, it's stating simple truths that countless benchmarks have proven. A Phenom II X6 1090T is one of AMD's better processors (in fact, the only things that would really best it are the Phenom II X4 980 and the FX-8350 due to their higher clockrates), but it's still only about 75% the performance of an i7 3770K, and it seems like nearly all the people having framerate issues are running AMD CPUs. So yes, I think it is bottlenecking his GPU to some extent. Remember, he's on a nearly 3 year old CPU.

His framerates are about consistent with what I'd expect in terms of bottlenecking, looking like mid-20s to mid-30s. The devs can no doubt improve performance, but expecting a magic panacea that will get you up to constant 60 FPS on 1920x1080 isn't going to happen. 40-50 FPS is more likely, assuming you're paired with a good videocard, and his videocard isn't old enough or weak enough to be considered anything worse than decently good.

[PhYrE]

You are just arguing fuzzy bunny again. There are many people with problems not running AMD. No one wants to hear you "AMD is so bad" casual giberish here! give some decent advice concerning the actual problem or get out of these threads!! look at my specs and tell me my processor is a bottleneck. just plain stupid fanboy talk. i run bf3 on ultra and maxed out settings with stable 60 fps.

[JuiceBox]

PhYrE, on November 26 2012 - 08:34 AM, said:

You are just arguing fuzzy bunny again. There are many people with problems not running AMD. No one wants to hear you "AMD is so bad" casual giberish here! give some decent advice concerning the actual problem or get out of these threads!! look at my specs and tell me my processor is a bottleneck. just plain stupid fanboy talk. i run bf3 on ultra and maxed out settings with stable 60 fps.

Can't compare here.. Your chip is overclocked which can make a WORLD of difference.

[Jadz]

PhYrE, on November 26 2012 - 08:34 AM, said:

You are just arguing fuzzy bunny again. There are many people with problems not running AMD. No one wants to hear you "AMD is so bad" casual giberish here! give some decent advice concerning the actual problem or get out of these threads!! look at my specs and tell me my processor is a bottleneck. just plain stupid fanboy talk. i run bf3 on ultra and maxed out settings with stable 60 fps.

Ignore them they are spammers your cpu is plenty fine.

[Jadz]

DarkPulse, on November 25 2012 - 02:25 PM, said:

Low GPU usage tends to mean a CPU bottleneck.

Considering AMD processors aren't quite in the same league as Intel, it's not too surprising. The devs probably do need to do some optimizations, but there's only so much they can do.

Yeah must be pretty bad I mean seriously bad at optimizing if a 6 core pc is not good enough LOL I can always tell when 12 year spammers are in a thread.

[Jadz]

WagalyTaLk, on November 23 2012 - 10:11 PM, said:

Tired of this issue...
The CB3 still have low GPU usage & low fps issue, I hope open beta can fix this.

Windows 7 x64
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T
AMD Radeon HD6870 1GB ( Driver: 12.11 Beta6 )
8GB DDR2 RAM

Resolution 1680*1050
Texture low
Quality low
Effect all off

The round only 2~3 player, if more people would be more slow.

max out your settings see if that fixes it.

[Roundlay]

Have you checked whether or not any of your cores are parked/unparked_ It might be worth looking into a core unparking app like this.

[PhYrE]

Roundlay, on November 27 2012 - 04:58 AM, said:

Have you checked whether or not any of your cores are parked/unparked_ It might be worth looking into a core unparking app like this.

I had the exact same idea, so i changed my energy profile before starting the game to prevent cores from being parked. it prevented cpu parking but did not much for my performance in game. could help other people tho.

[Soma1509]

So, after running some tweaks because I had the same issue, I found out that the framerate is actually being capped by the game's engine whenever you play a round online. Whenever I'm in the Garage, I get crazy framerates above 200FPS on my system. But whenever I join a server of any game mode, the game suddenly gets capped to 90FPS! To test this out, I join an empty server and make sure I get a decent ping [I usually have about 36 ping on an empty server] and just walk around for a few minutes to see if my hypothesis holds ground. Under these conditions, as expected, my framerates rarely dip. But even if I turn down ALL of my settings to low, and look up at the skybox, my framerate just won't budge above 90FPS. I know my system is more than capable of doing so, but something within the game's engine is locking down my framerates! Do keep in mind, that PhysX options are completely disabled during my tests.

When I do join a game with other players [Team Deathmatch], of course the framerates dip during heavy combat. But as soon as I am about ready to deploy, the framerates stay right at 90FPS again.

My System for reference:

*AMD 965 X4 Black Edition CPU, OCed to 4.1GHz
*ASUS Sabertooth 990FX AM3+ TUF Series Motherboard
*16GB [4 x 4GB] of 1600MHz of DDR3 RAM, OCed to 1966MHz with 9-11-9-27-2T timings
*2 NVIDIA GeForce GTX480's in SLI
*1 NVIDIA GeForce GTS450 for dedicated PhysX
*128GB Crucial M4 Solid State Drive
*4TB RAID0 Hard Disk Array strictly for Games and Apps [obviously where I have my Hawken Client installed]
*1TB JBOD Hard Disk Array for Media and Long-Term Storage
* Corsair AX1200 1200 Watt Power Supply

OS Used: Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit
NVIDIA Drivers Used: 310.61
___

Right, so I will get to the nitty-gritty of things. I will share what minor tweaks I've done to slightly improve my framerates, but do keep in mind, this will most likely not completely fix the problem on YOUR end. You might as well make yourself comfortable, these tweaks are a bit tedious.

Hawken uses Unreal Engine 3, just like games such as inMomentum, Mirror's Edge, Borderlands 1 & 2, Sanctum, Blacklight: Retribution, the Batman Arkham series, and obviously Unreal Tournament 3. A good rule of thumb to keep in mind is that if any game you play natively supports NVIDIA PhysX, then chances are that it's probably using Unreal Engine 3. Of course, there are exceptions: Metro 2033 uses PhysX, but doesn't use UE3; it uses the 4A Engine. At any rate, this is good to keep in mind because it means that games that use the same graphics engine will usually behave similarly. When it comes to performance scaling, Hawken is no exception.

For anyone who has done tweaks for these games before, you should be pretty familiar with editing their config and .ini files. But just in case you guys are not, or it's been a while, here's a guideline of what you should do to slightly improve framerates and reduce framerate dips. Or to at least check that everything is the way that it should be and in proper working order.

If you're using multiple NVIDIA GPU's, this might be helpful to do: Tweaking Hawken's SLI profile.

In order to do this, you'll need the following tool: NVIDIA Inspector
Download and extract said program in a place where it's easy to find.

Proceed with the following steps:

1. Open up your NVIDIA Control Panel.

2. Go To "Manage 3D Settings".

3. Under the "Program Settings" tab, click the "Add" Button.

4. Find your Hawken Client's .exe file. For reference, this should be located at:
"Meteor Entertainment/Hawken/InstalledHawkenFiles/Binaries/Win32/HawkenGame-Win32-Shipping.exe"

5. Tweak to your satisfaction, though it's recommended to leave mostly everything to its default or Global settings. Make sure to switch the SLI Rendering Mode to "Force Alternate Frame Rendering 2", and turn off Vertical Sync. This is mostly done so that your drivers have a profile for this game and to make sure it sticks. When done, make sure you click "Apply". You may close the NVIDIA Control Panel afterwards.




6. Now, this is where things get a little trivial, but bear with me. Open Up NVIDIA Inspector, click the drop-down menu, and look for the Hawken profile you created [You can also type in the name]. For some reason, there are 2 profiles for me, so it might be the same thing for you. We will be tweaking both of these profiles.




In case you don't see that profile name, try and see if you can find the full path to your game's client, like this:




Mine is located in
"D:games and applicationsmeteor entertainmenthawken [closed beta]installedhawkenfilesbinarieswin32hawkengame-win32-shipping.exe"

Your location may be different from mine, and as I said, I will be tweaking both of these profiles.

Now, we need to make sure that this profile has the correct SLI compatibility bits. Keep in mind that Hawken currently runs in DirectX9.

7. Look at the top portion of your profile, where it says SLI Compatibility bits. If you have the latest NVIDIA drivers [like you should], then the default compatibility bits should be the following: 0x02402005

If they're not, or if you want to try your luck with other compatibility bits, here's another one you could try out: 0x02400045

8. Next, scroll down to the SLI section of the profile, and tweak the following:

Number of GPU's to use on SLI rendering mode: SLI_GPU_COUNT_AUTOSELECT
[Or the number of actual GPU's you're using]

NVIDIA predefined number of GPUs to use on SLI rendering mode on DirectX10: SLI_GPU_COUNT_AUTOSELECT
[Or the number of actual GPU's you're using]

NVIDIA predefined number of GPUs to use on SLI rendering mode: SLI_GPU_COUNT_AUTOSELECT
[Or the number of actual GPU's you're using]

NVIDIA predefined SLI mode on DirectX10: SLI_PREDEFINED_MODE_DX10_FORCE_AFR2

NVIDIA predefined SLI mode: SLI_PREDEFINED_MODE_FORCE_AFR2

SLI rendering mode: SLI_RENDERING_MODE_FORCE_AFR2

Your SLI section should now look something like this:




9. Click on "Apply Changes". Click it again for good luck!

A reminder: make absolutely sure you tweak both the NVIDIA's preset profile for Hawken AS WELL as your profile you added straight from your NVIDIA control panel by finding the full path to your .exe file in NVIDIA Inspector, so that way the profiles stick!

From here on out, you're done tweaking Hawken's SLI profile.

___

Up Next: Tweaking Hawken's config/.ini files.

1. Browse over to your "Documents" folder, and look for a folder titled "my games". The full path should be something like this:

"C:Users[Your username here]Documentsmy gamesHawken"

2. Now, go over to the "HawkenGame" folder, then "Config", then open up HawkenEngine.ini with Notepad [though Notepad++ is better for my eyes, but that's just my personal preference].

3. Now this is where the fun begins: Hit Ctrl+F on your keyboard, and find the following phrase:
bsmoothframerate

Click "Find Next" until you find it. There should be about 2 or 3 instances of this popping up in this file.

4. For each time you find it, you will then see the following:

bSmoothFramerate=TRUE

Change each one's statement to "FALSE", like this:

bSmoothFramerate=FALSE

The first instance is located under [Engine.Engine]:


*You can also tweak the MinSmoothedFrameRate and MaxSmoothedFrameRate values if you want, but since you're disabling framerate smoothing anyway, this probably isn't necessary.

*Yes, framerate smoothing IS in fact in your graphics option menu, but for some reason, the settings just don't stick after I close the game.


The second instance is under [UnrealEd.EditorEngine]:



The third and final instance is located under [HawkenGame.HawkenGameEngine]



5. One last thing to tweak: We need to add some values under [SystemSettings]. Hit Ctrl+F again if needed, and type in [SystemSettings]. The following should show up:

[SystemSettings]
bAllowD3D9MSAA=True

If you want to disable Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing [MSAA], change True to False. Now, right underneath that instance, add the following lines:

OneFrameThreadLag=True
UseVsync=False
MaxAnisotropy=16
MaxMultisamples=1

*You can tweak your MaxAnisotropy and MaxMultisamples values to your liking. Limit is between 1-16.

So now, it should look like this:



Now hit "Save", and close the .ini file. It would also be a really good idea if you make this file Read-Only by right-clicking on the file, click on "Properties", and under the "General" tab checkmark "Read-only", hit Apply then OK, like so:



If you want to take it a step further, repeat these steps with the original BaseEngine.ini file located in your Hawken's installed directory.

After this, you're basically done.
___

Just remember, these tweaks can only do so much -- they will only attempt to reduce the framerate dips during game sessions. But like I said, when I'm in a session, my framerate mysteriously tops out at 90FPS. When I'm the garage though, my framerate is at a ridiculous 200+ FPS, which might mean that something is skewed on the server side of things. My CPU could also be the bottleneck, but after replaying some other titles using Unreal Engine 3 [Mirror's Edge, UT3, Blacklight: Retribution, Borderlands 2, and inMomentum mostly], I severely doubt that.

I truly hope the devs can improve performance issues soon.

Edited by Soma1509, December 09 2012 - 04:32 PM.

[DarkPulse]

PhYrE, on November 26 2012 - 08:34 AM, said:

You are just arguing fuzzy bunny again. There are many people with problems not running AMD. No one wants to hear you "AMD is so bad" casual giberish here! give some decent advice concerning the actual problem or get out of these threads!! look at my specs and tell me my processor is a bottleneck. just plain stupid fanboy talk. i run bf3 on ultra and maxed out settings with stable 60 fps.

First: Don't tell me what to do. You're not a mod. If you don't like what I post, scroll past my posts.

Second: Using BF3 is a poor comparison, since that game is way more GPU-limited than CPU limited; nearly any half-decent CPU will max it out. Simply put, on pretty much any recent quadcore and up, and assuming you don't have a gimpy GPU, Battlefield 3 will always run great. Now, let's test a game that stresses CPU more than GPU: UE3-based Batman: Arkham City. World of difference; I'd be getting 20 more FPS than he would on stock... and that's not counting the fact I've overclocked my processor to 4.4 GHz. Weaker CPUs will perform weaker in a more CPU-hungry game. Both of those tests had a Radeon 7950 for their videocard, by the way, so I'd probably actually gain way more than that as I'm on a GeForce 690 GTX.

So, we now combine in the fact that the poster is on a Phenom II X4 1050T (which is fairly close to the 1100T's performance in those tests) as well as the fact he does not have a 7950, but a 6870 - a card one generation back, and 1 1/3rd notches back from the top in AMD's numbering scheme. Thus, my estimation that, with proper dev improvement on rendering (it does need to improve and the game should definitely not perform that badly on his hardware), the game will average out to him, with maxed out details (minus PhysX of course), at approximately 40-50 FPS, is not unreasonable, nor is it "fanboyism." It's deducted logically.

Can the devs improve it_ Sure. Will it be playable_ Certainly. Is it going to be perfect, 60-FPS smooth_ Probably not. All I'm doing is notifying him of what to expect - that the game will not, very likely, go to 60 FPS unless some settings are turned down, as his processor plus videocard combination is possibly not going to be able to handle it as well as others.

It's better that I tell him a realistic expectation of what he will get, as opposed to having you come in here, screeching "My system can run Battlefield 3 maxed, 60 FPS!" Battlefield 3 is a totally different game, on a totally different engine, that is far more graphics-hungry than processor-hungry. To me, that's being helpful. To you... well, I guess I'm a fanboy for giving him an unskewed view.

Jadz, on November 27 2012 - 01:08 AM, said:

Yeah must be pretty bad I mean seriously bad at optimizing if a 6 core pc is not good enough LOL I can always tell when 12 year spammers are in a thread.

News Flash: "Number of cores" means squat. So does "Speed in GHz." It's all about how many instructions it can do per clock, and singlethread performance. AMD is way worse there. My quadcore would stomp all over AMD's octocores, because AMD's processors are inferior at instructions per clock, and also at efficiency per watt. That FX-8350 might have eight cores, and it will run 600-800 MHz faster than my processor (if it wasn't overclocked), but it will also consume up to damn near twice the energy to do it (77W vs. 130W TDP), and even with that it will give about 75-80% of the performance.

I can always tell when people who don't know about CPUs as much as they think they do are in a thread.

Soma1509, on November 27 2012 - 02:56 PM, said:

So, after running some tweaks because I had the same issue, I found out that the framerate is actually being capped by the game's engine whenever you play a round online. Whenever I'm in the Garage, I get crazy framerates above 200FPS on my system. But whenever I join a server of any game mode, the game suddenly gets capped to 90FPS! To test this out, I join an empty server and make sure I get a decent ping [I usually have about 36 ping on an empty server] and just walk around for a few minutes to see if my hypothesis holds ground. Under these conditions, as expected, my framerates rarely dip. But even if I turn down ALL of my settings to low, and look up at the skybox, my framerate just won't budge above 90FPS. I know my system is more than capable of doing so, but something within the game's engine is locking down my framerates! Do keep in mind, that PhysX options are completely disabled during my tests.

The 90 FPS cap is actually an engine-side cap. The reason it's implemented is to keep things properly in sync; crazy high framerates can really throw the engine off and confuse the heck out of its replication.

Soma1509, on November 27 2012 - 02:56 PM, said:

If you're using multiple NVIDIA GPU's, this might be helpful to do: Tweaking Hawken's SLI profile.

It's better to have things on the AUTOSELECT options, if you must tweak anything here. The reason: Some cards (such as mine, the 690) are basically two GPUs on one card, so even though I have one card in my system, I do have two GPUs and technically already do run SLI. If I added in a second 690 (and I'm debating that in spring...) I would have four GPUs and be running Quad-SLI.

The tweaks here may be of benefit, but keep heavily in mind that it's best done with care. If any of this makes anyone reading it uncomfortable about messing it up, don't do it and leave it as it is.

Soma1509, on November 27 2012 - 02:56 PM, said:

Up Next: Tweaking Hawken's config/.ini files.

On bSmoothFramerate: The engine basically does this so that there's no massive FPS swings while you play. As anyone who has played FPSes knows (or should know, with enough time), your framerate actually affects your ability to turn. The smoother your framerate is, the more consistent it will be.

Also, this is completely useless if you're on some kind of LCD (and most folks are) since going much over 60 FPS will induce tearing, which will make things worse. The exception is if you're one of the lucky folks with 120 Hz LCDs, but even then, you wouldn't want to go past 120 FPS or, once again, tearing.

Soma1509, on November 27 2012 - 02:56 PM, said:

The second instance is under [UnrealEd.EditorEngine]:

Pointless tweak. We will not have access to UnrealEd for Hawken, I am quite sure of that (but Devs, man would I love it if eventually you embraced third-party support from the players for your game!).

Soma1509, on November 27 2012 - 02:56 PM, said:

5. One last thing to tweak: We need to add some values under [SystemSettings]. Hit Ctrl+F again if needed, and type in [SystemSettings]. The following should show up:

[SystemSettings]
bAllowD3D9MSAA=True

If you want to disable Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing [MSAA], change True to False. Now, right underneath that instance, add the following lines:

OneFrameThreadLag=False
UseVsync=False
MaxAnisotropy=16
MaxMultisamples=1

This is probably a decent tweak, but again, you're basically forcing VSync off, which will induce tearing if anyone's FPS goes over 60. You're also turning Anisotropic Filtering to 16x (that can cost a few frames) and you're turning off OneFrameThreadLag. This is a complicated one to explain, but one of the Tripwire Interactive devs (makers of Killing Floor) summed it up nicely, so I'll repeat it here verbatim:

Quote

First some background. The game runs essentially on 2 main threads - a game thread and a rendering thread. The game thread calculates all gameplay aspects such as shooting, hit registration, animation, IK, etc. The rendering thread calculates shadows, updates particle systems (such as smoke), and sends all the draw calls to the GPU for rendering.

Although for most parts the rendering thread can run on its own, it is not entirely independent of the game thread. The game thread "tells" the render thread where your camera is so that the rendering thread can draw the environment from your current location. Another example would be when you shoot, the game thread evaluates your mouse click, computes the ballistics, and if it hits a wall, it "tells" the render thread the location where it hit so that the render thread can draw a bullet impact decal at that location.

Because of this, the game thread needs to "talk" with the render thread. However, it cannot do so anytime it wants (effective threading simply doesn't work that way). So, it syncs from time to time, but otherwise goes about its own business. This sync time is usually at the end of a frame.

Now, let's assume that your game thread is running faster than your render thread. The game thread computes the Nth frame, sync happens, and then your render thread renders your Nth frame. While the Nth frame is being rendered, the game thread can compute your (N+1)th frame in parallel. By the time the (N+1)th frame is finished by the game thread, the Nth thread MAY or MAY NOT be finished by the rendering thread. This is where "One Frame Thread Lag" comes in. If OFTL is off, the game thread will STALL at this point, waiting for the render thread, resulting in a performance drop. But, if you play with OFTL turned on, it will allow the game thread to queue up the (N+1)th frame and start working on the (N+2)th frame immediately, and the render thread can pick up and render the (N+1)th frame once it has finished rendering the Nth frame. This gives you MORE PARALLELISM, and hence better performance. Keep in mind that this will only happen for one frame - your render thread will NOT keep falling behind more and more as your game progresses.

So, in short, you want OneFrameThreadLag on, for maximum performance. Otherwise, with it off, the game may hitch very momentarily every now and again.

To get back to VSync, if VSync is on by default, it does mean the game will try to push FPS down to 30 FPS as that's the next "smoothness" level. That could be a real problem, so if you're normally not going over 60 FPS, you'll want to keep VSync off for best performance.

If, on the other hand, you do often hit 60 FPS, you really have three choices: Keep VSync off, but then you get tearing. Turn VSync on, but then if your framerates dip, it's more like a cliff down to 30 FPS. Or if you have a GeForce card that's fairly recent (GeForce 8xxx or higher - basically, if you're playing this game on any kind of GeForce, this means you!), you can enable something called Adaptive VSync that basically enables VSync if your FPS goes to 60 or over (or 120 or over on 120 Hz monitors), and automatically disables it if it's less than that. This means your framerate will be much smoother overall and it won't be so jarring.

Edited by DarkPulse, November 27 2012 - 04:50 PM.

[Soma1509]

DarkPulse, on November 27 2012 - 04:36 PM, said:

The 90 FPS cap is actually an engine-side cap. The reason it's implemented is to keep things properly in sync; crazy high framerates can really throw the engine off and confuse the heck out of its replication.

I had a feeling that was the case. Personally I'm more of a "MOAR FRAMES!" kind of person, regardless of screen tearing or anything else. To hear that such a limit is in place because the engine would break a sweat is a little dissapointing in my opinion.

DarkPulse, on November 27 2012 - 04:36 PM, said:

It's better to have things on the AUTOSELECT options, if you must tweak anything here. The reason: Some cards (such as mine, the 690) are basically two GPUs on one card, so even though I have one card in my system, I do have two GPUs and technically already do run SLI. If I added in a second 690 (and I'm debating that in spring...) I would have four GPUs and be running Quad-SLI.

The tweaks here may be of benefit, but keep heavily in mind that it's best done with care. If any of this makes anyone reading it uncomfortable about messing it up, don't do it and leave it as it is.

This is true, but on the other hand, if there are people out there who don't know by now that a GTX690 is a Dual-GPU single card, let alone know anything about editing SLI profiles with or without help from the internet, then either they need to do more research, or they should seriously reconsider their choice of PC gaming in general. Because these kinds of tweaks are honestly child's play compared to the amount of BS I had to pull on other games just to make them work.

I'm no expert, but when it comes to troubleshooting software problems, I tend to be pretty dedicated on solving them -- I don't just sit around waiting for answers and hoping someone can spoonfeed it to me. I do as much research as I can in order to solve a problem myself.

DarkPulse, on November 27 2012 - 04:36 PM, said:

On bSmoothFramerate: The engine basically does this so that there's no massive FPS swings while you play. As anyone who has played FPSes knows (or should know, with enough time), your framerate actually affects your ability to turn. The smoother your framerate is, the more consistent it will be.

Also, this is completely useless if you're on some kind of LCD (and most folks are) since going much over 60 FPS will induce tearing, which will make things worse. The exception is if you're one of the lucky folks with 120 Hz LCDs, but even then, you wouldn't want to go past 120 FPS or, once again, tearing.

It comes down to a matter of choice to me: Do I want smoother framerates in exchange for input lag_ Or do I want screen tearing and possible FPS dips, but nearly zero input lag,_ I know the pros and cons for this, but I prefer the latter.

DarkPulse, on November 27 2012 - 04:36 PM, said:

We will not have access to UnrealEd for Hawken, I am quite sure of that (but Devs, man would I love it if eventually you embraced third-party support from the players for your game!).

Eh...old habits die hard. Since it doesn't matter, I figure I'd tweak it anyway.

DarkPulse, on November 27 2012 - 04:36 PM, said:

This is probably a decent tweak, but again, you're basically forcing VSync off, which will induce tearing if anyone's FPS goes over 60. You're also turning Anisotropic Filtering to 16x (that can cost a few frames) and you're turning off OneFrameThreadLag.

...

in short, you want OneFrameThreadLag on, for maximum performance. Otherwise, with it off, the game may hitch very momentarily every now and again.

Anisotropic Filtering had only a little impact on my system. Then again, this is probably useful for others. Fair Enough.

As for OFTL, that's good info to know. That's basically applying framerate restrictions to the game in order to run smoothly. By locking down my UE3 games to 62 FPS, both threads can stay synchronized 100% the time without hitches. The higher the framerate, the more likely both threads will go out of sync. I know the risks involved, but I prefer it disabled for now.

EDIT: After doing some more testing, I actually left OneFrameThreadLag on. It seems to indeed slightly increase performance and reduce framerate dips. I fixed my original post to reflect this.

DarkPulse, on November 27 2012 - 04:36 PM, said:

To get back to VSync, if VSync is on by default, it does mean the game will try to push FPS down to 30 FPS as that's the next "smoothness" level. That could be a real problem, so if you're normally not going over 60 FPS, you'll want to keep VSync off for best performance.

If, on the other hand, you do often hit 60 FPS, you really have three choices: Keep VSync off, but then you get tearing. Turn VSync on, but then if your framerates dip, it's more like a cliff down to 30 FPS. Or if you have a GeForce card that's fairly recent (GeForce 8xxx or higher - basically, if you're playing this game on any kind of GeForce, this means you!), you can enable something called Adaptive VSync that basically enables VSync if your FPS goes to 60 or over (or 120 or over on 120 Hz monitors), and automatically disables it if it's less than that. This means your framerate will be much smoother overall and it won't be so jarring.

VSync usually tends to work for me only on older games, or games that are simply more problematic with higher framerates [Dark Void is a perfect example of this], though I only use VSync [adaptive or standard] if it's my last choice. Using a framerate limiter works a bit better for me.

Input lag annoys me more than screen tearing. For those with 60hz monitors, it's a matter of choosing the lesser evil and, again, I chose the latter. Maybe later on down the line I'll finally be able to buy myself one of those 120hz monitors from ASUS. It's only a matter of time!

Edited by Soma1509, December 09 2012 - 04:49 PM.

[DarkPulse]

Well, I'm more irritated by tearing as opposed to anything (even jaggies don't hugely bother me - then again, I play at 2048x1152, and eventually will move up to 2560x1600, so what jaggies_ ) so I guess it's just two sides of the same coin.

It's true that AF has minimal impact, on most cards, but it can be a performance killer on machines that are on the fence, like a 8800 or 9800 for example.

If you're happy with your performance, obviously, then don't change anything. I'd rather have a smooth, non-dipping picture (and as long as PhysX are off, my GPU almost never dips lower than 45 FPS or so - PhysX seems to murder performance badly) so for me my basic only tweak that I need is Adaptive VSync on. With an overclocked 2600K and that 690, if anything, my system is pretty much overkill for this game.

[Saint_The_Judge]

Bottom line: game is badly coded and non optimized. Like many others, such as Planetside 2. But at least in the latter I did a good tweak and got like 15 FPS boost. Here, no matter how much I tweak, twist or pray, the result is the same: nothing.

[PhYrE]

DarkPulse, on November 28 2012 - 02:46 AM, said:

First: Don't tell me what to do. You're not a mod. If you don't like what I post, scroll past my posts.

If there was an ignore option i surely would block out your useless gibberish, but there isn't, so you just spam this thread and making it hard for every person who is interested in solving problems to follow up.

Saint_The_Judge, on November 28 2012 - 12:54 PM, said:

Bottom line: game is badly coded and non optimized. Like many others, such as Planetside 2. But at least in the latter I did a good tweak and got like 15 FPS boost. Here, no matter how much I tweak, twist or pray, the result is the same: nothing.

I totally agree. I had my hopes up that Hawken could get a decent f2p, but under those circumstances i won't touch it for a while.