33 replies to this topic

[DarkPulse]

defekt, on November 06 2012 - 05:55 AM, said:

DarkPulse, on November 05 2012 - 01:12 PM, said:

It's AMD, isn't it_ Because an Intel would give you zero issues.

There does appear to be a general pattern to the performance reports.  An ATi GPU (of any flavour) seems to be the common denominator when it comes to poor performance, exacerbated by the presence of an AMD CPU (of any flavour).  ATi cards in Intel systems seemed to report fair to middling performance which may indicate that the superior Intel processing power is in some way compensating by brute forcing past whatever it is that’s causing the ATi cards to crater.

Interestingly, almost everyone who reported performance problems went on to report massive increases in frame rate whilst playing Offline against almost any number of bots*; so, paradoxically, whatever the problem is it doesn’t appear to be a raw draw rate issue.  I eagerly awaited CB1 after playing in CA2 and saw slight, but only slight improvement.  (I fall into the ATi GPU [6870] w/ AMD CPU [965BE] category – the second class citizens of the Hawken world it seems.)  I once again find myself eagerly awaiting then next phase; however, my eagerness is now tempered with some trepidation.

* Andromeda Online: ~25 fps avg. w/ lows of 1-3 fps.  Andromeda Offline (vs 20 bots): ~55fps avg. w/ lows of 15-25 fps.  These are my observations.

Edit: Typos, as per usual.

The AMD GPU isn't really as much of a bad thing (though AMD obviously hasn't gotten drivers out to optimize Hawken yet, I'd think). The AMD CPU is - that 965 BE you got is about as effective as a five year old Core 2 Quad 9450.

Ironically, it's still one of the best AMD CPUs for gaming, bested only by the 980 BE and the recent FX-8350.

AMD just sucks at the singlethread performance side of the game, and while Intel has notched each generation of their chips to be about 5-15% better per-generation in that aspect, AMD simply has not, instead relying on massive multithread performance. It's why AMD will be much more competitive at something like, say, 7Zip (which can split the compression into several chunks) as opposed to gaming or movie encoding, which is all about a few, "heavy" threads.

[defekt]

Oh, without a doubt this will be my last AMD machine but the performance drop in Hawken is massive (compared to itself [online vs offline] and other UE3 games), far and away in excess of any CPU shortfalls.  As observed, Intel systems packing ATi cards still only reported modest performance, so yes, hopefully AMD GPU drivers will address some of whatever the problem is.  Whilst there are a number of factors that influence performance, and the CPU is undoubtedly one, AMD CPUs do not appear to be the single most limiting factor - ten minutes blasting around in Offline mode against two dozen bots proves that with regard to Hawken.

There was a slight improvement going from CA2 into CB1; we'll see how CB2 performs soon enough.

[Roundlay]

DarkPulse, on November 06 2012 - 05:03 AM, said:

Okay, then I'm not sure what you meant by CBE1 being "an uphill battle." With a rig like the one you outlined, no way should you ever dip below playable framerates, even if you max everything out!

Like I said, "More a matter of expectations being met, or not being met, as it were, and less about lackluster performance relative to other rigs." The game's frame rate would frequently drop down into the thirties and occasionally into the twenties. Playable, sure, but certainly "somewhat" of an uphill battle when compared to almost every other contemporary game I've played on this rig. Let them eat cake, etc.

Edited by Roundlay, November 06 2012 - 10:02 PM.

[DarkPulse]

defekt, on November 06 2012 - 07:33 AM, said:

Oh, without a doubt this will be my last AMD machine but the performance drop in Hawken is massive (compared to itself [online vs offline] and other UE3 games), far and away in excess of any CPU shortfalls.  As observed, Intel systems packing ATi cards still only reported modest performance, so yes, hopefully AMD GPU drivers will address some of whatever the problem is.  Whilst there are a number of factors that influence performance, and the CPU is undoubtedly one, AMD CPUs do not appear to be the single most limiting factor - ten minutes blasting around in Offline mode against two dozen bots proves that with regard to Hawken.

There was a slight improvement going from CA2 into CB1; we'll see how CB2 performs soon enough.

Well, I'd bet on that due to being AMD being notoriously slow with their driver support and updates, as well.

It's kind of hard to say this and not sound like a fanboy, but if you want speed and to not wait forever for new drivers, get an Intel CPU and an nVidia videocard. A 10% lead over AMD on Steam surveys means something.

There's nothing technically wrong with the Radeons; they're pretty up to par once there's an update. The problem is those last few words in the previous sentence - "once there's an update."

Roundlay, on November 06 2012 - 08:13 AM, said:

Like I said, "More a matter of expectations being met, or not being met, as it were, and less about lackluster performance relative to other rigs." The game's frame rate would frequently drop down into the thirties and occasionally into the twenties. Playable, sure, but certain "somewhat" of an uphill battle when compared to almost every other contemporary game I've played on this rig. Let them eat cake, etc.

Funny, I've got an i7 2600k and a 690, and my framerate pretty much never dipped below 60 unless I was recording or in extremely rare circumstances.

Have you checked how old your drivers are_ Latest beta drivers are 310.33 (I'm using these), and latest stable is 306.97. Then again, this could also be resolution dependent... I run at 2048x1152 (as my shots show), so the only way I could see it tanking down like that would be if you were trying to do surround.

Edited by DarkPulse, November 06 2012 - 10:15 AM.

[defekt]

DarkPulse, on November 06 2012 - 10:13 AM, said:

It's kind of hard to say this and not sound like a fanboy, but if you want speed and to not wait forever for new drivers, get an Intel CPU and an nVidia videocard. A 10% lead over AMD on Steam surveys means something.

I agree with you, AMD used to be best bang for your buck but that's no longer the case; however, that is beside the point that I was making.

[Cottonmouth]

http://www.overclock.net


join the party!

[Roundlay]

DarkPulse, on November 06 2012 - 10:13 AM, said:

Have you checked how old your drivers are_ Latest beta drivers are 310.33 (I'm using these), and latest stable is 306.97. Then again, this could also be resolution dependent... I run at 2048x1152 (as my shots show), so the only way I could see it tanking down like that would be if you were trying to do surround.

Yep, running 306.97. No surround.

I shouldn't have played so much Titan, it seems. Heavy map.

[Roundlay]

DarkPulse, on November 06 2012 - 10:13 AM, said:

Have you checked how old your drivers are_ Latest beta drivers are 310.33 (I'm using these), and latest stable is 306.97. Then again, this could also be resolution dependent... I run at 2048x1152 (as my shots show), so the only way I could see it tanking down like that would be if you were trying to do surround.

P.S. Maybe we can come up with some kind of symmetrical benchmarking conditions and see how we both fare. Last time I played ten deathmatches on each map and compared the results to confirm/disconfirm my hypothesis that Titan was a touch heavy.

[DarkPulse]

Well, you mentioned your hardware, but not your resolution/settings/etc.

Like I said, if you're trying to do surround, that can have a heck of a performance hit.

[Roundlay]

DarkPulse, on November 07 2012 - 10:15 AM, said:

Well, you mentioned your hardware, but not your resolution/settings/etc. Like I said, if you're trying to do surround, that can have a heck of a performance hit.

Good point. I'm displaying at 1920x1080 set to 120Hz.

[Yourgrandma]

I took a few. Brawler all the way! Cant wait for CBE2




Face full of flak!




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Accidental point blank EMP

[DarkPulse]

Roundlay, on November 07 2012 - 01:38 PM, said:

Good point. I'm displaying at 1920x1080 set to 120Hz.

Okay, then if anything, you should have zero issues. You're playing at a lower resolution than me (though not by much) but my framerate almost never dips. (Though I don't have a 120 Hz monitor, either.)

Did you try the various tweaks in your nVidia control panel_ Setting the card for single-monitor performance mode_ Making sure Windows is on a balanced power scheme_ Disabling active VSync in games and using Adaptive VSync in the control panel instead_ Making sure you're not forcing things like AA, AO, etc._

Edited by DarkPulse, November 08 2012 - 10:51 AM.

[Roundlay]

DarkPulse, on November 08 2012 - 10:51 AM, said:

Okay, then if anything, you should have zero issues.

Okay, obviously "up hill battle" was a poor choice of words on my part. This phrasing was used in reply to BuDeKai who mentioned having to play on the lowest graphical settings "just to make sure he has a constant 60 FPS." Whilst I did try to qualify this Freudian slit a few times—"... I guess I got accustomed to not having to deal with huge frame rate drops! More a matter of expectations being met, or not being met, as it were, and less about lackluster performance relative to other rigs."—essentially what I was getting as was the fact that, even on my fancy hardware, performance during CBE1 was quite variable, and that I too often dipped under 60 FPS.

So, let me rephrase. "CBE1 was not an uphill battle, but instead a vehicle for my first world problems."

[Roundlay]

Yourgrandma, on November 07 2012 - 09:20 PM, said:

Nice!