24 replies to this topic

[Draigun]

 

^{Take note of the graph located below, and the unit measurements located towards the upper right corner in the video.}

 

This installation of Hawken is running on a Solid State Drive. The game's engine is unable to update frames in real-time apparently, so it bottlenecks whatever is being loaded, creating visible stutter. This effect is multiplied when in matches, since there is a lot going on. You'd think reinstalling the installation from a HDD to a SSD would either fix, or greatly mitigate the problem. It does not.

 

In this case, the video below exemplifies just how bad engine load stutter is on Hawken. However, this is just a small part of the problem; you see, this stuttering can be either 50 ~ 100ms in duration, or close to almost a second—in extreme cases. It's often a hindrance, especially where the amount of time to render a frame shouldn't cause the engine to stutter over very minor parts of the game. For example, even the act of changing mechs without spawning in will cause the client's game to stutter, whether you have the scoreboard on display or not. A notorious case of this engine stutter can often be seen when deactivating the Predator's ability. I'll likely follow up this post with that scenario, since I can reproduce it.

 

Often times, these stutters can prohibit smooth gameplay, since the act of rendering frames and loading something (e.g., streaming assets, handling netcode ticks, server instance updates, what have you) causes the game engine to hitch, and thus, noticeable stutter causes minor and/or major lag in frame delivery updates. In some rare and extreme cases, this engine fault can even affect real-time audio playback, effectively causing pops through the real-time audio stream that is delivered to the operating system. Although it could be a separate bug that plateaus the GPU, and lowers the FPS considerably over a long period of time.

 

It's obvious subtle problems like these are often weighed between solving and not solving, since there is no subjective 'visible' issue with the game engine functioning. This is because many don't know what to look for. This issue/bug could be so deep as to it requiring a complete rewrite of engine code, which is probably out of the question in the first place. But have no doubt, it's real and it certainly exists in Hawken. There are individuals who experience it, some more than others, and it affects their gameplay.

 

In that regard, any plan to fix this issue/bug(?), Reloaded? Why is this happening to nearly all aspects regarding the game client? Is it only related to Unreal Engine 3, and not Hawken itself? Is it some form of the engine not being optimized? Hopefully, I'm not the only one that notices it.

 

 

Edit: Added in the still capture from the video that depicts a very large load stutter.

 

Edit2: Fixed broken links.

 

Edited by Draigun, 06 July 2016 - 12:44 PM.

[Draigun]

Post reserved.

 

Video showing another case of incredibly bad engine load stutter, likely provoked by the action of loading the icons, or fetching backend information (likely).

 

 

The game shouldn't behave this way.

Edited by Draigun, 31 May 2015 - 05:22 PM.

[TangledMantis]

I suppose we can ask the dev's to redesign the game to load its entire codebase into the GPU's RAM and run from there. 

 

While they're at it, I dont want load times between maps. It should all be instant. As soon as I click the hawken shortcut it should take me to the server browser faster than it takes to load www.google.com. In fact, i think it should pre-emptivly load the game before I get home from work. - And it should know when I want to shoot. The time it takes for my mouse button to fully click is too long. 

[Flifang]

Wow, okay so that's my culprit. The stuttering when I boost and dodge that makes any form of evasion impossible. I hope this can be fixed. Thanks for figuring it out!

[TheButtSatisfier]

I appreciate the time and effort you took into documenting this issue. Have you submitted a ticket in addition to posting it here?

[ThirdEyE]

Yea this has bothered me for a long time.  Scrolling up and down in menus quickly results in gigantic lag.  In menus it can be <10 fps if you grab the scrollbar and throw it up and down.  Game is finished, ship it!

[Draigun]

I appreciate the time and effort you took into documenting this issue. Have you submitted a ticket in addition to posting it here?

My initial thought was to see if any of the devs would respond via this thread. If not, I'll submit it through the support channel to see if we can't shed some light on this problem.

 

Yea this has bothered me for a long time.  Scrolling up and down in menus quickly results in gigantic lag.  In menus it can be <10 fps if you grab the scrollbar and throw it up and down.  Game is finished, ship it!

Agreed, hopefully this problem will be corrected before final is to be shipped.

 

Wow, okay so that's my culprit. The stuttering when I boost and dodge that makes any form of evasion impossible. I hope this can be fixed. Thanks for figuring it out!

I know exactly what you're talking about. That actually might not be related to what I described here. I think it was said that it is the result of rubberbanding, based on the netcode and server you're in; although I'm finding that not so believable. It can be reproduced quite frequently, and usually on demand. Or, perhaps the action itself triggers rubberbanding, which would be interesting.

 

However, the engine hitches/stutters so much that it's practically one in the same.

[MechFighter5e3bf9]

try a lower poll rate and do not ever ever use any sort of macro

[Derpy Hooves]

 

 

Edit: Added in the still capture from the video that depicts a very large load stutter.

 

 

You realize this data is showing that your GPU is far from being able to render and display the game smoothly right? I can rapidly switch between mechs, menus, etc. Constantly staying around 220~230 FPS, my frametime never goes above 3ms, nor does my draw or GPU time ever go over 1ms, I've never had any of these "stutters" you speak of. But things would suggest that your running on inadequate hardware.

[Flifang]

I'm running on an Alienware Aurora and this happens to me quite often. I don't know why you feel the need to come in here and question somebody's intergrity on an issue you yourself have never come across. If YOU think it's a load of fuzzy bunny, do us a favor and keep it to yourself. I have this problem in matches and It's the sole reason I haven't been able to get to around 2400 mmr which I have been told is how well I play when everything is going smoothly. It's extremely frustrating

[Draigun]

You realize this data is showing that your GPU is far from being able to render and display the game smoothly right? I can rapidly switch between mechs, menus, etc. Constantly staying around 220~230 FPS, my frametime never goes above 3ms, nor does my draw or GPU time ever go over 1ms, I've never had any of these "stutters" you speak of. But things would suggest that your running on inadequate hardware.

I don't think you understand. That still was taken from one of the video captures that I uploaded, which is in the OP. It was the direct result of loading the Career submenu, which is around the minute and four second mark. These load stutters take effect whenever something is loaded in, and thus, the effect of stuttering occurs.

 

The stuttering we speak of definitely occurs on your installation; it's just that you simply don't notice it, or you don't know what to look for.

 

I'd suggest reading this documentation article here. This is clearly not a GPU issue, so it has nothing to do with the hardware one runs.

[Derpy Hooves]

I don't think you understand. That still was taken from one of the video captures that I uploaded, which is in the OP. It was the direct result of loading the Career submenu, which is around the minute and four second mark. These load stutters take effect whenever something is loaded in, and thus, the effect of stuttering occurs.

 

The stuttering we speak of definitely occurs on your installation; it's just that you simply don't notice it, or you don't know what to look for.

 

I'd suggest reading this documentation article here. This is clearly not a GPU issue, so it has nothing to do with the hardware one runs.

This is even with rapid loading of various things throughout the menu.

 

My numbers at best fluctuate down to 190 for fps, and up to 6ms frametime Frame to 6.12ms Game to 2.71ms Draw to 6.01ms and GPU stays at 2.33ms

[Draigun]

Toxic Rainbows, is there any way you can record accessing submenus, menus, etc. with 'stat fps', 'stat unit', and 'stat unitgraph' commands active using the terminal, and somehow upload it somewhere? It's not that I don't believe your claim in that there is no stutter on your installation, but that the evidence you offered is unable to validate concerns. As an example, take a look at the performance without loading in anything on the main menu screen:

 

 

I achieved the same effect you reached, simply by unlocking my frame buffer, and the respective fps cap. Speaking of that:

 

The only reason why you see a drop to 190 fps—or an otherwise perceived miniscule amount of drop—is because the frame buffer is not restricted to the amount of frames you render. Due to an unrestricted frame buffer, stat unit numbers appear to be normal, even while encountering engine load stutter. In reality though, these load stutters abruptly halts the delivery of frames, which is caused by the bottleneck in the game thread performance.

 

In the original video, located in the OP, I had a 140 FPS cap; consequently, the load stutter was amplified regarding stat unit measurements. Now, in the video below, I'm running with an unlocked frame buffer, and removed the fps cap. The results: stutter can still be seen, spikes in game thread performance can still be seen, and, as indicated by the graph, undesirable amount of frame-time lag. Take a look:

 

Spoiler

 

Comparing that video to the original shows only a difference in the stat unit measurements. Other than that, still being bottlenecked by game thread performance.

 

--

 

Support staff told me something regarding a previous issue sometime ago, that there were some issues with NVIDIA cards. No specifics were mentioned, inlcuding how long or how this came to be. But if this is a long-standing problem exclusive to only NVIDIA, that could explain subpar performance with those running NVIDIA cards. However, the evidence I gathered does not support that theory at all, since only the frames rendered by the game are bottlenecking the frame time performance. No visible degradation in performance is to be seen regarding GPU rendering. In other words, even AMD based cards will see engine load stutter, since the problem occurs with the game engine.

 

The documentation article I linked indicates poor game thread performance. As you and I both can see, there are individuals who agree stutter exists, or the perception thereof. It's a valid concern we have.

 

In the next few days, I'm going to follow up with a ticket to support. Even if these performance problems get looked into—as indicated by the recent weekly update—support will be contacted regarding these stutter issues; this thread will be used as a reference point.

 

As a sidenote, I updated my reserved post to include a video of the worst game thread performance to be seen. ThirdEyE has already described it in this thread. It's not normal for the game to behave this way.

Edited by Draigun, 06 July 2016 - 12:45 PM.

[Flifang]

I use an AMD card so I can confirm it does happen on those

[capnjosh]

This is very useful material.  Thanks.  I've got this post included in the bug tracker ticket.

[EM1O]

yes. amd7750 old-school card does this too. that huge hickup when leaving the first spawn on Prosk for instance.

[Flifang]

This problem has gone far beyond tolerable. At this point this is just plain infuriating. I hope it gets fixed because although the problem for me was there before the game was bought out, the problem has become far more severe, common, and long lasting since changes have been made to the game.

[Meraple]

I thought this was normal, it's been like this for me for quite a while. (Frame showed 167ms at the Service Rewards menu.)

Picture taken from video I just uploaded, showing how it is for me.

Spoiler

Edited by (KDR) Meraple, 18 June 2015 - 12:21 PM.

[PoopSlinger]

Wish i would have seen this before.

[CraftyDus]

The predator cloak break hitch is something I had back when I ran a couple AMD 7950's on a phenom 1100

and still observe it with a couple NVidia 970 gtx's on an i7 4770k

It's like it's always going to be there and part of popping cloak is learning to play pred around the game's engine stutter!

[Drusus]

You can add me to the list of affected parties.

 

What's been blowing my mind is that the problem seemed perfectly replicable regardless of settings selected.  No matter what I did, the behaviour was persistent and the Op's post describes it to a T.  I already have a support ticket in describing the observable phenomena.

 

According to posted specifications I am WELL above the requirements and recommended needs to play Hawken, to no avail as a point of note ToxicRainbow.  While I can accept my hardware isn't cutting edge, one would expect being well above the recommended specs one wouldn't see this kind of tanking in performance with this kind of intensity and frequency.

 

I've been trying to work around it but as others have said, the issue makes 'reactive' combat a futile gesture on my part as often as not when the world simply stops and slide shows without warning or obvious controllable trigger.

 

Glad to see you are taking the post seriously Capnjosh, cheers and top marks Draigun for doing the legwork on this.  For you, much respect and appreciation good sir.

[GGGanjaMan]

I think I've always been aware that the Hawken engine was poorly optimized in some way. Everytime I start the game up, my pc fans start going crazy, sounding like a jet, and the temps soar up. I can play other more graphically intensive games without as much load on my system.

 

I've noticed fps spikes too but have always figured that was due to my pretty outdated pc. Am actually about to build a new pc soon, because an avg of 20-30 fps in most maps just isn't viable for competitive play.

[Draigun]

The predator cloak break hitch is something I had back when I ran a couple AMD 7950's on a phenom 1100

and still observe it with a couple NVidia 970 gtx's on an i7 4770k

It's like it's always going to be there and part of popping cloak is learning to play pred around the game's engine stutter!

Yeah, I continually experience that problem as well. Although I'm only running a single card. Clearly though, it doesn't matter what you run, it's obviously some form of bug in the engine pipeline that causes it.

[Draigun]

Bump.

 

Additional footage showing poor game thread? performance.

 

Spoiler

Bug? Quite possibly, but this seems to relate to CPU cycling and GameThread updates.

 

Spoiler

 

GPU performance is not the culprit here, as indicated by the graph in the video. Draw performance is also not causing too much resource consumption. However, Game and Frame times are hindering the performance of the game for some unknown reason. Quite possibly a rare bug, although I never encountered this one.

 

 

Have a look - https://udn.epicgame...rmanceHome.html

[KaylaClaire]

i get a teensy tiny stutter when loading a match, it's more so noticeable while I am streaming. My pc is a veritable Behemoth, so I am 95% sure that is is not a hardware issue. unless it has something to do with AMD cards themselves