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[STO] 2 or less FPS on initial client load screens (possible fix)

Moderator: MiRai

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ByDesign

Posts: 17

Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2014 12:50 pm

Post Fri Oct 31, 2014 11:11 am

Re: 2 or less FPS on initial client load screens

lax wrote:
Side note to Lax: you mentioned you got past this problem - can you tell us what kind of card (Nvidia or AMD for example) and what driver version you got to work?

Again I didn't really do anything to "get past" it; the game said it reset video options and from then on it just worked. I was running an old driver at the time, but I've since updated and now I'm on 344.48 with a GTX 870M. I'm also using the development build of Inner Space, which you're welcome to try but does not specifically solve any related issues (I've also reverted to the live build and everything still works as expected) -- to try it out, right click IS and select Patcher, tick "Download development (test) patches" and then close and restart Inner Space to let it patch up.

I do have STO in D3D11 mode.


Client running in Maximized Window Mode (still occurs in normal windowed and maximized)

You didn't mention trying Fullscreen mode. For completeness, I would try Fullscreen mode as well. ISBoxer will still force the game into windowed mode, but the game will think it is in fullscreen mode and do a few things differently.



From your Diagnostics, this kind of sticks out to me as potentially important here:
Code:
76. C:\Windows\system32\DXGIDebug.dll

While from my diagnostics:
Code:
83. C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\dxgi.dll


Yours is using the debug DXGI (DirectX Graphics Infrastructure), and mine is using the release DXGI. This could be a pretty significant performance difference. Unless you've specifically enabled the debugging mode, I don't know right off-hand why this would be in use on your system and not mine. Generally to use the debugging either you have to set up an override using the DirectX control panel, or it has to be built into the program to load it, and that's only AFTER having installed the debugging in the first place (e.g. via the Windows SDK).

One other thing that sticks out in your diagnostics:
Code:
34. MultiMon - Process ID: 2204 (C:\Program Files (x86)\MMTaskbar\MultiMon.exe)

Can you try shutting down MultiMon? There have been cases with this and similar tools where game has updated and broken something compatibility-wise between it, the game, and Inner Space.



Any additional thoughts Lax?
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thoathunter

Posts: 25

Joined: Sat May 25, 2013 7:24 pm

Post Tue Nov 04, 2014 4:49 pm

Re: 2 or less FPS on initial client load screens

Sad to report, still getting same exact symptoms (2 FPS, 100% CPU) with following changes:

Nvidia GTX 970 video card
Nvidia driver 344.60
Innerspace 1.13 Build 6035
STO Live ST.45.20141019a.9

-- base system
Intel Core i7-4960X @ 3.60GHz (6 cores)
32 GB RAM
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Corsair SSD

Anyone else with similar config that is running STO through ISBoxer without issues?

I may try an older Nvidia driver next to see if that makes any difference.
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thoathunter

Posts: 25

Joined: Sat May 25, 2013 7:24 pm

Post Tue Nov 04, 2014 7:23 pm

Re: 2 or less FPS on initial client load screens

No luck with 344.11 either (oldest one I could find for the 970). :(
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ByDesign

Posts: 17

Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2014 12:50 pm

Post Thu Nov 06, 2014 6:15 am

Re: 2 or less FPS on initial client load screens - possible fix

I seem to have a working solution at this time.

I previously used the CPU setting Round Robin balancing for hardware performance reasons, in this mode I used 1 core per client as needed (I believe this is how it works)

Setting the CPU wizard to "All CPUs with Every Window" seems to have fixed the issue for me.

I am not sure why the Round Robin cpu configuration was causing me issues after the delta rising patch, perhaps Lax would know more.
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thoathunter

Posts: 25

Joined: Sat May 25, 2013 7:24 pm

Post Thu Nov 06, 2014 3:01 pm

Re: 2 or less FPS on initial client load screens (possible fix)

I can confirm that your workaround works for me too - using "Select all CPUs with every window (FPS 60/30) (slots per core 6/6/6/6/6/6) (cores per slot 6/6/6/6/6/6)" worked right away for my STO squad on my 6-core PC.

Thanks so much for finding this workaround and taking the time to post your results to the forum!
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ByDesign

Posts: 17

Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2014 12:50 pm

Post Thu Nov 06, 2014 3:13 pm

Re: 2 or less FPS on initial client load screens (possible fix)

I should note I didn't try the other 4 CPU configs so any of those "might" also work if the setting I indicated is a performance hog.

Also there are options in the Advanced tab that can help performance also.

Multi-Core Rendering off should help.
World texture detail = 50% (min setting)
Character texture detail = 50% (min setting)
Bloom Intensity = 0% (min setting)

Hope this helps
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thoathunter

Posts: 25

Joined: Sat May 25, 2013 7:24 pm

Post Sat Nov 08, 2014 3:10 pm

Re: 2 or less FPS on initial client load screens (possible fix)

I noticed that I was still getting short 100% CPU busy times when the slot would be unresponsive, then after 5-10 seconds it would recover. I run all my slots with

Options/Graphics/Render quality = Low
Options/Graphics/Graphics detail = Low

After I set these values in the Advanced tab, performance was fine and I saw no more temporary freezes.

Options/Advanced/Reduce CPU/GPU usage = On
Options/Advanced/Limit CPU usage when inactive = On
Options/Advanced/Multi-core rendering (requires restart) = Off

I'm guessing that maybe having four different multicore optimizers at once may be confusing things!

1 STO has its own multicore settings
2 ISBoxer uses CPU strategies
3 Nvidia card driver has 3D Settings/Threaded Optimization feature
4 Windows 7 presumably does its own form of load balancing
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ByDesign

Posts: 17

Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2014 12:50 pm

Post Sun Nov 09, 2014 4:37 pm

Re: 2 or less FPS on initial client load screens (possible fix)

thoathunter wrote:I noticed that I was still getting short 100% CPU busy times when the slot would be unresponsive, then after 5-10 seconds it would recover. I run all my slots with

Options/Graphics/Render quality = Low
Options/Graphics/Graphics detail = Low

After I set these values in the Advanced tab, performance was fine and I saw no more temporary freezes.

Options/Advanced/Reduce CPU/GPU usage = On
Options/Advanced/Limit CPU usage when inactive = On
Options/Advanced/Multi-core rendering (requires restart) = Off

I'm guessing that maybe having four different multicore optimizers at once may be confusing things!

1 STO has its own multicore settings
2 ISBoxer uses CPU strategies
3 Nvidia card driver has 3D Settings/Threaded Optimization feature
4 Windows 7 presumably does its own form of load balancing


Thanks for the information. I am more concerned that the Round Robin CPU strategy doesn't appear to load balance at all.

I tried going to an older build of Innerspace and found that any Innerspace build prior to 1.13.6023 simply crashes the STO client when set to Round Robin CPU Strategy.
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ByDesign

Posts: 17

Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2014 12:50 pm

Post Sat Nov 15, 2014 1:40 pm

Re: 2 or less FPS on initial client load screens (possible fix)

Update:

I have found that the Round Robin CPU strategy simply does not work on my AMD chip set (see op for type) for load balance. This cpu strategy simply maxes out one cpu per client but never utilizes the spare 3 cores I have after 5 clients are running.

For my multi-core setup I have found several things that could help for performance in the STO client itself as well as how to review which cores are assigned to what clients in ISboxer.

I have since decided to either use the cpu strategy of "Select all cores for all clients" or "Let game decide which cores to use". The following thing "may" help any one reading this having CPU issues with their multi-box set up on AMD multi-core chipsets or anyone else who is just having issues with performance with STO.

STO Client Options settings
1. Graphics tab -> Render quality slider to minimum (should be obvious)
2. Graphics tab -> Graphics Detail to minimum (should be obvious)
3. Reduce CPU/GPU usage to On
4. Advanced tab -> Multi-core rendering to Off (means dont use cpu to help graphics rendering)
5. Advanced tab -> Limit CPU usage when inactive to On (background clients use minimal cpu)
6. Advanced tab -> Auto-stabilize framerate to Off (uses more gpu to do this)
7. Advanced tab -> Framrate Stabilizer to Off (uses more gpu to do this)
8. Advanced tab -> Character Texture detail slider to Minimum (50% lowest setting)
9. Advanced tab -> World texture detail slider to Minimum (50% lowest setting)
10. Advanced tab -> Bloom Intensity slider to Minimum (0% lowest setting)
11. Advanced tab -> Limit Frame Rate to 30 (I use 30, could go lower)

ISBoxer CPU Strategy settings
You can review your strategy setting by clicking on the Character set in the upper left pane of ISboxer then clicking on the character slot number in the lower left ISboxer pane, and then selecting the performance tab on the lower right ISboxer pane. In this pane your Core assignments will be visible and your Framerate limits for foreground and background are listed for the client slot selected. This allows you to manually set these options.

For ISboxer I would set the foreground and background FPS to 30 for each character slot.

Remember to save and export any ISboxer setting changes you make.

If you use an Intel chip set and are having performance issues I don't know if any of this will help but it might.
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