FPS hit when using IB

[TRoN]

I've be struggling with this too. But I have concluded that, in my case, if I don't load a background image to my menus, my FPS hit is less than 10 and that's is acceptable - I think I've always played with that FPS hit even before menus existed. So I'll live with that for now.

I have complex menus, with lots of images on buttons, lit and unlit so it's normal to have some impact. What I think not very normal is the background image impact. My menus have custom templates and when I load the window texture (background image), omg, FPS down down down...

The BG image was a png24 with 60K, so I remade it to a PNG8 12K, and finally to a single pixel (!!!). The FPS hit was always the same.

I don't know much about this but I think ISBOXER is using more resources than should be needed in this particular case.

[Skarling]

I am at a loss... There is no EQ2-custom.cfg in my EQ2 directory, I think this reference in .ini reflects that I don't use preset configs in-game. The weird thing is that when I experiment with settings, by choosing pre-set "Highest Performance", "Balanced" etc. with clickbars on, I dont have any impact on performance - steady 18-20fps. With click-bars off, the performance varies significantly - from 60 fps on Balanced, to 20-25fps on Highest Quality, so it is very strange. I experiment in Guild Hall to minimize impact on FPS by players/NPCs.

Maybe if you copy-paste my above config in your own eq2_recent.ini you'd be able to reproduce the problem, otherwise I am out of ideas.... It's as if with Bars my game screen gets drawn twice instead of once...

[Skarling]

Quick update - I have disabled images in my template menu (sadly losing visualisation on press and mouseover), and that reduced my FPS loss to 50% vs. double loss with images. When I have my toon standing staring at the blank wall in GH, I draw 63 FPS with no visible menu. With G15 buttons menu on, its 44 fps now, but still an improvement over 20ish FPS if I use button images for visual effects

P.S. My monitor is 120Hz, fwiw...
PPs Lol, I posted my update and the saw TroN's post above, him coming to same conclusion on images

Also, I have logged into my WoW account with same menu - with or without button images the impact is negligibe, like 2-3 frames, tested in Darnassus, 60 fps on average. I don't use custom textures for menu backgrounds like TroN though, and my idea of visualization is gray rounded-corner square on mouseover, and green one on pressed. background image is rounded-corner black square. EQ2 sucks.

[MiRai]

I know you've tried disabling VSync via the ISBoxer Character Set option, but if you could disable it in game as well since your config shows:

Code:

cl_refresh_sync true

This would give me peace of mind that it's definitely not a VSync-related issue.

[Skarling]

I've disabled it ingame, but result is unfortunately same. With Menu on I have 20 fps even on character select screen (images back on).

[lax]

How about through the NVIDIA Control Panel, does it have an application profile configured for EQ2, or do you have any custom settings applied?

My NVIDIA control panel options are DEFAULT, with all antialiasing options either Off or app-controlled, threaded otimization "Auto", triple buffering Off, v-sync app controlled.

[Skarling]

Aye, Mine are default too for Eq2. I played a bit with settings but did not get any improvements, so I reset it all back to default. Last I played EQ2 for any duration was half a year ago, with a few clickbars always on (healing, utility and standard broadcasting). I dont recall having any issues then.
I picked it up again just before last weekend for double XP and to bring my warlock to 92 and noticed this fps problem. There've been quite a few game and driver updates in between, so I cannot really nail down when this issue arose for the first time. For now, I can live with semi-transparent vanilla menu (replacing my click bars) as it has tolerable impact. Hopefully future drivers will sort it out, and maybe its related to the way my 3d-enabled driver deals with overlays in EQ2 (I dont believe so as I tested with driver disabled in nvidia panel too, but well).

Meanwhile if you keep on working on optimizing the impact the menu images have on overall performance (see also TroN's post above), we should be getting there

Thanks for assistance, as always.

[Skarling]

Just to give an idea of the kind of fps hit I experience.

1. No menus, no bars, EQ2 with interface hidden (is1 window on main pc)



2. G15 and Heal menus on



3. No menus/bars, IS GUI console open



and that's with no images in menu buttons, if I add those, fps plummets further down - this one is with background, mouseover and pressed images on.

[Skarling]

To add a perspective - Same layout but with a different game - Vanguard SoH



and with same menus as in EQ2



adding images to buttons has no noticeable impact on FPS

[Skarling]

I can now confirm that the above issue with Everquest 2 and Isboxer is caused by stereoscopic 3-d nVidia driver. I was making a clean install of video drivers and after the installation I launched EQ2 before I enabled stereo-3d in nVidia control panel. Surprisingly there was almost no FPS loss with menus enabled. However, once I enabled stereo 3d driver (it goes through a wizard when you enable it for the first time after a new driver install), the issue was back. If I turn it off now in panel, the issue still remains. Even after I turned off the nVidia stereoscopic 3-d driver process in "System" and set it to "manual" from "auto", it is all the same.

Moreover, I have tested Menus on my second PC which is not stereo-3d capable and there is very small FPS loss with menus on.

I've no idea what exactly happens and why EQ2 is the only game that reacts so violently to Isboxer overlays once s3d has been ebabled, but here it is.