Poor FPS / Performance difficulties

[Msportdan]

So after weeks of pretty much playing AC with the new update. I put on GSC, I was looking forward to it long time away and I thought it will be a blast...long time away and all that?!

errr.... maybe not

I was disappointed with it it felt so lacking performance wise so to speak.. I don't want to get bashed here as I'm just trying to be honest and I will be, you all know me by now.

The gfx, which really suffers and not only that I cant sustain 60 fps with this game on full whack, replays can drop to around 20fps on my i7 gtx 970. Theres glitches around tracks etc etc/// Its a little disheartening after running pcars and ac at full whack solid 60fps. The ai have issues and its plain to see. Its just this engine has been flogged to death and reiza have should be proud by it .

The thing for me is that on high shadows (unlike rf2), the shadows dont go on/inside the cars, and sometimes looks very unauthentic/flat. Max shadows kills my fps in shadows heavy tracks/time..

I'm so sorry guys.. I love your work, but I think we need to move on technologically speaking.

 

[Msportdan]

it didnt work when i put in the class folder anyway.

 

[Will Mazeo]

upgrade? how do you know this?


...but of course ill try it..

Reiza is getting rid of the code injection since they licensed the isimotor code if I'm not mistaken, this should make GSC more stable. Not something you can do in a week tho.

 

[Msportdan]

yeah fingers xd

 

[Fabio Rodrigues]

I'm sorry you're still having issues, Dan, and unfortunately we cannot reproduce them in our machines, so there's little we can do to help.

Please note a couple of things:

1) The fact that you can run rF2 on max doesn't really mean much regarding SCE. While we believe you *should* be able to run SCE on max with your computer, note that one of the issues with the older engine we use is that it, sometimes, doesn't make use of all the resources of a modern computer. So you should be prepared to lower some settings to achieve best results (just like some people need to use "-fullproc", effectively using just one processor core, to solve shadow flickering issues. It's not ideal, but it is unfortunately required).

2) As people have mentioned, we do have upgrades to the engine coming. Some of them should, hopefully, appear already in the next beta (coming soon!). So please stay tuned

 

[Msportdan]

Fabio

thanks for taking your time to post on here, i appreciate all you said. I havent tried the fullproc line yet and will try. Ill hang on with reiza im sure they will do their best. The thing for me is that on high shadows (unlike rf2), the shadows dont go on/inside the cars, and sometimes looks very unauthentic. Max shadows kills my fps in shadows heavy tracks/time..

 

[Renato Simioni]

You are welcome to post @Msportdan - btw have you tried the suggestions I gave earlier on the topic?

 

[Msportdan]

i have tried every thing mentioned under the sun my friend.

The only solutions is shadows to high not max. (then i get a very good fps) For some reason max shadows and my pc do not agree.

@Fabio Rodrigues
so the mirror thing when you switch to another internal cam doesnt replicate on your machines?

 

[muzarati]

Maybe track makers need to be a little bit more conscious of this and ask themselves questions like "do all of those 15 trees need to be shadowcasters?" and "will you see the shadow of that grandstand on track when the sun actually comes from the opposite direction?" All these shadows are generated whether the are that noticeable or not, these can be fixed reasonably easily in community content but not official content that has no SCN file accessible.

 

[Spinelli]

Dan is correct...

The minimum framedrops (down to 20-30 fps) always happen but only very briefly and at particular parts of the track / camera angles even when there aren't too many cars on screen compared to other cameras and/or other parts of the track. So I think it must be some sort of track optimization issue.

I owe you an apology, Dan, so I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed it was an issue on your end (drivers, Win 10, too much AA, etc.) without at-least doing some tests first.


BENCHMARK

System
CPU - Intel i7-5930K @ 4.5 Ghz
GPU - Nvidia GTX 970 @ 1524/7696 MHz core/memory (driver: v353.30)
RAM - Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (4 x 4GB), Quad Channel, DDR4, @ 2400 MHz @ 11-11-11-27-1T
OS - Windows 8.1 64-bit

GFX Settings
Nvidia Control Panel - all default except max pre-rendered frames @ 1, and power management mode @ prefer max performance
Resolution - 1920x1080
VSync - off
Game Graphics Level - everything set to it's highest except shadow blur which was disabled (exact copy of Msportdan's GFX settings pic)
Number and Type of Cars - 18 Metalmoros
Circuit - Imola (Bologna)
Time of day - night (12:00 AM)
Camera/View - trackside/TV cam "pack" #1 (press TV/trackside cam button twice as only pressing it once will set it to random)

Benchmark Results Guide
"AF" = Anisotropic Filtering @ 8x (instead of 16x)
"CD" = Circuit Detail @ high (instead of full)
"OP" = Opponent Detail @ high (instead of full)

Benchmark Results

Level 4 AA

Avg: 56 - Min: 24 - Max: 110

Avg: 59 - Min: 25 - Max: 117 - AF

Avg: 62 - Min: 25 - Max: 121 - CD

Avg: 56 - Min: 24 - Max: 111 - OP

Avg: 66 - Min: 26 - Max: 130 - AF, CD

Avg: 66 - Min: 25 - Max: 131 - AF, CD, OP


Level 3 AA

Avg: 70 - Min: 26 - Max: 155

Avg: 78 - Min: 27 - Max: 169 - AF

Avg: 78 - Min: 27 - Max: 165 - CD

Avg: 70 - Min: 26 - Max: 157 - OP

Avg: 88 - Min: 27 - Max: 186 - AF, CD

Avg: 89 - Min: 28 - Max: 187 - AF, CD, OP


Level 2 AA

Avg: 75 - Min: 27 - Max: 181

Avg: 85 - Min: 28 - Max: 197 - AF

Avg: 84 - Min: 27 - Max: 194 - CD

Avg: 76 - Min: 27 - Max: 183 - OP

Avg: 96 - Min: 29 - Max: 217 - AF, CD

Avg: 97 - Min: 28 - Max: 219 - AF, CD, OP


Level 2 AA, Shadows High (Instead of Full)

Avg: 78 - Min: 31 - Max: 182

Avg: 100 - Min: 34 - Max: 218 - AF, CD

Avg: 101 - Min: 34 - Max: 220 - AF, CD, OP


Conclusion
The results show that the large frame-drops happen in all tests including the least demanding setting-combination of level 2 AA, high shadows, 8x anisotropic filtering, high circuit detail, and high opponent detail. Finally, as stated in the first paragraph, the frame drops only happen for a brief - albiet quite noticeable - period of time and at the same parts of the track / camera angle.

P.S. Opponent detail made practically no difference in any test.

 

[Msportdan]

thank you for your post and your apology spin, its much appreciated. You have very well detailed the problems and your findings, more than i ever had. But thankfully we both come to the same conclusion. Only thing im on w10.

Just to clarify

Opponent detail/track-made no fps difference
AF-made no fps difference
AA in game or by NVidia cp-made no fps difference

Shadows to high-massive fps difference
FX to med/hi- slight fps difference

But spin, i did a field of 8 cars and my fps steadied out at these "trouble spots" so is it the track or a combination of both?

My testing place was with 16 Vees at modern montreal. The corner was t4-5 where the cam is looking down the road through this kink (cam2 i think) and if all cars are in the same shot (very possible due to angle of cam) i was getting 40fps there.

 

[Spinelli]

You're very welcome, Dan.

Well, even shadows @ high instead of full still only slightly helped those particular frame-drop spots - 31 fps instead of 27, and 34 fps instead of 29. I wouldn't call that massive unless I'm misundersting what you're referring to.

It could be a bit of both (car and track), as you say. However, there are many areas where I see more cars at once but with quite a bit higher framerates. It's something to do with those particular parts of the track or what is in the camera's FOV or something.

 

[Msportdan]

hhhmmm...If i put shadows too high i have a solid 60 everywhere on track at say canada modern. The corner i refer to has a lot of shadows on track. The trouble spots you refer to is there an abundance of shadows on track?

It would seem our drops are for different reasons?

Im now totally confused lol. Mine happens when theres over hanging shadows casted on many cars. Your seems to be track issues.

 

[Spinelli]

Well, I'm not suprised that there are times when shadows @ high instead of full makes a big difference. I noticed a while back that setting shadows, along with circuit detail, to high instead of full really makes a big difference in trying to maintain fps around a lap (while driving) at many tracks (if not most/all tracks). That is why I highly recommend setting both those settings to high instead of full (along with anisotropic filtering at 8x instead of 16x) - that combined with the fact that you can hardly tell a difference in GFX quality (besides one thing I'm about to mention). Having said that, I was later told by users on here (accompanied by screenshot comparisons) that shadows at high instead of full indeed comes with 1 very particularly noticeable GFX quality drawback: it stops the shadows from affecting anything in your cockpit. Ever since then, I leave shadows on max.

Anyways, I'm getting off track now. To answer your question, I can't tell if there are lots of shadows at those particular spots/views because it's nightime. Even so, shadows, along with circuit detail, at high instead of full makes quite a big difference for most of the lap yet those trouble spots still exist. Maybe those spots have so many shadows - such a rare and insanely high amount - that even shadows and curcuit detail at high instead of full isn't enough for those very brief periods (a couple seconds or so and less than a handful if times per lap).

I'll test medium and low shadows, along with daytime settings (overall less demanding than night), tomorrow to see if they help those trouble spots in a disproportionately higher way than the tiny difference the high settings made relative to full.

 

[Msportdan]

i never run night races, but im intrigued to see that trouble spot at canada with no shadows. I will test.

 

[Will Mazeo]

Would be nice if Reiza made shadow settings adjustable like GTR2
That's the only point (ok, pit animations.. I like them too, specially when the ones from other cars appear, but only offline should be online too!) GTR is better than SCE

 

[roby13]

dan, with vsync always enable tripple buffering too

 

[Msportdan]

roby i actually thought that could be the reason for the drops. But having turned it on and off, it didnt effect anything, But yeah i have it on.

 

[Guilherme Borghezani]

dan, try Contig (desfrag program)
download it
extract the exe in the root folder of gsc
throw a shortcut to work area
right button , go into properties
add -s -v on the shortcut link
like this
"C: \ Program Files (x86) \ Steam \ steamapps \ common \ Stock Car Extreme \ contig.exe" -s -v
save, open the file, let the make process, then enter and see if improved fps / drop
ah, do so whenever the gsc update

 

[Spinelli]

i never run night races, but im intrigued to see that trouble spot at canada with no shadows. I will test.

Well the reason why I ran night time (as well as 18 Metalmoros @ Imola [Bologna]) is because of your following post on page 1 as well as your post with 4 screenshots 5 posts later

for instance a night race with the mr18 at imola, and 18 cars I got well down into the 20s fps. I'm on windows 10 now. What can I provide Fabio, please?

If it wasnt for that, aswell as your screenshot post 5 posts later, I would have not done my benchmarks during night.

 

[Msportdan]

sorry spin must of forgot about those initial tests
okay just did a quick test before having friends round. At night at the trouble spot at Canada I still got the same fps drop from cam view (see fps top right of screens). However in car its 60. So if theres no shadows whats causing the drops?! If turning off max shadows get the fps to 60, y in this shot theres no shadows yet theres 45fps?! Is it the cars then too?!

8 cars running max shadows at solid 60fps

is night one big shadow cast over the track?