Frame Rate

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Teej
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Frame Rate

Post by Teej » Tue Oct 27, 2009 11:55 am

With the new video card supposedly arriving today I thought I'd do some easily repeatable before/after testing.

For the record, I am currently running:

C2 Duo 6600 processor - 2.4ghz

Asus 7900GT video card (possibly running low on power - I was never able to overclock it which this card was supposedly able to take)

A power supply that, although it was a trusted, quality brand...is a 4 year old (or more?) 400 watt power supply.

On the way is a Corsair 750w supply and a GTX 975 video card.

I'm not going to tweak any settings until after I swap cards.
Video card settings (changes from default):

Aniso: 8x
Antialiasing Gamma - off
Antialiasing 8xS
Texture filtering - Anisotropic mip filter optimization: on
Texture filtering - Anisotropic sample optimization: on
Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias: clamp
Thread optimization: on

Lockon settings:
TB team mod
Reload textures

Textures: medium
Scenes: medium
Terr Preload: 20km
Civ Traf: off
Water: low
Haze: advanced
Lights: None
Vis Rng: high
Effects: Medium
Blur: Off
Shadows: All planar
1920x1200
32 bit

To keep it simple, I'm just using static framerates at the end of the runway in the "quick mission"

I hit 's' then noted the following:

Default view: 34fps
Disable pit: 40-42fps

Enable pit, look "up" all the way: 72
Disable pit: 131

F3 view: 40

F2 view: 49

I initially tested with liftlines removed. Putting them back in made no difference to the above.

For a little "less easily duplicated" testing, I flew around the little hamlet of razdolnoye at 100 AGL. Out in the open I usually saw about 50. On several passes through the actual town I didn't see lower than 44. Then on my last pass through it was sustaining ~ 22fps. Not sure why the difference.

Power supply didn't show up when it should've. It'll be here today. So I took a 10 minute fraps benchmark run from last night's 6 ship phantom.

Min: 16
Max: 67
Avg: 33.993

After swapping in the 275: (update to follow)
Sawamura
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Post by Sawamura » Wed Oct 28, 2009 3:14 pm

It sounds strange but put water to medium.

Frazer found out that you'll have some more frames when it's on medium, instead of low.

Give it a try. :wink:
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Teej
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Post by Teej » Wed Oct 28, 2009 5:20 pm

Sawamura wrote:It sounds strange but put water to medium.

Frazer found out that you'll have some more frames when it's on medium, instead of low.

Give it a try. :wink:
I don't see any gain from water @ medium... shrug

Of note...I really don't see a loss either.
Last edited by Teej on Wed Oct 28, 2009 5:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Teej
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Post by Teej » Wed Oct 28, 2009 5:29 pm

OK...so now I've got my new p/s and video card in.

The card makes a noticeable, but the useable views did not show a stunning increase. About in line with what I expected. It will definitely help.

The "sitting at the end of Raz' runway" numbers went, in order (old -> new)

(std) 34 -> 42
(std no pit) ~39 -> 50
(pit, look up) 72 -> 210 (!)
(no pit, look up) 131 -> 443 (!!)
(f2) 40 -> 42
(f3) 49 -> 158

Playing back the phantom track, my average fps went up about 20. That's not as great as it sounds. While some of the gain is useful, I realized I was still getting down into the 30s too often when the ground was in view...more on that in a moment.

My machine is now a LOT quieter - the corsair ps has a huge fan instead of 2 small ones...and the fan bearings on my old video card were about shot.

Over and above the card improvement, I remembered that when I was toying around with the game I had brought the "visib rng" up to "high". When I drop that back to low (who needs long range viz on the towns to fly a show?) I gained around 20fps anytime the ground was visible. Playing back the phantom clover opener from last night's practice...where I was getting between 18-30 fps live and with my old card...and 25-35 fps with the new card.....dropping the vis range meant fps was almost always north of 50. That's smoother. :D
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dudeman750
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Frame Rate

Post by dudeman750 » Tue Nov 03, 2009 5:56 pm

Hi Teej,

Just the kind of stuff I like. I have been messing around with modding, overclocking every component possible and swapping components out constantly for quite a few years.

Keep in mind that although your new card is many times more powerful than your old one, that your CPU single core clock rate and also importantly your FSB (front side bus) speeds and northbridge (chipset/memory controller) latencies have a huge bearing on framerate. I imagine with your new card your CPU and memory bandwidth are your new bottleneck. I know that CPU you have is capable of at least 3.3 stable with a good cooler. You didn't mention your board- but the chipset is almost as important a building decision anymore as the parts you choose. Memory latencies gain a little... not much. Early in my system building days we realized so much how memory bandwidth can earn frames per second. It can mean 20 percent sometimes.

For a good comparison, when judging any system changes at all, I suggest using 3dmark for your appropriate operating system (I'm guessing XP). This benchmark will give you an accurate idea of improvement or loss when testing. Also it is a great stability tool as it maxxes out the system. You can loop it for hours. Great for pushing GPU max clock, and finding where you video card memory starts to artifact.

Usually when I build, I first see how far I can push the CPU up, while strapping the memory far below rated maximum. The CPU will flake out eventually, and adding VCORE can gain a little more, but it is usually non linear... much more voltage and heat per gain... Sometimes the chipset will hold back your max CPU clock too. Some boards allow control for this with multipliers or clock. Then max out the memory. I'm not a big fan of overclocking memory too much, because the gains are less, and you can get to the point of random instability.

Then, find a good utility for your video card- find the GPU max and the memory max (one at a time holding the other at or below rated settings) almost all the video cards can be volt modded for more juice- (more heat too). Back in the day we made our own PCB's and attached them to the voltage regulators to allow us to get massive gains from our cards.

Overclocking a system fully can take a while. I believe any computer can be overclocked and still be rock solid if done properly. I have gotten 20-100 percent overclocks on some CPU's and GPU's in the past. (on air and water). (like a 1.8ghz that runs 3.6ghz SOLID) Some video memory will overclock a mile too... and gain a lot. Some won't at all.

Some video cards I've seen will give massive increases in framerate from a small memory bump when they are designed poorly and choked from low bandwidth. It's very interesting to see. Sometimes it's the GPU...

Anyway I didn't want to write a book here- but I have quite a bit of overclocking and video card tweaking time under my belt. It all started with my first 286pc 20 years ago almost. The first pentiums and celerons... then the AMD K5, K6, K6-2, K6-3, Athlons and Durons. AMD was so awesome until the Core 2 came out really. The new Phenom II's are a good bang for the buck but the old ones are pretty lame.

And now the Icore... he he can't wait to build mine this weekend. Most any of the Icore's will do 4ghz as Gunner has found. The x58 chipsets running tri channel are the way to go. But, now the price is still a bit high.

The Nvidia 260's are a great value now for overclocking, Even the ATI 4870's too.

Anyone feel like chatting me on hardware feel free to.

Dudeman
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Post by Luse » Tue Nov 03, 2009 7:38 pm

As much as this is going to stink, when I turn Advanced Haze down I get a 15+ increase.
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Teej
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Re: Frame Rate

Post by Teej » Tue Nov 03, 2009 8:26 pm

dudeman750 wrote:Hi Teej,

Just the kind of stuff I like. I have been messing around with modding, overclocking every component possible and swapping components out constantly for quite a few years.
Ditto. Much of the time I avoid it, but I've been building and occasionally overclocking systems for 20 years. :D

All the way back to having a 12mhz (yes, mhz. Sad, eh?) 286 chip running at 20 back in about '87 or '88.

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Lawndart
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Post by Lawndart » Tue Nov 03, 2009 10:36 pm

Luse wrote:...when I turn Advanced Haze down I get a 15+ increase.
For anyone using LO Reload textures, advanced haze must be on or you'll have graphic anomalies.

Water has the biggest impact on frame rates, since water is constantly being rendered underneath the terrain regardless of where on the map you are. Medium water has the best balance between performance and visuals.
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