Game Performance "midgame" development Cycle720

I´ve loaded your savegame, and on single speed i get 30fps, on double 15 and on max speed 10-12fps.

So, 1. question, what CPU do you have?

2. remove those ladder-cascades. Pathing is the most challenging thing in this game, and you made it even worse, because on every step of those ladders, dupes can choose to change path. And then again. And then again. And... you get the picture? Use simple ways. 

#1   Intel (R) Core (TM) i7 CPU  920 @2.67ghz.   18gb memory. with SSD drive.


#2  shouldn't be the player's responsibility doing something that is within the bounds of the game.

limiting how a player plays a game   is not an appropriate response for   reducing a problem.

That's like saying  don't explore the map and don't dig and don't put stuff on the floor.   and don't use pipes.  don't use automations.    you get the idea.   the ladders were temporary to save resources and time from having to remove them all later.

Your frames per second depends on where you're looking and how far zoomed out / in you are.   10-12fps is about right but 7fps for me on high speed looking at certain areas of the map.    It really depends on where you're looking and what zoom factor you're in.  Could also be a memory leak  as Fresh Game loads  its fast.   after 10 hrs of game play   its down to 7fps. saves/load gets bad over time.     

I can easily load the game like you did on a fresh game startup.  but after long periods of game play, you will see the drop in fps.

(ALSO)  what screen resolution are you running it at?
I play in Windows mode.   I can get it down to 30fps  by having a SMALL window view area.

It's 7fps when I have the game stretched out on my 4k monitor.

#3  10-12fps is STILL pretty bad    will only get worst by time you get to space.  and this is only midgame development.  Think about it.  You're happy with 10-12fps??

Edited July 9, 2019 by RonEmpire

It is, how it is. The game is not yet perfectly optimzed, and to many path-choices are bad for performance. We all have to deal with this issue. 

Second, ONI prefers really powerful CPUs. Sure it scales over cores, but not with everything yet. So higher core speeds are still better. Your CPU ist a rather old one, and it limits to 2,6GHz, with a short time boost to just under 3 GHz (which wont apply in a game like Oni very often). Mine is a bit newer, an working at 3.2GHz as a base clock. That makes a difference. 

third: You have to consider, this is a preview, not a stable version. There are telemetry functions in place, that also reduce the performance. It was even worse in earlier previews. 

Just wait for the stable version. It will run a lot better then, as always. 

My CPU is of course quad core   and above the minimum spec for the game (Dual Core).   Works just fine on a ton of games even new games like Anno1800.

Obviously I'm not new to the preview build scene.   It's a given that its got issues because of the preview.  
That's why I'm sending a SaveFile for them to do optimization.    Better to have a variety of users provide saves to test out and optimize. 
(I've got debugging logging turned off).  They can test it with their debug tools off for game performance.

Game is at a mid-level -  will only get worst going to late game.  So better to take a look at it and see what can be done.


Point of preview is to have people test and provide feedback.   

Edited July 9, 2019 by RonEmpire

This savegame has the worst performance I have ever seen in ONI.

I managed to get 23 fps at full speed. For comparison my computer had 45 and 55 fps on the benchmark savegame depending on where I looked (or at least I tried twice with two results). The benchmark thread started out based on an uploaded savegame being referred to as "unplayably slow" and while people average is around 32 fps, many have around 20.

If this savegame is half speed of "unplayably slow", then it should most certainly be worth profiling.

Yes your CPU is a quad core, so is mine. But mine has ~30% more power, because its a newer model, and it has more clock speed. I do believe it suits you fine with other games. But ONI is not other games. Its ONI, and its very special. While other games heavily rely on a good GPU, all the work in ONI is done by the CPU. You could render the game on a abacus, but you´ll never have enough CPU-power at all. Even people with an i9 have problems. 

Thats why the forum is full of tips of do´s and dont´s. And making dupes pathing to complex is an absolute no go at all. 

It all comes down to your old CPU. Yes, of course, its way beyond minimum specs. The game runs, doesnt it? Thats what minimum means. 

And there is already a discussion about raising the min-specs for the game. They are as old as the 1. preview. I´m sure they will adjust them at release, when they know what´s really needed. Thats btw. completly normal. E.A. games develop while we are playing them. They change, and sometimes they become more and more hungry in terms of hardware. If your rig is no longer sufficient to run the game at release, thats truly sad, but thats one of the downsides of early access...  You may end up with a great game, no longer running on your potato. 

Thats why folks dont want E.A., because you never know whats the result. 

But even if i end up with a game, that wont run on my computer anymore, i had a ton of fun with it. Its a calculated risk on my side. If you dont like to take that risk, i suggest you dont buy E.A-Games. 

5 hours ago, SharraShimada said:

Yes your CPU is a quad core, so is mine. But mine has ~30% more power, because its a newer model, and it has more clock speed. I do believe it suits you fine with other games. But ONI is not other games. Its ONI, and its very special. While other games heavily rely on a good GPU, all the work in ONI is done by the CPU. You could render the game on a abacus, but you´ll never have enough CPU-power at all. Even people with an i9 have problems. 

Thats why the forum is full of tips of do´s and dont´s. And making dupes pathing to complex is an absolute no go at all. 

It all comes down to your old CPU. Yes, of course, its way beyond minimum specs. The game runs, doesnt it? Thats what minimum means. 

And there is already a discussion about raising the min-specs for the game. They are as old as the 1. preview. I´m sure they will adjust them at release, when they know what´s really needed. Thats btw. completly normal. E.A. games develop while we are playing them. They change, and sometimes they become more and more hungry in terms of hardware. If your rig is no longer sufficient to run the game at release, thats truly sad, but thats one of the downsides of early access...  You may end up with a great game, no longer running on your potato. 

Thats why folks dont want E.A., because you never know whats the result. 

But even if i end up with a game, that wont run on my computer anymore, i had a ton of fun with it. Its a calculated risk on my side. If you dont like to take that risk, i suggest you dont buy E.A-Games. 

same problem with gtx 1070ti, i5-8500, ssd, 16gb ram. My pc is potato too?

I have ultra on assasins creed odyssey..

Optimization is critical! Without it, this game brings a lot of discomfort.

1 minute ago, helight59 said:

same problem with gtx 1070ti, i5-8500, ssd, 16gb ram. My pc is potato too?

Sure. You need to buy a highend computer 10 years from now before it's good enough for playing the game. You should know that

Jokes aside, there is a performance issue and your computer shouldn't struggle. It really is highend compared to what a lot of players are using. At least if you judge from what specs people posted in the benchmark thread.

5 hours ago, SharraShimada said:

Its ONI, and its very special. While other games heavily rely on a good GPU, all the work in ONI is done by the CPU. You could render the game on a abacus, but you´ll never have enough CPU-power at all. Even people with an i9 have problems.

I don't really get your argument here. You are saying ONI has higher CPU requirements than most games. It's ok for (player name) to have slow performance because other people have slow performance too.

Somehow I can't read your arguments in any other way than you are confirming that ONI has an issue with requiring more CPU power than most people have. That would be a problem even if it can be explained by game mechanics. Low framerate is low framerate regardless of what the game is doing and people really like playing a game running smoothly, particularly if they spent a lot of money on a new highend computer.

Okay with the new Update just now.  I'm getting about 20fps on normal speed maybe 25ps. depending on where I look on the screen.  Its a bit more playable now.   So optimization must have kicked in with the pipes.


Now - if  you're saying Pathing is an issue because of my ladders.    In theory if I put my dupes in a room with no exits  there shouldn't be path issues.  Nothing to calculate for dupes. right?      Or better yet- I should be able to go to just sand box mode and delete all the ladders and everything down to a room and delete all the stuff on the floor and my FPS should improve is what you're saying right.

Well.   Let's  do some testing, since this is testing branch.   I'll get back to you in a moment and let you know if FPS improves.

Okay-  I just noticed something weird.   And this is definitely some sort of memory leak.

On the Fresh Load of launching the game program.  and loading of the save file for the first time on fresh launch.   I got that 20-25fps playable state. 
JUST now,  reloading the SAME game file,    (second load.)  the game DROPS down to the 8-10fps.

So all of you who have loaded my save,  getting better performance is because you've launched it fresh and loaded the game for the first time. 

This proves my point that there's some obvious memory leak going on.


 

Edited July 10, 2019 by RonEmpire

So -  Pathing/Ladders is NOT the issue.  In fact, removed all ladders to long extended commutes and far away access points.  went through and deleted all pathing related stuff where dupes need to go fetch stuff. disabled all bins and fetching for fridges and storages.   NOT related to fetching  Game FPS doesn't improve much or any.    So suggestions related to my use of cascading ladders  = poor advice. 


Depending on where I'm zoomed and scrolling I get 8fps to - 12 fps on max speed.

So going through and deleting stuff.    I have found results/improvements   deleting critters.

It's the critters that are causing the massive fps.  

Deleting ladders deleting all fetch jobs, removing pathing to dupes problem.  Its not the dupe's pathing.  

Its all the damn critters.  Fishes!!   Got an increase in FPS  just deleting fishes.  and working on deleting other critters.

YUP FPS increase just deleting critters.  On high speed, I've reclaimed almost 90% FPS increase   from removing critters.  


Games need more optimization on Critters basically.

Edited July 10, 2019 by RonEmpire

The savefile runs normal at the first look. But it is like my savegame with 1100 Cycles. How you said: "The first cycles are running normal" ~30FPS Normal => 10FPS Fastest. But then, it drops to 15FPS at normal speed instantly... Nothing special is happened. I have all buildings, but something in the beta preview cause the extreme lagging sometimes. After a restart it is normal again as you said. I couldn't find the reason for the lag. I have much more ladders than you, believe me, you are harmless and that is NOT the reason. Maybe it is just the debug code, or maybe the game has an special error with some situations. Maybe the PIP get stuck and don't do anything and cause the lag.

The game has still a problem if you are playing over a couple of cycles. ONI use then 6GB in total of RAM out of 32GB.

Wait for the launch. If the error is still in there, it wasn't the debug mode.

probably inner debug tools which they turn on in all previews, and later turn them off in live versions.

noticed two things:

1. ONI do rely mostly not on CPU but on GPU, i can increase game speed 2x or 3x and got same 35%(overall) usage of my i5 CPU

but framerate lowers drastically

2. Currently, props menu (bottom-right corner) for buildings and dups lags as hell, it's much better for me if it closed

 

Edited July 10, 2019 by vsolar

9 hours ago, vsolar said:

1. ONI do rely mostly not on CPU but on GPU, i can increase game speed 2x or 3x and got same 35%(overall) usage of my i5 CPU

but framerate lowers drastically

Correct observation, incorrect conclusion. ONI is still limited by CPU.

ONI mostly rely on a single CPU core. However windows' task manager seems to be very unwilling to report one core as 100% and the other as idle. It assumes the demanding task to be heating up the core and moves it between cores frequently to avoid hot and cold spots and local thermal throttling. This can give you readings like 30-35% on a fully loaded core.

ONI has a bunch of CPU calculations for each frame. If those calculations can't be done within 16.67 ms, the next frame will be delayed and you won't get 60 FPS. The later it is, the lower the framerate. When you increase the speed, you give your CPU less time to do the background tasks and since it's 100% loaded, the only place it can take the time from is the frame calculations and you get a lower framerate.

ONI hardly even use the GPU. I once loaded the savegame from the benchmark thread (remember it's supposed to be slow) and ran it at full speed to monitor the temperature of the CPU and GPU. It took me almost 3 cycles before the GPU fan even started and eventually it decided to stay at 17% and never go higher. That's not a heavily loaded GPU.

Changed Status to Fixed

Thanks for the save file, it helped me find a major performance problem with the crab AI. Try again after tomorrow's patch!

12 hours ago, Nightinggale said:

Correct observation, incorrect conclusion. ONI is still limited by CPU.

ONI mostly rely on a single CPU core. However windows' task manager seems to be very unwilling to report one core as 100% and the other as idle. It assumes the demanding task to be heating up the core and moves it between cores frequently to avoid hot and cold spots and local thermal throttling. This can give you readings like 30-35% on a fully loaded core.

Yeah, i did more testing, looks like you are right. Frame drop because of game choking. 1(+1) core using in 2019 , crazy.

4 hours ago, vsolar said:

1(+1) core using in 2019 , crazy.

As much as I agree with you regarding that statement, spreading the workload to more threads is far from trivial and comes with a high risk of slowing down rather than increasing the speed.

Think of it this way. Say we have two dupes, each controlled by their own CPU core. They both try to pick up the 100 kg coal on the floor. They do it at the same time and they both carry 100 kg coal after that. Even if it manage to not crash the game (it might), it will still be a bug. Fixing it means one core telling all the other cores "this one is mine". Now the cores have to do that each time a dupe picks up something and the game will work again. However now the cores keep calling each other because they never know if another core is interested at the very same time. They then have to wait for a reply before continuing and that could be slower than just letting one core do everything and not waste time talking to other cores.

Properly spreading the workload across all cores is awesome, but only if it's done correctly. There have been multithreading tools in development to make this task easier ever since dual core CPUs or perhaps even since single core with hyperthreading. The fact that most games still relies on single threaded performance, even AAA titles is an indication of how difficult it is to do certain tasks multi threaded.

In my opinion, it isn't fixed. I have still the problem, that the game slowdown over a couple of cycles. So, the fix don't work or it wasn't the crab AI.

On ‎7‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 5:32 PM, DustFireSky said:

In my opinion, it isn't fixed. I have still the problem, that the game slowdown over a couple of cycles. So, the fix don't work or it wasn't the crab AI.

The Crab AI did give me a boost.   But long term  playing at 25 fps  is still pretty bad.  And this is only midgame tech. (it will only get worst from here unless more optimization is added in)

Edited July 15, 2019 by RonEmpire

It is better than before. That's right. I play at cycle 1500 on normal speed, because the others results in lagging. But something in the game cause sometimes extreme FPS loose and slow the game down to 4 FPS from 30FPS at normal speed! That is still present in the game with the actual update. Maybe it is just me, don't know. But I have sometimes the problems. And I don't know what cause the slowdown.... We will see. Maybe the game runs perfect at the release with 30FPS on third speed.