So I have been monitoring things recently after noticing a terrible reduction in quality of my graphics when more than about 5 people are on a server together. :o Note NO .ini tweaks are being used.
At first I thought I was imagining it but no more! In fact it is really quite bad especially now I acknowledge it I see it even worse! For anyone who played Codemasters disastrous F12015 on PC you will know what I mean when I say it suddenly looks like Vaseline has been applied over the monitor screen !
Next test I will do is to switch on the FPS monitor and see if a reduction occurs too.
OK so I am not in the GTX club (Radeon 7850) but that generally eats anything and GPB should be a breeze. In fact with no issues other than online I doubt there is any relevance there.
Anyone else notice this or if just me what might be going on? What could be the correlation between graphics and online (in GPB)? :-\
I have noticed nothing like that Nick but will do some tests too mate.
DD
Is there any setting in Catalyst Control Centre for your Graphics card that is possibly auto reducing pic quality for some reason? Just a thought. ;)
Hawk.
Will have a look mate thx.
Quote from: Hawk on May 24, 2016, 10:33:28 AM
Is there any setting in Catalyst Control Centre for your Graphics card that is possibly auto reducing pic quality for some reason? Just a thought. ;)
Never heard of something similar, for whichever card. Closest thing is throttling of clocks depending on temperature, but even this would only apply if the card has some sort of overclock first (stock clocks should stay just fine).
A drop of FPS is conceivable, but a drop of graphic quality is weird: I'd tend to think only GPB could trigger that.
I had considered maybe the GPU is starting to show its age (literally) or was struggling with temperatures (maybe also because of age) but it seems fine in other games with far higher GPU requirements than GPB.
I will also have to check that RAPTR software isn't doing something. It has good recording and streaming ability but in its OFF state it should be OFF! I don't trust it though especially as it has the ability to show snap replays of in game action - it must be recording them somewhere. But I still don't think this is the problem I don't see the correlation between online and offline.
As MaX states it is hard to believe it is a change in resolution of the models but it could be excessive texture compression. This could be graphics card related or incorrect compression of the original texture.
Is this particular to any particular bikes?
The other possibility is incorrect LOD distancing with the LOD level appearing too early in the view with possibly the computed distance between the rider and other bikes jumping due to network latency.
Does the bike set have LODs? If it is a single model (no LODs) have the file been correctly modified to remove the LOD references (.hrc file)
Nick dont forget GPB is openGL so it will be a bit different from most games for your settings I would think.
Just a thought
DD
All thoughts are good thanks.
H - my last 3 race events are where I have purposefully taken note of the phenomenon. All those were WIP bikes or bikesets. Trouble is now I cannot be certain how log this has been a problem. :-\
A quick google of 7850 indicates that texture issues are not uncommon in games with incorrect control center settings.
I doubt GPB supplies a profile so it could be default or whatever you have adjusted it too.
Letting the application control the values seems to be the fix. I am an Nvidia person so i am not familiar with your card software.
I owned one (and even two) 7850 in the (distant) past, can't recall any texture issue.
Except of course the ones that were brought in by screwed updates to drivers (e.g. rear wheel looking very weird).
No specific settings for GPB in the control center (or crimson stuff recently, but I was then on a 7950).
Most of the comments seemed to relate to the way the software controls the advanced AA modes with some sort of auto distance vs detail control - software driver thingy. Best to google ;)
Quote from: h106frp on May 24, 2016, 12:05:38 PM
Most of the comments seemed to relate to the way the software controls the advanced AA modes with some sort of auto distance vs detail control - software driver thingy. Best to google ;)
interesting, but how could this be related to the number of bikes being on track ?
Load balancing possibly - just looking at the later driver release notes AMD have all sorts of strange things that can be enabled - among others was frame rate balancing - if its balancing an open track vs one with 5 bikes something will need to take a hit.
Only guesswork though, that the problem with all these features when they do not supplement them with diagnostic tools :(
I have not noticed any graphics issues with NVidia - maybe we could arrange to load DD or Nicks server up with bikes for an hours trackday users could comment whether they observe the issue from different platforms. I can probably get 5 bikes briefly in view at the same time as they go past me ???
Thanks for thoughts.
Hardest thing is going to be reproducing it and making a change then testing it again. There is little point fiddling blind I think. Will wait till I see a busy server, dive in and fiddle about! I also want to grab some screens in the hope you can see my problem. ;) If you cannot, wait smear some Vaseline on your glasses or eyeballs.
I did find a site that used the same 'vaseline' description and they attributed it to 'resolution scaling' I know this is usually associated with monitor native and would not be load dependent but the later AMD driver appears to process everything internally at high resolution and then has some sort of dynamic scaling system that outputs the image - lots of 'dynamic' stuff going on :(
A lot of these advanced features (including Vulkan support) seem to have only recently been made backward compatible from newer cards to the older models - has this behavior started after a graphic driver update or system rebuild?
That is the multi million pound question. Exactly how long this has happened for I am not so sure but it is only recently I have really started to take notice of it. So I think it would be a fair bet that a 'quite recent' update is the cause. Maybe some roll-back is needed. Again, if I can reproduce the problem consistently the cure should be close behind. Thanks.
Quote from: h106frp on May 24, 2016, 02:09:01 PM
I did find a site that used the same 'vaseline' description and they attributed it to 'resolution scaling' I know this is usually associated with monitor native and would not be load dependent but the later AMD driver appears to process everything internally at high resolution and then has some sort of dynamic scaling system that outputs the image - lots of 'dynamic' stuff going on :(
But this is supposed to give BETTER results in terms of AA, not worse.
Weird stuf ...
Can rule out GPU temps and stuff all rock solid 44 degrees, 26% Usage max (bar a spike to 85%) .
But GPU Memory Usage is 0% ??? Is that normal? Also I am normally seeing up to 190 FPS but online now at only a steady 60, whether on track or in the garage.
Something is amiss! More monitoring required.
Frame rate hit was also reported as a bug with the fancy scaling systems and some existing games, witnessed at the same time as the texture problems :(
my framerate is dropping significantly on the silverstone server now that so many people are on it.
very strange.
Yes definitely seems I am locked at 60fps. No .ini changes to warrant that - it should be capped at its default 200.
So next step is the Catalyst Crap. Lol.
I will have to check that for my game too. MMA cannot stay connected for more than ten minutes it seems. Think we have been EMP'd again ::)
Quote from: vin97 on May 24, 2016, 06:37:31 PM
my framerate is dropping significantly on the silverstone server now that so many people are on it.
very strange.
Yes me too. Never had fps problems as bad as this, becoming unplayable with 11 players on it.
I had no problems but i removed the framerate cap, runs fine in game.
(did not test GPOC1 silverstone server)
My entry in core.ini
[framerate]
cap = 5 ;; Default = 200, Any value over 1000 or under 10 disables the cap.
I cannot even join it !
60fps could suggest it has locked to the refresh rate of a monitor profile
good point H thx
I noticed a drop of 40fps at some points on Silverstone today.
Did some stream tests and were really jumpy to normal.
DD
the plot is thickening!
just tested it @ GPOC1, had no problems with framerate.
no drops or big rises hovering around 200-250
I have modded my laptop so it can cool from the bottom as well so that I can overclock her and keep her real cool to make thing look a bit better and my fps on siverstone was around 135-140 but then it just dropped to 95!!!
Not normal for me to have such a drop even with lots of riders.
DD
bike mismatch @ GPOC4 server
I have to go "off grid" for a while see you on the flip side
I forgot to update the server Peter it is up now mate sorry
DD
@People experiencing frame rate drops when online with many players: if it happens systematically, can you try with my plugin switched off (if you were using it) ?
Just rename the "MaxHUD.dlo" to "MaxHUD.dlo.off".
Just a wild shot.
Its possible in a future release, turned off the plugins from the interface in game or a hotkey?
Quote from: Blackheart on May 24, 2016, 09:03:21 PM
Its possible in a future release, turned off the plugins from the interface in game or a hotkey?
No
hmm cannot really tell. it might be better without the plugin but there were also one or two guys less on the server.
Quote from: vin97 on May 24, 2016, 11:11:06 PM
hmm cannot really tell. it might be better without the plugin but there were also one or two guys less on the server.
Another check: look in GPB folder wher eyou have the MaxHUD.ini, there shoul dalso be a MaxHUD.log: check how big it is.
Interesting I will look out for that Max.
Update: Was all ready to attack AMd/ATI's Catalyst software on my PC only to find it wasn't on it! Odd I though it was on it 'before'. So off I trot to the website only to learn that 'Catalyst' seems to have been replaced by 'Crimson'. Searched PC for Crimson - no sign.
I use Raptr for telling me about GPU driver updates and following any links when there is an update usually includes the associated software. (I put up with Raptr's other 'useless features' because I use the inbuilt recording/replay stuff which it does well), but I digress, simply put - I have no GPU control centre.
Downloaded Crimson and looked at its features (why does every bit of software now need big buttons to light the way? Are we all morons now? Yep). It has a Framerate sync option that once released can be allowed free and 200FPS is the max it can go for GPB (not sure if it is picking that info up from the GPB program itself or if it is coincidental) anyway back in the GPB menu with the FPS indicator switched on we are released back to good old frame rates 160 average.
Only had time for a quick check on GPBOC4 Silverstone and was pretty stable at 90fps. There were a lot of people there and the graphics quality was OK (not exactly amazing). I did end up lowering AA in a hope that the tops of barriers and stuff stop so much flickering with little affect. Maybe time to explore Crimson some more.
Anyway the framerate is free again but as for the Vaseline Visor in races, that still needs watching, but now I am distracted with something failing inside the GPBOC1/2/3 server and it is intermittent, like all the best faults are ::)
You had Raptr installed but no Catalyst ? Weird.
Free advice (as always):
- Run Display Driver Uninstaller (with reboot in safe mode) to clean-up all the mess on AMD drivers.
- Reinstall AMD drivers (the Crimson stuff if you want the latest and gratest, whichever old catalyst version you had before and was running fine, else).
- GPU drivers update: mostly a myth. If your GPU works fine with your current games, no real need to update. Mostly you need to update for new games (game-specific profiles).
- Raptr: if you rally really really need it, but to be honest, you'd be better off without.
I have put my server up for you Nick. Same as it was before, do I need to change any setting?
I got the laptop cooler today and have opened the bottom of the lappy to decrease temps by 15 degrees C ;D
Now overclocked I get 180-190 fps on Silverstone so waiting for some guys to get on and test it a bit more and H's sound suggestion.
DD
Quote from: HornetMaX on May 25, 2016, 10:59:46 AM
You had Raptr installed but no Catalyst ? Weird.
Yeh I know this is the most confusing bit Catalyst was there before but has now gone no trace!
Quote
Free advice (as always):
- Run Display Driver Uninstaller (with reboot in safe mode) to clean-up all the mess on AMD drivers.
- Reinstall AMD drivers (the Crimson stuff if you want the latest and greatest, whichever old catalyst version you had before and was running fine, else).
- GPU drivers update: mostly a myth. If your GPU works fine with your current games, no real need to update. Mostly you need to update for new games (game-specific profiles).
- Raptr: if you really really really need it, but to be honest, you'd be better off without.
All advice is good advice thx.
@DD - thanks bud you might have the full weight for a while (maybe forever) lol.
Then you better get some shit together about how to hold a frickin race lol.
Right now I would furk it right up and dont know how to do your countdown thingy and all that poo!!!
DD
Always hated AMDs driver solutions, never been good from the very start and every time they try and improve it just adds more messy layers of confusion and unwanted add-ons.
Its the main reason i avoid their stuff and stick with the green team and the more 'classic' driver solution.
Quote from: h106frp on May 25, 2016, 11:28:31 AM
Its the main reason i avoid their stuff and stick with the green team and the more 'classic' driver solution.
I moved to the green side recently for the very same reason, but I have to point out that even the greens have their fair share of driver-related issues.
When you install a new version it keeps quite a lot of the old drivers and/or geforce experience stuff in a folder, in case you want to roll back.
The problem is that after a year and a bunch of updates, you have multiple GB of useless crap on your disk.
As a workaround, they allow you to do a "clean install": this solves the issue, but at the price of losing all your configuration (game specific profiles, geforce experience settings etc).
Yawn ...
I was a die hard nVidia man until faced with reams of products failing with 2-3 years (even if that is an lifetime in GPU land). Made the switch and never looked back really. Very happy with the hardware (touch wood).
I had a failing 4850. Not too sad, as it was a nice excuse to upgrade to a 6850 :)
Reliability-wise, I doubt there's a big gap between greens and reds. It's mostly a price/performance battle.
Talking from experience during the golden age of chip delamination, failures (all not just chip delam) started to run at 24 per hundred over 3 years (which is HUGE!) and was beginning to impact my business confidence. Switching to AMD stamped that out quite quickly especially as their comparable buy-in costs (bang per buck) plummeted a few years back and NVidia were slow to respond.
Of course, I expect them to be on an even par again now but us humans do like to hold on to what we know and like. :)
On the subject of GPB and graphics but not quite this. If I am streaming and need to use my other screen it turns closes down the GPB screen and effects the stream. Is there a way to stop this from happening besides having it windowed(reduces stream quality)???
Sorry to be OT but this might be a graphics setting answer?
DD
Was just on Silverstone, 180 in pits before now with 11 bikes only 100, in the pits!!!! NOT with the bikes even near me. Then cored!!!
DD