Resource usage question
By
DJ_Shecky,
Posted on: 2012-04-05 07:41 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
If you checked your framerate, you would have noticed it as being much higher than normal. Less work for the GPU means the GPU can get more stuff done faster, so it'll be waiting on the CPU more often, even if the CPU is doing less work wrt physics and such (which may or may not be accelerated by the GPU).
I'd never pay much attention to the CPU usage in a game, since games generally don't care about power management, and thus will try to run as fast as possible.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
|
Well, City of Heroes is....odd, to say the least.
I did some testing on my own computer recently.
I have a CPU load and temperature monitor and a GPU load and temperature monitor.
I increased my world detail setting to see what it would do.
I also turned on reflections.
Both of those settings actually decreased(yes) the load on the GPU, without increasing the load on the CPU, but my frame rate did lower.
I increased Ambient Occlusion, after turning it on, and shadow settings and saw my GPU load jump but remain well within the limits and my frame rate dropped.
By the way, try opening options and your graphics settings tab with "showfps" enabled. You will see a huge frame rate drop just from that tab of only text and buttons being open.
That's definitely not supposed to happen in a well made game.
City of Heroes is really using system resources oddly.
I also wonder why the frame rate drops despite my CPU and GPU still having plenty of room for more resource usage. That has perplexed me.
(Edit: I also have 8 GB of ram. This game is not using my system to its full potential and yet the frame rate drops. It should not drop until I'm actually pushing the limits of the system.)
By the way, I suggest everyone run pingplotter, google it, to see how good their connection to the game is.
The GMs had me use that to the server address of 64.25.36.4 and claimed that my end had packet loss. I knew this, but what I didn't know was what pingplotter would show in later tests around 3am CDT
Apparently, the game has packet loss on their end as much as my end(ncsoft-gw.customer.alter.net), and within 2 hops at what is listed as "dfw9.alter.net".
It seems their ISP also has trouble on their end or they are cutting cost by cutting what they pay for internet, blaming us customers for the reduced performance, and that doesn't mesh well with the game's shoddy network code.
It was surprising how much of the red spikes in the netgraph in game, and how often, were caused by their end despite them blaming my end completely.
Quote:
GPUs are very complex beasts, made up of many parts that do different jobs. It's very possible that one part of the GPU is being maxed out, while many other parts are waiting on it, resulting in no increase in load, but a drop in FPS. I'm gonna bet your monitor program doesn't break all the components down and show the individual usages.| I also wonder why the frame rate drops despite my CPU and GPU still having plenty of room for more resource usage. That has perplexed me. |
It's exactly the same situation if you have a single threaded application that's CPU bound, on a multicore system. Task Manager will report the CPU usage as being 50% (for dual core systems, 25% in quad, etc), despite the program not possible able to use any more CPU time, regardless of how hard it tries (without being rewritten to be multithreaded).
Quote:
| (Edit: I also have 8 GB of ram. This game is not using my system to its full potential and yet the frame rate drops. It should not drop until I'm actually pushing the limits of the system.) |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
|
I've heard 3 or 4GB for Windows.
Although, that would then be a fault of City of Heroes since my computer is 64bit and has plenty of room for the usage.
My CPU monitor breaks down all the cores of the CPU into their own monitors. None of them show increased usage, sadly.
You're right about my GPU monitor, but it still doesn't make sense when it is tracking at least the processor and the processor is the main issue when it comes to performance. In fact, I would think the processor would hit it's limit in real time rendering long before the vram would, and the opposite in pre-rendered things like movies(which run smooth as butter for me in HD, FYI).
City of Heroes really does behave oddly, especially considering I can pretty much max out The Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion on this computer.
Quote:
32bit operating systems can only use a maximum of 4GB ram... but, in practice they can't use that much, since all the devices in the machine get mapped over the RAM (and there's no room to push the ram above the 4GB mark).|
Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
I've heard 3 or 4GB for Windows.
|
32bit applications running in Windows can use a maximum of 2GB ram. If they use a special switch, and the OS is 64bits, or a 32bit OS is booted with a special switch (which adjusts the system from a 2/2 split to a 3/1 user/kernel split) the app can use 3GB of ram max.
Quote:
| Although, that would then be a fault of City of Heroes since my computer is 64bit and has plenty of room for the usage. |
Windows XP 64bit edition was basically totally unused (and wasn't actually Windows XP!). Windows Vista was the first to have a 64bit version that was considered to be a first class citizen by Microsoft, but Vista didn't have a massive amount of adoption, and most systems being shipped were often 32bits still. It was only with Windows 7 that the situation has changed (in the Steam Hardware Survey, there's over 3 1/2 times as many Windows 7 64bit installs as Windows 7 32bit installs... but Steam users are going to lean more towards the hardcore side than what CoH has historically targeted).
Quote:
| My CPU monitor breaks down all the cores of the CPU into their own monitors. None of them show increased usage, sadly. |
Quote:
| You're right about my GPU monitor, but it still doesn't make sense when it is tracking at least the processor and the processor is the main issue when it comes to performance. In fact, I would think the processor would hit it's limit in real time rendering long before the vram would, and the opposite in pre-rendered things like movies(which run smooth as butter for me in HD, FYI). |
Also your processor is likely offloading the decoding of the movie to your GPU (nvidia, ATI, and Intel all have decoders included on-die). And even if it's not, current CPUs have no problem decoding "HD" (most useless term EVER!) video. You really think that a task that most new phones can do no problem (playback 1080p video) is going to be a challenge for a desktop class system? Maybe an Atom (but only because those are utter suck, and even any recentish one of those should have zero issue).
Quote:
| City of Heroes really does behave oddly, especially considering I can pretty much max out The Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion on this computer. |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
|
Thanks for the replies on this. I'm not sure what did change graphics wise since I21.5 but I've now got a few things to at least look at. It is just frustrating that I didn't see a mention of graphics upgrades this year and the performance since I21.5 has really suffered.
Defcon 0 - (D4 lvl 50),DJ Shecky Cape Radio
@Shecky
Twitter: @DJ_Shecky, @siliconshecky, @thecaperadio
When you air your dirty laundry out on a clothesline above the street, everyone is allowed to snicker at the skid marks in your underoos. - Lemur_Lad
Quote:
No WINDOWS is using system resources in a way that you fail to understand|
Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
City of Heroes is really using system resources oddly.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
I also wonder why the frame rate drops despite my CPU and GPU still having plenty of room for more resource usage. That has perplexed me. (Edit: I also have 8 GB of ram. This game is not using my system to its full potential and yet the frame rate drops. It should not drop until I'm actually pushing the limits of the system.) |
- just because your car still has lots of empty seats - a resource
and lots of free bootspace - another resource
don't expect to go very far when you run out of petrol - yet another resource
similarly with software if it runs out of any resource whether that is System memory, free handles, environment space, tesselation units,or any of several hundred other things then performance will be affected.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
By the way, I suggest everyone run pingplotter, google it, to see how good their connection to the game is. The GMs had me use that to the server address of 64.25.36.4 and claimed that my end had packet loss. I knew this, but what I didn't know was what pingplotter would show in later tests around 3am CDT Apparently, the game has packet loss on their end as much as my end(ncsoft-gw.customer.alter.net), and within 2 hops at what is listed as "dfw9.alter.net". It seems their ISP also has trouble on their end or they are cutting cost by cutting what they pay for internet, blaming us customers for the reduced performance, and that doesn't mesh well with the game's shoddy network code. It was surprising how much of the red spikes in the netgraph in game, and how often, were caused by their end despite them blaming my end completely. |
Just because one node in the network gets swamped with network requests does not mean there is a problem with the game software at either NCSoft's or your end.
If you were to catch a train from Station A to Station B but someone chops a tree down and that blocks the line at bridge C does not mean the software issuing you with a ticket at Station A has anything to do with you being late for work.
If you are consistently seeing a problem then try reporting that to the correct people - in this case that would be the network teams responsible for the equipment at both ends of the link showing the problem.
Certainly the only links I see any packet loss on is Level 3s transatlantic cable and some again with Level 3 within Dallas. Neither of which has anything to do with NCSoft. Also given that there is no reference to any nodes for Alter.net on my connectiion it would definitely indicate that they are external to NCSoft's network.
Mind of Gaia lvl 50 Defiant's first Mind/Storm 'troller.
Deadly Doc 50 Dark/Dark Corr
and lots more on Pinnacle,Union and Defiant
Quote:
While the problem probably is not with NCSoft itself, there could have been an issue with their ISP at the time. This problem could have been a port on a switch in one of their data centers, or a port on a specific router that his path was going through. |
This is another example of you totally failing to understand how networks work. Just because one node in the network gets swamped with network requests does not mean there is a problem with the game software at either NCSoft's or your end. If you were to catch a train from Station A to Station B but someone chops a tree down and that blocks the line at bridge C does not mean the software issuing you with a ticket at Station A has anything to do with you being late for work. If you are consistently seeing a problem then try reporting that to the correct people - in this case that would be the network teams responsible for the equipment at both ends of the link showing the problem. Certainly the only links I see any packet loss on is Level 3s transatlantic cable and some again with Level 3 within Dallas. Neither of which has anything to do with NCSoft. Also given that there is no reference to any nodes for Alter.net on my connectiion it would definitely indicate that they are external to NCSoft's network. |
I do know that in the past there have been instances where NCSoft knew there was an issue on their ISPs end after enough of us complained and gave them the information to go back to their ISP with. It took a number of months for NCSoft to convince their ISP to fix the issue and only with the amount of information that we as players were able to give them.
That being said running a pingplotter, or even trying to get a reverse resolution from the address that NCSoft gave T_Immoralus returns no DNS information at all. Even the normal sites I use to find out ISP and location information did not give me an ISP for that IP, only a geographic location of Atlanta, GA.
Now can we conclude that there isn't a network issue somewhere, no, but we cannot confirm it. I haven't seen any packet loss on the NCSoft end, but I also watch my own path go through ATT only. It is possible that there is traffic shaping going on (since it is not illegal to do so thanks to no net neutrality rules), yes. Is it possible that either NCSoft's ISP is slowing down t_Immortalus' ISP? Yes. Is it possible the reverse is also true? Yes. Is it possible that there was work being done on those nodes at the time of that particular pingplot check? Yes, and probably the is the most likely answer.
Defcon 0 - (D4 lvl 50),DJ Shecky Cape Radio
@Shecky
Twitter: @DJ_Shecky, @siliconshecky, @thecaperadio
When you air your dirty laundry out on a clothesline above the street, everyone is allowed to snicker at the skid marks in your underoos. - Lemur_Lad
Hi Guys,
I am not a tech anything!
But I do have a problem that sounds very similiar to the OP's.
I have been a player for over 6 years and have had a number of machines to play on. (6 regular PC's and 3 laptops) and all the versions of Windows in between.
My current laptop is an MSI GX723 with a GT130M processor and is sold as a gaming rig laptop. (I understand that "Gaming" must be seen in context)
I have been using this for 2 years and it flys along with everything graphics maxed out.
However for the last couple of months I have been getting sudden and total lockups whilst ingame. The screen crashes to blackness and I have to power down using the on/off button held down to power off it. This has been getting steadily worse and more frequent.
So I have been using my Task Manager stuff to try and find anything that might give me a clue.
The laptop has one other software programme installed, Photoshop CS5 which I use a lot for my image manipulations, large raw files many Mbs big.
At idle my processor is at 2% ish usage. I have 4Gb of ram and have abour 2.5 free.
When I start the new NcSoft launcher that usage builds to about 40% usage and then immediately the game loading splash screen appears (the emasculated Statesman one) it bangs up to 100% usage and stays jammed up there. Not a flicker even when it gets fully loaded and presents the Login boxes.
No matter how long I linger on that screen and even when it is minimised the processor usage is locked at 100%.
I can log in and seect an Alt and get ingame for an indefinate period. The usage will then drop but never below 95%.
I guess that I am then getting a heat build up dependant on what I do ingame so if idle I can hang about but when I get the Pets out and start a mish it overheats because of the high usage and crashes the machine.
Just my laymans's gut feeling.
If at any time I quit to desktop the usage immediately drops to the usual 1 or 2 % range. This has got to be game related but why I have no idea.
Have you please? Thanks
Oh, Win 7 - 64 bit latest updates version and all latest Nvidia drivers cause I do know about that side.
So many cats - So few recipes!
Age is of no importance,
unless you are a cheese!
No need to jump on me. Geez.
1) The support people accused my end of the connection between my computer and the game servers of having packet loss in the same report I gave them that also showed packet loss on their end.
Either both ends have packet loss as shown or neither does.
So there.
(FYI, the ISP for them, alter.net, is owned by the same people who own my ISP, and most of the hops between my end and the servers are owned by them. It's not surprising that the same ISP has packet loss on both ends.)
2) My computer I built new using some rather new parts in September 2010.
I said "pretty much max out Oblivion" because I haven't played it in a while and was giving a conservative estimate for my time with 60 fps playing it. I can't recall the exact settings, but it sure looked a hell of a lot nicer than city of Heroes.
3) OF COURSE, I'm comparing a finite game with a game that has ongoing development. That is the point.
The developers keep patching patching patching patching patching patching patching patching patching patching patching......and not actually FIXING the problems that creates. They just fix things when they become unbearably bad.
So, City of Heroes performs a hell of a lot worse than it should. Just look at World of Warcraft, which ALWAYS plays better than City of Heroes despite it being Blizzard's first MMO and Cryptic and NCSoft having made many more.
You would think "experienced developers" would have the better performing program, but that is definitely not the case with City of Heroes.
And no, you can't argue it was because of increased funds available, at least not before launch. Cryptic likely had more resources and making a program run as good as possible is essential to making as much money as possible.
Cryptic either intentionally rushed CoH and left it broken or were completely inept, and City of Heroes is paying for it now.
Contrary to popular belief, people don't need "experience as game developers" to know when the code of the game is a steaming pile of crap. They just have to see the evidence in the visible output(i.e. the game doesn't play right).
There would not be all the bugs and inefficiencies if the game was properly coded, especially given its age.
Quote:
Fair warning, mind the explicit comparisons...
|
Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
No need to jump on me. Geez.
|
Quote:
huh?
|
Originally Posted by WanderingAries
Fair warning, mind the explicit comparisons...
|
Quote:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!|
So, City of Heroes performs a hell of a lot worse than it should. Just look at World of Warcraft, which ALWAYS plays better than City of Heroes despite it being Blizzard's first MMO and Cryptic and NCSoft having made many more. You would think "experienced developers" would have the better performing program, but that is definitely not the case with City of Heroes. And no, you can't argue it was because of increased funds available, at least not before launch. Cryptic likely had more resources and making a program run as good as possible is essential to making as much money as possible. |
Oh, wait, you were serious?
So here's the deal. Cryptic Studios first game was City of Heroes. They weren't "experienced developers". Not in the MMO space, not in any space. They would have also had very limited funds available to them (being, you know, a start up with no product).
Now, lets take a look at Blizzard. While it's true that WoW was their first MMO... you kind of go completely off the path at this point. Blizzard has had a very long history of making games. They've also had some... lets just say, "hits". They made Starcraft, which has been incredibly popular (there's a joke that it's Korea's national sport... knowing a few Korean nationals... I'm not sure if it's a joke). They made the Diablo series, which has also been a very popular RPG with a huge online component (not "massively", but definitely MORPG). And, there's also... you know... Warcraft. Warcraft was huge before World of Warcraft, with Warcraft 3 / TFT. They also had many other games (check out their WP article!).
So Blizzard had the experience (including in online RPGs!), and they definitely had the money. They also had an already-existing rabid fanbase, which catapulted WoW to completely transform the MMO market from 'niche' to 'mainstream'.
So, what is it you were saying?
(fyi, I installed Oblivion recently... seeing as the box is still on my desk even... it looks like garbage in comparison to CoH)
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
|
Quote:
umm......|
Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
Contrary to popular belief, people don't need "experience as game developers" to know when the code of the game is a steaming pile of crap. They just have to see the evidence in the visible output(i.e. the game doesn't play right).
There would not be all the bugs and inefficiencies if the game was properly coded, especially given its age. |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
No need to jump on me. Geez.
|
Seriously, most of your posts are flat-out, nerd-ragey rants. Make more constructive posts and you won't get such negative reactions.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
And let's not forget that CoH, when it was released, actually ran great on a Win 98SE system with only 512MB of memory. High framerate wasn't one of its target metrics, running 30FPS with a 250 players in an intricate city zone while only needing a relatively small working set of memory was.
Of course over the years as costume parts bloomed, with multiple layers (remember when suits were a single piece) and now probably represents the bulk of memory used since the odds that in a crowd of random players the number of common parts is quite low.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
Quote:
My old recollections of forum rules kicked in the understanding that the mods didn't like seeing game comparisons.
|
Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
huh?
|
I'm having the same problem. Pre-i21.5 i could run 5 accounts on my desktop and another 5 on my laptop. Post i21.5 running 2 instances cause lag and freezing on both.
quad-core/8gig ram/2gig nvidia
quad-core/6gig ram/ati 4250
Both running minimum graphics.
They still use the same amount of ram (1.5gig 1st instance, .5gig for each thereafter). I did not notice the cpu usage before.... but now its definately showing 100% on both with even 1 instance of the game running.
Perhaps related to itrials? I seem to remember shortly after incarnates were first introduced a huge decrease in performance that was remedied fairly quickly. Seems there was some kind of "extra processes" in itrials which they removed. Can't find the link at the moment.....
________________________________
"Just cause you don't understand what's going on don't mean it don't make no sense
And just cause you don't like it, don't mean it ain't no good" - Suicidal Tendancies
Quote:
Okay you've said something similar to this before.|
Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
So, City of Heroes performs a hell of a lot worse than it should. Just look at World of Warcraft, which ALWAYS plays better than City of Heroes despite it being Blizzard's first MMO and Cryptic and NCSoft having made many more.
|
It was dumb and wrong then. Now, it still just as wrong, but even dumber for you having already been corrected.
You cannot compare WoW and CoH on performance.
They are two separate game engines that load down a system differently.
Trying to draw a direct comparison because the more graphically limited WoW performs better than CoH (which is far more customizable, resulting in a larger system footprint) is like saying that you have no problems in heavy traffic because you take your motorcycle down the shoulders while the other guy in the pickup truck hauling gear has to sit in traffic.
Quote:
| You would think "experienced developers" would have the better performing program, but that is definitely not the case with City of Heroes. |
Quote:
| And no, you can't argue it was because of increased funds available, at least not before launch. Cryptic likely had more resources and making a program run as good as possible is essential to making as much money as possible. |
The WoW engine is more graphically primitive than the CoH engine. By design. What's more, AFTER it became the 12,000 pound gorilla of the industry...well, throwing money at problems sometimes CAN work.
Assume for the sake of argument that Paragon Studios consists of a development team of roughly 30 people.
WoW can throw a team nearly that big at team solely focused on code optimization. Meanwhile you still have your REGULAR development teams churning their stuff out.
Quote:
| Contrary to popular belief, people don't need "experience as game developers" to know when the code of the game is a steaming pile of crap. |
You don't know, therefore you assume. Based on nothing more than a vague sense of butt-hurt.
Quote:
|
They just have to see the evidence in the visible output(i.e. the game doesn't play right). There would not be all the bugs and inefficiencies if the game was properly coded, especially given its age. |
This game was originally designed to play on a general patch-level of an OS that's been dead for more than a decade.
It's survived not one, but THREE major OS paradigm shifts. And countless OS patch levels. Not to mention hardware shifts, and driver revisions for various components. In addition, the basic API has seen at least two major revisions.
Not to mention 7 years of updates, additions, and massive revisions to the game code. To the point where, other then some superficialities, it's not even the same game anymore.
Think about it as a huge, four-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. The fact that it works as well as it does is a testament to the sheer amount of labor programmers of MANY types (not just Paragon) have put into the effort.
You're ranting about performance anomalies in YOUR environment. Which Paragon has precious little control over. And because YOUR setup is OBVIOUSLY infallibly powerful and stable, it MUST be shoddy coding on Paragon/Cryptic's part?
Pardon my polite laugh
ter...Well, you get the picture.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
I have been slowly trying to pinpoint some oddness since I21.5 with CoH and my PC. Although other peopel I know have had lag and freezing issues, I figured since I am a network engineer by trade I could focus on throughput on my own machine first.
Last night I started running Process Explorer while I was in game, and had it open on my second monitor. Now, we all have known for years that CoH will use over 1.5 GB of memory (more when the memory holes get real bad) and is a memory hog. What surprised me was standing in an unpopulated area of Atlas Park, my CPU was averaging 85-90% usage by CoH. That seems to be a bit high for standing around not doing anything but idling (I was doing my weekly show on the cape. DJ software is on a different machine completely).
Now I know that I have an older machine which is only a Dual Core AMD 4200+ but that still seems awfully high. I was curious if anyone else had noticed this.
I'll update this thread with more info as I continue my digging, especially since I hadn't looked at DLL and Handles open through Process Explorer yet.
Defcon 0 - (D4 lvl 50),DJ Shecky Cape Radio
@Shecky
Twitter: @DJ_Shecky, @siliconshecky, @thecaperadio
When you air your dirty laundry out on a clothesline above the street, everyone is allowed to snicker at the skid marks in your underoos. - Lemur_Lad