Semi Fix on stability and FPS on Odyssey

[Morbad]

8 cores, 16 threads, CPU doesn't even break into a sweat. Same with GPU.... yet frames are still not hitting 60.

Something being bottlenecked in Odyssey because it doesn't utilize the full performance of the system.

If your GPU isn't hitting full utilization, then it's a CPU or related (possibly memory) bottleneck. Doesn't need to be using all cores for the main game loop or a render thread to be starved for CPU time on one core, and most apps that measure CPU utilization don't poll fast enough to catch all spikes.

The game has become better at utilizing more threads, but it hasn't become less dependent on a few key threads. I doubt they did anything to the renderer at all, probably just got better at offloading other stuff (like AI) to separate workers. You still need a few very fast cores, in addition to sufficient aggregate CPU performance.

You have a Ryzen 7 Pro 2700 don't you? This CPU has plenty of aggregate performance, but it's a Zen+ architecture that tops out at 4.1GHz.

My Zen 3 part holds ~4.7GHz in Odyssey and has, conservatively, 30% greater gaming performance per-clock. Aside from transient loading pauses, I can hold over 60 fps in the most CPU limited EDO scenarios I can find, but not by a huge margin. There is no practical way for this to be possible on any Zen+ part without a non-trivial performance patch that does more than just grasp at low-hanging fruit.

 

[alex192004]

If your GPU isn't hitting full utilization, then it's a CPU or related (possibly memory) bottleneck. Doesn't need to be using all cores for the main game loop or a render thread to be starved for CPU time on one core, and most apps that measure CPU utilization don't poll fast enough to catch all spikes.

The game has become better at utilizing more threads, but it hasn't become less dependent on a few key threads. I doubt they did anything to the renderer at all, probably just got better at offloading other stuff (like AI) to separate workers. You still need a few very fast cores, in addition to sufficient aggregate CPU performance.

You have a Ryzen 7 Pro 2700 don't you? This CPU has plenty of aggregate performance, but it's a Zen+ architecture that tops out at 4.1GHz.

My Zen 3 part holds ~4.7GHz in Odyssey and has, conservatively, 30% greater gaming performance per-clock. Aside from transient loading pauses, I can hold over 60 fps in the most CPU limited EDO scenarios I can find, but not by a huge margin. There is no practical way for this to be possible on any Zen+ part without a non-trivial performance patch that does more than just grasp at low-hanging fruit.

The thing is I have better perfomance in other CPU heavy games like total war warhammer III that tops my 3700x, than oddysey. In oddysey a single npc scavenger is enough to tank perfomance to 40-60 fps from 120. And when the fps drops, the temperature of both gpu and cpu, drops aswell. Only happens with oddysey. Kill everything in sight, fps going up, temperatures return to normal gaming levels.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

The thing is I have better perfomance in other CPU heavy games like total war warhammer III that tops my 3700x, than oddysey. In oddysey a single npc scavenger is enough to tank perfomance to 40-60 fps from 120. And when the fps drops, the temperature of both gpu and cpu, drops aswell. Only happens with oddysey. Kill everything in sight, fps going up, temperatures return to normal gaming levels.

Interesting, i can't say i've seen NPCs affect my framerate much at all. I get roughly the same performance in inhabited bases as i do in empty ones or combat zones. It hovers between 35 and 60 (cap) with an average of around 45.

 

[alex192004]

Interesting, i can't say i've seen NPCs affect my framerate much at all. I get roughly the same performance in inhabited bases as i do in empty ones or combat zones. It hovers between 35 and 60 (cap) with an average of around 45.

I know if the scavengers arrive just by having the fps meter active, you can loot and abandoned settlement at 100+ fps, hear a ship with scavengers and the fps drop instantly. in your pc, may 60 is for no npc and with npc fall to 35?

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I know if the scavengers arrive just by having the fps meter active, you can loot and abandoned settlement at 100+ fps, hear a ship with scavengers and the fps drop instantly. in your pc, may 60 is for no npc and with npc fall to 35?

Nope, i'm talking about same bases under same conditions. More just depends on the room/location, some bases are better than others. Those mining ones can drag performance down. But doesn't seem to matter much if the base is empty or whether there are NPCs there. (as in going to the base to do a power restore vs going there when its online).

I have noticed station concourses are now almost stable 60 FPS after update 11. They used to be around 50.

 

[Morbad]

In this game, the fastest individual cores in the world won't matter if you don't have enough of them, but tons of cores won't help either, unless some of them are individually fast enough.

If anyone is silly enough to buy a CPU for just Odyssey, they want an 12600K for peak bang for the buck. Failing that, a 5600X will suffice. 6c/12t is enough, but they have to be fast cores.

The thing is I have better perfomance in other CPU heavy games like total war warhammer III that tops my 3700x, than oddysey. In oddysey a single npc scavenger is enough to tank perfomance to 40-60 fps from 120. And when the fps drops, the temperature of both gpu and cpu, drops aswell. Only happens with oddysey. Kill everything in sight, fps going up, temperatures return to normal gaming levels.

Odyssey frequently gets hung up on one or two threads, which explains this behavior.

Interesting, i can't say i've seen NPCs affect my framerate much at all. I get roughly the same performance in inhabited bases as i do in empty ones or combat zones. It hovers between 35 and 60 (cap) with an average of around 45.

They won't, because NPC AI is run on separate worker threads that your CPU can handle without issue.

Your problems are coming from the lack of any single very fast core to handle the main game/render threads that are dependent on serial performance.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Your problems are coming from the lack of any single very fast core to handle the main game/render threads that are dependent on serial performance.

Quite possibly, but hey, can't go buying yet another CPU any time soon.

But i think FD will slowly improve things. Like i just said, i seem to be getting better FPS overall since update 11 and concourses are now near stable 60.

 

[Frop]

They won't, because NPC AI is run on separate worker threads that your CPU can handle without issue.

Your problems are coming from the lack of any single very fast core to handle the main game/render threads that are dependent on serial performance.

In my case (i5-7500/1060 6 GB, and I've seen other people report the same symptoms) a lack of NPCs usually causes a significant performance gain. A Large Military settlement will give me ~40 FPS with all inhabitants, ~50 FPS while deactivated and with a handful of scavengers, and ~60 FPS without them.

 

[Morbad]

But i think FD will slowly improve things. Like i just said, i seem to be getting better FPS overall since update 11 and concourses are now near stable 60.

I haven't noticed much CPU related improvements with U11, but that could be because I haven't been doing many CZs.

In my case (i5-7500/1060 6 GB, and I've seen other people report the same symptoms) a lack of NPCs usually causes a significant performance gain. A Large Military settlement will give me ~40 FPS with all inhabitants, ~50 FPS while deactivated and with a handful of scavengers, and ~60 FPS without them.

Also evidence of the same pattern. Your i5 has four cores and no SMT...low aggregate performance. Even if each core is fairly quick, the extra worker threads choke them. You could use more cores. Agony_Aunt could use faster cores.

 

[Frop]

Also evidence of the same pattern. Your i5 has four cores and no SMT...low aggregate performance. Even if each core is fairly quick, the extra worker threads choke them. You could use more cores. Agony_Aunt could use faster cores.

Time to bring back mathematical co-processors.

 

[alex192004]

I haven't noticed much CPU related improvements with U11, but that could be because I haven't been doing many CZs.



Also evidence of the same pattern. Your i5 has four cores and no SMT...low aggregate performance. Even if each core is fairly quick, the extra worker threads choke them. You could use more cores. Agony_Aunt could use faster cores.

I have a ryzen 3700x, plenty of cores, the AI tanks the perfomance. The same cpu can keep 60 fps in ultra in large battles in total war warhammer III, a cpu heavy game.

 

[Morbad]

I have a ryzen 3700x, plenty of cores, the AI tanks the perfomance. The same cpu can keep 60 fps in ultra in large battles in total war warhammer III, a cpu heavy game.

Are you sure it's the AI? Certain settlements have issues related to being active that don't have much to do with the NPCs themselves. I personally haven't seen a huge difference in CPU limited frame rates on most of my systems because of the presence of NPCs in and of themselves...I mean it's a factor, if my settings are low enough to not be GPU limited, but it's not killing performance.

There are plenty of games that are simultaneously more CPU heavy and less CPU limited than this one.

 

[Erei]

I can't speak for CPU specifically, but I don't have FPS issues while exploring (cap at 60fps). In an empty settlement, my fps drop, but nothing major (50ish). In populated settlement, it drop a bit further (high 40-50fps). In CZ it drop even further (40, can dip below), and something like a fire/spark effect will murder my fps (20-30).

Old gear, I was planning to change the GPU last year and upgrade CPU/Mobo this year, but with the current prices crazyness....
i7-7700K CPU and GTX 1070ti.


It is a major progress since EDO release, if I'm honest. I had 50 max exploring, settlement would drop me to 40, and CZ had 20-30fps, while fire would just murder my computer with 10ish fps. Still not smooth though.

 

[alex192004]

Are you sure it's the AI? Certain settlements have issues related to being active that don't have much to do with the NPCs themselves. I personally haven't seen a huge difference in CPU limited frame rates on most of my systems because of the presence of NPCs in and of themselves...I mean it's a factor, if my settings are low enough to not be GPU limited, but it's not killing performance.

There are plenty of games that are simultaneously more CPU heavy and less CPU limited than this one.

yes, the fps it´s always stable until the npc arrives. In every abandoned settlement, the game behave the same way, if no npc good framerate, with npc terrible fps (from 120-100 depends of the settlement type to 35-60 or even less, depend of the number of npc present) every single time. And always is the same, when the npc arrive drops the fps, when you kill the last npc the fps went up to normal again, every single time. You can know if a settlement have scavengers only by watching the fps meter. The fire etc it´s not the problem, it happens too in settlements with no fire, totally abandoned.

Ryzen 3700x and a RTX 3070 and 32 GB of Ram.

 

[Morbad]

yes, the fps it´s always stable until the npc arrives. In every abandoned settlement, the game behave the same way, if no npc good framerate, with npc terrible fps (from 120-100 depends of the settlement type to 35-60 or even less, depend of the number of npc present) every single time. And always is the same, when the npc arrive drops the fps, when you kill the last npc the fps went up to normal again, every single time. You can know if a settlement have scavengers only by watching the fps meter. The fire etc it´s not the problem, it happens too in settlements with no fire, totally abandoned.

Ryzen 3700x and a RTX 3070 and 32 GB of Ram.

I just tried my first high intensity ground CZ since U11 dropped and did notice much more CPU load than previously. Probably related to the AI changes. Haven't noticed much elsewhere, but other scenarios don't have anywhere near as many, or as active, NPCs.

Anyway, have you tried increasing the number of worker threads in AppConfig.xml?

 

[alex192004]

I just tried my first high intensity ground CZ since U11 dropped and did notice much more CPU load than previously. Probably related to the AI changes. Haven't noticed much elsewhere, but other scenarios don't have anywhere near as many, or as active, NPCs.

Anyway, have you tried increasing the number of worker threads in AppConfig.xml?

I don´t talk about CZ, i talk about abandoned settlements, in the moment the AI appear the fps going down, the number of npc does not affect perfomance, i have the same drop in fps with 1 or 10 npc fighting me.
Nope, thanks for the suggestion!!!

Edit: the number of worker threads are already maxed in the appconfig.xml.

 

[Morbad]

This is a high CZ from yesterday:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VT_kDxMEbg


Completely CPU limited at 1440p ultra (no DoF, double render scale). Capture method I'm using to get the CapFrameX overly to show has a bit of extra overhead, but isn't a major factor. Overall performance is alright, but there are definitely some stutters, and a high CZ like this produces by far the worst minimum (0.2% low) frame rates that I typically see outside of loading screens.

That was also with 12 worker threads and a moderate increase to stack and queue sizes, which feels like it's helping a little, but I'm having difficulty creating repeatable tests. I increased these values further afterwards, which I believe smoothed things out more, but as even the same CZ isn't perfectly repeatable, it's hard to tell.

There is definitely activity on the extra threads, but there must also be a significant serial component to the CPU limitation here. I doubt it's a render thread...possibly the main game thread integrating/waiting on all the AI workers. Could also be memory contention. Someone would have to profile it to be sure.

I don´t talk about CZ, i talk about abandoned settlements, in the moment the AI appear the fps going down, the number of npc does not affect perfomance, i have the same drop in fps with 1 or 10 npc fighting me.
Nope, thanks for the suggestion!!!

Edit: the number of worker threads are already maxed in the appconfig.xml.

That's strange. When AI is clearly the issue, numbers and activity also play a fairly obvious role; in the above video, almost the moment combat ends, GPU utilization goes back up. I'll have to find some abandoned settlements.

Is there any similar issue in the suit tutorial for you?

And what do you mean by maxed? The number of threads appears arbitrary and there should be rapidly diminishing returns, but I'm not sure there is a hard cut off.

 

[alex192004]

This is a high CZ from yesterday:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VT_kDxMEbg


Completely CPU limited at 1440p ultra (no DoF, double render scale). Capture method I'm using to get the CapFrameX overly to show has a bit of extra overhead, but isn't a major factor. Overall performance is alright, but there are definitely some stutters, and a high CZ like this produces by far the worst minimum (0.2% low) frame rates that I typically see outside of loading screens.

That was also with 12 worker threads and a moderate increase to stack and queue sizes, which feels like it's helping a little, but I'm having difficulty creating repeatable tests. I increased these values further afterwards, which I believe smoothed things out more, but as even the same CZ isn't perfectly repeatable, it's hard to tell.

There is definitely activity on the extra threads, but there must also be a significant serial component to the CPU limitation here. I doubt it's a render thread...possibly the main game thread integrating/waiting on all the AI workers. Could also be memory contention. Someone would have to profile it to be sure.



That's strange. When AI is clearly the issue, numbers and activity also play a fairly obvious role; in the above video, almost the moment combat ends, GPU utilization goes back up. I'll have to find some abandoned settlements.

Is there any similar issue in the suit tutorial for you?

And what do you mean by maxed? The number of threads appears arbitrary and there should be rapidly diminishing returns, but I'm not sure there is a hard cut off.

The weird thing is that in the tutorial the perfomance is bad, at all times.
In my appconfig the worker threads are already set to 12, and don´t think that increasing that number would be beneficial.

Nice work, definitely some problems with the game. If you go to an abandoned settlement you can have different scenarios, sometimes the settlement is empty and keep empty, sometimes you have the settlement empty and after some minutes scavengers spawn, and you can have the scavengers directly in the settlement.

At this moment, i going to try to install Elite from 0, maybe is my PC. What CPU and GPU are you using??? Thanks for all the time!

 

[Morbad]

The weird thing is that in the tutorial the perfomance is bad, at all times.

I get much better performance in the tutorial than I do in CZs and the biggest performance hit in the tutorial is GPU related, after powering up the settlement...something with the lighting and spark/particle effects, combined with a clear lack of culling, is a frame rate killer.

NPCs in the tutorial do almost nothing to my frame rate.

In my appconfig the worker threads are already set to 12, and don´t think that increasing that number would be beneficial.

Probably not, but it might be worth a try. Also try doubling the stack and queue sizes. If it doesn't help, you can always revert the changes.

Nice work, definitely some problems with the game. If you go to an abandoned settlement you can have different scenarios, sometimes the settlement is empty and keep empty, sometimes you have the settlement empty and after some minutes scavengers spawn, and you can have the scavengers directly in the settlement.

At this moment, i going to try to install Elite from 0, maybe is my PC. What CPU and GPU are you using??? Thanks for all the time!

I'm using a 5800X + 6800 XT.

 

[alex192004]

I get much better performance in the tutorial than I do in CZs and the biggest performance hit in the tutorial is GPU related, after powering up the settlement...something with the lighting and spark/particle effects, combined with a clear lack of culling, is a frame rate killer.

NPCs in the tutorial do almost nothing to my frame rate.



Probably not, but it might be worth a try. Also try doubling the stack and queue sizes. If it doesn't help, you can always revert the changes.



I'm using a 5800X + 6800 XT.

Thanks!! i´ll try all of this.