About the game performance

[Iriasthor]

Hi, this is my first SOW game and I am liking it so far. However, I am having some concerns regarding performance. In the first French mission (Bauduin's Brig), I am getting the following stats:

- FPS: An average of 30FPS
- CPU: Only 1 or 2 cores used at most
- GPU: An average of 40-50% (90% while on menu :blink: )

I am not sure if this is the expected outcome of the performance, but it has left me a bit concerned, mainly because I was expecting a higher performance for such small scenario or, at least, a higher usage of the computer's resources.

The following are my computer's hardware characteristics:

- CPU: Intel i7-4790K 4.00 GHz (8CPU-s)
- Memory: 16GB
- GPU: Msi GeForce GTX-970

And my game settings:

- Sprite ratio: 0
- Max terrain draw distance: High
- Show map objects: High
- Uniform quality: Best
- Max number arty hit decals: 50
- Max units draw distance: 1200 yds
- Max trees draw distance: 1100 yds
- Max objects draw distance: 1100 yds

Any further information you might need to answer my question, ask it and I will provide it immediately.

[Gunfreak]

Hi, this is my first SOW game and I am liking it so far. However, I am having some concerns regarding performance. In the first French mission (Bauduin's Brig), I am getting the following stats:

- FPS: An average of 30FPS
- CPU: Only 1 or 2 cores used at most
- GPU: An average of 40-50% (90% while on menu :blink: )

I am not sure if this is the expected outcome of the performance, but it has left me a bit concerned, mainly because I was expecting a higher performance for such small scenario or, at least, a higher usage of the computer's resources.

The following are my computer's hardware characteristics:

- CPU: Intel i7-4790K 4.00 GHz (8CPU-s)
- Memory: 16GB
- GPU: Msi GeForce GTX-970

And my game settings:

- Sprite ratio: 0
- Max terrain draw distance: High
- Show map objects: High
- Uniform quality: Best
- Max number arty hit decals: 50
- Max units draw distance: 1200 yds
- Max trees draw distance: 1100 yds
- Max objects draw distance: 1100 yds

Any further information you might need to answer my question, ask it and I will provide it immediately.

Thats the best you are going to get. I have i7 3770k 3.5ghz and i get 18-25 fps on that senario full waterloo battle 10-15fps.

My current battle 331 000 troops (77 000 sprites ) i get 6-12 fps.

Graphics card dosent seem to matter not ram either (past 8 gig) its all cpu, you got 4gig so you get 5-10 fps more then me. Hopefully you will get above 20fps on the full battle

[Iriasthor]

Hi @Gunfreak, thank you very much for the clarification.

The game is playable with my FPS rate, although it incommodes me a little when I can't go past 30 FPS. I understand, however, that this is a very CPU demanding game.

Being aware of that, I think I might have read comments regarding multi-threading in previous SOW: Gettysburg forums, and I think it would be an essential improvement to greatly improve the game experience. If I am not mistaken, I think nowadays' CPU-s are not improving too much on frequencies, but on core numbers, so I think multi-threading games is a must for this kind of CPU-bound games.

Anyway, I will be tuned regarding this subject and hoping for some future performance improvements. Keep up the good work!

[Sirlion]

I'm sorry for being ignorant on the matter at hand, but why such high end PCs cant run well a game that looks and feels like an early 2000 title? I mean, the numbers are huge, and I agree that it puts a stress on the GPU (I believe) but games with a great deal of people on screen such, for example, a TW title or an Assassins Creed, with lots and lots of details runs so much smoothly. I know that it cant be compared to the huge numbers of SOW but... still these are 2D sprites are they not? So... why a 2GB graphics card cant handle that? Why the low res textures?

[Guest]

I'm sorry for being ignorant on the matter at hand, but why such high end PCs cant run well a game that looks and feels like an early 2000 title? I mean, the numbers are huge, and I agree that it puts a stress on the GPU (I believe) but games with a great deal of people on screen such, for example, a TW title or an Assassins Creed, with lots and lots of details runs so much smoothly. I know that it cant be compared to the huge numbers of SOW but... still these are 2D sprites are they not? So... why a 2GB graphics card cant handle that? Why the low res textures?

1) Why it doesn't run very smoothly?
Mostly because of lack of quads batching in the Power Render engine.
There isn't any sort of render states / shaders / etc. changes minimization either.
Too many GPU calls basically.

2) Why the low res textures?
Lack of resources streaming (background loading).
The game reads all the required sprite sheets at once and not on scene's demand.
That saturates the VRAM quickly.

Ciao.

[Iriasthor]

Adding to what @Fassan says, I have understood that this game is mostly CPU consuming. The fact that it is not run in a multi-threaded way results in a lower performance than expected. For all the content shown on the screen, my GPU seems to do OK and has no problem at all.

It is, again, the CPU that takes most of the work by making a huge amount of calculations (AI, paths, formations, etc.).

[Gunfreak]

Yes only the first 1 mabye 2 cores work
So from my understanding, number of cores in your cpu will not help,

A 4 core 4ghz will always give better effect then a 8 core 3.5ghz.

And since 4 gig is the most you get on cpus now, nobdoy can except any better then 30fps on medium battles, 20-25 og bigger battles. And less then 15 on the biggest(full battle sandboxs)

I get 12-15 on the full waterloo senario, I have a 3.5ghz someone with a 4ghz will get 15-25fps on the same battle.

I get 4-10 fps on the biggest battles, someone with a 4ghz will get 6-15fps.

I don't think anybody can except more then 25-30 fps on most medium sized battles.

I do get 60+fps on division vs division battles. but as soon as I go up to corps sized I get 20+. army sizes 12...

The game is great, I have one major complaint and that is the fps, and the fact the devs think it's fine as it is.

[Saddletank]

I have one major complaint and that is the fps

Still this unfortunate fixation on fps. People have been corrupted by the last 10 years obsession with this one game criteria. Forget your fps, it doesn't matter. I know its like switching from a diet of bread and water to a fiery curry but try to do that. Stop looking at fps by which to measure an efficient game.

And please stop comparing SoW to TW, the two are quite different games. Even different genres when you look at what the target audience is and what the game gives the player to do.

[Gunfreak]

I have one major complaint and that is the fps

Still this unfortunate fixation on fps. People have been corrupted by the last 10 years obsession with this one game criteria. Forget your fps, it doesn't matter. I know its like switching from a diet of bread and water to a fiery curry but try to do that. Stop looking at fps by which to measure an efficient game.

And please stop comparing SoW to TW, the two are quite different games. Even different genres when you look at what the target audience is and what the game gives the player to do.

It's not an unfortinoant thing, that you don't care, is not the same.

Many people can't play any real time game with less then 55-60fps with out getting headaches.
Only a few games made today for pc in 30fps are made and those are not real time, (like the south park game)
Just saying fps dosn't make and saying lalala is not exacptable.

That some people find it fine to play 5fps is there thing, most people won't. It's not an imangiend thing.
Does 5fps affect this game as much as it would a car game, no but it's a huge diffrence, just saying "ai is powerfull so low unavoiable and so low fps is not a problem"

Fassan has pointed out lots of coding that is superfilus and un needed, bad coding ect. What he talkes about is way over my head, but he seems to know what he is talking about.

Someone says fps is bad.

Devs and a few others say either one of two things or both.

"I don't care about fps so you shouldn't either"
" super smart ai, so we must have low fps"

Why should my complaint(that now others also are pointing out(one of them kinda rudely) Be ingonred, it's obvously a thing, not imaigend by me.

I would be happy if you could get the game to run stable at 30fps on the full waterloo battle,

And then any lower fps in bigger battles would be better.
And It's not only the low fps, it's the jumps, you move the camera and it falls from 20 to 12, or jumps to 22 from 15 ect. This will make people sick and give them a headache.

[tim]

I don't think any of the devs have said we don't care about fps. We care about the game being the best we can make it - we are all very very passionate about it. There's room for improvement and we will always work on things like speeding up the game. We are a small part time team and so don't have expertise in all facets of making games but we are committed to improving everything we can.