[Question] FPS dropping massively over time

[misterX]

Greeting, fine ladies and gentlemen!

I have a strange problem where my framerate will become lower and lower over the course of a game, and stay like that afterwards until the application is restarted.

Example:

Start singleplayer/bootcamp
-> 60+ FPS on (mostly) ultra settings.

Start multiplayer/classic on Mamayev*
-> ~55 FPS at the start of the round, slight drops when there's a lot of action.
-> ~25 FPS after about 2/3 of the round, never goes up, even when looking at the floor/sky etc

Start singleplayer/bootcamp again to check
-> ~27 FPS and below, never rises above 30

Restart game

Start singleplayer/bootcamp
-> 60+ FPS again


Does anybody else get this sort of behaviour?

(*: Just an example. Any gamemode, single/multi/botmatch, any map, anything will do this after some playtime)

Changing graphics settings doesn't seem to do anything about it, since no matter what my "starting" FPS are, they will always end up at near-unplayable <30 after some time.
I just upgraded my GPU from an old 4870 to a 7850OC yesterday, and although my starting framerates (and possible quality settings) have improved quite a lot, it will still be the same near the end of a round.
I doubt that any of this is caused by my hardware being too slow, because a) I can positively run the game on ultra/high settings with SSAO+MLAA while still getting decent framerates, and b) even in singleplayer, there is a difference (before/after multiplayer) of over 100%.


Just in case, here are my main specs:

ASUS Rampage Formula X48 board
Intel Q6600 running at 3.2GHz
8GB GEiL DDR2 1066 RAM
Sapphire 7850 OC 2GB (running at factory "OC" speeds for now)

System drive: RAID0 - 2x SSD
Data drive:   RAID5 - 4x 1.5TB HDD (on dedicated controller card)

OS: Win7 Ultimate x64

I really cannot see why this would/should happen.
For example, before the GPU change, in Killing Floor, I got like 200+ FPS on a single player game while staring down the empty main corridor on BioticsLab, and could drop to ~30 FPS on a six player game with an over-enthusiastic firebug/demolitions, due to all the transparent texture layers, which really made the 4000 series struggle. After the smoke/fire/whatever is gone, FPS go up again. All of which is perfectly normal and totally understandable.

This RO2 issue though.. I can't seem to make any sense of it. If it had to do _anything_ with my specs, I should have lower overall performance - or FPS drops at certain points. In any case, (for example, if this was an issue of decals building up over playtime, and "clogging my RAMs") the performance should go back to normal once there is a map change or "engine reset" for that matter.
Going from 80 FPS in single player bootcamp to 25 FPS in the exact same setting just.. "does not compute".

Any ideas/suggestions anyone?

A solution would be much appreciated.

Lots'a thanks in advance.


P.S.: Please spare me the obligatory "Validate game files"/"defrag hard drive" comments..

 

[r5cya]

have you tested your memory? sound like a memory problem to me. i used to have a problem with sounds building up till they cut out. tripleing my memory made the problem go away. (4-12 gig)

 

[misterX]

Memory has been tested, no errors/faults after multiple passes in memtest..
Since I cannot put in more than the 8GB I have at the moment (4x2GB strips filling all slots.. There are virtually no 4GB 1066 DDR2 strips available..), increasing the memory amount in my system is a non-option for me.

As pointed out in the "General posting tips" section, I have appended a stat perfdump log to this post, maybe someone with more inside knowledge can draw some conclusions from it..

First perfdump was made during the first singleplayer session, then three more during a multiplayer round (when FPS were already dropping), and a last one after quitting the round and going back to singleplayer, with FPS still being way too low compared to the first dump (60->35).

I really hope we can somehow solve this. Low FPS really don't help during the final push in a multiplayer game..

 

[Ducky]

Might be related to an overheated GPU. Install a program that will monitor your GPU tempurature during gameplay and see what happens there.

 

[misterX]

Might be related to an overheated GPU. [...]

I use Speedfan to monitor/control the temperatures around my system. Just put the GPU temp up on my G15 LCD and went for a game. GPU zeroes in at around 60

 

[r5cya]

i was just looking at the memory you use. seems to be obsolete. i was surprised to see that the faster stuff is about a third the price, do you have to stick with 1066 ddr2?

 

[Neil79]

have you tested your memory? sound like a memory problem to me. i used to have a problem with sounds building up till they cut out. tripleing my memory made the problem go away. (4-12 gig)

Is it just me or do you like bragging that you have 12gb memory?

 

[Floyd]

Is it just me or do you like bragging that you have 12gb memory?

If you reread his post, I think you'll find its just you...


(All my comp hardware won't fit in my signature line, so I don't bother....)

 

[misterX]

i was just looking at the memory you use. seems to be obsolete. i was surprised to see that the faster stuff is about a third the price, do you have to stick with 1066 ddr2?

Yes, as 1066 is the fastest DDR2 memory available. Upgrading to DDR3 would require a new mainboard, which in turn would require a new CPU, which would require a new cooler, etc etc.
The possible speed gain isn't really worth the upgrade price.
Compare my PC-8500 RAM to the fastest PC-12800 DDR3 (at 1600) and you'll find that the possible increase in (rather meaningless) theoretical transfer speeds is a mere 50%.

I built this system 4 (yes, that is FOUR) years ago. While in PC-tech-terms that is basically two generations, it is still running pretty strong. I make it a point to only upgrade when there is a substantial performance increase to be gained. My last system before this one was still a single-core.

Still, none of this really explains my problem of degrading framerates.

One interesting thing I noticed today while giving Alien Breed another go (with the new GPU) - at one point during a level, my FPS suddenly dropped from a constant vsync-locked 60 to a shoddy ~35. I suspected the specific scene in the game (transparent floor, lots of shadow-casting from flashlight) of being the reason. After changing the gamemode and entering a "free play" game, the FPS didn't go up again. Restarting the game yielded the original "maximum" framerate in any of the tested situations.
Alien Breed uses UnrealEngine too as far as I know - so maybe it's something specific about the engine in combination with my setup that does this?

I will do some more testing, while monitoring CPU and GPU load, maybe that will give us something to go on.

 

[Neil79]

If you reread his post, I think you'll find its just you...

tripleing my memory made the problem go away. (4-12 gig)

best thing i ever did for ro2 was up the ram from 4 to 12 gig.

i do and mine sounds great. i thank my 12 gig of ram.

when i had 4meg of ram on win7, i had all kinds of problems when arty fell. mostly sounds cutting out. now i have 12meg

Na because I don't read just one post

 

[=GG= Mr Moe]

i was just looking at the memory you use. seems to be obsolete. i was surprised to see that the faster stuff is about a third the price, do you have to stick with 1066 ddr2?

Memory should be fine, I have 8GB of DDR2, a Q6600 OC at 3.2GHz but a different GPU (GTX5600 Ti 1GB).

I do get lower fps in single player as well, a lot of people have reported that.

Has to be something else I'm guessing.

 

[Floyd]

Na because I don't read just one post

He is saying that upping his memory solved a lot of his problems. And that is bragging to you? Memory is cheap, today. Its hardly a "bragging" right....lol.

 

[r5cya]

He is saying that upping his memory solved a lot of his problems. And that is bragging to you? Memory is cheap, today. Its hardly a "bragging" right....lol.

at least you get it.
i think i paid $25 bucks for the last 8gig of memory. that's less than a good pizza.

hey Neil, how's the game working for you now?

 

[Neil79]

Fine though at the moment i'm playing better games that actually had better development!.

lol at infraction, I wear them on my chest like a gold chain

 

[r5cya]

Fine though at the moment i'm playing better games that actually had better development!.

lol at infraction, I wear them on my chest like a gold chain

yeah. ok. so where did you go on vacation?

 

[misterX]

Sorry to interrupt your off-topic chat
but I think I may have found out a bit more about this issue.
(Actually my finding create more questions than answers, but still...)

I played a couple of games while closely monitoring my CPU/GPU load and temperatures.
Example game, ~48/64 slot server on GrainElevator (no bots):

Start of round, ~63 FPS
CPU load: 60-70%
GPU load: 60-75%

After about ten minutes of play, ~32 FPS
CPU load: 30-45%
GPU load: 40-50%

Temperatures didn't really change all that much, CPU hovers around 45

 

[r5cya]

since Neil's not around to call me a "braggert" for saying, when i had sound problems, they came on just about the way you describe your fps problems. everything was fine at the beginning, and then slowly started getting worse, till i ended up with no sound at all other than my own rifle. it was happening everytime i played. like you, sometimes it happened fairly quick and sometimes it took a long time. i don't remember whether i had to just restart the game or the whole computer. it's been a long time. when i got the extra memory, the problem went away. i don't know if there happened to be a patch that came out at the same time as the memory got put in, or if the memory did the trick, but i've never had the problem again.

for your sake, i hope it was a patch that cured it. (since you cannot upgrade your memory)

i hope you get it figured out soon or that twi comes up with a solution for you.

p.s. it's weird that cpu's and gpu's don't really seem to get used as much as we want. it's been wierd from the beginning.

 

[=GG= Mr Moe]

Sorry to interrupt your off-topic chat
but I think I may have found out a bit more about this issue.
(Actually my finding create more questions than answers, but still...)

I played a couple of games while closely monitoring my CPU/GPU load and temperatures.
Example game, ~48/64 slot server on GrainElevator (no bots):

Start of round, ~63 FPS
CPU load: 60-70%
GPU load: 60-75%

After about ten minutes of play, ~32 FPS
CPU load: 30-45%
GPU load: 40-50%

Temperatures didn't really change all that much, CPU hovers around 45

 

[misterX]

[...] is that your usage in general or the one main core that ROHOS is using? [...]

That's total usage, averaged over all four cores.
(If I were to run CineBench, for example, I'd get 100% all the time during the multicore tests, and exactly 25% during the single core test)

[...] and then slowly started getting worse, till i ended up with no sound at all other than my own rifle. it was happening everytime i played. like you, sometimes it happened fairly quick and sometimes it took a long time.

That's what I thought at first..
After my last few test runs, it actually seems that there is a distinct point in time where the drop occurs, without much of a transition period. I probably never noticed it at first, because I was happily playing (read: getting shot in the face a lot) and only noticed "oh my.. what happened to my FPS?" after some time. Now that I'm constantly keeping an eye on things, it became apparent that things go from "good" to "bad" pretty much instantly. Many times it will happen after a death - so when respawning, suddenly things are really sluggish - but can happen at any other time as well. The death thing is probably just a coincidence because of me dying a lot.

The memory thing you kept mentioning gave me another idea though.
I had a look at my virtual memory settings, suspecting that maybe - for some stupid reason - all the streaming texture stuff in the game somehow clogs up the pagefile, and once it's been filled, the performance hit occurs.
I usually keep my pagefile very small (had it at 768 MB).

Test run: ~40 people on RedOctober
~70-90 FPS
went to 30 after half of the first round.

Increased minimum pagefile size to my amount of system memory (spanned across the RAIDs) and maximum to about three times as much - just to be on the safe side.

Rejoined: ~40 people on RedOctober
~80-90 FPS
went to 27 while still fighting for objective A

GPU usage went from up to 95% to 30-40% both times. Kind of makes sense, with the bigger difference in FPS and everything (turned smooth FPS off)..

Virtual memory wasn't the reason either it seems..

 

[Ducky]

If you look at the relation between CPU and GPU performance compared to memory usage, do you then by any chance see that CPU/GPU performance goes down when the memory usage goes up?