81 replies to this topic

[maceman]

Got my flippers back. Not sure what happened ???

btw- I noitce a jump in performance from running VPstandalone and from within HP. I am thinking it isn't just going to vpforums, but thatit maybe something to do with opening certain apps...so FF works to bump my fps, and so does HP. So that is weird.....

[SnailGary]

You aren't crazy! Its like we are talking about being abducted by aliens! I swear it happens! I have proof!
...
Gary, try running yahoo messenger or "the core media player" or "newsleecher" (a few of the programs I find to fix this issue) & see if those also fix this issue for you like they do for me. I'm tired of being alone on this issue. Regardless of your results I'm already convinced we are going through the same issue, regardless of what does or doesn't fix it.

Rob you are the man!!
Should have read your topic more closely in the first place - would have saved me a lot of head scratching.. That hint with the media player was very helpful! I just tried "Media Player Classic" from the K-Lite codec pack and it fixes the issue as well. And what's best: That source code is available and its hopefully not too complex to analyze.

So the next thing for me to do is compare the display parts of the two programs.
Now that I'm on the Dev team, rest assured that the days of the Great Framerate Boost Mystery ^TM are numbered!
Stay tuned!

@maceman: Did you compare framerates on more tables? I must admit that this was only tested on T2 - there may be tables where the effect does not show.
Anyway I am pretty sure this happens only on certain systems (e.g. Win7) with a certain set of hardware/drivers.
And I wouldn't be surprised if it was only for a tiny change in graphics initialization that causes the slowdown...

[rob046]

Good to hear! It would be great to find a fix. So maybe win7 might not be as at fault as you think? I just find it too crazy that there is a messenger that fixed this same issue for me 5 or 6 years ago in XP with VP6, & here again one of the programs that gives me a boost again years later is also a messenger. & for all I know other programs back when I had XP could have helped as well, including media players, but I just don't remember or didn't test it out. & this was when I had 100% different hardware & software running. Sure the issues could be unrelated, but that would be a pretty crazy coincidence.


& for me, this problem applies to any & all tables launched wit VP9, even the blank table.
As for VP8, these programs don't seem to help or hurt, but quite honestly VP8 doesn't seem to run nearly as well as it should. Even on the blank table I get tiny bits of stuttering. IDK, just sayin' things don't seem too optimized latest in regards to VP.
YET AGAIN, my ATI benchmarks even for VP8 smoke my Nvidia performance by nearly double. & this testing mutliple nvidia cards & ATI, getting the same results. I still use VP8 quite a bit, & I like nvidia, but once again ATI is a winner here.
The problem with VP8 is that I know nobody is gonna be updating that one! Kinda a shame since so many great older tables still require it. Hate to see it end up old & broken someday. Or maybe we can get better VP8 table support within VP9?
Getting off topic. Yeah, I don't know WTF is up with this performance BS.

[maceman]

Okay, Major discovery here, so please be seated...

No, Seriously, I figured out something... I tried several games...

Everyone has a significant with FF. ts related to shock wave flash.

My guess is that the vpforums homepage works because it has flash running. So when flash is running, it causes a boost to VP for some reason...

I haven't tested further, but Rob, maybe you can look at the programs you mentioned and verify if they indeed use flash, and my guess is that they do.

So, I am left here with 2 problems:

1. How to make sure flash is running always, instead of having to open a browser every time and

2. Why are worse systems getting way higher fps than me??? I read someone getting 700-800 in AFM? I get 200fps..or so.. Not good

Maceman

Edited by maceman, 19 April 2011 - 12:59 AM.

[KEG]

Okay, Major discovery here, so please be seated...

No, Seriously, I figured out something... I tried several games...

Everyone has a significant with FF. ts related to shock wave flash.

My guess is that the vpforums homepage works because it has flash running. So when flash is running, it causes a boost to VP for some reason...

I haven't tested further, but Rob, maybe you can look at the programs you mentioned and verify if they indeed use flash, and my guess is that they do.

So, I am left here with 2 problems:

1. How to make sure flash is running always, instead of having to open a browser every time and

2. Why are worse systems getting way higher fps than me??? I read someone getting 700-800 in AFM? I get 200fps..or so.. Not good

Maceman

I just checked out my AFM the newest update and I was getting anywhere between 600- 690 . That's with alpha all the way to the right. But it did dip to 80 or so every once in a while. but just for a second, if even. You know my specs, but for anyone else.
Win 7 64
second gen I5 3.2 OC to 4.0
Nvidia 450 Gts 1 gb
4 Gig ddr3 ram

This was with firefox 4 open

[maceman]

what driver are you using Keg?

I just came across this here thread, check it out:

After struggling for some time (literally years) with low framerate in MTW1 on the strategy map, I found a solution by accident!


1. To double the framerate on the strategy map, simply open your internet browser, go to youtube.com and start any movie. You can pause the video if you want so it doesn't make any noise, but leave your browser open on the video.

2. Start medieval and enjoy double framerate on the strategy map.


I came across this by accident as I was listening to songs on youtube and testing the framerate in MTW at the same time. When I closed the youtube tab, the framerate dropped. I checked GPU-Z and sure enough, GPU clocks dropped when I exited the youtube video, even though MTW1 was up (I was alt-tabbed).

So basically if your framerate is low on the strategy map in MTW1, your GPU probably isn't clocking up properly (it clocks down when not doing any graphics intensive tasks). If you make sure the GPU clocks up properly, you solve your problem. This can be done by the method described above, or by some GPU-tweaking software.

Forgive me if this has been posted before, but I have not seen this fix before, and I thought by starting a new thread it would be easier for people with the same problem to find the solution.

[moondrummer78]

what driver are you using Keg?

I just came across this here thread, check it out:

After struggling for some time (literally years) with low framerate in MTW1 on the strategy map, I found a solution by accident!


1. To double the framerate on the strategy map, simply open your internet browser, go to youtube.com and start any movie. You can pause the video if you want so it doesn't make any noise, but leave your browser open on the video.

2. Start medieval and enjoy double framerate on the strategy map.


I came across this by accident as I was listening to songs on youtube and testing the framerate in MTW at the same time. When I closed the youtube tab, the framerate dropped. I checked GPU-Z and sure enough, GPU clocks dropped when I exited the youtube video, even though MTW1 was up (I was alt-tabbed).

So basically if your framerate is low on the strategy map in MTW1, your GPU probably isn't clocking up properly (it clocks down when not doing any graphics intensive tasks). If you make sure the GPU clocks up properly, you solve your problem. This can be done by the method described above, or by some GPU-tweaking software.

Forgive me if this has been posted before, but I have not seen this fix before, and I thought by starting a new thread it would be easier for people with the same problem to find the solution.

This is just a guess, but maybe it's a power adaptive mode issue. Having another window open that's using flash based media keeps your GPU active, whereas with VP it might be intermitant, only kicking in when you get lots of crazy lights. If you're using Nvidia and you go to manage 3D there's a listing for "Power Management Mode" By default this is set to "Adaptive" which would cause the GPU to be intermitant, try setting this to "Prefer Maximum Performance" and see if you notice a change.

[maceman]

yes, thanx. already had that set!!

[moondrummer78]

yes, thanx. already had that set!!

Well, it was worth a shot. This is a strange thing indeed going on here!

[GSGregg]

I haven't yet decided what to 'graduate' to, and this thread makes me wonder if this FPS anomaly applies to such primitive rigs as my XP-SP3, Celeron D-330 (2.67GHz) w/512MB RAM (JP's VP8 Medieval Madness becomes almost unplayable when multiball starts up and my favorite, PacDude's Centaur, isn't a whole lot better). Alas, I've encountered my first strike:

If you're using Nvidia and you go to manage 3D there's a listing for "Power Management Mode" By default this is set to "Adaptive" which would cause the GPU to be intermitant, try setting this to "Prefer Maximum Performance" and see if you notice a change.

This seemed to hold some promise, but my Nvidia 6200 512MB AGP-8X doesn't offer Power Management; oh, well.....I'll still do some framerate checks just for fun.

[KEG]

@Maceman: I'm using the newest driver. 267.59

Edited by KEG, 19 April 2011 - 11:45 AM.

[StevOz]

Actually I've noticed this kind of behaviour with VP way back to VP6, it seems totally random, sometimes it just seems to run faster and totally smooth, whilst at other times it's not so good, usually still playable.

[maceman]

@keg- Thanx! I think I will try to uninstall the 260.99 today and try a new driver, just to see, as this is driving me crazy.
I never tried testing framerate with the newer drivers. Problem is the FP BG doesn't work with the new drivers....but i need to find this out before i call EVGA and find out what is choking the bandwidth.

I am guaranteed this must have to do with the card now. These newer cards have a feature for power saving thatputs theminto half speed if they don't detect a solid load. I am thinking VPis not forcing enough load to kick the card into full swing. The fact that it works better when streaming a video or something, must indicate the card works better,and is just amatter of triggering it.

[chriz]

I am guaranteed this must have to do with the card now. These newer cards have a feature for power saving thatputs theminto half speed if they don't detect a solid load. I am thinking VPis not forcing enough load to kick the card into full swing. The fact that it works better when streaming a video or something, must indicate the card works better,and is just amatter of triggering it.

I agree with you, I think this is the power saving mode. you can use a tool like cpu-z to monitor your gpu mhz... so you can see when it switch to fullspeed.

[maceman]

@Gary,

I've been talking with EVGA today, and am running somemore tests. I am running Heaven Benchmark and GPU-Z to check the peaks. I'll post anything i find here....

I hope you can extract some code to help boost soon!! This is annoying...

[rob046]

For me at least power saver mode doesn't change anything. Problem happens on both adaptive & full power. This was one of the first things I checked when I noticed this problem.

I don't think the problem is flash. While flash running might be one of the things that help, I don't think its at the root of the problem. & I'm pretty sure none of the programs I use to fix this problem use flash at all. Maybe yahoo messenger somehow does, but the other 2 definitely don't. Or if they did I would be shocked.
Yet you still might be onto something. Flash player is also a media player, so maybe this is more confirmation that media players hold the secret answer to the problem.

[maceman]

here is the latest.

it does not have to do with flash at all. What it is is that VP is not using enough GPU power to trigger the card.

For example, when i run anything that puts a load onto the card ( ie. Firefox, media players, performance benchmarking tests running a load on the gpu) and then run VP, the fps is much higher than without.

Confirmed by EVGA Tech Lev 1 and 2, these newer cards have a feature that works to conserve power, thus you will see you read-out for the clock speed low, unless the card is 'woken up', else it uses the CPU. In my case, my clock is OC'ed to 850 or so...the norm being 783 i think for the SC gtx460 card.... when i am not using, the clock goes to 51.That is not a typo. I wrote 51 (Fifty-One Mhz). When i do something, the clock goes back to normal, but the GPU usage remains at 0. It will only go up under stress.

So what does this all mean in short. Well,

1. I don't think driver is not to blame.

2. Two People can have the exact same card and yet have different experiences. Why? Because, for example, if I have a better system(better cpu and ram), then it can in turn work against me because the gpu doesn't kick in. With a worse system, it could actually put the necessary stress on the card, similar to what i am emulating with the performance benchmark test running in tandem.

btw- I get higher fps using 'performance test' than with the browser open. This is how I know this is the problem! It all has to do with needing the gpu to be utilized.

3. I read several forums with people experiencing the exact same thing. These forums had to do with runningcertain games(like WOW,Crysis, etc....) Apparantly not all of these games utilize the gpu.
Still trying more tests....

[maceman]

Some more info...

I followed a 'low fps' lead from the net to trouble shooting some sound issues. Here is what i found:

1. Running "The Bally Game Show" after boot-up runs at `40-60 fps (garbage).

2. If I disable the MMCSS (Multimedia Class Scheduler) Service, my fps jumps to `175-190 fps (but of course i have no sound- this is just to trouble shoot).

3. With the MMCSS disabled, if I then further open my FF, opened to vpforums.org, my fps jump to about 395-450 fps.

As you can see, I have no idea why this works, but hopefully someone with some brains in these matters can see through my observations and comment further...

Maceman

***EDIT: I use Bally Game Show as an example because on my system it is very stuttery! No offense meant to JP at all, as he will know... his tables are top-notch and this is not a table issue!!

Edited by maceman, 20 April 2011 - 01:31 AM.

[gwjrabbit]

Some more info...

Fascinated by this line of reasoning. I didn't think the GPU mattered much for VP.

[toxie]

wait a second.. so the GPU is deactivated internally and the driver switches to CPU rendering depending on some magic heuristics? WTF! these drivers are even more insane than i imagined these days!!