Framerate Problems Alpha 19

Vampirenostra said:
BTW speaking of frame drops while collapsing large buildings - I've noticed it stutters more when looking at  blocks hitting the ground and not the ones that fall from the building getting destroyed.
Click to expand...
The issue with frame drops while collapsing doesn't have much to do with the visuals. It's the large number of SI calculations and data related to those calculations overwhelming the RAM and CPU. It's been several builds since I did a test based on that, but the last one took the client from using about 8.5GB RAM to using about 24GB RAM. If you only had 12GB RAM available, then all the excess would go to Swap/Pagefile. Since hard drives are typically slower than RAM, this created a massive bottleneck, and tanked your systems ability to keep up with drawing the frames.  

 
SylenThunder said:
The issue with frame drops while collapsing doesn't have much to do with the visuals. It's the large number of SI calculations and data related to those calculations overwhelming the RAM and CPU. It's been several builds since I did a test based on that, but the last one took the client from using about 8.5GB RAM to using about 24GB RAM. If you only had 12GB RAM available, then all the excess would go to Swap/Pagefile. Since hard drives are typically slower than RAM, this created a massive bottleneck, and tanked your systems ability to keep up with drawing the frames.  
Click to expand...
Macs possess quite fast ssd lately, but anyhow it is way slower than the RAM

 
I have the same issue. Just sitting in my base I get around 18 FPS. Outside it can go up to 22-28 FPS.

Horde nights, or inside large POIs like Dishong Tower it drops to 3-7 FPS and gets really choppy.

I have updates/anti-virus/etc. disabled while playing and monitoring the system usage while playing I see the average GPU load goes no higher than 55% and it's temp sits around 50-60 degrees C. For comparison, running the 3DMark DX11 benchmark sees the GPU hitting 80 degrees C and 100% utilization and the recorded frame rate in the benchmark was between 36-51 FPS.

Overall CPU utilization doesn't get above 35%. The highest utilization of a single core is no higher than 75%.

Memory and disk drive usage are low to negligable.

Specs

CPU

2 x Intel Xeon Processor E5-2650

  • Clock frequency: 2,778 MHz (2,000 MHz)
  • Physical / logical processors: 2 / 32
  • # of cores: 8
GPU

AMD Radeon RX 480

  • Memory: 8,192 MB
  • Clock frequency: 1,310 MHz
  • Memory clock frequency: 2,100 MHz
  • Average temperature 78 °C
RAM

32 GB Kingston HyperX (2 x 16GB matched sticks in separate channels)

Game Drive

2 x 250GB Samsung EVO SSD configured RAID0

OS

64-bit Windows 10 Pro (10.0.19041)

====================================

My wife gets 100+ FPS in our base and 70-95 FPS on horde nights/dishong tower.

For comparison to my specs above, my wife's PC has the following specs...
 

Specs

CPU

1 x i5-4460  CPU @ 3.20GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.2GHz

GPU

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960

  • Display Memory: 8119 MB
  • Dedicated Memory: 4053 MB
RAM

8 GB Generic (1 x 8GB)

Game Drive

1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM HDD 1TB

OS

64-bit Windows 10 Pro (10.0.19041)

As you can see, her PC is far less powerful than mine. I don't understand what it is on mine that's making the game run so poorly.

 
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Kyr said:
I have the same issue. Just sitting in my base I get around 18 FPS. Outside it can go up to 22-28 FPS.

Horde nights, or inside large POIs like Dishong Tower it drops to 3-7 FPS and gets really choppy.

I have updates/anti-virus/etc. disabled while playing and monitoring the system usage while playing I see the average GPU load goes no higher than 55% and it's temp sits around 50-60 degrees C. For comparison, running the 3DMark DX11 benchmark sees the GPU hitting 80 degrees C and 100% utilization and the recorded frame rate in the benchmark was between 36-51 FPS.

Overall CPU utilization doesn't get above 35%. The highest utilization of a single core is no higher than 75%.

Memory and disk drive usage are low to negligable.

Specs

CPU

2 x Intel Xeon Processor E5-2650

  • Clock frequency: 2,778 MHz (2,000 MHz)
  • Physical / logical processors: 2 / 32
  • # of cores: 8
Click to expand...
Lost of cores. Maybe the game uses too many of them and overloads the data paths on this very old CPU, especially since there are two CPUs with a comparatively slow interconnect.

To test that you could turn off one of the CPU chips in the BIOS, and maybe even turn off hyperthreading and see if it helps.

 
Kyr said:
I have the same issue. Just sitting in my base I get around 18 FPS. Outside it can go up to 22-28 FPS.

Horde nights, or inside large POIs like Dishong Tower it drops to 3-7 FPS and gets really choppy.

I have updates/anti-virus/etc. disabled while playing and monitoring the system usage while playing I see the average GPU load goes no higher than 55% and it's temp sits around 50-60 degrees C. For comparison, running the 3DMark DX11 benchmark sees the GPU hitting 80 degrees C and 100% utilization and the recorded frame rate in the benchmark was between 36-51 FPS.

Overall CPU utilization doesn't get above 35%. The highest utilization of a single core is no higher than 75%.

Memory and disk drive usage are low to negligable.

Specs

CPU

2 x Intel Xeon Processor E5-2650

  • Clock frequency: 2,778 MHz (2,000 MHz)
  • Physical / logical processors: 2 / 32
  • # of cores: 8
GPU

AMD Radeon RX 480

  • Memory: 8,192 MB
  • Clock frequency: 1,310 MHz
  • Memory clock frequency: 2,100 MHz
  • Average temperature 78 °C
RAM

32 GB Kingston HyperX (2 x 16GB matched sticks in separate channels)

Game Drive

2 x 250GB Samsung EVO SSD configured RAID0

OS

64-bit Windows 10 Pro (10.0.19041)

====================================

My wife gets 100+ FPS in our base and 70-95 FPS on horde nights/dishong tower.

For comparison to my specs above, my wife's PC has the following specs...
 

Specs

CPU

1 x i5-4460  CPU @ 3.20GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.2GHz

GPU

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960

  • Display Memory: 8119 MB
  • Dedicated Memory: 4053 MB
RAM

8 GB Generic (1 x 8GB)

Game Drive

1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM HDD 1TB

OS

64-bit Windows 10 Pro (10.0.19041)

As you can see, her PC is far less powerful than mine. I don't understand what it is on mine that's making the game run so poorly.
Click to expand...
I'm having the same issues. When you are outside I'm getting anywhere from 28-42 FPS and inside it has gone as low as 12. This has been fairly recent that it has done this. 19.2 stable has been stable until about a week or so ago. My system isn't a kingpin set up but it's no slouch either. 

CPU: i9-9900k

RAM:32 GB 

GPU: RTX 2060

and I've tried running on my NVME and my SSD's there is no change. 

on Windows 10 Pro. 

I don't feel like with my set up I should see any issues at any resolution but I'm playing at 1080. 12fps inside a building is unplayable. I've also noticed that the amount of memory that I use goes up over time. It starts at about 12 and usually when I quit playing that the memory ends up over 16gb. Could it be that there is a memory leak somewhere? I don't know, I love this game but it's making playing just a hassle. Maybe Alpha 20 will fix some of these issues. 

 
meganoth said:
Lost of cores. Maybe the game uses too many of them and overloads the data paths on this very old CPU, especially since there are two CPUs with a comparatively slow interconnect.

To test that you could turn off one of the CPU chips in the BIOS, and maybe even turn off hyperthreading and see if it helps.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the suggestion.

The BIOS has no option to turn off a sepcific CPU socket unfortunately so I'm stuck with 2 CPUs but it did give me another idea.

I've created a shortcut for the game that forces 7DTD to run with a CPU affinity that limits it to just 8 of the cores on CPU1 (the 2nd CPU).

This has improved my FPS. I now see 32-40 FPS in my base, ~50 FPS outdoors.

I took a copy of my save and forced a horde night to test that and it still dropped massively... but I was still seeing 12-15 FPS which is an improvement and somewhat more playable.

I've tested this using 4, 6 and 8 cores. I always choose even numbered cores as these are the "physical" cores (as opposed to the "hyperthread" virtual cores).

In my testing 6 or 8 works best... there's very little difference between them with 6 being marginally better in my testing.

For anyone else that needs this fix and wondering how to do this, it's relatively simple.

First, open task manager > performance and count how many cores you have .. I have 32.

Next, in notepad, type out that many zeros...

00000000000000000000000000000000

Now, each of these represents a core. From right to left change a 0 to a 1 for each core you will want the game to use...

For me this was 8 cores...

01010101010101010000000000000000

Next, turn this into a hex value (https://www.mathsisfun.com/binary-decimal-hexadecimal-converter.html can do this)

55550000

Next, create a new shortcut on your desktop with a target as follows...

cmd.exe /c start "7DaysToDie" /affinity 55550000 "drive:\full\path\to\your\7DaysToDie.exe"

Replace the number in bold with the one you generated above...

Start the game using this shortcut.

 
Syn said:
I'm having the same issues. When you are outside I'm getting anywhere from 28-42 FPS and inside it has gone as low as 12. This has been fairly recent that it has done this. 19.2 stable has been stable until about a week or so ago. My system isn't a kingpin set up but it's no slouch either. 

CPU: i9-9900k

RAM:32 GB 

GPU: RTX 2060

and I've tried running on my NVME and my SSD's there is no change. 

on Windows 10 Pro. 

I don't feel like with my set up I should see any issues at any resolution but I'm playing at 1080. 12fps inside a building is unplayable. I've also noticed that the amount of memory that I use goes up over time. It starts at about 12 and usually when I quit playing that the memory ends up over 16gb. Could it be that there is a memory leak somewhere? I don't know, I love this game but it's making playing just a hassle. Maybe Alpha 20 will fix some of these issues. 
Click to expand...
11 Fps during horde night now. it's getting worse and intermittent. 

 
Ponasity said:
I thought Id load up my A18 save. Nope. Tried to start a new save and its literally unplayable.
Click to expand...
You can't play an Alpha 18 world in A19. Sorry, but you need to start a new world.

 
I'm currentl;y MAXing out at 10 FPS in both Ultra and low settingsat 1080p,

Did a full game reinstall deleted all saved games etc

Optimized for performance nn geforce experience

Specs

CPU AMD 2600

GPU RTX2070 Super

32GB RAM

500GB NVME harddrive

All drivers are up to date

Using afterburner to monitor Usage  I am in single figuies for Both CPU and GPU

When paused I'm getting 110FPS

PS Turned off discord (was giving popup Notifications) have got up to 25 FPS in both 1080p Low and Ultra Settings_

 
Kyr said:
RAM

32 GB Kingston HyperX (2 x 16GB matched sticks in separate channels)
Click to expand...
This makes your memory run in single channel mode. (half speed). You'll probably get a performance bump by adding two

more chips to get them running in dual channel mode.

Emo Otaku said:
I'm currentl;y MAXing out at 10 FPS in both Ultra and low settings
Click to expand...
Post a log. Instructions are in a sticky at the top of this sub-forum.

 
Beelzybub said:
This makes your memory run in single channel mode. (half speed). You'll probably get a performance bump by adding two

more chips to get them running in dual channel mode.

Post a log. Instructions are in a sticky at the top of this sub-forum.
Click to expand...
isn't he already running it dual-channel? or it is something specific to server boards to have all 4 slots filled?

 
Vampirenostra said:
isn't he already running it dual-channel? or it is something specific to server boards to have all 4 slots filled?
Click to expand...
Not if he has them in separate bands. They would need to be in the same paired channel in order to utilize dual0channel mode and get the actual advertised speed.

Say my board has 4 slots laid out like so..

1

2

CPU

3

4

The channels are usually configured like so....

1 DIMM_B1

2 DIMM_B2

CPU

3 DIMM_A1

4 DIMM_A2

The channels are A and B, and the paired slots are 1 and 2.

So if he's got them in separate channels with incorrect slots, he has it like this...

1 DIMM_B1

2 DIMM_B2 - 16GB RAM

CPU

3 DIMM_A1 - 16GB RAM

4 DIMM_A2

Since the channels are 1, and 2, they are unable to use double-data rate. Which basically turns 3200Mhz RAM into 1600Mhz, and tanks your performance. If you stuck them both in the A side, you have the same issue.

Correct layout would be to have them in different channels, but paired slots.

1 DIMM_B1

2 DIMM_B2 - 16GB RAM

CPU

3 DIMM_A1

4 DIMM_A2 - 16GB RAM

The slots are usually color-coded, and if there are only four slots, it's pretty hard to screw up. 6-8 slot systems can be a bit more difficult, especially if they also have the option for quad-channel. 

So in the end, it's really hit or miss as to whether he has the RAM installed properly, but this is a very common mistake.

 
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SylenThunder said:
Not if he has them in separate bands. They would need to be in the same paired channel in order to utilize dual0channel mode and get the actual advertised speed.

Say my board has 4 slots laid out like so..

1

2

CPU

3

4

The channels are usually configured like so....

1 DIMM_B1

2 DIMM_B2

CPU

3 DIMM_A1

4 DIMM_A2

The channels are A and B, and the paired slots are 1 and 2.

So if he's got them in separate channels with incorrect slots, he has it like this...

1 DIMM_B1

2 DIMM_B2 - 16GB RAM

CPU

3 DIMM_A1 - 16GB RAM

4 DIMM_A2

Since the channels are 1, and 2, they are unable to use double-data rate. Which basically turns 3200Mhz RAM into 1600Mhz, and tanks your performance. If you stuck them both in the A side, you have the same issue.

Correct layout would be to have them in different channels, but paired slots.

1 DIMM_B1

2 DIMM_B2 - 16GB RAM

CPU

3 DIMM_A1

4 DIMM_A2 - 16GB RAM

The slots are usually color-coded, and if there are only four slots, it's pretty hard to screw up. 6-8 slot systems can be a bit more difficult, especially if they also have the option for quad-channel. 

So in the end, it's really hit or miss as to whether he has the RAM installed properly, but this is a very common mistake.
Click to expand...
The Chanel basics are clear to me, you usually have a chart in the manual for these, but you suggested adding 2 more units of RAM to use double channel, that's why I asked.

 
Vampirenostra said:
isn't he already running it dual-channel? or it is something specific to server boards to have all 4 slots filled?
Click to expand...


SylenThunder said:
So in the end, it's really hit or miss as to whether he has the RAM installed properly,
Click to expand...


They are in single channel because he has two cpus. Each cpu has it's own memory slots and needs

to have at least one memory slot populated.

He would need four dimms to get that system to run in dual channel mode. With only 2 dimms, each cpu

gets one, and thus operates it's memory in single channel mode.

I did not mean to imply the op had not installed his memory correctly. Just that with only 2 sticks, a dual

cpu system will run in single channel mode.

Kyr said:
CPU

2 x Intel Xeon Processor E5-2650
Click to expand...

 
Beelzybub said:
They are in single channel because he has two cpus. Each cpu has it's own memory slots and needs

to have at least one memory slot populated.

He would need four dimms to get that system to run in dual channel mode. With only 2 dimms, each cpu

gets one, and thus operates it's memory in single channel mode.

...
Click to expand...


His message is ambiguous, I would normally interpret "(2 x 16GB matched sticks in separate channels)" as 2 pairs aka 4 dimms of 8G. He obviously knows about channels.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Beelzybub said:
This makes your memory run in single channel mode. (half speed). You'll probably get a performance bump by adding two

more chips to get them running in dual channel mode.

Post a log. Instructions are in a sticky at the top of this sub-forum.
Click to expand...
<script src="https://pastebin.com/embed_js/X3RgJKFf"></script>
Here's mine, i just got done with horde 70, when trying to collect loot bags I was getting around 11-15 FPS. specs are previously posted in thread
 
Syn said:
https://pastebin.com/embed_js/X3RgJKFf
Click to expand...


It seems you have quite good FPS usually, but some notorious cases where it drops dramatically. I have that too (currently playing a mod that makes my FPS seriously drop on horde night and when I look in specific directions). I'm not sure whether you really have a problem that can be fixed or it is just an optimization problem the developers haven't tackled yet.

There are a few possible reasons:

1) Trees. Do you have planted a forest and the fps drops when you look into that general direction? There are other blocks that might do this (especially some from the creative menue), but trees are culprit no. 1.

2) Generally, are you framerate drops always in the same place looking in the same directions? If yes, is there something big and built by you in that direction?

3) I may be totally wrong here, but you have 6G GPU memory. This is usually enough, but it may just not be enough at highest quality settings. Have you disabled texture streaming with texture quality at max (the log seems to say no, but I may be reading wrong) ? That might lead to moments of heavy data shuffling between RAM and VRAM.

4) Anyway, you might play around with some of the graphics settings, especially texture quality which can easily be set down one notch without you noticing it, also occlussion, reflections and terrain quality and see if it makes a difference. There are also a few console commands that change internal graphics settings, but I'm not up-to-date which ones might help.

 
meganoth said:
It seems you have quite good FPS usually, but some notorious cases where it drops dramatically. I have that too (currently playing a mod that makes my FPS seriously drop on horde night and when I look in specific directions). I'm not sure whether you really have a problem that can be fixed or it is just an optimization problem the developers haven't tackled yet.

There are a few possible reasons:

1) Trees. Do you have planted a forest and the fps drops when you look into that general direction? There are other blocks that might do this (especially some from the creative menue), but trees are culprit no. 1.

2) Generally, are you framerate drops always in the same place looking in the same directions? If yes, is there something big and built by you in that direction?

3) I may be totally wrong here, but you have 6G GPU memory. This is usually enough, but it may just not be enough at highest quality settings. Have you disabled texture streaming with texture quality at max (the log seems to say no, but I may be reading wrong) ? That might lead to moments of heavy data shuffling between RAM and VRAM.

4) Anyway, you might play around with some of the graphics settings, especially texture quality which can easily be set down one notch without you noticing it, also occlussion, reflections and terrain quality and see if it makes a difference. There are also a few console commands that change internal graphics settings, but I'm not up-to-date which ones might help.
Click to expand...
1.) No, I have planted trees but when I experienced the frames going that low they aren't even in the frame. In the log that I posted I was actually looking down at the ground collecting loot bags. 

2.) I notice it most when the game changes from day to night and night to day. 

3.) and 4.) I've already done that by following a few guides online. When it finally goes back to normal I'm getting 60-90fps and even sometimes as high as 100+ but when the frame rate drops it's HUGE.

 
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