Exxodous
Active member
Thanks faatal for the feedback. Hope its soon because 20.1 is pretty much unplayable for me currently. Guess I could roll back to stable but I liked the changes in 20.1. Other than this one obviously lol.
PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary
- Thread starter madmole
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And I literally said, "I think our definition of end game differs" in response to his implying that his end game occurs the moment the Zs are no longer a threat, and he has all the food he needs, and then went directly to discussing 'levels' and 'gates' in answer to the thrust of his comment.
If I wasn't having fun, I wouldn't be putting in those kinds of hours, right?
Why wouldn't TFP design the game around players like me, or you for that matter? That looks exactly like what they've done here, to me. You can have multiple short playthroughs with varied character builds and you can have a long term game where you raise entire towns to the ground and build your own skyscrapers if you feel like it, and if you want to do both at once you can always respec or use debug mode.
Quantum Blue
New member
Jost - where the heck did you get that town flipper idea?
(He knows it's something I like to do in some run throughs.)I, too, might also use Well Insulated, or Pack Mule, or Demolitions Expert. And I might not. A lot kind of depends on RNG early game. And I like to experiment. (Although I rarely go above 60 min cycles).
I also didn't feel Neminsis was speaking in a definitive tone. I read it more like 'for example'. (although he stated things like "most common build" he did preface it with 'probably'.) I read it as Neminsis was trying to clarify Perk expectations. (or End Game expectations.)
I kind of do the same thing when persons speak out about realism and immersion. It almost always seems to be about TFP's ('bad') decisions and/or 'non-sensical' game limitations, and yet doesn't seem to be that hard to come up with imaginative ways to address almost anything. (and maybe because computers and game code is becoming more and more 'realistic', peoples expectations about realism are outpacing hardware and software development.)
I suspect all three of us play in various similar ways and know the game is going to be whatever Fun Pimp Decisions are, and how we can best enjoy those decisions ourselves.
pregnable
New member
Cool, thanks guys. I guess I should have updated to experimental, lel. At least I got it all recorded.
Blake_
Captain Obvious
Alright.... while it did improve, GPU load at 1080p is not really a problem in b238 (you could go 4gig VRAM-dedicated GPU with high graphic settings no problem if it weren't for the CPU).Probably something you've already verified, but just in case. Is it certain gpu jobs is the root of the problem and the crashes aren't symptoms of the performance increase gpu jobs provides? GPU jobs increases performance and thus more heavily loads the gpu. Prior to a20.1 low gpu utilization is fairly common and underlying issues with the hardware won't present themselves as often under lights loads. With a20.1 enabled gpu jobs increasing load on users gpus could create conditions that expose underlying hardware problems like, old thermal paste, defective thermal paste, gpu fan faults, unstable OC Settings, Dust clogged fin stacks, inadequate airflow ect. All those issues could result in the game crashing in a20.1 and not a20.0.
I've been doing some benchmarking on a20.1 and enabled gpu jobs makes a substantial difference in general performance. It doesn't help all that much in 0.1% lows, so doesn't treat the root performance issues of a20, but it does a good job of ban aiding it until the bottlenecks can be looked into and optimised.
I've not finished compiling all the data but here's an excerpt of a20.0 vs a20.1 1080p ultra settings
It was great gpu jobs was now being included as stock. It's seems like it would be a step backwards in performance to disable it, especially now since a20.0 in the city's is already borderline unplayable with the frequent and unrelenting stutters. Don't get me wrong if it is actually the cause of the crashes obviously it's better to play with reduced performance over having random crashes. But personally i wouldn't disable a performance feature like this without verifying the crashes weren't caused by something simpler first.
I'm very aware 1 system and 1 users experience doesn't reflect every possibility, but for what it's worth i haven't had a single unexplained crash playing and testing a20.1
CPU is the bottleneck, really. Unless you are doing 1440p and 4k, which eat a lot of video memory.
Turn off Vsync and dynamic meshes, tune down shadows if just a tiny bit and behold. The boost, the crazyness, the unoptimized mess of an engine that can't granulate heavy loads away from the main thread.
Occluder-OFF can give false feedback on your tests, though. If you turn it on, the GPU load will be relieved at the cost of CPU, but if your GPU can really handle top settings with slack, then you are better off with Occluder off, by a WIDE margin.
What is your testing rig?
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Naz
Active member
1080p was just an example of the improvement of a20.1. Full test will have 1080p,1440p,4k and a 21:9 resolution. Vsync was off for all tests. Tests were done on a new World so there shouldn't be any dynamic meshes. Ocluder was on for all tests, previous tests indicate performance was better with it enabled on my 2 systems. I'd be interested to see your data on this as I haven't retested it in a20. The details for that testing rig for that test can be found in my a20.0 Benchmarks here it's the system "trident"
Blake_
Captain Obvious
While I didn't have the time to be that thorough, I did see a ~10% increase in fps in 20.1 vs 20 b238. Occluder off doesn't initially affect performance on landscape but for it to show you need to go straight to downtown next to a bunch of high rise buildings and look for stutters, not paper fps, even though they also suffer. There, I notice microstutters and some "graphical lagging", but when off, GPU suffers a bit more but fps go up due to the CPU being relieved. Testing fps is better in stress tests, so I suggest these tests, they needen't be extremely detailed:
Test 1: spawn 100zds while inside a high rise building in downtown with occluder on. VS Occluder off and check the results from 20 to 20.1 while they hit blocks coming towards you.
Test 2: plant 100 grown up trees in landscape in front of you, as that reflects a very common situation, similar to downtown or mountain areas with a wide variety of fps "droppers". Then, spawn 100 zds in the very same place. The opposing test should be a20 b238 with the same situation.
100 zds is good for testing, as 64 entities is too well tunned and fps vary too much, but if you go beyond the limit, you can truly see the faults even at first sight, without too many conflicting ranges.
Your tests are amazing btw. What really affects the game are those thrilling moments that suffer from stuttering and fps drops though. Every other situation is kind of a filler performance-wise, really.
Not in any way a fix but switching from DirectX to GLCore as renderer increased stability for me. I will still occasionally get a crash but not hardly as often. Just have to deal with a bit of performance loss and the lack of a visible circle when doing treasure digging.
Naz
Active member
Yes that's been my experience with it also. Out in the wilderness it doesn't get much of a chance to occlude anything since most things are within the players view, Inside heavy prefabs is where it shines. I used my custom aircraft carrier prefab as it's a perfect stress test for this kind of thing. Performance with it enabled there improved by 40-80%.
Thank you, i keep benchmark data on my systems because i usually sell them after i upgrade and it's nice to be able to have a record of what the performance was. Agreed i've missed jumps, shots, swings because it decided to drop to 12fps in that split second, can be frustrating
Just finished the a20.1 results here same general improvements but 0.1% lows are much the same and no real improvement in gpu bound scenario's like 4k. Still a nice improvement nevertheless.
faatal
Fun Pimps Staff
Players and zombies should not be doing it at all from origin shifts.
Vehicles seem to have something still happening, but not seen it myself since origin changes.
Turrets do their own ray cast. I have never seen one fall after I made the origin changes, but have done limited testing on those since.
faatal
Fun Pimps Staff
I can't really verify that, because there have been many reports of crashing on a variety of hardware, often second hand reports, and you can't tell the average player to check their thermal paste or OC settings when they don't know what that is. That makes it not a simple issue for them. I do know one of our testers with consistent crashes is on a 3060 TI, so not an old GPU. If Unity allowed us to switch gfx jobs in realtime, we could have a gfx option, but they don't.
Blake_
Captain Obvious
Any news on the optimization front? What are the changes cooking for us players?
I'm really starting to believe that the biggest improvement this title needs going forward might be a good code culling/cleaning of block stability calculations or block code in general.
I would avoid the garbage collection feature altogether, because it does eat A LOT of CPU after a while. Painstakingly profiling and using the correct functions to avoid GC is the only way to stop this constant optimization struggle and start having solid content with some slack.
Jost Amman
Well-known member
Thanks for the clarification. Regarding the turrets... I was using a sledge turret during a BM night, and it worked ok, until it was half in the night, and it fell down "one floor" in my base. I have A20.1 latest, but still using a map generated with A20 b238.
Guppycur
Well-known member
SP or MP, and did you happen to move far enough away from the base for the origin reset to occur and do you happen to have a log?
/curious since 1971
Callum123456789
Active member
i mean i have some sort of log i was on my first bloodmoon horde also had a sledge turret i was fighting with my turret with me and it fell through the floor during the horde one thing i know that fixes this is placing a cube then placing the turret on top of that then it just seemingly stops but if its just floor it falls through its been happening since the launch of a20 i know because i played on the day it released publicly this is both an sp and mp bug
oh and this bug isnt just to do with the sledge turret the same exact thing also happens with the junk turret too
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Jost Amman
Well-known member
Only play SP... I was defending in a very tight BM base.
@faatal : I think I found kind of "proof" that maybe the origin shift bug sometimes applies also to entities. Look at this topic on Steam, please.
Jay_ombie
New member
Quick suggestion on weapon types for killing animals. Maybe if we overkill and shoot heads/limbs off we should be penalised meat quantity.
At the moment I get the same amount of meat for a headless pig killed with a shotty than I do with a whole pig with head which I took down with precision sniping..
At the moment I get the same amount of meat for a headless pig killed with a shotty than I do with a whole pig with head which I took down with precision sniping..
Lord Morphleyes
New member
Is it the same? The headless ones alway take fewer clicks to harvest, I thought we were getting less.
faatal
Fun Pimps Staff
The origin shift had to do with falling through the world and it did happen for players and zombies. What I said was those were fixed in 20.1 and not happening anymore in .1.
That Steam video is unclear. There could easily have been the same type of zombie on the other side of the trader that followed them in.
I'm not working on optimizations. Bugs and a21 features.
You can't avoid all GC, because a reasonable amount is fine and in some cases avoiding it would very difficult. CG is incremental and does not cause much in the way of FPS spikes.
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