PC RAM Performance and 7D2D FPS?

[Pernicious]

I know everyone has issues with 7D2D performance. My machine is getting a bit long in the tooth as well (8086k, 3080 Ti). It was never unplayably bad, but it did annoy me a bit that on horde nights and in large cities, I'd drop down to low 30fps, which made accurate aiming a bit tougher.

As a coincidence - I was trying to diagnose poor performance in another game entirely, and noticed that my XMP settings were off (Essentially factory overclock for RAM). I always turn XMP on when I build my PCs, so I'm assuming at some point, CMOS was wiped, or a BIOS update turned everything back to default. Anyway, I turned it back on, and then thought, "I'm here anyway, let's push this harder". Anyway, it's now clocked from the default 2133 MT/s to 3600 MT/s, and timings have been tightened a bit too.

This seems to have made minimal difference in other games I play which are GPU bound. But seems to have made a 5-7fps difference in 7d2d. I know that's not much. At least, not when you're just walking around. But in terms of crazed horde night combat, the difference between 30fps and 35fps is enough to make a difference.

Just curious - anyone else have any experience with memory tuning/overclocking memory and squeezing a bit more out of 7d2d?

 

[bobrpggamer]

I know everyone has issues with 7D2D performance. My machine is getting a bit long in the tooth as well (8086k, 3080 Ti). It was never unplayably bad, but it did annoy me a bit that on horde nights and in large cities, I'd drop down to low 30fps, which made accurate aiming a bit tougher.

As a coincidence - I was trying to diagnose poor performance in another game entirely, and noticed that my XMP settings were off (Essentially factory overclock for RAM). I always turn XMP on when I build my PCs, so I'm assuming at some point, CMOS was wiped, or a BIOS update turned everything back to default. Anyway, I turned it back on, and then thought, "I'm here anyway, let's push this harder". Anyway, it's now clocked from the default 2133 MT/s to 3600 MT/s, and timings have been tightened a bit too.

This seems to have made minimal difference in other games I play which are GPU bound. But seems to have made a 5-7fps difference in 7d2d. I know that's not much. At least, not when you're just walking around. But in terms of crazed horde night combat, the difference between 30fps and 35fps is enough to make a difference.

Just curious - anyone else have any experience with memory tuning/overclocking memory and squeezing a bit more out of 7d2d?

I had overclocked my 9700k and twice I found out in windows that it was without the OC. I do not know why this happened either.

I would just call the memory timings and OC as a win. I know this game is CPU aggressive so it seems that the best card you put in may not make a big difference and if you get down into the 30s (like my GTX 1080) with a RTX 3080 Ti, then this game is really hogging more CPU and memory speed than I had thought before.

Its like getting a CPU with 16 cores that achieves less GHZ than a lower 8 core CPU that achieves higher GHZ, I would assume this game would achieve higher FPS with the higher clock speed. For that matter maybe this game would like the new DDR 5 and its higher clock speed than the DDR 4 lower clock speed. I have 3200 DDR 4 and my new upgrade will be DDR 5 @ 4800, this may make a difference as well. Who really knows about this game anyway.

I am sure the voxel engine is the real culprit with CPU performance, than that of a polygon engine game. If you ever get some spare time in the game, find the skyscraper construction POI and bring it down with an auger at it base and watch the slideshow after that. That is all CPU there.

 

[Pernicious]

For that matter maybe this game would like the new DDR 5 and its higher clock speed than the DDR 4 lower clock speed. I have 3200 DDR 4 and my new upgrade will be DDR 5 @ 4800, this may make a difference as well. Who really knows about this game anyway.

I'm really keen to see how that works out for you. After adjusting the memory bandwidth and timing, I did some reading and watching on whether memory overclock was worth it.

Turns out some programs really care about bulk data transfer, (higher bandwidth), and others care more about low latency (More aggressive timing), and many, it makes no difference at all, because it's the GPU that's bottlenecking.

DDR5 is much faster on the bandwidth, but the latency is still about the same (Absolute real time is the same, but the cycles to wait between actions has gone up due to the higher frequency). It'd be interesting to see if DDR5 helps if that's the case, because then we'd know which type of speed 7D2D cares about most.

 

[bobrpggamer]

I'm really keen to see how that works out for you. After adjusting the memory bandwidth and timing, I did some reading and watching on whether memory overclock was worth it.

Turns out some programs really care about bulk data transfer, (higher bandwidth), and others care more about low latency (More aggressive timing), and many, it makes no difference at all, because it's the GPU that's bottlenecking.

DDR5 is much faster on the bandwidth, but the latency is still about the same (Absolute real time is the same, but the cycles to wait between actions has gone up due to the higher frequency). It'd be interesting to see if DDR5 helps if that's the case, because then we'd know which type of speed 7D2D cares about most.

Like you pointed out the difference would be so minimal, that TFP would need to have a benchmark (I know they wont of course), like Crysis and the Metro series. I do not know if we will get better performance in cities in A21, as they say its the glass and it will be fixed - I guess.

I already own a RTX 4070 Ti so my GPU will not be the bottleneck that the GTX 1080 would. I got my PC together with the RTX 4070 Ti and the 9700K and the DDR 3200 and right after I reinstalled window and was ready to benchmark everything, my PC died, turns out it was the motherboard so I will be upgrading to the  Intel Core i9-13900 and 64 GB of DDR5 4800. So it will be a more rounded PC than the 9700K, DDR4 3200 and GTX 1080.

I am sure a benchmark would give some guys like me a woodie, but It will never happen. So that 1-2 FPS difference in DDR5 over DDR4 would very hard to notice.

Also I am not as inclined as others about PC components. I do know about clock speed and timings but not much else. That would be the reason for getting the motherboards standard 4800Mhz DDR5, so I will not have to overclock the memory on the motherboard, I think it will just be accepted and not need XMP to set the clock speed Higher.

 

[Pernicious]

Also I am not as inclined as others about PC components. I do know about clock speed and timings but not much else. That would be the reason for getting the motherboards standard 4800Mhz DDR5, so I will not have to overclock the memory on the motherboard, I think it will just be accepted and not need XMP to set the clock speed Higher.

Yeah, fair enough. I don't really consider XMP overclocking. Kind of more like a boost speed - but you have to set it.

There are faster DDR5 offerings out there now, but if you don't think you'd notice the difference, it's just a waste of money. I do a lot of heavy work on virtual machines, so I do like to buy usually near the top (right before it gets to enthusiast spec and pricing) and keep the build a bit longer.

 

[SylenThunder]

Yes, RAM and CPU clock speeds can have a big difference in the FPS performance of the game. This is because it's a Voxel game and is CPU-bound. Unlike other games that only rely on the GPU. 

I've covered this in some detail previously.

Yeah, fair enough. I don't really consider XMP overclocking. Kind of more like a boost speed - but you have to set it.

See when it first came out, it kind of was. RAM was sold with an advertised base clock, and then was overclockable to a known stable value. This value was XMP.
Now though, XMP is basically the face value of the card. It takes the guesswork out of ensuring your RAM is clocked properly. 

 

[bobrpggamer]

Yeah, fair enough. I don't really consider XMP overclocking. Kind of more like a boost speed - but you have to set it.

There are faster DDR5 offerings out there now, but if you don't think you'd notice the difference, it's just a waste of money. I do a lot of heavy work on virtual machines, so I do like to buy usually near the top (right before it gets to enthusiast spec and pricing) and keep the build a bit longer.

What do you use for virtual machines? If you are talking about ESXI forget I mentioned it, as its above my knowledge.

 

[bobrpggamer]

Now though, XMP is basically the face value of the card. It takes the guesswork out of ensuring your RAM is clocked properly. 

I guess if the motherboard supports it it should be fine. Just curious, now that my good PC is dead, what would a:

i7 860

DDR3 1333

GTX 1080

Look like in 7DTD alpha 20. To be honest I do not even want to try it until I get a better PC.

7DTD Alpha 16 was the only game that ever fried my GPU. I had a GTX 690 (which I now know was not worth the price) and I got garbled graphics on my monitor and my PC froze and I had to restart, I was concerned it killed my GPU, but luckily I just restarted and all was OK. I have never played a game that did that before and after.

 

[Naz]

I guess if the motherboard supports it, it should be fine. Just curious, now that my good PC is dead. What would a:

i7 860

DDR3 1333

GTX 1080

Look like in 7DTD alpha 20. To be honest I do not even want to try it until I get a better PC.

7DTD Alpha 16 was the only game that ever fried my GPU. I had a GTX 690 (which I now know was not worth the price) and I got garbled graphics on my monitor and my PC froze and I had to restart, I was concerned it killed my GPU, but luckily I just restarted and all was OK. I have never played a game that did that before and after.

Funny story i had a card literally get nuked by 7DTD. Pretty sure it wasn't 7DTD specifically that killed it tho, it was just the game i happened to be playing when it popped its clogs. Was back around A12, 13 maybe was a long while ago. Had a Inno3D iChill GTX 980 Ti Black, bought it because it was relatively cheap for a 980ti and had an aio watercooler. Anyway was happily playing away at 7DTD then the screen froze and i heard a little pop and got the lovely magic smoke smell wafting over from the tower. I didn't bother looking into what happened exactly since it was still within warranty so i just sent it back to the retailer and got a Gigabyte card back as a replacement since they didn't have anymore of those specific inno3d cards. My guess would be either they cheaped out on vrm components or they had a badly designed solution for keeping the vrms cool, thats my guess anyway.

 

[bobrpggamer]

Funny story i had a card literally get nuked by 7DTD. Pretty sure it wasn't 7DTD specifically that killed it tho, it was just the game i happened to be playing when it popped its clogs. Was back around A12, 13 maybe was a long while ago. Had a Inno3D iChill GTX 980 Ti Black, bought it because it was relatively cheap for a 980ti and had an aio watercooler. Anyway was happily playing away at 7DTD then the screen froze and i heard a little pop and got the lovely magic smoke smell wafting over from the tower. I didn't bother looking into what happened exactly since it was still within warranty so i just sent it back to the retailer and got a Gigabyte card back as a replacement since they didn't have anymore of those specific inno3d cards. My guess would be either they cheaped out on vrm components or they had a badly designed solution for keeping the vrms cool, thats my guess anyway.

I had the same smoke come from my space heater, but I axe kicked it so it makes sense that that would happen.

I am afraid to build a new PC, but I have no choice as the other one is dead. I can just see me RMA-ing some parts, like the motherboard, CPU, memory or Nvme ssds, or all of them as my luck has it now.

I am concerned about the RGB lighting being plugged into the motherboard and bricking the board and all it contains. Just out of luck now I guess. Or maybe an invisible gremlin that does not think too highly of me is following me - more than likely that.

 

[Maharin]

One thing I can say for certain... the game plays a lot better with RAM than without.

 

[bobrpggamer]

One thing I can say for certain... the game plays a lot better with RAM than without.

You would also get way better FPS with a computer as well. would look a lot better with a monitor too.

 

[Naz]

I had the same smoke come from my space heater, but I axe kicked it so it makes sense that that would happen.

I am afraid to build a new PC, but I have no choice as the other one is dead. I can just see me RMA-ing some parts, like the motherboard, CPU, memory or Nvme ssds, or all of them as my luck has it now.

I am concerned about the RGB lighting being plugged into the motherboard and bricking the board and all it contains. Just out of luck now I guess. Or maybe an invisible gremlin that does not think too highly of me is following me - more than likely that.

space heaters are power hogs so i can see why you would  yeah it sucks when you have to rma parts, motherboards especially since you have to pretty much completely take apart the system then wait weeks until a replacement or a fix shows up pain in the but. GPU's and storage devices arnt so bad if you have a spare or even just using the igpu, tho just as much a pain if no spares or igpu.

 

[bobrpggamer]

space heaters are power hogs so i can see why you would  yeah it sucks when you have to rma parts, motherboards especially since you have to pretty much completely take apart the system then wait weeks until a replacement or a fix shows up pain in the but. GPU's and storage devices arnt so bad if you have a spare or even just using the igpu, tho just as much a pain if no spares or igpu.

Luckily I have the PC I am using now which is a bit basic:

i7 860

16gb 1333

GTX 1080

I tried to use my old GTX 670 with a HD movie and it was way too little GPU to do that so I just slapped my 1080 and I can at least watch some HD movies until I upgrade again. Some people asked me why I have 2 PCs, well when one dies the other will allow me to check email, do online banking and entertain me enough to be content.

I do not think I could run 7DTD on this PC, even on the lowest settings. Man do I miss playing though, I had a cool base that was a WIP and it really sucks I cannot play it. I thought I would moan more than I did about it, but there is nothing I can do right now so I just have to deal with it.

I have a funny joke about my heater. I had that heater say FU, and Get Out of Here so many times I just axe kicked it. Unfortunately this is true and I wish I was just paranoid, but my air purifier is saying FU about every 5 minutes sometimes more often. I do not know how they do it but I had it with that heater and was probably in a bad mood. I even had my vacuum cleaner and blow drier say FU to me, imagine that.