Investigating Menu Lag

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by mkrater, May 11, 2015.

  1. radongog

    radongog Well-Known Member

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    I get menu lag when creating a game and trying to change GameType and Planet directly afterwards!
    Note: That lag mainly get´s created when switching from FFA-> Team Armies, not the other way round!
  2. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    Those specs should work great (though 8gb ram would be preferable in game). For comparison I'm running on an fx8320 at stock 3.5ghz (i doubt the 2 extra cores make any difference), with an r9 280 gpu and 8gb ram on an Asus board.

    Note I did have some strange lag behavior in game I was discussing with @websterx01... That turned out to be cpu throttling due to insufficient air flow in my case. Note that the fx cpus throttle down to 1.4ghz if the temp exceeds 65c, which just kills the performance. As pa uses quite a few cores it can really heat the cpu up too. Might be worth checking if gigabyte include a temp monitor with their drivers, maybe also a clockrate monitor as that'd show what's happening. Your machine should be able to handle pa fine though. Heck @lapsedpacifist plays on an A10 apu laptop fine and that's much less powerful...
  3. Anijatsu

    Anijatsu New Member

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    [​IMG]
    The lag isn't as bad as shown in the video, but there is from 1 to 3 frames of delay between user action and response if there's nothing happening on screen. I didn't test a heavy scenario.
    I'm using HWiNFO64 for temp monitoring and after dabbling a tad in overclocking, I already noticed that the so-called "AMD APM Master Mode" or "AMD Application Power Management" is responsible for thermal throttling. After disabling that I didn't notice any limitations of the CPU clock while overclocking, and on stock speeds it's running nowhere near the 60/65C degrees limit anyway.
    xanoxis likes this.
  4. radongog

    radongog Well-Known Member

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    I saw in your Inspector-Shots that you are using a 120 FPS-limiter, which would be senseless if you wouldn´t be using a 120 HZ or faster Monitor!

    What happens when you turn your mon down to 60 HZ? Is the problem still visible such intense? Or does it become less obvious to spot? Because the basic phenomena in something EVERYBODY around, the strength is what´s so distracting and surprising!
    (in other words: Could be an issue with more than 60 HZ)
  5. cola_colin

    cola_colin Moderator Alumni

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    PA itself limits menu FPS to 120 to prevent useless cpu/gpu heating marathons
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  6. squishypon3

    squishypon3 Post Master General

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    I remember getting hundreds of fps in the menu... xD
  7. lapsedpacifist

    lapsedpacifist Post Master General

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    Yep, as CD said I play on an A10 laptop with remarkably few issues, it actually runs just as well as my old Phenom-II desktop.

    The RAM is the only thing I could think would be causing you problems @Anijatsu as I'm using a less powerful CPU with no GPU to speak of (the graphics load of PA is almost completely on the iGPU and I can't make it use the dedicated GPU). Maybe up to 8 gigs of ram and see if that helps? 4 gigabytes shouldn't make it unplayable thoigh, I had to play PA with 4 GB for a bit during beta and it was slow but not unbearable.
  8. Remy561

    Remy561 Post Master General

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    So that's why the menu never went above it, thanks :)
  9. Alpha2546

    Alpha2546 Post Master General

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    Fair enough. I noticed a lot of improvements compared to december so thats really good :) . There still is some delay with the friendsbar/uberbar.

    I also noticed that the lobby menu can have a delay when you host a big map. It seems like the server is busy with sending the data to the clients and thus there is a delay when you change settings or type something in the chat. Can't remember with which map it was though.
  10. radongog

    radongog Well-Known Member

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    But that wasn´t what I´m talking about, I was talking about the Nvidia Inspector shots showing that @Anijatsu manually set a 120 FPS-Limiter---which is the reason why I´m guessing Anijatsu is using a 120HZ Monitor and might try turning it down to 60 Hz!
  11. coldboot

    coldboot Active Member

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    Yes these definitely got me when I started playing after release. It was much worse on my MacBook Air, because the game sat there displaying no interface for a long time after the host launched the game out of the lobby.
  12. Anijatsu

    Anijatsu New Member

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    Not the case either. I used a CRT previously that could go up to 120Hz, true, but that is no more since I switched to this AMD CPU+GPU combo. I've just got a normal 75Hz LCD now, and Nvidia Inspector doesn't work on AMD cards, since it's controlling just the Nvidia driver settings and nothing more.
  13. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    Hmm... This could be an nvidia / amd driver conflict issue I guess..?
  14. Anijatsu

    Anijatsu New Member

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    Nope, I used DDU when I didn't reinstall the system yet. After that I had two reinstalls, checking Windows 7 then upgrading to Windows 8.1 and after removing that, got a clear Windows 8.1 install up.
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  15. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    Well that rules that out... So I'm not clear what lag are you getting? In game, in menu? If you press 'ctrl + p' together what fps are you getting?

    At game start on Pacific I'm getting approx 80 fps on high settings at 1920 x 1080p your machine should be at least as fast given specs if it's working correctly...

    There are known pauses in the menus (pa hangs whilst building the map when in lobby for example) however once loaded and in game it should all be good.

    Fresh install rules out mods as the issue. Are you using steam or the uber launcher?
  16. DeathByDenim

    DeathByDenim Post Master General

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    I just accidentally fixed a problem like this. So you may want to give it a try as well:
    https://forums.uberent.com/threads/game-crash-after-loading-v80462.68798/#post-1086401
  17. radongog

    radongog Well-Known Member

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    I was referring to the shots in your bug report...
    ...anyways, have you tried turning down your mon to 60Hz?
  18. avatar100400

    avatar100400 Active Member

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    I have noticed that the only time i have seen UI lag is with lower end connections.
    Anything under 10mbit down and they can have some lag like creating a game or
    just changing to say the Multiplayer or replay screen otherwise its fine.

    From my own testing
    6mbit down 1mbit up and it can be a second or two
    10mbit down 1mbit up and its barely at all
    1Gbit Symmetrical pipe same as 10mbit down.

    Seems to me PA like the UI is very network Based and lower end connections will feel the lag/slow loading.
    Lower end connections also have chat lag when loading like someone pointed out.

    I would also like to Point out that Alpha all the way until Gamma the game was unplayable on Low end connections and even some mid ones i tested with around 10mbit down.
    Uber Should have put up a warning on Steam and everywhere else that the games Requires more
    than a Broadband connection and actually something of at least 10mbit down.
    Last edited: May 26, 2015
  19. lordathon

    lordathon Active Member

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    I agree with that. When i play in the day (not a lot of people connected) i didn't have lag, but in evening (with all people at home) i have sometime 30sec or 1min lag in the lobby of a party.
  20. Greendolph

    Greendolph Active Member

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    Menu lag occurs most for me when opening friends list and when changing filters, such as in the multiplayer server browser or *particularly* when changing filters in the replays menu.
    cdrkf likes this.

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