Graphics Rendering - what is GPU doing and what the CPU

[thyriel81]

Hi,i just did a couple of tweaking tests with fraps FPS display to get the best look at 25+ fps...What i came across during that tests wonders me in some ways a bit, as it seems all the very nice looking graphics are not rendered by the GPU and are instead done by the CPU...Even with all on maximum (shadows, water reflections & mirror mappings), the GPU activity is not going over 80%. I came across this as i wondered why i had the exact same fps with 1024x768 then i had with 1280x960 and even 2xAA+8xAniso made no difference. I then showed to catalyst center how far the GPU is stressed, and without AA/Aniso it even didnt went over 50%.I then took a look at the CPU activity with a windows sidebar dualcore meter. Strangely, as i saw some threads mentioning its only using 1 core, the CPU activity with the max details was at 100%/40% (and not going higher).So now some detailed testing showed this:- shadows have no impact on the GPU, instead when i turned all shadows off CPU activity core0 went back to 80-90%- water cube map updates set on everytime have a major FPS impact (it drops about 10fps down), but again has no GPU impact only CPU...- same for amount of high res characters, i have major impacts on FPS when more things are around and i set this to 10, but GPU activity is again not going higher or lowerPossible any ideas how to get these to be rendered through GPU, or is it just as it is and my second core and GPU wont get "hot"?

[Hun7]

This game angine is so outdated i makes other older mmos look like somthing from the futurethis game allmost only run DX7 stuff and a little DX8 thats why it runs like crapYou know what sony knows that and say "who cares we dont the stupit ppl pay we get money"

[thyriel81]

<cite>Hun73r wrote:</cite><blockquote>This game angine is so outdated i makes other older mmos look like somthing from the futurethis game allmost only run DX7 stuff and a little DX8 thats why it runs like crapYou know what sony knows that and say "who cares we dont the stupit ppl pay we get money"</blockquote>Im not sure what this has to do with my questions but ok <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />And i would really like to see a screenshot of an MMORPG looking like "from the future" compared to EQ2 on max <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Sure vanguard could.... if it would have more then 20fps on minimum with a 1000$ machine...GW, WoW, EvE, CoH all have not even close that nice looking graphics <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Im not complaining about anything on the engine, id just want to find out if there is any way to force things to the GPU that could easily be done with it...

[Naubeta]

The main thing they need to tackle is how much the UI slows everything down.I drop from 140fps with UI off to 65 with it on.

[thyriel81]

<cite>Naubitzi@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>The main thing they need to tackle is how much the UI slows everything down.I drop from 140fps with UI off to 65 with it on.</blockquote>that sounds a bit strange. Ok im not having 140fps or something near that but 40-50, i just tested if anything changes with UI on/off and it only goes 2-3 fps up when its turned off. So either it has to do with fps being that high that it drops down then (which doesnt hurt anyone), or no idea

[Naubeta]

That's in nektulos forest which is quite a high fps area.In other places (say EoF zones) it's more like going from 80fps without ui to 30something fps with.

[Wingrider01]

<cite>Hun73r wrote:</cite><blockquote>This game angine is so outdated i makes other older mmos look like somthing from the futurethis game allmost only run DX7 stuff and a little DX8 thats why it runs like crapYou know what sony knows that and say "who cares we dont the stupit ppl pay we get money"</blockquote><p>hmm, have seen other posts that have so much incorrect information in such a small number of words, but not many.</p><p>Might want to do some investigations before reporting inaccurate opinions.</p>

[Wingrider01]

<cite>Naubitzi@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>The main thing they need to tackle is how much the UI slows everything down.I drop from 140fps with UI off to 65 with it on.</blockquote>Logical - especially if oyu are using a graphics image intensive UI - remember it has to redraw all your UI eye candy when it redraws the frame.

[thyriel81]

hmm of that i didnt thaught that he might use a modded UI (as im only playing with standard UI and 2 tiny mods)

[Naubeta]

She doesn't use a modded ui p

[infy567]

<span class="name">thyriel81, don't bother trying to get any help from SOE on this one because you won't. They don't care at this point.They have known about multi-core CPUs for quite some time, they are "compatible", but do not "support". If you have a dual core CPU, EQ2 will only use 50% of the CPU. The guys who have quad-cores are really screwed - their FPS and gameplay has gone down the crapper.GPU verse CPU? Yes, you're absolutely right. EQ2 renders geometry and shadows on the CPU rather than the GPU, so the GPU is waiting around for the CPU to finish. I have an Intel Core 2 duo 600 775 chip, Evga 775 Core 2 680i SLI board, 2 gigs 1066mhz memory and two Geforce 8800 GTS 320mb cards in SLI mode. On top of that I'm running EQ2 on it's own Seagate SATA 320g drive that does 3g per second with a 16mb cache.I can't play with shadows on - period - because EQ2's rendering engine was written in 2002-2003, the game was released November 2004. They have done very little to change the graphics engine since.So do what we all do, turn off shadows completely. I can play with everything else on 100% - including complex shader distance - and play just fine. I just can't use shadows. I still slow down in Qeynos Harbor a wee bit (20-25 fps), but I get 70+ pretty much everywhere.</span>

[thyriel81]

<cite>infy567 wrote:</cite><blockquote><span class="name">If you have a dual core CPU, EQ2 will only use 50% of the CPU.Seagate SATA 320g drive that does 3g per second with a 16mb cache.</span></blockquote>that drive doesnt have 3g/sec <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> 3g / sec is the maximum a SATA can theoretically do, in practise a SATA Drive has around 170mb/sec burst speed (this is when the data is in the cache of the disk) or around the half normal speed while its only reading <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />For dual core i dont find it that extreme, i did look quite often during EQ2 tests on the cpu activity (of the everquest2.exe process to get acurate data), and in fact it does use both cores "sometimes", not sure whats wrong on this exactly but it goes quite often to 70-80% total CPU use (99 of core1 and 30-40 of core2), but 10-15sec back to 50%.But its not the hardest to live with, the game is quite old (for a computer game), and there are only a handfull games that work with multi-core systems on the market right now, and most dont plan to use them in the future even.

[Kenban]

I don't mind the fact that this game only uses a single CPU core (not sure why it needs to use more then one). But its bothered me for a long time that so much of the graphics work is still being done on the CPU instead of the GPU. Shadows are the best known problem but I am sure there is more. I keep hoping for the graphics engine to either be rewritten or at least modernized. thyriel81 if you want a MMO with good graphics look at LOTRO

[infy567]

<cite>Kenban wrote:</cite><blockquote>I don't mind the fact that this game only uses a single CPU core (not sure why it needs to use more then one). But its bothered me for a long time that so much of the graphics work is still being done on the CPU instead of the GPU. Shadows are the best known problem but I am sure there is more. I keep hoping for the graphics engine to either be rewritten or at least modernized. thyriel81 if you want a MMO with good graphics look at LOTRO</blockquote>I played LOTRO for about a month and came back to EQ2. LOTRO has a horrible interface for guilds and broker. The broker interface is so bad, you will scream for EQ2. LOTRO guild is just like WOW - an over glorified chat window. No writs, no quests, no real levels, no bank, nothing. LOTRO's command structure is bad. By level 20, my guardian had 5 possible attack commands and only 2 "heroic options" (or whatever it is they call it). In EQ2 I had a couple dozen. Because the game is so new and there are so few playing it, finding items to equip is very hard and very costly. Repairs upon dying at level 20 are as high as 40 silver - which is very very hard to come by. I was always broke and using equipment that was 10 levels below me. The game is designed so player made materials are better than what you can buy, but players are selling them for 750 silver +. On top of that the gold spammers are rampant, sometimes getting 10-15 tells an hour. The world? Very small. The whole size of the world is about half of one of WOW's continents. There is what, 7-10 zones max and some of the borders have invisible walls (I freakin hate invisible walls).Yes, beautiful engine, but bland game beneath it. I'd say give it into next year to see how it goes. They finally just added scalable UI, but it's [Removed for Content]-pour designed right now and is NOTHING like EQ2 where you can just create what you want where you want.

[thyriel81]

somewhat a bit offtopic, its goin about perfomance and EQ2 not what features LOTRO is lacking off <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Kenban]

<cite>infy567 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kenban wrote:</cite><blockquote>I don't mind the fact that this game only uses a single CPU core (not sure why it needs to use more then one). But its bothered me for a long time that so much of the graphics work is still being done on the CPU instead of the GPU. Shadows are the best known problem but I am sure there is more. I keep hoping for the graphics engine to either be rewritten or at least modernized. thyriel81 if you want a MMO with good graphics look at LOTRO</blockquote>I played LOTRO for about a month and came back to EQ2. LOTRO has a horrible interface for guilds and broker. The broker interface is so bad, you will scream for EQ2. LOTRO guild is just like WOW - an over glorified chat window. No writs, no quests, no real levels, no bank, nothing. LOTRO's command structure is bad. By level 20, my guardian had 5 possible attack commands and only 2 "heroic options" (or whatever it is they call it). In EQ2 I had a couple dozen. Because the game is so new and there are so few playing it, finding items to equip is very hard and very costly. Repairs upon dying at level 20 are as high as 40 silver - which is very very hard to come by. I was always broke and using equipment that was 10 levels below me. The game is designed so player made materials are better than what you can buy, but players are selling them for 750 silver +. On top of that the gold spammers are rampant, sometimes getting 10-15 tells an hour. The world? Very small. The whole size of the world is about half of one of WOW's continents. There is what, 7-10 zones max and some of the borders have invisible walls (I freakin hate invisible walls).Yes, beautiful engine, but bland game beneath it. I'd say give it into next year to see how it goes. They finally just added scalable UI, but it's [Removed for Content]-pour designed right now and is NOTHING like EQ2 where you can just create what you want where you want.</blockquote>I was talking about LOTRO graphics not its gameplay...

[Desirsar]

A silly side question to all of this :I have a case with intake and exhaust fans in addition to the power supply and processor fans.  The rear exhaust recently froze up (the motor still gets warm, but the bearings seem dead), and I have overheating issues with my video card, causing crashing or strange video effects.  If most of the workload is in the processor instead of the video card, why is my CPU running at the same temperature but the video card has gone up 20C?  (I have the dead fan unplugged and the case side with an intake fan on it cracked open, leaning so the intake blows directly onto the video card.  Problem solved until I replace the fan...)

[thyriel81]

if its ATI HD2xxx series theres a driver bug at least in 7.8 that can cause the fan to fail functioning without warning. Just reinstall driver to solve this if that happend <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />For your question however, it can be that something with the GPU is wrong, the silverpaste is wrong put on or your graphics fan has any issue.Even on 2d settings a graphics card can get incredible hot when something is wrong with the fan.For a modern cpu its normal that even under full use its not goin very hot (more then 60°C is very very hot for intel for example), while a GPU should be able to handle near 100°C

[Bloodfa]

If the bearing failed on the fan (possibility) then I'd suggest compressed air and blowing everything out from the video card.  And fix that fan.

[infy567]

Ok, fine.LOTROs graphic engine is designed well, works well with older cards, looks great either way, but looks like a cheesy ripoff of WOW. Cookie cutter plopped houses, all alike. Single texture chain links, walls and floors. Very few pixels and polygons = faster rendering, but cheesy affect. Well done frill factor with "wind blown" effects. Non true dynamic lighting, glow used looks like crap.EQ2s graphic engine was designed a long time ago but the landscape is beautiful. No cookie cutter anything. No single textures really anywhere. Log houses are individual rendered logs - lots of polygons and pixels. Mediocre frill factor with only a "brush by" effect. True dynamic lighting - glow is beautiful and rendered appropriately.I could add a lot more. EQ2 looks better, plays better, but you need a beefy machine for it. Any WOW player could easily play LOTRO, but not EQ2.I can turn everything on in LOTRO 100% and it still looks like a cheesy rendition of WOW.So there.

[Desirsar]

If we're comparing to LORTO in this sense, when I was in beta, I ran everything at near max detail (I only turned it off if it killed framerates the way shadows do in EQ2) and forced max AA and AF at the hardware level.  I was more than doubling my average framerate in EQ2, even in crowded areas.  (Athlon 64 3800, 7950GT 512, 1GB some silly fast RAM)