1. Note: Nightly builds are not officially supported and things that appear broken might actually just be broken with no way of fixing it, but community members may still be willing to assist you with common problems.

Closed [Nightly] Low FPS, low GPU usage

Discussion in 'Nightly Builds Support' started by FPSUsername, Aug 8, 2014.

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  1. FPSUsername

    FPSUsername Phantasmal Quasar

    I play the nightly since it has the new render engine that is supposed to give more fps since it is faster.

    I have a PE4L setup with an MSI R7 240 2GB DDR3 LP.
    My cpu is an Intel Core i3-350M and I have 8GB of DDR3 ram.
    I play at 1680x1050 (should be fine)

    I use MSI afterburner to test the stress on the gpu with tempratures and control the fan speed. I also have done 20% oc, but it isn't needed since my cpu is bottlenecking it, so I leave it at default clock speeds.

    With my intel HD 1000 (intergraded) I get a 30-40 FPS and in dungeons about 5-20 FPS at 1366x768 (Laptop LED screen)
    When I switch over to my R7 240 and my external screen (it has to be the external screen), I get 30-50 FPS and in dungeons 10-20 FPS)

    It is extremely laggy in the dungeons and that is weird since my R7 240 is a lot stronger than my Intel HD 1000.

    At MSI Afterburner I see that the tempratures are about 33-37*C and gpu usage is having its ups and downs. sometimes 80% usage, sometimes 10%. The middle is about 60%. This is weird because with all other games I play (eg Tomb Raider), the GPU Usage is 97-100% and the tempratures 40-47*C.

    I tried tunning DirectX mode and OpenGL mode with starbound and there was no diffrence in FPS.

    I know the game is in more of a beta stage and the nightlies should have bugs, but I expected at least a FPS boost when switching to a better GPU.

    What could be the issue of this?

    ps: I used Razer Gamebooster to close all open background applications to make the pressure on the CPU smaller.
     
  2. There isn't much to say here. The game is still in beta and optimization isn't really something they're focusing on at the moment. I saw a decent baseline improvement with the new rendering engine (all anecdotal as I don't have the actual FPS increase written anywhere). It's kinda hard to tell if it's your rig or the game. Starbound has unusually high system requirements at the moment (due mostly to the lack of optimization). Your rig does seem a little weak to be honest (and personally I don't care for AMD for graphics cards).
     
  3. FPSUsername

    FPSUsername Phantasmal Quasar

    @Maxwell Demonic My CPU is 4 years old (as my laptop is)
    It is weak for high end games, but this game should run fine. 8GB DDR3 ram is enough and the gpu performance too.

    The weird part is that the GPU usage isn't high as it is supposed to be. This is what I don't understand.
     
  4. You're making the incorrect assumption that this game isn't as graphically / resource intensive as Triple A titles.

    As for your second point, does your GPU act this way with any other games?
     
  5. FPSUsername

    FPSUsername Phantasmal Quasar

    @Maxwell Demonic Nope, with all other games my gpu usage is 97-100% and about 43-47*C.
     
  6. I'll have to comb through the archives and see if there were any issues specifically with older AMD cards. I'll get back to ya on it.

    EDIT: Not sure how valid it is now, but people have posted moderate frame-rate increases using the solution here
     
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2014
  7. FPSUsername

    FPSUsername Phantasmal Quasar

    @Maxwell Demonic My AMD card is one of the newest kinds. (just saying)
    and that "fix" didn't help. I don't have any steam stuff in those paths of the register.
     
  8. Yeah, it was an old guide, thought it might have some impact.

    Being new and being powerful are not the same thing. You can't expect excellent performance in a beta, non-optimized game from a $70 card who's specs are questionable.

    Tom's Hardware did a review of sub $100 video cards and this was their result.
    [​IMG]

    As you can see, the results are fairly conclusive. The card is an average performer for low-end cards.
     
  9. FPSUsername

    FPSUsername Phantasmal Quasar

    @Maxwell Demonic I know that new cards are the same old cards, but improved. So a new low end card is a low end card that is improved.
    If you compare the Intel HD 1000 Mobile series (i3-350M) with the R7 240, there will be a big difference.

    I can play tomb raider and TDU 2 (and other games) which I couldn't play before, just because my iGPU was bottlenecking my cpu. Now it is visa versa, my CPU is bottlenecking my eGPU.
    Besides that, my MPCIe version is 1.1 (bottlenecks a little) and the PE4L has not a 16x slot, but a 1x slot, meaning the bandwidth is lower.
    Newer cards do have better bandwidth management, a Radeon HD 46XX could easely outperform a Radeon HD 38XX card with the PE4L (example)

    My R7 240 is more like low to mid end class (since it runs most games on medium settings from 2012-2014), if my cpu wasn't bottlenecking, then I could play propably on tweaked high (depend on optimalisation).

    The problem is that, why does my gpu not like starbound? All other games run fine, this game should be playable at 20-50 FPS on this card but it doesn't.
    My intel HD 1000 which is far more worse can handle the game the same, it plays at 30 fps, but getting in the dungeons, bam, lag and 10-18 fps.
     
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