High CPU render time

[coldy77]

Hi,

thank you for this update. Looks a lot better in far distances now. A little bit disappointed about still having only this puffy clouds and no thin cirrus layer, which are very common in Germany.

But to get good results at distance, I have to set at least coverage of 50 sqkm, but then, my CPU render time raises to 0.08s, while GPU is "idling" at 0.013s which brings me down to 15fps or lower. I use it in combination with RWC, but makes no difference if I disable RWC.

I have a i7 4770 with a GTX 1070, and as SMP shows me, I have 3,3GB VRAM and 8,6GB RAM free so this could be an issue here.

For me, its quite unusable right now. At 70% cloud coverage for the whole area (manually set), I only get a slideshow with coverage > 50sqkm.

Is there something, I made wrong?

Cheers,
Michael

[coldy77]

Screenshot

[coldy77]

Same Picture with XP 11 default weather, much better fps

[coldy77]

and with 50sqkm setting in SMP

[sundog]

There is a cirrus layer, but it may be hazed out. You'll probably see it as you gain altitude.

As for performance, most people are reporting FPS increases. I can't really explain why your system seems to be struggling with it. I'd have to see your log to get more info on your configuration and what other add-ons and scenery you have installed to comment. For a fair test you might try temporarily removing your other add-ons and scenery.

[coldy77]

Hi Frank,

very fast reply - impressive - thank you. You are right, most people talking about increases. I wonder about this too. Will check further with less plugins. After getting results I will post it here. If you talk about the static cirrus layer at 30k feet, this is there, I though about some a lower altitude.

Cheers,
Michael

[crisk73]

Same CPU problem here. At high altitudes I have a slideshow. My specs in signature. Thanks.

[sundog]

Guys, I make no guarantees about fluid performance on every system with any combination of add-ons if you turn up the "cloud area covered" setting all the way! You do need to experiment with this slider to find a good tradeoff between draw distance and performance for your individual system and configuration. I can get away with it on mine, but YMMV.

[coldy77]

Hi Frank,

tried out with nearly plain vanilla XP11. Same issue - same results. This is just for your interest, as you said, you cannot garantee working fine on all systems. Well, my setup is not very experimental I would say, and the setup from crisk73 is more or less standard right now, but I take it as it is... SMP would be fine, but not for me as it is unusable. And no, I will not live with coverage of 10sqkm or less.

Cheers,
Michael

[FlyAgi2]

All those screens show that the gpu could also be the limiting factor. If this is the case you should try the "fast clouds" setting an see if that helps. Also make sure that vsync is set to off when you push your gpu like that as it kills performance as soon as the gpu can't provide the desired frame rate (usually 60 fps or 30 fps if set to half refresh rate).

And, don't forget to force threaded optimization to ON in NV control panel. That can also help the gpu being more independent from the cpu and is currently increasing performance significantly for me.

 

Edited May 28, 2017 by FlyAgi

[gcharrie]

On 28/05/2017 at 6:04 PM, FlyAgi said:

... Also make sure that vsync is set to off ..

And, don't forget to force threaded optimization to ON in NV control panel. ...

Thanks for the tips. It helped a lot for me ;-)

 

[FlyAgi2]

I have done some tests with maximum cloud rendering distance in XP11 and found that this really hurts fps and has a big impact on CPU times and a slight impacton GPU times. My 60 fps setup goes down to about 20 fps with maxed out cloud distance. 

So it seems as if lowering the disctance is the action of choice if fps get really low depending on CPU frame time. Using fast clouds in this case does not help out as they seem to optimise GPU performance and have no or just a slight effect on CPU performance. 

My question is now: Is this normal behaviour? Does this work as intended?

And this is no rant, I usually don't need maxed out cloud distance. But I have some guys in a german forum who want 'clouds drawn to the horizon'. It seemed to me as they liked the visuals on my screenshots but the performance is now a problem for them, so I can't tell them any more than 'on my machine it is like that'. 

 

 

 

[coldy77]

HI FlyAgi,

I basically noticed the same on my setup, but I am not even close to 60fps :). So FPS impact hits me much earlier.

So strange thing is, that with SMP, my overall CPU utilization is "much" lower, as without SMP, even with nearly no clouds visibile. I use 11.02b1 with the performance optimizations, and yes, I know - don't use beta unless you have to, but I couldn't resist, so I didn't post here any further.

Would like to use SMP, but for me it is only usable until 25sqkm, which is not enough for my personal preferences of view distance.

Cheers,
Michael

 

[coldy77]

Without SMP I have a CPU usage of avg. 70%, and with SMP, the usage is at avg. 45%. It does not matter how I set the view distance or other settings.

[FlyAgi2]

For me it's a bit different. I get a slight fps increase when in the cpu limit with SMP at default settings against the xp11 clouds. My fps are usually better with smp unless, as you told, I increase cloud distance. I can notice a significantly impact at more than 15sqkm and above 25 or 30 it really begins to kill frames. 

For the mentioned 60 fps I had to tweak some stuff in settings text and I am on medium objects. My machine (i7 2600k 4200MHz, 16 GB 2133 MHz RAM, GTX 1060) is fast but nothing special these days.

 

 

[Denco]

I think most people are expecting too much from SkyMaxx. I have the cloud distance set to 20000  sq-km which I find is the best setting for visual and performance. With really heavy weather I will rarely dip bellow 30fps.

Edited June 1, 2017 by Denco

[FlyAgi2]

I don't expect this much... I just did never try those insane setting up to 100.000 so this is my first try and I wanted to know if this result is normal. So thank you,Denco, I think you gave my the answer and I'm fine with it. I usually use default (4900 sqkm) setting but I will try higher visibility range once XP11 has been futher optimized by Laminar.