Issues utilizing my graphics card

[Svolgart]

Hey everyone!

I recently got quite hooked on the game, but I'm experiencing some issues running the game properly. I can easily play the game without errors, but the performance isn't great. My PC specs: i7-930, GTX960, Asus P6-X58D motherboard. 750W Corsair PSU, 16GB Corsair RAM of some sort. No overclocks.

After som digging and poking around, I confirmed this is another case of my computer acting weird by not running games properly on my graphics card. This creates weird behaviour since my CPU is a first-gen i7 (930) and doesn't even have integrated graphics. The result: some games are attempted run in some video mode or whatever where the game will run but with ridiculous performance. Luckily OTTD is not a complex game so my PC handles it just fine, except for choppy framerates, which is driving me crazy after truly noticing. The screen tearing is terrible, and I just want to play this great game not frustrated about how it runs, especially considering the age of the original.

By using GPU-Z I confirmed that there is no increase or decrease in any value what-so-ever, from clock to temperature to any kind of video or GPU load. Only backed up by the nVidia "GPU Activity" screen that show OTTD indeed does not show under applications causing any activity in the GPU department. This seems to be the case for many older games, where there isn't a whole lot of 3D rendering going on, and also games like Neverwinter Nights (the first), where I have to open the advanced graphics menu for something to suddenly fall into place, stabilizing performance with a brief flash of the screen, for some obscure reason. There it goes from low fps, choppy/stuttering gameplay to smooth as.. something very smooth. And that is exactly what I find in other games too, also here in OTTD.

More recently, I believe my PC has tried rendering No Man's Sky in this manner, of course with tons of frustration.

So finally my question:
Any idea what may cause this kind of problem?

Thanks

[Alberth]

OpenTTD doesn't use the GPU at all.
It draws the screen in memory with the CPU, and sends it to the display.

Unfortunately, newer computers have low bandwidth between main memory and video display, as they assume everything is done with the GPU.

[Svolgart]

Thanks, then it makes sense I don't see any evidence of GPU activity at all

What is the expected performance of the game then? Does everyone have the 30-ish frames/sec regardless of setup?

(way to complicate things, svolly!! )

[Alberth]

Don't know the precise rate, but it's a fixed number, and probably less nicely round than 30
A simple way to test is to press the fast-forward button, which runs the game as fast as possible. If it actually speeds up the game, you are not limited by the computer capabilities.

You can tweak some settings to get better performance, disabling animation helps a lot on some systems.
Other known cpu-time eaters are Ais, and ships without buouys.

[NekoMaster]

I play on a AMD Phenom II x4 965 (3.4GHz Quad Core) with 8GB DDR3 Ram and GTX 570 Video Card. I find OpenTTD runs just fine without lag. The only thing that slows down is when running large maps in openTTD.

Its possible that you may not have upto date drivers for your GTX 970. While the GPU has little effect on OPenTTD, I find that without your video drivers everything 2D slows to a crawl to where even playing youtube is sketchy (and 3D becomes impossible)

Heres some example map sizes on fast forward with a decent amount of vehicles
at 64x64, 100 years goes by in 10 seconds.
at 512x512 a year goes by in like 10 seconds
at 1024x1024 a year goes by in about 30 seconds
at 2048x2048 a year goes by in about 5 minutes
at 4096x4096 Fast forward seems only only speed up the game by 1%, so a year goes by about as fast as it normally would.

[Svolgart]

I tried this on my older drivers (didn't update for a while), and the newest, freshest ones. Both have the issues. I didn't do a clean, fresh install so maybe I should try that

Yeah I don't think it's because my PC can't handle it, the speed up works fine, and all testing was done on stock settings in a fresh 256x256 map.

I suppose I didn't describe my issues more precisely. The game itself runs fine, it's more how it feels. Navigating the map can induce some laggy tendencies (possibly normal). But moving the map around in a steady manner (like with the keyboard) it's clear that the framerate causes some silly screen tearing, and feels like its skipping frames at the same time, giving it a jerky feel. Moving around windows with the mouse they look like they are rendered at 5-10 FPS which gives me the impression that something isn't working optimally. That feel if you accidentally run a game on your integrated graphics of your CPU instead of the dedicated GPU. I saw this 'low FPS window movement' issue before on another computer of mine, but it was the (poorly) programmed launcher window of EVE Online at the time.

Of course there is the possibility this is all natural for a 2D game and there is no issue at all, but I tested this on my friends laptop as I said, which is a low end PC. He did not have the low FPS window movement and didn't feel like it was being run on a potato, which is ironic since his laptop is kind of a potato.


I'm starting to feel I'm wasting everyone's time here, I have a tendency to overcomplicate non-problems. Thanks for sticking with me so far

Should I be able to see FPS ingame in any way? I tried with FRAPS and MSI Afterburner, but neither will display anything for me in this game :/

[Alberth]

Old computers do tend to have more bandwidth between main memory and video display. (Every frame must go through that.)
New computers are designed for GPU usage, where bandwidth between main memory and GPU is low (it assumes you only upload graphics stuff once to the GPU, which means speed is irrelevant, and something you can save money on), and GPU->video is fast (but OpenTTD doesn't use that, so it's useless for OpenTTD).

Also, newer video cards don't quite handle 8bpp very good, OpenTTD default is now 32bpp, which close to quadruples the amount of data to send each frame.

Bigger screens aren't helping either, if you have double x and y resolution, you get 4 times as many pixels. For 4K screens, it's much much worse even.


There is no frame rate counter, as OpenTTD uses a fixed frame rate, and draws things as part of the normal game-loop. You're still thinking in GPU terms

[Svolgart]

It's not that his computer is much older, but maybe the fact that it is build around having no GPU helps it with potato tasks

There is no frame rate counter, as OpenTTD uses a fixed frame rate, and draws things as part of the normal game-loop. You're still thinking in GPU terms

Haha, that question was mostly for my own understanding

I suppose there is not much of an issue to discuss then. It still bugs me though Thank you very much for taking time to answer my questions here

Edit for bonus question:
What causes the mouse to flicker when moving it around?

[Alberth]

What causes the mouse to flicker when moving it around?

No idea

[Baldy's Boss]

So to what extent is the internal graphics capability of a CPU relevant?
Does one lose performance when adding a GPU that displaces one's CPU's graphics capability?

[Eddi]

the GPU has pretty much no effect on the game whatsoever. no matter whether it's on a separate card or built into the CPU...

[NekoMaster]

I would like to mention that even though you have a hyper threaded i7-930 with 4 cores at 2.8Ghz, OpenTTD is a single core/single threaded program and thus is probably suffering due to the i7-930's lower clock speed.

This is partially why I chose to buy a Phenom II x4 over a FX series AMD years ago because some games I play like DOS games, OpenTTD, and SimCity 4 only run on a single core and thus need a more powerful per core processor then one with many low powered cores.

Gotta remember that most of the load on your CPU from OpenTTD is all the calculations and simulations its doing, like path finding, managing towns and industry in the background, processing graphics and animations to be sent out to your GPU to display. The game runs faster if you have Full Animations turned off (which can be Toggled ingame from the Option Menu drop down list/box next to the Save Icon)

[Baldy's Boss]

I would like to mention that even though you have a hyper threaded i7-930 with 4 cores at 2.8Ghz, OpenTTD is a single core/single threaded program and thus is probably suffering due to the i7-930's lower clock speed.

This is partially why I chose to buy a Phenom II x4 over a FX series AMD years ago because some games I play like DOS games, OpenTTD, and SimCity 4 only run on a single core and thus need a more powerful per core processor then one with many low powered cores.

Gotta remember that most of the load on your CPU from OpenTTD is all the calculations and simulations its doing, like path finding, managing towns and industry in the background, processing graphics and animations to be sent out to your GPU to display. The game runs faster if you have Full Animations turned off (which can be Toggled ingame from the Option Menu drop down list/box next to the Save Icon)

How are you measuring power per core then...by clock speed or some other criterion?
My i7-3770K has a 3.5 GHz base clock.

Is the logic of OpenTTD better at 32-bit or 64-bit operation?

[NekoMaster]

I would like to mention that even though you have a hyper threaded i7-930 with 4 cores at 2.8Ghz, OpenTTD is a single core/single threaded program and thus is probably suffering due to the i7-930's lower clock speed.

This is partially why I chose to buy a Phenom II x4 over a FX series AMD years ago because some games I play like DOS games, OpenTTD, and SimCity 4 only run on a single core and thus need a more powerful per core processor then one with many low powered cores.

Gotta remember that most of the load on your CPU from OpenTTD is all the calculations and simulations its doing, like path finding, managing towns and industry in the background, processing graphics and animations to be sent out to your GPU to display. The game runs faster if you have Full Animations turned off (which can be Toggled ingame from the Option Menu drop down list/box next to the Save Icon)

How are you measuring power per core then...by clock speed or some other criterion?
My i7-3770K has a 3.5 GHz base clock.

Is the logic of OpenTTD better at 32-bit or 64-bit operation?

Some programs to benifit from 64-bit versions on a 64-bit CPU as larger numbers can be computed directly without being broken down like a 64-bit number would have to be on a 32-bit CPU

Also I believe 64-bit cpu's handle not just more memory (somewhere in the Petabyte range) but also have higher memory bandwidth.



Also, you measure power core simply by how fast the CPU is. the clock speed of a CPU isn't a combination of all the processor cores. Each core usually runs at what ever speed is advertised. For example, all 4 cores of my AMD Phenom II x4 are running at 3.4GHz. That's not a combination of 850 Mhz cores, but each core is running at 3.4Ghz.

Though Intels are more efficient, sometimes when you have that much of a difference in clock speed it'll still put the AMD ahead. My sister got a 2.5Ghz Intel Laptop, and it runs slower then my AMD desktop, but if it where a 3.4GHz i5, it'd be kicking my AMD's butt.

[leifbk]

The game itself runs fine, it's more how it feels. Navigating the map can induce some laggy tendencies (possibly normal). But moving the map around in a steady manner (like with the keyboard) it's clear that the framerate causes some silly screen tearing, and feels like its skipping frames at the same time, giving it a jerky feel. Moving around windows with the mouse they look like they are rendered at 5-10 FPS which gives me the impression that something isn't working optimally.

Like you, I had a 2.8 GHz i7-930 from 2011 with 6 GB RAM until last year, when I upgraded to an i7-6700K (Skylake) Quad core @4.0 GHz and 32 GB RAM. With an Asus Maximus XIII Ranger motherboard and running Gentoo Linux, it's about the PC equivalent of a Hummer. The game ran just fine on the old setup except for when the memory filled up. But even with the new setup, I can notice some slight "tearing" when I scroll with the arrow keys. I don't think this kind of issue can be solved by throwing more iron at it.

I'm habitually running games with hundreds of ships, which is known for eating lots of CPU cycles. Fast-forward is usually running at about double speed on my 512x512 maps with 60 % water level.

That feel if you accidentally run a game on your integrated graphics of your CPU instead of the dedicated GPU. I saw this 'low FPS window movement' issue before on another computer of mine, but it was the (poorly) programmed launcher window of EVE Online at the time.

When I upgraded, I also threw out my fanless ASUS GeForce GT 640 and hooked up the screen to the integrated GPU, which is definitely more powerful.

I'm starting to feel I'm wasting everyone's time here, I have a tendency to overcomplicate non-problems. Thanks for sticking with me so far

No problem; we're all about wasting time here

[NekoMaster]

The game itself runs fine, it's more how it feels. Navigating the map can induce some laggy tendencies (possibly normal). But moving the map around in a steady manner (like with the keyboard) it's clear that the framerate causes some silly screen tearing, and feels like its skipping frames at the same time, giving it a jerky feel. Moving around windows with the mouse they look like they are rendered at 5-10 FPS which gives me the impression that something isn't working optimally.

Like you, I had a 2.8 GHz i7-930 from 2011 with 6 GB RAM until last year, when I upgraded to an i7-6700K (Skylake) Quad core @4.0 GHz and 32 GB RAM. With an Asus Maximus XIII Ranger motherboard and running Gentoo Linux, it's about the PC equivalent of a Hummer. The game ran just fine on the old setup except for when the memory filled up. But even with the new setup, I can notice some slight "tearing" when I scroll with the arrow keys. I don't think this kind of issue can be solved by throwing more iron at it.D

I get tearing on any computer I use, new or old. I think it has to do with the display. I'm finding LCD's aren't 100% the best for playing 2d pixle/sprite based games. The pixels on LCD's just don't seem to be able to switch fast enough to provide a seamless and crisp image like a CRT. LCD's I find with emulators and openttd cause tearing and blurred images as you move around the map. CRT's never had this issue for me.

Also sometimes witih a lot of stuff going on or on large maps (like 2048x2048) I do notice an occasional jump where it feels like it gets stuck for a split second and jumps ahead, kinda like when a game or video is being shown while the computer is under heavy load.

But damn, I wish I had the money for a 4Ghz i7, I really wish I could just go over kill but computer parts aren't cheap in Canada (add maybe a little more then US prices plus shipping) and its not like I have a job or career.

[leifbk]

I get tearing on any computer I use, new or old. I think it has to do with the display. I'm finding LCD's aren't 100% the best for playing 2d pixle/sprite based games. The pixels on LCD's just don't seem to be able to switch fast enough to provide a seamless and crisp image like a CRT. LCD's I find with emulators and openttd cause tearing and blurred images as you move around the map. CRT's never had this issue for me.

I don't think so. When I'm watching HD movies I see absolutely no glitches, and they should be just as demanding on the hardware. The bottleneck may be the channel between main memory and video memory as Alberth says, but then I don't see why there should be a tearing issue on a Skylake running video off the integrated GPU. The Skylake has been shown to handle 3 4K screens simultaneously without problems. I'm just running a 32" screen at 2560x1440 pixels off it at 60 Hz. The refresh rate is adequate, although I can see some transient shadows when I scroll a browser window quickly up and down.

Before the flatscreen revolution, I owned a 32" widescreen CRT TV, and it was a real hog. I couldn't lift it alone. And there's no way you could get the kind of resolution you get on modern flatscreens on a CRT. My last CRT monitor was a 19" which, IIRC, had a max resolution of 1200x900 interlaced at 85 Hz. Interlaced video sucks.

Also sometimes witih a lot of stuff going on or on large maps (like 2048x2048) I do notice an occasional jump where it feels like it gets stuck for a split second and jumps ahead, kinda like when a game or video is being shown while the computer is under heavy load.

I've seen that many times, and it's quite normal behaviour with heavy task-switching, like when I'm compiling Libreoffice in the background.

But damn, I wish I had the money for a 4Ghz i7, I really wish I could just go over kill but computer parts aren't cheap in Canada (add maybe a little more then US prices plus shipping) and its not like I have a job or career.

Yeah, I know how it feels. In the early Nineties I was stuck with a funky old 286, and couldn't afford a 32-bit computer. But then I got a job in the IT department of the Norwegian National Health Insurance, and soon my income was rising. Now I'm retired, and as a former Norwegian civil servant I have a pretty decent pension.

[Eddi]

I get tearing on any computer I use, new or old.

maybe you should try enabling vsync, and updating your drivers