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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Odd massive loss of performance  (Read 11715 times)

SneakyDevil

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Odd massive loss of performance
« on: March 02, 2021, 03:38:20 PM »

Trying to figure out why I have such a massive loss of performance. I have currently given the params file 6GB of ram, I've turned off everything that the mod guide said to turn off for GraphicsLib, I have FPS cap at 60. Battle size is set to 500, but testing with a single capital on my side and an assortment of Cruisers, frigates, and destroyers(max 290 points) on the other drops my FPS to 20 with 0% idle. However, neither my GPU nor CPU are hitting 100% on any monitoring software.

i7-4790k 4.4GHz
1070Ti 4GB VRAM

After further testing even pitting two capital class ships against each other is enough to drop my fps to 30 0% idle
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Thaago

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Re: Odd massive loss of performance
« Reply #1 on: March 02, 2021, 08:58:24 PM »

Hmm, is this also happening with no mods enabled? You can test quickly by going into the missions and doing a simulation of a refit.
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SneakyDevil

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Re: Odd massive loss of performance
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2021, 11:58:07 PM »

Ran a max size battle (300 total) with nothing on dropped me to around 30fps 0%idle. Two capitals ran around 40fps.

Edit: ran some testing on dev mode and had no lag present, re-enabled the mods and ran the benchmark with a max battle size of 600 it only drops to 50fps now...
« Last Edit: March 03, 2021, 12:23:05 AM by SneakyDevil »
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Thaago

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Re: Odd massive loss of performance
« Reply #3 on: March 03, 2021, 09:37:55 AM »

Hmm, strange to me that toggling dev mode gave such a huge performance boost. 50fps sounds pretty reasonable for a 600 size full battle, but if you want to keep troubleshooting things to try include: making sure graphics drivers are up to date; restarting computer (really); turning off screen recording software if its running in the background; and if you have a secondary graphics card on the motherboard, make sure the game is running on the primary (though if its 50 fps at 600, its almost certainly running on the correct one).
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pairedeciseaux

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Re: Odd massive loss of performance
« Reply #4 on: March 03, 2021, 11:15:11 AM »

Maybe your OS/browser/whatnot was performing an update or something while you tried to play Starsector?  ;D

More diagnostic questions if still struggling:
  • What do you mean by "such a massive loss of performance"? Does this mean that performance is OK in some situation and bad in some other situation? Would you please clarify this?
  • Amount of RAM in the computer?
  • Operating system?
  • Native monitor resolution?
  • Starsector resolution?
  • Starsector running fullscreen or windowed?
  • FPS on Starsector title screen? (wait until the game is fully loaded)
  • Do you only see FPS drop while in battle?
  • When looking at CPU usage on your monitoring software, do you look at per-core (or per-"thread") usage or just an overall usage?
  • Are other CPU/GPU hungry software running at the same time?
  • (ensure the game uses your dedicated GPU, this is where people often find the cause of bad performance)

In addition to checking all the important points mentioned by Thaago, if you haven't done so already, I would suggest to browse similar topics on the forum, because this may be a FAQ and you may find solutions there.
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SneakyDevil

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Re: Odd massive loss of performance
« Reply #5 on: March 03, 2021, 11:38:06 AM »

1) Fps dropping from 50-60 to 10-20 when only two capital ships are present in a fight.
2) 32GB
3) Win 7 SP1
4) 1080p
5) 1080p
6) windowed
7) 60fps 98% idle
8) usually, sometimes the AI will have mega fleet battles with 10+ fleets showing up and that can get a little choppy until I move away
9) I have it set to monitor per thread, no thread has gone over 75% usage
10) only other programs I have running alongside starsector is chrome and discord
11) there is only one GPU, its a custom built computer, I don't even have the option of it not using it.

I have already followed the FAQ as I said in my OP and given my game 6GB of ram and disabled the known causes in graphicslib. My drivers are up to date, I've restarted the computer multiple times, I don't have recording software, I have only one graphics card, and the game runs on the primary monitor.

I've tried looking around at other threads, by no means have I seen them all, but none of the solutions were valid (the person used the wrong gpu, not enough ram, etc)
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Thaago

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Re: Odd massive loss of performance
« Reply #6 on: March 03, 2021, 11:52:22 AM »

Ok, so jus to double check: With no mods enabled, you see very poor performance in combat but enabling dev mode fixes it?

If thats the case I can move this over to the non-modded section.
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SneakyDevil

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Re: Odd massive loss of performance
« Reply #7 on: March 03, 2021, 12:02:08 PM »

I suppose yeah. When I do large sim battles in unmodded I have the fps drops, when I recreate the 2 capital battle lag via dev mode it also fps drops but nowhere nearly as bad normally (20-30fps).
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pairedeciseaux

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Re: Odd massive loss of performance
« Reply #8 on: March 03, 2021, 12:22:42 PM »

This is really strange. Two capitals on screen should not ruin performance in 1920x1080 on your hardware.

Please note your i7-4790K chip has an integrated "Intel HD Graphics 4600" that, from a software point of view, is considered a GPU. And sometimes Starsector uses that for some reasons. I think some people have been hit by this in other forum threads. That would be the main lead IMO.  :)

Have your tried running Starsector fullscreen? And closing Chrome and Discord just to be sure?

(note for Alex: unless I am mistaken, neither in game nor in the log files of 0.9.1, a user can't tell what GPU the game uses, it could be a small but very useful diagnostic addition)
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SneakyDevil

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Re: Odd massive loss of performance
« Reply #9 on: March 03, 2021, 12:42:11 PM »

Interesting. I can't find any ref to integrated graphics on any of my programs so I wouldn't even know where to start with making sure the computer is using the GPU instead. I'll look into that. As for fullscreen, I'll give it a try but it tends to spasm on my setup for any game. Unfortuantely, I've tried closing chrome and discord but that gave it an at best 5 fps increase.
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EgoVerum

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Re: Odd massive loss of performance
« Reply #10 on: January 21, 2022, 02:59:59 PM »


Please note your i7-4790K chip has an integrated "Intel HD Graphics 4600" that, from a software point of view, is considered a GPU. And sometimes Starsector uses that for some reasons. I think some people have been hit by this in other forum threads. That would be the main lead IMO.  :)

(note for Alex: unless I am mistaken, neither in game nor in the log files of 0.9.1, a user can't tell what GPU the game uses, it could be a small but very useful diagnostic addition)

Hi there late reply to an old thread I know I know.

But out of curiosity what other leads would there be if that were not the case?
I have the same processor but my motherboard physically doesn't support integrated graphics so it kinda throws that out of the window for me.
And like OP I've started recently having these issues out of nowhere as well when vanilla and modified the only time it seems to fix it self is when I reset the game.
Like the only time I can consistantly tell you when this huge fps drop occurs is when a fight finishes on a mission target.
FPS will drop to like 16 (although it's definitly more like 5) and the idle rate hits 0% hard.
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Histidine

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Re: Odd massive loss of performance
« Reply #11 on: January 21, 2022, 07:16:30 PM »

Hi there late reply to an old thread I know I know.

But out of curiosity what other leads would there be if that were not the case?
I have the same processor but my motherboard physically doesn't support integrated graphics so it kinda throws that out of the window for me.
And like OP I've started recently having these issues out of nowhere as well when vanilla and modified the only time it seems to fix it self is when I reset the game.
Like the only time I can consistantly tell you when this huge fps drop occurs is when a fight finishes on a mission target.
FPS will drop to like 16 (although it's definitly more like 5) and the idle rate hits 0% hard.

Post-battle lag fixed by game restart is an issue of unclear cause in the game's version of Java, but can be fixed with the (unofficial!) Java 8 patch. I'll copypaste part of the instructions posted on Discord by Wisp below:

Quote
Mini-guide: Switching to Java 8 to prevent the post-battle slowdown
Not officially supported, may cause unrelated issues, do at your own risk and please report back if you do notice it causing problems.

Symptoms
- After some time playing and immediately after a battle, the game FPS will plummet (eg from 60 to 15-25) and usually only go back to normal after a game restart.
- Saving/loading takes 5x longer than usual.
- Using at least one mod (that adds new sprites? incl. GraphicsLib).

Fix (slow down and read this part carefully)
1. Go to your starsector install and rename the jre folder to jre7.
2. Download either of the following (both are the same JRE 8 v271) (Mac/Linux users look below for download link):
    - (72 MB .zip) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CGRtnv5hIGCtcdlvZXFO0F58VXqYUo6x/view?usp=sharing
    - (48 MB .7z) https://drive.google.com/file/d/155Lk0ml9AUGp5NwtTZGpdu7e7Ehdyeth/view?usp=sharing
3. Extract that into your game folder so you have a folder named jre. You'll now have both jre (with java 8 ) and jre7.
4. Make sure that your starsector/starsector-core/data/config/settings.json allowAnyJavaVersion is set to true. Then launch the game as normal.


Potential issues
- Game+launcher is zoomed in/off-center.
    Fix: Right-click Starsector, Properties, Compatibility, Change high DPI settings, tick checkbox for "Override...Scaling performed by Application"
    Thanks to Normal Dude for the fix.

* Mac/Linux JRE 8 downloads:
Linux: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TRHjle6-MOpn1zJhtSA9yvwXIQip_F_n/view?usp=sharing
MacOS: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PW9v_CL719buKHe69GaN9fCXcPIqDOIi/view?usp=sharing

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EgoVerum

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Re: Odd massive loss of performance
« Reply #12 on: January 22, 2022, 04:51:55 AM »


Post-battle lag fixed by game restart is an issue of unclear cause in the game's version of Java, but can be fixed with the (unofficial!) Java 8 patch. I'll copypaste part of the instructions posted on Discord by Wisp below:


I will certianly give this a shot thank you for this.

Post patch status:
Has worked like a charm any instability the game had prior is completely gone infact it even stopped complaining about memory on larger scale battles.
I had wondered about what could be causing the issue though since it's related to the version of java so I rolled back just to see.
Bout as far as I can tell though is it's definitly an active process that escelates further when your in hyperspace goes away when your in a menu of any kind though.
Don't know if it's many little things cascading together or if it's just one singular part either way hope it gets patched for the main release at somepoint.

Again, tyvm for this.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2022, 10:48:01 AM by EgoVerum »
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Shogouki

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Re: Odd massive loss of performance
« Reply #13 on: November 20, 2022, 12:43:36 PM »

Hi there late reply to an old thread I know I know.

But out of curiosity what other leads would there be if that were not the case?
I have the same processor but my motherboard physically doesn't support integrated graphics so it kinda throws that out of the window for me.
And like OP I've started recently having these issues out of nowhere as well when vanilla and modified the only time it seems to fix it self is when I reset the game.
Like the only time I can consistantly tell you when this huge fps drop occurs is when a fight finishes on a mission target.
FPS will drop to like 16 (although it's definitly more like 5) and the idle rate hits 0% hard.

Post-battle lag fixed by game restart is an issue of unclear cause in the game's version of Java, but can be fixed with the (unofficial!) Java 8 patch. I'll copypaste part of the instructions posted on Discord by Wisp below:

Quote
Mini-guide: Switching to Java 8 to prevent the post-battle slowdown
Not officially supported, may cause unrelated issues, do at your own risk and please report back if you do notice it causing problems.

Symptoms
- After some time playing and immediately after a battle, the game FPS will plummet (eg from 60 to 15-25) and usually only go back to normal after a game restart.
- Saving/loading takes 5x longer than usual.
- Using at least one mod (that adds new sprites? incl. GraphicsLib).

Fix (slow down and read this part carefully)
1. Go to your starsector install and rename the jre folder to jre7.
2. Download either of the following (both are the same JRE 8 v271) (Mac/Linux users look below for download link):
    - (72 MB .zip) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CGRtnv5hIGCtcdlvZXFO0F58VXqYUo6x/view?usp=sharing
    - (48 MB .7z) https://drive.google.com/file/d/155Lk0ml9AUGp5NwtTZGpdu7e7Ehdyeth/view?usp=sharing
3. Extract that into your game folder so you have a folder named jre. You'll now have both jre (with java 8 ) and jre7.
4. Make sure that your starsector/starsector-core/data/config/settings.json allowAnyJavaVersion is set to true. Then launch the game as normal.


Potential issues
- Game+launcher is zoomed in/off-center.
    Fix: Right-click Starsector, Properties, Compatibility, Change high DPI settings, tick checkbox for "Override...Scaling performed by Application"
    Thanks to Normal Dude for the fix.

* Mac/Linux JRE 8 downloads:
Linux: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TRHjle6-MOpn1zJhtSA9yvwXIQip_F_n/view?usp=sharing
MacOS: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PW9v_CL719buKHe69GaN9fCXcPIqDOIi/view?usp=sharing


Heya, sorry to resurrect this old thread but I had a question about the files used to upgrade to Java 8.  I'm an extremely anxious person when it comes to PC security (like a literally have reoccurring nightmares about ransomeware and viruses) and am extremely averse to downloading files from someone that I don't know and trust implicitly.  Is there anyway to be certain those files are from a trusted source?
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EgoVerum

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Re: Odd massive loss of performance
« Reply #14 on: November 20, 2022, 05:08:18 PM »

Heya, sorry to resurrect this old thread but I had a question about the files used to upgrade to Java 8.  I'm an extremely anxious person when it comes to PC security (like a literally have reoccurring nightmares about ransomeware and viruses) and am extremely averse to downloading files from someone that I don't know and trust implicitly.  Is there anyway to be certain those files are from a trusted source?

Realistically speaking, you can't it's completely based on trust.
But I haven't had any issues or anything come up from the game or those files since patching it atleast as far as av/am is concerned.

Also this thread is quite old at this point even from when I last posted here so I'm kinda surprised the issue is even still occuring would of thought theres an official patch by now anyways so maybe check with the discord?
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