CPU usage under Proton/Linux

[nautsch]

So I looked around the web for this and found some people complaining about high CPU usage of this, when run under Proton. No solutions sadly.

I have the same problem/behaviour here. I'm on a Ryzen 3600 under Debian Sid and see 130% (i.e. 1.3 CPUs) CPU usage from this. Which seems way too high for a game like this.

Is anyone running this under Proton without this problem? Maybe we can look at what I am doing wrong or what I could do differently?
I have tried switching Proton versions, which made a difference but only for the worse (up to 180% for some old Proton version). I am currently on Experimental, which is the "best" for now.

Or am I just too anxious and this is actually normal for this game? Even on Windows? Or would it make sense to open a bug about this on the proton github tracker?

[Fel]

I can't help you on proton but on windows there is a similar issue for some people when the game is minimized (not when working in the background but minimized).
I don't know if it has anything to do with your issue though.

[nautsch]

Minimizing (or switching to another Desktop) actually reduces CPU load for me. But now it gets strange. The CPU DOES get hotter though and the fans speed up when I minimize the game. I can't make anything of that.

But like I said, minimizing is not my problem here. I rarely do that anyway.

What CPU usages do you see with NGU on your system (probably relative to logical core)?

[Fel]

I think it was around 10% on my i7, but that is of the total CPU capacity (task manager), I never bothered to check how many physical or logical cores it used or how much of it.

[nautsch]

an I7 is at least(?) 12 threads? So roughly 120% relative to one core in the best case. ... So I wouldn't be *that* far off here.
Thanks for looking into this for me. I appreciate it.

[nautsch]

If anyone stumbles across this with the same problem. I have found a solution.

Install mangohud (debian has it in its repos, so no 3rdParty build/install hassle there) and set the start command for NGUIdle to "MANGOHUD=1 %command%"
You can disable the FPS/CPU%/.. display with R-Shift + F12
I am now at 35%CPU usage. Just the presence of mangohud did this. It can be even better when you limit the FPS to something sane for this type of game like 20 or 30 via fps_limit in the mangohud config (e.g. ~/.config/MangoHud/wine-NGUIdle.conf)

... and I just set fps_limit to 25 and am now at 12% CPU usage. That is what I would expect from a game like this.

[Fel]

You will soo find out that limiting the FPS slows down the game.

The whole game is based on update ticks rather than real time and it is based on 50 per second.
Setting the FPS to 25 should make the game work at 50% speed as well, you can fairly easily check that with the various timers.

[nautsch]

I don't see any slowdown. timers run at the correct speed and everything else looks normal, too.
I tried setting the FPS limit to 5. the display is notably slower, but the overall progress is the same (I looked at gold increase, where I could easily count a rythm, which stayed the same).
It honestly would be insane to couple the internal update rate of an engine to the frame rate of the display. Very old console games did that, but I don't think anyone today still does it like that. This would mean a faster machine make faster progress.

[nautsch]

NGUs tick up at the same rate as well.

[Fel]

When it's the other way around (not enough CPU time to keep the 50 updates per second), especially in the browser version, it's easy to have very noticeable slowdowns.

Good to know that capping the FPS doesn't have the same effect (and it wouldn't mean faster progress on better machines since it caps at 50 updates per second).

[nautsch]

Ah, yes. The 50 tick cap didn't translate into a 50 fps cap in the first place. If I run NGU unrestricted, i.e. without the fps limit, it runs at 60 FPS. At least under mangohud. I suspect it runs completely unlimited otherwise and renders hundreds of frames per second.