need help understanding FPS

[HeTiCu7]

I have been playing Farming Simulator 19 for almost 3 years and never really bothered to investigate the performance of my system. The game settings said I had a "very high" hardware profile, so I went with 3840 x 2160 and played on.

But about a month ago, I started playing The Planet Crafter and just recently got to where I am waiting on the next update to continue my game, so I gave it a break and went back to FS19. All of a sudden my perception of the graphics rendering took a dive, so I decided to use the GeForce Overlay to see what my FPS is in both games.

In Planet Crafter it says I am averaging 26 FPS during game play. In FS19 it says I am averaging 16 FPS during play, which explains why I noticed the huge clarity difference when going back to FS19.

I tried switching the resolution in FS19 from 3840 x 2160 to 2560 x 1440, and there was no change in FPS; GeForce says both are rendering avg FPS at 16.

I have an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 with 6GB VRAM and from what I have read over the months that's not a low end card, so I assumed what I was getting in my games was the best I could do.

The other thing I noticed between the 2 games is VRAM is running at roughly 95% for both. I just did some quick research and it appears there's not a lot I can do about that except buy a better card, which I am not willing to do at this point.

I am trying to correlate and understand FPS, resolution settings, VRAM, GPU ratings, different game intensities, and anything else that is directly related to graphic smoothness.

So:
a) I would appreciate some explanation on how these things work together
b) Given my video specs, what is the best way (if there is a way) to raise my FPS in FS19? Or do I just accept the fact that FS19 is very graphic intensive and live with it?

Thanks!

EDIT:
Please see posting #43 for an apology.

[HeTiCu7]

Publicado originalmente por emoticorpse:

Try experimenting with process lasso. It's a program that's supposed to kind of "auto-tune' (for lack of a better term) your cpu/cores/threads and all that so it works optimally for whatever situation you may be in. You can Google it and try installing it (they have a portable version also I think) then run it and see if it helps anything. If it doesn't just uninstall/stop and delete it.

Thanks, I'll check this out and post my results.

[HeTiCu7]

Publicado originalmente por Illusion of Progress:

Sounds about expected for a game that might be CPU limited and not highly threaded.

Minecraft can be like this. Here's an example and tell me if this looks familiar...

https://imgur.com/a/FnaeVcO

(GPU use is also up there because I'm playing with shaders, but it doesn't change the underlying behavior with the CPU.)

Pretty much the same, except mine is using CPU 2.

Yes and no.

It's not always that shortcuts are taken by developers or that the engine/game is bad for not utilizing all your hardware.

I'd actually say CPUs are the thing taking shortcuts. Years ago, Denard scaling broke down and CPUs had trouble getting faster, so the solution was to add more cores rather than to solely make the core faster.

Well, games are a "real time" application. So having results from one thing before proceeding onto processing the next thing is often necessary. And while certain things can benefit almost linearly from added cores, games aren't often among them. And, sure, some games are more threaded than others. Even Minecraft, an infamous single-threaded game, CAN thread well enough at SOME times...

https://imgur.com/a/3vwiFbc

(ignore the first spike as that's "game load" and doesn't count as much, and focus on the second, as that's the initial world/chunk loading.)

But that won't help when, say, a certain game loop is waiting on something else and/or just can't effectively be threaded well. Basically, you can't just magically throw X cores at things and get X times speed up from it.

So basically, yeah, you're grasping this well. Sometimes, it's just a coding limitation and it's just not something you as an end user can always do a whole lot about. If I were in your spot I probably WOULD try and bring performance up because sub-30 FPS sounds too unplayable to me. Even if that meant forgoing some mods. But that's up to you.

Thanks, this all makes sense and tracks well.

As for that last part: Well, I'm different.

I have well over 5,000 hrs in this game FS19 and (for me anyway) it's all about building the biggest, baddest, busiest farm I can imagine, with the best possible business/finance structure, utilizing the best equipment and factories that the outstanding modder community has built over the last 4 years. My current game is so many levels above the vanilla, or even half vanilla, I would totally lose interest if I stepped backwards. Even if doing so gained a few more FPS points. The mods really, REALLY make the game.

As I originally posted, my intention for this thread was to gather as much intel as I could to expand my understanding, to see if I could better the FPS in some way. But thanks to all the great input during this thread, and a lot of testing, I am fairly convinced of the limitations that I face. So, chin up, and back to farming! :)

[emoticorpse]

I just read that there is a 60 fps cap in this game but can be unlocked by doing something like on this page https://www.reddit.com/r/farmingsimulator/comments/a0osa4/how_to_uncap_fps_in_farming_simulator_19/

I know this won't help in the config where you weren't reaching 60 fps to begin with but I forgot if there was a point where you hit 60 fps and were wondering if you couldn't get past that.

Some people on forums (mainly Steam forum of that game) are saying you need to play a little bit or something and let the shader cache build up?

[HeTiCu7]

Publicado originalmente por emoticorpse:

I just read that there is a 60 fps cap in this game but can be unlocked by doing something like on this page https://www.reddit.com/r/farmingsimulator/comments/a0osa4/how_to_uncap_fps_in_farming_simulator_19/

I know this won't help in the config where you weren't reaching 60 fps to begin with but I forgot if there was a point where you hit 60 fps and were wondering if you couldn't get past that.

Some people on forums (mainly Steam forum of that game) are saying you need to play a little bit or something and let the shader cache build up?

Cool! That looks interesting. Thanks, I'll try that.

EDIT:
Well, tried it. Had no perceivable effect. I suspect we're still stuck at CPU threading as the primary issue.

Ahh, I see we're experiencing "steam tuesday" and the postings lag due to server maintenance. :)

[emoticorpse]

If you get a couple minutes can you run a userbenchmark (Userbenchmark.com). Download their free benchmark software, run it. When it's done it will open a page with results. Copy that link to the page and paste it here?

DISREGARD THIS POST. I think you already did one.

[Illusion of Progress]

Publicado originalmente por emoticorpse:

How'd you end up with that memory configuration? Well, nevermind I thought it was weird at first glance, but I guess it's simply 64 GB of ram.

Now I'm curious as to what you were originally wondering.

Publicado originalmente por HeTiCu7:

I have well over 5,000 hrs in this game FS19 and (for me anyway) it's all about building the biggest, baddest, busiest farm I can imagine, with the best possible business/finance structure, utilizing the best equipment and factories that the outstanding modder community has built over the last 4 years. My current game is so many levels above the vanilla, or even half vanilla, I would totally lose interest if I stepped backwards. Even if doing so gained a few more FPS points. The mods really, REALLY make the game.

So I don't play Farming Simulator, but I can relate because of, again, Minecraft. That game has a history of certain updates having major changes, sometimes to performance or sometimes to compatibility of mods or sometimes to texture/resource packs, and you can really get tied to a certain way of playing or even a certain single save/world to where you just... won't want to give something up or have even one little thing changed. That was me. I got too used to higher render distances, too used to anti-aliasing, and my world was built while playing with a certain texture pack that it looked off without it, so those things kept me to older versions (because new ones were more performance demanding) and to older nVidia drivers (ones newer than 373.06 broke anti-aliasing). Over time, between enough version updates that meant I was missing out on so many new features, and updates to mods (like OptiFine bringing anti-aliasing back, or shaders just improving), I started a new world in 1.16, and now I have that too because I'm enjoying the shaders, even if I play with a lower render distance in that world. I even now play with those shaders in the old world, even if I have to consede some render distance. We get picky, basically. So I basically have two profiles/game versions I change between now depending on what world I want to play (and I'm even thinking of putting in the time and effort to see if I want to bring the old world forward, but it will require a LOT of work).

But the bottom line is if you're okay with what you have to concede (in this case, performance), then all that matters is you're having fun. There's no wrong way to play and while I'd find that sort of frame rate hard to tolerate, don't let anyone tell you have to play a certain way. Sometimes we get tied to really specific things (in your case it's your mods) and I definitely get that.

Publicado originalmente por HeTiCu7:

Publicado originalmente por emoticorpse:

I just read that there is a 60 fps cap in this game but can be unlocked by doing something like on this page https://www.reddit.com/r/farmingsimulator/comments/a0osa4/how_to_uncap_fps_in_farming_simulator_19/

Well, tried it. Had no perceivable effect. I suspect we're still stuck at CPU threading as the primary issue.

That's to be expected. Raising the cap won't actually raise your performance unless it is solely because of the cap you're not getting more performance to begin with. Which, in your case the cap isn't the factor limiting you. That'd only help if you were ever at 60 FPS and wanted more.

(Also, even if the game has a cap of 60 FPS, if your display is 60 Hz and you play with v-sync, that will otherwise limit you to 60 FPS even if the game has no, or a higher, cap.)

[emoticorpse]

Publicado originalmente por Illusion of Progress:

Publicado originalmente por emoticorpse:

How'd you end up with that memory configuration? Well, nevermind I thought it was weird at first glance, but I guess it's simply 64 GB of ram.

Now I'm curious as to what you were originally wondering.

Publicado originalmente por HeTiCu7:

I have well over 5,000 hrs in this game FS19 and (for me anyway) it's all about building the biggest, baddest, busiest farm I can imagine, with the best possible business/finance structure, utilizing the best equipment and factories that the outstanding modder community has built over the last 4 years. My current game is so many levels above the vanilla, or even half vanilla, I would totally lose interest if I stepped backwards. Even if doing so gained a few more FPS points. The mods really, REALLY make the game.

So I don't play Farming Simulator, but I can relate because of, again, Minecraft. That game has a history of certain updates having major changes, sometimes to performance or sometimes to compatibility of mods or sometimes to texture/resource packs, and you can really get tied to a certain way of playing or even a certain single save/world to where you just... won't want to give something up or have even one little thing changed. That was me. I got too use to higher render distances and anti-aliasing that it kept me to older versions (new ones were more performance demanding) and older nVidia drivers (ones newer than 373.06 broke anti-aliasing). Over time, between enough version updates that meant I was missing out on so many new features, and updates to mods (like OptiFine bringing anti-aliasing back, or shaders just improving), I started a new world in 1.16, and now I have that too. So I basically have two profiles/game versions I change between now depending on what world I want to play (and I'm even thinking of putting in the time and effort to see if I want to bring the old world forward, but it will require a LOT of work).

But the bottom line is if you're okay with what you have to concede (in this case, performance), then all that matters is you're having fun. There's no wrong way to play and while I'd find that sort of frame rate hard to tolerate, don't let anyone tell you have to play a certain way. Sometimes we get tied to really specific things (in your case it's your mods) and I definitely get that.

Publicado originalmente por HeTiCu7:

Well, tried it. Had no perceivable effect. I suspect we're still stuck at CPU threading as the primary issue.

That's to be expected. Raising the cap won't actually raise your performance unless it is solely because of the cap you're not getting more performance. Which, in your case the cap isn't the factor limiting you. That'd only help if you were ever at 60 FPS and wanted more.

(Also, even if the game has a cap of 60 FPS, if your display is 60 Hz and you play with v-sync, that will otherwise limit you to 60 FPS even if the game has no, or a higher, cap.)

Well, my brain thought it was something like 65 GB for some reason (I'm really bad at math and hate math) and I thought "how?why?". I just thought it wasn't a perfect set. So I thought that you like started with a kit (32 GB?) and then did something like added a couple random sticks? or used ssd as memory? or something?. I don't know what I was thinking hehe. I just glanced at the memory and didn't understand it. I think the .9 at the end of the threw me off and I think I took it as "63 GB of memory" and wondered how it ended up like that. Wouldn't have been an equal amount of sticks. But looking at mine in task manager instantly showed the same thing so I got it when I saw that. I hardly every look at that and it really threw me off that .9 at the end.

But I am still curious about your ram. You originally went with 64 GB or you doubled it later on? are they the same exact sticks? 4x16 or 2x32?

[HeTiCu7]

Publicado originalmente por emoticorpse:

Try experimenting with process lasso. It's a program that's supposed to kind of "auto-tune' (for lack of a better term) your cpu/cores/threads and all that so it works optimally for whatever situation you may be in. You can Google it and try installing it (they have a portable version also I think) then run it and see if it helps anything. If it doesn't just uninstall/stop and delete it.

Well, I played with this for awhile. It's a cool looking app, and allows me to set priority and affinities without using Task Manager. There's also an "induce performance mode" switch that I activated. I launched and left FS19 running while I tabbed in and out playing with settings, and nothing appeared to affect the game. Still 18 FPS and all other stats virtually the same.

I also had Task Manager graphs up and running over to the right and they all still looked the same.

So at this point I resign to this quote from I of P in posting #62:

"Well, games are a "real time" application. So having results from one thing before proceeding onto processing the next thing is often necessary. And while certain things can benefit almost linearly from added cores, games aren't often among them. And, sure, some games are more threaded than others...."

But I think I'm gonna keep the Process Lasso app installed. It's interesting to watch and learn from.

[Illusion of Progress]

Publicado originalmente por emoticorpse:

Well, my brain thought it was something like 65 GB for some reason (I'm really bad at math and hate math) and I thought "how?why?". I just thought it wasn't a perfect set. So I thought that you like started with a kit (32 GB?) and then did something like added a couple random sticks? or used ssd as memory? or something?. I don't know what I was thinking hehe. I just glanced at the memory and didn't understand it. I think the .9 at the end of the threw me off and I think I took it as "63 GB of memory" and wondered how it ended up like that. Wouldn't have been an equal amount of sticks. But looking at mine in task manager instantly showed the same thing so I got it when I saw that. I hardly every look at that and it really threw me off that .9 at the end.

But I am still curious about your ram. You originally went with 64 GB or you doubled it later on? are they the same exact sticks? 4x16 or 2x32?

Oh, I see now. Right after I posted, I saw the .9 part and thought maybe you were missing the period and was thinking it was 640 GB (being rounded to 639 GB) and was wondering how I had that much RAM (though about the 640 value, I've actually seen 640 MB long, long ago and it was achieved basically with 512 MB plus 128 MB).

And to answer the question, my RAM was gotten together in mid-2020, and it's four modules. I actually got asked at the place of purchase if I wanted the kit with four modules or if I wanted one with two (even though I chose it online before arriving as it was Micro Center so they should have known). I confirmed I wanted the four module set basically because I didn't want to end up with a set with different timings, and indeed, the set did exist in 2x 32 GB but it was only available in slower timings.

And to that end, I... sometimes do wish I may have considered the slower timings because I wouldn't mind the option to add more. The original idea was that 64 GB would be overkill enough that it would be enough to possibly last me up to between half a dozen years to a decade, in case I kept the platform for a long time, and that 32 GB would be the amount I "need" today (when I upgraded in 2020, the 16 GB I had then was absolutely no longer enough). Yet, in the two years since, I've adapted and now I would find 32 GB or less somewhat hard to tolerate, and 48 GB or more would be nice to have. I'm not yet PUSHING the 64 GB to where I need more and really I don't need more, but if I could change my RAM for free with half the modules at the cost of those slower timings (16-19-19-39 to 18-22-22-42 by the way), I probably would do it now just so the option is there.

As it is, I might just hope DDR5 comes down in price in the next two to five years and if I absolutely start pushing to where more RAM would be utilized and more would benefit, I'd skip the 5800X3D idea and just move to AM5 probably with Zen 5 or Zen 6. If the 64 GB remains enough, which it really should, then maybe I go with the 5800X3D (or stay with the 3700X or grab a 5700X cheap) and use the platform until something pushes an upgrade.

[GMC79]

I think you should get over 60 fps at 1440p quite easily. Somethng must be wrong somewhere? Friend of mine has a 1660super which is a little slower thanca 2060 but has no problem running Forza horizon 5 for example at over 60fps at 1440p. U say most other stuff around 30fps? sound wrong to me.
Are you 100% sure it's not using the intergrated GPU? I have a 2080 and yeah is faster but am about to try it on epic as i have the game there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjhYdzzyx1c