Performance when playing with many karts

Performance when playing with many karts

Postby Wuzzy » 31 Aug 2014, 20:30

Quote from here:
Arthur {l Wrote}:When it comes down to number of karts, in previous versions more karts meant significantly worse performance on some systems, so even "pro" players without proper gaming hardware would not be able to play it comfortably. However, the new graphics engine might be less impacted by karts, although we would probably need to do more testing to be sure.

OK, then I help with testing:

I played with 20 karts (maximum allowed number of karts) a couple of times and I had no performance issues whatsoever. Constantly 60 FPS. But I also have a pretty high-end system.
My graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460

I use a dev version of STK (I don’t know which one) on GNU/Linux.

Can others who use a dev version confirm that or does anyone have issues with 20 karts?

Edit: OK, I did a bit more testing:
When starting a race on Bovine Barnyard with 20 karts over 6 laps, my FPS counter showed 39/60/62 at the end. There was a brief FPS breakdown shortly after the race started, but it soon jumped up again. After that, I had 60 FPS steadily. I probably would not have noticed the FPS breakdown without the counter. Maybe this breakdown may be worse on less powerful machines. So maybe this needs more testing, after all.
User avatar
Wuzzy
 
Posts: 989
Joined: 28 May 2012, 23:13

Re: Performance when playing with many karts

Postby Anon » 31 Aug 2014, 21:53

Scotland w/ 1 kart: 12 fps
Scotland w/ 20 karts: 9 fps

Tested on an AMD Athlon II X2 270 @ ~3 Ghz w/ a Nvidia Geforce GT610. Max settings, commit 2a473a550a966e5b353200d51c28e35604d8ca50.

So yeah, it seems like the new engine isn't really as impacted by the kart count as much as the old one. Although, I admittedly wasn't as thorough as I could have been; my tests consisted of jumping into the game, waiting for the fps counter to show, waiting for a couple of seconds, and jumping back out of the game.
Anon
 
Posts: 208
Joined: 03 Jul 2014, 16:30

Re: Performance when playing with many karts

Postby Anon » 31 Aug 2014, 22:12

Chocolate w/ 1 kart: 20-30 fps, normally 20-25
Chocolate w/ 20 karts: 20-30 fps, normally 25-30

Tested on an AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE @ 3.4 Ghz w/ a Nvidia Geforce GTX 650 Ti. Max settings, commit 2a473a550a966e5b353200d51c28e35604d8ca50.

My fps seems to be capped at 30, so it might have gone higher in the test with one kart if that weren't the case. Aside from that, there doesn't again seem to be much of a difference caused by the kart count.
Anon
 
Posts: 208
Joined: 03 Jul 2014, 16:30

Re: Performance when playing with many karts

Postby Wuzzy » 01 Sep 2014, 06:11

Thanks for the reply.

What I really want to read are some test data from someone with some low-end hardware. So if anyone here has low-end hardware and plays STK, please test!

Just enable the FPS display, start a normal race on any track with 20 karts and drive a few rounds. Shortly before the end, note the FPS counter. Then reply in this thread, preferably with info about your hardware, especially the graphics card, of course. That’s all. More testing would be greatly appreciated by me. If you want to help more, you may also make the same test with 1 kart (you alone) for comparison, just like Anon did.

Edit: As for me: Unsurprisingly there are no differences for me when playing with only 1 kart. Oh, and something new: It seems I can’t really reproduce that “breakdown” I mentioned in the first post when playing with 20 karts. Weird. Maybe that was just a random fluctuation? I don’t know, lol.
User avatar
Wuzzy
 
Posts: 989
Joined: 28 May 2012, 23:13

Re: Performance when playing with many karts

Postby vlj » 01 Sep 2014, 12:27

On Windows the number may be different because I enabled buffer storage when available. In this case the animation related computation overlaps with the post processing of previous frame and it might be almost free.
vlj
 
Posts: 58
Joined: 27 Dec 2013, 04:22

Re: Performance when playing with many karts

Postby Arthur » 02 Sep 2014, 21:47

With my NVIDIA 250 GTS (the 1GB version), I had 40-50 FPS on average in Bovine Barnyard with 20 karts, but I had most graphical options turned off, and I used to be able to play with about the same FPS with 20 karts before as well, so not really proof of anything except that the new engine is quite performant when the heavy stuff is turned off. ;)

Best would be if we had someone with mid-range integrated graphics who could test the impact more karts have with such a configuration.
Hey pal, I took an oath for justice! "In happy days or tightest tights..." or something like that.
User avatar
Arthur
 
Posts: 1073
Joined: 06 Dec 2009, 00:49

Re: Performance when playing with many karts

Postby GunChleoc » 06 Sep 2014, 19:06

I tried playing with 20 Karts and the lag was so bad I couldn't start racing. On version 0.8.1 though, where can I get a Windows build of a recent dev version?
User avatar
GunChleoc
 
Posts: 502
Joined: 20 Sep 2012, 22:45

Re: Performance when playing with many karts

Postby vlj » 07 Sep 2014, 23:59

Actually it's still the same with the new renderer as it turns out not to be the renderer's fault.
I just tried mathclass with 19 ai kart and saw that up to 100 ms are spent in Update Race function (ie everything except graphic)
In Hacienda it's even worse, I saw a peak up to 650 ms (probably because all the karts where Inside the small house, and had collisions with each others.
vlj
 
Posts: 58
Joined: 27 Dec 2013, 04:22

Re: Performance when playing with many karts

Postby Wuzzy » 08 Sep 2014, 03:31

@GunChleoc: To my knowledge there is no such build at the moment (at least no automated one), you would have to build yourself from source. The only experimental builds I know are for GNU/Linux.
User avatar
Wuzzy
 
Posts: 989
Joined: 28 May 2012, 23:13

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest