Interesting performance analisys by FT (on Steam)

[Jost Amman]

I'm just re-posting here what FT posted on Steam... seems like something the devs should have a look at to (maybe) understand better what's affecting performance on some systems.

 

Short version:
Pretty "meh" PC at out-of-box settings, 1080res, UltimatePreset(with ShadowDistance MEDIUM, Particles 20%, and ObjectQuality HIGH)
60-80fps with some drops to 50.

Turn off EAC and GameSpark in the game's Launcher adds ~10fps.
70-90fps with some drops to 60.

Use a couple relatively unknown F1 commands in-game ("gfx dtpix 199" and "trees 0") adds ~10fps.
80-100fps with some drops to 70.

Enabling the RAM's XMP profile and turning off the CPU's HyperThreading/SMT adds ~20fps.
100-130fps with some drops to 90.

Overclocking the CPU and tightening RAM timings adds ~20fps.
120-140fps with some drops to 110.



Longer version:
For a baseline I reset my PC hardware back to mostly default settings:
Ryzen 1600 6c/12th 3.4ghz (3.8ghz singlecore boost)
16gb (2x8gb) DDR4 at stock 2133mhz (didn't enable XMP profile)
gtx1060 6gb on recent ~4month old drivers
250gb SSD (a ~$35 NVME)
single 1080x1920 monitor via HDMI

For game options I'm running full 1080x1920 resolution with VSYNC OFF.
Starting with UltraPreset, I then made the following changes:

-Occlusion OFF (because ON can cause some glitches)

-AntiAliasing OFF, DepthOfField OFF, MotionBlur OFF (because this helps lessen the GPU load overall....if you have a stronger GPU, feel free to crank these up)

-Particles 20% (because it avoids occasional, large, GPU-related FPS drops...while looking similar to 100%)

-ShadowDistance MEDIUM, ObjectQuality HIGH (because this avoids some CPU bottlenecks and a night-time tree/shadow glitch, and lessens the hit of too many torches at base)


Like this, I get around 60-80fps although the wasteland can drop into the low 50's.



If I open the game's Launcher (open through the large Steam Library page and select "Launcher" instead of "start playing") and uncheck/turn-off EAC/EasyAntiCheat and GameSparks/analytic-data-recorder.....Now I get 70-90fps with dips to the low 60's in the Wasteland.
Turning those two options off makes the game boot-up faster and gives +10fps!



If I want another +5-15fps, after loading into the map/save I press F1 and type
gfx dtpix 199
then enter, then ESC or F1 to close the F1 menu.
This slightly simplifies distant terrain/mountains until you get closer.
This seems to really help the CPU run smoother, but can also help a little when the GPU is the bottleneck.




This last F1 command can only be used if you're in singleplayer or if you're the host for MP...or if you're given special permissions on a MP server.
If I want another +5-15fps, after loading into the map/save I press F1 and type
trees 0
then enter, then ESC or F1 to close the F1 menu.
This makes some of the very farthest trees invisible until you get closer.
This seems to really help the CPU run smoother, but can also help a little when the GPU is the bottleneck.




With all of this together I'm now getting 80-100fps with occasional split-second drops into the low 70's in the Wasteland.



The following might or might not be possible depending on your RAM and motherboard.
If I go into the PC's bios and enable the RAM's XMP profile (3000mhz CL16....this was some of the cheapest RAM available and even this 1stGen Ryzen 1600 can handle 3000mhz), and lock the cpu down to 4c/4th, the game gets another large boost...roughly +20fps!

By now I'm running into the limits of the gtx1060 at full 1080x1920 resolution, but a stronger GPU or downscaling the resolution has the game running at 100-130fps with occasional split-second drops into the low 90's in the Wasteland.




The following might or might not be possible depending on your CPU and motherboard.
This Ryzen 1600 will OC to 4.2ghz when locked down to 4c/4th, and the cheap DDR4 3000mhz/CL16 RAM can tighten timings/latency down to CL14 along with several other little tweaks.

With a strong enough GPU (or resolution downscaling on a weak GPU) and all the changes above, the game can now run at 120-140fps with occasional split-second drops to ~110fps.

Running around with 25-30zeds drops FPS into the 70's, increasing it to 50-55zeds slows it to 50-60fps and 75-80zeds will slow things down into the 40's.

Using the KillAll command will push FPS back into the 80's until the ragdoll bodies disappear after ~30seconds when the FPS will jump back into the 120-140range.


Lowering ShadowDistance or NEAR or OFF and lowering ObjectQuality to MEDIUM can slightly lessen the CPU/IO hit from the large amount of zombies....but the FPS hit from a boatload of zombies like this isn't helped much even if you drop every regular setting to lowest/off. You just need to kill them (and maybe consider keeping horde-nights at 32 or fewer, remembering to set it smaller for multiplayer where 4players X 8ZedHorde means 32 zombies).

@faatal 

[Liesel Weppen]

2 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

-AntiAliasing OFF, DepthOfField OFF, MotionBlur OFF (because this helps lessen the GPU load overall....if you have a stronger GPU, feel free to crank these up)

Antialiasing off does it, but looks terrible at FHD. DoF and MB almost has no performance effect.

 

Quote

-Particles 20% (because it avoids occasional, large, GPU-related FPS drops...while looking similar to 100%)

Surprise, particles cause GPU load.

 

Quote

gfx dtpix 199
trees 0

Surprise, lowering graphics settings increases FPS.

However i agree, that should be switchable by options, not just by console commands.

 

Quote

The following might or might not be possible depending on your RAM and motherboard.

 

If I go into the PC's bios and enable the RAM's XMP profile (3000mhz CL16....this was some of the cheapest RAM available and even this 1stGen Ryzen 1600 can handle 3000mhz), and lock the cpu down to 4c/4th, the game gets another large boost...roughly +20fps!

Has nothing to do with the game. That's optimizing your system.

Especially ryzen cpus are known to profit from increased ram speed.

1st gen ryzen is very nitpicky with ram speeds, it became significantly better with newer versions.

And this should be optimized by that way, because that suits your midrange ryzen 1600 and low end GTX 1060 better?

 

So what about people using a Ryzen 5900X with a RTX 3090?

They are required to magically discovering ways to increase quality?

 

Quote

This Ryzen 1600 will OC to 4.2ghz when locked down to 4c/4th, and the cheap DDR4 3000mhz/CL16 RAM can tighten timings/latency down to CL14 along with several other little tweaks.

Again, your system settings are completely different from what the game offers.

It's like telling the news that using a better system offers better performance. Holy @%$#! How? I never thought a faster system might be faster.

 

 

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With a strong enough GPU (or resolution downscaling on a weak GPU) and all the changes above, the game can now run at 120-140fps with occasional split-second drops to ~110fps.

Surprise, with a strong enough GPU you can achieve higher framerates.

 

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Using the KillAll command will push FPS back into the 80's until the ragdoll bodies disappear after ~30seconds when the FPS will jump back into the 120-140range.

*LOL* And quitting the game will increase your fps to one million fps...

 

Quote

You just need to kill them (and maybe consider keeping horde-nights at 32 or fewer, remembering to set it smaller for multiplayer where 4players X 8ZedHorde means 32 zombies).

Great advice. By killing Zs and so lowering their numbers, FPS will increase. Absolutely genius.

 

I greet you for telling the rest of the world obvious things.

 

So basically your advice to TFP is, if they lower the graphics settings, performance increases. I'm pretty sure nobody of TFP staff came across that idea yet.

[Roland]

You're scolding someone who isn't even here to read your snappy comebacks. This was all just quoted from the steam forum.

[Star69]

6 hours ago, Liesel Weppen said:

So what about people using a Ryzen 5900X with a RTX 3090?

They are required to magically discovering ways to increase quality?

Just built such a system....Ryzen 5950x and MSI rtx 3090 Suprim. 4k resolution and all settings on ultra....fps 82+ so no increased quality needed.

[Liesel Weppen]

3 hours ago, Roland said:

This was all just quoted from the steam forum.

I know. Makes it even more pointless.

[Jost Amman]

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The first response on the official forum is kinda funny, though I won't argue against what they're saying for most of it since this was more of a "make as few changes as necessary for the smoothest performance without ruining the appearance" kinda guide....moreso than a letter of importance to the devs, lol.

I will argue that DoF and MB do have a noticeable effect on performance when GPU-limited. Maybe LW is playing with VSYNC on or at a low enough resolution for his/her GPU not to show the difference?.

Particles only seem to have a noticeable performance effect in a very specific scene (the 2-5second long sandy wind thingy...and its other biome cousins) the other weather and fog and blood effects don't seem to hit performance like this at all (maybe they aren't true particle effects though?).
I've mostly been surprised how little visual difference there is between the 100% and 20% particles option while 20% causes practically no drops but 100% can nearly cut FPS in half at times (about 40%-45%).

I think the particles option should be greyed-out ingame like Occlusion and ViewingDistance because the Particles option only works properly when adjusted in the main menu. Adjusted paused in-game changes the appearance worse but leaves the performance as poor as whatever the original MainMenu adjustment was.

Agreed it would be nice to have additional terrain and tree-distance rendering options to help the game avoid CPU/IO choking on slower or less optimized PCs.

The game used to choke way earlier on some I/O bottleneck that could cause a faster CPU and RAM OC to make little/no difference. I'm glad to see the game working smoothly enough now that OCing can help speed it up so drastically.
Though I'm also disappointed to see it being another game that struggles a bit on Ryzen SMT while benefiting from SMT/hyperthreading being disabled. Not sure if there's much the devs can do for this though...might be mostly an AMD issue.

Folks using a Ryzen 5900x will likely benefit from turning SMT off and locking down to 4cores so they can run cooler and boost to higher frequencies.

I don't want the game visuals dumbed down. I was just recommending some easy tweaks (and less and less easy tweaks) for current players looking to smooth out performance.....Particularly the more drastic drops.

 

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I should probably have boldly highlighted that most of these suggested tweaks (for A19 players and their hardware when possible) are aimed at reducing pesky CPU/RAM/IO bottlenecks...letting the GPU fully stretch its legs.

There have been some complaints about the game not reaching high FPS on otherwise strong systems, and not using the GPU fully. And there have been general complaints about FPS drops.

I think the devs have already addressed many of these OR at least left effective work-arounds in place...so I'm hoping to point folks toward these workaround. This advice should help basically anyone with remotely decent gaming hardware to play at a fairly stable 60fps, and help folks with high-end hardware enjoy 100+fps (or more stable 4K FPS).


Like this fellow here in the same forum section:
https://community.7daystodie.com/topic/23580-low-frames-and-lag/

 

[KingSlayerGM]

disabling EAC increases FPS? Im never going to use EAC in a SP game anymore...

[uncle.heavy]

@Jost Amman Did you completely mix up quote and response in that last post of yours, or did you actually quote a different forum that quoted yet another forum?

Either way: that one will benefit FPS-wise from disabling SMT on Unity games has been known for quite some time. Sir Isaac Newton once wrote a quite entertaining resumee about this, though most of the benchmark data he just copied from Aristotle who famously was stuck with a 60Hz display.

Cannot be repeated often enough, though: you will benefit FPS-wise by disabling SMT on Unity games.

The rest is mostly about sucking less at setting up a(n AMD) PC or staring in awe at the slide controls in the video settings, as had been mentioned before.

 

But, folks, do not disable two cores on your AMD six-core: it will net you nothing but having two cores less at your disposal ( and maybe the tiniest bit of higher OC on one core at the expanse of frequency on another). The remaining four will still be distributed among the two CCX.

 

[Jost Amman]

2 hours ago, uncle.heavy said:

Did you completely mix up quote and response in that last post of yours, or did you actually quote a different forum that quoted yet another forum?

It's a just a quote from the original discussion on Steam where the original poster (FT) has added more replies after reading the first replies here. TBH: I posted here just as a courtesy to a fellow player on Steam who can't register here on the official forums for some reason. I have no horse in this race and I understand almost nothing of what has been said, I'm not an hardware expert (or hobbyist). But thanks for all your replies folks.

[push2drop]

Hi,

 

thanks for the writeup - while my Ryzen 1700 and RAM have already received a conservative overclock and the performance is usually fine, I'll try some of your measures and hope this helps with the occasional massive FPS drops from close to 60 to below 10... seems to be related to lots of torches, candles, fires etc... but not always, only after some time in game.

For now I just reset graphics to lowest for a few minutes and then up again which fixes it...

 

push2drop

[Roland]

Why are we playing “telephone” with the Steam forums. Just leave a link and let people go there to discuss if they want. 
 

I get the initial info dump but let’s not keep quoting the guy who is responding to posts from here over there just to then be quoted here again. That is just crazy sauce.

[Sigil_Thane]

The Steam forum did mention that 7DTD is heavily dependent on single threaded performance, if I remember correctly.

 

 I am running a 12core Threadripper 1920X overclocked to 3.7Ghz (instead of the base 3.5Ghx) with a gob of RAM, but I'm not getting very respectable performance so far (perhaps due to an older video card).

 

Just a thought: Would it be worth while trying to run a 7DTD server instance separate, as well as a client instance on the same system to offload the ...offloadable tasks to different threads on the CPU? ...thus making the game more multi-threaded at the expense of other resources?