Performance Issues

It may well be better in Windows mode. It's just that I don't have a version of windows handy and setting up bootcamp is a hassle so....

I generally run the game at 1440p. Because it's half the retina (5xxx x 2880) display and that's generally the mode I run games in if I can. I tried it in 1080 but the performance didn't seem an awful lot better so I just stick with that.

 

For me, the severe hitching started in R54 and I've been complaining about it since.

 

Just out of curiosity for the people who have hitching issues:

• Do you have the game set to Aggressive Decoration Loading on?
• Do you have the game set to Decoration Culling on?

The reason I ask is because, while there's a lot of stress on the GPU to draw decorations or whatever, those two options I listed are CPU tasks... the latter makes the CPU hide/unhide objects to help alleviate the GPU's load. The former forces the CPU to load as much information as possible instead of streaming the data occasionally so you're technically giving more work to your CPU and/or telling it to prioritize loading prior to other tasks.

If your video card is beefy enough, it's just better to play with culling options off.

 

I've tried turning off aggressive decoration loading and it didn't seem to make any difference. I'll try the culling option tonight.

 

Yeah neither of those 2 really made much noticable difference to me. I am not even sure what the correct setting I should have for them is. I just have them checked.

 

Mmmm... I would have chosen different hardware, for example: I would have gone with a i7-6700 CPU, and since you didn't state your MoBo type, I can't look up the spec's... The only thing I've noticed about MoBo's is that each downgrades the PCIe channels, the more cards are installed, for example: a single card in a single slot is x16 (using all 16 channels), but when you use a 2nd card, the MoBo divides those channels between the 2 slots (using only x8 channels for each slot, there for not utilizing a card designed to use x16 channels)... I've only seen 1 MoBo that has the capability of using x16 across 3 PCIe slots and it cost about $500 (can't find the 1 I was looking at, but this 1 is close: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...m_re=asus_motherboards-_-13-132-990-_-Product... At least 2 slots can handle x16 at the same time, but I don't think nVidia has perfected SLI, so I stopped using it...

My rig, I built a couple of years ago around a:
-i7 4790K CPU 4.0 GHz
-z97 AsRock MoBo
-32 GB RAM
-x2 240GB SSDs in a RAID 0 striping array.. I dual boot with Win 7 x64 and Win 10 x64 (defaulted to Win 7)...
-x2 3TB HDD for storage...
-x4 2TB HDD in JOB mode for storage...
-EVGA nVidia GTX 760 4GB in HDMI 1920 x 1080p single TV monitor (in Fantastic, w/shadows)...
-Deep Cool Captain 240mm liquid cooler...
-ISP Comcast 150 mbps internet...

I did load SotA on the RAID wo/swap file enabled (don't need it with SSDs/32GB RAM)... and I gotta say my hitching is minimum, I mainly play in SPO mode... Load times are about 15 sec no matter where I go... Just last night I was getting 35 FPS, pretty high for me...

I use my rig for my DVR w/WMC, so many times I have video channels recording in the background, while I'm playing, w/several web pages open, it doesn't seem to affect my performance any...

So, I don't understand why this is such an issue with some players? It's not that bad for me...

 

I had some hitching today, but restarting the client fixed it. It was after I'd been running for several hours. I would suggest restarting the app and taking a rest break if you get hitching that persists.

 

Hitching has been ateadily on the rise this release.

A bug hunt is in order. Folks who have hitching issues should run /debug in game and investigate any processes or errors/warnings that occur when the hitch hits

 

It’s been this way since R54. At least for most people (like me and several others).

 

I think I said it the last post. Everyone who isn't seeing an issue has 32 Gigs of ram. That's the common denominator. I think the hitching is memory swapping.

That having been said, I've not seen as much of it today and there's been a patch.

 

I have 32GB of RAM and see constant hitching. So that is not the case.

Although I have to admit, that the hitching is much less frequent on Windows then on my GNU/Linux. I did some tests yesterday and that at least was the experience.

 

I have 16Gb and no hitching.

The common denominator that I see is HDD speed...

 

I suffer hitching (but overall in a accetable rate) ..even with a strong PC (i7 8700K, ASUS STRIX GTX 1080 11G, 2 x 500GB EVO 960, 32GB RAM)
but I play on QHD (3440 x 1440), perhaps that causes them...SOTA is the only game that makes such problems btw.

 

Interesting... Your PC is similar if slightly ahead of mine and has the 960 HDDs (and I get virtually none) - Do you get hitching if you play at 1080p HD?

 

Maybe the problem is just this:
Portalarium:

• login server
• "authentication activities"
• database

Player:

• location based hybrid peer-to-peer cloud torrent
• AI services are client based (RNG)

What could be happening: Depending on your geographic local in the world, the location of all your friends in your friends list, the specs on your machine, your latency to friends and Portalarium servers, etc... you may or may not have a bad time with lots of hitching.

Devs, if this is the case, you will need to change your network strategies..

 

I need to test that...

 

I tried using this RAM drive but unfortunately I don’t have enough spare RAM to use it:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/imdisk-toolkit/

For those who have at least 32GB RAM and have hitching issues I would highly recommend trying this.

Basically, create a large RAM drive (eg. 16GB or more), install SotA entirely on the RAM drive and see if that will improve game performance.

Edit: typo

 

I used to use RAM drives a lot to eliminate loading lag in games pre NVMe days and on some games the difference was massive even when compared to a SATA SSD. Need at least 32 Gb to do that with SOTA.

 

In theory, a RAM drive should solve hitching problems and make SotA run smooth as butter!

*drools for 64GB of RAM*

 

In theory yeah, but you are praising a technique to others that you did not even try yourself?
The problem like I said a hundred times already with RAM disks, is that you will have to copy or reinstall the game every time you want to play.

So you are stating here, that the hitching is a client hard disk issue yes?