Lot access limited while decorations load - a video card question.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Asclepius, Feb 17, 2019.

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  1. Asclepius

    Asclepius Avatar

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    I have a question especially for users of higher end video cards. I currently have a NVidia GTX 760; it is purportedly below minimum specs for Shroud.
    However - it seems to perform really well, I get good frame rates and the game runs really well. Might be helped by the fact that it came with 4 Gb onboard RAM instead of the standard 2.
    My machine has 32 Gb onboard RAM; task manager shows the card to be running at or near 100% most of the time, with no shared GPU memory usage.
    (i7, 3.7 Gh, Win 10, game on SSD drive)
    The only thing I notice is as in the title - when I arrive at a fairly deco-intensive lot I have to wait some seconds for it to load. Not a huge deal, I just wonder if a faster/better card would make a difference.
    I don't mind spending the money, I would just like to know it would be worth it. Do you guys get this as well?
    Any and all advice appreciated!
     
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  2. Rufus D`Asperdi

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    I have a 1070 and see the same thing.
    I don't believe the load times are related in any significant way to the GPU.
     
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  3. Nevyn Waldail

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    I got a new card recently, basically a significant upgrade on what you've got and still need to wait for deco load
     
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  4. liz_the_wiz

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    I got 64gb memory, and 2x 1080tis with 12gb each.. I see it too.. its the design
     
  5. Titania Xylia

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    Yeah, it's not your card. Once you start loading lots, the performance is like loading a slow website. You're downloading data about where things are on the lot and getting your card prepared to render those items is the least expensive.

    If you run this game at 1080p or less, everyone should get decent performance from the game. The render-er is CPU bound still, a unity issue, and frame rates drop above 1080p because the CPUs aren't being utilized well to feed the GPU.

    So, it's never your hardware with this game. It's all poorly optimized software that reduces frame rates.

    Slow loading lot access is just the nature of the dynamic decoration beast. You'll always need to sync up with the server which is generally the slowest thing you'll ever do on a computer.
     
  6. Jason_M

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    Rendering the decorations might not be the bottleneck. Waiting for deco might be a matter of communicating with the game server. In other words, it's most likely a network issue.
     
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  7. Proteus Tempest

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    Asus gtx 1080 ti 8 or 11 onboard mem

    Ssd drive 500 gig

    32 gigs ram

    I7 6850 3.8 ghz i think supports up to 40 pci express lanes

    System built to not have bottle necks and I still get loading issues on two of my properties.

    Many times I am waiting for the game server to respond as the game actually says it BUT I have not tested that for some time.

    I will try it out today.
     
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  8. Anpu

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    Getting a SSD is one of the best things you can get to improve performance. That’s something you will notice immediately.
     
  9. Sean Silverfoot

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    I see the same the same thing. No biggie for me.
     
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  10. Duke Olahorand

    Duke Olahorand Localization Team

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    Same issue with NVidia RTX 2070.
    Also lag spikes during PvE fights with frozen screen for 3 to 5 seconds. Since this does not happen in any other game, the reason must be in SotA.
     
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  11. Asclepius

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    Thanks for the responses and guidance everyone - I guess I'll save my money for something else bright and shiny:)
     
  12. Elwyn

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    SSD will really help your level loading time. I can tell when a streamer is running SotA off of a hard drive because it takes so long to load a level. Even if you don't boot off of an SSD, just having SotA installed to one should be enough. The two boxes I play on these days have a 250GB for boot and SotA, and a 1GB laptop HD on D: that I installed later for other apps. My older box only puts SotA on the SSD, and symlinks it into C:\Program Files.

    As for the lowest graphic card you can use, I've had no problem with a 750ti or a GT 1030. I replaced the 1030 with a 1050ti (the 1030 went into a low-profile portable gaming PC) and noticed no significant improvement, even though the 1030 has like half the GPU of the 1050, and it was the 2GB version too. But I am happy to get 30fps at 1080p, because I've played it on slower computers. Generally you should expect 1080p/30fps in towns and 1080p/30-60fps outside towns. Higher resolutions will just make your text smaller anyhow, and I have enough trouble reading text in 1080p from TV-to-couch distance (6 feet away) on decent size screen.
     
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  13. Floors

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    I feel like it got a lot faster in R62.
     
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  14. Barugon

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    Same here. Lots load way faster now.
     
  15. Sentinel2

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    I have noticed with turning "aggressive decp loading" on (believe that was the option), it seems to have reduced this from happening.
     
  16. Sorthious

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    Running an i5-6500, 16G 2400MHz memory, SSD, and an RX480 w/8gigs DDR5 and I get the 'can't enter lot while loading' message. This only happens if I run up to my lot, and not when I Recall to it. A long time ago, everything used to load on my lot really fast, but has gotten worse over many releases. While my frame rate remains good, the load times for deco has gotten slow(and of course there is the hitching.) When they changed the 'draw distance' for everything in the game, it basically seemed to cause my GPU to struggle with too much all at once. I remember, at a point, I was able to see players super long distances away from me on the overworld, but now they have to be a lot closer before they get drawn. It would be nice if we had a 'slider' that allowed us to pick our draw distance, so we could find the sweet spot for our individual systems.
     
  17. Sorthious

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    That's called Hitching, not lag. Lag is when you perform an action and the action doesn't happen when you expect it to. For instance, you cast a spell which normally hits your target in about 1sec, but with lag, the target doesn't show damage for 3-5secs later, or you loot a corpse and it takes a while to happen and the corpse may linger even after you've looted it. Hitching, on the other hand, is when the whole game essentially freezes up and then resumes some time later; anywhere from milliseconds to multiple seconds. Lag is what will get you killed; when damage to your character piles up and then applies all at once. Hitching is mainly annoying and interrupts the flow of the game. Hope that helps! (^8
     
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