[Again FPS] From 60 to 11

[Earlybite]

Hi,

e.g. an OCA-strike…
A/c on the ground at the target airbase and taken out these a/c by gun at e.g. ~500 ft.
In my case 6 a/c taken out on the ground by gun and flying through the explosions decreases my FPS from 60 to 11.

This could be a “little” better?

yes?

no?

Greeting
Earlybite

[Arty]

No.

[I-Hawk]

Flying through PS particles will kill your FPS no matter which card you have, some will fail more and some less but all will collapse. I still hadn’t seen a single card that can digest such a high number of PS particles at once and not get very low. AFAIK it’s the large number of blending operations that cause the huge drop (many DXT5 textures blended one over the other and taking a large piece of the screen area when viewed from so close).

[Earlybite]

@I-Hawk:
I *can imagine what the reason is, but that wasn’t the question
The question is: Can this be a little better in FPS (decrease)?
It must not be like it is programmed now, you know what I mean?
IMHO, “we” only have one single lonely kernel from the cpu and there is no chance with e.g. 5 GHz to calculate each particle

On the other hand, that (flying through several explosions, which are at the same time) is a (very) rare moment…, I do not know if it is worth to rewrite, or to create a new part of the code for this.

A bit lost in thought
Earlybite

[Mower]

@I-Hawk:

Flying through PS particles will kill your FPS no matter which card you have, some will fail more and some less but all will collapse. I still hadn’t seen a single card that can digest such a high number of PS particles at once and not get very low.

My “new” 960 GTX 4 GB has no issues…

[lazystone]

@Earlybite:

This could be a “little” better?

yes?

no?

I think …

yes

no

… if you enable “Reduce Particle System” in the ConfigEditor.

Cheers,
LS

[I-Hawk]

@Earlybite:

@I-Hawk:
I *can imagine what the reason is, but that wasn’t the question
The question is: Can this be a little better in FPS (decrease)?
It must not be like it is programmed now, you know what I mean?
IMHO, “we” only have one single lonely kernel from the cpu and there is no chance with e.g. 5 GHz to calculate each particle

On the other hand, that (flying through several explosions, which are at the same time) is a (very) rare moment…, I do not know if it is worth to rewrite, or to create a new part of the code for this.

A bit lost in thought
Earlybite

Well… it’s not about the CPU, Particle system handling by the CPU isn’t THAT efficient (And don’t get wrong idea here, PS handling in BMS is very efficient, just the CPU in general is better to not manage stuff like PS, but GPU only) but that is NOT the reason why you will see such a drastic FPS drop when you are viewing particle effects from very close. It’s PURELY your V-Card that is getting crippled (and yes even though you have a strong and modern V-Card :))

Blending operations on the GPU are VERY efficient but still costly, every blending you add to the equation increases the burden, so while viewed from a nice distance you will almost not feel it, when you get REALLY close so the blending particles covers all or most of your screen, the GPU simply cannot handle it.

You must then ask how stuff is even working? well a nice cloud for example is using ~10 textures to make up the “3D cloud”, that is OK and most modern GPUs will handle it NP, the issue only starts when numbers are getting higher and higher, what happen if you blend a 100, a 1000 etc etc… any GPU will cripple, it’s all a matter of how much you ask it to process.

I don’t know if there is a question of efficiency here because rendering-wise, you DO want blending in particle system rendering because you do want to be able to see what’s behind the smoke or cloud if it is half transparent, well yes but that costs

I come to learn that the GPU is a really sophisticated machine, in fact compared to the CPU, it’s MUCH more efficient for processing “stream” of data (but not efficient as the CPU to read Random located data…), but still it has limitations, put enough Vertices on the screen, and it will cripple, put enough blending operations and it will cripple it… see even modern games (I see my kid playing that last iteration of COD all the time, particle effects are breath taking :)) hide this weakness by putting pretty short times on the heavy particle effects (e.g explosions), they have so many to render in a single scene that they don’t want FPS cut by half every time a shell is exploding nearby…

@Mower, I can show you a simple debug command that will cause your card to cripple under particles rendering

@Lazy, Using the “Reduce” checkbox will only reduce the number of generated effects, but still if for a given case you will generate enough effects, you will probably still be able to get yourself to a low FPS going through a heavy smoke stack.

[Red Dog]

@Lazy, Using the “Reduce” checkbox will only reduce the number of generated effects, but still if for a given case you will generate enough effects, you will probably still be able to get yourself to a low FPS going through a heavy smoke stack.

but you still reduce the total occurrences of that happening, so as Lazy I do advise to check that box as well.

[I-Hawk]

@Red:

but you still reduce the total occurrences of that happening, so as Lazy I do advise to check that box as well.

Well, it helps in general, but if you are blowing a complex with 20 fuel tanks, you may still get a dozen or so of smoke stacks around and if you fly into it, your FPS will dive… probably it’s better than having 2 dozens of smoke stacks to fly into, but still a dozen close to each other will be enough I think.

[Red Dog]

if it helps in general, it’s a valid point
No need to downsize the effect of the option. I tested and for me it helped quite a bit in day to day flying.
You’re right that it may not completely make the problem disappear but there is no doubt that on regular use it does tremendously help

So point in case, the Op initial question was is there a way to help
Answer is yes there is and the solution was given

Case closed

[I-Hawk]

OK :mrgreen:

I didn’t meant to downsize the check box effect, just to emphasize the difference. The checkbox will NOT save you if you ALREADY have many many effects generated and you choose to fly inside them, the checkbox will help generally to reduce the number of effects that will be generated in the first place.

So in an indirect way it does help, yes

[Reaper58th]

Flying thru the explosions should have reduced his jet to particles IMO …

[Earlybite]

@Reaper58th:

Flying thru the explosions should have reduced his jet to particles IMO …

You mean. I was for a moment pure elementary?! Wow! I must fly again, to keep that feeling in my mind…

Greeting
Earlybite