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  #1  
Unread 03-28-2011, 07:11 PM
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hawkeye666 hawkeye666 is offline
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Plugins kill my frame rate.

Plugins kill my frame rate.

I have found an interesting problem with plugins. Whenever I load plugins my frame rate immediately drops by 20 to 30 FPS. Unload them and the frame rates go back up to normal. I have a Radeon 6970 and can reproduce this on any of this years Catalyst versions including the pre-release 11.4 that is available.

Because of this I have had to stop using plugins all together.

Am I alone in this? Anyone else seeing it?

This only started when I replaced my CrossfireX dual 4890s with a single HD 6970.

I still need to troubleshoot each plugin one by one, but I was using Manager, Palantir, Tonic Bars and Buff Bars.

I have tried each separate, and it seems that Palantir is the biggest impact.
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  #2  
Unread 03-28-2011, 07:26 PM
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Yes, plugins can (but not always) have an impact on your framerate, and the most powerful video cards are not going to help.

The problem comes from the update procedures being used by the plugins. If the plugin updates itself too often, or has too much work to do during the update, then that will lower the framerate of the game.

I try hard with the travel window to ensure the framerate is not too badly affected, knowing users will likely be running a number of plugins. The less my plugin affects the framerate, the better.
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Unread 03-29-2011, 09:09 AM
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Another thing to consider, which can kill framerate is memory consumption. If you are pushing the memory limits of you machine, your pc might have to swap memory to disk, which cuts frame-rate. I not convinced this is the case based on the plugins listed though. However, this is one of those fears I have with Compendium, because it is hefty in size with all the data it has to load.
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  #4  
Unread 03-29-2011, 05:38 PM
geo111 geo111 is offline
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My gaming PC has a XFX5970 (Eyefinity 3x1) and I see no reduction in framerate. I think the resolution is 5120x1600.

Gaming PC 2010

Main Board: MSI 790FX-GD70
CPU AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE
RAM: 4GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333
Video: XFX HD 5970 BE
Sound: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty
HDD1: 300GB WD VelociRaptor SATA
HDD2: 1TB WD Caviar Black
SDD1: 25GB Intel X25-M
Power Supply: Antec Signature 850
Display: 3ea. Dell 2001FP (Eyefinity 3X1)
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  #5  
Unread 03-29-2011, 06:24 PM
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Probably not memory bound

I have 8GB of RAM and a Phenom 2 x4 running at 3.4. I almost never hit the swap file what with an 8 GB Ready Boost drive and the swap file is on a three drive stripe set.
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Unread 03-29-2011, 06:55 PM
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Further testing results

I went ahead and loaded each plugin I use individually and have found two of them are without question having negative impacts on my frame rates.

Ctime when loaded dropped my FPS from roughly 160 while stationary to about 80 FPS. This is while standing still in Ost Haer with only one NPC and no player characters.

Palantir dropped them from the 160 down to about 100 in the same area and circumstances.

So when both are loaded and I am in a high traffic area like Bree my normally healthy 80 to 90 FPS falls into the mid to high 20s, or worse.

At least now I know what not to load. But it still seems strange that I did not seem to have this problem prior to the new video card and/or the latest content update.
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Unread 03-30-2011, 04:05 AM
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Wow...deja vu

I posted my response to this over in the Lua forums at lotro.com, but I'll run down a brief synopsis here, just to cover my bases (as the OP did )

Yes, Palantir could be done more efficiently when it comes to updating, but make sure you have the latest version - just to be safe. There was an update not too long ago that really destroyed frame rate, as I was trying to handle a Lua/LotRO graphics quirk, using a very very bad method.

But, to be honest - other than after this patch, this is the first complaint I've gotten involving frame rate - not to say that you're somehow doing it wrong, or that you're wrong, because you don't have more people backing you up - but when it comes to priorities on updates, if I don't hear about it, I'll assume it's not a problem.

Like I said, there is some definite room for improvement on how, and when Palantir handles screen updates - but it isn't entirely update events that are to blame - but rather if there's some form of graphics drawing taking place during that update. Since Lua graphics are not hardware accelerated, every time a graphic is drawn - whether that be displayed, hidden and shown, moved, animated, etc - causes a much bigger hit to your FPS than the rest of the UI will. Especially when you're creating multiple elements, or repeatedly hiding/displaying a graphic.

That being said, due to the nature of Lua graphics - even if a plugin is written to efficiently handle events - plugins that use/manipulate graphics are bound to cause a hit to your FPS. How much of a hit depends on the system.
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Unread 03-30-2011, 04:50 AM
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Thanks

D_U, thanks for the reply. Part of my consternation is that I didn't not have, or at least did not notice this issue until reasonably recently. I've been using Palantir since it was first posted to LotRO Interfaces. But somewhere in the process of changing video cards, which included moving from DX10 to DX11 and going from Catalyst 10.12 to 11.2-3 and 4, and the content update I started having this issue, or at the very least it became a big enough change to be noticeable.

I find it rather beleiveable that the root cause could even lie in the support for the 6970 card in the newest AMD drivers. That would not be a first. It may well bee that the issue is only being exposed by Palantir and Ctime and not actually being caused by them.

Having said all of that I will be all means double check what version I am running and update accordingly.
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Unread 03-30-2011, 04:03 PM
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One rev behind on Palantir

I was one revision old on the Palantir version so I updated that and tried again. I got roughly a 20% reduction in frame rate upon loading the newer Palantir. That was after a huge drop as it drew the interface elements and did the color fill.
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Unread 03-31-2011, 03:22 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hawkeye666
I was one revision old on the Palantir version so I updated that and tried again. I got roughly a 20% reduction in frame rate upon loading the newer Palantir. That was after a huge drop as it drew the interface elements and did the color fill.
Thanks for following up on that - hopefully it's just a DX11 issue with Catalyst that will be remedied before too long. Even still, while I'm working on v2, I will make an extra effort to keep things as performance efficient as possible. This should at least make it a bit friendlier on the frame rate while it's running. As far as first load goes, I don't think there's anything reasonable I can do about that. :/
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