TorqueX 3D performance
by Kzoink · in Torque X 2D · 12/04/2007 (1:53 pm) · 15 replies
I am on a rather beefy machine (Core 2 Duo E6600, 4gigs of RAM, Nvidia 8800GTS 620MB) and all I did was take the StarterGame 3D template and change the skybox from six 256x256 images to six 1024x1024 images and the FPS has slowed to a crawl, especially when I look upward. Ironically, it actually runs faster in debug mode for whatever reason. I will investigate and see what I can find out with the profiler when time permits.
Additionally, none of the graphics are sharp. It's especially evident in the FPS demo with the 2D HUD. I'm seeing some kind of scaling artifacts. I haven't looked too deeply into the problem but I have not changed anything to cause this. See John's post here for an example screenshot.
Has testing been done to ensure reasonable performance on the PC while developing the engine? What about Xbox 360 performance? What are the known issues and what bugs, if any, were uncovered during QA? All of this would be helpful information for us beta testers.
Additionally, none of the graphics are sharp. It's especially evident in the FPS demo with the 2D HUD. I'm seeing some kind of scaling artifacts. I haven't looked too deeply into the problem but I have not changed anything to cause this. See John's post here for an example screenshot.
Has testing been done to ensure reasonable performance on the PC while developing the engine? What about Xbox 360 performance? What are the known issues and what bugs, if any, were uncovered during QA? All of this would be helpful information for us beta testers.
#2
12/05/2007 (7:07 am)
What is the color depth of your 1024x1024 textures? You just jumped the GPU consumption exponentially. When you're looking at the sky, maybe they are meeting "in view" at the edges and swapping like crazy. That's just a guess, though.
#3
John, performance is great with thetrue option. I wonder why this is not in the settings file by default?
12/05/2007 (3:14 pm)
Did you see what kind of video card I am running? Six 1024x1024 textures is nothing. I would seriously regret ever touching this engine if it couldn't handle that. For the record, the source files are 24-bit JPEGs.John, performance is great with the
#4
12/05/2007 (4:27 pm)
Yes I did, but even very good video cards can have problems with large texture manipulations on the fly. When you start making exponential jumps it can eat up your GPU very quickly. For six of them, it shouldn't matter, but if you start bumping up all your textures and filling your renderpipe exponentially, there's usually problems. 
#5
John K.
12/05/2007 (7:08 pm)
I think the most interesting part of this problem is that it is new. The last release of Torque X was great and now the 2D rendering is really slow - and that's just with the basic StarterGame2D. Also, even with the SimulateFences property set, the graphics are still pixelated. John K.
#6
For info, I have the same kind of computer specs (E6700 @3.2GHz, GeForce 8800GTX 768Mb [Forceware 169.44], 4Gb RAM, Vista Home Premium SP1) than Kzoink...and even without changing anything to the Starter 3D project, it runs really jaggy.
What surprises me a lot is the fact that my laptop Intel 945GM onboard graphic chipset runs this project without troubles!!! (Centrino Duo 2GHz, 2Gb RAM, XP SP2)
Not impressed on the 3D side...at least with a graphic card that should not have problems with a skybox and a landscape ;-)
I hope you'll focus on optimising the engine on real 3D cards!!! ;-)
Ulric
03/19/2008 (9:33 am)
Hi,For info, I have the same kind of computer specs (E6700 @3.2GHz, GeForce 8800GTX 768Mb [Forceware 169.44], 4Gb RAM, Vista Home Premium SP1) than Kzoink...and even without changing anything to the Starter 3D project, it runs really jaggy.
What surprises me a lot is the fact that my laptop Intel 945GM onboard graphic chipset runs this project without troubles!!! (Centrino Duo 2GHz, 2Gb RAM, XP SP2)
Not impressed on the 3D side...at least with a graphic card that should not have problems with a skybox and a landscape ;-)
I hope you'll focus on optimising the engine on real 3D cards!!! ;-)
Ulric
#7
node)?
true
I'd like to find out if this has any performance improvement effect at all.
John K
03/19/2008 (2:16 pm)
For kicks, can you try adding the following to the top of your game's torqueSettings.xml file (under the I'd like to find out if this has any performance improvement effect at all.
John K
#8
I'll try that when I'll be at home, next week and I'll give you some feedback.
Note that I just find this in the main TorqueX forum:
www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73088
Regards,
Ulric
03/20/2008 (12:19 am)
Hi John,I'll try that when I'll be at home, next week and I'll give you some feedback.
Note that I just find this in the main TorqueX forum:
www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73088
Regards,
Ulric
#9
To answer the question:true makes all the difference!!!!
The performance are normal with this setting.
Thanks for the tip!
Cheers,
Ulric
03/22/2008 (3:47 am)
Hi John,To answer the question:
The performance are normal with this setting.
Thanks for the tip!
Cheers,
Ulric
#10
John K.
03/22/2008 (10:10 am)
That's very interesting to hear - thanks Ulric. Would you mind telling me what graphics card you have? I would like to get a better handle on the various performance problems that different people run into.John K.
#11
As stated in one of my previous post, I'm the happy owner of a nVidia GeForce 8800GTX 768Mb.
Here are my full computer specs:
Core 2 Duo E6700 OC@3.2GHz
4Gb RAM DDR2-800
3 HD 320Gb SATA2
GeForce 8800GTX 768Mb [Forceware 169.44]
Vista Home Premium SP1
Cheers,
Ulric
03/24/2008 (8:58 am)
Hi John,As stated in one of my previous post, I'm the happy owner of a nVidia GeForce 8800GTX 768Mb.
Here are my full computer specs:
Core 2 Duo E6700 OC@3.2GHz
4Gb RAM DDR2-800
3 HD 320Gb SATA2
GeForce 8800GTX 768Mb [Forceware 169.44]
Vista Home Premium SP1
Cheers,
Ulric
#12
03/24/2008 (9:45 am)
@Ulric - I don't think you have enough video memory =P And what, no quad core? ;)
#13
When I bought my new machine, for X-Mas 2006, the Quad-Core CPUs were too expensive...
The goal was to build a new machine able to run Crysis smoothly at 1280x1024 with a lot of features turned on...goal reached!!!;-)
My former machine which is now used by my son, was 4 years old (P4 HT 3GHz with 2GB RAM and a GF6800 GT AGP) and only received a GPU upgrade since I built it. It was impossible to upgrade it...that's why I decided to spend some money on a brand new system which I hope will be enough for the 4 next years also.
Regards,
Ulric
03/24/2008 (11:16 am)
No...no quad core!!! ;-)When I bought my new machine, for X-Mas 2006, the Quad-Core CPUs were too expensive...
The goal was to build a new machine able to run Crysis smoothly at 1280x1024 with a lot of features turned on...goal reached!!!;-)
My former machine which is now used by my son, was 4 years old (P4 HT 3GHz with 2GB RAM and a GF6800 GT AGP) and only received a GPU upgrade since I built it. It was impossible to upgrade it...that's why I decided to spend some money on a brand new system which I hope will be enough for the 4 next years also.
Regards,
Ulric
#14
03/24/2008 (2:06 pm)
Quote:My former machine which is now used by my sonYeah, the kids that play hires graphic games always get the slower machines while their fathers that use excel and word buy themselves the rocket speed computers ;-)))
#15
But you have to admit that a 6 years old kid with such a "slower" machine [able to run Test Drive Unlimited at 1024x768 everything maxed out without glitch] has not to complain!
The only game not running on that machine is "Spiderman 3" which requires a GeForce from the series 7xxx...
I think we will stop here this discussion about my computers...we are drifting a little bit out of topic! ;-)
Kind regards,
Ulric
03/25/2008 (12:36 am)
Yeah...sad but true!!! ;-)But you have to admit that a 6 years old kid with such a "slower" machine [able to run Test Drive Unlimited at 1024x768 everything maxed out without glitch] has not to complain!
The only game not running on that machine is "Spiderman 3" which requires a GeForce from the series 7xxx...
I think we will stop here this discussion about my computers...we are drifting a little bit out of topic! ;-)
Kind regards,
Ulric
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John K.