nKP 1.1 and ATi graphics card preformance

[Guest Katsushika Matsumoto]

Hi,

I've been reading and experiencing some problems since I started using nKP 1.1.

It's about the large frame drops people have been experiencing since the new version came out.

In all the beta's I didn't have any FPS problems with my setup, which I know isn't the best but it should be able to run the game at a fairly decent FPS.

So I thought I made a topic in which all people with the same problem could gather information and hope we can figure out a solution.

The weird thing is that it only seems to affect ATi cards, I compared my performance against a somewhat similar system using a NVIDIA card and it got way better performance then mine. The problem seems exaggerated by the use of add-on tracks, some that specially give problems are Montreal, Spa, Monaco.

I tried numerous different graphics settings (in game, drivers, CCC settings override etc.) but nothing seems to work.

If anyone is experiencing the same weird FPS drops please post your system specs in the following way, so that we can find the problem.

My specs:

E7300, 4gb ram, ATi HD4870 512mb (10.3 driver), Windows XP 32bit. Everything at stock.

An other good thing would to post some benchmarks (NVIDIA cards also welcome ).

But we all have to all do the same thing to get a view what's happening.

Do a lap on the following tracks Crema, Spa and Montreal starting form the pits driving one full lap, and exiting just after start/finish.

During the lap keep an eye on the min. max. FPS, write those down and post them in this topic with your graphic settings (i.e. resolution, AA, AF and any setting that's relevant) that you normally used in the older version (when you weren't having problems).

By the way you can use fraps to easily benchmark your FPS

I will post my benchmarks later this day, seeing that i'm busy "working"

[Guest maxxmoto]

Never thought it could be my ATI card the cause for the fps drops.. I thought it was my poor cpu

So, my config: P4 2400MHz, 1,5Gbyte of RAM, Windows 7 32 bit (fresh installation), Ati HD 4650 1GByte ddr2, latest driver

In the same situation on track, from Beta3 to Final my FPS drops from 55 to 15 (in the box, Newbury, practice)

[Guest Matt Dawson]

My specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ 2.21 GHz, 2GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 4670 512MB (10.3 driver), Windows XP 32bit

Game Settings

Resolution: 1440x900 32bpp

Full Screen

vSync: Off

Antialias: Off

Viewing Distance: Max

Texture Detail: Max

Remote Cars Detail: Max

FPS:

Spa - Min: 5 Max:15

Crema - Min: 120 Max: 160

Montreal - Min: 25: Max: 40

I also have a problem with low FPS when I'm racing online. My FPS almost halves even with just one other car on track. It dropped from 100+ down to 20 when I was sitting on the grid with just 5 other cars.

I didn't really test much with the other betas so I cant comment on them, but racing with full fields on 1.03 didn't cause any FPS problems

[kunos]

i suspect it might be due a new and more refined wheel/road intersection routine.. it didn't cause any problems in any of our test machines. i have a version out to test right now to prove if the problem is actually there.

[Guest lvlo]

What about antivirus stuff guys? Some of them may cause the problem of low FPS...

[Guest rollobollo]

My normal setting, image quality is by far better (supersampling) than any ATI card below the 5xxx (they allowed a fullscreen supersampling better than nvidia) series can pull out.

resolution: 1920x1200
image settings: 4xMSAA+2x1SSAA+4xTMAA/16xAF HQ (4AA ingame+enhanced with nhancer to 8xS+TMAA)

crema: 
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
29000,    132602, 188, 278, 218.700

montreal: 
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
27419,    140239, 168, 231, 195.516

spa:
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
32940,    172116, 154, 319, 191.383

an image quality your card should achieve for comparison. Looks like a proper CPU limit here, see below.

resolution: 1920x1200
image settings: 4xAA (ingame)/16xAF

crema:
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
39887,    119665, 330, 335, 333.322

montreal: 
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
42022,    136960, 192, 335, 306.820

spa:
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
46736,    165409, 154, 335, 282.548

CPU bench, it seems there is a frame limiter sort of, which caps at 335fps

resolution: 800x600
image settings: 1xAA/1xAF

crema:
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
39055,    117164, 332, 335, 333.336

montreal:
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
42900,    137665, 198, 335, 311.626

spa:
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
47254,    161812, 173, 335, 292.030

All ingame setting are @max, apart from the anti aliasing settings. Frames taken with fraps benchmarking tool, stating in box and a full lap on track.

machine spec:

AMD X3-720BE @3,3GHz

Nvidia GTX260 (old 192SP version)

4GB DDR2-800 RAM

Windows7 x64

Edited April 16, 2010 by rollobollo

[Guest Katsushika Matsumoto]

Thanks for the posts guys

My specs:

E7300, 4gb ram, ATi HD4870 512mb (10.3 driver), Windows XP 32bit. Everything at stock.

Settings:

All settings were done from ATi control center.

4xAA with box filter (4x)

8XAF

Catalyst A.I. : Advanced

Midmap detail level : Quality

Adaptive AA : Enabled, Quality

OpenGL settings tripple buffering : enabled

V-sync off

1600x1200@75hz 32bpp

Max. detail in game settings

Crema (F2000)
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
20154,     91853, 147, 290, 219.416

Spa (F2000)
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
10332,    142079,  34, 133, 72.720

Montreal (F2000)
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
10909,    110623,  46, 208, 98.614

[Guest Katsushika Matsumoto]

i suspect it might be due a new and more refined wheel/road intersection routine.. it didn't cause any problems in any of our test machines. i have a version out to test right now to prove if the problem is actually there.

Thanks for the reply Kunos!

Let's hope it will all work out

What about antivirus stuff guys? Some of them may cause the problem of low FPS...

I only can speak for myself, but I have no virus software installed.

So that can't be it, for me that is

Edited April 16, 2010 by Katsushika Matsumoto

[Guest lovretta]

I too am having trouble with the latest release.

At Spa i can't even try to drive, as i'm getting - 1 fps sitting in pits. Tried to get out of it but everytime i crash, because of this really low fps. I tried to convert all textures of spa into dds it gave 500% performance increase. Yeah, to 5 fps that is

All tracks seem to work fine, except that i had to revert to really old driver, or i get half the fps i have now.

My system is:

Pentium 4 Prescott 3.0 GHz, HT enabled

2 GB DDR2

Ati radeon x1950 PRO 256 MB

Windows XP 32bit with SP3.

You may say my system is ancient, but till the beta2 it done prefectly fine for me.

As for the antivirus, i tried to disable it, didn't help. I tried several ati drivers versions, didn't help, except that this really old one gives me huge fps increase.

I tried all kind of settings - for example when using 16-but colors i get 10 fps decrease.

Also, i cannot use fraps because screen is flickering if i use it.

Also i tried to use nkp_NT.dll from beta2, didn't help (actually i have no idea whats that for).

[Guest NightShift]

BTW I'm also using an ATI card with the latest catalyst and I'm not quite satisfied with the quality of the output, which is weird since ATIs in general are better than nVidia when it comes to quality.

Basically no matter how high I push AA or AF there's still too much aliasing and a fair bit of shimmering. I've been reading similar comments from ATI users around the 'net too.