Source
r/Eve•
Hyperz

Is anyone else still having problems with the new cloud rendering absolutely destroying performance?

Just curious, has this been fixed for anyone that was affected by this? Even on SISI it still destroys my framerate to the point where the game becomes unplayable and turning it off by switching to DX9 makes doing things like running sleeper caches near impossible.

With Alpha Clones right around the corner I would've expected a bug like this to be fixed a while ago considering these clouds appear in a lot of sites and even on some gates.

Posted Oct 27, 2016, 11:00 AM UTC

318
ccp_darwinCCP Games•

First, if you're having serious problems with this that affect gameplay, I'd recommend disabling the "Effects" checkbox instead of disabling DX9. This will turn off cloud rendering (among other nonessential effects) and leave basic settings at the level you prefer. (Once you change this setting, you'll have to session change by warping off and back, jumping, or docking in order for it to take effect.)

Regarding the underlying issue:

Some sites that were authored a long time ago use cloud assets in ways that don't work well with our new cloud system. What we recommend you do at this time is bug report (using F12 -> Report Bug in-game, preferably while at the site) each specific site type that you experience having problems. Every site is different, and when the assets at a site are properly authored, the new clouds perform better than the old. If you want to include with your bug report a record of your frame rate, ctrl-F will bring up a frame rate plot that you can screenshot while in the site.

We are planning to make a comprehensive tuning pass soon, but bug reports for this can help us start with the most problematic sites.

9
HyperzOPGallente Federation•

This will turn off cloud rendering (among other nonessential effects) and leave basic settings at the level you prefer.

I'm aware of that but my space job is exploration. I need to be able to see the clouds in sites like limited sleeper caches because those clouds deal damage when you fly into them. In other words they are tied to certain gameplay elements.

Also, I think I mentioned this in a previous thread but it's not just certain sites. Any place that has one or more of these clouds causes the performace issue. Be it an anom, a mission site, or even the small cloud formation found on some region gates (which I've bug reported even before the changes went live).

1
ccp_darwinCCP Games•

Performance issues mainly occur when there are multiple visible clouds. It is possible to update how the sites are authored to correct these performance issues, and that's how we're handling this, for now. Because our content team is busy working on the NPE for our upcoming release, we haven't recently been able to give this the attention it deserves, but as I say we're planning on making a comprehensive pass soon.

1
HyperzOPGallente Federation•

Ah. Well I'm looking forward it. What confuses me about that though is that for most people the new cloud rendering has already improved performance. Shouldn't everyone be seeing this problem if it's the sites themselves, especially people with the same graphics card like the popular 970 mentioned above?

1
ccp_darwinCCP Games•

There are a lot of factors that go into performance for systems like this and I'm not the expert on the matter. If you have filed a bug report before on this issue and you can PM me the bug report number (even if it's since been closed) I can suggest to our performance testers that they take a specific look at the type of hardware you're using and how it works with this feature.

1
SirchoSignal Cartel•

On my 970 extreme edition, with AA disabled, FPS is dropping below 45-50 (in "normal" space, it is around 250 fps).

3
HyperzOPGallente Federation•

I go from 120-150ish in open space to 25-35 or even lower on a HD6950 depending in the cloud(s). The thing is, while that framedrop is huge you'd think that 25-35 is doable. However, it FEELS more like 5-15 FPS because of the insane amount of micro stuttering. It's as if the avg framerate jumps between 1 FPS and ~50 FPS a few times a second. Kind of hard to explain. Moving the camera while zooming in or out to navigate a limited sleeper cache is a PITA because it "jumps" around due to all the stuttering.

3
decoiiy•

Clouds fuck everyone fam

2
OneshoeleroyTest Alliance Please Ignore•

I feel your pain. I just gave up on all the graphics flim flam and turned my clients on permanent potato mode.

3
HyperzOPGallente Federation•

So you're having this problem too? Out of curiosity, what graphics card are you using?

1
OneshoeleroyTest Alliance Please Ignore•

I'm embarrassed lol. Radeon 7850. I was actually shopping for upgrades last night

1
HyperzOPGallente Federation•

Hey man the 78xx and especially the 79xx's were very solid cards that aged surprisingly well! Even my 6950 is still surprisingly not complete shit as long as it's not trying to render Eve clouds ^^.

1
OneshoeleroyTest Alliance Please Ignore•

I only have any trouble play Eve. I assumed it was just because I was running multiple clients.

1
MoqueefahPandemic Horde•

Frames always dropped in sites with clouds. Always. Nothing new although I haven't played on SiSi in awhile. Is it now worse?

1
HyperzOPGallente Federation•

Clouds have always performed subpar in Eve. So 2-3 months or so ago there was a patch that changed cloud rendering and was supposed to improve performance. However, for some the performance got way worse instead. The performance on SISI is currently the same as on TQ when it comes to clouds, meaning it's not going to be fixed in the big patch that comes out in under 2 weeks.

1