Performance Support

[Grimscore_Riffstorm]

I am in need of some configuration support and ideas on what my best options are. During the warmer weather, my system slows down significantly while playing DDO. This is not new, it has been every summer for a few years now where I am living. I'd like to try to pinpoint what elements of settings and configurations I can synthesize into a reasonable visual display and good gameplay performance as close to 60fps. I do realize DDO is not system optimized for anyone. My graphics card is by far my biggest bottleneck, and I like to play with draw distance maxed.

What I'm running:

2018 Macbook Pro 15,3
Bootcamp > Windows 10 Home 64
Processor > i9-8950HK
RAM > 32.0 GB DDR4
APPLE SSD
Graphics Card > Radeon Pro Vega 20 (4 GB)

 

[vik]

I'd start by setting everything to low or disabled in advanced graphics settings except:
object draw distance: ultra high
texture detail: very high
texture filtering: very sharp
everything else off or lowest settings.

Now go to a busy place like the marketplace, jump on your mount, and run around: from the entrance, left down the stairs, to the mailbox, then the center plaza, then back to the entrance. If you don't see any slow-downs your graphics settings are fine. Texture detail and texture filtering are the nicest to have so bump those up first and test. If those work slowly add back everything else and test incrementally. I would save the more expensive effects like detailed water reflections, shadows, and post processing for last.

 

[Grimscore_Riffstorm]

Update!

So I've spent a lot of time with configurations, but the one that I found made the most significant difference (like night and day) was unchecking the high res game files from the launcher settings. It appears there's something about that setting that makes my gpu go smooth brain. Just in case anyone else has similar issues it may help them. I had not considered checking anything for graphics configs in the launcher settings.

 

[Yamato-San]

Just saw this thread.
Just disable Anti-Alias in the settings to significantly reduce the GPU load.
If you play in a high resolution it will look not really worse.

 

[Kimbere]

Graphics Card > Radeon Pro Vega 20 (4 GB)

So I've spent a lot of time with configurations, but the one that I found made the most significant difference (like night and day) was unchecking the high res game files from the launcher settings

This lines up.

Hi-res textures require more memory for your GPU to cache them. 4GB of vRAM is pretty low by modern GPU standards. I think there have been threads from other users in recent times with 4GB GPUs stating they have to lower their graphics settings for DDO.

If the hi-res textures plus all the other graphic related stuff were exceeding the 4GB of vRAM on your GPU, it was having to work much harder to constantly swap data in/out of the cached memory.

Since that's a laptop GPU, making it work harder was most likely causing it to hit thermal throttling limits and thus run at a lower overall speed. This theory is supported by your statement that it only seems to happen during warmer weather.

I pointed out a minor concern about this in a different thread regarding the addition of cosmetics.

It also increases the graphics/texture bloat in the game client files, increasing the load on your PCs GPU memory.

Granted, the increase should be minimal in the grand scheme of things, but that kind of creep does affect anyone running DDO on older and low-end video cards which might already be struggling. Not everyone runs a GPU with 8+ GB of VRAM.

I'm guessing that DDO's slow but steady addition of new graphics/textures over time has finally hit the tipping point where 4GB of RAM no longer cuts it for higher graphical settings.

 

[Grimscore_Riffstorm]

This lines up.

Hi-res textures require more memory for your GPU to cache them. 4GB of vRAM is pretty low by modern GPU standards. I think there have been threads from other users in recent times with 4GB GPUs stating they have to lower their graphics settings for DDO.

If the hi-res textures plus all the other graphic related stuff were exceeding the 4GB of vRAM on your GPU, it was having to work much harder to constantly swap data in/out of the cached memory.

Since that's a laptop GPU, making it work harder was most likely causing it to hit thermal throttling limits and thus run at a lower overall speed. This theory is supported by your statement that it only seems to happen during warmer weather.

I pointed out a minor concern about this in a different thread regarding the addition of cosmetics.


I'm guessing that DDO's slow but steady addition of new graphics/textures over time has finally hit the tipping point where 4GB of RAM doesn't cut it for higher graphics settings.

Yes and no. It's entirely on Apple for having absolutely no breathing room or decent cooling in the machine. I live in an area where it hits 100+ in the summer so I've always had this issue since I have moved here. In the winter I can crank everything pretty much fine at 60fps. Shadows seem to hurt the most (which is such an odd thing for the card to deal with). It's also a mobile GPU meant for laptops which is kind of strange and noted as a barrier for people on the same system.

 

[Kimbere]

There's only so much Apple or any other laptop maker can do to counter the laws of physics, particularly the laws of thermodynamics, especially in the miniscule amount of space laptops have to cool the CPU, GPU, and other heat-generating components.

This is compounded by the baseline technological limits of GPU technology in 2018. Mobile GPU tech has come a loooong way since then.

It boils down to the old pick two adage.

1. Speed
2. Weight
3. Affordability

There's a reason that even now, most true "gaming" laptops are 8lb+ bricks with cooling fans that sound like a small jet taxiing on a runway.

The best solution is to get a low to mid level gaming desktop which has far more space to work with for cooling. Or at least a laptop that can use an external GPU for graphically intensive scenarios, but external GPUs are pretty pricey all things considered.

 

[Grimscore_Riffstorm]

There's only so much Apple or any other laptop maker can do to counter the laws of physics, particularly the laws of thermodynamics, especially in the miniscule amount of space laptops have to cool the CPU, GPU, and other heat-generating components.

This is compounded by the baseline technological limits of GPU technology in 2018. Mobile GPU tech has come a loooong way since then.

It boils down to the old pick two adage.

1. Speed
2. Weight
3. Affordability

There's a reason that even now, most true "gaming" laptops are 8lb+ bricks with cooling fans that sound like a small jet taxiing on a runway.

The best solution is to get a low to mid level gaming desktop which has far more space to work with for cooling. Or at least a laptop that can use an external GPU for graphically intensive scenarios, but external GPUs are pretty pricey all things considered.

XGPU is where I'm looking right now. I think that would be my best option potentially. My gaming rig died and I need to just buy a new one from the ground up. It was Cannith Crafted (before Essence Crafting) in 2014. Funnily enough that was my return to DDO from my first hiatus. Until then I am trying to get by on my engineering laptop without hurting its insides.

 

[Kimbere]

Now that the world servers are up, I just loaded DDO and checked.

Running the client with hi-res textures, and nearly every graphic setting maxed at 1440p resolution, the client is using ~700MB of vRAM, which is nowhere near your 4GB limit.

Unless Apple's OS just caches a lot more GPU data than Windows does by default or Wine/Proton is doing something really janky with the GPU memory, that likely indicates your performance issues were not related to cache swapping and instead were primarily heat-related.

The hi-res textures were most likely simply making your GPU work harder just to process them.

 

[Kimbere]

XGPU is where I'm looking right now. I think that would be my best option potentially. My gaming rig died and I need to just buy a new one from the ground up. It was Cannith Crafted (before Essence Crafting) in 2014. Funnily enough that was my return to DDO from my first hiatus. Until then I am trying to get by on my engineering laptop without hurting its insides.

One other thought occurred to me.

Laptops are notorious for accumulating thick layers of dust on their internal cooling airways due to the aforementioned tiny amount of space. Over time, this will significantly degrade the laptops cooling capabilities.

I'm not sure how user servicable Macbook Pros are, but it might be worth your while to see if you can crack the laptop open to de-dust the fans and cooling pathways. Or take it to a Genius bar and have them do it.

 

[Grimscore_Riffstorm]

Yes, it is entirely heat related. As noted, I am running Bootcamp > Windows 10. The issue is there is bad engineering within the machine meant to make it look pretty, not be repairable and not have replaceable components--optimizing conductivity and removal of heat is less important to Apple. It is regularly cleaned--I was just trying to find a way to get more pressure off of the GPU for now and regular settings made negligible differences. I have also noticed the graphics differences a bit at this point--the high res graphics appear to be more life-like fantasy; whereas, now I appear to have a more smoothed over cartoonish style of graphics. I have found it interesting.

 

[vik]

Glad you figured it out; I wouldn't have thought to try unchecking high-res game files. Before I upgraded my machine my GPU had enough VRAM but wasn't fast enough so dropping the graphics settings to the bare minimum fixed my issues.