Brad's reply from stream on long first turn?

If you get a chance, I didn't fully understand the explanation to my problem with insane maps and 50+ players and why it takes 5+ minutes at 100% processor usage for the first turn on my AMD FX 9370 8 core cpu.

If anyone who watched understood better and can break it down for me or provide insight it would be appreciated.  All I got is he doesn't have an issue with his intel processor and it has something to do with the way AMD threading is laid out.

Thanks in advance.

13,595 views 35 replies
Reply #1 Top

Seilore, I got into the Stream right when it started and he was finishing up that question. Both Brad and Adam said to fill a ticket. They have a NEW tool thingy to use as the old one was not logging stuff right. All I heard was Brad saying it should not take that long and only 10 or 12 seconds at most, then they kinda inferred to upload a ticket. 

Reply #2 Top

Quoting Larsenex, reply 1

Seilore, I got into the Stream right when it started and he was finishing up that question. Both Brad and Adam said to fill a ticket. They have a NEW tool thingy to use as the old one was not logging stuff right. All I heard was Brad saying it should not take that long and only 10 or 12 seconds at most, then they kinda inferred to upload a ticket. 
End of Larsenex's quote

Ready have a ticket sent over on it but I can update it.

Reply #3 Top

Brad said it wasn't a question of how many cores you have, but mostly a matter of single core speed. I honestly don't have that many problems in this build with the first turn pathfinding taking that much time.

Reply #4 Top

Quoting AvatarRob, reply 3

Brad said it wasn't a question of how many cores you have, but mostly a matter of single core speed. I honestly don't have that many problems in this build with the first turn pathfinding taking that much time.
End of AvatarRob's quote

hmmmm....  4.4 GHz one of the best processors AMD currently offers, about the same as an i5 or low i7

Reply #5 Top
Quoting Seilore, reply 4
Quoting AvatarRob,

Brad said it wasn't a question of how many cores you have, but mostly a matter of single core speed. I honestly don't have that many problems in this build with the first turn pathfinding taking that much time.



hmmmm....  4.4 GHz one of the best processors AMD currently offers, about the same as an i5 or low i7

End of Seilore's quote

 

Well that should do the trick, or it is something specifically there in AMD processors? I only have an i5 4200m 2.5 GHz and it doesn't take more then 20 seconds to start after the first turn on insane maps.

Reply #6 Top

Quoting AvatarRob, reply 5

Well that should do the trick, or it is something specifically there in AMD processors? I only have an i5 4200m 2.5 GHz and it doesn't take more then 20 seconds to start after the first turn on insane maps.
End of AvatarRob's quote

with 50+ races although Brad did say he was running 100+ with no problem so I don't know hmmmm....

this is the link to AMD's page w/ my processor mine is the second best...

http://www.amd.com/en-us/products/processors/desktop/fx

 

Reply #7 Top

I have a quad core 3.9GHZ I5/7? with 16GB ram Gigabyte motherboard and 1.8TB HD Nvidia 760 GTX 2GB card and the loading times for insane maps isn't long for me? But I haven't tried loading more than all the majors plus minors on abundant?

Reply #8 Top

I think one thing that is being forgotten here is that processor speed isn't the only thing that can slow your game down. Two biggies are RAM installed and the OS's virtual memory settings.

Reply #9 Top

Quoting Lucky, reply 8

I think one thing that is being forgotten here is that processor speed isn't the only thing that can slow your game down. Two biggies are RAM installed and the OS's virtual memory settings.
End of Lucky's quote

Memory is 16 GB

Virtual Memory 15.8 GB

Processor already known

GPU AMD Radeon R9 270x 2GB

WIN 7 64 Pro

Reply #10 Top

Basically, Brad's response was "We are unaware of any such issues."

And then some hand-waving about how even though the game is multithreaded, all the threads queue their pathfinding requests onto a single processor which Brad believed to be the cause of the slowdown. But then he said that he played with 100 AIs and didn't have any slowdown. So while the pathfinding issue might be the case, it could also be some other problem.

It's likely some combination of which AIs you're using, the map settings, and some RNG goodness. Which is to say, until a dev actually has it happen and can get it to happen repeatedly, it's likely going to continue to be an issue.

Reply #11 Top

Quoting sweatyboatman, reply 10

It's likely some combination of which AIs you're using, the map settings, and some RNG goodness. Which is to say, until a dev actually has it happen and can get it to happen repeatedly, it's likely going to continue to be an issue.
End of sweatyboatman's quote

hmmm....  thanks all, wish it was something others were seeing too and could be reproduced, I don't know why I'm special lol :)

Reply #12 Top


If you get a chance, I didn't fully understand the explanation to my problem with insane maps and 50+ players and why it takes 5+ minutes at 100% processor usage for the first turn on my AMD FX 9370 8 core cpu.

If anyone who watched understood better and can break it down for me or provide insight it would be appreciated.  All I got is he doesn't have an issue with his intel processor and it has something to do with the way AMD threading is laid out.

Thanks in advance.
End of quote

AMD CPUs are great.  I used to have one, often, I miss it.  It's faster (and cheaper) than Intel for most tasks.  But not gaming.

I can't explain in large technical details, but it has something to do with the way games are coded and how Intel is taking advantage of that.  They mostly use one core at a time, and on that Intel is superior to AMD.
AMD is great for encryption and rendering/editing large video files because it can process all that stuff simultaneously accross all cores.

See, with my Intel i5 (4 cores), copying large files over drives will slow my system to a crawl.  Encrypting/decrytping a 1TB drive takes 3 days.  On AMD, it was a fraction of the time for each operations.  But, when it comes to games, that tiny little CPU, far from being Intel's top of the line surpass my former 8 cores AMD at all resolutions.  No more choppy gameplay with full graphics on.  Crysis 3 ran like a charm where as it was sometimes sluggish with my AMD.

Now, things might get better with the new Mantle API and DirectX12, since they "talk" directly ot the hardware, so some bottlenecks might be eliminated.  Also, DirectX11 is currently optimized for Windows 8/8.1, it is slightly faster than on Win7, but it usually only makes a difference for graphic intensive games, so I don't really know about that.


If you want a good read on CPU clock speeds and why it doesn't matter:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/04/ask-ars-whats-the-relationship-between-cpu-clockspeed-and-performance/

And on CPU designs for Intel and AMD:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-past-present-and-future-of-the-cpu-according-t/1100-6421514/

Reply #13 Top

Quoting Seilore, reply 11


Quoting sweatyboatman,

It's likely some combination of which AIs you're using, the map settings, and some RNG goodness. Which is to say, until a dev actually has it happen and can get it to happen repeatedly, it's likely going to continue to be an issue.



hmmm....  thanks all, wish it was something others were seeing too and could be reproduced, I don't know why I'm special lol :)

End of Seilore's quote

now that the game is out and serious crash/freeze issues happening to lots of people have been (mostly) fixed, they might have time to look at that issue and see what's causing it exacly, if it's a matter of CPU or something else.

Reply #14 Top

Basically, AMD is throwing all the info at the beginning down one core and causing a slow down vs Brad's Intel which properly spreads the work.

Reply #15 Top

Quoting Ryat, reply 14

Basically, AMD is throwing all the info at the beginning down one core and causing a slow down vs Brad's Intel which properly spreads the work.
End of Ryat's quote

no. Brad was pretty clear that this is a problem with the game engine. The processor architecture is irrelevant to the multithreading issue that Brad highlighted. However, it might be that AMD is somehow particularly terrible at doing the calculation that the engine is single-threading.

Brad also talked up an analysis/optimization tool that he said has helped to speed up the game, which is developed and sold by Intel. So it might be that one, some, or all of the optimizations that Brad has done are effective only on Intel machines.

Reply #16 Top

Quoting redviper37, reply 12

I can't explain in large technical details, but it has something to do with the way games are coded and how Intel is taking advantage of that.  They mostly use one core at a time, and on that Intel is superior to AMD.
AMD is great for encryption and rendering/editing large video files because it can process all that stuff simultaneously accross all cores.
End of redviper37's quote

Quoting sweatyboatman, reply 15

Basically, AMD is throwing all the info at the beginning down one core and causing a slow down vs Brad's Intel which properly spreads the work.

End of sweatyboatman's quote

All cores are showing 100% therefore the processor use is 100% that still wouldn't explain those points.

Quoting sweatyboatman, reply 15

no. Brad was pretty clear that this is a problem with the game engine. The processor architecture is irrelevant to the multithreading issue that Brad highlighted. However, it might be that AMD is somehow particularly terrible at doing the calculation that the engine is single-threading.

Brad also talked up an analysis/optimization tool that he said has helped to speed up the game, which is developed and sold by Intel. So it might be that one, some, or all of the optimizations that Brad has done are effective only on Intel machines.
End of sweatyboatman's quote

I find this more of the issue but I'm still curious on why as if this is the case it's taking many times longer based on numbers let's say 20 seconds for first turn on Intel and 5 minutes on AMD that's 15 x's faster and that shouldn't be I could accept 2-4x's faster but even that seems high...

Here is my question is anyone else currently playing this game running an AMD FX processor whether it's an FX 83xx or FX93xx, as well as an Radeon GPU and do you have the same issue with 50+ players on insane?

This is why I think this hasn't come up too much yet.  A lot of people who have similar configurations as mine haven't played with that many players as right now you have to create every race manually, however, maybe with release someone can try :)

Reply #17 Top

Wow, that surprises me that your CPU hits 100%! I've never seen mine ( i7 4970K @ 4.4) go above 52% ever.

Reply #18 Top

Quoting Avatar137, reply 17

Wow, that surprises me that your CPU hits 100%! I've never seen mine ( i7 4970K @ 4.4) go above 52% ever.
End of Avatar137's quote

Yeah it holds at 100% for 5-10 minutes after loading an insane map with 50+ players on all 8 cores (this game is the first game I've seen do that, Video conversion does it too but that's not a game)

Then it does it every turn for 5 seconds or so. (not a big deal)

Reply #19 Top

Seilore - Definitely update your ticket with a link to this thread and we'll see if we can submit it to the devs!

Reply #20 Top

seilore i have an fx9590 and a radeon 7570 

i would be willing to try a game with 50 + races but am unwilling to make 50+ races would you upload your races and i would be happy to try it out

Reply #21 Top

Quoting androshalforc, reply 20

i would be willing to try a game with 50 + races but am unwilling to make 50+ races would you upload your races and i would be happy to try it out
End of androshalforc's quote

I'll see what I can do :)

Quoting The_Gear, reply 19

Seilore - Definitely update your ticket with a link to this thread and we'll see if we can submit it to the devs!
End of The_Gear's quote

Will do.

On a side note here is a link to a boring video showing it holding at 100% for 5 minutes plus, the video was only 5 minutes but I started the game prior to getting jing up and with in about 20 seconds after the video is when it finally stopped.

http://screencast.com/t/0FPua0BI

 

Reply #22 Top

Quoting androshalforc, reply 20

seilore i have an fx9590 and a radeon 7570 

i would be willing to try a game with 50 + races but am unwilling to make 50+ races would you upload your races and i would be happy to try it out
End of androshalforc's quote

Okay here is my entire faction folder, as I don't know if you need the BF/FG/portraits/logo's to make it work okay, in all I believe there are 45 custom races 4 or 5 downloaded off the Stardock site from the faction contest the rest I created.  (the core network was modified as the original faction contest one was causing the game to crash). 

Link should be good for 7 days...

http://wikisend.com/download/592400/Factions.zip

 

Reply #23 Top

Oooo can I get in on that link as well Seilore? I am going to DL all that Faction goodness tonight. 

 

Everybody else hands off! ...LOL.

Reply #24 Top

Quoting Larsenex, reply 23

Oooo can I get in on that link as well Seilore? I am going to DL all that Faction goodness tonight. 


Everybody else hands off! ...LOL.
End of Larsenex's quote

Anyone should be able to.

On a side note if anyone get's going on a game like this on an insane map, does your ship movement get jumpy as you start meeting half of the races and have exploration treaties with several of them?

 

Reply #25 Top

Quoting Seilore, reply 24
Anyone should be able to
End of Seilore's quote

 

Cool, thanks for sharing this!