CPU Bottleneck - Multiple Core Support?

[Clemeit]

Does DDO offer multiple core support? (I think I know the answer but I hope I'm wrong.) Seems to only utilize a single core. This was never a problem for me because I never had a dedicated graphics card, but I just recently custom-built a PC, and I'm running a GTX 1080 with an i7-6700k. The 1080 doesn't even seem to blink at the sight of DDO which is awesome, but the CPU is a major bottleneck.
I'm limited to ~200 FPS in The Harbor (I'm not complaining about this); however, with ultra settings I *often* dip below 60 FPS in Eveningstar - lots of frame drops and spikes, the whole shebang. Graphics card fans don't even turn on, but the CPU is maxed at 100% on a single core, and ~0% on the other 7 cores. "Object Draw Distance" seems to be the largest contributing factor, as turning this setting down results in a +60 FPS boost, as the CPU gets to work a little less hard.
I'm just curious if anyone else is having frame rate issues in Eveningstar. I also understand that DDO is an aging game, but I hope to be playing it for as long as possible. With new areas, it seems, comes new problems, and I hope that these problems will eventually be addressed and reconciled. I understand not being able to run everything on the average computer, but I figured a higher-end build wouldn't have trouble.

Would a fresh install help at all?

Regards.

[Banker]

Well - as you guessed and hoped against - there are few games that utilize multicore's but many systems utilize Hyper-Threading. The FPS you see is not only dependent upon the CPU bottleneck you're guessing at (which is probably because of I/O) but also latency with everything from your system to the DDO Servers' system... Lag included. But - I would guess that when an area was developed has something to do with the FPS rates you're seeing. IE: Harbor was done long, long time ago in a dungeon far, far away... Where as EveningStar was done recently and with more than likely higher settings, etc. But the dreaded "LagBug" comes into play everywhere. Not to mention the population in the instance you're in including the population on the sever you're on! Cause the server has to dish out "everything" to everyone in that instance... On my meager i7-4790K, 32GB RAM with STRIX GT970 (4GB DDR5) I can get about: 250 in the bank, +100 in the market, hall of heros, Evenstar and harbor... With the GPU Teaker I maxed out the GPU Clock to 1400 GPU Memory 7972: A few theads are active - maybe Resource Monitor? Probably. All video settings as high as they'll go - all boxes checked, etc. In EveningStar I can average 70 and peak at 100 but it does dip towards 50 at times. This is with a caster toon fully buffed and running around with a few visible toons on Argo. If the client is not the program in focus - then it drops to 17 lol But monitoring all that also taxes your system too cause they use resources.

Worrying about your FPS is confusion to me and a ploy by MFG's to get you to constantly buy their stuff so 'you' can have the highest FPS! It's also a ploy by "Pay To Win" people that can actually afford to do this in an attempt to 'make "you" look bad' and/or to "beef up their own little ego." Because with games that are really intense - it all comes down to reaction time; from the time you see 'it' on your monitor to the time that the system/server actually takes your reaction to 'it' is what it boils down to. But yes, you should have a decent rate. I'd say with DDO currently - anything over 30 is great!

Fresh install may help... But time consuming. Also - any other 'apps' you're running may also help. I did my test with minimal stuff. If you really want to boost it there are a ton of things you can do... "Google" is your friend.

[Clemeit]

Well - as you guessed and hoped against - there are few games that utilize multicore's but many systems utilize Hyper-Threading.

Few older games, anyhow. Most modern day titles work great with multicore systems. Shame DDO doesn't offer this; however, I can't blame them, as I'd assume it would take a full rewrite to change that fact. I think it's just something they should look out for when creating new areas.

The FPS you see is not only dependent upon the CPU bottleneck you're guessing at (which is probably because of I/O) but also latency with everything from your system to the DDO Servers' system... Lag included.

I'm not sure if latency plays any role in frame drawing, since drawing the graphics is all done client side. On a related note, have you noticed major FPS decreases in the beholder room of JoK with PP effects on? Not sure what's going on there.

If the client is not the program in focus - then it drops to 17

Yeah, but this is by design. The client hard-caps FPS to 15 when not focused, freeing up system resources when DDO is running in the background. Something that I don't see too many games doing, so +1 for DDO!

Worrying about your FPS is confusion to me and a ploy by MFG's to get you to constantly buy their stuff so 'you' can have the highest FPS!

To a degree. The difference between 140 and 200 FPS is negligible, and spending extra $$$ to get there is a waste (IMO). That being said, there is a massive difference between 45 and 60 FPS (Eveningstar, for example), and paying extra for that increase is a great deal. When there is noticeable stuttering due to frame rate drops, it really takes most people "out of the game." That great scenery is hardly worth admiring when it's being drawn too slowly.

Fresh install may help... But time consuming. Also - any other 'apps' you're running may also help. I did my test with minimal stuff. If you really want to boost it there are a ton of things you can do... "Google" is your friend.

I'll try a fresh install, never hurt anything. As for background apps, I got 32Gbs of RAM and a 4-core + hyper-threaded CPU. Running things in the background should be a non-issue, especially for a game like DDO. I can run Witcher 3 max graphics and still watch Netflix on a second monitor.
And as for boosting performance, I've done that too. There was a reason I spent months researching and planning a custom PC build - I wanted one of the best. CPU is overclocked to 4.7GHz, and GPU is overclocked to 2088MHz clock and 8602GHz memory.

Sorry for the long-winded reply! I'm just torn . I can run any modern-day AAA title at 1440p max graphics and still pull 100+ FPS. I suppose I'm stumped at why I can't even get a consistent 60 FPS in DDO of all things.

[Banker]

Well I'd have to say that part of that could be the connection - if the server doesn't complete an entire 'command' for an x,y,z, etc of any location and say it only gives x, y.... See? You're entire system gotta wait for that z, etc to come... Then it can finish the frame. But yes - its only speculation. But then again - not many games that I know have been around this long. So you have the original DDO system (and therefore maps/meshes) built long time ago and I don't doubt there have been improvements to the graphics - minimal as they are they could make a difference. 1440p? I remember reading some where that it wasn't that good. Is that the native resolution of your monitors? If not that could be a bottleneck... Should only run the native resolution of your monitors. A while ago - sometime ago there was something to do with the DirectX you run. Can't remember anything other than that. I'm wondering if that is a contributing factor...

Definitely: No 'adapters' to 'change' from HDMI to DVI, etc!!! OH! Response time of your monitors should be 1 ms. RAID's? I've read that RAID's with SSD's they make a little difference, but personally not really worth it, besides - 'gamers' wanna run RAID 0's if it crashes you're stuck reinstalling... Other RAID's will induce some delay as opposed to 0's. But with SSD's there's no real need for a RAID if your a gamer.

One thing people miss is the fact that you should have your physical swap file on a different drive and not on the same or a separate partition of your OS drive and hopefully on an SSD. That definitely helps a 'significant bit' in overall performance. I know there are other things but its late - long day.

I still think it has more to do with the game than anything you got or are doing/not doing.

[Clemeit]

Well I'd have to say that part of that could be the connection - if the server doesn't complete an entire 'command' for an x,y,z, etc of any location and say it only gives x, y.... See? You're entire system gotta wait for that z, etc to come...

Yeah I see what you're saying here. This would certainly cause "rubberbanding" or slow server response times, but connection speed should have no effect on frame rates. Simple test: Run DDO, unplug internet. No drop in FPS.

1440p? I remember reading some where that it wasn't that good. Is that the native resolution of your monitors?

Yeah, it's the native resolution, and it's pretty amazing if your GPU can run it. Just as a test, I tried lowering the resolution to 1080p. No effect. Primarily, the GPU is effected by higher resolutions, as it has to draw more pixels to the screen per frame. The GPU is not the bottleneck here, however, as it's only running at ~30% usage. Response time is 3 ms, but again this won't affect FPS. It only means that it takes 3 ms for the information to get from the GPU to the monitor, be processed, and be displayed.

RAID's? I've read that RAID's with SSD's they make a little difference, but personally not really worth it, besides - 'gamers' wanna run RAID 0's if it crashes you're stuck reinstalling...

Yeah I've never been keen on the idea of RAID configuration for a home computer, especially not RAID 0. Too risky, too little visible performance gains. The way I understand it is that RAID 0 will only boost loading performance (decrease loading screen times and decrease texture loading times) on a client-based game. I don't think it affects the performance of online games, as it will not increase the speed at which information is sent to the client.

I still think it has more to do with the game than anything you got or are doing/not doing.

Yupper. But that's what I'm getting at too. I shouldn't be getting such low FPS on a top-of-the-line computer. I hope that something can be done about it someday.

Thanks for the conversation!

[Nandos]

There is a rumor that Standing Stone might produce a 64-bit client for LOTRO and DDO at some point. If this were to happen, the new client should utilize multiple cpu cores and take advantage of extra system memory. For DDO that would likely mean the whole social panel/who tab/lfm bug would be squashed once and for all

[Clemeit]

There is a rumor that Standing Stone might produce a 64-bit client for LOTRO and DDO at some point. If this were to happen, the new client should utilize multiple cpu cores and take advantage of extra system memory. For DDO that would likely mean the whole social panel/who tab/lfm bug would be squashed once and for all

Oh wow that would be the best thing ever! Can't imagine the type of work they'd have to invest, but that would be incredible for sure.

[Klixen]

I think the lightest weight performance monitoring would be to set up a perfmon counter trace instead of using performance monitor GUI version - but again if you have three CPU threads that are mostly idle anyway I guess it won't make much difference.

Have you tried disabling HT if possible? If all CPU from an instance of DDO happens serially anyway you might be able to cut out some CPU overhead that way.