Do MMORPGs like Aion and WoW depend on internet and CPU more?

[swchoi89]

Hi everyone,

First post ever, I've been a big fan of Anandtech and hope to contribute and learn lots from you guys.

So, I've been wondering... I just built a new system. My specs are as follows:

i5-4670K @ 4.3Ghz
MSI Radeon 7990 + Samsung 120Hz monitor
Fractal Design 800W Gold
NZXT Phantom Full Tower
Z87X-UD3H Gigabyte
G.Skill Ripjaw 2x4GB @ 1600Mhz
Samsung 840 250GB SSD

So my main questions are:

1) I think my specs are more than enough. I mainly play games like Left 4 Dead 2, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, Aion (from NCSoft), and potentially stuff like Battlefield 4, Crysis 3. But why do I sometimes lag like crazy in games (FPS wise) in games like Starcraft 2 and Aion? Is my CPU bottlenecking my GPU?

2) Also, my internet speed is only 6Mbps. Here in Canada, internet kind of sucks. Would you guys be able to tell me if increasing my internet speed would greatly improve my FPS? (Also, I use a wireless adapter on my desktop, not ethernet cable. I can't plug in ethernet port due to spacing issues around my condo)

3) I know in specs wise (according to NCSoft's website), my system would DESTROY Aion's requirements. But the actual performance isn't what it seems like. I used to play with GTX 670 last year and I feel like I haven't upgraded at all (if anything, feel the same or a bit less).

Any insights on how to troubleshoot, and recommend on how to keep my FPS stable, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks guys,

 

[Jaydip]

1.First of all, Haswell has the highest IPC among all the Intel processors now, so there is very little you can do.You can grab a 4770K but that will hardly help unless the games you play are benefited greatly from HT.

2.Internet speed will surely help you in MP (less lag) but I highly doubt that is the root cause.

3.7990 had horrible xfire issues oob, AMD has recently fixed most via 13.8 drivers.Did you try them?

Also welcome to the forums

 

[BallaTheFeared]

1. Overkill GPU for heavily CPU bound titles makes for highly noticeable ups and downs.

As jaydip said, you already have the fastest chip. Only thing that would help is a higher OC.

2. D/L speed doesn't really matter anymore, we've gone far beyond what is needed. Ping however, is very important as is a clean connection without jitter and other forms of packet loss.

3. Aion doesn't require a 7990 to max it, and you're probably cpu limited anyways so you won't feel like you upgraded in this case. However go max out Crysis 3 you should "feel" it then.

 

[brandonb]

Well, there are 2 different types of lag. I know people who get these confused. There is frame rate lag (low frame rates in games), and internet lag (things jumping around on the screen even though the game is drawing just fine). It helps to be able to identify which type of lag you are having. If an application is poorly coded, internet lag could affect FPS and vice versa.

Framerate lag: Could be caused by incorrect drivers and/or having something on like Vsync. Since Vsync tries to match the monitors refresh to reduce tearing it happens to only be able to render at only certain frame rates. Such as (if you have a 60hz refresh rate on your monitor) the only possible frame rates you are going to get is 60fps, 30fps, 15fps, 7.5fps, etc. So if the application is running at 45fps, it will actually get bumped down to 30fps to match the monitor, and you will be much more laggy than it would be. Turn off vsync to test.

Internet lag: You mentioned: "(Also, I use a wireless adapter on my desktop, not ethernet cable. I can't plug in ethernet port due to spacing issues around my condo)" Wireless adapters are horrible for gaming. They drop packets all the time. On my Wireless G adapter, the packet loss was about 20-30%. With the router being just in the next room. I also live in the country and don't use any cordless phones or interference from neighbors so I have the best scenario. It could be much higher for you. This can cause some serious problems with gaming. Try running a long Ethernet to the router to test this and see if any lag goes away (I understand it may or not be possible but move your computer to test it to see if this is the issue). Wireless N helps reduce packet loss, but I still found it unacceptable. I had to put Ethernet in my house and run cables to get decent gaming.

As a side note, is the lag you are seeing at all related to hitching? This is where games like Aion load textures, character models, etc from disk as you run into them? It could be that when a new player enters your area, Aion loads the character models, textures, and causes a small hiccup (less than a second) in your frame rate because it's loading these assets from the disks. Many many games and applications have this problem because it can't load everything into video card ram and constantly swaps things in and out of GPU memory from the disk. I know when I played Aion, this is how I knew the bad guys were in my zones and around me because the faction I played would be already loaded to RAM, so when the bad guys ported in and came into my area, my computer would freeze for a second as it was loading their artwork. That was my cue to know I was about to run into PVP and get ready. Even though I had no other indicator of the (typically) incoming doom.

 

[swchoi89]

Well, there are 2 different types of lag. I know people who get these confused. There is frame rate lag (low frame rates in games), and internet lag (things jumping around on the screen even though the game is drawing just fine). It helps to be able to identify which type of lag you are having. If an application is poorly coded, internet lag could affect FPS and vice versa.

Framerate lag: Could be caused by incorrect drivers and/or having something on like Vsync. Since Vsync tries to match the monitors refresh to reduce tearing it happens to only be able to render at only certain frame rates. Such as (if you have a 60hz refresh rate on your monitor) the only possible frame rates you are going to get is 60fps, 30fps, 15fps, 7.5fps, etc. So if the application is running at 45fps, it will actually get bumped down to 30fps to match the monitor, and you will be much more laggy than it would be. Turn off vsync to test.

Internet lag: You mentioned: "(Also, I use a wireless adapter on my desktop, not ethernet cable. I can't plug in ethernet port due to spacing issues around my condo)" Wireless adapters are horrible for gaming. They drop packets all the time. On my Wireless G adapter, the packet loss was about 20-30%. With the router being just in the next room. I also live in the country and don't use any cordless phones or interference from neighbors so I have the best scenario. It could be much higher for you. This can cause some serious problems with gaming. Try running a long Ethernet to the router to test this and see if any lag goes away (I understand it may or not be possible but move your computer to test it to see if this is the issue). Wireless N helps reduce packet loss, but I still found it unacceptable. I had to put Ethernet in my house and run cables to get decent gaming.

Here is the thing, I think I have both but it's the frame lag. I am well-above understanding this topic but thanks for double checking.

Frame lag as in... it's the FPS count that is dropping. I can tell if it is a internet LAG, but at times when there is some intense action going on, my FPS drops. Also, when I am travelling to different cities or something, then my FPS cuts in half until I alt-tab and return to the game, which magically restores my GPU power -_- <- this is the most annoying part.

I have a 120Hz refresh monitor, but the aion is capped at 67FPS I think. But I drop to like 50FPS or even 30~40 under certain conditions. I bought 7990 because I thought my minimum would never go below 55FPS.

Also, I am fine playing other games like L4D2 where I achieve 120FPS constantly while I get 20~60ms ping whereas Aion ping is like 120ms +

 

[swchoi89]

1.First of all, Haswell has the highest IPC among all the Intel processors now, so there is very little you can do.You can grab a 4770K but that will hardly help unless the games you play are benefited greatly from HT.

2.Internet speed will surely help you in MP (less lag) but I highly doubt that is the root cause.

3.7990 had horrible xfire issues oob, AMD has recently fixed most via 13.8 drivers.Did you try them?

Also welcome to the forums

Thanks Jay.

Yes, I have the 13.10 which was uploaded by AMD on September 5th. I have that right now with Frame Pacing set to "ON".

I am actually considering the upgrade from 6mbps to 15mbps, and the cost wouldn't change much anyways... so I might just do it.

 

[swchoi89]

1. Overkill GPU for heavily CPU bound titles makes for highly noticeable ups and downs.

As jaydip said, you already have the fastest chip. Only thing that would help is a higher OC.

2. D/L speed doesn't really matter anymore, we've gone far beyond what is needed. Ping however, is very important as is a clean connection without jitter and other forms of packet loss.

3. Aion doesn't require a 7990 to max it, and you're probably cpu limited anyways so you won't feel like you upgraded in this case. However go max out Crysis 3 you should "feel" it then.

Ping is like 120ms+... never goes below that for some reason -_-... and I am fine playing other games.

You may be right... this game uses CryEngine so the coding might be poorly done. I think running at 4.2Ghz is already good enough. It just bothers me so much that it goes below 60FPS which I didn't expect at all. So I'm gonna upgrade my internet service.

 

[brandonb]

One thing to understand on the game ping, is that a lot of these games don't display the ping properly.

Think of this, even though its computer science, so I'll try to explain it an easy to understand way.

Take for example: If you are playing a first person shooter. The server needs to send you network packets to update the players position, if they are firing at you, etc. Typically these servers send the messages to you on a certain interval. Quake games (Carmack and Co) I believe designed their servers to send updates every 100ms (or 10 times a second) to give you a next to real time feel to the game. If the amount of updates were less than 10 a second it would feel jerky and their games wouldn't be played.

The idea is that every update occurring on the map could be sent to you within that time frame. So if it takes 60ms to send all that information to you, and that occurs every 100ms, the server sits idle for 40ms every update. And it has plenty of network room. So servers could then up the number of players until the updates took 100ms to run all the updates. This is why servers have a limit on the number of players, and depending on the server you are connected to, could be anywhere from 8 players to 32.

On MMOs, they follow the same type of logic. But as you can see, the ping might reflect the server interval. Maybe Aion is sending you messages every 120ms with the updates, so it reports a 120ms ping. It can be deceiving, so don't trust it. Feel based on the lag in the game vs. what the numbers tell you.

So ping (the time it takes for you to send a message and get a response), the response might come in the next 120ms window, so it will always report 120ms.

I know when I was coding my MMO network library back in the day, I would account for the time the server took to respond. I would timestamp the incoming message, then timestamp when the message went back to the client and then in the client screen I minused those two timestamps to remove any amount of time the server sat there processing the message to get an accurate ping, but I'm guessing a lot of developers don't do that.

So long story short. What I'm trying to tell you is that even if you had an upgrade internet, chances are, it won't change the ping.

 

[swchoi89]

One thing to understand on the game ping, is that a lot of these games don't display the ping properly.

Think of this, even though its computer science, so I'll try to explain it an easy to understand way.

Take for example: If you are playing a first person shooter. The server needs to send you network packets to update the players position, if they are firing at you, etc. Typically these servers send the messages to you on a certain interval. Quake games (Carmack and Co) I believe designed their servers to send updates every 100ms (or 10 times a second) to give you a next to real time feel to the game. If the amount of updates were less than 10 a second it would feel jerky and their games wouldn't be played.

The idea is that every update occurring on the map could be sent to you within that time frame. So if it takes 60ms to send all that information to you, and that occurs every 100ms, the server sits idle for 40ms every update. And it has plenty of network room. So servers could then up the number of players until the updates took 100ms to run all the updates. This is why servers have a limit on the number of players, and depending on the server you are connected to, could be anywhere from 8 players to 32.

On MMOs, they follow the same type of logic. But as you can see, the ping might reflect the server interval. Maybe Aion is sending you messages every 120ms with the updates, so it reports a 120ms ping. It can be deceiving, so don't trust it. Feel based on the lag in the game vs. what the numbers tell you.

So ping (the time it takes for you to send a message and get a response), the response might come in the next 120ms window, so it will always report 120ms.

I know when I was coding my MMO network library back in the day, I would account for the time the server took to respond. I would timestamp the incoming message, then timestamp when the message went back to the client and then in the client screen I minused those two timestamps to remove any amount of time the server sat there processing the message to get an accurate ping, but I'm guessing a lot of developers don't do that.

I see, thanks for such a detailed response. So if Aion server isn't up to the capacity, there is no point in me upgrading my internet on my end?

Also, what do you suggest the problem is in my FPS issues? I have another problem which I might not have mentioned... about transitioning between zones, my FPS drops to 30. So I have to alt-tab out and return so the FPS goes back up to 65, this is the most annoying part. Playing as Full Windowed Screen helps remove this, but not all the time.

 

[brandonb]

I see, thanks for such a detailed response. So if Aion server isn't up to the capacity, there is no point in me upgrading my internet on my end?

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Upgrading your internet won't make their server send you messages faster than 120ms. It's probably just it's network "clock" and it only ticks that fast.

Also, what do you suggest the problem is in my FPS issues? I have another problem which I might not have mentioned... about transitioning between zones, my FPS drops to 30. So I have to alt-tab out and return so the FPS goes back up to 65, this is the most annoying part. Playing as Full Windowed Screen helps remove this, but not all the time.

When you alt-tab, this forces older DirectX9 apps to flush its memory. Because when you go into another program, it needs to load that new app's data into memory (And the windows desktop is just another app.) And when you tab back into Aion, then Aion has to reload all its memory back into the video card.

So I'm guessing what's happening is that is the flush and reload is freeing up video card memory and causes the app to run nice and good again. Now I understand you have a 7990 which has a ton of RAM, but if the CryEngine that Aion uses is hard-coded to use only a certain amount of Video Card RAM (maybe it's coded to only use 512mbs of data, as that was a common amount when Aion was released) and all that RAM goes unused. So you need to alt-tab to free up that 512mb pool it's using.

My guess is that Aion and/or the CryEngine has an artificial limit in there, and Aion is poorly coded and is swapping between CPU and GPU RAM until you free the GPU RAM manually with an alt-tab. My guess most of your problems are Aion, and not the computer.

 

[swchoi89]

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Upgrading your internet won't make their server send you messages faster than 120ms. It's probably just it's network "clock" and it only ticks that fast.



When you alt-tab, this forces older DirectX9 apps to flush its memory. Because when you go into another program, it needs to load that new app's data into memory (And the windows desktop is just another app.) And when you tab back into Aion, then Aion has to reload all its memory back into the video card.

So I'm guessing what's happening is that is the flush and reload is freeing up video card memory and causes the app to run nice and good again. Now I understand you have a 7990 which has a ton of RAM, but if the CryEngine that Aion uses is hard-coded to use only a certain amount of Video Card RAM (maybe it's coded to only use 512mbs of data, as that was a common amount when Aion was released) and all that RAM goes unused. So you need to alt-tab to free up that 512mb pool it's using.

My guess is that Aion and/or the CryEngine has an artificial limit in there, and Aion is poorly coded and is swapping between CPU and GPU RAM until you free the GPU RAM manually with an alt-tab. My guess most of your problems are Aion, and not the computer.

Is there a way to fix that 512mb pool? I mean... I never had this issue with GTX 670....

 

[brandonb]

Is there a way to fix that 512mb pool? I mean... I never had this issue with GTX 670....

I'm not really sure. Maybe its not a memory issue, I'd think that would happen with 670 as well.

Also, I did some googling about Aion, and I seen a similar problem as yours, and they mentioned it they fixed by changing the power setting on the computer, apparently they were in power saver mode. Can you check that? (Control Panel power options, select high performance if it isn't already on)

 

[swchoi89]

I'm not really sure. Maybe its not a memory issue, I'd think that would happen with 670 as well.

Also, I did some googling about Aion, and I seen a similar problem as yours, and they mentioned it they fixed by changing the power setting on the computer, apparently they were in power saver mode. Can you check that? (Control Panel power options, select high performance if it isn't already on)

YESSS that is what I was looking for, and was kind of assuming that was playing in this... With GTX 670, I had the same situation, but in nVidia control panel, it was apparent where to go and turn off that "power saving mode". My GTX 670 used to cut FPS in half when Temperature reached like 60C or something.

I can't find it anywhere in the AMD Catalyst... unless you would know where???

 

[Piroko]

edit, never mind

 

[brandonb]

I can't find it anywhere in the AMD Catalyst... unless you would know where???

Try changing the Windows power settings by going into the Control Panel/Power Options first. Set that to high performance.

I've also never changed any of my default properties for my AMD GPU, so I'm not really sure. You may want to try the MSI Afterburner application as well, but I've never used it myself. I know you can get all the graphs, change power settings, and such with it. But specific questions on that other members will need to respond.

 

[swchoi89]

Try changing the Windows power settings by going into the Control Panel/Power Options first. Set that to high performance.

I've also never changed any of my default properties for my AMD GPU, so I'm not really sure. You may want to try the MSI Afterburner application as well, but I've never used it myself. I know you can get all the graphs, change power settings, and such with it. But specific questions on that other members will need to respond.

Gah... that's the main problem I think... when it comes to being 'bottleneck'ed. Feels like my GPU is powering down for no freaking reason T_T...

I checked the windows power setting, there is no "high performance". I only see Balanced and Power Saver. Right now it is set to Balanced.

 

[Imouto]

As for network.

- Don't use your WiFi. It's cool for P2P and web browsing. Net gaming is awful over WiFi. Try over the ethernet switch just for a quick test. Also, close any other programs that use your connection and tell other ppl in the house to stop using it while you're testing.
- If you're using any DSL technology you should really try Fast Path available with some ISPs. It is usually an option in the user panel of your ISP.
- Leatrix Latency Fix. Really awesome.

 

[swchoi89]

As for network.

- Don't use your WiFi. It's cool for P2P and web browsing. Net gaming is awful over WiFi. Try over the ethernet switch just for a quick test. Also, close any other programs that use your connection and tell other ppl in the house to stop using it while you're testing.
- If you're using any DSL technology you should really try Fast Path available with some ISPs. It is usually an option in the user panel of your ISP.
- Leatrix Latency Fix. Really awesome.

Thank you for your comment.

What is this Fast Path thing?

 

[Jaydip]

Gah... that's the main problem I think... when it comes to being 'bottleneck'ed. Feels like my GPU is powering down for no freaking reason T_T...

I checked the windows power setting, there is no "high performance". I only see Balanced and Power Saver. Right now it is set to Balanced.

click Show additional plans or you can create your own plan

 

[swchoi89]

click Show additional plans or you can create your own plan

OK, I'll try that when I get home in like 5 hours ish... XD

 

[Imouto]

What is this Fast Path thing?

It improves your latency at the cost of speed and stability.

 

[railven]

Not sure if AMD has provided a new profile for AIon, but for the few weeks I played it, CFX provided negative scaling with Default Profile and a flickering storm with AFR Profile.

OP, try Optimize 1x1. Create a profile in CCC for Aion and on the bottom for CFX Mode pick Optimize 1x1. This is the only way I got the cards to not negative scale (actually scaling was awesome 100+ FPS in situations where my CPU didn't choke haha.)

Good luck.

 

[swchoi89]

Not sure if AMD has provided a new profile for AIon, but for the few weeks I played it, CFX provided negative scaling with Default Profile and a flickering storm with AFR Profile.

OP, try Optimize 1x1. Create a profile in CCC for Aion and on the bottom for CFX Mode pick Optimize 1x1. This is the only way I got the cards to not negative scale (actually scaling was awesome 100+ FPS in situations where my CPU didn't choke haha.)

Good luck.

Err... can you explain a little bit more on this 1x1 optimize? Where do I exactly go??

 

[railven]

Err... can you explain a little bit more on this 1x1 optimize? Where do I exactly go??

Sure, unfortunately I don't have Aion installed anymore so I don't remember 100% the name of the file (possibly aion.exe haha.)

Right Click your Desktop.
Click AMD Catalyst Control Center (referred to many as just CCC).
Click Gaming Tab.
Click 3D Applications Settings.
On the new Panel Click "+ Add."
Locate the Aion executable (trying hard to remember but I'm pretty sure it was aion.exe in the aion main folder.)
Once you have it entered, it will appear on the bottom as the file name (example: Aion.exe)
Click the new profile, scroll the very bottom, and you'll find the drop down menu for CFX Modes. Set it to Optimize 1x1 and click Save.

Launch Aion and test to see if it helps. I've come across a bunch of games that Default actually hurts (World of Warcraft is another great example.) I use AFR-Friendly for WoW since Default produces negative scaling, and Optimize 1x1 doesn't produce as fast FPS.

 

[swchoi89]

Sure, unfortunately I don't have Aion installed anymore so I don't remember 100% the name of the file (possibly aion.exe haha.)

Right Click your Desktop.
Click AMD Catalyst Control Center (referred to many as just CCC).
Click Gaming Tab.
Click 3D Applications Settings.
On the new Panel Click "+ Add."
Locate the Aion executable (trying hard to remember but I'm pretty sure it was aion.exe in the aion main folder.)
Once you have it entered, it will appear on the bottom as the file name (example: Aion.exe)
Click the new profile, scroll the very bottom, and you'll find the drop down menu for CFX Modes. Set it to Optimize 1x1 and click Save.

Launch Aion and test to see if it helps. I've come across a bunch of games that Default actually hurts (World of Warcraft is another great example.) I use AFR-Friendly for WoW since Default produces negative scaling, and Optimize 1x1 doesn't produce as fast FPS.

OK, I can't find the exe. Instead... they have this shortcut which loads this "website" which is their new client. It's got a path to a website, instead of a distinctive exe file. In the process while the Aion game is running, I see aion.bin is running. Should I link that in CCC?