[fixed] Dragon Age 2 Low Performance on Nvidia Cards [fixed]

[Skurge]

Heh, that is actually very true. I'm getting an average of 30FPS on Crysis all enthusiast and AAx4. DA2 gives me around ~25 FPS on average all maxed and AAx4. So yeah, it's not like AMD owners get a buttery smooth experience either.

Is butter really that smooth?

I know is slippery.

 

[Qbah]

Is butter really that smooth?

I know is slippery.

You can't get any smoother than buttery :awe:

 

[wahdangun]

maybe its because nvdia implementation on DX 11 is the problem and given the architectural different and after the fact this is the first truly AMD DX 11 game optimization ??

so i guess driver update won't fix it, and this is why i don't like nvdia business practice because we the consumer in the end all the loser, i mean if nvdia and AMD continue to using this tactic then PC gaming will be DEAD for REAL

 

[n0x1ous]

maybe its because nvdia implementation on DX 11 is the problem and given the architectural different and after the fact this is the first truly AMD DX 11 game optimization ??

so i guess driver update won't fix it, and this is why i don't like nvdia business practice because we the consumer in the end all the loser, i mean if nvdia and AMD continue to using this tactic then PC gaming will be DEAD for REAL

So DAII performing better on AMD means NV has bad business practices? Or are you implying that since Nvidia TWIMTBP program has tilted some games towards NV architecture that now AMD is doing the same thing for DAII so its Nv fault that AMD is running a similar program?

I don't have a problem with either side paying money to get a game optimized for their cards (as long as its not artificially crippling the other). This may be one of those cases, so thats a nice bonus for AMD owners. Pc developers need all the cash they can get lest our beloved platform not make any financial sense for them to continue with.

However, in this game the performance is so bad compared to what we would expect given the hardware. Ie (580 losing to 6900 series) that it seems to me to be a combination of things. Optimized for AMD but also a driver issues with Nv. so a driver fix will probably improve things for NV cards but may never beat AMd in this one.

Same case with LP2, Dirt2, Hawx for NV and F1, AvP, OpenGl games for AMD

 

[exar333]

Here is the text from
Forum Home » Dragon Age II » Dragon Age II PC Technical Self Help


Hello Dragon Age II PC users.

We are aware that some people are having problems with running DX11 and Dragon Age II. We are investigating all issues, but before reporting your issues here please try the following:

1. Shut Down Dragon Age II
2. Nvidia Card users, download the new Nvidia drivers here: Nvidia Drivers
3. ATI Card users, download the new ATI drivers here: ATI Drivers
4. Restart Dragon Age II
   
   We’re currently working with AMD and nVidia on the following issues:
   
   #1 Severe slowdowns on very high details on nVidia (game running at less than 10 FPS). *Note: Some users are still reporting “low framerates” in the 30’s, assuming it should run better on their PC. The very high detail is very demanding from the hardware, especially when running at a very high resolution. Any of the following can be tried to improve performance:
   • Use a lower antialiasing setting or turn antialiasing off completely
   • Disable v-sync
   • Use lower anisotropic filtering levels
   • Disable the diffusion depth of field effect
   • Disable the screen space ambient occlusion effect
   • Reduce screen resolution
   • Reduce graphics detail.
   #2 Game hangs on ATI cards. This
5. is the specific driver that is needed. Going to the AMD site to search for a driver may not give them this early preview driver they need.
   
   #3 When trying to improve performance, make sure there are no custom options set in your video card control panel (NVIDIA control panel or Catalyst Control Center) and everything is set to defaults. Some of the options there may severely affect performance. Anti-aliasing transparency specifically has been seen to affect performance heavily.
   
   If none of the above help resolve your issues, please post any information you can in this thread.

Evidently, some people do have problems with AMD cards. OMG :'(

AMD cards need a specific driver which was released on March 10
Catalyst 11.4 early preview


This is to help AMD people having problems, who are being told they are not.

Thanks for this post. DA2 has been running very fast for me, but I do get a hang-up every maybe 5-6 hours of gameplay. Hopefully this helps. After playing games like FO3:NV, anything not crashing every 1-2 hours seems pretty much flawless. :awe:

 

[SirPauly]

maybe its because nvdia implementation on DX 11 is the problem and given the architectural different and after the fact this is the first truly AMD DX 11 game optimization ??

so i guess driver update won't fix it, and this is why i don't like nvdia business practice because we the consumer in the end all the loser, i mean if nvdia and AMD continue to using this tactic then PC gaming will be DEAD for REAL

If anything, it was great to see AMD work with developers to have titles run out-of-the-box better. It will probably take some driver updates and working with the developer on nVidia's part to to improve the experience.

Where you see tactics, I see positives.

 

[Seero]

maybe its because nvdia implementation on DX 11 is the problem and given the architectural different and after the fact this is the first truly AMD DX 11 game optimization ??

so i guess driver update won't fix it, and this is why i don't like nvdia business practice because we the consumer in the end all the loser, i mean if nvdia and AMD continue to using this tactic then PC gaming will be DEAD for REAL

You derived your conclusion based on your assumption, just like many others here. What is your bases on the game being optimized? What exactly do you mean truly AMD Dx11 game? What is the architectural differences and how does it affect games written in Dx11? What is the problem on Nvidia's Dx11 implementation? Is DA2 the first Dx11 game? Are there any other Dx11 games that indicate there is a dx11 features which Nvidia didn't implement correctly? What exactly is the API that is causing problems on Nvidia hardwares? Perhaps what is the combination of APIs that is causing problems on Nvidia?

I found the whole DA2 incidents very interesting. First, the game clearly have problems, but not caused by PhysX. Interestingly, PhysX has not been lifted from the game and clearly isn't causing any problems to AMD users, unlike what many believed that PhysX is ONLY for Nvidia users. We actually have one PhysX game that farvor AMD cards. To my surprise, not a single person mention or complain about it.

Right now, my guess is there exists a feature in game that can not by altered by user through the game or its ini files. This feature automatically enables when the game graphics is set to very high automatically and there are no way to turn that particular feature off, nor we even know what that feature is. Most nvidia user simply stick with graphics high and SSAO off and play the game as the difference is minor. Some say the game use HDAO anyways to SSAO is actually redundant, and the tessellation difference can't justify 75% tax on FPS.

Yes, FPS on AMD video cards are far better comparing to Nvidia video cards, but what about image quality? Someone needs to compare the game side by side, and must be able to turn the specific feature on/off to determine what is actually causing the FPS loss on Nvidia card. Simply claiming that Nvidia is the fault on everything won't do any good to anyone. Yes, you can use the game to compare performance between camps, but those behavior is not mainstream. The mainstream is playing the game.

I also found the following idea amusing. When Nvidia performs better than AMD, then it is Nvidia's fault and Nvidia must have paid developers to sabotage AMD. When AMD performs better than Nvidia, then it is also Nvidia's fault because it is Nvidia who started this trend. So unless the game performs identically on each and every video card from both camps' equivalent hardware, then Nvidia is at fault, but since there are no equivalent hardware from both camps, Nvidia will always be at fault.

Suppose Nvidia is always at fault, and it will make you unhappy, then you will simply always unhappy. A patch won't make you happy, a driver won't fix make you happy, even if Nvidia cease to exist, it still won't make you happy. There are no solution as the premise itself won't lead to happiness.

DA2 isn't a MMO. People will simply spent around 100 hrs to finish the game and probably won't revisit the game anytime soon. A driver profile update should give extra performance to the game, but the performance of the game should not relay on any driver's update. Say there exist a problematic API calls that will not run properly on a particular video card, this should have been caught by the QA of the game, and workaround should be applied by developers before the game is actually released. Right now people are having problems saving the game, indicating that the QA was done very poorly. I am not surprised seeing the QA missed the performance of the game as the QA missed lots of obvious gameplay bugs.

IMO, bioware don't really care. Shall there be bugs, they will simply fix those major gameplay bugs via a patch, but put the rest in DA2's expansions. If you believe that Nvidia should release a driver to fix one game's problem and said to be at fault if they failed to do so, then you are not going to find a solution, because you are not seeking one, but making paranoid statements. In today's literature, those are FUDs.

 

[badb0y]

I am pretty sure PhysX is being run on the CPU for the AMD cards.

 

[Qbah]

I am pretty sure PhysX is being run on the CPU for the AMD cards.

Maybe that's the reason for the lower performance on nVidia cards? Since the game is really demanding in the first place (AMD doesn't get buttery smooth performance either :awe, using up additional resources to run PhysX on the GPU causes the game to run worse in general?

Could someone compare CPU usage between AMD and nVidia? Once I'm back home I'll check it on my setup (Q9450 stock + HD5850 @ 860 / 1125).

 

[Seero]

I am pretty sure PhysX is being run on the CPU for the AMD cards.

Yes, so what?

Maybe that's the reason for the lower performance on nVidia cards? Since the game is really demanding in the first place (AMD doesn't get buttery smooth performance either :awe, using up additional resources to run PhysX on the GPU causes the game to run worse in general?

Could someone compare CPU usage between AMD and nVidia? Once I'm back home I'll check it on my setup (Q9450 stock + HD5850 @ 860 / 1125).

From what I have seen. CPU usage on DA2 is very high, I don't know if it utilizes all available cores though. I remember seeing one user report stating increase in performance on Nvidia by turning GPU PhysX off, but I also see lots of reports stating neither CPU/GPU is under heavy loads, indicating it isn't about processing power, but utilization.

 

[Qbah]

(...)
From what I have seen. CPU usage on DA2 is very high, I don't know if it utilizes all available cores though. I remember seeing one user report stating increase in performance on Nvidia by turning GPU PhysX off, but I also see lots of reports stating neither CPU/GPU is under heavy loads, indicating it isn't about processing power, but utilization.

So basically... you're guessing... OK. Do you have DA2? Do you have a Fermi card or a Radeon? If yes, then check and post results. Thanks.

 

[GaiaHunter]

The original dragon age and (mass effect 2 for that matter - don't remember if mass effect 1 required me to install physX drivers or not) used physX library with no problems for either cards.

I should have my copy of Dragon Age 2 arriving soon so I'll check what my 6850+PH II X4 performs in it.

Although I don't understand how/why physX has shown up in this thread - it seems utterly irrelevant to this case.

 

[Red Storm]

DA2 has PhysX...? Where?

 

[bryanW1995]

I'm sure you know what happy's "see a pattern here" comment meant.


So its just DX11 that works poorly on Nv cards?

If thats the case then maybe bioware weren't planning on implementing it, but then AMD came along with DX11 + texture pack and nVidia just weren't expecting that and were caught ball watching.

how can you tell when someone is "banned" rather than just not using his account?

 

[bryanW1995]

AA has a huge hit in performance in this game I noticed. From 8xAA to 0xAA performance rose about 30%.

The game doesn't implement AA very well anyway, the texture crawl is almost as bad on 8x as it is with it off.

Even in Crossfire 6970s I found that AA gives unplayable performance in many sections of the game, especially cutscenes where there is dynamic lighting in the background.

So I turned off AA. You still get 99.99% of the eye-candy and you should get a significant boost in performance.

um... 30% for 8xAA is pretty normal, isn't it?

 

[mnewsham]

The game doesnt run "buttery smooth" on my AMD setup... BUT i guess i cant complain with 45FPS on a laptop with the hi-res pack.

 

[Skurge]

how can you tell when someone is "banned" rather than just not using his account?

I don't know, usually their avatars disappear. Or theirs "banned" written under their name.

Also, how in the hell did physx end up here? Its running on the cpu, doesn't matter what card you use. So forget that. That isn't it.

 

[Skurge]

um... 30% for 8xAA is pretty normal, isn't it?

Well for us common folk, it is. He is using 580SLI, so he might be used to free AA?

 

[Red Storm]

I don't know, usually their avatars disappear. Or theirs "banned" written under their name.

Also, how in the hell did physx end up here? Its running on the cpu, doesn't matter what card you use. So forget that. That isn't it.

No I'm not blaming PhysX for anything, I'm asking where it's used in the game because I don't see anything that looks like it's utilizing a physics API.

 

[bryanW1995]

Well that driver revision is for 580's ,and we are hearing from 580 owners of good gameplay. Its the OP with his 480's that never found happiness , yet.

that's a good sign, they'll have it fixed for the 480 asap in that case.

very annoying for 480 owners that they have to wait, though.

 

[bryanW1995]

yes I did.. I'm playing MAX settings DX11 with a single 580 with the beta drivers..

SB i7 2600-k water cooled running at 4.5 ghz 16gigs of DDR 3 1600 on a first gen P67 ASUS board..
nothing fancy.

No stutters no hiccups no texture issues flat smooth performance.
at 1920x1200

I wonder if the low fps isn't cpu related for others? I notice a huge difference between 3.2 and 4.0 on my i7 920.

 

[TerabyteX]

I certainly doubt that it is about bad practices as Dirt 2 has DX11 features thanks to AMD and yet, runs slightly better on nVidia hardware. Dragon Age 2 uses standard DX11 code which is supposed to run just fine with standard DX11 hardware. While nVidia is known to optimize games in a fashion that it would run slow on AMD hardware (Like using high texture fetches or shader texture reads which it used to run slow on HD 3x00 and older hardware), or bad use of Tessellation on Lost Planet 2 (Using Tessellation at a 1x pixel level instead of 16, undertutilizing the Radeon's ROP). Games that uses optimized code by AMD tends to use lots of shader power in which will not affect nVidia's powerful shader performance. It is just a driver issue that hopefully will be fixed.

 

[GaiaHunter]

No I'm not blaming PhysX for anything, I'm asking where it's used in the game because I don't see anything that looks like it's utilizing a physics API.

For example, when you hit an enemy and the enemy body moves in a certain direction due to your hit, that happens due to a physics engine.

As you can see just by that example, there is a ton of games that use physics engines.

The difference between a physics engine using the CPU and a physics engine using the GPU is that in theory, due to the parallel nature of GPUs and the parallel nature of some physic calculations, a physic engine can be more accurate, while maintaining a playable frame rate.

 

[bryanW1995]

CVSiN is getting 50FPS, yet everyone else, even people having GTX580 SLi (or GTX480x3!) are getting a lot worse scores? You're not running in very high CVSiN or something else is not set to max / ON.

A friend of mine runs the game on a Q6600 @ 3GHz and a GTX570, the newest newest betas. With the high rez texture pack, at 1920x1200. Setting all to max, no AA and:

-> High = smooth and great performance (40-50FPS)
-> Very High = 20-25 FPS

Looks like you're running the game in High, CVSiN.

there is a HUGE difference in that game between a q660 @ 3.0 and a 2600k @ 4.5.

 

[RussianSensation]

I wonder if the low fps isn't cpu related for others? I notice a huge difference between 3.2 and 4.0 on my i7 920.

The demo can only manage 34 fps on a GTX580 at 2560x1600. In comparison the HD6990 with AUSUM gets 87 fps. 3x as much speed means this game is clearly GPU limited. Also, in their testing they "only" used a 3.3ghz Core i7. CPU speed is a non-issue in this game compared to GPU horsepower.