Leave the "UI Offscreen Rendering" option unchecked by default

[Modin]

It doesn't make sense to me - how much of a performance hit can running a UI at 60 fps vs 20 fps have? If it has any noticeable performance hit, I would think there's a problem somewhere. If there is a problem somewhere, the solution shouldn't be making the UI feel sluggish as hell for everyone. I personally didn't notice any worse performance. The game still runs at 165 zoomed in, and 35 zoomed out lol - perf is bad regardless of the UI.

 

In other words, I just found out about this option, unchecked it, and oh my god this is the reason I've been feeling like the game is sluggish as fuck ever since I started playing even though I get 165 fps. Clicks that don't register. Very unsatisfying scrolling, box selection, and drag & drop. The UI feels so much, SO MUCH better without this stupid option.

 

It took me way too long to find out about it and I'm fully expecting that way more people don't know about it. Save us all the trouble and leave it unchecked by default - something to be used by very potato PCs only.

[EnigmaGrey]

About half the framerate, depending on hardware.  Khalua2 is a lua-like system implemented in Java (and worse, relies on reflection to work), which provides scripting for the ui. It’s one of the worst performaning systems in the game. So having it run every frame is generally not a good idea.

 

Most people aren’t going to be able to play the game at 165 hz and aren’t going to have the same frame of reference, so turning it off by default doesn’t make very much sense. PZ’s majorly played on toasters and potatoes, after all.

 

If the UI ever gets redone in a different manner than this won’t matter anymore, but it’ll limit modding.

[Modin]

Sure most PCs aren't running games at 165 fps, but most of them are still running them at 60+. From 20 to 30 is already a pretty big leap, from 20 to 60 is insane. It's like N64 vs modern PC. When not so long ago I played the N64 zeldas, OoT/MM, on an emulator running at 20 fps, I was feeling excruciating pain.

 

20 fps just feels so bad. It's like I'm playing a new game now that I've unchecked this box. I just want everyone to feel this bliss from the get go, without having to learn about an obscure display option.

 

Also, on my hardware the option doesn't make a difference. The game still runs good zoomed in, and runs like shit zoomed out, there is not a single frame of difference whether at 165 or 48 fps. I'll ask my friend who's running at 60 fps on a potato to try it out for me and come back with his results.

 

Edit: I mean seriously - clicks often don't register with this option on. Drag & drop sometimes is ignored. It's so bad. Soooo bad. Devs: low fps is bad, bad, bad, bad, I just can't say it enough. It makes your game not feel good, it's frustrating, it's a backwards leap of 30 years of gaming. If it turns out my friend's PC does go from 60 to 30 fps with the option on (which I doubt, but we'll see), then this is a top priority thing to fix in the performance department, seriously! It's sooooo bad.

Edited April 11, 2022 by Modin

[EnigmaGrey]

Oh, I'd definitely not take the bet that most PCs are running PZ at 60 FPS. And almost no one has these problems with clicking, so I don't know what to tell you there. I can uncap the game and have it run at 400 fps zoomed in, but it doesn't affect clicking or highlighting for me, for example.

 

The setting can be turned off if you so choose, but having it off by default simply doesn't make sense given the game's audience. 

 

 

[Modin]

So my friend tested and he gets shit fps (25) regardless when zoomed out, ~65 down to ~55 on average zoom, and ~120 down to ~65 when zoomed in.

 

In short, it would seem to have a massive effect, but only when zoomed in, which is when your fps is at its highest (so high you can afford losing frames). His screen is 60 hz so he doesn't care, and for me, well I suppose I might go down from 500 to 250 or something, but I run capped at 165 anyway.

 

He decided that the UI's smoothness is well worth the 5 fps he loses on a medium zoom, because it feels fucking amazing in comparison. I decide the same.

 

I think this definitely should be adressed. A UI shouldn't eat half of your frames.

 

And it's a weird situation, because Zomboid is the only game I know that runs from 20 fps to 120-500 fps depending on what you're looking at. Disabling this setting makes your fps go from 2 to 60-250 instead which changes pretty much nothing, since the zoomed in fps is not what matters - we don't play constantly zoomed in. Unless it makes someone go from 60 to 30 fps at max zoom in, in which case even with the setting on, his game is gonna run between 30 and 60 _anyway_ just from going from mid-zoom to max-zoom, which I would consider unplayable in the first place.

 

Anyway, Zomboid performance is weird and this setting is the weirdest of all.

 

Edit: I hear what you're saying. Maybe we have different brains, but goddamn does it feel bad. b a d. with the setting on for me. Unacceptably bad is what I mean, and there are definitely ignored commands at 20 fps for me, which makes perfect sense to me. I would right click an item and nothing happens. I would drag and drop something to drop it to the ground quickly and nothing happens. Stuff like that. It doesn't happen anymore. It feels so good.

 

There needs to be a compromise between keeping the game playable by default on potatoes, and informing non-potato PC players that there's this one option that makes the UI feel   s l u g g i s h   as hell and that they should really really disable it. Everybody on the reddit thread I've made says this is game-changing.

Edited April 11, 2022 by Modin

[EnigmaGrey]

Mind trying something? 

 

Turn FBOs (off screen rendering) on and restart the game. Then, try comparing how the ui behaves with vsync on and off.

 

Could be that vsync interferes with the FBO option in some way on high freq monitors, which I can't test not having one.

[Modin]

I have vsync forced on, I think, from using an adaptative sync display. I always disable vsync in all my games while keeping it on in the nvidia/amd drivers.

 

I tried reproducing the unresponsiveness with the setting on, and I can't. I think it might be dependent on framerate. I seem to remember it happening a lot when I was sitting zoomed out in a snowstorm with hundreds of corpses around and blood splatter on, at 20-30 fps. I'll keep playing with the setting off and see if it also happens in these situations.

Edited April 11, 2022 by Modin

[EnigmaGrey]

39 minutes ago, Modin said:

I have vsync forced on, I think, from using an adaptative sync display. I always disable vsync in all my games while keeping it on in the nvidia/amd drivers.

 

I tried reproducing the unresponsiveness with the setting on, and I can't. I think it might be dependent on framerate. I seem to remember it happening a lot when I was sitting zoomed out in a snowstorm with hundreds of corpses around and blood splatter on, at 20-30 fps. I'll keep playing with the setting off and see if it also happens in these situations.

I would expect that if the game is chugging at 20 fps despite attempting to run at 165 fps, that updating the ui would be even slower than intended with offscreen rendering on.

 

I just don’t see how that’s the fault of offscreen rendering itself, unless you’re constantly bottoming out the fps. In which case, forcing the fps to 165 doesn’t make sense, either. You’d likely see much more consistent performance with vsync off and fps locked to 60 fps or even 30, for example.

[EnigmaGrey]

Just fyi: I ordered a cheap 1080p monitor with a high refresh rate to test this a bit more.

 

And I'm wondering if it's possible to, as overall FPS approaches UI FPS, to skip less (or no frames) just so commands don't fall through frames as seen here.

 

Still, I think a better solution is just reducing graphic settings and framerate cap so that you can keep above 30 FPS in bad situations, but maybe there's something doable to make it behave better for now.

[Modin]

After playing a bit more, I still have commands that are dropped even with an uncapped UI. Sometimes it's a right click, sometimes it's dropping an item to the ground. So, it would seem these two things are completely unrelated and I was wrong to assume they were.

 

It would seem that the majority of people prefer not having their UI capped to 20 fps. It feels that much worse. However, not that many people have seen my thread, so I wouldn't know. I personally can't go back now.

 

I couldn't say what causes the dropped actions, but I don't think it's tied to framerate. It happens when my framerate is smooth too.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Modin

[EnigmaGrey]

3 hours ago, Modin said:

After playing a bit more, I still have commands that are dropped even with an uncapped UI. Sometimes it's a right click, sometimes it's dropping an item to the ground. So, it would seem these two things are completely unrelated and I was wrong to assume they were.

 

It would seem that the majority of people prefer not having their UI capped to 20 fps. It feels that much worse. However, not that many people have seen my thread, so I wouldn't know. I personally can't go back now.

 

I couldn't say what causes the dropped actions, but I don't think it's tied to framerate. It happens when my framerate is smooth too.

Do you have a high DPI mouse or software installed specific to the mouse? 

 

Some have a sort of "acceleration" feature to meet higher DPI settings that can cause misclicks .etc. 

[Modin]

I've never had any such misclicks outside of Zomboid. My mouse is a G305 and it does have its specific Logitech software (which I hate). I use it at 800 DPI though, nothing too crazy, and I have no idea about the acceleration feature but I've never heard about it. There's no mention of it anywhere in the app. I've long since disabled mouse acceleration in windows (hate it).

[EnigmaGrey]

2 hours ago, Modin said:

I've never had any such misclicks outside of Zomboid. My mouse is a G305 and it does have its specific Logitech software (which I hate). I use it at 800 DPI though, nothing too crazy, and I have no idea about the acceleration feature but I've never heard about it. There's no mention of it anywhere in the app. I've long since disabled mouse acceleration in windows (hate it).

Yeah, logitech should be OK. 

[EnigmaGrey]

Okay, got the monitor. Set it to 239 Hz and played around for a litle while. I couldn't find much difference between vsync on/off or offscreen ui on/off, oddly enough. 30 FPS was noticably smoother than 20 fps.

 

What I did notice was that when "lock cursor to window" is checked, the mouse cursor starts skipping and clicks don't occur where you expect them to, depending on the game's framerate.  Could you see if that's enabled in Options?

[ridai]

 

Quote

What I did notice was that when "lock cursor to window" is checked, the mouse cursor starts skipping and clicks don't occur where you expect them to, depending on the game's framerate.  Could you see if that's enabled in Options?

That was it for me, lock cursor to screen causes my mouse to lag akin to a software cursor limited by FPS ... turn it off and its the same as a hardware cursor completely lag free!

 

I use 144hz gsync monitor with vsync OFF in zomboid and ON in nvidia.