10-20 FPS when zoomed out only a little.

[wolke]

Hi before reading this down below quick heads up: English is NOT my Native Language it´s German, BUT I have full understanding of English, I just don´t have enough writing practice.

 

 

 

I was with a reasonable camera zoom only able to play with max. 10-20 FPS.

Spent hours on forums and tried the following:

- Tweaked the graphics settings
- increased the RAM in the .json as well as in the batch file
- Adjusted the Nvidia settings
- updated my Video-Driver
- un-and reinstalled the game
- checked the files via Steam
- changed the start options in Steam for Example: -autoconfig
- Tried the 32-bit instead of 64-bit
- made a system file check in "cmd".

AND EVEN

- reinstalled Windows but unfortunately nothing solved my Problem.

 

I would like to say that I only get 30-60 FPS when I don't have zombies around
AND when I've zoomed in almost all the way.

 

Info on my Site:

 

- no Mods installed

- PZ takes almost no System-Ressources

 

- yes I have Mods on Project Zomboid but they are all inactive

- and yes I also tried deleting them all but sadly to no avail

 

 

My PC:

 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3800X

GPU: Nvidia Titan XP Collectors Edition

RAM: 32GB

System: Now: Windows 11, Before: Windows 10

Game is on a NVME and like you can see up there all my Drivers, not just my GPU Driver, are up to Date.

 

I attached the DebugLog File for further Information, if something else is need just tell me.

 

Hope somebody can help me with my Problem.

 

 

24-05-22_11-47-20_DebugLog.txt

[EnigmaGrey]

It's less that the game has to render it and more that it has to sort more and more tiles the further you zoom out (and the higher your resolution is). This can only happen on the CPU, then the information is sent to the GPU to render. PZ's not actually a very demanding game for a GPU to work with, but instead impacts the CPU the most (but even then, OpenGL code cannot be multithreaded, so this only affects a single core). The biggest impact for the GPU will be animating the zombies and holding the game's textures in memory rather than drawing the map itself.

 

PZ is also written for OpenGL 2.1, which is quite old now. So the newer the GPU, generally the less well it seems to perform and the less well the GPU seems to allocate resources to it (it's possible it even uses software rendering for some functions, which would be pretty awful but I don't think there's any way to check this). 

 

My mistake on the category name. It's IsoSprite. uncheck NearestMagFilterAtMinZoom + check ForceLinearMagFilter should at least sort the state changes that OpenGL 2.1 does.

 

 

The opposite can also provide better performance: check NearestMagFilterAtMinZoom and ForceNearestMagFilter. Technically these should be less performance heavy than linear filtering, but results may vary. I found PZ tends to perform better all linear.

[wolke]

So... I tried what you told me but sadly that´s not working, but now I have a different Problem.

 

I found out that my BIOS was using my RAM at the wrong Frequency (2133Mhz) so I changed it to 3600Mhz.

Yes it is Ram capable of 3600Mhz I just never noticed it was the wrong Frequency.

 

But now after 2min of Gameplay my Game just dies...

The DebugLog just stopps mid Sentence and that´s it.

 

25-05-22_15-28-22_DebugLog.txt

[EnigmaGrey]

2 minutes ago, wolke said:

So... I tried what you told me but sadly that´s not working, but now I have a different Problem.

 

I found out that my BIOS was using my RAM at the wrong Frequency (2133Mhz) so I changed it to 3600Mhz.

But now after 2min of Gameplay my Game just dies...

25-05-22_15-28-22_DebugLog.txt 259.29 kB · 1 download

Nothing useful, unfortunately. It was loading the ingame map then just stopped.

 

May want to check Windows Event Viewer and see if there's something around the time it crashed, assuming it's related to the RAM profile change.  Should be under Windows Log -> System, if there is one.

[wolke]

And thanks for the Explanation how PZ works with CPU & GPU.

Never thought it works that way but now that you told me it makes sense.

 

Well it doesn´t explain why PZ uses 100% of the GPU of my Friend but who knows that is as it is.

[wolke]

Ok will check

[wolke]

Sadly there is nothing in the Windows Event Viewer.

 

But the Game crashes allways at the same moment, it seems like it wants to load something and crashes.

 

I tired it a few times and sometimes my Char loads but as soon as I move it crashes.

25-05-22_16-05-43_DebugLog.txt

[EnigmaGrey]

All I can really suggest is undoing the bios change, since this started after making it.

 

Maybe that RAM isn't supposed to run at that speed, its xmp profile is wrong, or it's not compatible with your motherboard at that speed. There might be a firmware update you need. 

[wolke]

Already did.

Forgot to activate XMP, so now it´s working.

 

But sadly my FPS are as bad as before.

[EnigmaGrey]

See if this helps with the FPS:

 

Go into nVidia control panel. Under 3D settings, try setting the power profile to "prefer max performance."

 

Note: the mods are loading on start, so I don't think they're disabled? Could you go into %UserProfile%\Zomboid and delete the \mods\ folder, just to ensure they're off? Then start a new game and see if zooming performs as poorly. 

[wolke]

I did what you suggested and tried the Game for a few minutes but sadly it did not help.

 

At start PZ is using 80% of my CPU to load the Game but after that it´s idle at arround 10-15%.

 

The same with my RAM at Start it´s using 1500MB - 1800MB and after loading is idle arroung 2500MB - 3000MB,

but that´s confusing I gave PZ 6GB of RAM why is it not using the full 6GB?

 

And the GPU is even lower with 5-10% usage.

 

24-05-22_13-41-33_DebugLog.txt

[EnigmaGrey]

Don't know what else to suggest, really. We'll be changing the way rendering works in Build 42, which should at least address some of this (for example, there'll be a lot less tilesorting holding things back). 

[wolke]

I think the Problem is that PZ is not really using my GPU, i mean in the Nvida Control Panel  PZ is not even shown to use my GPU.

I tried to force my GPU on PZ with Windows Graphic Settings but that´s not working.

 

Its only using my RAM and my CPU and even the CPU is not even close to max. Load.

 

A Friend of mine showed me how his Version of PZ is working and he is Starting with over 4950 FPS in the Startmenu and in Game with min. of 390 FPS.

At his Taskmanager PZ was using arround 98 - 100% of his GPU, but mine is arround 5 - 15%... thats definitely strange.

 

The thing is I´m out of Ideas...

some help plz?

[wolke]

Thanks for the help but for now I solved my Problem.

 

I put an extra GPU (GTX970) in my PC and changed PZ to that one.

It´s working... not extremly good but better than before.

 

It seems it really is the GPU (Titan XP) that the Game is not using because when

I use the other one the Load changes to arround 80-90% on my GPU. (GTX970)

 

My CPU is allways arround 30-40% Load, I mean even before the change.

 

 

But thats only a teporary change, as soon as an Update comes I will try and see if it works then.

[Magondivel]

2 hours ago, EnigmaGrey said:

Don't know what else to suggest, really. We'll be changing the way rendering works in Build 42, which should at least address some of this (for example, there'll be a lot less tilesorting holding things back). 

Dear, EnigmaGrey, can I participate in testing a new render? Or is it still impossible?

[Beard]

Try going to your Windows control panel and in your Power Options set the power options to High Performance as well.
The game is using the graphics card just fine, as far as I know you don't have any other graphics card listed, meaning it would have nothing else to use anyway.
Lastly, giving the game more RAM doesn't help because it will not use more than it needs.
 

[wolke]

I already tried that.

 

For clarification I mean this: 

 

- Right click on the desktop and select [NVIDIA Control Panel]. Select [View] or [Desktop] (the option varies by driver version) in the tool bar then check [Display GPU Activity Icon in Notification Area]. In Windows taskbar, mouse over the "GPU Activity" icon to check the list.

 

- I have "only" one GPU --> Nvidia Titan XP Collectors Edition

- The Game starts for like 2 sec. with arround 250-300Fps and is using my GPU but after that my GPU goes back to like 5-10%

 

It´s like PZ is deciding that it doesn´t need my GPU anymore and kicks it out of the Game Calculations.

In game my CPU goes up to 50-60% Load but that cannot be a Bottleneck since my Friend has the same CPU and no Problem since his GPU is doing something.

 

Also it´s the only Game where I have Problems with my GPU so the logical Conclusion would be that something in the Game-Code is not doing what it should be doing.

 

 

But let me sum up again what I already tried:

 

- literally tried everything you can do in the Nvidia Control Panel (I tried many things forat least 5 hours yesterday)

- change the Power settings in Windows

- change the Graphic Settings in Windows or so to speak force PZ to use my GPU

- Windows reinstallation

- Steam reinstallation

- Game reinstallation

- change RAM settings in the Game files

- swapped my Game files with the ones my Friend had

- deinstalled all mods and deleted the mods folder

- updating ALL Drivers

- tried running in 32Bit

- Systemfile check in "cmd"

- "-autoconfig" Start option in steam

- set the in Game settings to as low as possible, which by the way did absolutely nothing no 1FPS more than before

- im not only using the Taskmanager to view my GPU/CPU/RAM Load

- tried Overclocking my GPU

- tired giving PZ a higher Priority in the Taskmanager

- running as Adminnistrator (worth a shot)

- closing everything but Steam before starting PZ

 

AND

 

- I was even thinking about Overclocking my CPU since PZ is only using that...

 

 

If anyone has any further Ideas please go ahead and tell me.

[wolke]

Now I´m pretty certain it´s the Game not my PC.

 

I rolled back to 40.43 of PZ and it´s working a bit better like using my GPU to up to 15%.... but sadly not more.

It´s not like I get 4000FPS but just 40-45FPS but hey that at least tells me that something in the Code is not working properly.

 

It never got up to 15% in Game before.

 

 

I also just tried 41.68 but it´s not really better.

 

I just observed that when I zoom in all the way an wait for a moment that my GPU

goes up to arround 90% but as soon as I zoom out even a bit it goes down to 5-10% again...

 

Any Ideas?

[wolke]

Here a Picture of my GPU load when I zoom all the way in.

[wolke]

And here a Picture of my GPU Load at 200% zoom.

[Beard]

I meant to go to the Windows control panel and not to the Nvidia one, but in your last post you already mentioned you tried setting it to high performance mode already:
https://support.norton.com/sp/en/us/home/current/solutions/v85131538

As for the zoomed in view, is that on version 40 or 41? And could you check your Single Core performance in the task manager and see if any of the single cores is maxed out?
Lastly, can you share the logs.zip file from the Zomboid folder as well, as it would contain game settings and other useful logs, preferably from version 41.

[wolke]

I did the Test with the GPU Load again because I wasn´t sure which Version it was.

 

Well here are my Results:

 

- No CPU Core is maxed out - Link to Picture --> https://imgur.com/Tb7Zudn

- Version 41 Patch 71

 

Same Problem with the GPU Load than before.

25-05-22_11-53-10_DebugLog.txt

[wolke]

Here the Last Picture zoomed all the way in at 50%

[EnigmaGrey]

24 minutes ago, wolke said:

Here the Last Picture zoomed all the way in at 50%

That's normal for PZ.

 

The nearestmagfilter seems to have some issues with state switching that we can't pin down. You'll notice it goes away the moment you zoom back out just slightly. Every zoom level where nearest is applied will similarly cause a spike, albeit smaller than when fully zoomed in. 

 

If you think these are the main problem as to poor performance, you'll have to go into debug mode to disable the nearestmagfilter and force linearfiltering on.

 

To do that, right click PZ in the Steam games list. Add -debug to the launch options field. Then, once you've spawned in game, press F11. On the top left you'll see options, click it. Then go down to World. NearestMagFilter will be checked by default, uncheck it. You may also want to force linear fields to remove context switching from the game, which might help with FPS to some degree.

 

Aside from this, the reason you're seeing less GPU usage when zoomed out is because the GPU has less to do. Just like with RAM usage or CPU usage, the game only uses as much as it needs to do its thing and the hardware only provides it. That is, sometimes it can't be maxed out or even use more to improve performance. It's just reached its peak for PZ. 

[wolke]

Well... I don´t have that option in the Debug Menu.

After I Added -debug to the launch options field I pressed F11 and then Options in the top Left.

But NearestMagFilter is nowhere to be found, under no Category.

 

Also I don´t want to have my Hardware maxed out but I would want to at least see the Game trying to use it.

I mean the farther I zoom out the more has the Game to be render,

if thats not the Case then I don´t understand the World anymore because the more the more, or not?

 

It doesn´t make sense to me that PZ uses less and less Resources the more it has to render.