Framerate and Performance: Difference between revisions

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===Maximising performance===
===Maximising performance===
1. If you are playing Single Player, for maximum performance and stability - on a PC with at least 16GB of RAM and a modern CPU like Intel Core i5 or better, or AMD Ryzen 5 or better - you can set up a dedicated server on your own PC, instead of playing Single Player.  So you copy/move your saved game world into the server's save folder and run VintagestoryServer.  Then start the game client and connect to the server you made as if it's multiplayer, the address of the server on your own machine is always 127.0.0.1.  This should be straightforward - it's not normally necessary to set up port forwarding or firewall permissions if playing on a server which is running on your own PC.
1. If you are playing Single Player, for maximum performance and stability - on a PC with at least 16GB of RAM and a modern CPU - you can set up a dedicated server on your own PC, instead of playing Single Player.  So you copy/move your saved game world into the server's Saves folder and run VintagestoryServer.  Then start the game client and connect to the server you made as if it's multiplayer, the address of the server on your own machine is always 127.0.0.1.  This should be straightforward - it's not normally necessary to set up port forwarding or firewall permissions if playing on a server which is running on your own PC.


''Why this helps: it means the server part of the game (which generates and runs the world) and the client part of the game (which produces what you actually see on screen) can each run separately in their own memory space, without conflicting with each other and with reduced lag spikes.''
'''Strongly recommended for the new higher view distances above 1024, or any high view distances really!'''


Alternatively if you have a very low powered PC, but there's another PC on the same network, try running a dedicated Vintage Story server on that other PC and connecting to it over your local network.
''Why this helps: it means the server part of the game (which generates and runs the world) and the client part of the game (which produces what you actually see on screen) can each run separately in their own memory space, without conflicting with each other and with reduced lag spikes. You'll be less likely to run out of memory at high view distances.''
 
Alternatively if you have a laptop or similar which cannot do this, but there's another PC on the same network, try running a dedicated Vintage Story server on that other PC and connecting to it over your local network.




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3. Vintage Story has a wide range of graphics settings.  Adjusting these up or down, and switching on or off the fancier elements, can have a huge effect on performance.  The tooltips on each control on the Graphics settings page should give you some pointers.  
3. Vintage Story has a wide range of graphics settings.  Adjusting these up or down, and switching on or off the fancier elements, can have a huge effect on performance.  The tooltips on each control on the Graphics settings page should give you some pointers.


''Large view distances have an effect not only the framerate (fps) on screen, but also performance throughout the game.  If everything is sluggish or there are frequent lag spikes, try turning down the view distance.  The game is balanced to be smooth and playable on most modern PCs at view distances around 256 blocks to 384 blocks.  Above 512 blocks is certainly possible in short bursts to see what it looks like, but long-term play at such large view distances is best left only for high-end gaming PCs who followed the advice in step #1...
''Large view distances have an effect not only the framerate (fps) on screen, but also performance throughout the game.  If everything is sluggish or there are frequent lag spikes, try turning down the view distance.  The game is balanced to be smooth and playable on most modern PCs at view distances around 256 blocks to 512 blocks, depending on your hardware.  Above 512 blocks is certainly possible on most PCs - at least to see what it looks like - but long-term play at such large view distances with max graphics is best left only for high-end gaming PCs who followed the advice in step #1...




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5. Make sure your CPU is not overheating and therefore "thermally throttling".  If you run Vintage Story with no VSync and unlimited frame rate, it will take one of your CPU cores to 100% permanently. That in turn will cause the CPU internal temperature to rise.  You can monitor temperatures using a free 'Hardware Monitor' tool, or just listen to the fan noise ramping up! If the CPU internal temperature is approaching maximum allowed levels (90-100 °C on a modern CPU, that's hot enough to boil water) then on most modern systems, the CPU will automatically switch to running slower than its maximum speed, this is "thermal throttling".  This will slow down the game's performance.  To prevent this thermal issue, use VSync or max frame rate limits to prevent your CPU cores reaching 100% usage: your game will probably actually run faster overall if the busiest CPU core is at around 70-80% utilisation or less.
5. At max graphics settings, there can be framerate stutter on Radeon graphics cards (even top end cards) when moving across the map and loading new chunks; broadly the reason is the card cannot load in new chunks and draw the existing chunks at the same time.  If you ease the card's load by reducing one graphics setting - for example, switching off shadows or lowering the shadow quality - then this should be improved.  The VS Dev Team are aware of this issue.
 
 
6. Make sure your CPU is not overheating and therefore "thermally throttling".  If you run Vintage Story with no VSync and unlimited frame rate, it will push one of your CPU cores to 100% permanently. That in turn will cause the CPU internal temperature to rise.  You can monitor temperatures using a free 'Hardware Monitor' tool, or just listen to the fan noise ramping up! If the CPU internal temperature is approaching maximum allowed levels (90-100 °C on a modern CPU, that's hot enough to boil water) then the CPU should automatically switch to running slower than its maximum speed, this is "thermal throttling".  This will slow down the game's performance.  To prevent this thermal issue, use VSync or max frame rate limits to prevent your CPU cores reaching 100% usage: your game will probably actually run faster overall if the busiest CPU core is at around 70-80% utilisation or less.


''Tip: on a multi-core PC, the overall CPU usage percentage shown by Windows can look small even if one core is maxed out.  For example, with 8 cores, one core maxed out at 100% would only be 12.5% CPU usage overall.  To see what's really going on, you need to use a non-Microsoft tool like Hardware Monitor.''
''Tip: on a multi-core PC, the overall CPU usage percentage shown by Windows can look small even if one core is maxed out.  For example, with 8 cores, one core maxed out at 100% would only be 12.5% CPU usage overall.  To see what's really going on, you need to use a non-Microsoft tool like Hardware Monitor.''
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6. If you followed suggestion #1 above, you can tweak server performance by adjusting the "magic numbers".  The magic numbers default values are aimed at a typical Vintage Story multiplayer server with let's say 3 or 4 players, playing over the internet, so some of them can be increased if it's only 1 player on your own machine.
7. If you followed suggestion #1 above, you can tweak server performance by adjusting the "magic numbers".  The magic numbers default values are aimed at a typical Vintage Story multiplayer server with let's say 3 or 4 players, playing over the internet, so some of them can be increased if it's only 1 player on your own machine.




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