What is up with the optimization of this software

I've pretty much given up on running with AI in AC for the time being. The performance is simply horrific, and a lot of cars, especially third party mods cause the 95 percent CPU warning. It's been this way for ages. All my other installed sims run smoothly at at least 60 fps, including rF2 with 29 opponents on the most detailed tracks. AC is in my case only good for a bit of hot lapping in it's current state. And god knows I'm not a fan of only hot lapping.

 

Sorry its taken so long for me to get back, unfortunately work got in the way

I am running the game on a late 2012 iMac under Bootcamp (I know but my partner won't let me get my dream 3 monitor set-up) so therefore its a single screen, my specs are:

Processor - Intel Quad Core i5-3470 @ 3.20GHz
Memory - 8 GB
Graphics card - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX (1 GB RAM)
OS - Windows 7 Home Edition 64-bit

I know the graphics card isn't the latest and greatest, and its a mobile version, but its certainly way above ISI's runs best on nVidia 250 GTS), below are a series of screenshots of my graphics card settings and in game settings. I know I am running it at a high resolution of 2560 x 1440 but when I've tried lowering the resolution the FPS are weird (another example of strange). I feel a bit cheated looking at the recommended specs on ISI's website, which are shown below, I expected my computer to run it fine considering Assetto Corsa runs way way way beyond my expectations.

Thanks for your input/help.

The ISI recommended specs are:

Runs Best With
– 3.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo or 3.0 GHz AMD Athlon II x2 or better
– 4GB RAM or more
– nVidia 250 GTS or ATI/AMD 4870 or better
– 512MB Video Memory or more
– Microsoft Windows Vista 64bit, Windows 7 64bit
– DirectX 9.0c (included with installer)
– 2008 C++ SP1 Runtimes (included with installer)
– 4GB Hard Drive Space or more
– Internet Connection
– Steering wheel and pedals

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The OP went missing..

Come back OP!
You started a fire, now be part of it!

 

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For some reason my previous post didn't load up. The 5 pics I've uploaded are my settings on my graphics card and in game. I am running it on bootcamp on a late 2012 iMac with a Quad Core i5 (3.2GHz), 8 GB of RAM and a NVIDIA GeForce 675MX (1 GB of RAM), which is above and beyond the 'Runs best on' specs listed by ISI when looking at the system requirements. With it running Assetto Corsa without any issues on nice graphics settings with max AI cars I thought they'd be no issue with this game.

I know I'm running it at a high resolution but if I lower the resolution I actually get a drop in FPS until I raise it again, thats what frustrated me most.

Any help is appreciated.

 

CPU usage has improved since early access, I can run 20 AI easily in AC and I have ancient i5-750 from 2009. With your latest generation i5 it shouldn't be issue to max out everything, on forums it's mainly reported an issue with people who run old CPU's.

 

Aha, the plot thickens, I have turned of FXAA and HDR (which I suspect is the issue) and it runs very smooth (with my 6 AI cars), however I just run the Honda NSX on Malaysia with 17 AI cars and although it appears to run real smooth the cars ahead of me are just popping into view! You'll be racing along thinking you're in third when another car pops up, then another, its weird, any ideas?

 

The recommended specs by ISI is nothing but a good laugh, they are the same since 2012 and content has since then evolved a lot. My experience running rF2 on mobile (laptop) GPU wasn't great, not saying it can't be done. You have couple of settings that can be reduced, starting from road reflections (mostly useless setting). FXAA takes FPS away as well as using such high AA level (X8) on mobile GPU.

Edit: good to hear disabling FXAA helped.

 

I've sorted it, have most things at high now without issues. It seemed to be HDR and FXAA, with those off its smooth even with all my low settings upped to high.

Thanks for your help, I was a bit silly with the pop-in cars I had the visible cars set to 6, running 100% smooth with 15 AI now, haven't tried more than that to begin with, definitely HDR.

 

Off topic but how do you do just hot laps without other AI?

 

I would drop the FSAA Level and reintroduce FXAA,HDR, drop environment and road reflections, maaaaybe consider going 1920x as last resort. HDR off is really a shame and doesn't do the game justice.

I couldn't find decent benchmarks for that card, but an educated guess would be that it's limited on shader count, so a lot of pixels + a lot of FSAA + HDR is giving it too much to compute. I.e. it's not geometric detail that's your problem, maybe not texture size, but all the shading. It might also simple be running low on Video RAM to do it's computations which you can check with GPU-Z.

 

I disagree.

The more CPU you have at your disposal, the more accurately you can calculate physics. It doesn't even have to be complex physics - just increasing frequency of calculation can improve quality.

Also, simulation development companies aren't usually experts on modern graphics and while they will do their best, they will still use a lot of CPU to handle graphics.

 

LFS managed to do 90% of what current sims do 10 years ago without any issue (heck, even rFactor, wasn't it launched in 2005?), the pure physics engine code shouldn't be problematic... Another thing is if they use too much CPU to help with the graphics stuff too as you mention.

 

Cars poppin in is because of setting "max visible cars" and "auto framerate".
If the framerate drops under a certain number, cars will dissapear to hold FPS stable.

Your laptop-card is too weak. AA is the killer here! Set it on level 4 max! Set HDR on.
2560x1440 is also hard to handle for this card.
Set in Nvidia-panel "pre rendered frames" to 1.

I highly doubt that AC with this card at 2560x1440 and AA level 8 runs smoothly! You probably had other settings in AC.

 

+1

It does not go to waste

Heck just the extra grunt you can have at your disposal for background programs is reason enough.


No doubt in my mind the relationship between fps, latency and physics at least with rF2.

Anyone lowers settings like me to run 100+ fps try this exercise........

Increase settings till your average is now 60 fps.

Now go do laps in your best combo, see how close you get to your PBs ( personal best laps ) lol

 

Indeed it has improved some in regards to the official Kunos content, but most of the third party cars I've tried cause the dreaded CPU 95 % warning.
Running a race against a field of GP2 cars in AC is impossible for me, even though my system should have no problem handling it.
FPS is just fine, only everything seems to go in slow motion.

This is a crying shame, because the GP2 is one of a few well made mods for AC.

 

Goodness !

I submit when pushed AC and pCARS are both lagfests compared to rF2.

( can't put that in "What is right with ISI" thread I guess, darn. )

lool

 

In my old PC the physics bar (in rF2) was over 60% and with my car driven by AI the bar was about 20% ... seriosly, how you can compare a tire model created 10+ years ago with the current technology?

Devs have the "obligation" to push the limit of the physics load following the hardware technology.
If this simple concept was not true, what the reason to spend years creating a new tire model, implementing more advanced physics features etc?

 

The AI uses very simplified physics. I get your point, but I still think that the physics engine is not really any issue at all. And regarding rF2 tire model, the physical properties of the tires and how do they change under given conditions is defined in huge lookup tables, so a lot of the stuff is not really done in realtime.

 

You can also say that Dune II achieved 90% of what nowadays RTS games do. Just like you can say that first NFS game achieved 90% of what Gran Tourismo 6 has.

But I wasn't talking about number of features supported, but the level of implementation. Perhaps 10-20 years from now we will have simulators running CFD for aerodynamics and someone will say, that older simulators also supported downforce, drag and slipstreaming with much less effort.

But it's not the same if you look at the details. Unless these details don't make a difference to someone, then why does he even bother to buy new software? Just kidding of course, but I hope you see my point.

You talk, like you know what you're saying, but you don't.
You would have to written a few experimental physics engines at minimum to get the grasp of the challenges.

I will only outline it here, but it should be enough to get the point:

First of all, lookup tables may give information about some properties of tire at given circumstances (let's say, stiffness of rubber at given temperature or pressure) but the shape of a tire is not something that you can put in tables. Information from tables can be used to help speed up algorithms that calculate shape of tire and that's it.

Second, tire does not exist in a vacuum. It touches the road surface and interacts with it - no lookup tables can contain that
This means shape calculations must be extremely accurate. Imagine what would happen if your algorithm would be inaccurate and cause the tire not to be round when it should be - it could cause oscillations that would grow and eventually the entire algorithm would go crazy.

The more you go with your simulations to micro level, the more calculations you have to do and the more frequent you have to do them.

The size of lookup tables says something about how much input the tire simulation in rF2 actually needs and how much calculations it needs to perform to control tire shape, temperatures and produced forces.