Computer Slowdown and Heatup

Discuss problems related to FTL here. If you are having a problem or experiencing a bug PLEASE READ THE "MUST READ" POST.
Eldergias
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Oct 19, 2012 6:23 pm

Computer Slowdown and Heatup

Postby Eldergias » Sun Oct 21, 2012 5:55 pm

UPDATE: The game runs MUCH better in full screen. Perhaps someone could look into why it runs poorly windowed?

Hi,

I saw the section of the FAQ dealing with this. I turned on V-sync in game, but that did not work. I have not been able to find any control in system settings to force V-sync in general outside of the game. I have a Dell Vostro laptop with Intel graphics and Windows 7.

When I play, every few minutes the game slows down to a crawl and it uses up an large amount of my CPU capacity. Then after a few minutes the game returns to a playable speed. Also, the computer is warm to hot to the touch while running the game.

Please help!
Agent_L
Posts: 206
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2012 7:47 pm

Re: Computer Slowdown and Heatup

Postby Agent_L » Mon Oct 22, 2012 12:45 pm

Eldergias wrote:UPDATE: The game runs MUCH better in full screen. Perhaps someone could look into why it runs poorly windowed?

Everything (not only games) run much better in true, exclusive fullscreen than windowed. (Maximized window is still not fullscreen.) This is very simple: in window you computer has to process all other windows, desktop, etc AND the game, while in fullscreen it's just the game.
This is especially visible on poor hardware, like Intel gfx.

You computer probably overheats and then anti-meltdown mechanisms kick in clocking it down, hence the slowdown.
You can try giving it a proper airflow (most laptops have air inlets inconveniently at the bottom, which means they work best kept high in the air. Locate the inlet and make sure it's free form obstructions. My laptop is lying on 2 long boxes to suspend in high in the air. If this laptop is older than few months, it probably also requires cleaning from dust.).
CIA maps of Portugal Please God, don't let Portugal to go to war with USA!
6677
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2012 5:30 pm

Re: Computer Slowdown and Heatup

Postby 6677 » Mon Oct 22, 2012 9:12 pm

CPU warming on this sort of application is to be expected. Bare in mind that laptop graphics are rather underwhelming, especially the intel GPU's like you are using. In the case of fully integrated chipsets like yours the CPU is being used for everything including graphics so random slowdowns are to be expected.

If running in fullscreen is helping then go with it, and disable that V-Sync, it will be increasing the problem.

V-Sync synchronises the framerate with your monitor to prevent tearing and in the case of computers capable of ridiculously high framerates saves some CPU time/reduces heatup etc. Lets say your monitor is 60Hz/fps (most likely, 50 is also common for NTSC TV sets, PAL TV's are 59.9something I believe, 100 and 120 appearing on 3d monitors and high end LCD/plasma TV's and monitors). If the game cannot achieve 60fps then it goes for the next best multiple that is also synced with your screen, in this case 30. Still can't keep up? 20 and so on. It may well be that some sort of CPU slowdown is occuring (maybe even some sort of background task doing something) that causes the framerate to drop just below 60 at which point V-Sync kicks in and kicks you down the 30, but then theres some CPU overhead from your laptop suddenly changing fps so drastically so V-Sync is kicked into gear again dropping you further. It might take a few seconds to recover again. Disable V-Sync and it might improve the situation a little, if it doesn't make much difference then you can always turn it back on again.
Agent_L
Posts: 206
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2012 7:47 pm

Re: Computer Slowdown and Heatup

Postby Agent_L » Tue Oct 23, 2012 7:56 am

I believe that all V-Sync does is to hold the game (the presentation of a frame to be exact) if next frame is ready, but 1/60 of second have not passed yet. It may result in locking down to half of framerate if the game is consistently just below screen rate. Triple buffering takes care of this. (It's extremely rare for a game to have stable fps anyway, as time to render a frame jumps widely because of objects and effects coming in and out of view.)

I've never heard about the 30/20 FPS theorem.
CIA maps of Portugal Please God, don't let Portugal to go to war with USA!
Cactuschef
Posts: 40
Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2012 6:05 am

Re: Computer Slowdown and Heatup

Postby Cactuschef » Fri Oct 26, 2012 9:33 pm

Agent_L wrote:I believe that all V-Sync does is to hold the game (the presentation of a frame to be exact) if next frame is ready, but 1/60 of second have not passed yet. It may result in locking down to half of framerate if the game is consistently just below screen rate. Triple buffering takes care of this. (It's extremely rare for a game to have stable fps anyway, as time to render a frame jumps widely because of objects and effects coming in and out of view.)

I've never heard about the 30/20 FPS theorem.


it's sort of like that. vsync locks the framerate to either your monitor's refresh rate, or if the game is unable to keep up, to an evenly divisible fraction of your refresh rate (for 60hz this means 60/30/20/15/10) so that the game only ever draws one full frame per screen refresh. it's main purpose in most games is to prevent vertical tearing, i.e. beginning to draw a new frame halfway down the screen. for example if the game was running at 120 fps with a refresh rate of 60, every screen refresh would be torn halfway down the screen between the 1st and 2nd frame (this looks particularly bad in FPS games when you turn sharply, there will be a noticeable tears between where you were just looking and where you're looking now partway down the screen. in FTL it serves that purpose but also simply serves as a framerate limiter, as the game will attempt to run at uncessarily high framerates, which often causes overheating.

the new Frame Limiter option takes care of this however. I'd recommend just turning that on. you can spot tearing in FTL sometimes but given the game's 2d sprite nature it's not that distracting, and it can be difficult or impossible to get v-sync to actually kick in on alot of hardware (my guess is because it runs in openGL and not directx, and most methods of forcing v-sync only seem to apply to directx)
Agent_L
Posts: 206
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2012 7:47 pm

Re: Computer Slowdown and Heatup

Postby Agent_L » Sat Oct 27, 2012 6:56 pm

Cactuschef wrote:it's sort of like that. vsync locks the framerate to either your monitor's refresh rate, or if the game is unable to keep up, to an evenly divisible fraction of your refresh rate (for 60hz this means 60/30/20/15/10)

I'm 100% positive this is not the case (although 1/2 may happen as a side-effect without triple buffering).
All it does is to queue presenting of the back buffer:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... 85%29.aspx
This reminded me that disabling v-sync forces presenting from usually very fast flipping to somewhat slow copying of buffers. However my knowledge about making games is nearly 10 years old so I'm not sure if modern cards take as severe performance hit as they did back then. If any still does, built-in card operating on slow main ram would be prime candidate.

Bottom line: v-sync on + triple buffering for maximum efficiency.
And fullscreen, but that was clear from the beginning.
CIA maps of Portugal Please God, don't let Portugal to go to war with USA!
Cactuschef
Posts: 40
Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2012 6:05 am

Re: Computer Slowdown and Heatup

Postby Cactuschef » Mon Oct 29, 2012 2:26 am

Agent_L wrote:
Cactuschef wrote:it's sort of like that. vsync locks the framerate to either your monitor's refresh rate, or if the game is unable to keep up, to an evenly divisible fraction of your refresh rate (for 60hz this means 60/30/20/15/10)

I'm 100% positive this is not the case (although 1/2 may happen as a side-effect without triple buffering).
All it does is to queue presenting of the back buffer:

evenly divisible is the wrong way of putting it, but a natural consequence of enabling v-sync is that your fps will jump between fractions of your refresh rate. just try running any kind of benchmark with v-sync and an fps display. depending on how your card can keep up it'll do 60, then drop to 45, then 30, and so forth, whatever the next fraction is (if it's rendering at 47 fps it'll display 45, if it's 44 it'll display 30, etc)

[edit]i've done a bit of reading and apparently there is now a feature on some cards called adaptive v-sync which i am unfamiliar with, but apparently negates the 'fps stepping' issue. so if you're working with that, disregard.
Agent_L
Posts: 206
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2012 7:47 pm

Re: Computer Slowdown and Heatup

Postby Agent_L » Tue Nov 06, 2012 2:07 pm

Cactuschef wrote:evenly divisible is the wrong way of putting it, but a natural consequence of enabling v-sync is that your fps will jump between fractions of your refresh rate.
Well, if one counts FPS on just 2 frames then certainly the only possible rates are 100%, 50% and 0%. I assumed there is no sense in counting framerate in an interval that short.

Cactuschef wrote:just try running any kind of benchmark with v-sync and an fps display. depending on how your card can keep up it'll do 60, then drop to 45, then 30, and so forth, whatever the next fraction is (if it's rendering at 47 fps it'll display 45, if it's 44 it'll display 30, etc)
45 FPS on 60Hz monitor is no way 50% : )

Cactuschef wrote:[edit]i've done a bit of reading and apparently there is now a feature on some cards called adaptive v-sync which i am unfamiliar with, but apparently negates the 'fps stepping' issue. so if you're working with that, disregard.
Nah, I meant v-sync as it was 10 years ago.
CIA maps of Portugal Please God, don't let Portugal to go to war with USA!
Cactuschef
Posts: 40
Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2012 6:05 am

Re: Computer Slowdown and Heatup

Postby Cactuschef » Wed Nov 07, 2012 9:12 am

Agent_L wrote:45 FPS on 60Hz monitor is no way 50% : )

as i said, evenly divisible is the wrong way to put it. 45 is 3/4ths. to specify, the rates it will jump between are
60 (1/1)
50 (5/6)
45 (3/4)
30 (1/2)
20 (1/3)
15 (1/4)
10 (1/6)
6 (1/10)
and im not going to bother with 5 4 3 2 1

i may not have programming experience but i've observed this behavior in any game with v-sync turned on (i am ocd about having it on) for every game i've ever played in the past 20 years.
jr2
Posts: 16
Joined: Sun Jul 07, 2013 2:57 pm

Re: Computer Slowdown and Heatup

Postby jr2 » Tue Aug 25, 2015 4:03 pm

FWIW, I just went into my graphics card control panel and set application-specific settings for FTL, a lot of the settings are not necessary for simpler games like FTL and would only generate GPU usage (don't need 8x AA for FTL, do we??) and it seems to have cut back on the heat produced. So check those out. (I also turned off VSync, and in FTL, turned on framelimit).