Hi all, I remember Matt mentioning that there wasn't really a business case to introduce Frame Gen/DLSS into TSW as it's CPU bound and not GPU bound therefore you would likely see little to no improvement. I have just had a play on my system which I know is a little odd and not the prototypical gaming system (will post specs below) but I seem to be getting not too heavy CPU use (around 30%) and high GPU use (in the region of 70-80%) Now being on PCI-E 3 still with my card might explain the GPU not being used in a full grip it and rip it manner, but my CPU seems rather chill, with no individual cores getting used too hard and even my SSD not taking a battering. Do other people find that the game is GPU bound or CPU bound on their rigs and what specs do you run? My PC: Ryzen 9 5950X, 128GB DDR4-3200, RTX 5080 and a boat load of nvme storage. I run the game at Ultra in 4k with no mods and get anything from 50-80fps with no vsync enabled on the Riviera line. I only have a 60fps monitor but would like to upgrade to a nice G-Sync 120FPS+ monitor at some point.
I have an i9 intel and 6700XT GPU, 32 Gb Ram, 1.8TB NVME on PCIe4. I get 30% CPU, 80% GPU, 50% Memory... So, much the same..... Although nothing appears to spike, I get random GPU percentage and FPS drops. So yeah, bit odd that it's "CPU bound"... I guess you have to say something if you don't know how to fix the issues.... UE 4.26... What control do DTG possibly have over the way UE works... Matt said they are essentially UE developers, but can you actually change how UE uses GPU and CPU resources?
After looking into it it could be that the CPU is suffering from some main thread issues. DX12 seems to alleviate that a little. I don't think you can change how UE uses resources, but I do wonder if DLSS3 is something that could help us out a little here.
Then on this issue Matt is simply mistaken. Software frame generation (the Lossless Scaling utility) makes all the difference on my old machine - definitely GPU-limited - between smooth mostly-60, and slideshow.
Any CPU-bound issues I had on DX11 were completely resolved with DX12. It also cut down the stuttering a lot as well, but sadly not resolving it entirely. For areas with heavier scenery or more complex track work (like the Frankfurt area) where fps usually struggles, Lossless Scaling is great, but the problem is that stutters and even micro-stutters create these odd visual artifacts… You get image distortion and this very strange blurriness, and it’s even worse in spots where the fps is already low and the game is hitching on top of it. It’s a great tool, but it can only do so much. Sometimes I’d rather just deal with the lower fps and hitching than experience the visual side effects LS produces. A much better optimized game with the ability to correctly and optimally use HARDWARE based frame-gen has my vote at the end of the day.
Although your PC spec is good enough your CPU is getting on a bit and your RAM is pretty low speed in todays world. Your GPU is excellent so Im not surprised that you are not GPU limited. Personally, before upgrading your GPU I would have upgraded the CPU and RAM if your motherboard could handle it.
To upgrade my CPU and RAM would cost me a small fortune, it would be a new platform, so a new motherboard too - but given that I go for the high core CPUs and high amounts of RAM due to the computer's use as a workstation as well as a gaming machine, the motherboard would be the cheapest part of the upgrade by far, and in fairness - the CPU and RAM do everything that I want except for a little perf in TSW 6
You can't identify a CPU bottleneck by looking at the CPU usage. It only takes one thread to max out to be CPU bound. We covered how to identify a CPU bottleneck in more detail here: How Do I Optimise My PC for the Best Performance?
Your best option would be to lock the frame rate to 60 FPS. An unlocked frame rate is inherently more variable and therefore less smooth.
I have been paying more attention to what is happening on my rig while playing. Sure enough, using the intel app from the link Chris posted I have identified that I am in fact getting a CPU bottleneck... Which starves the GPU and Presto hey, stutter and or FPS drops... Bottom line the game is pushing too much data through individual parts of the CPU and is unable to spread it to areas not being pushed. So despite only 30% of my CPU being used, the game stutters... So, I'm going out on a limb and I try one last thing, I'll invest in the best CPU available for my Mobo... If that cannot resolve the issue then I'm lost. I've spent thousands of pounds on my rig, peripherals, the game, and DLC... And it plays terrible... To add insult to injury, this is my worst performing game, and the game I've spent the most money on.... I even ditched my 4k monitor thinking 1080 was going to help, nope! For the Devs to note, 2 things often happen when I get FPS drops, I pass another train, or the AP score updates... It doesn't always drop frames, but when frames drop, one or the other happens... My Current CPU i9-10900 CPU ordered i9-11900KF
I have not read this entire thread, so forgive me if this has been mentioned, but just because you see a CPU usage of only 30% it does not mean that the game you are playing is not CPU-bound. Depending on how you are monitoring your CPU use, it normally is a reflection of the CPU capacity as a whole. That is to say, it is telling you that you are using 30% of your total capacity. In your case, your total capacity is 16 cores. However, if you are using a game that can only use 1 core due to the nature of how it's been built, it will be thrashing your one core to its maximum, whilst not really using much of your CPU's total capacity. This will still be a CPU-limited scenario, and, from our perspective, there are only 2 ways around that. More IPC and higher clock speeds on a CPU, or changing the game engine to utilise more cores. There are other, more nuanced realities relating to this and even multi-core usage that can still mean you are CPU-bound when you may think you're not but I won't go into them here. Having said that, in the interest of clarity, the idea that there is no point in introducing Frame Gen/DLSS/FSR into the sim because it's CPU-bound is arrant nonsense that sounds like chicanery. It should be there regardless for all sorts of good reasons. I myself am using the driver-based implementation of AMD's Fluid Motion Frames on my 9070XT exactly because there are clear and obvious benefits to doing so in this sim. However, this sort of tech is only good when one can maintain a decent frame rate to begin with. I wouldn't use it if I couldn't maintain 60 FPS without drops, or this tech starts to add too much lag, and it looks terrible. Though input lag isn't an issue with this game. Frame gen needs consistent and decent frames.
