Optimization Changes

[Dovahkiin MasterHoe]

As we all know well late game Stellaris is almost unplayable due to the lag. Especially if there is a War in the Heavens. So far in all the Dev Diaries for this upcoming patch/expansion there has been no talk of major improvements in the Optimization area. As great as the added features look it would be really nice to enjoy them late game.

So are there any major improvements in this patch and if so could they be briefly talked about? I really liked how in the last HoI4 Dev Diary they went over the changes.

 

[Furleppe]

What's with all the people downvoting whenever someone mentions optimization changes? inb4 "buy better computer because game runs fine on my newest overclocked i7".

I mean in CK2 paradox delivered massive improvements and HoI4 team is also working on some so I hope Stellaris team will do the same.

 

[Gaen]

What's with all the people downvoting whenever someone mentions optimization changes?

Because there already was an active thread about it on the first page...

 

[dying0d]

Because there already was an active thread about it on the first page...

That I quasi- necro'd and doesn't ask to include them in developing diaries

 

[praftd]

What's with all the people downvoting whenever someone mentions optimization changes? inb4 "buy better computer because game runs fine on my newest overclocked i7".

I mean in CK2 paradox delivered massive improvements and HoI4 team is also working on some so I hope Stellaris team will do the same.

1.) The devs have already stated multiple times what the focus of this patch was and this question has been asked 1000 times already.

2.) Every single patch contains optimizations so there is no reason to expect any different with 1.5

 

[hlilje]

2.) Every single patch contains optimizations so there is no reason to expect any different with 1.5

Exactly

 

[Pyramid_Head]

It will hardly change until game will deal with hundreds of ships for every empire.

 

[Adamsrealm]

This game is cpu bottle necked, even with my i7 7700k it tends to lag late game.

Graphics isn't really an issue with stellaris, when I tested this with friends (12 of us) we all maxed our fleets with corvettes and it didn't really lag much, until we stuck the, all in a fight together. The most consistent/periodic lag seems to come from planets to be honest.

Stellaris has a max ram usage of 4gb, about 1.5 of that is taken up by cisual assets and another 400-500 megabytes by system data, excluding any running game sessions (which can easily reach over a Gigabyte).The ram wouldn't be much of an issue if it weren't for the lack of multi-threading optimisation (which I know is hard to do) but it would speed things up late game without a doubt.

 

[Knightroglycerine]

I wonder how performance will be affected by that new megastructure that gives sensor range over the entire galaxy.

 

[Adamsrealm]

I wonder how performance will be affected by that new megastructure that gives sensor range over the entire galaxy.

If they optimize them and remove the internal faces then they will Be ok, the textures may have to be optimized over time however.

 

[hadaev]

Exactly

And every patch my game lag, will be 1.5 different?

 

[SectorsAreOkay]

This game is cpu bottle necked, even with my i7 7700k it tends to lag late game.

Graphics isn't really an issue with stellaris, when I tested this with friends (12 of us) we all maxed our fleets with corvettes and it didn't really lag much, until we stuck the, all in a fight together. The most consistent/periodic lag seems to come from planets to be honest.

Stellaris has a max ram usage of 4gb, about 1.5 of that is taken up by cisual assets and another 400-500 megabytes by system data, excluding any running game sessions (which can easily reach over a Gigabyte).The ram wouldn't be much of an issue if it weren't for the lack of multi-threading optimisation (which I know is hard to do) but it would speed things up late game without a doubt.

Definitely with a doubt. Adding threads isn't some magical performance sauce. In fact, you can't "just add" threads. The program has to be restructured to do them. In software like stellaris, where everything must be synchronized, there will be a ton of overhead in communicating between threads, which negates the value of threads in the first place. I believe the devs have said that threads wouldn't add much value for those reasons and I'm quite inclined to agree. Maybe some calculations could be offloaded to a separate thread, but it probably wouldn't fix the battle lag issue (which is most certainly a graphics issue since it doesn't show up if you aren't looking at the battle).

I wonder how performance will be affected by that new megastructure that gives sensor range over the entire galaxy.

Probably nothing. The game already tracks that information as part of managing AI and player activity. Displaying additional 2d sprites on the map based on that info costs basically nothing.

 

[Adamsrealm]

Definitely with a doubt. Adding threads isn't some magical performance sauce. In fact, you can't "just add" threads. The program has to be restructured to do them. In software like stellaris, where everything must be synchronized, there will be a ton of overhead in communicating between threads, which negates the value of threads in the first place. I believe the devs have said that threads wouldn't add much value for those reasons and I'm quite inclined to agree. Maybe some calculations could be offloaded to a separate thread, but it probably wouldn't fix the battle lag issue (which is most certainly a graphics issue since it doesn't show up if you aren't looking at the battle).


Probably nothing. The game already tracks that information as part of managing AI and player activity. Displaying additional 2d sprites on the map based on that info costs basically nothing.

Any thoughts on the lack of a 64bit engine? You seem to know more than myself so I thought I'd ask

 

[SectorsAreOkay]

Any thoughts on the lack of a 64bit engine? You seem to know more than myself so I thought I'd ask

Wiz gave some reason for it somewhere. I think it might have had to do with the Clausewitz engine being 32-bit because it's been around a while. You can't just recompile game engines for 64-bit on a whim.

 

[Obsidian One]

I'm not saying i have a trouble at the late game (lag etc.) but it is very normal having those.There is more movements,buildings,ships etc. in late game so it will happen one way or another...

 

[ross-g]

Any thoughts on the lack of a 64bit engine? You seem to know more than myself so I thought I'd ask

It's been stated before that this wouldn't speed up the game... there is always so much mis-information surrounding "the game is slow because it's not 64bit".
ALL a 64bit engine would allow for is to address more than 4Gb of RAM, which Stellaris currently doesn't need... and could even make it marginally slower on older PCs because every single memory address the game uses will now be far, far larger.


As a really dumb analogy - imagine your phonebook suddenly became exponentially larger... you'd have way more people you could phone, but it'll take you much longer to dial a number and you'll still only be able to hold one conversation at once.

 

[SectorsAreOkay]

It's been stated before that this wouldn't speed up the game... there is always so much mis-information surrounding "the game is slow because it's not 64bit".
ALL a 64bit engine would allow for is to address more than 4Gb of RAM, which Stellaris currently doesn't need... and could even make it marginally slower on older PCs because every single memory address the game uses will now be far, far larger.


As a really dumb analogy - imagine your phonebook suddenly became exponentially larger... you'd have way more people you could phone, but it'll take you much longer to dial a number and you'll still only be able to hold one conversation at once.

64-bit does more than that. It adds additional registers and addressing modes, as well as some other features that can (but not necessarily will) improve performance. There is a cost with larger pointer sizes and sometimes larger instruction sizes. This can increase memory usage and affect cache efficiency.

 

[Avian Overlord]

But what about sectors?!?!?!?!

 

[redomer]

But what about sectors?!?!?!?!

Not really part of this thread but it was mentioned on the stream (youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-Z_L5aYvQI) that sectors have been rewritten and even show what they are doing and what they plan on doing.

 

[dying0d]

Wiz gave some reason for it somewhere. I think it might have had to do with the Clausewitz engine being 32-bit because it's been around a while. You can't just recompile game engines for 64-bit on a whim.

There is no gain from adding memory addresses if the game isn't using them. It's not beneficial to make the engine 64 bit until games need to access those additional addresses.

So far in my testing I haven't concluded much, won't comment on areas generating slowdown until more detailed information persists. Maybe the Devs know where the issues lie, maybe not. Still wish to put in some time and possibly help narrow down where the game starts bogging down processors