Low frame rate in multiplayer co-op campaign
 

Hi, I'm just having an issue with Men of War. I purchased the game and it's expansion through Steam, and I've run into an issue I've tried playing the game on two computers, and both times I've hit the same issue. It runs fine in single-player, but when trying LAN or Internet I hit a snag. On my quad-core desktop, a single core (the fourth) will spike to 100%, and the frame rate will fall to 30fps. On my dual-core desktop, neither the processor nor the graphics card will max, but I will still fall around 25-30 fps. Here are the two systems:

Desktop:
Intel Core i5-750 @ 2.67 GHz
BFG Nvidia GTX 260 Core 216
4GB DDR3
Windows 7 Professional x64

Laptop:
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.5 GHz (OC)
Nvidia GTX 260M
4GB DDR2
Windows 7 Home Premium x64


So far, I've been unable to find any solutions. Turning all of the settings down to bare minimum won't even work. I know the issue isn't hardware, as I have plenty of power on both, especially the desktop. Again, the issue only occurs in the multiplayer mode. The firewall is set to allow, the router (as far as I can tell) isn't blocking any ports, and the person I'm trying to play against has an almost identical desktop, save for a GTX 465, so they're not the limiting factor. Lastly, I've verified the integrity of the game files in Steam.

Any ideas for this? I find it strange that the game lays heavily into the fourth core on the i5, spreads evenly on the C2D, yet has the exact same issue on both. Thanks for any advice, sorry for such a long-winded post :-p

Windows 7 and Steam have obvious issues with Men of War. Could be bad internet?

This could be a conflict with other software you're running. Join a multiplayer game, alt+tab and check out Windows task manager and see if there are processes with extreme memory usage.

Also compability mode might do the trick

Thanks guys, I'll check now and see if either of those do it for me. As for the internet, I've got a 15 Mpbs connection with very little jitter, and the LAN is 1Gbps, so the issue definitely lies with my computers somehow. Will post shortly with my findings.

Hmm, had my friend look at his i5 machine as well (although he has it OC'd to 3.2GHz from 2.6). Runs his 4th core at max as well, processor is literally at 25% usage from the time the game starts. His performance is better, but likely the result of the OC. Having the same issue though. Here are some screenshots of task manager. As you can see, the other cores are being utilized, but not NEARLY as much as the last.


CPU Usage:
http://buvlwa.bay.livefilestore.com/...CPU.png?psid=1

Running Processes:
http://buvlwa.bay.livefilestore.com/...man.png?psid=1


Interestingly enough, the second mission (what with all the infantry and tanks at once) still runs flawlessly in single player, but over LAN/Internet we both have terrible frame rates (all the way down to <5fps in some instances).

Also, I tried compatibility mode, no dice. And while Steam is the second highest memory user, my RAM usage is still nowhere near enough to cause a problem. Does this game just have problems with the i5? We even have different motherboards, myself a stock Intel and he a mid-level EVGA.


Thanks again for the help.

Just taking a quick guess, the multiplayer engine probably can't handle or isn't optimized for multi-core CPU's (doesn't have proper multi-threading support), and because of that it can't use your processors' full power (3.2GHz). If it can only handle single or dual-core architecture, you'd be using (2 threads/cores x0.8GHz=) 1.6GHz of processing power.

*Minimum* is 3.0Ghz solo or 2.33 GHz dual-core... just my two cents, but if I'm talking bullshit, let me know!

Confirmed?
http://www.digitalmindsoft.eu/forums...p=83485#p83485

Uhm...
Read this:

http://tech.icrontic.com/articles/quad_core/

I have low fps issues as well and my system hardware definitely passes recommended requirements. I use Windows 7 and also have a quad core at 2.6ghz not overclocked.

Im going to alt tab while playing and look and see if its being limited to one core or what

Windows 7 does not pass minimum or recommended requirements.

I fail to see how Windows 7 relates to a dramatic fps drop. I have used XP with MoW and had the same results using windows 7. Also, many of my friends play MoW using windows 7, and say it runs perfectly smooth. Although their PC specs differ.

Windows 7 and Steam suck.

We are experiencing the exact same problems! Our systems are way above recommended requirements and though we are not able to play this game (especially while big battles) smoothly. Thats a shame! Is there somewhere a tweekguide out there?

Okay, so you've got that established now. I don't need to explain how "Steam sucks" isn't an answer. If the game didn't work fine with Steam or Windows 7, they hopefully wouldn't have released it through Steam (since around 1/3 of Steam users have Windows 7 x64).


Any ideas now? For the others having issues, have you had the single-core spike with multiplayer that I noticed?

I hope you have a receipt for Windows 7 then, more f****d up then Vista. Windows 95 is alot better then 7. Steam has ripped me off of more then $25, and they have so many problems with getting patches out.

As said, we have the same sort of problems. Right now we have no solution: If you can't fix it, you gotta stand it!

I still have not narrowed down to what the solution could be. Im really sick of 5-10 fps when a battle picks up. I've monitored each core and they all seem to be stressing the same, so i dont know.

I would like to confirm this issue, I am experiencing the same issue and I would assume many others are as well and are just not noticing the difference in framerate. It is probably much easier for us to tell because of the 60+ butter smooth fps in SP compared to the same missions in Co-op. I should also mention this is box ver. not steam. I am running a fairly high end system as well, this was also tested on my girlfriends pc.

My PC
E8500@ 4.5ghz
ATi 5870
4GB DDRII
XPsp3/W7 pro64

GF PC
E6750@ 2.66ghz
ATi 3870
4GB DDRII
XPsp3/W7 pro64

The problem seems the same regardless of XP or 7 so I believe that is a non-issue although I saw it brought up b4, just wanted to put that to rest.

Framerates measured with FRAPS using the last bonus mission's intro scene as a benchmark (The Trap).

SINGLE PLAYER PERFORMANCE ON MY PC

Final Bonus mission:

Scene opens: 41fps

Scene pans: quickly jumps to 60fps and holds at vsync

Scene pans to officer with Binocs: 33fps

Close up shot of riflemen running down road: 60fps

Allies confront German Trucks on road: 41fps

Once the cutscene ends I get an average fps of 40-60 with hardly any dips below 40 (38fps was min).

MULTIPLAYER PERFORMANCE ON MY PC (lan connect co-op same mission)

Scene opens: 38fps

Scene pans: 50fps

Scene pans to officer with Binocs: 18fps

Close up shot of riflemen running down road: 23fps

Allies confront German Trucks on road: 24fps

Once the cutscene ends I get a sporadic effect on fps with the 25fps lock bug coming into effect constantly as I move around the field requiring me to zoom all the way in to reach 60fps. I then can zoom out and look at the same scene at 60fps till I have panned around for 5-10 seconds and the fps plummets and locks at 25 again. This is so frustrating that I have stopped playing the campaign co-op, which is very sad as it was the most exciting aspect of the game for me.


SINGLE PLAYER PERFORMANCE ON GF's PC

Scene opens: 26fps

Scene pans: 38-40fps

Scene pans to officer with Binocs: 18fps

Close up shot of riflemen running down road: 34fps

Allies confront German Trucks on road: 27fps

Once the cutscene ends she gets an average fps of 23-40fps.

MULTIPLAYER PERFORMANCE ON GF's PC

Scene opens: 23fps

Scene pans: 25fps

Scene pans to officer with Binocs: 11fps

Close up shot of riflemen running down road: 17fps

Allies confront German Trucks on road: 18fps

Once the cutscene ends she gets an average fps of 13-25fps.

The drop in FPS during co-op multiplayer sessions seems to be linear regardless of PC horsepower. Both our fps avg's are cut in half during co-op sessions, and both our pc's display the 25fps bug much more frequently during multiplayer co-op. I should also mention that changing graphics settings seems to affect fps properly in single player but not in multiplayer, this could be due to surrounding issues related to the 25fps bug (Example:When stuck in fps bug changing settings will not improve framerate because u are stuck at 25.)

It seems clear now that this is not a problem with anyone's hardware not being up to snuff, but instead a failure in optimization on the devs part, either in the net-code or elsewhere. During these co-op missions the pc is rendering the same scene with the same number of units, we should not see this kind of performance drop even with any additional overhead required for multiplay.

I suggest more people run these kind of tests and post results, perhaps we can drive the devs to look into this issue and improve future performance in MOW multiplayer.

If anyone finds results contrary to this please post your results as well.

I happen to have a file monitor program that I used to use for modding very old games. It will tell you which files are being opened on your PC. I hope it will help.

How would it?