A common rant. I'm talking about the performance of the game. Yes, I know its Alpha, I've been here for quite long. But let me explain why this really matters even now: Eternal Crusade's Alpha is about finding the balance for the game's mechanics, according to the devs. Those who bought Eternal Crusade at these times are here not to "enjoy the game as a finished product", but "give feedback on the balance and overall gameplay of the game so they can change it for the better". Basically, they are building the core of the game right now. So optimizations are not on their minds right now. What does that create? The problem is, with each patch that adds something new, the already awful performance gets even worse. Even with all the settings tweaking for maximum performance, it gets harder and harder to play the game. And with that, it gets REALLY hard to test new features and carry out complex maneuvers of core gameplay. We need to be able to push the game to its maximum through the gameplay controls. Be able to carry out complex and advanced maneuvers, stunts, professional grade stuff that requires a great amount of skill. Truly exploit the system of all its potential. That's how you create core mechanics and make balances accordingly. And you can't do that with such low framerate. You want to test the new melee mechanic to its full extent? The low framerate and micro-freezes will make you either miss a move or do it twice by accident as you're not sure if the game received the input. Enemy charges from the most detailed/full part of the map and you're at the outskirts? Looking at them halves your framerate as you're rendering the entire map, while they only have you to render thus they have the advantage of having better input due to more framerate. Want to make accurate, long distance shots? You can't do that by default. If you make the settings low, the game will be pixelated and really eye-straining, thus its hard to see the target. If you make them high, the framerate will be too low for you to move the cursor onto the enemy properly. The settings options we were given are really really crude. It was an awful idea to put Render Quality option into the presets. So you have to go and edit .ini files, disabling literally everything you can except the Render Quality, just to have a highly inconsistent but generally higher, console-level framerate. And on top of all that, new updates sometimes reset your .ini changes so you have to do it again. My point is - we can't push this game to its limit of complexity with such performance. The devs don't factor in the low framerate, jitter and stutter when making combat mechanics. They think "Player 1 strikes, Player 2 can parry." But instead, what we have in the game is "Player 1 strikes, Player 2 stuttered and couldn't parry on time" or "Player 1 strikes, Player 2 parrys multiple times due to the input lag". The combat is based on split-second decisions. You have to be able to observe the enemy's moves very closely to make the proper counter. But when his moves are a bit better than those of a slideshow, with some frame skips, it becomes nearly impossible to fight properly, making tapping random moves more reliable. I entered this game with 40 FPS with all the performance tweaking. Nowadays, I get around 25 FPS. Even the players with best hardware get around 40 FPS. That means the game is ridiculously unoptimized. And for what cost? The game looks somewhat nice, but the visuals do not justify the price of the low framerate. For such low FPS I would expect to see ultra-realistic scenery and stunning graphics. Instead I get something I would be able to run with 250+ FPS if not for the almost non-existent optimization. 30 FPS is fine for consoles because it is usually consistent there, giving input a value. However, when the framerate fluctuates so badly, you get input lag, which makes it really hard to make accurate moves on time. Yes, this is Alpha, its not supposed to be competitive like Counter Strike. But you can barely play it casually too. What I would like the devs to do is - dumb down the graphics of the game as much as they can for the duration of Alpha and core gameplay adjustments. Let the game look not complex, but look solid instead, with adequate and more consistent framerate. This will allow pure focus on gameplay mechanics. And then, after that is set, they can truly focus on the graphics of the game, giving most of the effort on the visuals and optimization. Trying to do this together at the same time affects them both negatively. Visuals get made fast and sent out without optimization, causing the gameplay aspect to suffer. The effort spreads out thin, making it not enough for both aspects.
I have absolutely no problems with performance or lags. Crashes however... THAT makes it unenjoyable experience, but I'm sending reports constantly.
Me either. My only problem is my intial load into the game coming out of a vehicle. But other than that the game runs and looks great.
Frame rate drops and micro staggers are due to bugs in the code. As we play and test the levels and load outs the devs get feedback and are better able to track down the problem. It happens every couple of patches, especially when they add something new, and shortly after they locate the problem and start fixing it. Yes some of us are under the duel AMD curse and will have low frame rate until beta and optimization is in, but even at 20-30 fps the game is still testable and you can perform all of the actions. As the OP said it will be frustrating when actions delay or happen twice, but that is part of testing a game. The current Eldar fps problem will be fixed soon and we will all be able to test them (either as one or against one) with relatively decent fps. That is until they add the new map. Then the cycle will start all over.
The game is unplayable for me. Not performance (i7 4790k, 980 gtx zotac amp! omega, 16gb ram, win 10, 450 gb ssd) except some freezes from time to time. BUT THE CRASHES every 5 minutes are a REAL problem ..... Have stopped playing for now.
It seems the performance problems are very very specific. I have an AMD so yes there are problems as everyone knows. But as other people like Chaka have pointed out, it happens on Nvidia too, just not all models it seems. Perhaps they should look into fixing this? Or at least, leave a note saying "Do not purchase if you have an AMD card of the new Nvidia cards". Hell, maybe the problem doesn't even lie here. I think this really deserves attention. As for fps, 20-30 fps IS enough to test, but only if its constant. We have drops, ups and lows, and that's what creates the input delay, which makes it hard to test.
Yeah, it's weird, I can't pinpoint where some of the lag comes in, whether it be hardware (i5 3570k @ 4.5ghz, 16gb ddr3, gtx 1070) or server lag. While the upgrade to the 1070 REALLY improved the game, i still find micro stutters in melee and occasional stutters when JPA flies around-could be combination of code and server lag. Either way I agree w/ OP-I'd rather have 60 fps and derpy graphics, then inconsisten fps and pretty graphics.
Here's the thing. They can't optimize the game as whenever they implement something new, the game will "unoptimize" itself. It's complicated to explain but believe me that's how it works. They want to implement like A LOT of features before they do any optimizing otherwise it's futile, the development would last another year if they optimized the game now because #1 they'd have less time to release new content and #2 when they do it, they gotta optimize again, and delay the other new content.
I used to have lot of crashes. In my case the problem was due to the paging file. If the drive or the partion in which it reside is already filled it seem that the game tend to crash more frequently. At least in my case, moving the paging file on a more free partition have drastically reduced the crashes.
Define "more free partition". I have 700GB spare space on the one I have EC on(no SSD :foreveralone: )
