The game UI's effect on hook5 performance

[bagavulin]

This was probably discussed in other places before, but at least for me I notice there is a huge difference in hook5 performance whether the game's own UI is visible or not.
I mean, when the game's UI is visible, i have ~60-70FPS and the GPU usage hovers around 60%.

Then if i hide game ui (ctrl-shift-G) fps jumps to 90 and also GPU usage jumps to near 100%. Also just closing the hovering customizer window has an effect on performance.

so it seems like all the game's UI elements are somehow "throttling" gpu performance.

I have nvidia 2080TI with latest drivers.

Anyone else see similar effect? I wonder if something could be done .. somewhere.

[x17]

Hmm, this is relatively odd ... do you mean also HOOK5 GUI, or only the game interface ? 

 

Cant say I experienced this ever, where the game literally lags because of UI. Honestly, unsure even how this is possible, the only way it comes to my mind is some big conflict within the scripts, but more possibly something externally clashing with game itself ?

[HDiddy]

I have seen the game lag with UI elements but that seemed to be mainly the performance issues noted with XMorphs

[ddman2]

open window to load a pose and it gets even worse.

[bagavulin]

On 5/9/2021 at 8:47 PM, x17 said:

Hmm, this is relatively odd ... do you mean also HOOK5 GUI, or only the game interface ? 

 

Cant say I experienced this ever, where the game literally lags because of UI. Honestly, unsure even how this is possible, the only way it comes to my mind is some big conflict within the scripts, but more possibly something externally clashing with game itself ?

I mean just the game interface.

Well, the game isnt exactly "lagging". I mean its completely usable, but if you just look at FPS numbers, etc. you see a clear difference.

i.e. 90fps <-> 60fps, both not super high, but its percentually big difference

I shouldnt have anything special like reshade or similar loaded so there shouldnt be anything. It seems that the biggest fps difference for me comes from the "floating customizer window"

Maybe you can check it as well if you just keep Hook gui visible (that shows you the fps as well) while toggling the game's UI itself?

My own suspicion is that the game ui is somehow interfering with how hook works, or something like that. May not be fixable by no other than pervok, if even he can do anything

Edited May 11, 2021 by bagavulin

[loki1968]

on my install it doesn't make any difference to fps ,i'm running a RTX 3070 though

biggest difference to fps is omni's and hairworks

[bagavulin]

16 hours ago, loki1968 said:

on my install it doesn't make any difference to fps ,i'm running a RTX 3070 though

biggest difference to fps is omni's and hairworks

interesting. maybe it then could be some mod i have or amount of stuff in activemod that affects it.

You're running VX 10.p as well? do you run in windowed mode?

[loki1968]

18 hours ago, bagavulin said:

interesting. maybe it then could be some mod i have or amount of stuff in activemod that affects it.

You're running VX 10.p as well? do you run in windowed mode?

yes same version,usually run in windowed mode

[googoo11]

I had the same issue.

After i have disabled vertical sync and enabled the 120 hz limiter, i now have constant high fps.

[onevision]

On 5/9/2021 at 10:43 PM, ddman2 said:

open window to load a pose and it gets even worse.

Too many poses in Community/Save. You should really thin their number, like using a mod manager to swap them in and out.

[bagavulin]

Yeah, in fact it depends also which "tab" in the customizer is visible.

if i have the clothing tab open my fps tanks (from 100fps => 70fps) (i have a ton of stuff in activemod).
so I guess the more content it has to "load" in the window, like dropdowns, the bigger the fps penalty, or something.

While for example "personality tab" does not affect fps much at all.

 

Edited July 4, 2021 by bagavulin

[MrOllyK]

@x17, @HDiddy, @onevision, @googoo11, @loki1968, @ddman2 and bagavulin:

You'll find that the game runs a busy-loop for testing gadget clicks and drawing the screen.  In main menu without "Limit to 120Hz" checked, my CPU (I don't have a GPU) runs at near 100%.  Checked it runs at around 12%.  The reason is with few gadgets on the screen being scanned for a click and refreshed, the CPU/GPU can go nuts refreshing the entire view (FPS) when it's done scanning clicks, but with 120Hz limit, a delay routine in the game engine's used to limit the FPS and therefore also the CPU/GPU load if it's not needed.

Unlike Windows OS gadgets/icons, each game GUI element is treated as an object, and the game windows alone are made of several elements/objects.  Icons are also objects etc.  This means that the more game windows/GUI elements you have open and also how many gadgets are available in the window tab for selection will incur a greater load on the GPU/CPU leaving less time and therefore less FPS that can be computed for refreshing the entire screen besides checking gadget clicks.  The more you have on the screen to draw the longer this takes and the more CPU/GPU required in a given second.  I hope this makes sense.. 

You might also notice this on slower machines where you have lots of detailed vertices that need to be drawn when camera panning over an area, such as detailed trees with many other objects.  If you're running Hook and require shadows be drawn properly on screen edge, the FrustumCull function in Options Manager will allow everything to be drawn behind the POV "frustum", however requiring more computation and therefore less FPS will be achieved.

[onevision]

I always had the limit enabled, without noticing. Lucky me

[HDiddy]

@MrOllyK so is the optimal setting for better FPS Vertical Sync disabled and Limit to 120hz enabled?

[MrOllyK]

4 hours ago, HDiddy said:

@MrOllyK so is the optimal setting for better FPS Vertical Sync disabled and Limit to 120hz enabled?

I don't think anyone needs more than 120Hz (FPS) but if that setting reduces your CPU/GPU workload then it'll run cooler and give background tasks more time to run.  I'd like a 30Hz setting but I bet it's hardcoded in the engine.  The only time I always get more than 30-odd FPS is at the main menu where there are few gadgets displayed and little extra work for the GFX to do refreshing the screen so it refreshes like mad in the busy-loop. the only place I find 120Hz setting useful.  I need a faster 'puter for better FPS everywhere else.. 

I find vertical sync enabled with fullscreen better as it virtually eliminates "tearing/ripping" of the screen playback when panning, especially over complex objects that are prone to slowing the FPS.  In windowed mode though vertical sync doesn't seem to make that much difference on my setup, but windowed mode is about the only way I can capture the playback to video file.

If your video captures are missing frames or some look like 2 different frames pasted one over the other you can try vertical sync on to see if it captures full frames better.

[bagavulin]

@MrOllyK youre right, thats interesting and nice to know!

So i tried, and using an external fps limiter (like what you can do with latest nvidia drivers) does the same trick as the 120hz-limit. what a weird engine..

and yeah higher fps isnt that important in the game, but it will help with motion smoothness naturally.

With nvidia cp you could limit the game down to 20fps. other option is 3rd party software Rivatuner Statistics Server. for AMD, there probably is something similar.

I'd also recommend always having v-sync on in this game. it limits the fps to your monitor hz and eliminates all "screen tearing" - it only increases "input lag" of your mouse/keyboard a little, but on this it naturally does not matter at all.

Edited July 6, 2021 by bagavulin

[MrOllyK]

2 hours ago, bagavulin said:

@MrOllyK youre right, thats interesting and nice to know!

So i tried, and using an external fps limiter (like what you can do with latest nvidia drivers) does the same trick as the 120hz-limit. what a weird engine..

and yeah higher fps isnt that important in the game, but it will help with motion smoothness naturally.

With nvidia cp you could limit the game down to 20fps. other option is 3rd party software Rivatuner Statistics Server. for AMD, there probably is something similar.

I'd also recommend always having v-sync on in this game. it limits the fps to your monitor hz and eliminates all "screen tearing" - it only increases "input lag" of your mouse/keyboard a little, but on this it naturally does not matter at all.

Thanks for that.  My onboard Intel onboard GFX is generally garbage and don't have much control over it, but most 'puter monitors have only about 60Hz refresh rate anyway, which is pretty much double what a captured video usually is.  The game's just got a very old engine that was designed for hardware 12 years ago.  At least it still works but some with Win 10 have experienced problems.  On Win 7 using this old Dell laptop things are pretty good, just no ability to use Hook as that bogs me down to about 3FPS just shadows only.

[mr_mOBSCENE]

On 5/9/2021 at 9:00 PM, bagavulin said:

This was probably discussed in other places before, but at least for me I notice there is a huge difference in hook5 performance whether the game's own UI is visible or not.
I mean, when the game's UI is visible, i have ~60-70FPS and the GPU usage hovers around 60%.

Then if i hide game ui (ctrl-shift-G) fps jumps to 90 and also GPU usage jumps to near 100%. Also just closing the hovering customizer window has an effect on performance.

so it seems like all the game's UI elements are somehow "throttling" gpu performance.

I have nvidia 2080TI with latest drivers.

Anyone else see similar effect? I wonder if something could be done .. somewhere.

I have the same problem, but when I use fullscreen mode everything is go back to normal. So, try it.

[arse22]

On 5/21/2021 at 1:17 PM, googoo11 said:

I had the same issue.

After i have disabled vertical sync and enabled the 120 hz limiter, i now have constant high fps.

Ahahahah yes, if youre are using vsync on anything in 2022 you must read about graphic settings again ASAP

[DavyBoyDJ]

It seems to take much longer for the splash screen to appear with Hook5, even without any add-ons.  Tried all the different game configs mentioned, though once the game is running, I don't seem to have any problems., strange, guess I can live with watching a blank screen for about a minute.  I'll keep pursuing the issue and post anything I might come up with.

Regards... Dave.

[Sexvision]

Fullscreen will make Hook run smoother so thats true. So try that.

What i have noticed making auto cubemap leveldefs is that everything that is added to the render will change the colors of the cubemap. This will give a fps drop when the recalculation is being done by the autocubemap. It is about a 5 fps swing on my 3080. Also things like clothing on or off will give a swing for a bit. This is caused by the auto refresh function.

You can make the swing in fps stop by setting a fixed cubemap. The swing will not be there anymore as the colors are fixed.

You may also want to check if autotexturing is turned of in the main11.fx that is not working very well. that will make a lot of diff on the fps counter.

Omnilights are very hard on fps. One omni light is the same 6 till 7 spotlights. So try spotlights if you can. On omni lights stenght does make a diff on fps a lot, so you could also play with that.

Try to get the most light from the cubemap so you dont need to set the spotslights so high will help out also.

@DavyBoyDJ the blackscreen you are seeing is because the hook objects need to be loaded. For hook 5 rooms that is the time the actual room is being loaded.

 

[DavyBoyDJ]

4 minutes ago, Sexvision said:

Fullscreen will make Hook run smoother so thats true. So try that.

What i have noticed making auto cubemap leveldefs is that everything that is added to the render will change the colors of the cubemap. This will give a fps drop when the recalculation is being done by the autocubemap. It is about a 5 fps swing on my 3080. Also things like clothing on or off will give a swing for a bit. This is caused by the auto refresh function.

You can make the swing in fps stop by setting a fixed cubemap. The swing will not be there anymore as the colors are fixed.

You may also want to check if autotexturing is turned of in the main11.fx that is not working very well. that will make a lot of diff on the fps counter.

Omnilights are very hard on fps. One omni light is the same 6 till 7 spotlights. So try spotlights if you can. On omni lights stenght does make a diff on fps a lot, so you could also play with that.

Try to get the most light from the cubemap so you dont need to set the spotslights so high will help out also.

@DavyBoyDJ the blackscreen you are seeing is because the hook objects need to be loaded. For hook 5 rooms that is the time the actual room is being loaded.

 

Ah nice, thanks Sexvision...  Thanks for the info.  I've copied your text over in my notes and will give this a try!

Cheers... Dave!

 

[HDiddy]

2 hours ago, DavyBoyDJ said:

It seems to take much longer for the splash screen to appear with Hook5, even without any add-ons.  Tried all the different game configs mentioned, though once the game is running, I don't seem to have any problems., strange, guess I can live with watching a blank screen for about a minute.  I'll keep pursuing the issue and post anything I might come up with.

Regards... Dave.

This is normal with Hook5...it takes about 1 minute to get from the launcher to the Main Menu.  @pervokpetr had mentioned this before that it has something to do with Windows 10 as the issue does not happen in Windows 7.

[DavyBoyDJ]

8 minutes ago, HDiddy said:

This is normal with Hook5...it takes about 1 minute to get from the launcher to the Main Menu.  @pervokpetr had mentioned this before that it has something to do with Windows 10 as the issue does not happen in Windows 7.

I see, thanks Admin.  Yeah, I recall not having problems on W7 & was subscribing to Hook5 until I had a break from TK17.  On Win10 now, and just thankful I'm not having any other issues anyway.