Poor Frame Rate - Very Poor

[Skuzzy]

What you are describing now sounds like the CPU being taken away from running the game, or you are on a wireless connection and it is getting a higher than normal bit error rate.

[Bizman]

Although your processes count is as low as 45 or so, you might want let us see what you have running. Simply copy and paste the following line in your Search Box, Run Box or cmd, whichever you like and you should get a text file named "process" on your Desktop.

wmic /output:%userprofile%\desktop\process.txt process get description,executablepath

Other than that, I recently noticed my frame rate going to single digits on the Italy map we were practicing on for the oncoming scenario. Usually my FPS is a solid 59. There seems to be spots which are heavy loaded with stuff while other similar looking places don't produce any issues.

Skuzzy, is it possible that several terrain tiles or other elements could exist one over another, all being calculated but only one being visible? That's how it felt like when strafing Italy A 50, no flames, no furball, no planes near. Actually I could reproduce it a minute ago, A50 being a friendly field with no action at all! The lowest count was 4, the highest 60.

[Skuzzy]

My work box.  The SQL stuff is related to SourceSafe and Vegas Pro.
----------------              
System Idle Process                                                  
System                                                                
smss.exe                                                              
csrss.exe                                                            
csrss.exe                                                            
wininit.exe                                                          
winlogon.exe                                                          
services.exe                                                          
lsass.exe                                                            
lsm.exe                                                              
svchost.exe                                                          
svchost.exe                                                          
svchost.exe                                                          
svchost.exe                                                          
svchost.exe                                                          
svchost.exe                                                          
svchost.exe                                                          
svchost.exe                                                          
spoolsv.exe                                                          
svchost.exe                                                          
svchost.exe                                                          
sqlservr.exe                                                          
sqlbrowser.exe                                                        
sqlwriter.exe                                                        
svchost.exe                                                          
taskhost.exe         C:\Windows\system32\taskhost.exe                
dwm.exe              C:\Windows\system32\Dwm.exe                      
explorer.exe         C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE                          
RAVCpl64.exe         C:\Program Files\Realtek\Audio\HDA\RAVCpl64.exe  
svchost.exe                                                          
dllhost.exe                                                          
msdtc.exe    
WmiPrvSE.exe                                                          
-------------------
Custom objects on terrains are very CPU intensive, right now.

[Bizman]

Thanks for sharing your list, Skuzzy! Mine looks the same without the sql stuff but with the addition of two Avast lines. I find this very supportive. 

Also thanks for the explanation of custom objects being the culprit. Must be some bumps and humps hidden under the radar tower causing those single digits!

[neodad]

Skuzzy,

I am using a wireless connection.  How would I check the bit error rate?

[Skuzzy]

Ahhhhh.  It depends on your connection.  Some provide utilities for checking those things.  Most do not, as they do not want you to know about it.

Two things you need to know about wireless connections.
1)  They are prone to bit errors.  You cannot stop it.  It is the nature of the beast.  When a bit error occurs, the TCP protocol will retry the packet until it comes through clean or timeouts (really long time).  In a real time game this is going to manifest as pauses and/or warping as location packets for objects are not coming in at regular intervals.

2)  Wireless connections are half-duplex!  In a wired connection, you can have packets coming and going at the same time (full duplex).  Wireless only allows one packet between points (your computer and the router) at a time.  It can be coming, or going, but not both.  This introduces potential for collisions which is an error condition causing a retry.

In both cases, any error on a UDP packet will cause that packet to be lost.  We use UDP for voice comms, for example.  It is a low overhead stateless protocol.  A send and forget type of thing.  But on wireless, it is problematic.

If the wireless connection is suspect, if you can directly connect to the router (I am assuming your wireless is local and not your actual Internet connection), this will verify the wireless is the problem, or not.