View Single Post
Join Date: Jan 2013
Posts: 44
# 1 Why did it start to lag at 50?
01-18-2013, 03:55 PM
So, I've been playing this game at maximum everything since I got it. Surely, the tech behind this game is so aged that it should never come close to troubling my GTX 470 (equal to 560Ti)

However, I always saw that my 470 was creeping eerily close towards top temperature even when idling in space dock. I opened up the card and re-applied thermal paste and got rid of the dust which made absolutely zero difference.

It never actually reached top temperature though, so I let it slide.

I've stumbled across a problem though.

Throughout my journey to vice admiral rank, I've done maybe 50 Starbase 24 runs. Never had an ounce of lag. In fact, I'm confident I've never even been below 60 FPS in this game.

Yet, suddenly, as I turn 50, I'm suddenly getting noticeable slow-downs (probably to around 40 FPS - adaptive Vsync, so it's not a halving) at random times in Starbase 24. It seems to be happening due to the amount of torpedoes that are loose in the zone.

It's a common mistake from inexperienced developers to make certain projectiles too GPU-intensive, and this seems to be one of those cases.

In addition, I can tell fairly easily that STO is not using nearly enough CPU power. It seems STO was developed with the idea that GPU technology would be evolving at a faster rate than CPU technology, which is an assumption that has been thoroughly pummeled to a pulp by Intel's strides in recent years.

My CPU, an overclocked to 5.06 Ghz Intel i5-3570K, should theoretically deliver enough geometry calculations to handle these projectile draws and trajectories with incredible ease, yet this rather crude game is not applying itself to take advantage of that. (In fact, the most cores it ever used was 2.)

I think, now that STO has been saved from oblivion and given a cash injection despite it's original failure, Cryptic should strive to correct their original errors in assumption to drive the technology behind the game towards an acceptable level.

Because, even if people won't be able to sue anyone here because of their thermal paste drying up at an alarming rate compared to other games, Cryptic's integrity - I hope - is of the calibre to take responsibility for their actions.

Last edited by mercurythefirst; 01-18-2013 at 04:07 PM.