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Mad Poster
#27 Old 18th Nov 2016 at 3:41 AM
(mumbles) There's always one in the crowd who is 1 Hz or 2 short of a full picnic. Or some such mixed metaphor like that.
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Mad Poster
#28 Old 18th Nov 2016 at 9:15 AM
There's always that one guy on his 1920x1200, 59Hz, 29.97 fps, $299.95 monitor. Always.

insert signature here
( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Mad Poster
#29 Old 18th Nov 2016 at 8:36 PM
The blog: http://simoluan.tumblr.com

I last talked to him in Decemberish 2014.

His main blog is still active though!

http://pepoluan.tumblr.com
Theorist
#30 Old 19th Nov 2016 at 8:21 PM
Quote: Originally posted by igazor
It's not entirely off-topic though, as the overwhelming vast majority of TS3 players are on 60 Hz flatscreen LCD monitors and, with the newer more powerful graphics cards out, need to know what fps rate to cap things at. And again, there are some exceptions but usually it's going to be 60 fps.

I'm pretty sure that TS3 is capped at 30 FPS. I read about it quite a few times.

I don't really know what kind of misunderstanding we have. I'm talking about refreshment rate on native resolution. For example, my monitor is Acer 17'', its native resolution is 1280x1024 and it works at 75Hz at that resolution, although you can set it to 60Hz, as well. I'm always using a lower resolution of 1024x768 (since the screen is small and a higher resolution makes everything look tiny) and it works at 75Hz at this lower resolution, although it can be set to 70 or 60 Hz. Are you talking about something else?

Anyway, I tried switching my monitor to 60Hz at various resolutions and indeed I didn't see flickering. So you're right, apparently the flickering was visually detectable only with CRT monitors.
Mad Poster
#31 Old 19th Nov 2016 at 11:44 PM
TS3 has no built-in frame rate limiter so without some help there is no fps cap. In 2009, when the game was released, most dedicated graphics cards on the market couldn't run away very far with frame rates even if they wanted to. This is no longer the case and why we strongly recommend vsync or some means to cap them to the refresh rate of the monitor or below, on those with dedicated graphics cards powerful enough to be a problem. Sustained excess fps rates beyond a monitor's refresh rate can cause graphics glitches, screen tears, lag, crashing, and be damaging to the card and the system board over time. My card is from 2011, it's capable enough, and I pretty much always get fps rates well over 30 whenever I check on it but not in the many hundreds or thousands like those with an overly powerful card would. Newer games, even TS4, tend to have built in fps limiters to account for the more powerful cards. None of this would be much of an issue for players on integrated graphics, but there is only so far one can push the game on those especially if the heavier EPs are in play (Pets, Seasons, to an extent IP, ITF).

Still not sure where the disconnect was coming from, but you cannot tell players on 60 Hz monitors to increase their refresh rates as the option to do so is just not there without buying a new and different kind of monitor. And on a laptop or a built-in like an iMac or its PC competitors, that's not going to happen. The surprising thing was that I've been helping players from all over the world with this game for years at NRaas and on the EA forums as well as (to a lesser extent) here and this kind of misunderstanding has never happened until now.

Resolution for general use or games I think becomes a matter of personal preference, I wasn't really talking about that. I can't stand it when higher resolutions on smaller screens makes things so small that I need a magnifying glass to see anything. There are those, often with younger and stronger eyes than mine, who prefer the tiny object and text views generally because of course they can fit more on the screen at a time. As long as they don't make me look over their shoulder to read anything, which makes me feel like I'm really old, whatever makes them happy.
Theorist
#32 Old 20th Nov 2016 at 3:01 AM
People, you hurt me by disagreeing No need to be so rude

I'm still puzzled, because they sell monitors with refreshments rates higher than 60 here everywhere. I initially wanted to buy a 120Hz one, but it was too expensive, so I settled for 75. I used to play Quake III Arena online, and there was a myth that it's best to play it at 120Hz (which was why I wanted it). Even professional players who earned money in tournaments said so. As far as I remember, they said there was some kind of delay that made aiming imprecise. In the game you absolutely had to use a command to set the game to120FPS, as well, otherwise you couldn't do some trick jumps, you couldn't jump high\far enough to perform them. But for some reason the in-game FPS and monitor's refreshment rate had to be the same, otherwise players complained about delay. I never really understood what kind of delay and what it had to do with aiming. Possibly it's like in case of high ping: you get a visual delay and your shots connect a millisecond later than they should've.

As for uncapped TS3, I guess I was misinformed. I read an article that stated how it's actually capped at 30 FPS yet the game is ignoring that cap and using more and then the article said that you need an FPS limiter in order to stop it from using more resources than it needs. *shrug*
Mad Poster
#33 Old 20th Nov 2016 at 7:43 AM Last edited by igazor : 20th Nov 2016 at 7:53 AM.
I don't have much (okay, I have no) experience with online first person shooter games like Quake III but I can see what they would have been talking about from the description. The formula changes significantly for that class of play and none of the sims games are like that; the simulation engine does not require split-millisecond responses from the player. Sorry, those waffles were going to burn and your sim was going to be late for work anyway. When I said the vast majority of players would be on lower refresh rate monitors, I did qualify that with by mentioning except for intense gamers and perhaps other specialty users. Maybe we are coming at this from different angles, but most people I know in real life do not play first person shooter type games or at least they aren't all that seriously engaged in them.

When we state something that is an opinion on a message board with feedback buttons, and that opinion isn't a very popular one among the audience, one should expect a certain number of Disagrees. Example:
"I think TS1 was the only decent sims game ever produced, in my opinion the others just aren't any fun at all and should never be played by anyone."

When we state something not as opinion but as facts that others feel are incorrect, one should expect even more Disagrees.
"George Washington was the King of England."
"TS3 will only run on Windows XP and Vista, I've tried it on Win 7 and higher and it fails. So no one else should even try, it's just not going to work and EA even told me so."

I'm sorry, but I can't really see how the feedback button users or any of the members on this thread have been rude or disrespectful. I think we've all actually been very patient and have tried to be helpful, but to be fair you were presenting some things as if they were accepted facts when such was not really the case.
e3 d3 Ne2 Nd2 Nb3 Ng3
retired moderator
#34 Old 20th Nov 2016 at 6:08 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Babahara
As for uncapped TS3, I guess I was misinformed. I read an article that stated how it's actually capped at 30 FPS yet the game is ignoring that cap and using more and then the article said that you need an FPS limiter in order to stop it from using more resources than it needs. *shrug*

I think that the game actually draws at no more than 30fps, but your hardware may allow you to render it at more than 30fps. This thread might help explain:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s....html#msg483468

Quote: Originally posted by J. M. Pescado
The game itself does not generate information faster than ~30fps tops, so drawing at higher speeds simply means pointlessly rerendering the same frame multiple times.
It's from the source code. The game itself has a simulator tick rate that is only so fast, running at ~30fps.
Theorist
#36 Old 21st Nov 2016 at 12:14 PM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
I don't know the actual technicality of it so I'm not disagreeing with people's technical arguments. I'm simply stating the visual difference is not a placebo. To this date, I can still see the difference with the fps off and I would notice the game slowed to 30 fps b/c of lags etc.. and turn on the fps and it confirms it.

How do you actually see FPS in your game?

And btw how do you check Hz? I play in windowed mode, and the option to set Hz is greyed out. I just assume it mimics the overall monitor's Hz, after all, it's windowed, so it makes sense that it would NOT be switching Hz every time I opt out of the game's window and then switching back .
Mad Poster
#37 Old 21st Nov 2016 at 2:17 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Babahara
How do you actually see FPS in your game?

And btw how do you check Hz? I play in windowed mode, and the option to set Hz is greyed out. I just assume it mimics the overall monitor's Hz, after all, it's windowed, so it makes sense that it would NOT be switching Hz every time I opt out of the game's window and then switching back .

Ctrl+Shift+C to bring up the cheats console.
Type fps on (enter)
To switch off the fps dislplay, cheats console again and fps off (enter).

You're right, in windowed mode there are no choices as you would be using the monitor's native refresh rate. But that's also why vsync, when used to cap frame rates, only works in full screen mode. The choices should show up on the Game Options window in full-screen mode also.

Switching between full screen mode and the desktop without running the risk of the game getting hung up and crashing in between trips to the task bar throughout play is a pain, but one gets used to it. Ctrl+Enter to switch back to windowed mode, then minimize the window. Maximize the window and Ctrl+Enter to return to full screen mode and resume play. At least that's the way I've been doing it for several years now. When Alt+Tabbing or the equivalent, my game would crash or otherwise get stuck on the task bar around one out of every 50 times and that became far too annoying. Apparently this is a common issue with app switching TS3 that way, though not sure it affects everyone.
Theorist
#38 Old 21st Nov 2016 at 4:45 PM Last edited by Babahara : 21st Nov 2016 at 5:01 PM.
Thanks! And so it turned out that FPS in my game is 106-107. Does it mean that it's overusing my PC's resources needlessly and I need to use a limiter to cap it at 30? Or is that good? I'm not entirely clear on that from discussion in this thread.

There was a quote from Pescado posted:
The game itself does not generate information faster than ~30fps tops, so drawing at higher speeds simply means pointlessly rerendering the same frame multiple times.

Could this mean that the game would actually run better capped at 30? After all, if it keeps redrawing the same frame, maybe it runs slower than it could. Especially at nights. I spend forever waiting for nights to pass because the third or fourth speed are both so incredibly slow. But that said, if the game automatically stops (?) redrawing the same frame over and over once it has something else to use the resources for, then capping it would make no difference.

Yeah I'm familiar with how many fullscreen games crash when you need to switch. Terrible! I had to play Oblivion in a window for that reason. Didn't know about Ctrl+Enter.

P.S. Btw above a person said that she could see a difference between 30 and 60 FPS. I cannot see a difference, to be honest, between when I used to play TS3 capped at 10 (!) on my old PC and the way it looks now at 100+. But I may be wrong, I'm not a visual person.
Mad Poster
#39 Old 21st Nov 2016 at 5:24 PM
The goal here would be to cap the frame rate at or below the refresh rate of your monitor. So that would be 75 fps unless you change the refresh rate being used in Options on full screen mode. Or your could try capping at 60 or even 30 if you subscribe to the theory above. I would start with 75 if that's the rate you are using and see how it goes.

I can't really see an obvious difference between frame rates that high either, the human eye can only detect so much. I think others are saying that the overall quality of play and smoothness might improve at say 60 vs. 30, not so much that many of would immediately notice a detailed difference but different players on totally different sets of hardware are going to get different results. I get ridiculously bad effects on game speeds 3 and 4 as well, at least in heavily populated worlds even when retreated to Map View, and try not to use those speeds. I think that's more a symptom of the game engine tripping over itself than anything else and, for all the benefits that monster script mods like NRaas StoryProgression add to many of our games, those would be contributing factors as well.
Scholar
#41 Old 21st Nov 2016 at 8:47 PM Last edited by ElaineNualla : 21st Nov 2016 at 9:01 PM.
nitromon I don't want to spoil the fun but in this particular case it's an exact example of "eye of beholder". There *may* be significant, or at last feelable (it's an actual word? hmpf) difference *if* the source is able to deliver additional data *and* the scene emphasises specific effects (*and* - in the matter of gameplay) the gameplay device/rule may give some advantage.

No matter how high rr you'll set if the actual animation scenario uses 10 frames you won't get more, thought certain technics allows to improve overall image of course (and thus: its reception) - solely modern implementations of shader programs on newest cards are able to produce a hudge difference in quality. Even if it's just an old outdated software.
I have met many artists claiming than particular high in price and specifications' area (rr too) monitors gave im serious advantages, from colours representation, obviously sharpness of image and smoothness of effects and animations. But they worked on dedicated software able to produce that difference.

Maybe I'm just blind or crippled but I cannot see *any* difference between my game in 22 (my standard) and 54 (unlocked) frames, with exception of less visual lagging in the 1st case of course.
And you realise these examples are from actual dedicated software able to produce much more visual (and different - have you ever seen any physics implementation in the Sims game ? ) data than any of the game iteration ever did, right? BTW, for real "feeling test" examples should be less stylised and represents exact the same scene rendered and recorded with two rr.

/*
and you lured me into researching these embarrasing sexists videos...
*/


favorite quote: "When ElaineNualla is posting..I always read..Nutella. I am sorry" by Rosebine
self-claimed "lower-spec simmer"
Theorist
#42 Old 21st Nov 2016 at 9:11 PM
There may be something to it, Elaine, otherwise why do PC gamers always complain at console ported games if they get ported with 30 FPS? I can't count all the times I've had to read complaints at various sites in comments. If memory serves, some people even created mods that unlock FPS.

I watched the videos and I'm not sure what to think. I can see the first video is a lot smoother and the second is kinda choppy, however, couldn't that be a result of different movement patterns? I'd have to see exactly the same dance to appreciate the difference.

Tried nitromon's method of zooming in close, it really affects FPS, and it's the only way I can see FPS at 130+, while in normal paused game it's only 106. I checked by moving the mouse all around in unpaused game, and it's rapidly jumping from between about 60 all the way up to 100+.

Nitromon, I've got gtx 650 ti. I thought our videocards would produce pretty much the same quality? Although maybe something else in your case is responsible for lower framerate.

Wow... I just tried fullscreen mod, and my FPS is so much worse! Paused game ~80FPS. If I unpause, it's jumping between 50-70 and even camera movement is visibly choppy! That's how much it lags.

Edit: And people 'disagreed' so many times over in TS2 forum when I once said that TS2 runs much better for me in windowed mode... Now imagine if I come back and tell them that TS3 runs much better for me in windowed mode, too!
Scholar
#44 Old 21st Nov 2016 at 10:03 PM
Well, they always complains about something, it's not the point

About what kind of consoles we talk about? Which generation? And which studio? And which game? The game on consoles uses completely different way to interact with player than a typical PC game, and used to be displayed on TV not a monitor. In different circumstances. And this is also why many ports in opposite direction are not the easy to do and often fails, even of they're originally not clunky. In the old days such port means always worse textures, overall worse efficiency and many limitations to deal with. Currently it's not really the case, just greed, incompetency and lazy, artificial programming likewise on the PC.


You're experiencing typical "chocking lag" - the game as a program is not really well designed - lets name it lightly - relies heavily on HDD transfer and it's unable to deal with significant amount of data. The point is to have *stable* not just *high* framerate. That's why many players lowers the framerate even below 30. It's not the RTS or FPS game anyway, you do not need more. For making pretty staged images RR does not matters much, and there're needed different tools.


favorite quote: "When ElaineNualla is posting..I always read..Nutella. I am sorry" by Rosebine
self-claimed "lower-spec simmer"
Theorist
#45 Old 21st Nov 2016 at 11:36 PM
Elaine, since console-to-PC boom started I've seen too many complaints to remember all games, but if I strain my memory, I can vaguely come up with two that were complained about with 99% certainty. Watchdogs and at least one of games in FF XIII series. I really wanted to know why it made such a big difference to people, but didn't want to look stupid, so I never asked.

Hmm, I really need to shut down TS3, limit the FPS and check if it still lags horribly at night. That's one drawback of running the game in the windowed mode: I tend to have it running for days on end! Still hadn't tried the mod I needed, just coz I'm too lazy to shut the game down and start it up again. I don't know why, but I hate doing this. Just as much as I hate restarting my PC. (And I really need to find a way to cope with this habit, my electricity bills are too high)
Instructor
#46 Old 22nd Nov 2016 at 4:04 AM
Quote: Originally posted by ElaineNualla
... the game as a program is not really well designed - lets name it lightly - relies heavily on HDD transfer and it's unable to deal with significant amount of data. The point is to have *stable* not just *high* framerate. That's why many players lowers the framerate even below 30. It's not the RTS or FPS game anyway, you do not need more...


yup.. I agree 100%, those are exactly where we need to understand and what to address.., to stabilize the balance in TS3 so the overall performance of the game improves..

I think in TS3.. when it comes to FPS, the only noticeable between capping to 30 vs 60 fps is the significant gpu's temperature differences, I don't know if the other TS3 players monitors their gpu's temperature when playing TS3 or not, but I personally do.., ever since I understood why my old GTX280 was cooked by TS3 and what kind of damages that destroyed it in about 2 yrs period playing TS3 without knowing that I was supposed to cap TS3's fps..

At the time before I bought my current GTX680 to replace my damaged GTX280, I temporarily replaced it with my old GF 8500GT card and run my old hybrid SLI configuration with GF 8300 that came from my old AMD motherboard (Asus M4N78-Pro), and capped TS3's fps to 60 with FPS Limiter, but the max GPUs' temperature was always a round 80-89 C even with an opened PC case, then I dropped the cap to 30 fps.. the max temperature dropped to 60-66 C, never even reached 70s C with 30 fps..

And that's why I personally capped TS3 only up to 30 fps after my GTX280 got fried and after I monitors what really happen behind the scene while TS3 is running with both 30 fps vs 60 fps, and that's why I also decided to get the GTX680 as its replacement instead of the newer GTX780 at the time (the GTX780 was just launched with similar price), because GTX680 has better (bigger and thicker) heat sink for its cooling system..

So compares to other games, TS3 has already had its own problem with its nature of the open world simulation game, it requires the players to understand why it's affecting the overall HDD performance, why it's slowing down from time to time, why it's lagging.. freezing.. etc (even without CCs and Mods), and why capping its FPS matter in its overall performance (not just preventing damage to the gpu).., because there is just simply.. no single answer.. that can answers "one and for all" for TS3 problems.., therefore the TS3 players required to understand all its problem so they can address how to fix them and how to fit the game to match their computer's spec and how the players need to adjust their playing style to play it so those problem can be reduced to the minimum level..
Theorist
#47 Old 22nd Nov 2016 at 5:51 AM
I have a program that monitors GPU but I don't know what temperature is too high for it. Right now it's 55C. It also shows 'core', 'memory' values, as well as 'fan duty', which is set only to 37% for some reason.

*facepalms* Believe it or not, but I thought that the fan duty it showed was the fan duty of all fans on my PC... Because I remember that the guy who assembled my PC set my fans not to work full-force in BIOS (or something like that). But now I realize that it's GPU's fan that it's showing the values for!
Instructor
#48 Old 22nd Nov 2016 at 6:26 AM Last edited by PapaEmy : 22nd Nov 2016 at 6:40 AM.
Quote: Originally posted by Babahara
I have a program that monitors GPU but I don't know what temperature is too high for it. Right now it's 55C. It also shows 'core', 'memory' values, as well as 'fan duty', which is set only to 37% for some reason.

*facepalms* Believe it or not, but I thought that the fan duty it showed was the fan duty of all fans on my PC... Because I remember that the guy who assembled my PC set my fans not to work full-force in BIOS (or something like that). But now I realize that it's GPU's fan that it's showing the values for!


Well.. in general or average.., most processor chips and gpu chips are likely to fried and died if they reached 100C, though not all of them, cause some have higher temperature and even lower temperature that could make their chips screwed.., what happened to my old GTX280, the GPU chip itself was ok, no damage to it, but the 3 of its VRAM chips got fried, that's why the last time I ran it, it still running but slow and lags/choppy even just browsing the internet..

So if you're looking for scale number, 100C is the average number for most cpus and gpus chips, and this is also why most manufacturer will void its warranty if the chips were found of being overclocked that caused the chip to failed, because with overclocking it's more likely for the chip to reach the 100C temp.., so if your GPU now is at 55C, then it would be considered in safe area..

As for setting up the fan speed from BIOS menu, that generally applies for CPU fan only (most motherboards), you can set them to maximum, optimal or quite depends on how you would like to use the computer, most of the technician guy usually set them to optimal.., because this can be altered by the user from their OS with additional software..

And as for the GPU's fan for PC, the users usually have additional software bundled from the GPU's manufacturer, they can try install them and use them to monitor the GPUs acitvity, or for Nvidia users, they can also use Nvidia Inspector to monitor and adjust their graphic cards, they can even overclocked it with it
Top Secret Researcher
#50 Old 23rd Nov 2016 at 7:17 PM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
At least that's what my laptop does. Desktops I can't say b/c they're usually custom built and I don't know if there are any temperature safeguards in place.


I have a desktop i7 and never could figure out how/where or if there was a setting to control temps. Sims3 is the only game I play and my systems temp rarely goes over 60C. However, as suggested above NVIDIA's Inspector comes in handy for monitoring FPS and temp. I have a NVIDIA 970 and have the temp set at 60C. Any higher, the fans go to work. For those who do not have the Inspector, there is a handy tool available to check your systems temp and health status.
Sarah_Sims over at NRaas has posted the following:
Quote:
Crystal Disk Info is a program that lets you check your hard drive's health status and PC temp. It's very simple to use and it will let you know instantly if your hard drive is failing. Here is the link for Crystal Disc.
Follow these steps:
Download the latest version of the Portable (Zip) file for the Standard Edition.
Extract the zip file into a folder, then double-click the folder to open it.
If you're using a 64-bit version of Windows, double-click the DiskInfo64.exe file. If you're using a 32-bit version of Windows, double-click the DiskInfo32.exe file instead.
You may get an "Open File - Security Warning" box come up, if so, just click "Run".
If your hard drive is okay, you should see a display with the word "Good" in a blue box.
If your hard drive is failing, you will see a display with the word "Caution" in a yellow box. This is the time to back up your data, make a System Image and/or clone your hard drive before it fails completely.
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