[0.17.x] High spec - low performance, any solutions?

[Darkwhistle]

Hey guys,

I'm playing a 2 player multiplayer server that is steadily increasing and the dps starts to drop quite a bit now.
The server shouldn't be big enough to cause performance issues however, if he host the map on a similar PC specs he runs 60fps with ease and I can't keep up.
My PC is mostly idle and doesn't seem to make a lot of use of the available hardware at all, while I more and more get towards the 35fps range instead of the solid 60 I'm used to.

This are my specs:

Intel Core i7-4790K
32GB RAM 2400Mhz
2x980ti SLI setup
Factorio running on a
Samsung SSD 970 EVO (Nvmem.2)

I added some pictures in the attachment about the timings. Any tips, idea or things I could try would be very appreciated.

[Loewchen]

It's the standard "having lots of entities takes lots of time to simulate", you can use beacons with speed modules to reduce this if you are not already, but nothing shown here is out of the ordinary.

[Darkwhistle]

There is now way to push some more performance out of this? My PC is idling around quite a bit and my friend doesn't seem to have this problem (My cpu/gpu is stronger but he has faster RAM as he is running on DDR4 series ~3000Mhz) Might this be a ram speed limitation?

[Jap2.0]

The GPU is not at all a bottleneck; the FPS being limited by UPS. Is your CPU fully using one core? With 4 cores at 36% there's a decent chance that's the case. If you post a log and save someone might be able to help slightly, but it's largely a hardware limitation.

Edit (Loewchen beat me to it): Yes, ram can also be a bottleneck - there is some argument over whether single threaded cpu or memory latency (which is impacted by speed and bandwidth) is more of the bottleneck, but either could be the case.

[Darkwhistle]

I'm aware of the UPS yes, but my CPU is quite relaxed, see this new attachment, no core is fully used.
It could be a hardware limitation but this is quite a beefy computer and I don't consider this base "that large" compared to what I've seen. RAM speed could be this case, but is factorio really that demanding on this?

stuff

CPU_Cores.png (27.88 KiB) Viewed 2938 times

[Loewchen]

Nothing except getting new hardware will give you meaningful improvements in this regard, a more ups friendly playstyle (productivity modules, beacons with speed modules, mass solar/accumulator for power) is the most effective and easiest way to noticeably improve performance.

[Darkwhistle]

@Loewchen, I understand your point, but saying that I need new hardware without being able to point out the bottleneck is not helping. I will keep in mind that a lot of entities will slow down the game however.
Tomorrow I will try to play around with some XMP profiles to boost my maximum out of my RAM & latency, will update for the results after.

[Jap2.0]

I don't know if this is the case for you, but I have heard that sometimes the OS will take a single thread and vary which core it runs on, making it appear that all cores are being used equally even when only a single process is running.

[nuhll]

You can remove/deactivate polution, remove biters. Reduce rail signals, reduce belts.

You could use your pc as server (multiplayer -> host multiplayer game) (that is for us for a 2 player game a good solution) look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YnZL-r-ILY for our base (heavily modded, recording in 4k and 60 fps)

Same save on server didnt run good...

[eradicator]

RAM speed could be this case, but is factorio really that demanding on this?

Factorio is indeed known to be much more dependant on ram transfer speeds than most other games.
There were discussions on reddit (example) but i can't seem to find the "master thread".

[Darkwhistle]

Played around a bit with my ram timings & xmp profiles, overclocked a bit and found a significant increase in performance.
Case closed, factorio is just extremely RAM heavy.