Surprisingly low fps on gamin PC?

[orangebiscuit]

Hi,
I've been a big fan of minetest since the very early builds and have admired the excellent framerate on ever PC I've ever installed and played minetest on.

However, I bought a new PC (intel I7 4790, Nvidia GeForce 770) and am only achieving on average 35 fps?

Any help muchly appreciated,

OrangeBiscuit

[Dopium]

Up to date drivers? Also are you using any configuration settings?
I use these settings

Code: Select all

wanted_fps = 60
fps_max = 60
viewing_range_nodes_min = 100
viewing_range_nodes_max = 100
vsync = true

vsync helps if you get erratic fps

[rubenwardy]

For some reason Minetest runs better on lower range computers - I get 60 fps on my Pentium series, integrated graphics, 4gb ram computer. It may be because minetest is almost entirely CPU based, and doesn't utilise the GPU as much as other games do.

[orangebiscuit]

Up to date drivers? Also are you using any configuration settings?
I use these settings

Code: Select all

wanted_fps = 60
fps_max = 60
viewing_range_nodes_min = 100
viewing_range_nodes_max = 100
vsync = true

vsync helps if you get erratic fps

Where would I paste this? Thanks for the help!

[orangebiscuit]

For some reason Minetest runs better on lower range computers - I get 60 fps on my Pentium series, integrated graphics, 4gb ram computer. It may be because minetest is almost entirely CPU based, and doesn't utilise the GPU as much as other games do.

Ah, thank you very much!

[Dopium]

Where would I paste this? Thanks for the help!

In your main minetest folder you will see two files minetest.conf and minetest.conf.example. Open up the minetest.conf file with a text editor and enter those settings, also make sure to save the file :).

[Gael de Sailly]

… and am only achieving on average 35 fps?

For me 35 FPS is amply sufficient. Videos usually have 30 FPS, cartoons are around 20-24, or even 12.
I play with around 15 FPS and a viewing range > 200 (sometimes 400). That's enough for me !

[rubenwardy]

The difference between games and videos is that with games you are interacting with the images, so you notices FPS more. I can tell if a game is below 50fps.

[Sokomine]

It depends a bit. Construting a house or going on a mining tour works fine with 15 fps. Pillaring up and looking at a huge amount of scenery from above - in combination with turning around - requires more fps.

[Gael de Sailly]

I play MinetestForFun, a server on which mobs are very dangerous. I try to have at least 12 FPS when fighting a monster (but I prefer to run away because I'm very… fearful !). Above 20 FPS I can't see the difference. But when I explore a world on a server that don't have mobs (like VE-Vanilla) or in singleplayer, it's not a problem for me to have 5 FPS, with a viewing range of 500 ! :D
And even more when exploring a cave from Caverealms : they are so huge that I tweak the viewing range to 800 to see them completely !!!

You're allowed to say that I'm strange :p
And don't worry about my sight : all is well. It's by increasing the VR to see more landscapes that I got used to play with low FPS.

[Dopium]

Gotta add my two cents in regards to the claim of "human eye can't notice beyond 24 fps". I know it's a controversial subject that's been debated for a very long time however i easily notice shutter with anything below 50fps aswell.

I am no guru when it comes to frame rates but even watching videos @24 it can frustrate me to the point of loosing interest because of the shutter i see then i begin to focus on it throughout the movie. With still camera shots there is no real issue yet if they pan the camera over a city for example in a horizontal motion i see a very choppy picture, looks almost like i can see every frame even though that probably not be the case.

Video games a steady 60fps or more i can't notice any shutter, but anything below 30 starts to become somewhat unplayable especially with first person shooters. No idea why and it maybe the spokes of a spinning wheel effect i see but it's frustrating.

Must be different from one person to the next however wish i didn't notice

[Gael de Sailly]

The human eye captures one image every 0.02 seconds, that's 50 FPS. It could explain what Rubenwardy said.
There is another phenomenon : persistance of vision. Every picture stay in our vision during around 0.05 seconds (it can vary). So, 2 or 3 successive images are mixed, so as of 20 FPS it can be acceptable for movies.

But our brains have not the same way to read these images. For me, it may be caused by autism, I perceive differently my environment, I have a high reaction time but a good vision of details. And simply, I'm used to play with high VR and low FPS.

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Let's come back to the topic. There may be an optimization problem. I don't dare to look the code of the drawing step. How is it drawn, precisely ? I guess it draws all of the visible nodes, one by one.
I think you've already noticed that most of video games takes place in rather closed worlds, with small viewing range. Very often there are walls that separate different parts of the world, to restrict VR. This is not the case of Minetest, and that's a part of the problem. Could it be possible, for example, to reduce quality for far objects ?

[rubenwardy]

Afaik, Minetest turns nodes in a 16x16 area into a mesh. Only the visible edges are drawn when drawing the mesh. And only visible mapblocks (16x16 areas) are shown.

If it rendered nodes individually, you wouldn't get above 1 fps.