FGU eating CPU

[gurwall]

Hi,

I recently get my ultimate FGU licence. I did acquire it because My Starfinder rule set was broken with a recent update and all automation did not work anymore on FGC. Ok, with FGU it works fine. Let's close my eyes on that (don't know if it's Paizo to blame).

Start playing a bit with FGU, loading modules, creating campaign. simulate a game with a second connection, and I was really surprised how FGU was eating my cpu... I run it under linux.

Let's give it a try with windows 10 and a more recent computer. The same! So I can run FGU and roast a toast! My cpu usage never goes below 30 % on my Core I7 linux computer (which is not recent I agree) and never below under 25 % on my recent core I7 windows 10 computer.

I can run other games on both computers without such intense cpu usage (Baldur's gate, never winter night, Shadowrun for example).

Is there any optimization I can tweak on my side ?
Are there any optimizations on the dev road map ?

Regards.

[bmos]

Definitely isn't Paizo to blame, they have no involvement in the ruleset development.
Unity is much 'hungrier' than Classic as Unity is a game engine. Laptops especially seem to have a hard time with LOS especially (one of my players is having heat issues with his laptop that was OK with Classic).

[gurwall]

Sounds like bad news... Don't even know if I can get a GPU involved in the FGU set up. But it seems a bit insane at this point.

Thanks for your answer.

[bmos]

Sounds like bad news... Don't even know if I can get a GPU involved in the FGU set up. But it seems a bit insane at this point.

Thanks for your answer.It's not quite that simple, as some low-power computers actually handle it pretty well. From my experience working on laptops, a lot of it probably depends on how robust their cooling systems are (some companies really underbuild their heatsinks). If constant load below 50% makes your computer unusable, it's quite poorly designed or there is something wrong!

My Win10 desktop has a GTX960 (mid-range GPU from 5 years ago that is substantially less powerful than a last-gen GTX 1650 which is only $145 new or cheaper used) and it barely spins up its fans under FG Unity's 70% load. My CPU is an Intel i5 10400 (lowest mid-range current gen Intel CPU @ $180 new) and it's under 20% even when I frantically drag tokens around with LOS turned on).

[gurwall]

Yes I understand your point, but my computers are not so bad. My Tosiba laptop is really well designed and my windows computer is a intel NUC skull which is not bad. But I could try with another computer on which I played Doom a while ago

[LordEntrails]

Laptops, when used as lap tops often get their ventilation clogged with fluff from blankets, clothes and other fabric. Get canned air and blow them out regularly. If you can't see their the ventilation slots with a light, air certainly can't get through. You might even have to take it apart if it's gotten too clogged.

[gurwall]

Laptops, when used as lap tops often get their ventilation clogged with fluff from blankets, clothes and other fabric. Get canned air and blow them out regularly. If you can't see their the ventilation slots with a light, air certainly can't get through. You might even have to take it apart if it's gotten too clogged.

oh yes, but the real problem is still FGU that is overloading the CPU

[bmos]

I think that the stated "minimum requirements" (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?50373-FGU-Early-Access-Overview-and-Download) would benefit from a little more clarity on how intensive Unity is (as many people try it very optimistically on equipment that is inadequately cooled).

oh yes, but the real problem is still FGU that is overloading the CPU30% load is not overloaded. 100% load is not overloaded.
> 100% load is overloaded. By definition.

[gurwall]

I think that the stated "minimum requirements" (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?50373-FGU-Early-Access-Overview-and-Download) would benefit from a little more clarity on how intensive Unity is (as many people try it very optimistically on equipment that is inadequately cooled).
30% load is not overloaded. 100% load is not overloaded.
> 100% load is overloaded. By definition.

ok for that precision.
Still that I was far away to ever think that FGU would have consumed such CPU for what it does. But you told me that it is Unity to blame.

[LordEntrails]

One of the senior Devs put it something like 'Unity is an engine designed to draw as many graphic frames as possible given allowable resources." Meaning that by default the program will try to use everything a computer has to redraw the window as often as it can. The devs have changed some settings so that FGU does not use as much CPU as it otherwise would (some folks were reporting 800% CPU load!).

Right now it sounds like anything under 40% is acceptable and not something they are actively working. But, I'm sure in the future they will be interesting in improving that if they can. But they will need to know specifics including FG and system logs as the 800% issue ended up being due to a very specific issue in just a small number of Mac computers and not something generally seen by any dev systems or most users. (Hence the purpose of an open beta.)

[gurwall]

...(some folks were reporting 800% CPU load!)...

OMG!!! in that condition I must admit that dev team already did a great job to setup FGU.

[gurwall]

... (some folks were reporting 800% CPU load!)...

OMG! In that condition I must admit that dev team already did a great to tune FGU.

[bmos]

One of the senior Devs put it something like 'Unity is an engine designed to draw as many graphic frames as possible given allowable resources."
If this is true, it would suggest some good workarounds.
gurwall, it might be worth checking your framerate (you can get that with windows key + g in Windows 10). If it's over 60 you could find a way to implement a frame cap to save wasted processing power. Even above 30 would be hard to notice except when using effects layers or dragging windows very quickly.

EDIT: Unfortunately, I see a constant 60FPS, so perhaps that only gives a good reading for fullscreen programs.

[LordEntrails]

I believe FGU is capped to 60 fps, one of the devs initial performance settings. Though most windows don't need that refresh rate, die rolling certainly does :)

[gurwall]

If this is true, it would suggest some good workarounds.
gurwall, it might be worth checking your framerate (you can get that with windows key + g in Windows 10). If it's over 60 you could find a way to implement a frame cap to save wasted processing power. Even above 30 would be hard to notice except when using effects layers or dragging windows very quickly.

EDIT: Unfortunately, I see a constant 60FPS, so perhaps that only gives a good reading for fullscreen programs.
I had a rate at 59 and I decreased it to 50. My CPU usage dropped from 25% to 15%... Awesome trick bmos

[Sulimo]

OMG! In that condition I must admit that dev team already did a great to tune FGU.

The 800% thing is a macOS nomenclature I think, basically just the way macOS reports CPU usage.

I think macOS treats each core of a multi-core system as each core capable of 100% usage, so a four core system could go up to 400%, or possibly 800% depending on how macOS handles Hyper-threading. While I have played around with Macs, I do not use one daily, so I am not certain of how the performance metrics work there, but it seems reasonable that they might do it this way. I've seen a bunch of people post these large numbers on macOS.

Windows will only report up to 100%, and that would probably only happen if something managed to max out all of the CPU cores, I've never seen 100% on Windows unless I was running something designed to max it out, like a benchmark or something like that. There is the occasional spike to 100%, but nothing sustained, not even when I run multiple VMs on the same Host computer.

[bmos]

I had a rate at 59 and I decreased it to 50. My CPU usage dropped from 25% to 15%... Awesome trick bmosThat's excellent!
It seems like an FPS cap option in-game would be a really helpful thing for people with low-power computers. I'd also love fulscreen exclusive mode, but that's beside the point of this thread.
How did you reduce the framerate on Intel (or is that the NUC with AMD graphics?)?


The 800% thing is a macOS nomenclature I think, basically just the way macOS reports CPU usage.Correct. Different scales, basically; the MacOS approach to that always seemed kind of silly to me.