Frame Rate Utilities

[RIBob 38]

There has been an ongoing concern with--and discussion of-- Frame rates when playing EAW and other "vintage" games.  I have heard of FRAPS, but IIRC MarkEAW said the utility, while running, caused a slight loss of frame rates.  Not surprising, but not desirable, either.

I was looking for GPU/RAM/CPU utilities for other possible uses, and the "MSI Afterburner" utility came up well-recommended everywhere I looked.  Turns out that the Afterburner utility has a great many uses, not the least of which is a Frame Rate Counter.  The following link to a tutorial on how to set up the Afterburner utility contains a link to same, as well as full graphical instructions on how to set up and use the frame rate portion of it.  I have no idea whether the user-selectable frame rate segment of Afterburner has any effect on frame rates, by itself.

https://www.gameplayinside.com/optimize/how-to-check-your-frame-rate-and-gpu-usage-in-any-game/ 

Submitted for consideration and comment.

RIBob

 

Edited May 30, 2019 by RIBob

[MarkEAW 62]

I don't recall saying that, but I know FRAPS was used back in the day (~1999) with EAW to get a FPS counter.

Wrapper programs tend to have FPS counters built in as well.

Typically I think most counters are calibrated for full screen use. Meaning you get a True FPS result on full screen only. But I could be wrong with specific ones.

 

 

[RIBob 38]

15 minutes ago, MarkEAW said:

I don't recall saying that, but I know FRAPS was used back in the day (~1999) with EAW to get a FPS counter.

Wrapper programs tend to have FPS counters built in as well.

Typically I think most counters are calibrated for full screen use. Meaning you get a True FPS result on full screen only. But I could be wrong with specific ones.

 

 

I believe you made the comment about FRAPS consuming noticeable resources in another Forum, but I could be mistaken.  No offense, of course.

Aside from that, I was wondering if there were any others who had experimented with "Afterburner".  The frame rate feature seems to be useful, and apparently the program is almost entirely user-configurable.  For example, in the tutorial, few features need be enabled to get the frame counter to work.

Of course, the Afterburner program/utility can be used for other purposes, and that is its' primary purpose.

I'm unsure about your "full screen" comment; perhaps you could expand on that, please.

[rwatson 26]

I've found frame rate counters are good only to establish a base FPS value and then when making changes see how much the value changes..And then decide if the change is worth it..The best frame rate counter is take a fly and determine if it's fluid enough without hiccups and lag to be a good flight..I have fraps and for me it's just a tool for when I make changes in my video settings to see if it drops a lot of FPS,,In IL-2 they have tracks i use "The Black Death"Track and an in game counter,,It gives min,,max and average FPS..So if I go in and adjust AA or graphic detail levels I see the impact..Any thing over 30 fps or so is smooth maybe an occasional jitter,,But at least I'm getting 55-60 FPS in perfect mode and in EAW about the samre mid 50'--60 using glide ,,D#D is all over the place

[MarkEAW 62]

RIBob,
No offense taken of course. I can't recall what I said to tell you the truth. However, in general, all counters will probably draw some speed from performance, but its so little on newer machines.

True FPS is usually rated on full screen displays, as frame modes are less reliable since the game was designed for full screen and the counter is calibrated for full screen.

As far as the rivatuner included with the msi afterburner video card oc tool. I haven't used it.
There might be a Win10 Counter already. I know there's something in win10 called 'game bar' but I never used it. Seemed like too much overhead on the brief reading i did about it, or nothing worked with EAW.
That's something you might consider RIBob.
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/113373-view-game-performance-game-bar-windows-10-a.html

EDIT:
I tried the game bar in win10. No FPS counter was in the new version unfortunately.
However other counters where present to tell us the following:

EAWPRO was using 24% of my CPU and 5% of my GPU
System memory use was 1.8GB and Video Ram was 0.1GB used.
(Defiantly no massive GPU/VRAM use)

 

Russ,
That's how I judge EAWv1.2, the un-official v1.26 and EAWPRO , by its smoothness and lack of jitter/lag. You can determine this rather quickly with the default quick start mission.

Although I wish they had a basic counter included with them, you know built in that worked along side the included and adjustable update rates. But I dont touch those updates...just so you know. There will probably be a time I will, but I haven't since writing the help doc about them.

 

Edited May 31, 2019 by MarkEAW

[RIBob 38]

Yeah, I noticed in the link given above that MS had deleted the feature, some ill-explained reason.  Like you, I don't see any use, personally, for the "Game Bar" at this point.  If they re-introduce it with frame counter, probably too late, since by then, I will be using Aftertburner.

[RIBob 38]

ETA, the "Game Bar" feature in Win 10 is apparently set up to easily provide video "movie" captures which can then be easily posted on YouTube, for all to enjoy.  Haven't tried it yet, for that purpose, but might be useful to some folks.  

Such a feature might be useful as a diagnostic tool; for instance, the viewer can see the problem(s) and perhaps make more informed comments where the video is posted, or in a thread to which the vid is linked.

It also occurs to me that such "movies" might just make the best possible advertising for a particular creation.  I understand the Modders are very busy, but if one of their friends made a good "movie" of their particular creation, it might greatly enhance the use of same.