What difference does "Video Memory Usage" setting do?

[NorDemoniac]

Hi!
I'm new to Factorio, just bought it and still can't find a reason for not buying this sooner, I love it!

The only thing is, I can't seem to get it running as smoothly as the different YouTube videos I've seen from it, and I've got *nothing* build yet compared to the massive factories I've seen online.

I'm playing on a very old computer, a Dell XPS 730x. The specs are:
- Intel Core i7 920 2.66/2.93GHz
- 6GB (3x2GB) RAM (max supported is 12GB...)
- MSI GTX 480 1.5GB
- 3x SSD in RAID for games (650MB/s )
- Windows 10 Pro

So it's not the most modern of computers nowadays, but I thought it would run Factorio OK-ish, unfortunately it seems to be low FPS.
I did change settings so it's in fullscreen, and I changed "Video Memory Usage" to "All" instead of "High". What exactly does this matter for performance?

[posila]

- MSI GTX 480 (not sure how many GB atm)

If you post log (located at %APPDATA%\Factorio\factorio-current.log) we can tell you

Video Memory Usage sets threashold for sprites with certain priority to be put into sprite atlas. Sprite atlas is huge texture that contains lot of different sprites. Its advantage is that we can buffer lots of sprite draw commands and then use single draw call to draw them all. Draw calls have quite high CPU time cost in graphics driver, so it is preferable to use as little draw calls as possible. Disadvantage is that graphics card needs to be able to handle huge textures, which might be problem in some cases. If sprites are fragmented to small textures, driver can shuffle them in VRAM or between VRAM and RAM in case there is not enough space in VRAM. So Video memory usage "all" is usually the best option for computers with at least 1GB graphics memory.

Anyway, there are several reasons why the game might underperform on your laptop:

• Graphics driver doesn't recognize Factorio as graphics application and runs it on Intel APU instead of on nVidia GPU (I can tell you from the log if that is the case)
• Windows is in power saving mode (check Power Options in Windows)
• Your graphics card/driver might not like some settings. It is worth to try to disable V-sync in graphics options, or lower texture size used for sprite atlases (there is launch options for that)
• Your laptop might be overheating

[Uxi]

I don't think he has a laptop but a "standard" desktop.
Your GTX 480 graphics card most likely has 1.5 GB memory.
I have played factorio just fine on a similar setup:
Intel i7 950, 6GB RAM, Windows 10, Nvidia GTX 780 3GB.
Although the graphics card is a few generations newer,
you should be able to play factorio just fine IMHO.

/Uxi

[posila]

I don't think he has a laptop but a "standard" desktop.

Oh, my bad. I saw Dell XPS and immediatelly assumed it is a laptop and diregarded everyting that would be weird in laptop (3x SSD, 3 RAM slots, ...)

[Deadly-Bagel]

That's odd, I've got a 1.6 (2.7) GHz i7, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 460M 1.5GB VRAM "laptop" and it runs just fine. As the MSI GTX 480 is also 1.5GB your computer should actually perform better than mine.

In addition to disabling V-Sync (after Dead Space I do this always...) I would also disable smoke and give that a go.

[NorDemoniac]

Whoa, thanks for the prompt and detailed answers!
I've updated the specs in the post a bit.

I did some tests to compare with my MacBook Air 2011, which shouldn't have very good performance. It definitely struggles with smoke. And with F5, I can see the FPS dropping down to 20.
On the XPS, the FPS is shifting very fast between 60 and 59.X, it never drops, not even with smoke. But it is still lagging. It seems to be with a set timeframe rather than a specific event. If I walk where there's only grass, it's somewhat smooth, then stutters, smooth again, stutters at a few seconds apart. But I don't feel that it goes as smooth as I see on YouTube videos.

I'm doing the tests on the first level of "New Hope".

Attached is my log:

Code: Select all

   0.002 2017-01-09 19:58:38; Factorio 0.14.21 (build 25327, win64, steam)
   0.002 Operating system: Windows 10 (version 1607) 
   0.002 Program arguments: "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Factorio\bin\x64\Factorio.exe" 
   0.002 Read data path: D:/Steam/steamapps/common/Factorio/data
   0.002 Write data path: C:/Users/Glenn/AppData/Roaming/Factorio
   0.002 Binaries path: D:/Steam/steamapps/common/Factorio/bin
   0.019 System info: [CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         920  @ 2.67GHz, 8 cores, RAM: 6134MB]
   0.020 Display options: [FullScreen: 1] [VSync: 0] [UIScale: 100%] [MultiSampling: OFF] [Screen: 255]
   0.021 Available display adapters: 1
   0.021  [0]: \\.\DISPLAY1 - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 {0x05, [0,0], 1920x1080, 32bit, 60Hz}
   0.021 Create display on adapter 0. Size 1280x720 at position [310, 162].
   0.067 Initialised Direct3D:[0] NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480; driver: nvd3dumx.dll 21.21.13.7595
   0.071     Video memory size (dedicated video/dedicated system/shared system/available): 1488/0/3067/4088 MB
   0.112 DSound: Starting _dsound_update thread
   0.112 DSound: Enter _dsound_update; tid=6440
   0.114 Device reset internal.
   0.116 Desktop composition is active.
   0.116 Graphics options: [Graphics quality: normal] [Video memory usage: all] [Light scale: 100%] [DXT: false]
   0.210 Loading mod core 0.0.0 (data.lua)
   0.217 Loading mod base 0.14.21 (data.lua)
   0.370 Checksum for core: 1291735968
   0.370 Checksum for mod base: 786624017
   0.853 Info PlayerData.cpp:55: Local player-data.json available, timestamp 1483907999
   0.853 Info PlayerData.cpp:60: Cloud player-data.json available, timestamp 1483906341
   1.012 Initial atlas bitmap size is 16384
   1.015 Created atlas bitmap 16384x8536
   1.400 Created atlas bitmap 4096x968
   1.410 Created atlas bitmap 4096x3652
   8.656 Sprites loaded
   8.656 Convert atlas 4096x968 to: trilinear-filtering 
   8.679 Convert atlas 4096x3652 to: mipmap 
   9.117 Loading sounds...
  11.217 Custom inputs active: 0
  11.275 Factorio initialised
  47.774 Info PrototypeMigrationList.cpp:87: Activating migration base/2015-10-16_Factorio_0.13.0.json
  47.774 Info PrototypeMigrationList.cpp:87: Activating migration base/2016-04-22_Factorio_0.13.0.json
  47.774 Info PrototypeMigrationList.cpp:87: Activating migration base/2016-06-14_Factorio_0.13.0.json
  47.774 Info PrototypeMigrationList.cpp:87: Activating migration base/2016-06-21_Factorio_0.13.0.json
  47.774 Info PrototypeMigrationList.cpp:87: Activating migration base/2016-06-25_Factorio_0.13.0.json
  47.774 Info PrototypeMigrationList.cpp:87: Activating migration base/2016-06-27_Factorio_0.13.0.json
  47.817 Applying migration: Base Mod: 2016-04-22_Factorio_0.13.0.lua
  47.822 Applying migration: Base Mod: 2016-06-15_Factorio_0.13.0.lua
  47.826 Applying migration: Base Mod: 2016-06-23_Factorio_0.13.0.lua
  47.832 Applying migration: Base Mod: 2016-06-26_Factorio_0.13.0.lua
  47.836 Applying migration: Base Mod: 2016-06-27_Factorio_0.13.0.lua
  47.841 Applying migration: Base Mod: 2016-06-28_Factorio_0.13.0.lua
  48.313 Info Scenario.cpp:152: Map version 0.14.21-0
  48.367 Checksum for script C:/Users/Glenn/AppData/Roaming/Factorio/temp/currently-playing/control.lua: 25981271
 172.654 DSound: Stopping voice
 172.654 DSound: Joining thread
 172.656 DSound: Exit _dsound_update; tid=6440
 172.656 DSound: Waiting for voice to stop ... signaled
 172.657 DSound: Joined thread
 172.657 DSound: Destroying thread
 172.657 DSound: Thread destroyed
 172.657 DSound: Releasing buffer
 172.657 DSound: Voice stopped
 172.657 DSound: Deallocating voice
 172.657 DSound: Deallocated voice
 172.695 Steam API shutdown.
 172.697 Goodbye

[NorDemoniac]

So, I might've "solved" it.

To be absolute sure, I wanted to check my driver. It was from November, so not old-old, but still not the newest (why you fail me GeForce Experience?! )
I wanted to start fresh, so I uninstalled nVidia drivers etc, but it crashed and hell started.

Long story short, DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) in Safe Mode saved me, and I could reinstall the driver with the most recent one from nVidia.com.

No stutters!

The only thing I found was that the character animation is smoother going up/down, it's a tiny bit "less smooth" going left/right/diagonally.
This could probably be because of the way a LCD monitor updates the screen, and me being a total weirdo when it comes to these things.

Anyways, background is floating all nice and smooth, no stuttering, no nothing. Almost dead steady 60FPS, just blinking at 59.9FPS when I walk around.

No idea if this is because my driver was "outdated", or my multiple reboots had anything to do with it.

Again, thanks for the detailed answers! Nice to have a full explaination on how this actually works.

Now - back to mining!

(Btw, I've started having these weird dreams about conveyor belts, but I found it somewhere in the FAQ, so it's normal AFAIK)

[Deadly-Bagel]

Yeah I had Factorio dreams for about a week when I started and I still get them intermittently. Totally normal =P

Some time last month (some time after starting a Bob's Mods run) I think my one-year-old kept waking up in the night and I was still half asleep thinking "Oh duh, it's because I'm not piping enough oxygen to him, will just add some more electrolysers zZzZz..."

[NorDemoniac]

Yeah I had Factorio dreams for about a week when I started and I still get them intermittently. Totally normal =P

Some time last month (some time after starting a Bob's Mods run) I think my one-year-old kept waking up in the night and I was still half asleep thinking "Oh duh, it's because I'm not piping enough oxygen to him, will just add some more electrolysers zZzZz..."