I suspect so, yeah. There are some underlying issues with Makuri IMO that cause the disproportionately high CPU load in solo rides, but the biggest reason for the GPU demand being so high is the artistic design. I can’t see that going backwards.
It does look very nice compared to the likes of London, but there’s a big performance penalty to every extra asset and nobody seems to have asked “wait a minute, how does all this stuff impact the experience?” or “how can the course design ensure the demands don’t get out of hand?”. It’s been the same for a while, for example on Crit City where you get smashed with CPU load at various pinch points from groups of riders over the other side of the barriers. Sometimes you can’t even see them, but your experience is negatively impacted.
Well Neokyo looks absolutely great but takes poor performance to the next level. This time it seems to be wholly CPU limited; my system is barely managing 50fps with an RTX 2060 Super which is labouring at less than 50% utilisation. It’s not trying, because it can’t. Even disconnected from the internet (to eliminate the usual issues caused by tons of other riders nearby), the frame rate barely breaks 60fps and GPU utilisation is still down at 60%.
In this situation, a stronger graphics card would make no difference whatsoever, nor does dropping the resolution (two common misconceptions). It’s because the CPU bottleneck on Neokyo is absurd, and this is with a Ryzen 5 3600XT. A friend has an overclocked i5-10600K at 4.8GHz and that can’t hold 60fps either. Presumably a £600 i9-12900K would do? On every other world, an i3-4130 costing £8 allows the GPU to max out in a solo ride. Slight difference there.
Something is seriously amiss with Makuri; the way it performs is remarkably different to the rest of the game. At least the dense foliage on Yumezi makes sense, even though the hardware demands to maintain 60fps there are also crazily high.
As mentioned before, I completely accept the majority of people on Zwift don’t give a toss about frame rates. I do.
Same here, although my machine isn’t overclocked at all. I have a 3.5ghz CPU and it doesn’t even run hot in Japan. I can watch all the cores and only #1 is doing anything, and it’s usually quite low. The video card is working though (RX580 8GB).
I used the 1440 resolution in the new Japan area and performance was okay. Not brilliant but not terrible either.
You won’t see anything of note. Zwift isn’t capable of maxing out any reasonable CPU’s resources, so those utilisation figures don’t mean anything. GPU is straightforward.
See the post directly after the one you quoted from.
I agree not many people care until it get so low that the system crash. If optimized fast pc’s cant do 60FPS then the low end pc’s will also struggle and probably crash. As we are seeing in some posts.
Possibly. Most problems appear to be on integrated graphics where obviously the CPU resources are shared. I just can’t fathom what’s going on below the surface on Makuri that’s so different to everywhere else. It looks nicer, of course. The design concepts should take into account the increased demands of making it look smart IMO, but I can at least understand the high GPU load when you’re in very dense foliage. However I can’t think why the CPU demands are like we’re all in a massive group ride at all times, even when not even online. This doesn’t happen anywhere else.
I commented on this in the main thread, but this is the first time I’ve really noticed a significant choppiness.
It was most noticeable in the arcade for me - and I’ve no idea what my FR was, but I suspect it was pretty low.
Actually… let me go and dig out the log.
Min 21 fps, avg 27 fps (GeForce GTX 1050, Core i5-3470, 8GB, Ultra 1440). That’s compared to an average 44 and 40 fps from a couple of random Watopia logs from last year
Yep, and I would wager it wasn’t your graphics card struggling. If anything those Watopia averages seem a bit low, but the context is important given that they could have been from group events, or through particularly demanding areas like Titans Grove, jungle etc.
FWIW I’d have no issue recommending your specs for 1440p60 in solo rides, in most places that aren’t Makuri (or the usual areas such as those mentioned). Your CPU should never be a limiting factor on your system unless it was a particularly busy area, or in a group ride, behind a busy pace partner etc. That’s when Zwift performance has always tanked - how much is based on how fast your CPU is.
Makuri has this going on all the time, even offline.
I have similar performance on a similarly powered PC, i5-3570 and GTX 1650. Figured it was due to the average CPU? I average 40 fps in Watopia and drops to 29 or 30 in Makuri.
FWIW rode Yumezi last night for a group ride, Two Village Loop, and then for the After Party manually routed to Neokyo for the next hour with 2 other riders. FPS during group ride are what was expected (unfortunately) for Yumezi during a group ride (~36FPS, but mostly hovering at 29 FPS)
During the AP, 3 of us together plus whatever number of riders were in world as well, around Neokyo the FPS bumped up to around 40FPS. Didn’t notice any visual issues like stuttering during the ride so that’s a plus. And IIRC my GPU Utilization never went over 70% during the entire 2+ hour ride.
Just thought I’d put up some info while running Zwift, but I’m using my dual processor work computer (dual X5690 3.46ghz with a Sapphire Radeon RX580 8GB GPU and 1333mhz DDR3 RAM) because I happen to be sitting in front of it and not the other one. My Zwift computer which is also Mac Pro 5,1 is same CPU and same type of GPU, but only single CPU and 32GB ram instead of 128.
The CPU temp (of CPU A) as you can see is barely above normal. CPU B doesn’t do much unless the software is designed to make use of it.
As a comparison, under real heavy load the CPUs (both of them) will go up to 75ºC (a big rendering task) then all the fans will crank up. Zwift doesn’t trouble it.
Here you can see the GPU is working and its temperatures have gone up to normal levels under load and its cooling fans have cranked up.
Right now I’ve got 40fps in the new Japan city area with the 4K setting. Sometimes it drops to 25, but not that often, other times it is more.
This system is running on macOS Monterey 12.1 Beta 2, which is the same as what the other computer I use for Zwift has. They are both 5,1 Mac Pros from 2010, only difference is RAM and the number of CPUs. They are upgraded quite a lot from what you could buy from Apple back in the day.
Actually given the complaints I’ve read here and elsewhere I probably don’t have a lot to complain about. It looks very nice, all the textures look very crisp and I get very nice shadows.
Zwift doesn’t come remotely close to maxing out any reasonable CPU, so it’s unlikely you’ll see direct evidence of a particular core or thread being fully loaded.
I think you may be misunderstanding me anyway. Neokyo looks absolutely superb and 45-50fps isn’t objectively ‘bad’. The point is that on every world other than Makuri Islands, we are only CPU limited this badly when in the presence of high numbers of other riders. This is a historical quirk of the game engine for whatever reason, that everyone has to deal with in one way or another. A very fast CPU is needed to prevent the frame rate tanking below 60fps in a big group ride etc. However on a solo ride, the GPU is allowed to max out with virtually any CPU. The frame rate can be whatever you want or need it to be, right up to the limit of the GPU’s capacity.
In Makuri Islands - and on Neokyo in particular - this is NOT the case. In a solo ride, even disconnected from the internet to get remove everyone else, the GPU is nowhere near being allowed to max out. It’s CPU limited at all times, like we’re in a big group ride at all times. It’s the only world that behaves like this.
The GPU in my PC is completely pointless on Neokyo. It’s barely getting out of second gear, yet I cannot maintain 60fps.
Try this. I’d absolutely love for someone to tell me where this person’s specs are lacking for Zwift. Average of 62fps, not even on the highest resolution. It’s ridiculous.
