After 5 years of waiting

[Kohta]

Back in 2006 NCSoft Korea showed a short 30 second video of a MMORPG using the Brand new (at the time) Unreal Engine 3 and some high modifications like light refractions and it just

On top of that it was a Non-target system (Crosshairs) with swords, magic and guns based on the Eastern Theme (Ninja's, Samurai, Kung-Fu) Which is a nice touch, if you know an attack is coming instead of relying on stats you can physically dodge it manually, That was the first time i was absolutely blown away and felt my throat tighten in excitement, very rarely does this happen, about once every year they released more videos about this game.

Yesterday i had the opportunity to play Blade and Soul, we won't discuss how but this was a good chance to test out my rig for what iv'e been preparing for, since 2006, between then and now i have spent countless hours overclocking, nearly $30,000 in PC equipment, was it worth it?

Not really, the game is still demanding, i'm laughing at myself for thinking back then i would be able to "Max it out" with a GTX 9800 I paid almost $500 for that card on Ebay because it was so difficult to find at the time and i thought the game would be seen in the states in about a year.

Time went on, upgrades went on, now i get to my GTX 580 which i'm sore in the *** about, i have expectations that are based on how that game looks, compared to how similar games look and then miltiplied by 2 because of the amount of people that -may- be on screen.

With 0xAA, PhysX Level maxed, 1920x1080, all details on highest, Shadows on "Normal" which is one away from off (Just your character/armor/pets/mounts/items associated to you) I got great FPS, except one spot, in town there is a small waterfall my camera swayed into it mostly by accident and the high texture detail of the water drowned my GTX 580 like it was a POS -pun intended-

I'm kind of ok with this considering this is something that could be fixed once it releases here and gets some driver optimization, but, on the other hand, the batman game uses the same upk file as B&S for water, and they look identical in terms of water, so... it looks like i'll be upgrading again soon.

What i really need is something with PhysX with about twice the power of a GTX 580, 3GB of VRAM (It used aprox 1.4GBs of VRAM) with out having to buy 2 cards, it just doesn't exist. Just going to roll with my 580 until the GTX 700 comes out. For all of you wondering about my expectations, there you go in a nutshell.






There is a pretty big difference between Phisics and PhysX in this game, take the breasts for example, with PhysX they will bounce in different directions especially if they collide with one another, with Phisics it looks more like she's wearing a bra or some kind of support, honestly Phisics looks much more natural in terms of the breasts, the clothing however looks better with PhysX, Phisics clothing looks stiff and almost like it has -too much- weight to it. One of the major reasons why i want to stick with Nvidia, after see'ing the clothing rendered with PhysX it's going to be hard to even think about switching.

At the settings shown above i was getting 80-100 fps, until i ran into a bunch of NPCs, the render distance was actually very far on this game but had little impact on anything but VRAM, the GTX 580 was only around 50% usage topping out at 60% max, and actually dropping to 30% or so when frame rates dropped, is this because of it not being optimized or did it just hit a limit to what it can do? Keep in mind this was low fps facing a wall/the ground staring into a waterfall, the water in the game is gorgeous but demanding. If somebody can explain to me why the usage goes down instead of up in this situation that would be fantastic.

 

[Kohta]

the water is rendered using PhysX, you can see this in the below images where i had the character move, but this is a GTX 580, why is it having problems with a technology it's based on! The rivers/streams and other water flows down mountain sides and cave walls are all rendered using PhysX, the watter never has the same path twice, basically, i can see how it would make it demanding, but this should be an easy task for a 580.






Almost everything in the game has some kind of PhysX attached, the movement, the air on the clothing, the clothing itself, hair, the little trinkets on weapons and armor, the lean effects, the water, it's incredible to just look at, and this is why i have my high expectations (Earth )

 

[wagex]

have you tried the 9800 as a physX card maybe that would help?

 

[Kohta]

have you tried the 9800 as a physX card maybe that would help?

Nah i don't have that card anymore, i tossed it in the trash after trying to Ebay it for several months, i wasn't a part of the OC forums at the time.

Wanted to add a few more pictures of spots i find demanding.

This is that little waterfall that sends me down to 30fps


You can sprint and run on top of water (Jesus?) But the "Splash" effect creates a ripple in the water (physX) where you step on the surface of the water and the splash created dips fps to 30 or less, sometimes the splash makes drips on the screen (like crysis). The water is also rendering a light prism underneath it, not sure if you can tell but it's there, the ocean by itself, no movement it solid fps, running on it is another story. PhysX (What this card was designed for) is killing it.



None-the-less, a beautiful game, can't wait for it to come overseas, hopefully i can find a way to make enough cash to justify a 600 series card or another 580 again.

 

[Archer0915]

have you tried the 9800 as a physX card maybe that would help?

There are a few issues using a lesser card. I use a 9800GT with my 465 and the frame rates suffer at times unless I max out the 465 and even then there are some issues unless I OC the crap out of the 9800.

Everything has to sync and it is similar to SLIing in that you can go no faster than your weakest component.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=688938&page=2

Well choke the card. If you are not maxing things out the single high end card will run GFX and PhysX better by itself and here is an example:

720P
CPU Phy: 20.1 FPS
465 Phy: 37.0
9800 Phy: 34.8

1080P
CPU Phy: 15.7 FPS
465 Phy: 29.3
9800 Phy: 30.8

On a single card using physics as long as you are not choking it you will get better fps than having a dedicated card.

On a two card solution you will only see real benefit from maxing out settings.

If you have two cards that can sli then that will give better performance in all situations.

EDIT: I do notice visual improvements and I am all about the pretties.

Been playing around with some settings on my cards and I have found that unlocking the GPU and Shader cores can speed things up a little.

I am currently seeing a frame rate increase of just over 10% with everything maxed out and over 16% GPU only. The 9800GT is slot powered only and has base clocks of 550 core, 1375 shaders and 900 memory and the clocks I am at now are 550 core, 1657 shaders and 945 memory.

Below is the change:
1080P
9800 Phy: 30.8 to 34.0

There is a balance; no doubt. I think what I am going to try to do is find that balance.

Got it up to 34.3 @602/1755/1001 all for 75w. I tried 1790 on the shaders and it locked so I think I am at max but 11.36% is pretty good.