SOLVED A detailled thread about an optimization issue (game's default engine) + video

*My native language isn't english, there might be some misspelled stuff*

EDIT : This issue is not one anymore, thanks to the specific answer of a Discord user :

"This is caused by the extremely old engine not being able to utilise gpus fully, its not that its unoptimised, it just doesn't know how to use the resources its given, i hope Vulkan will fix this issue or at least give a performance gain."

I still think this thread might be useful for people with the same issue, that is having a pc that's too powerful for the game's default engine (DirectX11).

I know some people will think : "Why didn't he think about trying that earlier"; and I understand. But before owning the RTX 3080, I had an RTX 2080 and did try Vulkan with it; it was almost the same as the default engine. Maybe Vulkan's implementation has been improved since and the big performance difference between these two GPUs are the reason.

I tried running BeamNG with Vulkan, and the difference is insane. It does use all of the necessary power of the GPU, except in some rare instances, depending on where I am situated on the map (exemple : Jungle Rock Island, 7 traffic cars, 65 fps, 87% GPU load in a specific area).

Running the game with no AI cars, or even 6 to 7 AI cars, seem to be flawless, at least for my exigence of 1440p 75 fps at ultra settings. There are still some freezes, skipped frames or screen-tearing (even with Vsync), but these occur rarely and when in a difficult zone to render.


Original post :

Video test here :

(Yes the max resolution on it is 4K, but that's because of the montage software I used, game has been tested at 1440p).

Hello, it has now been 5 whole years since I started playing BeamNG.Drive, and this is my favorite game ever since.
I started with a laptop using a I7-8750H, a GTX 1050ti and 8GB of ram, and I was happy to be able to run the game at 30 fps medium-high at 1080p.
Now times have changed and I earned enough money to be able to build a solid desktop configuration, obviously with higher performance expectations :

Ryzen 7 5700X, RTX 3080 10GB, 32 GB DDR4 3600mhz , and a 1 TB SSD where the game has been downloaded via Steam.

My goal is to run the game at ultra settings at 1440p@75hz, without going under 75 fps, even in worst case scenarios, for instance with traffic enabled on West Coast USA.

If you know a bit about computers, you can tell the RTX 3080 is quite the performance gpu, even at 1440p. It averaged 157 fps on 23 different games at 1440p ultra settings, test realized with a 3080 10GB Suprim X variant (the exact one that I own) by Techpowerup.com : https://www.techpowerup.com/review/msi-geforce-rtx-3080-suprim-x/28.html . I know their other test components were better (cpu, ram...) but even so let's say I lose 5-10% performance with mine, it's still very powerful.

Potential mistakes I could've made :

- Components incompatibility : the cpu isn't bottlenecking the gpu, my RAM modules have XMP enabled and are compatible with my cpu, i use a 750w 80+ gold rated psu (which is enough, considering the power draw in gaming), every part of my pc is mounted properly and works fine.

- Using mods : I play the game fully stock since 2 years or so (except for Gridmap v1, which is old official content), and my pc doesn't have any (other) installed on it.

- Other tasks running in the background : Only Steam and Corsair's Icue (RGB control software) do, others are Windows 10 things, except for MSI Afterburner, which simply controls the gpu fans.

- Wrong installation / pirating the game : none of that ever occured.

- Outdated drivers : everything is up to date.

My complaints :

Before talking about my complaints, I'll start by aknowledging that BeamNG is in fact a work-in-progress game, meaning that the performance will probably improve in the future. I'll also reckognize that the developpers behind this game are amazing, working hard and well. That being said, that doesn't change the fact that everyone here wants to be able to run and enjoy the game properly, without waiting for years. It might sound like a rich people complaint, but everyone is affected by the overall in-game performance.

When I had an RTX 2080, I thought the issue was me, still playing games at 1440p in 2023 with a 5 year old GPU. Now that I own an RTX 3080, which as I said earlier is still a 1440p / 4k capable gpu, I realized that the power wasn't the very issue, but rather the in-game gpu usage; as you can see in the video, even with Vsync disabled, the game doesn't want to use all of the gpu's power, whether the zone is hard or easy to render. And yes, force high performance plan has been activated.

In the video, I find it outrageous that an easy zone like the highway isn't performing as well as it should be. And that's for the single car gameplay. If traffic is activated, (here capped at 6 cars), performance obviously lowers, but gpu usage also does !?
It could've been bottleneck, but my cpu worked at 25% with traffic, which isn't enough to produce serious bottleneck. It could've been my RAM, since traffic pooling uses a lot of it, except I have 32 GB...
Maybe thermal throttling ? Nope, thermals are more than good enough (see the video I linked at the top of this thread).

How to improve performance ?

This is the part where my knowledge stops. I know basically nothing about coding or developpment, but I had a potential clue ; DLSS.
Implementing Nvidia's DLSS (or AMD's, idk if they made one) to BeamNG would be game-changer, at least for people with more or less recent gpus (less than 5years).
But I guess it is hard to implement, even more when the game is in early access. It also might not be the best solution right now.

Conclusion :
*I may add elements to this thread, depending on the replies.*

BeamNG is a game I always loved, and the very reason of why I spent and still spend a lot of money in my computer.
As much as I love it, as much as I respect the devs' work, I simply cannot enjoy a stuttery gameplay, and it is frustrating to see that other, sometimes more demanding games, run better.

Edited : My issue has been adressed, but I still hope we will be able to run the game even better, while improving graphics, in the future.

Thank you for reading allat

 

Most likely a CPU limit, look at per core utilization. Beam has physics tasks that can't be split between cores for accuracy reasons. Try the Vulkan renderer from the launcher options, it should help in CPU bound scenarios.

One thing you can check is if ResizeBAR is enabled, which helps in certain scenarios. Check for example with GPU-Z. Also double check if your RAM is actually running in dual channel 3600Mhz and not in 2133Mhz fallback mode.

DLSS/FSR won't help here as your GPU is not maxed out in the first place.

 

It can't be the RAM, XMP has been enabled and it's running at 3600mhz.

I can understand that the CPU would be the limiting factor, but only with a serious amount of cars. Even with one driving car the GPU doesn't run at its full potential.

Edit : the GPU is the limiting factor. After trying the game in Vulkan with 7 traffic cars, my CPU is barely reaching 30% and the GPU is nearly at 100%, while being at 75/80% without traffic enabled.

I'll try ResizeBAR, but it is said that it helps gaining 10 fps (in most games) at most, where I could get a lot more if my GPU was maxxed out.

I'll try Vulkan with the 3080, I already did before with my 2080 and I don't remember seeing a significant difference.

(The DLSS part was for general performance, but yeah it is irrelevant to this very issue)