-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 534
Performance optimization
This article may be helpful if you are facing performance issues (e.g. lagging, latency, too much power consumption).
Below are some possible situations:
If you cannot run some effects with high computing power requirements (e.g. Anime4K, AdaptiveSharpen, etc.) smoothly, try the following:
- Change to the variants with lower requirements. For example, Anime4K_Upscale_S is much faster than Anime4K_Upscale_L. CAS is much faster than AdaptiveSharpen. They can effectively improve the smoothness of the effects at the cost of some quality degradation.
- Change the capture mode. We recommend you to try each of them.
If your graphics card is powerful enough, but you are still experiencing lagging issues, try the following:
For Nvidia users
The following tips apply only to Nvidia users. Improper driver configuration on Nvidia graphics cards is likely the cause of the stuttering.
Quick tips: Restore your Nvidia driver settings to default (clean install) will solve most problems. However, if you insist on use your own settings, let's explain how driver settings cause trouble to program.
At the beginning, everything is fine (Game 60 FPS / Magpie 60 FPS). But after about 10~15 seconds, both game and magpie fps drop to about 37 FPS, at the same time GPU usage go up to 100%, GPU MHz goes down from like 1000 to 700.
First, if you're gaming with "Power management mode: Optimal power", then try to set magpie program to "Prefer maximum performance" or maybe "Adaptive" but I haven't try adaptive mode, yet there is no guarantee. Game remains "Optimal power" is fine. By use this setting, GPU MHz will no longer goes down abnormal.
However, one of my PC doesn't work with this settings while others can be fixed with this way. The investigation result is, there is compatibility issue between Nvidia App and Nvidia control panel. If you use Nvidia App changed your driver settings, open control panel, modify same settings cause the control panel crash or says "Access denied". And settings by Nvidia App are not apply to game or program at all.
Don't use Nvidia App (version 11.0.2.341) to adjust Nvidia driver settings of driver like 572.16. Close Nvidia App and Nvidia control panel, go to C:\ProgramData\NVIDIA Corporation\Drs, delete all .bin files like nvdrsdb0.bin, nvdrsdb1.bin, nvdrssel.bin, update.bin, open Nvidia control panel again and redo all of your global settings and program specified settings, and avoid use Nvidia App driver settings after that.
Game 60 FPS / Magpie 60 FPS, appears in either Graphics Capture or Desktop Duplication.
The investigation result is vertical sync. Although it looks very strange. At least for Windows 11 24H2, you need to turn on vertical sync for a game, to make WGC and DXGI capture doesn't lose frame. If not, even WGC and DXGI capture at 60 FPS and game run at 60 FPS, many or some game frame will lose or called duplicated frame.
Required vertical sync mode for game is "Traditional / Classic / Vertical sync: Use the 3D application setting and enable in-game vsync / Vertical sync: On". Not turn off vertical sync, or use "Vertical sync: Fast". I'm not sure if "Vertical sync: Adaptive / Adaptive (half refresh rate)" will work or not but I have no time for detailed testing.
For magpie, go with "Use the 3D application setting".
At the same time, Game 60 FPS / Magpie 60 FPS. I find that this situation appears when I am using Magpie v0.10.6. Enable vertical sync in Magpie settings and use "Vertical sync: Use the 3D application setting" for Magpie program settings solved this. Upgrade to Magpie v0.11.1 also solved this.
At the same time, Game sightly lower than monitor FPS like Game 57 FPS / Monitor 60 Hz. If not use Magpie, the native game window looks smooth.
Try turn off "Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling" and restart. I find that when GPU under heavy load and GPU scheduling on, Either WGC and Desktop Duplication can't process frames correctly. By turn off GPU scheduling, your game FPS is still low, but Magpie will not drop to visually under 10 FPS anymore.
Game 60 FPS / Magpie 60 FPS / Monitor 60 Hz, but some frames dropped after rendered, instead of present on screen. This also happens on native game Window without use scaling.
Check Max Frame Rate and vertical sync. For example, you have 60 Hz monitor and set vertical sync on as mentioned above, you need to remove Max Frame Rate settings too, if you have set Max Frame Rate to 60 FPS before.
If you have other frame limiter like MSI Afterburner RTSS, also turn it of.
Mislead:
- Set global Max Frame Rate to 60 FPS and turn off Max Frame Rate for certain program, this will not work as intend. When you have program Max Frame Rate off and vertical sync off, but you have global Max Frame Rate, game and Magpie still follow global Max Frame Rate limit.
- Use Max Frame Rate as "better vertical sync method" because they say "by doing this can reduce input lag". No, Max Frame Rate is not vertical sync, it doesn't guarantee every rendered frame to be present on monitor, which is "old fashion vertical sync" will do.
Check these options if you encountered some other strange behavior. I'm not sure if Magpie has these issue, but for Lossless Scaling, use "Low Lantancy Mode: Ultra" will cause WGC API drag and drop position step back after release mouse button.
Set "Low Lantancy Mode: Off" for Magpie. But you may leave "Low Lantancy Mode: Ultra" for games if needed and you know it won't cause bug. For example, some old DirectX 9 game doesn't work well with this setting, it cause frame drop and input lag, if that happen just set it to off.
For AMD users
Welcome provide more performance tips for us. You may also check Nvidia tips and guess if some condition match your setup.
Hyperthread and big.little CPUs
I suggest if you don't want to turn off Hyperthread, use cmd.exe batch start /affinity 0x55 "" "C:\path to\game.exe" for game or it's launcher, game will inherit parent process affinity. And start /affinity 0xaa for Magpie. Also adjust game graphics options, try to limit game CPU usage below 50% (4 physical core of 4 core 8 thread as example).
The 0x55 specify game run on 0 2 4 6 logical core of 4 core CPU, and other stuff 0xaa run on 1 3 5 7.
For high priority, use start /abovenormal for both game and Magpie, but I find certain game are easy to crash with affinity and higher priority for unknown reason. As an example, dwm.exe system service running at high. In such case, use power plan high performance to make CPU run at highest clock speed is the last choice.
0x55 and 0xaa are example value, I use https://bitsum.com/tools/cpu-affinity-calculator
You may also utilize this trick to force game run on big cores of Intel Alder Lake big.little CPUs.
- Change the capture mode. We recommend you to try each of them.
- Turn on "Disable DirectFlip." DirectFlip is a technology to reduce input lag, but may be incompatible with some certain games.
- If you have multiple graphics card, try changing the graphics adaptor.
- Increase the process priority of Magpie and the priority in the driver (if such options exist).
- Please submit an Issue (Performance) if none of the attempts above works.
When you need to save electricity or reduce the heat generated, try the following:
- Limit the frame rate.
- Opt for effects that require lower performance.