What's up fellow Quakers,

welcome back to my monthly analysis of the game's performance status after the latest patch. Neither me nor you have time to waste, so I'd say let's get straight into some D A T A.

Testing methodology is same as usual (using Slash, play a full FFA match on Ruins of Sarnath making sure that 8 players are in the server, recording frametimes using Fraps and then process the data using a piece of simple software that I wrote and also plotting the data with Excel).

In this month's post you can find:

The usual VSync, 125 FPS cap and Uncapped frametimes testing, to compare with the previous patch results

A test run alone in a custom match, just standing still or running around the map shooting like crazy, or trying specific things (more details below) to see how the engine behaves. This can also be directly compared to last patch since I'm repeating the same tests I did before, to see if anything changed

[NEW] Another Uncapped framerate test, but this time using FULLSCREEN mode (instead of my usual Borderless Windowed), becuase I got a few requests for this specifically

[NEW] Tests ran on either the new map (Longest Yard) and the new mode (Unholy Trinity), to see if there's any performance issue specific to this new game content

PC Specs and Settings:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 1500X 4C/8T @ 3.8GHz

MOBO: ASRock Fatal1ty X370 Gaming K4

RAM: 16Gb TridentZ DDR4 3200Mhz Dual Channel

GPU: MSI Gaming RX470 OC @ 1300/1750MHz

Game is installed on an hard drive and not on SSD









RESULTS (discussion below) : this time, I didn't change how I calculate any of the performance metrics shown below, even though I'm still thinking about a better method for counting frametime spikes...

On the left you can see the graphs referring to the old August patch, on the right the updated tests of the September patch, so you can compare them directly

1a. AUGUST patch running with VSync enabled 1b. SEPTEMBER patch running with VSync enabled 2a. AUGUST patch running with a 125 FPS framerate cap 2b. SEPTEMBER patch running with a 125 FPS framerate cap in place 3a. AUGUST patch running with Uncapped framerate 3b. SEPTEMBER patch running with an Uncapped framerate 4a. Solo custom match tests on the AUGUST patch 4b. Solo custom match test in the SEPTEMBER patch, with specific portions highlighted 5. SEPTEMBER patch, Unholy Trinity frametimes (map is Ruins of Sarnath) 6. SEPTEMBER patch, frametimes on a Longest Yard FFA 7. SEPTEMBER patch running Uncapped in Fullscreen mode



DISCUSSION OF RESULTS : and comparison with results of the last patch

Let's get this immediately out of the way, after the developer's claims of improved performance and less spikes in the latest patch, I can happily confirm that the new September patch has made significant improvements to the game's performance and frametime stability; this is the best state that the game has been in since April. Good job developers !! Nevertheless, frametime spikes when the player's death and respawn occur are still there and with the same intensity as before. Again, these are not gamebreaking at all, since in that moment the player doesn't have any control over what's happening in the game (therefore the spike isn't that noticeable), but it'd still be nice to see some improvements on that side. By looking back at the graphs now you can see that, while performance is better across the board, the cleaner graph is definitely the one with framerate capped at 125 FPS, and it also felt better in-game. With this new performance scenario, I'm going back to recommend using Framerate cap over running Uncapped, because frametime stability is better than a higher but more unstable framerate. The Fullscreen vs Borderless test yielded some interesting results. Fullscreen mode is the winner when it comes to frametime stability, with less spikes, higher average framerate and slightly better 1% and 0.1% LOWs, even if the difference isn't huge. One thing I noticed but cannot put into numbers, though, is that when playing Fullscreen my mouse input was feeling much better, snappier and more precise compared to my usual Borderless Windowed setting; I would therefore recommend that everyone uses Fullscreen instead of Borderless, unless they really need to alt-tab in and out of the game very quickly while playing . The tests run in the solo custom match also show some positive results: while they definitely prove that going through teleporters and opening the scoreboard in-game still cause frametime spikes, these are much thinner and smaller compared to the previous patch (used to go up to 20-25 ms, while now they're always under 15 ms). As with the death/respawn spikes, these are not gamebreaking but I'd like to see further improvements in the future, even if they're not the top priority. Testing Unholy Trinity didn't reveal anything interesting, I expected to see a higher number of spikes or higher 1% and 0.1% LOWs due to the more action that's happening in game, but it wasn't the case since the mode differs from a normal FFA match by less than margin of error. I cannot say the same for The Longest Yard, which instead shows a lower average framerate and more spikes during the whole gameplay (maybe due to the more hectic map, but also maybe some optimizations that can be done to the assets to make it lighter on the rendering side).





CONCLUSIONS (TL:DR) : Developers backed up their claims of better performance and less spikes this patch with actually some good improvements to the game code, the game is now in the best state it has been since April. Some spikes are still present when going through teleporters, opening the scoreboard or simply on the player's death and respawn, I hope we'll see further improvements on this, but it's not game-breaking at all.

The Longest Yard does suffer from slightly worse performance compared to other maps, it may be due to the more hectic nature of the map, but maybe some optimizations can be made in the next patch.

One thing that I feel like suggesting to everyone is to play the game in Fullscreen mode, if you weren't already, because of smoother performance and better mouse input handling (this does not depend on the game, but rather on the operating system itself).

Considering the performance improvements, and after recommending Uncapped framerate last month, I'm now going back to saying that the best way to play this game is to cap your framerate at a high enough value that your computer can actually hold 99% of the time (I recommend 125 FPS for 60Hz or 120Hz displays, 150 FPS for 75Hz or 144Hz displays, otherwise 240 FPS if your PC can handle that much)

Thanks to anyone who actually took the time to read all of this, let me know your opinions and feedback in the comments down below!

See you in the arena,

- JackaL