Any way to improve Mac Pro performance?

[Tut]

I run a trash can Mac Pro, 6-core Intel Xeon E5, 3.5GHz, 32G RAM, AMD FirePro D500 3 GB video card, Apple Thunderbolt Display.

Being that it's not a cheap lil Mac, I started off running FS19 at a pretty high resolution and settings. It wasn't bad for most gameplay, but some maps just drag it down to single-digit FPS (BTW, why is there no way to display FSP onscreen?). Millennial Farmer map, when getting near the north end and it draws the trees around the shop and animal dealer. Deere Country map, when ever pointing toward the shop and animal dealer. I've since dropped down to medium-high settings, and it still gets annoying laggy in the same spots. Going lower than Very High Light Quality prevented all lights on some tractors from illuminating the scene, so I put that back up to Very High.

I'm trying to think back to my first few weeks of running it on the default map. It possibly wasn't quite as bad, but that's been a while month and a half.

Usually, if I just sit there and let stuff load up and cache, performance might increase to where it's playable. Sometimes it does not. It can often be worse when viewing from inside the cab (any tractor).

Any way to display performance data to see if it's my settings, my machine, the maps, or just a poor Windows port to Mac?

[blue_painted]

I don't know if it's the same on Mac but in Windows FPS display is F2

[Tut]

It's not F2 on Mac. I couldn't even find it in key equivs (if it shows up there on Windows).

[this_is_gav]

You have to enable the developer console to show and unlock FPS (on Windows, I assume it's the same on Mac).

On Windows you open the file Documents\My Games\FarmingSimulator2019\game.xml in a text editor.

Not having a Mac I don't know where this file is located but I'm sure you can find it (it should be the director above your mods folder).

Once open change the line:

Code: Select all

<development>
        <controls>false</controls>
</development>

To:

Code: Select all

<development>
        <controls>true</controls>
</development>

Save the file and reopen the game. The F2 key should now show FPS.

[Tut]

Neat, that works. Are there any docs on what dev mode does? I found the console (`) as well. Any other hidden goodies that might show object/poly count or something so I can understand why these maps make the game *censored* on a not-at-all-shabby machine?

[this_is_gav]

To be fair the AMD FirePro D500 is very shabby by even FS17 standards. It's a 7 year old professional card based on a 10 year old gaming graphics card. That's a massive span of time in graphics technology.

Most mod maps aren't as optimised as the stock maps. OxygenDavid's maps are usually fairly FPS friendly, but you won't find many others that run as well as the stock maps.

[theSeb]

Your machine is absolutely ancient and contains hardware from 2013. The D500 wasn't a great GPU when it was released. The CPU was pretty decent at launch, but a basic quad core mobile CPU is faster these days. I am not a hater, since I have nearly the same machine behind my monitor right now, which I bought in 2013, but I have the D700 GPU, which is marginally better. I do not use it for games, because it wasn't great for games in 2013 and it's certainly not great for games in 2021. A bog standard entry level 1060 from 2016 destroys the D500. These maps make the game rubbish on your machine because your machine is rubbish for games is the simple truth, I am afraid. Not amount of tinkering, or studying the polycounts of objects, is going to change this.

The other side of the story is the fact that some maps are so badly made, or include polybomb objects (buildings, trees, etc), and they can bring even a modern and powerful GPU to its knees. This is the price one pays for using mods.

[DEERE317]

	Your machine is absolutely ancient and contains hardware from 2013. The D500 wasn't a great GPU when it was released. The CPU was pretty decent at launch, but a basic quad core mobile CPU is faster these days. I am not a hater, since I have nearly the same machine behind my monitor right now, which I bought in 2013, but I have the D700 GPU, which is marginally better. I do not use it for games, because it wasn't great for games in 2013 and it's certainly not great for games in 2021. A bog standard entry level 1060 from 2016 destroys the D500. These maps make the game rubbish on your machine because your machine is rubbish for games is the simple truth, I am afraid. Not amount of tinkering, or studying the polycounts of objects, is going to change this. The other side of the story is the fact that some maps are so badly made, or include polybomb objects (buildings, trees, etc), and they can bring even a modern and powerful GPU to its knees. This is the price one pays for using mods. To be fair the AMD FirePro D500 is very shabby by even FS17 standards. It's a 7 year old professional card based on a 10 year old gaming graphics card. That's a massive span of time in graphics technology. Most mod maps aren't as optimised as the stock maps. OxygenDavid's maps are usually fairly FPS friendly, but you won't find many others that run as well as the stock maps.

Ditto
And being a “trash can” Mac if I remember right those weren’t great in the cooling department either so it’s probably thermal throttling in addition.

[theSeb]

	Your machine is absolutely ancient and contains hardware from 2013. The D500 wasn't a great GPU when it was released. The CPU was pretty decent at launch, but a basic quad core mobile CPU is faster these days. I am not a hater, since I have nearly the same machine behind my monitor right now, which I bought in 2013, but I have the D700 GPU, which is marginally better. I do not use it for games, because it wasn't great for games in 2013 and it's certainly not great for games in 2021. A bog standard entry level 1060 from 2016 destroys the D500. These maps make the game rubbish on your machine because your machine is rubbish for games is the simple truth, I am afraid. Not amount of tinkering, or studying the polycounts of objects, is going to change this. The other side of the story is the fact that some maps are so badly made, or include polybomb objects (buildings, trees, etc), and they can bring even a modern and powerful GPU to its knees. This is the price one pays for using mods. To be fair the AMD FirePro D500 is very shabby by even FS17 standards. It's a 7 year old professional card based on a 10 year old gaming graphics card. That's a massive span of time in graphics technology. Most mod maps aren't as optimised as the stock maps. OxygenDavid's maps are usually fairly FPS friendly, but you won't find many others that run as well as the stock maps.

Ditto
And being a “trash can” Mac if I remember right those weren’t great in the cooling department either so it’s probably thermal throttling in addition.

It's actually pretty good at keeping relatively quiet whilst cooling the CPU and GPU enough to prevent thermal throttling. The issues were that they could not upgrade the hardware to the next generations because of the limits of the design. Another issue was the stupid placement of the SSD on top of one of the GPUs, which could cause the SSD to fail due to the excessive heat. This is something that happened to me after 4 years of fairly "heavy" use as a workstation. To be fair to Apple they did replace the SSD free of charge and I have not had an issue with it, but I also use the little trash can less these days. Having said that, it's still an absolutely brilliant little productivity machine for most tasks.

[Tut]

Yes, they're great at cooling. Hot air flows up (its natural direction) instead of across like standard PC towers.

As far as how good this Mac is, it was great in its day. It had no problem at all with 3D games I played that were current then. Too bad this game doesn't have some better way to limit poly count or whatever is bring its frame rate to its knees at times. I thought throttling back rendering detail on-the-fly when needed was standard practice.

Here's hoping Giants does a proper Mac build for Intel and Apple chips for the next release, and that Apple has a new Mac Pro in the works with new chips, because I'm probably due for an upgrade (this Mac still compiles code in Xcode like a beast) but didn't feel the price of the very cool looking cheese grater Mac Pros was worth it for my uses.

[Tut]

why these maps make the game *censored* on a not-at-all-shabby machine?

Oh lordy. Censorship overload here, huh? How about, "make the game achieve vacuum"?