SFML 2.0 Performance Issues under Windows 8

[midasmax]

Hi there,

We're currently working on a project, and so far it's been going smooth and running fine across all of our development machines:

1) 2001 Pentium 3 Laptop running Windows XP
2) 2007 Quad-Core Desktop, 2GB RAM running Ubuntu Linux
3) 2010 Dell Studio 15, Core i5 Laptop running Windows 7, ATI Mobility Radeon 5470, 4GB DDR3 RAM
4) 2011 Dell Optima Desktop running Windows 7, 2GB RAM
5) 2012 Macbook Air running OSX Mountain Lion 10.8.2 8GB RAM
The performance for the old laptop is a bit slow, and choppy at times, but is still playable. Performance on all three of the Air, Windows 7 and Ubuntu run perfectly fine.

Recently, we tried running the same executable on Windows 8 after upgrading from Windows 7 (Dell Studio 15, Core i5 Laptop), and the performance is ghastly... extremely choppy and is impossible to play. We ran a different project that uses an entirely different code base but still with SFML 2.0 and it also runs terribly on Windows 8.

The code was compiled using mingw gcc 4.4.1.

The next step we're going to do is to actually compile the program on the Windows 8 machine; but that will take a while because the dev environment hasn't been set up yet.

Does anyone know why this might be the case? Is this a known issue with Windows 8?

Thank you!

[eXpl0it3r]

I've been running SFML 2 applications on Windows 8 now for quite a while and never experienced any issues.

As for your problem, I don't think we can really give you any hints, since the description is way too cryptic.
Can you define 'extremely choppy'? Is this just a low FPS count? Does it happen to any example run with SFML or just with your code?
Then of course the questions also arise about the drivers of the hardware. Are they native Windows 8 drivers? Are they fully up-to-date (specially the graphics driver)?

Btw. GCC 4.4.1 is around 3.5 years old, have you ever considered to upgrade to a newer version? The current MinGW projects provides version 4.7.2, which is only four month young.

[midasmax]

Hi, and thanks for the quick reply!

I'm sorry I wasn't clear previously. Yes, the frame rate drops to 1-2 frames per second. It's just a little bizarre because the exact same code works fine across so many different machines and operating systems, but just completely unplayable on Windows 8, on the exact same machine.

To answer your question:
 - Pretty sure all drivers are up to date for the graphics card. (Used Windows to detect to find the drivers, since the card is a little old and it's hard to actually get compatible graphics drivers from ATI for Windows
 - We haven't run any other SFML demo code other than this project, and a different project with an entirely different codebase. Same issue with the low fps as mentioned.
 - Yes! Our next step will be to try to compile the project under the Windows 8 environment.
 - Will also try to use an updated compiler to see if it makes any difference.

Thanks again for your reply!

[eXpl0it3r]

3) 2010 Dell Studio 15, Core i5 Laptop running Windows 7, ATI Mobility Radeon 5470, 4GB DDR3 RAM

Didn't you mean ATI Mobility Radeon 4570?

- Pretty sure all drivers are up to date for the graphics card. (Used Windows to detect to find the drivers, since the card is a little old and it's hard to actually get compatible graphics drivers from ATI for Windows

Personally I wouldn't be satisfied with 'pretty sure' and even less with 'just' then Windows update function.
Windows 7 and 8 should be compatible regarding drivers and it's not too hard to get hold of the official driver for your DELL notebook: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570
Additionally it might be even better to get to the official ATI website: AMD Catalyst™ Driver for the Radeon™ HD 4000

I'm sorry I wasn't clear previously. Yes, the frame rate drops to 1-2 frames per second. It's just a little bizarre because the exact same code works fine across so many different machines and operating systems, but just completely unplayable on Windows 8, on the exact same machine.

This all sounds like a driver issue, rather than anything else.

You could also try some other OpenGL applications.

[midasmax]

Didn't you mean ATI Mobility Radeon 4570?

Actually, strangely enough, HD5470 is correct .

Anyhow, thanks a lot! I updated the drivers and all seems fine now. Feel kind of silly that I didn't just do that initially though, just thought it was strange that SFML 1.6 applications ran fine, but SFML 2.0 ones didn't.

Also, in case others also encounter issues related to being unable to find ATI drivers for their older graphics cards, I found this link to be really helpful:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=370053

Thanks so much once again!

[eXpl0it3r]

Actually, strangely enough, HD5470 is correct .

Hmm okay, well DELL only listed the other graphics card for the said notebook...

just thought it was strange that SFML 1.6 applications ran fine, but SFML 2.0 ones didn't.

Well the graphics module of SFML got nearly completly rewritten, so a lot has changed, but I don't know enough about the inner-workings to get an idea, why SFML 1.6 ran fine while SFML 2.0 doesn't.

[Acrobat]

Our game runs well on windows 8 (and it's realy heavy), no problems.
Be sure to run tests on computer (Windows Experience Index)

[eXpl0it3r]

Our game runs well on windows 8 (and it's realy heavy), no problems.
Be sure to run tests on computer (Windows Experience Index)

The problem has already been fixed.

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