https://gist.github.com/4377544

We are unable to query the actual memory on your card from the AMD drivers, so the 256M being reported is an expected known issue for now. That won't impact your actual perf, but it sounds like you are getting lower perf than you should for that card which is likely a driver issue as well.

Is there significant change in your Big Picture FPS if you use lower/higher resolutions?

Hi,

The problem with not being able to query the memory from AMD cards is that users are presented a faulty Display settings screen. They are advised to lower settings even if it is not necessary. Even so, it now advises me to lower my settings to 720p, though I just did that and active resolution is shown as 1280x720!

Furthermore I have an 1680x1050 screen, which is a resolution I cannot choose from the dropdown listbox (1600x900, 1920x1080, 1366x768, 1280x720, 1966x600). Again, something that might confuse users, unless some explanation is given as to why not all (standard) resolutions can be shown/selected.
And changing resolution and restarting big picture takes a while, with at least a minute black screen only. A small warning not to touch anything, and be patient would be sufficitient.

As for performance, on my 2nd PC (bought an Nvidia GTX-660 TF card).

PC specs: AMD A6-3500, Radeon HD6770 1 Gb, fglrx 9.010.12 (latest from xorg-edgers), Kernel 3.7.07. Gnome Classic Desktop (Fallback, no effects) instead of Cinnamon desktop. With Cinnamon I get a black screen while game is running (sounds normal).

Active resolution: 720p
Normal mode: prior to game play (TF settings/selections) 90fps, in-game 50-60
Big Picture: prior screens 60-70fps, in-game 25-35, dropping occasionaly 15

Mark

Verstuurd vanaf mijn iPad

Op 10 jan. 2013 om 21:01 heeft jmccaskey-valve [email protected] het volgende geschreven:

We are unable to query the actual memory on your card from the AMD drivers, so the 256M being reported is an expected known issue for now. That won't impact your actual perf, but it sounds like you are getting lower perf than you should for that card which is likely a driver issue as well.

Is there significant change in your Big Picture FPS if you use lower/higher resolutions?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

I see, you are just talking about in-game overlay perf for Big Picture. That's an area that may still need some work or this may be down to driver perf. We'll look into that more.

The inability to query actual memory available for AMD cards is definitely an issue. Hopefully it will become possible to query it.

Can't easily supply info on non-game Big Picture performance (no -console option). In general it runs pretty smooth though, in my case. I did notice a peculiarity: pressing the volume buttons on my Logitech LX300 wireless keyboard did change volume and it minimized my Big Picture.

Mark

Verstuurd vanaf mijn iPad

Op 11 jan. 2013 om 19:34 heeft jmccaskey-valve [email protected] het volgende geschreven:

I see, you are just talking about in-game overlay perf for Big Picture. That's an area that may still need some work or this may be down to driver perf. We'll look into that more.

The inability to query actual memory available for AMD cards is definitely an issue. Hopefully it will become possible to query it.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

I have the same issue with NVidia video card. Running games via Big Picture Mode causes framerate to plummet.

Driver Version:  3.3.0 NVIDIA 313.26
Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
VendorID:  0x10de
DeviceID:  0xca3
Number of Monitors:  1
Number of Logical Video Cards:  1
Primary Display Resolution:  1920 x 1080
Desktop Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Primary Display Size: 6.30" x 3.54"  (7.20" diag)
                                        16.0cm x 9.0cm  (18.3cm diag)
Primary Bus: PCI Express 16x
Primary VRAM: 1024 MB
Supported MSAA Modes:  2x 4x 8x 16x 

Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
LANG: en_GB.UTF-8
Microphone: Not set
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 150101 Mb
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 9586 Mb


same problem here FPS are getting cut in half ingame

Processor Information:
Vendor: AuthenticAMD
CPU Family: 0x10
CPU Model: 0x6
CPU Stepping: 0x2
CPU Type: 0x0
Speed: 2915 Mhz
2 logical processors
2 physical processors
HyperThreading: Unsupported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Unsupported
SSE4a: Supported
SSE41: Unsupported
SSE42: Unsupported

Network Information:
Network Speed:

Operating System Version:
Ubuntu 13.04 (32 bit)
Kernel Name: Linux
Kernel Version: 3.8.0-26-generic
X Server Vendor: The X.Org Foundation
X Server Release: 11303000
X Window Manager: Compiz
Steam Runtime Version: steam-runtime-release_2013-09-05

Video Card:
Driver: NVIDIA Corporation GeForce GT 220/PCIe/SSE2/3DNOW!

Driver Version:  3.3.0 NVIDIA 313.30
OpenGL Version: 3.3
Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
VendorID:  0x10de
DeviceID:  0xa20
Number of Monitors:  1
Number of Logical Video Cards:  1
Primary Display Resolution:  1920 x 1080
Desktop Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Primary Display Size: 18.78" x 10.55"  (21.54" diag)
                                        47.7cm x 26.8cm  (54.7cm diag)
Primary Bus: PCI Express 16x
Primary VRAM: 1024 MB
Supported MSAA Modes:  2x 4x 8x 16x 

Sound card:
Audio device: Realtek ALC662 rev1

Memory:
RAM: 4035 Mb

Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
LANG: en_US.UTF-8
Microphone: Not set
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 232406 Mb
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 51526 Mb

Installed software:

Recent Failure Reports:

I experience this as well, on every Linux machine I've tried (also SteamOS).
If I look at top when this is occurring, I see at least one core maxed out by steam, in addition to the actual game.
(CPU usage for steam shows 100+%)

Seems to occur independent of the game being played.

Same frame rate issue for me in Big Picture mode, too. Ubuntu 14.04, AMD FX-6300, nvidia GTX650, 8GB RAM.

If launched from Big Picture mode I experience around 6-8fps even in games like Anti-chamber , which are not demanding of my components. Otherwise, I get much higher and smooth frame rates in Steam desktop mode. I rarely use Big Picture mode for this reason.

@kisak-valve I don't, it got a lot better for me

Seems resolved here.