Yet another "fps issues" question

[Ieldra]

I'm having a problem with one of my rooms. Whenever I am in the room in the screenshot below, standing where the picture shows, fps drops down to 13-18. There are other machines behind me in this room but this is the worst place to stand and the worst angle to look, so I assume the machines in the screenshot are at fault somehow.

I'd like some hints about what I can do to get higher fps here. Many parts of my base have fps in the 20s and 30s, but that's ok for the number of machines in those areas, and when I go out away from my base, I get around 60-120 depending on environment, so there's room for improvement, and high texture resolution does not appear to be a big factor. That's good because I do not want to compromise on texture resolution.

Possible factors:
(1) Light sources and smooth lighting. I'm getting a moderate improvement when I use lower smooth lighting settings, but I do not want to compromise here. Also, I'm using arcane lamps everywhere but if I didn't I would have lots of torches instead. Not much room for improvement as I see it.
(2) Animations. How much do machine animations such as the lightning effect on the Van De Graaff generators (right on the screenshot) affect fps?
(3) Tanks and liquids. I've heard that the OpenBlocks tank may be problematic here, and I have a lot of them (122) in this room. Is liquid animation a factor? Would it be better to use Buildcraft tanks?

Anything else? All in all, I can live with the 13-18 fps if it's that bad only in this room, but I want to build some more stuff here, and lower than what I get now would be problematic.

 

[Racemol]

Just a hunch. Try to (temporarily) remove the openblocks tanks. They are kinda heavy on your FPS.

I know they looks nice and all, but using them on stuff that frequently fills/drains it can take a big hit on your FPS. I swtiched to extracell's fluid storage instead, though a bit boring.

 

[Ieldra]

Just a hunch. Try to (temporarily) remove the openblocks tanks. They are kinda heavy on your FPS.

I know they looks nice and all, but using them on stuff that frequently fills/drains it can take a big hit on your FPS. I swtiched to extracell's fluid storage instead, though a bit boring.

This is a production facility, not storage. Using ExtraCells exclusively here would mean 36 fluid import buses and 36 fluid export buses added instead of the tanks. I wonder what price in performance I'd pay for these. Are Buildcraft tanks better in this, or does the problem lie with moving liquids as such?

Anyway, thanks. I'll test this

 

[Racemol]

I have no hard numbers on this, you need to test what works. First I would try to replace the openblocks tanks with the TE tanks, the resonant tank which holds 64 buckets (same as 4 openblock tanks) and see if that helps.

36 import and export busses seem a bit excessive indeed. Can't you use a few tanks as buffer and use fluiducts (opaque) from there? It's hard for me to see what exactly is happening in that room, the texture pack is not familiar to me.

 

[Ieldra]

I have no hard numbers on this, you need to test what works. First I would try to replace the openblocks tanks with the TE tanks, the resonant tank which holds 64 buckets (same as 4 openblock tanks) and see if that helps.

36 import and export busses seem a bit excessive indeed. Can't you use a few tanks as buffer and use fluiducts (opaque) from there? It's hard for me to see what exactly is happening in that room, the texture pack is not familiar to me.

Main storage is the ME network. The tanks are already buffer. There are 6 fluid export buses feeding the supply tanks and 6 fluid import buses pulling from the output tanks. The 36 neutron irradiation chambers (blue/white striped blocks) convert deuterium to tritium as nuclear fusion fuel, and each of them needs an output and an input conduit. The main problem is that input must be from the top and output must be to the bottom, and every chamber must be in direct line to a nuclear fission fuel core (at the center of each set of 4) so the possible arrangements are limited. I can reduce the number of tank blocks per tank, replacing some of them with conduits, but can't reduce the number of tanks. I also can't reduce the number of machine inputs and output at all.

Also note that half of the tanks don't do much at all in the production version since the output is immediately pulled into the ME network and only the lowest block of a tank ever has liquid in it. This screenshot was made for presentation.

What exactly *is* the problem with the OpenBlocks tanks? Don't Buildcraft tanks work the same way?

 

[Golrith]

Openblock tanks have a lot of fluid dynamic calculations going on in the background, the get the waves and flowing. None of the other tanks offer this. One or two tanks is not a problem, but once you get loads of tanks in big structures and odd shapes, then it really hits.
Best buffer option vs space used you can have is as mentioned the Resonant Tank from Thermal Expansion, but BC tanks would just fine too.

 

[Not_Steve]

According to both my tests and the results of others using XU drums is the most efficient way to store or buffer fluid. If you are looking for the most lag friendly fluid movement Steve's Factory Manager is, by leaps and bounds, the most lag friendly. Next on that list is opaque fluiducts from TE followed by fluid nodes from XU.

 

[CarbonBasedGhost]

According to both my tests and the results of others using XU drums is the most efficient way to store or buffer fluid. If you are looking for the most lag friendly fluid movement Steve's Factory Manager is, by leaps and bounds, the most lag friendly. Next on that list is opaque fluiducts from TE followed by fluid nodes from XU.

Personally for a liquid buffer I like to use p2p to a tank via AE. (1.6.4.) And the tank is whatever size I need so I do the least intensive feats as possible.

Drums for small liquid like @Not_Steve said Railcraft steel tanks for big and gregtech storage for insane.

 

[Ieldra]

@Golrith:
Thanks, that's what I wanted to know. I don't want to redesign that facility at this time, but using Buildcraft tanks is a good alternative unless things get unbearably slow.

@CarbonBasedGhost:
In this case, the number of machine inputs and outputs I need (36 of each, which unfortunately can't be reduced) may make using AE elements unfeasible. That's why I had the big tanks in the first place instead of using fluid buses I would prefer in most other cases. I've used RC tanks in the past, but for the amounts of fluid I need to manage (up to 16 KBuckets) they become... slightly awkward