Nehm

@Adam Brennecke I responded to your reddit post with a download link containing my original 'busted' files that I was able to restore using shadow explorer. The stuttering issues did not return when I restored the files, but maybe there will be something that can help. I'll post the link here as well. These are the saves I was playing when I recorded this video https://streamable.com/qpca3.

Nope, I've always used the custom save state creator thing in the options menu. Sorry my solution didn't work for you.

Interesting to know that this doesn't seem to be limited to steam users. Sadly, I also lost a save with over 40 hours because of this, but at the very least the game is now playable. Is telemetry disabled? If you're not limited by download speeds or bandwidth limits, can you reinstall the game after moving your entire save folder elsewhere (achievements, custom AI folders included), and start a new, fresh game? Is the game still a mess? Thanks for trying this, I'm still really curious about what replacing that folder did for me (and a few others) that made the problem go away. I'll also add: I still get frame drops, but not every 3-5 seconds. I don't think we can completely make them go away (issues with unity engine maybe?), but at the very least they're limited and the game is playable.

Reading through this thread sounds a lot like what I was experiencing as well. Posted this in another thread, just going to quote:

If you have the time, can you give this a try? Download my savegame folder here: Google Drive Place one of my save files in your savegame folder (located at C:\Users\yourusername\Saved Games\Pillars of Eternity II), run the game and load into my save. Move around and see if you're still experiencing the same problems. If it runs smooth, you're likely running into the same issue I had, which was only fixed by replacing the entire savegame folder with one from another PC that was functioning fine - replacing both achievements, and my custom AI settings folders as well as savegames on steam cloud. More info here and here. Note: if you have steam sync enabled, steam may automatically delete my save when you run the game -- make sure steam sync is disabled when you run the game, or that steam is closed and you're running the game from 'PillarsOfEternityII.exe' in the game directory. This will not fix existing savegames, only new games were fixed for me.

I don't think we have to worry. Original thread, sent them my output log and save folders. They responded via email, they confirmed that they read the last post with my solution: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/108687-game-running-choppy-suddenly/ I'm really interested in finding out what is causing the issue, so hopefully they can shed some light when they release a proper fix in a future patch.

Interesting. My wife's save folder is what fixed my game and what lead us down this path to begin with, and she also plays without steam cloud sync. Her achievements, legacygamehistory, and customAIbehavior folders overwrote mine on steam cloud. Steam then replaced those files on my PC, and any new game since has ran flawlessly -- all of my backed up broken saves are still dropping frames and basically unplayble. She uses an AMD GPU and the stuttering problem was still present on my broken saves when I moved them to her PC, so it seems the issue is embedded within the saves themselves and not specifically hardware related. I'd like to note that when steam overwrote my files with hers, the number of Berath's Blessing points available went from 60 to 51. When I manually replace her files with my broken backups, the number does not go back to 60. Nevermind, I was able to get that number to change using my new achievements folder (number went from 51 to 55). Steam must have synced the achievement folder before I backed up my broken files. Crud.

I had this same thought. I started a game with telemetry on, and while I did experience more stuttering than what I would consider normal, it wasn't game breaking like what I had experienced before. I can confirm that the old broken saves are still broken (on my PC) even though new games are entirely fixed, so it seems whatever is causing the problem is embedded in the old saves prior to the fix. A user on reddit noted that my fixed savegame on their PC ran flawlessly despite the rest of their saves or new games still being broken. They cleared everything related to POE2 on his PC and apparently the game is running better for them. I would be interested in seeing more cases of whether purging all local files related to POE2 and clearing the steam cloud backups (or at least preventing steam from redownloading said backups by running the game directly from the directory with steam closed) and starting a new game would yield the same results as using my save folder.

Fingers are crossed, but I think I fixed it. I had a chance to try the game on another PC (i5 4590, AMD card). I was logged into my steam account on their PC, no stuttering on any of the save games I loaded up onto her PC. Closed the game, steam mentioned that the save games on my cloud and on this PC didn't match up, and asked which saves I wanted backed up. I chose to upload her saves to try on my computer -- after a sync on my PC, booted up her save game and lo and behold, it ran flawlessly. I don't think it was any of my save files being corrupted since any new game I started had the problem. Edit: I copied my broken saves to two other PCs and the saves were still a stuttery mess. Leads me to believe that whatever is causing the issue exists from the moment you first load into the game and will be present until the very end, regardless of hardware specifics. After the sync, it also synced her achievement progress since I'm now missing a quite a few Berath's Blessing points and achievements. It appears that steam syncs that entire 'Saved Games > Pillars of Eternity II' folder each time you close the game, and whatever was causing the issue is related to the data saved in that folder. Explains why the issue persisted even after I reinstalled windows, steam and POE2 since steam cloud just re-downloaded whatever was causing the problem each time. Of note, the game settings remained unchanged after the sync. Thanks for the help!

No dice. Just to make sure we're talking about the same problem, I've made a short video showcasing my issue. Every ~1s or so. These stutters are amplified in combat. https://streamable.com/qpca3

Unfortunately, this did not seem to do the trick either. Thank you for the suggestions! Also, absolutely certain I'm not using any mods.

I have the same issue. i5-8400, RTX 2080. 16GB RAM. 165hz monitor/G-sync. No mods installed. Doesn't matter what type of settings I force upon the game, it will continue to freeze as described by Tedmann. It's tolerable outside of combat, but it happens even more often in combat and it's borderline unplayable. This issue isn't recent, but I was able to use the special-K workaround in the previous patches which helped a bit, but it wasn't perfect. This doesn't work anymore. I've tried: Repairing, and reinstalling the game. Installing the game on three different SSDs. Forcing 30hz/60hz (30 FPS/60FPS) Vsync off/on, gsync off/on All Nvidia driver releases between 398.82 > 419.35 (Fresh installs using DDU) Special-K mod forcing 30/60 FPS, spoofing core counts. Everything listed in this post. New, fresh windows install with fresh drivers. Disabling telemetry and steam overlay. Closing or stopping *all* other third party applications on my PC including antivirus, etc. Multiple combinations of the above. I've put hours on hours trying to get the game to run smooth, but nothing I do seems to work. I would love to finally get around to playing the DLC, but can't enjoy the game in its current state. I've emailed the output log as requested by the mod.

I'm not sure this is the correct forum to post this, but: Having put ~200 hours into the game the month of release, I finally decided to dive back into the game after waiting for all DLC releases. Having played again for about 15 hours, I felt something was.... off about the music at night. I initially thought I was simply misremembering until I did a quick search and came across these two threads: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/105962-30-a-song-from-poe1-has-come-back-with-a-vengeance/page-3 https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/105474-atmosphere-i-hope-justin-bell-reads-this/ I'd like to suggest a way to disable these features and go back to how it was prior to adding the night-time specific tracks, as I vastly prefer the way it was prior to these changes.... I can't be the only one who feels this way . The same few music tracks being played in almost every zone at night is starting to get a bit old. It's especially immersion breaking when what feels like an outdoorsy, Dyrwoodan-ish theme is playing in a place like Delver's Row. More so when you realize how often and in how many different atmospheres those same tracks are playing. I can appreciate the idea, but I feel like the implementation wasn't exactly stellar, especially given that the original music for most areas were more or less unique and, in my opinion, fit well with the themes of the Deadfire.

With the new free hair & beard DLC released today, any chance we can get a few of the older options updated? They don't look quite as nice when compared to some of the new DLC options. I've attached an example of some weird, patchy-bald spots on one of the shorter beard options. This is definitely a low priority request, but I think it would be worth doing another pass on some of the original customization options at some point!

Experiencing the same problem. I went through the quest in almost that same order. Can only lie to complete it.