Extreme Drop In Performance (Out of Ideas)

 

With the recent patch I've noticed a massive drop in sability in my game. I went from a solid 88 frames avg to now around 40 to 57 in more areas with a number of NPCs. 

 

I've gone through and looked at a lot of forum posts regarding performances. I've tried forcing D11 and windows exclusivity. I tried the nVidia control panel fix. I even tried the Special K CPU logic limiter fix but I'm still getting choopy frames. Even if I am in an area where I can run up to 144 frames, I get a ton of stutter.

 

Running out of ideas... I'm a huge fan of the game and would actually like to finish my playthrough but it's hurting my eyes to have my screen constantly stop/freeze and slowly go back up to the frames it was at. To only stop/freeze and do it again.

 

I'm having no other issues in any of my games and I'm out of ideas. I've uninstalled and re-installed.

 

Thanks for any help fellow watchers!

Edited January 1 by Mahoner

I have the same problem.

 

Rizen 1400

32gb mem

GTX 1060 (6 gb)

ssd samsung EVO 960

 

FPS goes down a lot with time and no solutions save. Reduced graphics do not affect. Manipulations with the panel nvidia and other fixes do not help. Overclocking components also does not work.

I've noticed that if game runs long, it starts to get laggy and needs to be restarted. Also verifying integrity of data cache helps if the lags continue, but the game will start to lag eventually again if ran too long.

 

For me, any areas with water or big moving nature effects (sandstorm and sea) get very laggy eventually and there is no way to disable them.

4.0 definitely have some performance issue

game start and load first save take three times longer than before

and crush in one new play through more than all others combine

Edited January 1 by uuuhhii

I've noticed that if game runs long, it starts to get laggy and needs to be restarted. Also verifying integrity of data cache helps if the lags continue, but the game will start to lag eventually again if ran too long.

 

For me, any areas with water or big moving nature effects (sandstorm and sea) get very laggy eventually and there is no way to disable them.

They still didnt patched memory leak(s).#ObsidianCantCode.

For me, any areas with water or big moving nature effects (sandstorm and sea) get very laggy eventually and there is no way to disable them.

Yeah, for me the areas of SSS are some of the worst. Kinda sucks that it happens on higher end machines as well.

I can't run the game long enough before getting a headache to be able to even get a memory leak. The stuttering and chopping starts immediately. 

Currently as it stands for me, I have a product I am unable to play where previously it was fine. 

 

It certainly isn't my system. I attached a dxdiag but it doesn't seem to be showing up.

 

I have 1080 ti - 5930k - 32 GBs of ram at 3000 MHz. The game makes me want to puncture my own eyes out due to the crazy amount of skipping/stuttering that goes on.

 

If I don't move the characters it stutter/freezes, if I do move the characters it does the exact same thing. If I press the journal the game locks for a second.

 

I've tried the sticky posts nVidia fix and it has not provided me a solution. It'd be nice to hear from Obsidian about this issue as alt-tabbing used to fix this issue but now it seems to only make it worse.

I experienced bad performance before patch 4, but I could play. Now the stuttering and the micro-freezes have made it impossible to play 5 minutes decently.

This issue is still persisting. Is it possible to have any technical assistance with this issue?

 

I'm currently sitting on a 100 dollar product I am unable to use.

 

Thank you

Edited January 11 by Mahoner

Hi There,

 

Still wondering about this issue on the Technical Support page.

There has been 557 views on this page and I have still yet to have anyone in tech support respond to my post. This issue is still on-going, after fresh windows install, driver updates, deleting tons of ASUS bloatware. I have no issue with any other games, I see tons of post related to 10 series cards taking a crap.

 

I can please have some form of response or if there is no ability to get a response is there anyway to inquire about a refund for a broken game?

Edited April 13 by Mahoner

You should send an email to support@obsidian.net. 

Edited April 13 by Boeroer

Also have a look here (maybe you already did): https://support.obsidian.net/article/35-frame-rate-issues-and-constant-crashing-with-nvidia-gfx-cards

I have done all those things plus the save manipulation to see if my achievement plus saves have been corrupted. The issue is still on-going. I have followed your advice and sent an email to support. I highly doubt it will be answered unfortunately I believe OBS has just kinda said forget it. I am most likely just out my money.

Have you tried running as admin, forcing dx 11 or exclusive mode? There's also an ongoing issue with citrix drivers.
launch options: -force-d3d11 -window-mode exclusive

Running in full screen borderless (Windowed) mode with Vsync disabled and FPS limit set to 60 seemed to have fixed the issue for me. Though the mem leak is still there. This usually happens after extended hours of play. Nothing much you can do except to quit and restart the game.

Have you tried running as admin, forcing dx 11 or exclusive mode? There's also an ongoing issue with citrix drivers.

launch options: -force-d3d11 -window-mode exclusive

 

Running in full screen borderless (Windowed) mode with Vsync disabled and FPS limit set to 60 seemed to have fixed the issue for me. Though the mem leak is still there. This usually happens after extended hours of play. Nothing much you can do except to quit and restart the game.

I have tried all these things to fix this issue. It is still on-going I have submitted a ticket to the support email to see if this can be resolved.

 

Thank you for your suggestions though.

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.

Edited April 14 by Nehm

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.

Hey Nehm,

I tried it with your save file and I can say the performance is better but not ideal. I am still getting micro stuttering of about 2 frames that does semi-lock the game. This I can somewhat deal with; without ripping out my own eyeballs.

 

The issue then is I just lost a save of about 52 hours? I loaded my save with your save files and the stutter subsided to every 30 seconds of a 30ish frame drop.

 

Do we have any idea what is causing this issues or has OBS taking their EPIC and M$ money and forgot about this game and it is now up to the community to try and fix it?

 

Sidenote: I use GOG and launch via PoEII exe not GOG galaxy and do not have cloud sync enabled nor the GOG overlay. So, steam isn't what corrupted my files.

Edited April 14 by Mahoner

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.

Edited April 14 by Nehm

Well, unfortunately the game still runs terribly when I start a new game. After a clean install with no PoE settings left behind, I used your save file after another install and started a new game and I was still dropping 20 plus frames on the starter beach ever 3-5 seconds.

 

I am curious if you are importing a save file or not in your new games? I do every single time and I am wondering if that has anything to do with this already terribly coded game running into more issues then it is worth.

 

I believe there is no fix for my issue without dev intervention and am going to try and seek a refund on Fig due to this issue going unresolved for a year.

 

Thanks for trying to help Nehm hopefully one day fellow watchers get to play this game with zero issues.

I am curious if you are importing a save file or not in your new games?

 

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

Edited April 15 by Nehm

Found on reddit as a possible issue:

"Check your Nvidia control panel and see if your Physx configuration is set to the graphics card, CPU, or Auto. Set it to the GPU if it's anything other than that and see if you notice a difference."

Found on reddit as a possible issue:

"Check your Nvidia control panel and see if your Physx configuration is set to the graphics card, CPU, or Auto. Set it to the GPU if it's anything other than that and see if you notice a difference."

I tried this and it did not work. I have opened a ticket and have done all these steps and them some with support.

 

There is something seriously wrong with the game and how it interacts with nVidia 10 series cards, that is not fixable without dev and nVidia intervention.

 

Found on reddit as a possible issue:

"Check your Nvidia control panel and see if your Physx configuration is set to the graphics card, CPU, or Auto. Set it to the GPU if it's anything other than that and see if you notice a difference."

I tried this and it did not work. I have opened a ticket and have done all these steps and them some with support.

 

There is something seriously wrong with the game and how it interacts with nVidia 10 series cards, that is not fixable without dev and nVidia intervention.

 

 

if it was as "simple" as a straight-forward interaction with 10-series cards, that would be easy to fix. it's not that simple. e.g. I have a 1060 on my old PC (which also has like a 6-year old processor) and i've never had stuttering issues. I don't think anyone really knows why some people have stuttering issues and others don't - I've tried to help other people and sometimes are systems are near identical so it's hard to tell what's going on.