17 replies to this topic

[CycloneKnight]

I started playing with the Steam launch. It used to work fine. My configuration hasn't changed, as I'm using a gaming laptop, but each patch has resulted in intermittent stuttering and FPS drops, and they're getting worse and worse with each patch. Now, I'm lucky to get through half a match with FPS > 20. And yet, my FPS will sometimes spike to over 100 while waiting on the ready screen.

I've tried a lot of the suggestions I've found online, but none of them solved the issue. I contacted tech support, but after going back and forth a couple of times, following their instructions, I now have to delete the Shader cache every time I launch, or it crashes at login.

And I haven't gotten any reply from tech support since the end of February.

[NARC BAIT]

the 'ready screen' inside a dropship isnt really a good indicator of anything, the game is only rendering 1m - 10m in front of the cockpit, and its static, and half the game systems havent come online to bring things downwards ....

im going to assume your on an intel, and assuming your up to date, spectre/meltdown patches have potentially had %5-%20 impact

depending on configuration, windows may or may not be auto defragmenting the drive ... and having segments of the game laying all over the drive can be a real issue ....

it tends to be useful to give us an idea of the hardware you've got .... if you dont have those details on hand, you can download a small benchmark utility (5.3 mb) from http://www.userbench...erBenchMark.exe and tell us the end result page for the run, it will look like - http://www.userbench...UserRun/7744008 and will contain the info about your machine ....

[Tarl Cabot]

Laptop - How long have you had the laptop? When was the last time the heat exhaust/heatsink been clear of dust buildup?

[CycloneKnight]

NARC BAIT, on 10 March 2018 - 06:31 PM, said:

the 'ready screen' inside a dropship isnt really a good indicator of anything, the game is only rendering 1m - 10m in front of the cockpit, and its static, and half the game systems havent come online to bring things downwards .... im going to assume your on an intel, and assuming your up to date, spectre/meltdown patches have potentially had %5-%20 impact depending on configuration, windows may or may not be auto defragmenting the drive ... and having segments of the game laying all over the drive can be a real issue .... it tends to be useful to give us an idea of the hardware you've got .... if you dont have those details on hand, you can download a small benchmark utility (5.3 mb) from http://www.userbench...erBenchMark.exe and tell us the end result page for the run, it will look like - http://www.userbench...UserRun/7744008 and will contain the info about your machine ....

Okay, ran the benchmark, and here's what it said (once I switched settings to make sure it tested my actual graphics card, that is): http://www.userbench...UserRun/7744661

Most of the memory usage is my browser, which I had running with multiple tabs while I ran the benchmark, but I always shut that down when I play MWO. I also have no idea why it thinks my CPU is throttled; I went where it said on all my power profiles, and they're all showing 100%.

EDIT: Closed the browser down and ran it again: http://www.userbench...UserRun/7745066

For maybe the first year after I started playing, it was stable, no stuttering or FPS drops; I don't know what FPS I was getting because it was good enough (I have fairly low standards, apparently) that I never bothered checking. Nowadays, when I'm NOT experiencing the FPS drops during combat, it usually runs at around 40-45 FPS. I am running MWO on all the lowest graphic settings.

Tarl Cabot, on 10 March 2018 - 06:32 PM, said:

Laptop - How long have you had the laptop? When was the last time the heat exhaust/heatsink been clear of dust buildup?

I got this in October 2015. And I'm going to kick myself if it turns out to be something as simple as dust build up. Is compressed air the best way to clean it? This is my first gaming laptop, and I'm a little leery of anything that involves opening it up.

Edited by CycloneKnight, 10 March 2018 - 08:31 PM.

[NARC BAIT]

the assumption its throttling is probably caused by the 'high background usage' ... its interpretting the throttling at 99% of capacity, so I wouldnt worry too much about that aspect ... maybe its interpretting it because it didnt notice it turbo boost beyond the 'rated' clocks of the processor .... some of them are clocking out to 3.2 ghz .... a decent boost over the standard ....

the best way to clean it is to open it up ... but ... uhh yeah ... cant say I blame you for not wanting to do that, as some are just outright nightmarish monsters to both take apart, and put back together .... so compressed air tends to be a common choice, its far from perfect, but beats doing nothing .... just be careful not to ahve too much air pressure .... I've known people to use a vacuum at the other end from where they put air in, and see what they catch .... that being said, if the PC is around someone smoking, it can gather a layer of sticky icky over all the heatsinks etc .... which can kill efficiency pretty badly .... I'd hate to see a PC that lived at snoop dogg's house ...

i did find a youtube video of someone taking one apart, I think it might be the right model, .... a 50 minute vid .... but you can see where the fan arrangements are underneath the back cover at least ...

usually big fps drops during heavy combat can be alleviated partially by turning off the team information on the HUD, its generally bound to the "[" key

[CycloneKnight]

NARC BAIT, on 10 March 2018 - 08:42 PM, said:

the best way to clean it is to open it up ... but ... uhh yeah ... cant say I blame you for not wanting to do that, as some are just outright nightmarish monsters to both take apart, and put back together .... so compressed air tends to be a common choice, its far from perfect, but beats doing nothing .... just be careful not to ahve too much air pressure .... I've known people to use a vacuum at the other end from where they put air in, and see what they catch .... that being said, if the PC is around someone smoking, it can gather a layer of sticky icky over all the heatsinks etc .... which can kill efficiency pretty badly .... I'd hate to see a PC that lived at snoop dogg's house ...

No smokers in this household, so that's one thing I don't have to worry about, at least.

NARC BAIT, on 10 March 2018 - 08:42 PM, said:

usually big fps drops during heavy combat can be alleviated partially by turning off the team information on the HUD, its generally bound to the "[" key

I'll give that a try next time.

I just wish tech support didn't leave me hanging. It's been ten days now, and they've only made it worse. Any ideas on the whole "have to delete the shader cache every time I play" thing? I already tried uninstalling and reinstalling it.

[NARC BAIT]

you could open the nvidia control panel, select 'manage 3d settings', and then select 'mechwarrior online' and see what its set for ... and then try it the other way .... I'm set for 'off' ...

[Tarl Cabot]

Quote

October 2015.

/shudders Many laptop users are...nm... what they cannot see will not cause them troubles while blaming everything else. Many consumers do not think about preventative maintenance with today's devices and the manufacturers are counting on that to stay in business. Use til it stops working, has issues then purchase a newer device. Cleaning fans/heatsinks need to be your first step then performed on a regular basis. Heat is not good for computer components, more so for laptops due to their design.

And heavy combat - Turboboost (layman' version of overclocking) kicking in means more heat being generated as power is increased to fewer and fewer cores to increase the speed to said cores.. Then when the heat threshold is crossed the CPU speed drops like a hammer to allow heat to dispense.


Maximum turbo frequency
3600 MHz (1 core)
3500 MHz (2 cores)
3400 MHz (3 or 4 cores)

2600 MHz base speed

1600 MHz throttled speed

Read the comments. The bad thing is for some of the people responding likely have not considered cleaning the dust buildup, which again exasperates the heat issue.

When I do suggest this, I do suggest setting it at 98% instead of 99%, but prior to that capping the FPS with a user.cfg with sys_MaxFPS = 60 (example)

https://www.tautvida...el-turbo-boost/

Even if you do not use the link above, based on your links, your power settings are not set to best performance. No need for power saver when connected to an outlet which reduces how often things turn on, such as fans until max heat threshold has been met, at which time CPU is being throttled, core parking and cpu throttling.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 11 March 2018 - 01:29 PM.

[AncientOfDays]

With all that said, Piranha Games does not Optimize this game so that we, can have a better experience with this game.

[Omaha]

I wouldn't say they don't optimize. In fact dealing with cry engine, I think they have done a pretty good job at optimizing. The are always trying to improve code. Believe me, been here pretty much since it's inception.

The engine is notorious in this regard.

The meme "But can it run Crysis?" comes to mind.

I ran this game at absolute minimum hardware reqs, and below that for many years. Thankfully as of last month those days are over! xD. (At one point I was running E8400, and a 8800gs @ running at 25+/- fps)

It's fully playable/enjoyable. With lower hardware, got to remember lots of other factors can come into play. Dust/heat/background apps/config(bios/graphics settings/OC) Maintenance, ETC,ETC.

Hoping things turn out good for the OP.

Edited by Omaha, 13 March 2018 - 10:26 PM.

[Anton Fetladral]

I've found with laptops low fps is often an issue with power. When I go into battery mode I get low fps. You could try looking at your power plan and making sure it's set to high performance or something like that.

[CycloneKnight]

Throttling down the max FPS with a user.cfg has helped immensely; at least now, the FPS drops aren't constantly happening in the middle of combat for minutes at a time.

Also, I went and turned of shader caches in my NVIDIA control panel. It worked for something like two startups, but it's happening again. And it's still creating the shader cache folder. WTF?!

[K N I G H T]

I feel your pain, something has happened over the last year with these most recent patches. I am running a 970 GTX, I used to be able to play at max settings and have 70+ frames. Now I am lucky to get above 25fps. the game is slowly starting to become unplayable and with the increase in video card costs due to crypocurrency I have no hopes of affording a new video card to keep up with the lack of optimization for the game.

[NARC BAIT]

CycloneKnight, on 14 March 2018 - 05:50 PM, said:

Throttling down the max FPS with a user.cfg has helped immensely; at least now, the FPS drops aren't constantly happening in the middle of combat for minutes at a time.

ive had some people tell me they get a much more 'enjoyable' result throttling it to where the minimums tend to happen .... for me thats 48 ... and i really couldnt stand it ... but I guess it depends on what your used to, and what you expect ...

CycloneKnight, on 14 March 2018 - 05:50 PM, said:

Also, I went and turned of shader caches in my NVIDIA control panel. It worked for something like two startups, but it's happening again. And it's still creating the shader cache folder. WTF?!

did you disable the shader cache on the global profile, or on the MWO profile only ?

[Omaha]

I've found something that may/may not help. But is an easy tweak to see if it helps you. If your running Creators update.

1. Find the exe-file to the game you are having trouble with.
2. Right click the exe-file and click properties
3. Click on the compability tab
4. Click on Disable fullscreen optimizations
5. Click apply and ok

Also,
The creators update can reset some of the NVIDIA Control Panel settings. Check that PhysX settings are set to Auto-select (recommended) in the NVIDIA Control Panel settings. You will find it at "Configure Surround, PhysX" under 3D Settings.

Edited by Omaha, 15 March 2018 - 12:48 PM.

[CycloneKnight]

NARC BAIT, on 15 March 2018 - 05:21 AM, said:

did you disable the shader cache on the global profile, or on the MWO profile only ?

MWO profile only. And I verified it's the 64-bit version, which is the one I'm actually running, rather than the 32-bit version (since they'll be stopping support for that soon).

Omaha, on 15 March 2018 - 12:46 PM, said:

4. Click on Disable fullscreen optimizations

Do I want it checked or unchecked? It was already checked when I went there.

Omaha, on 15 March 2018 - 12:46 PM, said:

The creators update can reset some of the NVIDIA Control Panel settings. Check that PhysX settings are set to Auto-select (recommended) in the NVIDIA Control Panel settings. You will find it at "Configure Surround, PhysX" under 3D Settings.

Yep, that's what it's set to.

Edited by CycloneKnight, 15 March 2018 - 03:26 PM.

[Omaha]

You could try without it checked, I mean it's a quick and easy checkbox.

[NARC BAIT]

CycloneKnight, on 15 March 2018 - 03:26 PM, said:

MWO profile only.

I think in that instance, that the nvidia driver will keep 'preparing' the folder, but it shouldnt end up being populated ....

the suggestion by Omaha above is interesting .... I'm actually not familiar with that one .... on my system it was checked on, and turning it off seemed to yield improvement, in the testing grounds .... whether or not it holds true in the battlefield I'm not sure yet .... first impression is at the very least a difference to the behaviour of screen data on my 4K panel ... if I frame lock to 120 hz, its much less 'shuddery' than before but i still believe my screen is only actually outputting every second frame .... locking at 90 fps makes it a bit more noticeable whats going on .... so yeah, check that out .... but try not to change too many things at once, so you have some hope of knowing which options work out better for you ....

another thing you might want to try, is game mode .... if you've got the option for fullscreen optimizations, and you havent taken big steps to disable game mode since the 'fall update' then game mode is 'auto' on, for games that microsoft has verified ... which doesnt include MWO as far as I can tell ... you may get a performance boost from it being on .... actually turning it on, for a non verified game, is another chore .... firstly you need to have the game bar enabled .... if you turned it off before the update, like a sane person, then it generally becomes semi hidden from the user .... to enable the game bar, you need to open the control panel, and select gaming ... yes, its the xbox icon ... game bar is the top option on the left, and you will probably need to adjust the slider to turn it on .... at the end, feel free to come back here, as the game mode itself is not controlled by whether the 'bar' is on or off .... then launch the game, and on the login page ( if you try to do it past the login page you may be met with varying levels of cant select the buttons / nothing shows up ) activate the bar with the shortcut 'windows key' + 'g' which should bring up the bar .... game mode should be the second last 'button' on the right hand side, next to settings, or you could open the settings, and tick a check box, its just another layer deep .... turn it on, play a few games, see if its better / worse ... keep in mind that the map for a battle has some impact, for instance HPG and alpine peaks tend to have the least 'stuff' in them, and may run better than crimson straight / tourmaline / forest colony ...