Game stuttering with a high end PC

[Driver Kaldie]

Hello everyone, I'm getting sick and tired of the stuttering of the game...I have follewed lots of solutions that I find in this forum here and executed them all. I have downloaded the performance mod, adjusted the options for my videocard driver, and it still runs terrible.

Here are my system settings:

System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model: AX370-Gaming 3
Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 2700 Eight-Core Processor (16 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
Memory: 65536MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 12
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 8GB
Display Memory: 40748 MB
Dedicated Memory: 8006 MB
Shared Memory: 32742 MB
Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)

So my pc is absolutely no potato. My performance mod is set to max 5000 distance. The other settings are also set to potato, My graphics are set to low (while it should be able to run at max settings with this machine).

At the moment I play the game on the map "Flat Islands" with can be found in the workshop. It's maglomania map. I run 281 mods (mostly vehicle mods), and one of the is a expanded industry mod. I have about 20 cities (not even big ones, just medium). At the moment I only have 10 trains running on the map, and the game is stuttering like sh*t...I have a framerate of about 85-100 when zooming in to a vehicle, and when I zoom out it goes to about 125 fps. But even when I zoom into a bear or another animal the stuttering continues.

I see people run youtube movies off the game with a lower end pc than mine and hundreds and hundreds of vehicles in multiple large cities...Trains, trucks, trams and the regular traffic going on the map flowing perfectly and without stuttering.

Can someone pleade help with (maybe even people who make those perfect looking videos on youtube). The game is unplayable, and I'm only frustrated when I run this game. First you spend hours to make a nice map, fill it up with some towns and industry, and when you start playing this happens over and over again...So I'm lost and really don't know what else I can do to make my game run smoothly...

Thanks in advance guys :)

[FriendCalledFive]

That isn't a high end PC and you are pushing the limits of the game with everything you have added on to it. I have never run a map that complex, is it using all your RAM?

[RadiKyle]

Hi, I'm trying to understand what you mean by stuttering when your framerates are generally 100+ fps... Do you mean it occasionally freezes or something, but then runs 100 fps in between those?

Also does it do it only when moving around the map? Does it do it when just sitting still?

[Driver Kaldie]

Originally posted by FriendCalledFive:

That isn't a high end PC and you are pushing the limits of the game with everything you have added on to it. I have never run a map that complex, is it using all your RAM?

It is pretty high-end to me, it runs all modern game clockwise, for example when I play Cities Skylines with over a 1000 mods and all of it's added game-packs it still runs perfectly fine, that PC cost me €2000,- in 2020. Besides, with this setup it should be more than capable of running this game just fine...It's only using 20% of my CPU and about a quarter of my 64GB RAM from my memory, so it should be fine.

[Driver Kaldie]

Originally posted by RadiKyle:

Hi, I'm trying to understand what you mean by stuttering when your framerates are generally 100+ fps... Do you mean it occasionally freezes or something, but then runs 100 fps in between those?

Also does it do it only when moving around the map? Does it do it when just sitting still?

With stuttering I mean that all of the vehicles, animals and animations in the game are moving, standing still, moving standing still etc...so a sort of flickering, they don't run smoothly on the track etc. and yes, I have over 100 fps when running the game, in my previous comment you can see what my CPU and RAM usage is...

[FriendCalledFive]

Originally posted by Driver Kaldie:

Originally posted by FriendCalledFive:

That isn't a high end PC and you are pushing the limits of the game with everything you have added on to it. I have never run a map that complex, is it using all your RAM?

It is pretty high-end to me, it runs all modern game clockwise, for example when I play Cities Skylines with over a 1000 mods and all of it's added game-packs it still runs perfectly fine, that PC cost me €2000,- in 2020. Besides, with this setup it should be more than capable of running this game just fine...It's only using 20% of my CPU and about a quarter of my 64GB RAM from my memory, so it should be fine.

It is a 6 year old CPU, that isn't remotely high end today.

Saying it is only using 25% of CPU means you are looking at the total CPU usage in task manager, not the logical cores, some of which will be maxed out which would mean you are CPU bound.

[Driver Kaldie]

Originally posted by FriendCalledFive:

Originally posted by Driver Kaldie:

It is pretty high-end to me, it runs all modern game clockwise, for example when I play Cities Skylines with over a 1000 mods and all of it's added game-packs it still runs perfectly fine, that PC cost me €2000,- in 2020. Besides, with this setup it should be more than capable of running this game just fine...It's only using 20% of my CPU and about a quarter of my 64GB RAM from my memory, so it should be fine.

It is a 6 year old CPU, that isn't remotely high end today.

Saying it is only using 25% of CPU means you are looking at the total CPU usage in task manager, not the logical cores, some of which will be maxed out which would mean you are CPU bound.

Ok probably, but what can I do to solve this problem...Like I said, most other games are running perfectly fine, except this game...

[Tsubame ⭐]

I am not sure why people keep thinking the CPU needs to run at 100% for the application to be running optimized.

CPUs have lots of cores, and applications rarely use more than a couple.

Even the usage of the cores actually used will fluctuate, may be consistently above 60% but should not get to 100%, not consistently anyway.

This can easily be seen ingame with an application like MSi, even Task Manager will do:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3148287074

As for the reason of the lag, it can be either CPU or GPU related. Or both, as in the map in the screenshot above. More people and paths - i.e. roads, lines, buildings, etc. - available will result in more CPU usage, while more things built in the map - including non functional assets like trees - will contribute to GPU usage.

With only 10 trains running in the map, and lag issues that occur even in low graphic presets, I would guess it could be CPU related, but more information would be nice.

Does the lag occur with the game paused or only with the simulation running? Does stuttering occur when the simulation is on, especially at fast forward speeds?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2760202773

[Driver Kaldie]

I can give you any information you like...The lag occurs if I play the game, when I follow a vehicle (or even an animal) on the map, or when I just let a train (or other vehicle) pass by. The game is not in "pause" mode...Just normal speed gameplay.

B.t.w. I tried all the things on this page as well:
https://www.ghostarrow.com/how-to-improve-fps-in-transport-fever-2?expand_article=1

[Tsubame ⭐]

Does the stutter occur with moving things in the map, if you do not follow things around?

Depending on the camera angle of the things being followed, some stuttering and lag spikes may be expected, especially at very shallow angles, or in cab rides. This is because many things in the map will come into the field of vision of the camera, even if they are not actually visible due to distance and/or obstacles.

Additional cameras such as when you follow multiple things around the map may also add to GPU usage.

[Driver Kaldie]

With moving things on the map, you mean animations from say industry, buildings etc ? Or do you mean when I move around the map with the mouse...Both stutter. When I just keep the sight in one place and watch a train go by the train stutters. If I follow it, either with the ingame camera or just with the mouse, it stutters. I do not use mods for additional cameras, just the standard ingame camera.

It also doesn't matter if I'm very high above a train and watch it, or very close by...

[brahiam_83]

Which API are you using Vulkan or OpenGL?

[Driver Kaldie]

Vulkan

[Tsubame ⭐]

Originally posted by Driver Kaldie:

With moving things on the map, you mean animations from say industry, buildings etc ? Or do you mean when I move around the map with the mouse...Both stutter. When I just keep the sight in one place and watch a train go by the train stutters. If I follow it, either with the ingame camera or just with the mouse, it stutters. I do not use mods for additional cameras, just the standard ingame camera.

It also doesn't matter if I'm very high above a train and watch it, or very close by...

I am inclined to say it is a CPU bottleneck. What is the population in the map? Any screenshots of the map?

What happens when you fast forward the simulation speed - all vehicles start stuttering more?

If it is a CPU bottleneck, not much you can do except limit further population growth, or even decrease it through mods like Town Tuning, to prevent the issue from worsening.

[Driver Kaldie]

It's this map:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2452960037&searchtext=Flat+Islands

But I already removed a lot of cities. When you start it's crowded with cities, but I downgraded it to about 20 cities. They are all still relatively empty. I also use the Town tuning mod, and kept it at around 250 population per town.

[RadiKyle]

Agree that hitting CPU limits is a possibility, especially with such high frame rates. Two ideas... Try loading a different highly developed map that doesn't use any mods. If you don't have one you can probably find one in the Steam Workshop. That would at least help identify whether mods are a major factor (because certain mods definitely can be, especially poorly LOD-optimized vehicles).

The other idea, just spitballing here... If your monitor supports it, try running at 1440 (or higher) instead of 1080. Yes it'll load up your GPU more and your frame rate will drop. But I'm wondering if it might offload the CPU a bit (my understanding is that some titles will burn CPU trying to keep up with an unbound GPU, but I don't know if that applies to TpF 2).

Also what is your GPU memory consumption in game? (Above you mentioned about 16 GB of 64 GB installed system memory.)