Performance issue

[BlackStar]

I have heard some people say this game is poorly optimised. While I can agree the game at times run like a slideshow, I cannot call it poorly optimised.

The reason is simple, for a game to be poorly optimised it has to use all the horsepower available. Optimising is a way to squeze even more out of the game on the available horsepower, by streamlining the math.

What I experience with Hydroneer is that the game leaves horsepower on the floor, which I both find odd and annoying, since it doesn't take much to tank the performance.

My GPU is an RTX 3090, which never goes above 40% when I am playing Hydroneer. The card tops out at 390 watts, something I see it hit regularly when playing other games. In Hydroneer it rarely goes above 120 watts and the memory clock is only running at half speed.

My first thought was I must be CPU bottlenecked. My CPU is a Ryzen 5950X, which is a 16 core (32 thread) CPU. Generally it seems like the game never uses more than 3-6 threads. Because it is rare that I see my CPU go above 20% usage, and I have never seen it touch 30.

Generally speaking Hydroneer leaves 75% of my machine horsepower unused, which I find rather annoying, as I often find myself dealing with between 15 - 30 fps. Most games run at 120 fps on my machine.

I bought the game years ago because of a video made by Josh from Lets Game It Out. I recall he once mentioned the game was using more than 10 gigs of ram on his machine. I have never seen it go beyond 2.5 gb, and since I have 64 gb ram is not the issue.

Does anybody else experience a similar issue?

Screenshot showing NVidias performance overlay [blackstar.solar]

[Phoenix Cat]

I have no issues with an I7-11700, RTX 3060 12Gb, 16Gb ram and SSD's I get a solid 55 to 60 fps. Try Vsync. Try limiting your framerates. There are several other things to do. Your system is superior to mine. What resolution and refresh rate are you running?? Have you updated drivers, verified the game? Went thru all the basics? Oh and can't look at your pic. It is not in steam. It is on another site.

[BlackStar]

Can't upload screenshots to Steam, so hosting on private server.

I am running in ultrawide resolution (5120x1440) (still have the same issue when running 26xxX1440) with the screen refresh rate set at 120.

The drivers are the newest I've updated them a couple of times over my playing time.

I will try your suggestion on Vsync.

[BlackStar]

Vsync didn't help. I even tried changing the max framerate.

Can I ask you to post a screenshot of Nvidia's performance overlay on your end? Requires Geforce experience. Hit Alt+Z in game to configure or Alt+R to just bring up the default.

[Phoenix Cat]

Sorry man, I cannot for the life of me get a screen shot using my overlay. It never shows it. Trying to attach different screenshots other than steams is not working. Will keep trying. If I get it figured out I will post ASAP.

[Phoenix Cat]

Maybe I can message them to you if we are friends. May be easier.

[BlackStar]

In terms of your issues with the overlay not showing. Hit the PrtScn button on the keyboard, open Paint.NET (can be downloaded from getpaint.net) and hit [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[V]. That way the screenshot contains what is actually on screen and not just the in-game window.

[Klandor]

I have a suspicion that it's a combination of the Ultawide Display running at 120 refresh rate. That's a lot going on at the same time. I also have a smaller setup:

System Specs:

1. CPU: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-12900HK
   
2. GPU 1: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU
   
   • Driver version: 31.0.15.5222
     
   • Driver date: 4/11/2024
     
   • DirectX version: 12 (FL 12.1)
     
   • 16 GB VRAM
3. 64 GB RAM
   
4. M.2 NVMe 2 TB SSD

I have my FPS limited to 60 in the Hydroneer settings, as this helps stabilize game play. I generally see those 60 FPS so long as I don't get a Clog in my Mine (I have a known issue that I think I have a fix to, that I need to install). My Mine, meanwhile, currently has 6 Heavy Drills with the space to quadruple that once I confirm the fix works...

[BlackStar]

I took your suggestion about the ultrawide display running at 120 and decided to run the game in 1080 and set the framerate to 60 with vsync on. It didn't change anything at all.

At this point in time, I've disabled all mining and all logic. Which gives me a frame rate of 56 with a 1% low of 28. I get 120 the moment I hit escape and enter into the menu.

I have 3 dirt crushers and about 18 drills in total. Combined with about 100 pieces of conveyuers. As I have disabled all mining, only the conveuyers are running. I really don't have enough pieces laying around to cripple a 32 thread machine with 64 gb ram.

I have never seen the game go above 2.5 gb of ram in terms of usage. So I cannot help think this game is written to use the least amount of ram in exchange for CPU time. And even then, for some reason, it doesn't use all the power that is available.

I love the game, but I hate playing a slideshow, especially when the game only uses a fraction of the resources available like the rest isn't even there.

[Klandor]

I don't know what to tell you, then. The ONLY time I get anything below 50 FPS is when I start getting a Clog. I'll be starting a new Discussion for issues I've noticed related to the Heavy Lava Harvester and the Logic Smelters. They're new for the HLH, but not necessarily new for the Logic Smelter...

[BlackStar]

I might have forgotten to add that I'm refering to the base game.

When it comes to the DLC I feel the performance is slightly better, but that might just be down me having less items placed in the word.

Can I ask how much ram the game takes up on your end and how many automated drills your game contains?

[Klandor]

Originally posted by BlackStar:

I might have forgotten to add that I'm refering to the base game.

When it comes to the DLC I feel the performance is slightly better, but that might just be down me having less items placed in the word.

Can I ask how much ram the game takes up on your end and how many automated drills your game contains?

I have 6 Heavy Lava Drills plus a single regular Lava Drill feeding to a Heavy Lava Harvester. It produces enough, but I think I need to get them placed deeper. I'm getting everything through Cloutium, but barely getting any Corestone...

As for RAM usage, I haven't monitored it at all. I frequently have over a dozen You Tube video's open, paused, and awaiting my attention...

EDITed to fix a grammar failure on my part...

[BlackStar]

Corestone isn't really readily available until you hit the lower part of Tier 2 dirt.

You keep refering to the heavy lava drills and Lava drills. Now those are a part of the DLC, so I decided to go into my DLC save to check the numbers.

I have 10 Heavy Lava drills placed in Tier 3, along with 25 Lava drills placed in tier 2. I'm still getting about the same performance as I do in the base game.

I have however found that if I split off Gold and Iron (throw them into a logic smelter) damn near immediate (within 10 conveyers after being mined) I can keep a consistant framerate of around 50 fps. Which made me think it was the amount of items spawned that the game couldn't handle. But I've found, if I stop mining along with stopping the conveyers, the framerate returns to around 50. Even though all the "ore" is still on the stopped conveyers.

I highly doubt is in the number of items that has spawned that is the issue. It would seem that the culprit is either the act of mining itself, or items on conveyers are calcutated every single frame instead of when a change occur.

In terms of ram usage. You can see what a specific process is using in terms of ram by bringing up the Task manager (hit [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[Esc]). If you've never used the task mgr, you need to expand the view. It will either say expand or advanced. Honestly I cannot remember, since it is one of the first things I fix after installing windows.

With the advanced task manager showing. Locate the tab "Processes" (which should be the default). Then you can either find the Hydroneer process manually or you can click the cpu columns top row once to sort processes by how much CPU they use. I'm sure Hydroneer will be placed near the top when running. To read how much Ram the game is using, look for what is says in the memory column. That will list how much the game is using.