Pacific Drive Performance Fix - THE REAL DEAL, NO MORE STUTTERS

[Hazania]

I discovered that shaders are the primary cause of incurable stutters in Pacific Drive. They are compiled on-demand and are not saved between sessions — which results in sporadic stutters for each shader that is compiled. The first time you use each tool, see an anomaly, get hit by a storm, or enter a unique zone; new shaders are being compiled. This is not particularly unusual for a UE title, except that these should be saved permanently within the game files so that it only happens once per shader. With this fix, your shaders are permanently cached once compiled in-game.

Simply, replace the contents of your Engine.ini file found in AppData/Local/PenDriverPro/Saved/Config/WindowsNoEditor with these settings[pastebin.com].

Reddit Links:
1. Step-by-step install/uninstall guide.
2. Before & after benchmarks.
3. Detailed explanation, and each UE4 setting used.

This fix does not reduce graphics and therefore will not raise your maximum FPS. It is intended to reduce stutters; it should increase your 1% Lows significantly and may increase your average FPS. However, u/TheHybred's Low Quality Preset helps with increasing your maximum FPS at the expense of graphics quality, if my fix is not enough.

Edited: formatting, grammar, brevity, accuracy

[Hollapeno]

Thanks for the stuttering fix!

Originally posted by Permyack:

If that's the case, it seems odd.
The developers seem to be aware of many problems, including this one, but if they don't want to use a community solution, I don't understand it.

Yeah... not sure if this is a case of "If I ignore this long and hard enough, everyone will forget this is an issue" or if it's some kind of hubris ("No way we're acknowledging that this stuttering got fixed by a player"). I was thinking maybe they just have no clue how to fix the outstanding performance issues with the game, but if that were the case, wouldn't they be happy about the help and implement it officially ASAP? And the one crutch that many devs rely on to brute force unoptimized performance AKA DLSS is not even implemented properly... this whole launch has been so severely disappointing.

[Permyack]

Originally posted by Hollapeno:

Thanks for the stuttering fix!

Originally posted by Permyack:

If that's the case, it seems odd.
The developers seem to be aware of many problems, including this one, but if they don't want to use a community solution, I don't understand it.

Yeah... not sure if this is a case of "If I ignore this long and hard enough, everyone will forget this is an issue" or if it's some kind of hubris ("No way we're acknowledging that this stuttering got fixed by a player"). I was thinking maybe they just have no clue how to fix the outstanding performance issues with the game, but if that were the case, wouldn't they be happy about the help and implement it officially ASAP? And the one crutch that many devs rely on to brute force unoptimized performance AKA DLSS is not even implemented properly... this whole launch has been so severely disappointing.

Honestly, I don't know why exactly.

[Hazania]

Still no replies from devs after nearly half a year. I’m still getting frequent comments and messages here and on Reddit that this fix is still needed and helping players be able to enjoy the game without stutters.

Truly a disappointing and pathetic response from the devs.

[Hazania]

Originally posted by Hollapeno:

Thanks for the stuttering fix!

Originally posted by Permyack:

If that's the case, it seems odd.
The developers seem to be aware of many problems, including this one, but if they don't want to use a community solution, I don't understand it.

Yeah... not sure if this is a case of "If I ignore this long and hard enough, everyone will forget this is an issue" or if it's some kind of hubris ("No way we're acknowledging that this stuttering got fixed by a player"). I was thinking maybe they just have no clue how to fix the outstanding performance issues with the game, but if that were the case, wouldn't they be happy about the help and implement it officially ASAP? And the one crutch that many devs rely on to brute force unoptimized performance AKA DLSS is not even implemented properly... this whole launch has been so severely disappointing.

Seems to me that they absolutely will not acknowledge or accept help from outside their team. And perhaps that is a pride issue, considering they have spent over a year telling players that their PC’s aren’t good enough for this game (even when their device is well beyond minimum and/or recommended specs required)

[Connelli]

Originally posted by Hazania:

Still no replies from devs after nearly half a year...

The team behind this game is minuscule. I personally would not expect them to read every single post ever made about this game and respond.
From a developer's perspective, it's also unwise to give your approval to player solutions that "may" have adverse effects in some cases (they can't guarantee anything).

With that said, if you ran into technical difficulties running the game and your machine meets the minimum requirements, IronWood should have responded to THAT directly for sure ( if you created a ticket with them that is )

[Sushi_Rocks]

Originally posted by Connelli:

Originally posted by Hazania:

Still no replies from devs after nearly half a year...

The team behind this game is minuscule. I personally would not expect them to read every single post ever made about this game and respond.
From a developer's perspective, it's also unwise to give your approval to player solutions that "may" have adverse effects in some cases (they can't guarantee anything).

With that said, if you ran into technical difficulties running the game and your machine meets the minimum requirements, IronWood should have responded to THAT directly for sure ( if you created a ticket with them that is )

Oh, man always these guys who go into white knight mode, assuming a developer can't write a few sentences or have their own opinions.

Stop white knighting. It's not your job and not in your interest.

[Lloyd Christmas]

Hey thank you for your time and effort! I played 4 hours of the game without using your fix to see the 1% lows and then added your fix. There is a good improvement here! The base game was always compiling new shaders as you said which is noticeable and can break immersion.
I just got the game from my brother after having it on my wishlist since release. I heard about the performance troubles and followed your reddit last summer. I was also hopeful in November when the devs released a performance patch. I cap the game at 60fps in 2160p which works with most games never dipping below that cap. Pacific Drive, even with your excellent fix is a game that just does not run well all the time but the good thing is I am having a lot of fun playing. Your idea improves the game very much imo and should be an immediate addition after purchasing.

[Hazania]

Originally posted by Lloyd Christmas:

Hey thank you for your time and effort! I played 4 hours of the game without using your fix to see the 1% lows and then added your fix. There is a good improvement here! The base game was always compiling new shaders as you said which is noticeable and can break immersion.
I just got the game from my brother after having it on my wishlist since release. I heard about the performance troubles and followed your reddit last summer. I was also hopeful in November when the devs released a performance patch. I cap the game at 60fps in 2160p which works with most games never dipping below that cap. Pacific Drive, even with your excellent fix is a game that just does not run well all the time but the good thing is I am having a lot of fun playing. Your idea improves the game very much imo and should be an immediate addition after purchasing.

Thanks for the feedback! When I suspected that shaders were compiling every session, multiple times; I considered reporting it but I knew that it was unlikely that the team would have time or interest in testing this hypothesis. I did my own research and found that I could make some modifications to this using the Engine.ini file.

I thought, if I made a working patch for this issue that the team would be thankful and implement the fix quickly. After all, I didn’t just complain and make guesses; I gave them a proven solution that hundreds of players have now tested and confirmed its effectiveness. Still, the team has ignored this thread and the respective Reddit thread entirely. They have not commented or interacted in any way, and have continued to ignore player complaints on performance.

Thank you for keeping this alive and letting me know of your experience of finding and using this fix. I appreciate you! I hope you are able to enjoy this game.

[Sushi_Rocks]

Originally posted by Hazania:

Originally posted by Lloyd Christmas:

Hey thank you for your time and effort! I played 4 hours of the game without using your fix to see the 1% lows and then added your fix. There is a good improvement here! The base game was always compiling new shaders as you said which is noticeable and can break immersion.
I just got the game from my brother after having it on my wishlist since release. I heard about the performance troubles and followed your reddit last summer. I was also hopeful in November when the devs released a performance patch. I cap the game at 60fps in 2160p which works with most games never dipping below that cap. Pacific Drive, even with your excellent fix is a game that just does not run well all the time but the good thing is I am having a lot of fun playing. Your idea improves the game very much imo and should be an immediate addition after purchasing.

Thanks for the feedback! When I suspected that shaders were compiling every session, multiple times; I considered reporting it but I knew that it was unlikely that the team would have time or interest in testing this hypothesis. I did my own research and found that I could make some modifications to this using the Engine.ini file.

I thought, if I made a working patch for this issue that the team would be thankful and implement the fix quickly. After all, I didn’t just complain and make guesses; I gave them a proven solution that hundreds of players have now tested and confirmed its effectiveness. Still, the team has ignored this thread and the respective Reddit thread entirely. They have not commented or interacted in any way, and have continued to ignore player complaints on performance.

Thank you for keeping this alive and letting me know of your experience of finding and using this fix. I appreciate you! I hope you are able to enjoy this game.

That's really a shame. Can somebody @ some of the devs?

Performance is really bad and this should really be an easy fix.

[Hunion]

Originally posted by Hazania:

Still no replies from devs after nearly half a year. I’m still getting frequent comments and messages here and on Reddit that this fix is still needed and helping players be able to enjoy the game without stutters.

Truly a disappointing and pathetic response from the devs.

honestly yea. main reason i stopped was because of the studdering and just found this yesterday. and i honestly think this just improved my performance overall as well.

[suikodudeman007]

Thank you, OP, for making this performance fix! Never realized how much it was affecting my game till I implemented it today!

[monotony]

Originally posted by Sushi_Rocks:

That's really a shame. Can somebody @ some of the devs?

Performance is really bad and this should really be an easy fix.

The easy fix would be to just implement a shader pre-compilation step. I've held off buying this game after seeing how bad the demo ran. PS5 performance is supposedly not that great either so the decision to not buy the game at all was an easy one. Just checking in if they fixed anything, but of course they didn't. Pathetic.

[m0shrae]

I used this solution with the forced FPS lock in the NVIDIA Control Panel, and it works fine for me. Thanks

[Hazania]

Thank you to everyone who has commented their success with this fix. I think it is well established that a mere change to when/how shaders are compiled and stored can and does improve avg fps and reduce 1% lows significantly.

[Azure Fang]

If this indeed works, I'd recommend that you create a guide. That way this won't be lost to Steam outsourced moderators randomly locking the thread for being "too old" and you can post the full setting text in the guide rather than relying on outside links (I know pastebin is fine, but Steam mods randomly get butthurt over outside links).