Workaround: limit CPU power usage in Windows power management while compiling shaders

[Lord Winter]

Well finally after 1 week I found how to run the game.

As a reminder: 4090 / 13700k / 32 GB DDR5. Game would crash systematically at 1-2% shader compilation.

I saw a post about someone saying to limit Process power to 99 instead of 100 in Windows power management (edit your current Power Plan advance settings).

After fiddling, I found out that doing this AND letting the game run in background (very important, do not click / focus on it) while it compile shaders, finally let the game compile the shaders and not crash my CPU at 100% usage. At 100 in background, it would push CPU to 5.20 Ghz, at 99% it never went above ~3.40 Ghz. (yeah right, number makes no sense but anyway)

I found out that if I focus on the game during shader compilation, EVEN with like 20% CPU power, it still would push the power to max (5.20 Ghz) and 100% usage, like the game bypass literally Windows limit ... (that works perfectly fine, e.g. if I lock at 20% my CPU would never go above 0.78 Ghz)

Anyway, after like 30 minutes / 1h it finished compiling, and I can now play the game maxed out in 4K with no problems.

Maybe my CPU is not stable and overheat instant at 100% usage, but I had other games push my CPU really high with shader compilation or like Star Citizen with its bad optimization, causing temps to go > 90 degrees C and it never crashed, but for whatever reason that game instantly crash.

Hope it can help some of you that could not pass shader compilation.

EDIT: just to make it clear, this was only to go through the initial shader compilation in the menu with the game in background, NOT for playing the game or fixing any other-reasons induced crashes.

[Arc]

Few explanations:
If your game crashes and you disable boost/OC to resolve it: Your system is unstable when taxed at its rated maximum.
Shader compilation is fully multithreaded (it might be capped to 16 threads tho, who knows) and might be using AVX instruction set (more heat).

Setting up 99% limiter to CPU performance disables boost behavior, so the CPU never hits PL1 and PL2 states, meaning no 253W power spike and thus the CPU remains at its base clock (3.4GHz), at least for background apps.

Limiting CPU power like this will also make the shader compilation take longer as a result.

[Lord Winter]

Yes I said it means it might not be stable when pushed to the limit, which zero games have been doing it in the past 1 year even the ones compiling shaders.

As said: it took "barely" 30 mins / 1 hour to compile with a 13700k with the limit at 99% (like go do something else, watch a video, its nothing)

After done, I reput limit back and I can play without any issues.

This worked for me so I just posted it in case anyone could be in the same situation.

[kgkong]

Автор сообщения: Arc

Few explanations:
If your game crashes and you disable boost/OC to resolve it: Your system is unstable when taxed at its rated maximum.
Shader compilation is fully multithreaded (it might be capped to 16 threads tho, who knows) and might be using AVX instruction set (more heat).

Setting up 99% limiter to CPU performance disables boost behavior, so the CPU never hits PL1 and PL2 states, meaning no 253W power spike and thus the CPU remains at its base clock (3.4GHz), at least for background apps.

Limiting CPU power like this will also make the shader compilation take longer as a result.

I'm wondering if these boost clock issues might be an issue in this instance as a result of rather unstable system memory XMP profile settings.
I do know some motherboard combos with the 3000 series Ryzen CPUs don't always play nicely with some XMP memory kits. Maybe there's a BIOS update being out of date being the reason for the memory and/or boost stability issues.
But in the case of the 12th and 13th gen CPUs, there's most definitely a memory controller issue that makes a lot of the XMP profiles unstable so you have to manually set the XMP settings on memory.

[Lord Winter]

Автор сообщения: KingGorillaKong

Автор сообщения: Arc

Few explanations:
If your game crashes and you disable boost/OC to resolve it: Your system is unstable when taxed at its rated maximum.
Shader compilation is fully multithreaded (it might be capped to 16 threads tho, who knows) and might be using AVX instruction set (more heat).

Setting up 99% limiter to CPU performance disables boost behavior, so the CPU never hits PL1 and PL2 states, meaning no 253W power spike and thus the CPU remains at its base clock (3.4GHz), at least for background apps.

Limiting CPU power like this will also make the shader compilation take longer as a result.

I'm wondering if these boost clock issues might be an issue in this instance as a result of rather unstable system memory XMP profile settings.
I do know some motherboard combos with the 3000 series Ryzen CPUs don't always play nicely with some XMP memory kits. Maybe there's a BIOS update being out of date being the reason for the memory and/or boost stability issues.

I did try with XMP disabled and sadly crashing still occurred.

[CJM]

Автор сообщения: Lord Winter

Well finally after 1 week I found how to run the game.

As a reminder: 4090 / 13700k / 32 GB DDR5. Game would crash systematically at 1-2% shader compilation.

I saw a post about someone saying to limit Process power to 99 instead of 100 in Windows power management (edit your current Power Plan advance settings).

I just tried setting my CPU to 50% Power Saving, and now I'm getting 40 FPS on my CPU...

It dropped from 4.1GHz to 1.52GHz.

I'm getting 80 FPS potentials on my GPU, 1366x768/40 High, using FSR Performance mode to lower the render resolution.

[Lord Winter]

Автор сообщения: CJM

Автор сообщения: Lord Winter

Well finally after 1 week I found how to run the game.

As a reminder: 4090 / 13700k / 32 GB DDR5. Game would crash systematically at 1-2% shader compilation.

I saw a post about someone saying to limit Process power to 99 instead of 100 in Windows power management (edit your current Power Plan advance settings).

I just tried setting my CPU to 50% Power Saving, and now I'm getting 40 FPS on my CPU...

It dropped from 4.1GHz to 1.52GHz.

I'm getting 80 FPS potentials on my GPU, 1366x768/40 High, using FSR Performance mode to lower the render resolution.

My solution was only for crash DURING shader compilation (as it pushed CPU to 100% causing crash), it is not meant to be used during Gameplay.

[D33F]

Here it only crashed after the latest patch at the same 1/2% mark.
Before it didn't crash and compiled without an issue.

Tried another 2 times and it didn't crash and compiled the shaders finally.

Furthermore my max cpu temperature is 85 degrees (i5 13600K with undervolt and slight OC) and rock stable when running Cinebench R23 for an half hour (which taxes the cpu more than any game).

[AILAD]

More placebo solutions...

[Lord Winter]

Автор сообщения: RevelationSpace

More placebo solutions...

What are you saying? Did you even read?

I'm literally playing the game now thanks to this, for MY case.

My case: my CPU 100% was / is not stable (although I have no OC), and made the game instant crash at 1-2% shader compiled. I tried like 20 times since release and could never get further than this. If you think I was happy with my beefy config to not even be able to run the game more than 10-30s when everyone else was saying it should easily run on it.

Applied the advise to limit CPU to 99%: boost mode disabled as replied by another comment, game was finally able to build shader cause not making my CPU 100% (and with the performance monitor opened, I can tell you, I needed the game to be out of focus, as soon as I clicked on it, it would again use 100% despite the limit being well applied in Windows).

Reput limit back to 100% and can now play the game (as it is not compiling shaders anymore).

That's all. I don't claim ANYTHING else. Maybe my game will have other-reasons induced crashing later, I never said it fixes all the crashes. Again, read.

[Lord Winter]

Автор сообщения: D33F

Here it only crashed after the latest patch at the same 1/2% mark.
Before it didn't crash and compiled without an issue.

Tried another 2 times and it didn't crash and compiled the shaders finally.

Furthermore my max cpu temperature is 85 degrees (i5 13600K with undervolt and slight OC) and rock stable when running Cinebench R23 for an half hour (which taxes the cpu more than any game).

For me I tried every possible workaround out there (rollback drivers, vulkan mod, disable XMP, copy a low-settings config file ...) and would always crash at 1-2%.

My CPU temp was higher than yours, would reach instantly like 96 degrees (despite also having my motherboard CPU Load to low that applies an undervolt).

[Lord Winter]

Автор сообщения: Arc

Few explanations:
If your game crashes and you disable boost/OC to resolve it: Your system is unstable when taxed at its rated maximum.
Shader compilation is fully multithreaded (it might be capped to 16 threads tho, who knows) and might be using AVX instruction set (more heat).

Setting up 99% limiter to CPU performance disables boost behavior, so the CPU never hits PL1 and PL2 states, meaning no 253W power spike and thus the CPU remains at its base clock (3.4GHz), at least for background apps.

Limiting CPU power like this will also make the shader compilation take longer as a result.

Oh that makes sense thanks for explanation, was wondering why 99% would not put my CPU to like 5.15 Ghz instead of 5.20 Ghz ^^

[CJM]

Автор сообщения: Lord Winter

My solution was only for crash DURING shader compilation (as it pushed CPU to 100% causing crash), it is not meant to be used during Gameplay.

I went to 50%.

I think some builds might be optimized for sustained 99% CPU usage, but not Sustained Turbo.

For many users, CPU usage remains at 100% even after Shaders have compiled. Setting power to 99% may lower frame rates slightly, but would have the same effect in avoiding a crash on more CPU limited systems. In addition to capping frame rates to something less demanding.

[Lord Winter]

Автор сообщения: CJM

Автор сообщения: Lord Winter

My solution was only for crash DURING shader compilation (as it pushed CPU to 100% causing crash), it is not meant to be used during Gameplay.

I went to 50%.

I think some builds might be optimized for sustained 99% CPU usage, but not Sustained Turbo.

For many users, CPU usage remains at 100% even after Shaders have compiled. Setting power to 99% may lower frame rates slightly, but would have the same effect in avoiding a crash on more CPU limited systems. In addition to capping frame rates to something less demanding.

it's true I saw videos where less powerful CPU being still pushed > 90% during gameplay, "thanksfully" on a 13700k its a lot lower than that

Also as said, weirdly on my side, focusing on the game window would completely bypass the limit and push again CPU to turbo mode / 100% :/

[Elenoe]

Автор сообщения: CJM

I think some builds might be optimized for sustained 99% CPU usage, but not Sustained Turbo.

And, if I may be so bold, why does anyone purchase any expensive CPU/GPU just to run it at 50% because 100% utilization is not even possible? Wouldn't reasonable man like spend half of money to get the same with cheaper CPU/GPU?

Every build is meant to be able to run on 100% stress continuously. Otherwise you've spent money on flex numbers, not on gaming computer. "Look, I have 64 cores, and I can run even 26 of them at the same time, in winter that is" situation, you know.

[Lord Winter]

Автор сообщения: Elenoe

Автор сообщения: CJM

I think some builds might be optimized for sustained 99% CPU usage, but not Sustained Turbo.

And, if I may be so bold, why does anyone purchase any expensive CPU/GPU just to run it at 50% because 100% utilization is not even possible? Wouldn't reasonable man like spend half of money to get the same with cheaper CPU/GPU?

Every build is meant to be able to run on 100% stress continuously. Otherwise you've spent money on flex numbers, not on gaming computer. "Look, I have 64 cores, and I can run even 26 of them at the same time, in winter that is" situation, you know.

Thing is I don't know what else I can do on my side.

I can reset back the undervolt, maybe will be more stable, but will hit the 100 degrees (sadly I don't have a crazy cooling case, I have a Be Quiet Rock Pro 4 and still reach that temps).

We are not speaking about letting the power limit, it was just a workaround for a situation that shows an abnormally high usage of CPU, when a lot of other games with shader compilation that push also the CPU are not causing any kind of crashes.

The day my games or PC will crash in most of my games, I'll start to worry. But ONE game where everyone complains about crash and too high CPU usage? I'm find working it around until it is fixed. And I would anyway not want to play a game that puts my CPU at 100% all the time, even if "they are supposed to be able to run that much".

The same way when some games push my 4090 to 350-400W, I usually start to use DLSS just to get a lot of watts back with very minimal visual impact.