Just Cause 3

Just Cause 3

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Bad Performance & Crashing: Check Here for Potential Fixes First!
Too many threads are being made regarding performance issues and crashing.
I've read through a couple dozen of them already and there is no need for more.


Frankly, instead of just creating more threads and bloating the Discussions,
we should summarize it all and make some inferences on what works and what doesn't.

Just making more threads isn't going to make Avalanche patch the game any quicker.
We should help them, not aggravate them by spamming them with reports.

If anyone wishes to contribute to this list, please post and I will update.

Patch 1.02
This patch has introduced more crashing and actually created issues for people who didn't have issues before, so at this time it's best to just wait for more patches.

Diagnosis
It has been "confirmed" that the biggest perpetrator for all of the issues people are experiencing in JC3 is due to its memory leaking. The best "fix" you can possibly make is to upgrade to 16GB or more of system RAM.

You can also increase your system OS's pagefile size in order to have more virtual RAM. This works better if your OS is installed on an SSD.

You could also restart your computer or game every once in a while to allow the RAM to clear out before playing again.

This is by no means a fix, but it is the only known cure at the time if you're unwilling to wait for the game to patch. If you're experiencing difficulty trying to play the game, it may be due to the memory leak, and you can track the game's RAM usage through your Task Manager or through other third-party programs.

Windows 8/8.1/10 Users
Keep in mind that if you're using Windows 8/8.1/10, the OS likes to "cache" data to the RAM but never really offload it, in an effort to allow faster fetching. This means that Windows will keep storing data into your RAM the longer you leave your computer on, which reduces the available RAM that other programs can use. Full details available here.[lifehacker.com]
Disabling Fetching and NDU can help reduce W10's RAM consumption over time.

How to Disable Fetching[www.tekrevue.com]- How to Disable NDU[www.eightforums.com]

Note: Since these change your system's settings, use these guides at your own risk.

Possible Fix - Poor Performance or Stuttering
Apart from having more system RAM, running the game in borderless windowed mode seems to work for some people. It's worth a shot.

Simply go to your Steam Library, right-click and view the game's properties, and then edit the launch options.

Enter the following: /borderless /windowed

Borderless might not be needed, so feel free to test without it enabled if you'd like.

Possible Fix - Crashing or Unable to Load Game
If your game is crashing or not loading up, disabling Windows' Data Execution Prevention (DEP) may help avoid this issue.

Run Command Prompt (cmd) as Administrator, and then type the following line:
bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff


Afterwards, restart your computer, and the game will crash less or not at all/start working again.
(If you ever wish to revert this change, simply change "AlwaysOff" to "AlwaysOn".)

Note: If you are not the Administrator of your computer, you will not be able to change this setting. Also, since this changes your system's settings, use the command at your own risk.

Observations
Below are other noted information that may help you out.
    Hardware
  • Having 16GB or more of system RAM greatly helps in reducing issues.
  • There are numerous reports of memory leaks.
  • A possible cause for the memory overusage is the DRM which runs through your RAM.

  • Anyone with a GTX 980 Ti will be able to play fine (although stuttering and FPS volatility might occur in some cases).
  • Anyone with any other nVidia GPU will probably have problems playing it.
  • Crashing seems to happen more for AMD users, though it may occur for nVidia users as well.
  • GTX 970 may be prone to crashing for some users, or not at all for others.
  • The amount of GPU VRAM doesn't seem to matter.

  • Latest Crimson drivers may help AMD users. Latest Catalyst drivers may help others.
  • The recently released nVidia drivers may help improve performance.
    Older drivers are available here.[www.techspot.com]

  • The CPU, HDD/SSD, and operating system (OS) you're using doesn't matter.

    Software
  • Tweaking most graphics settings doesn't seem to help much.
  • DIsabling certain extras in the graphics settings may help.
  • Disabling Vertical Sync may help.
  • Running without Steam Overlay may help.
  • Running in windowed mode may help. Enabling borderless may help too.
  • Playing in Offline Mode or preventing the game from calling home (setting firewall blocks) may help.
  • Startup crashes may be fixed by enabling Screen Space Reflections.
  • Disabling SLI or CFX may help for multiple GPU users.
  • Underclocking the GPU may help.
  • Running the game in Windows 7 Compatibility Mode (or other OS's) may help.

    Issues
  • For those without immediate stuttering issues, they may occur after prolonged play.
  • Exiting the game normally may freeze or stall users for a long period of time.
  • FPS drops can occur at any time, even during cutscenes.
Last edited by ¦ö¦ ƒ ì г e ¦ö¦; Dec 21, 2015 @ 10:45am
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Showing 1-15 of 2,560 comments
Mike Dec 2, 2015 @ 9:34am 
Avalanche deserves it for releasing an abomination like this believing their customers who play for a playable game and all they got is something that should be labeled Alpha. Thank the pre-order croud or they wouldnt even dare to release it in this state!
Vlad_Yemerashev Dec 2, 2015 @ 9:36am 
Running the game without steam overlay and in a borderless window seams to help many people. For many people, the stuttering starts anywhere from 5-20 minutes after starting, regardless of specs.
laker01 Dec 2, 2015 @ 9:36am 
I'm not sure HDD doesn't matter. I notice high drive usage by a process called "System and Compressed Memory" often when I have stutter. I have no SSD.
hzh Dec 2, 2015 @ 9:36am 
looks like Nvidia is agressively marketing their new cards, or the dev was just lazy to testing more cards. Sad industry
Mr Windblade Dec 2, 2015 @ 9:37am 
AMD users aren't seeing more crashes - so far it's been the Nvidia users who crash when they change their resolution settings, and not the other way around.

Also, we're linking some of this incredible RAM overhead to Denuvo for the moment - the DRM solution operates in RAM the entire time the game is running.
Last edited by Mr Windblade; Dec 2, 2015 @ 9:38am
Originally posted by Vlad_Yemerashev:
Running the game without steam overlay and in a borderless window seams to help many people. For many people, the stuttering starts anywhere from 5-20 minutes after starting, regardless of specs.
Will add to list.

Originally posted by wodanheerst:
I'm not sure HDD doesn't matter. I notice high drive usage by a process called "System and Compressed Memory" often when I have stutter. I have no SSD.
If you're using Windows 10, Microsoft developed a new system where if you leave your computer on for long, Windows "caches" everything to RAM and just leaves it sitting there, for quicker fetching.

Originally posted by Mr Windblade:
AMD users aren't seeing more crashes - so far it's been the Nvidia users who crash when they change their resolution settings, and not the other way around.
I'm reading mostly performance issues for nVidia users, and crashing for AMD users. But if you insist, I'll change it to a maybe.
Last edited by ¦ö¦ ƒ ì г e ¦ö¦; Dec 2, 2015 @ 9:39am
Plorex Dec 2, 2015 @ 9:39am 
Add horrendous memory leakage to that.
laker01 Dec 2, 2015 @ 9:41am 
AMD CPU and GPU here, no crashes, just stuttering.
hzh Dec 2, 2015 @ 9:42am 
Originally posted by Plorex:
Add horrendous memory leakage to that.
that! I could feel the leak was strong!
Originally posted by Mr Windblade:
Also, we're linking some of this incredible RAM overhead to Denuvo for the moment - the DRM solution operates in RAM the entire time the game is running.
Updated.

Originally posted by Plorex:
Add horrendous memory leakage to that.
Added.
Mr Windblade Dec 2, 2015 @ 9:43am 
Originally posted by ¦ö¦ ƒ ì ᴙ e ¦ö¦:
Originally posted by Mr Windblade:
AMD users aren't seeing more crashes - so far it's been the Nvidia users who crash when they change their resolution settings, and not the other way around.
I'm reading mostly performance issues for nVidia users, and crashing for AMD users. But if you insist, I'll change it to a maybe.

Yeah if you search Crash on the forum, you'll see people with Nvidia 970 GPUs complaining of crashing just as much as people with AMD GPUs. It doesn't seem to be a direct correlation to the brand specifically.

Also, some of the people crashing on AMD have yet to update their drivers, and have reported that doing so alleviates a lot of their problems.
PentaBill Dec 2, 2015 @ 9:44am 
Denuvo is literally cancer.
Originally posted by Mr Windblade:
Yeah if you search Crash on the forum, you'll see people with Nvidia 970 GPUs complaining of crashing just as much as people with AMD GPUs. It doesn't seem to be a direct correlation to the brand specifically.

Also, some of the people crashing on AMD have yet to update their drivers, and have reported that doing so alleviates a lot of their problems.
Hm, I'll add the GTX 970 to the list then. It may be an issue strictly/loosely for that card.

Will add the driver note, although I'm still using the latest Catalyst drivers (pre-Crimson).
Mr Windblade Dec 2, 2015 @ 9:46am 
Originally posted by PentaBill:
Denuvo is literally cancer.
Figuratively cancer. I didn't know what it was until this game came out, and it actually turned out that I had many of the games it came in. This is the first to give me real problems.

Originally posted by ¦ö¦ ƒ ì ᴙ e ¦ö¦:
Will add the driver note, although I'm still using the latest Catalyst drivers (pre-Crimson).

And the ground renders? You're one of the lucky ones then. The post-Crimson beta driver on 11/30/2015 patched the issue where AMD cards were seeing the ground fail to render. So if they have missing triangles all over the place, they need to update. Also, the new Crimson driver fixed the fan overdrive problem that the WHQL release somehow missed.
Last edited by Mr Windblade; Dec 2, 2015 @ 9:48am
Onion Dec 2, 2015 @ 9:47am 
As far as I can see, it really isn't hardware dependant at all. I've seen users with 980ti's reporting the stuttering issues too. While others have no problems at all. CPU really doesn't factor in to it, since I've seen even i3 users not having any issues, while i7 users were losing their minds! For me, none of the fixes have made much, if any difference, Maybe disabling steam overlay delayed it a little, but it still happened. Same for playing in offline mode, boarderless window, and .reinstalling the direct X that comes with it.

As for crashes, and AMD users, I've had 2 I think so far (Intel i5, Radeon R9 280) in 11 hours of play time. The 2 crashes I had were during the worst of the stutters, when something insane happened (everything was pretty much on fire) and the game just crapped its self
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