Low FPS when running in base

[Jarcionek]

Day 16, relatively small base - 11 chests, ~40 farm plots, pretty much every block placed on the ground, so no structural integrity calculations...

Yet, when running around, my FPS drops from 30-50 to 10-20. Any ideas what is causing it?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2743558985
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2743559373
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2743559670

[Morashon]

Turn all settings to minimum, attempt to reproduce. If framerate is stable turn up each setting to your current level one by one until issue is reproduced.

Also check out stickied post https://steamcommunity.com/app/251570/discussions/1/3110269850346164483/

[Mardoin69]

Too many torches!

Also, in main menu, go to settings, be sure Dynamic Mesh and Occlusion is OFF then continue game. Once loaded, open settings and set graphics to 'Medium' preset. Make note of where settings are. Now you can alter these for better graphics if you want.....depending on your rig....it will be trial and error.
But, do turn Shadows and Reflections down to Low. You should see decent fps after this.
Other things to check;
Be sure in steam library...manage game properties and disable the steam overlay.
Also, in steam settings, disable any features like broadcasting and shadowplay.
In Windows power profile....advanced....be sure 'Min. Cpu state is set to 100%....cuz if windows throttles down your cpu while playing, it will kill your fps / performance.

[FT]

I agree with it probably being too many torches.
Turning ShadowDistance OFF used to work-around the performance hit from too many torches, but it really changes how the game looks (getting rid of most shadows) so you might prefer simply turning up the in-game brightness slider a little and getting rid of a few torches OR getting rid of all of them and placing a smaller amount of candles around. Either way you'll probably end up with a darker base until you can craft lanterns or something.

[Jarcionek]

Is it only torches or will electric/mining lamps cause the same problem?

I have reduced all settings to minimum (from maximum) and removed a couple of torches and I didn't encounter that big FPS drop since. Thanks.

For the dynamic mesh options, I want to see distant world changes, so I actually set everything to maximum and wouldn't like to change it. By the way, it still doesn't work and the chest I placed on the middle of the road starts displaying when I get to ~100m from it...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2746499745

[FT]

I think it's mostly torches, though candles and lit-forges/lit-campfires can also do it to some degree...usually it takes a lot more candles to get the same lag, but it also takes a lot more candles to get as much light too.
Lanterns (and I think electric lights) don't seem to cause problems though. I'm guessing maybe it's the flickering shadows that hit FPS hard?


I bet chests and some other non-block decorations are controlled by the ObjectQuality setting rather than ViewDistance or DynamicMesh. You can test this by seeing if the StorageChest remains visible much longer if you press F1 then type
gfx lodbias 9
then press enter, then either F1 or ESC to close the F1 menu.
You can set it back to normal by changing a graphic option or by using the F1 command
gfx lodbias
then enter, then F1 or ESC.
It'll also go back to normal if you close the game.
gfx lodbias 9 (or any number greater than 1.5-2) will make a lot of little things render out farther from the player as well as trees and higher-quality models of a few things.

[Jarcionek]

I think it's the lighting in general causing the issue. I now have an electric lamp every ~5 tiles and a motion sensor to turn the lights on for a few minutes. I was at the base with about 25 FPS, when the timer run out and lights switched off, it immediately jumped to around 50 FPS. When I went into the motion sensor's range and the lights turned on, it dropped back to around 25 FPS...

[Mardoin69]

There is 'lighting' effects that are causing issue's in A20 for whatever reason. Hopefully, they'll get it ironed out. In meantime, maybe you can get your gpu settings for the game and video settings reducing lighting effects to help. I'd have to research to figure out which settings directly / indirectly increase / decrease lighting effects......which I don't have time for right now. But, you could do some search and find out.

[FT]

Originally posted by Mardoin69:

I'd have to research to figure out which settings directly / indirectly increase / decrease lighting effects......which I don't have time for right now. But, you could do some search and find out.

In some situations like this, turning SSAO-OFF (and more rarely, ReflectionQuality-OFF) can get bigger gains than usual...but it's mostly just ShadowDistance-OFF that seems to make a major difference.

In some larger places, turning ObjectQuality down can help, but that's mostly only in the dense cities where it helps performance and helps the city avoid killing FPS in general...and it sounds like OP already has ObjectQuality lower than they'd like.


The F1 command
bents off
can make lighting effects turn off, but it also takes away a lot of blocks and objects, like glass/windows and some doors and many decorations (I think cars as well)..so it's not a good option as-is.


If you're in singleplayer (or the host in multiplayer) and your tree-farm is pretty far away, you can use the F1 command
trees 0
to slightly shorten the tree rendering distance where some very far away trees will be invisible until you're a little closer. This can help FPS a little in many places.
Default is "trees 4" by the way. Also "trees 1" and "trees 2" appear the same as "trees 0". You can also use larger numbers (like "trees 9") to extent trees all the way to the edge of the visible map if you want..at the expense of performance.