Exanima Coil whine

[Cherrybird]

I've read multiple threads and posts about people hearing strange noise from their computers while playing this game and i do too. I've located the noise and it's coming from my PSU. The fact that it's only happening in this game out of all my played games ever is leading me to believe that maybe in a future patch the devs could find a way to fix this instead of us having to work around it with lowering supersampling and etc? The common denominator is the game itself for all the people i've seen post about this.

Coil whine in itself is really not that big of an issue from what i've seen in my research about it but it would be nice to not have that irrational anxiety that the PSU of all things will blow up while im enjoying this exceptional game. Truly, i would play it more if there was no coil whine because i think this is one of the best games i've ever played.

(Sidenote: When i lower my supersampling to remove coilwhine i get constant stuttering, i get no stutters when supersampling is at it's highest, which is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hilarious. It's a big doozy).


Maybe relevant speccs?

CPU: Intel Core i5 9600K
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 16GB (2x8GB) / 3200MHz / DDR4 / CL16 / CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 (XMP enabled)
PSU: Corsair HX850i / 850W / 80+ Platinum

[MasterManiac]

Yeah, Exanima runs fine on my ancient desktop, but stutters like crazy at 120+ FPS on my new gaming laptop. It's confusing.

[The Nerd Herder]

My guess is that the coil whine issue will hopefully be fixed in the coming rendering update.

[Sarper]

is vsync enabled? if not try it that way. without it the gpu pushes out as many frames as it's able. when it's enabled it only processes the amount that is equal to your monitor's refresh rate. which is obviously easier on the system.

[Cherrybird]

Originally posted by Sarper:

is vsync enabled? if not try it that way. without it the gpu pushes out as many frames as it's able. when it's enabled it only processes the amount that is equal to your monitor's refresh rate. which is obviously easier on the system.

When i put supersampling on just under the highest + shading also just under the highest setting and added a 65 FPS limit it seems to have gone away mostly. I still suffer from reoccurring stuttering but i've been having a blast with the game for the last few days with these settings.

If anyone reading this wants to know how to enable an FPS limit without a third party program like RTSS, all you have to do is go into %appdata%, find the .ini for Exanima and at the bottom add your own line that looks like this "FPSLimit = 60" (or 65, or 70 w/e) without the quotations ofc.

[Frijolito]

I have the same problem since 2015 with that "noise" only on exanima

[Sarper]

Originally posted by Cherrybird:

When i put supersampling on just under the highest + shading also just under the highest setting and added a 65 FPS limit it seems to have gone away mostly. I still suffer from reoccurring stuttering but i've been having a blast with the game for the last few days with these settings.

If anyone reading this wants to know how to enable an FPS limit without a third party program like RTSS, all you have to do is go into %appdata%, find the .ini for Exanima and at the bottom add your own line that looks like this "FPSLimit = 60" (or 65, or 70 w/e) without the quotations ofc.

You don't have to limit the FPS, just enable Vertical Sync as I've mentioned, it's right there in the settings. It will limit your fps to be the same as your monitor's refresh rate and will also eliminate screen tearing.

[turnipfarmer]

Unfortunately there's not much a developer can do to reduce coil whine as it's a hardware issue. The PC, for whatever reason, simply cannot perform under full load without literally whining and it usually seems to be down to PSU quality and GPU power draw.

Exanima is an efficient and heavily optimised game, so that's probably why it stresses the system more than most. Without a frame limiter, it can (depending on whether the scene is CPU limited) max out the fill rates of any current GPU, which can draw a lot of power (e.g. ~250W for a 1080 Ti).

Using the in-game VSync option to limit FPS is an ideal solution as Sarper explained. If you have a mid-high end GPU, you will should be able to maintain a Supersampling setting of High (8x) or Medium (4x) with any reasonable resolution + refresh rate combo. Even if you can't, turning the Supersampling down a notch and still using VSync is your best bet for experience overall and will reduce system load significantly.

I'm actually surprised that the OP's system has coil whine at all, as the HX850i is a pretty good PSU with plenty of headroom for the 1080 Ti + 9600k.

[Cherrybird]

Originally posted by turnipfarmer:

I'm actually surprised that the OP's system has coil whine at all, as the HX850i is a pretty good PSU with plenty of headroom for the 1080 Ti + 9600k.

Right?? As i mentioned, i can get the coil whine to go away with certain settings. And the fact that more people than me are having issues with only this game is what made me curious about it to begin with.

I should say that i have a 144hz monitor and so if i turn VSync on it goes to that amount of FPS. Hence why i put a manual FPS limiter in the .ini.

The remaining issue i have is the weird stuttering that starts when i downgrade supersampling. My post was in no way meant to bash or berate the Devs or anyone who likes this game. I love this game! All i was hoping for is that the devs might see this and have some tricks up their sleeves to make the game handle "load" in a way that doesn't create coil whine in mine and others' rigs.

[turnipfarmer]

Originally posted by Cherrybird:

I should say that i have a 144hz monitor and so if i turn VSync on it goes to that amount of FPS. Hence why i put a manual FPS limiter in the .ini.

The remaining issue i have is the weird stuttering that starts when i downgrade supersampling. My post was in no way meant to bash or berate the Devs or anyone who likes this game. I love this game! All i was hoping for is that the devs might see this and have some tricks up their sleeves to make the game handle "load" in a way that doesn't create coil whine in mine and others' rigs.

Fair enough, 144 FPS is a difficult target to maintain, especially with 8x supersampling as you will start to hit CPU bottlenecks in complex scenes... have you tried Freesync / G-Sync at all? I think Exanima should support those, but again you might need the VSync option enabled for it to work.

Personally I wouldn't recommend using the FPSLimit setting in the .ini file because it will cause some stuttering compared to VSync. I think this is something to do with there being no full screen mode (where it would become tearing) and buffering in a borderless window etc.

Not ideal, but I suspect 4x Supersampling (Medium) + VSync (without the .ini limiter) would run smooth and without coil whine due to the massively reduced load.

Another option, though obviously not ideal either, is to simply lower your refresh rate setting.. just because your monitor supports 144hz doesn't mean you have to run it at that!

[perc 3000]

does anyone have a recording of this "noise" this is intriguing

[The Nerd Herder]

Originally posted by punkass:

does anyone have a recording of this "noise" this is intriguing

At 1:46 is a coil whine demonstration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP73edpQwgc

[Cherrybird]

Originally posted by punkass:

does anyone have a recording of this "noise" this is intriguing

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/196612045032914944/732674871670210692/video-1589984401.mp4

I dont know if that link works but if you copy it into chrome it should have you download a 1.8mb video where i've recorded the noise for when i sent it to techie friends to review haha. You'll have to crank up the volume a bit because my phone wasn't great at picking up the noise. And before you mention it; i know the camera is pointed towards the GPU but i can positively reaffirm that the noise is indeed coming from the PSU which resides just under the metal plate below the GPU in the video.

[MasterManiac]

Wow, that video might have put me off PC gaming for good. How horrifying.

[⛧Kairos⛧]

Originally posted by MasterManiac:

Wow, that video might have put me off PC gaming for good. How horrifying.

Your first mistake was buying a laptop

[MasterManiac]

Originally posted by Rob:

Originally posted by MasterManiac:

Wow, that video might have put me off PC gaming for good. How horrifying.

Your first mistake was buying a laptop

I disagree, but that's okay.