Game keeps dropping from 150+ FPS to 21FPS

[Nneu]

Here are some screenshots showing me in the exact same location. Game runs fine at 150+ FPS for a bit, then gets stuck at 21FPS with GPU and CPU usage at around 10%.

See nvidia overlay in top right corner:

21 FPS in wide open space with nothing around. The game has a preference for exactly 21 FPS when this happens.

https://imgur.com/GBTuFWN

161 FPS in the same spot after some alt tabbing:

https://imgur.com/VlEXZIR

I have a 2080 TI and a i9900k at 5ghz.

[BGratz]

Big fights in a other sector ?

[Nneu]

Originally posted by BGratz:

Big fights in a other sector ?

it seems to happen everywhere like in this completely wide open space with nothing around like my screenshot.

[Zloth]

Unlike the majority of games out there, this game is limited by CPU power. Things happening on the other side of the sector can slow the game down a lot. Things happening in other sectors don't get as much "think time," but there are a lot of them so they still take a toll. (That's single threaded CPU power, too. More expensive CPUs typically add more cores, which doesn't really help the game any. The 5GHZ part is a lot more important in this case.)

However... it sounds like you just alt-tabbed out then back in again? Having the battle (or whatever) end right then would be a heck of a coincidence. Plus the CPU and GPU aren't working hard. I wonder if this has something to do with GPU memory management? They're messing around with that a bunch in the 4.1 beta test right now.

Oh, wait a second, the CPU *is* working hard, isn't it? That thing has SIXTEEN cores, counting the hyper thing. Your CPU could be going flat out at 7% utilization!

[bad_bender]

I often have FPS drops, when other programms decide to do a lot of reading and writing on the HDD where the game is stored, the usual suspect on my end is steam udpating other games in the background.

[f r o g]

I have this issue too, I typically hit ALT + ENTER to switch game to windowed, then do it again to go back to fullscreen my fps will then be at 144 again. It isn't a hardware/load issue, the game is artificially capping itself to 20 fps for no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ reason. Seriously irritating for a $50 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game.

[Axeface]

Originally posted by OneBuffalo:

I have this issue too, I typically hit ALT + ENTER to switch game to windowed, then do it again to go back to fullscreen my fps will then be at 144 again. It isn't a hardware/load issue, the game is artificially capping itself to 20 fps for no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ reason. Seriously irritating for a $50 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game.

As someone else said. There are trillions of things happening that you dont see on the screen..... they still use cpu, obviously.

[GetUrAssToMars]

Originally posted by Axeface:

Originally posted by OneBuffalo:

I have this issue too, I typically hit ALT + ENTER to switch game to windowed, then do it again to go back to fullscreen my fps will then be at 144 again. It isn't a hardware/load issue, the game is artificially capping itself to 20 fps for no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ reason. Seriously irritating for a $50 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game.

As someone else said. There are trillions of things happening that you dont see on the screen..... they still use cpu, obviously.

Do these things cease to exist once one ALT + ENTER the game? Just curious cause and correlation and all that...

[f r o g]

Originally posted by UGotItJoben:

Originally posted by Axeface:

As someone else said. There are trillions of things happening that you dont see on the screen..... they still use cpu, obviously.

Do these things cease to exist once one ALT + ENTER the game? Just curious cause and correlation and all that...

They don't, Anyone who attributes the game capping itself to 21 fps, then magically uncaps and rises back to 144+ after alt-enter to "CPU Heavy tasks" running under the hood of the game simply doesn't understand the situation very well. It's lucky that they don't experience it but also harmful to reporting an actual issue for the devs to fix.

Another solution I've found is running the game in Borderless Window mode and alt tabbing whenever the situation arises. That seems to fix it too, Your experience may vary.

[BGratz]

Originally posted by OneBuffalo:

Your experience may vary.

I have FOR ME the perfect sollution.
I have no FPS display.

I really never saw such FPS drops

[f r o g]

Originally posted by BGratz:

Originally posted by OneBuffalo:

Your experience may vary.

I have FOR ME the perfect sollution.
I have no FPS display.

I really never saw such FPS drops :SpRad_ThumbsUp:

I'm glad that you are having a good experience with the game, a colossal fps cap from 144 to 21 would be immediately noticeable. I turned on my fps display to see what was happening and that's how I learned it was actually capping to 21 exactly (where it would remain at 21 solid without fluctuation).

[shadowed]

Hey, saw this post and was experiencing same issue. Happy to find a fix. I am on a 1080 ti and my game kept going down to 21 fps randomly until I tapped on the windows key and it would go back to 60. It started becoming very annoying, and this is the only thread I can find with my exact issue.

To fix, open up Nvidia Control Panel, go to program settings, select X4, and set V-Sync to OFF. I tried Fast sync as well, but no dice. I also have X4's in-game V-Sync to triple buffering now. I am using Rivatuner to cap my in-game fps, but NVCP can do that too.

I am playing on a panel that supports G-Sync/Freesync, so this is not optimal, but the game no longer is dropping to 20-21 fps. Hope this helps! :)

edit: Setting Rivatuner'S FPS cap to my refresh rate was causing FPS drops to 21 again! I set the FPS cap to 2 frames above it and the game is not dropping to 21fps randomly.

[Revy106]

The fps problems is what always stops me coming back to this sadly, as for the bull about it being a CPU problem, it is and it isnt I have tried this on a 5820k a ryzen 5600x and now my current setup with a 12900kf and the fps is single digit difference.

The game is a fantastic game really is but the optimization is diabolic.

[✠Deser✞🅵☣⚔⚔♏✠]

Originally posted by White_Mask:

Hey, saw this post and was experiencing same issue. Happy to find a fix. I am on a 1080 ti and my game kept going down to 21 fps randomly until I tapped on the windows key and it would go back to 60. It started becoming very annoying, and this is the only thread I can find with my exact issue.

To fix, open up Nvidia Control Panel, go to program settings, select X4, and set V-Sync to OFF. I tried Fast sync as well, but no dice. I also have X4's in-game V-Sync to triple buffering now. I am using Rivatuner to cap my in-game fps, but NVCP can do that too.

I am playing on a panel that supports G-Sync/Freesync, so this is not optimal, but the game no longer is dropping to 20-21 fps. Hope this helps! :)

I think it's steam, because I've noticed in Fallout 4 that i can no longer zone without alt tabbing twice.

I actually just came on to find a solution for it and saw this.

[f r o g]

Originally posted by White_Mask:

Hey, saw this post and was experiencing same issue. Happy to find a fix. I am on a 1080 ti and my game kept going down to 21 fps randomly until I tapped on the windows key and it would go back to 60. It started becoming very annoying, and this is the only thread I can find with my exact issue.

To fix, open up Nvidia Control Panel, go to program settings, select X4, and set V-Sync to OFF. I tried Fast sync as well, but no dice. I also have X4's in-game V-Sync to triple buffering now. I am using Rivatuner to cap my in-game fps, but NVCP can do that too.

I am playing on a panel that supports G-Sync/Freesync, so this is not optimal, but the game no longer is dropping to 20-21 fps. Hope this helps! :)

This works perfectly, I'm running a g-sync/freesync as well, thank you for your solution!

[EtherealKnight]

I have been having this exact same problem too where the game randomly caps itself at 20-21 fps, alt-tab doesn't fix it. I'll try this solution, the only thing that has worked so far is saving the game seems to make the fps jump back to normal.