[Solved] Improve game performance.

[Xeniaton]

Hi guys.
So I've been playing this game with a 15FPS, and it's starting to driving me kind of nuts.

The only other games I've had issue with (and never quite took to real time to try and solve it), were X-Com 2, and No Man's Sky (yeah, ...). Ironically enough, these are kind of my favorite games I'd say...

So today I summon you, dear internet, to try and help me find a solution to that.
The low FPS doesn't bother me that much (I made two different runs of X-Com 2 at 20-25 FPS, and spent 200 hours on NMS with around the same).
Divinity OS:ED, RiME, The Last Remnant, Portal 2, Borderlands 2 works all like charms (these are the highest requiring game I believe I own).

But for Divinity Original Sin 2 DE, I have around 15-20 FPS, and lots of mouse responsiveness issues. Every time I'd click somewhere/on something, it would take half a second to respond...

My specs (laptop, Lenovo Yoga 710):
- GeForce 940MX 2gb
- Intel i7-6500U 2.60ghz
- 8gb ram
- Windows 10 (always up to date)

What I tried:
- All Windows settings are on High Performance.
- All NVidia Control Panel settings are on Performance (Manually switching "Max pre-rendered frame" to 1 helped a lot in X-Com 2, but no luck in Divinity).
- Installed GeForce Experience (gosh I hate to have useless softwares on my computer...). Won't even detect game settings.
- BIOS is up to date (as well as all computer's drivers, I should add that I have a clean version of Windows 10 installed, I hate these manufacturer useless softwares all around).
- Tried this: https://steamcommunity.com/app/435150/discussions/0/1696043263492520210/
(disable/enable cpu 3 manually everytime you start the game).
- Tried lowering resolution to 720p, with very low graphic settings: FPS is the same, won't even go to 30fps (I should add that V-Sync is deactivated, and GPS caped at 30).
- I usually have dual screen. So I tried to turn off my laptop screen, and close all other applications (Google Chrome and such). No improvement.

Also, I've not faced further drops in fights with fire all over the place (Hello Black Pits).
But I've had serious issues in the up-side down region, where the floor opened, and you are constantly decayed (North-east of Reaper's coast).

Do You guys have any idea what I could try, that would allow me to have at least a 25/30 FPS ?
Thanks.

[edit: Well, when reaching Arx (the first fight, at the entrance of the city, with loads of bodies around, and as much Necrofire as the Black Pits fight), my FPS dropped at around 10, and my mouse was like responding literally half a second later, it was driving me nuts.
I decided I'd have played too much with the options, so reseted all my NVidia settings to the default ones, and uninstalled that NVidia Experience thingy.
Then, when launching the game, I had my 30FPS on the game menu, in 1080p, which was not the case before, I was more around 15.
I loaded my save, in Arx, set the Graphics on "High" settings, and it was ok.
Still, for better performance, I deactivated the shadows. It's not as beautiful, but I have my 25-30FPS, and, most important of all, my mouse pointer just does what I want it to do, the moment I want it to do it, and that's enough for me I guess.
That's weird, I'm wondering if the issue was not from the "Max Pre-rendered FPS" that I always set manually to 1 (helped me a lot with XCom). Now it's set to Global. That's the only important change I can think of...
Anyhow, thanks for your time.]

[Hugh de Salle]

Do you have duel Graphics cards and have you set up Divinty in your Nvidea panel?.

The game somtimes does not recongize your GPU and will use the intergrated card instead.

[Hugh de Salle]

Failing that you could try knocking shadows off and Vsync and cap yourself to 50 fps also use the base AA or none at all.

[slovakiaman]

Would help us if you posted what settings you have. Do you have the game on low and every effect (shadows, aa, ...) turned of? Also, as the guy above me said, did you check in the nvidia control panel if you are using your dedicated graphics card instead of the integrated one?

[Lathanx]

Turning off shaodws gives large gains (20fps difference for me) you can try that. Also make sure your laptop is actually using your gpu.

[Xeniaton]

Hi guys and thanks for your answers.
Like stated in the original post:
"- Tried lowering resolution to 720p, with very low graphic settings: FPS is the same, won't even go to 30fps (I should add that V-Sync is deactivated, and GPS caped at 30)."
Very Low graphic settings will basically indeed deactivate Shadows.

Thought I mentioned it in the original post, mb, but V-Sync is of course off, and FPS caped at 30.

Regarding setting dedicated graphic card from NVidia Control Panel, it is, indeed, set as the preferred graphics processor.

[Hugh de Salle]

Ok thx for that , Just to add have you checked in the graphic options in the game that it states exactly what your GPU is ie mine says GTX980.

Also you might want to check that your power options are on performance not balanced.

Other than that im at a loss and could only say maybe you need a GPU upgrade 2gb isnt great and even though you meet the minum requirements their are a lot of variables involved.

[Xeniaton]

Game settings indeed is showing my GPU as per in the "Fullscreen Display" option.
Windows is set to performances.
I highly think it is indeed my GPU that is faulty here, but, I mean, it's a laptop I bought for Music production, so I was not really taking care about the GPU when buying (started playing games afterwards), but I mainly wanted to check if people would have some tips on how to improve my mouse responsiveness, and get an ok 20-25 FPS.

[Hugh de Salle]

Originally posted by Xeniaton:

Game settings indeed is showing my GPU as per in the "Fullscreen Display" option.
Windows is set to performances.
I highly think it is indeed my GPU that is faulty here, but, I mean, it's a laptop I bought for Music production, so I was not really taking care about the GPU when buying (started playing games afterwards), but I mainly wanted to check if people would have some tips on how to improve my mouse responsiveness, and get an ok 20-25 FPS.

If your playing on the lowest settings and resolutions theirs not a lot more you can do really mate most people get problems when they think their GPUs are amazing and try ultra and then moan but you seem to have done everything possable to play the game on minium.

Good luck maybe a 4gb card like mine the ZotacGTX980 which price wise is very reasonable nowa-days however im not sure it would fit in your laptop as i have no clue about them:P.

[Xeniaton]

Okey, thanks for your time then. ;)
Cheers.

[Yaboku]

As much as i get that you love the game and you have the motivational drive to keep playing despite the performance, you can't complain about the 'games bad performance' if you are barely even meeting the minimum requirements on that overpriced bottom-line laptop. Just because it has an 'i7' in there doesn't mean anything, it has the performance of a 50$ desktop CPU. Realisticly only your RAM holds up to the requirements.

[Xeniaton]

Originally posted by PaulsLV:

As much as i get that you love the game and you have the motivational drive to keep playing despite the performance, you can't complain about the 'games bad performance' if you are barely even meeting the minimum requirements on that overpriced bottom-line laptop. Just because it has an 'i7' in there doesn't mean anything, it has the performance of a 50$ desktop CPU. Realisticly only your RAM holds up to the requirements.

Have you seen me "complaining" ?
Am I saying "that game is crap and not optimized properly" ?
I'm I saying anything wrong about the developers ?
I'm perfectly aware my computer is not for gaming, and as stated in a previous message, I bought it for music production, so the GPU was not useful in any capacity.
FYI, that computer cost me 750€, and it's working wonders for any work I have to do with it. I'm perfectly aware it is not designed for video game or video edition.

I'm just asking if somebody with better knowledge than me might have any tip to add to the current mater.
So I'm not quite sure your comment is relevant in any capacity, if you just want to expel your frustration out of the blue, please do it somewhere else.

[HighPlains Drifter]

Two questions.

1) Do you play with the charger plugged in ?
2) How hot is the air being expelled ?

Also the U series CPUs aren't that great, but they are not terrible. For example your i7-6500U actually benchmarks below an i5-2400.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i7-6500U-vs-Intel-i5-2400/2607vs793

It's about 1500 points below the i5-2400. Now my daughter plays Divinity 2 DE with me, and she's using an i5-2400 and a GTX 750ti with 6 gigs and gets good performance. So while the CPU is lower in raw power I really don't think that's the issue. I think it's two things combined actually, the 940m mobile graphics just isn't that good in the first place, secondly I think the power draw on the battery is causing your laptop to slow down, that's a simple way to state it.

Also I think Divinity 2 uses the Unity Engine ( I could be wrong) which has always been notorious for heat and CPU usage. Important to note, because your laptop will slow down to compensate for heat build up.


EDIT: Also try going into the Device Manager and disable the Intel HD 520 Graphics, if possible.

[Xeniaton]

My computer is always plugged in, and I bought a cheap cooling fan, because indeed, it tends to warm a lot when on highly GPU requiring games.
As per the CPU, it is around 30% while in game, so I'm not sure it is faulty.
RAM is around 80%, that's what bothers me the most.

[HighPlains Drifter]

80% Ram usage isn't the problem.

[slovakiaman]

Originally posted by Xeniaton:

My computer is always plugged in, and I bought a cheap cooling fan, because indeed, it tends to warm a lot when on highly GPU requiring games.
As per the CPU, it is around 30% while in game, so I'm not sure it is faulty.
RAM is around 80%, that's what bothers me the most.

The CPU usage should be much higher. This is (or at least was in the classic version) a CPU heavy game, and it's definitelly not ok if you're only using 30% of the CPU power.