FPS DROP FIX!!! Guide to fix Borderlands 2 on newer hardware and PhysX!!!

[Elyahu41]

Alright, I'll try to make this quick, I played borderlands 2 on my old PC a long time ago and it ran pretty smooth. Image my surprise when I bought the handsome bundle for $5 and after installing the game on my brand new PC (Specs at the end of the paragraph) that I got constant fps drops. It seemed like my issue was only happening while traveling between areas, and the game was installed on my M.2 SSD too. I was able to fix it thanks to a few hours of googling, but I noticed that it wasn't easy to find the fix. Anyways, I thought that I might help the next person who needs help running this game again, especially since there is a new DLC coming out. Hopefully, this will help people play the new DLC coming out at max settings. :-)
PC Specs:
i5 6400 @ 2.70GHZ
16GB of DDR4 RAM
Samsung 960 EVO 250GB SSD
GTX 1080 SC Edition

Step #1:
#Note: this might work for some other problems too.
Go to your installation folder and find Borderlands2.exe and put it in Compatibility mode for Windows 8/7. It should look like this:

\Steam\steamapps\common\Borderlands 2\Binaries\Win32

Step#2: While Borderlands2.exe is running, open up task manager and select Borderlands2.exe program. Right click on it and left click on "Go to Details" It will take you to the Details tab, now right click Borderlands2.exe again and left click on "Set Affinity" Select all CPU's.

Step#3:
Go here and download the Nvidia PhysX Installer. Extract it with 7-zip and move the files in the Physx folder to your Borderlands2.exe location as well. If it asks to overwrite files say yes.

https://www.nvidia.com/object/physx-9.19.0218-driver.html

Step#4:
#Note: This is what worked for me.
We're going to edit a bunch of .ini files!!!
and apparently I made a mistake and these files are actually found in:
Documents\my games\borderlands 2\willowgame\Config/WillowEngine.ini
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Go to \Steam\steamapps\common\Borderlands 2\WillowGame\Config
in that folder first you're going to open "DefaultEngine.ini" and edit these values:

[MemoryBudgets]
AnimationMB=5000
AudioMB=5000
CodeMB=5000
LevelObjectsMB=5000
TerrainMB=5000
GameDataMB=5000
MaterialMB=5000
ParticleMB=5000
PhysicsMB=5000
ScaleformMB=5000
ShadersMB=5000
SkelMeshMB=5000
StaticMeshMB=5000
TextureMB=1000

Now go to here and open "BaseEngine.ini":
\Steam\steamapps\common\Borderlands 2\Engine\Config
Use "find" to find "DefaultPostProcess" and edit the original line to this line:
##Note: I recommend skipping this step because there are two of them (one in "DefaultEngine.ini" and one in "BaseEngine.ini"), and it worked for me without editing this line.

DefaultPostProcessName=WillowEngineMaterials.CinematicScenePostProcess

and while you're there "find" these values and change them:

[Engine.Engine]
MaxParticleResize=128
PhysXGpuHeapSize=512
PhysXMeshCacheSize=256

I think that last part was why my fps was dropping, not enough memory allocated to load both sides of the level. Please share to anyone who needs help!

Majority of this information came from: https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Borderlands_2#Video_settings

P.S. If you want to skip the logo movies every time you start up the game go to
\Steam\steamapps\common\Borderlands 2\WillowGame\Movies
and rename or delete "Nvidia.bik" and "2k_logo.bik"
P.S.S If all else fails, try lowering PhysX. I heard that most problems are fixed like that.

[trukr]

The files the game actually uses are in this path:
Documents\my games\borderlands 2\willowgame\Config

The ones you list, are the ones copied there when installed and first run.

DefaultEngine, is WillowEngine.ini

To stop movies, in WillowEngine.ini, just look for:
bForceNoMovies= and set to TRUE.
It will stop the cut scenes when you first visit Marcus and Zed.
If you only want to stop the logos, right click the game in library, select properties and click set startup options and enter -nostartupmovies

[Elyahu41]

Originally posted by trukr:

The files the game actually uses are in this path:
Documents\my games\borderlands 2\willowgame\Config

The ones you list, are the ones copied there when installed and first run.

DefaultEngine, is WillowEngine.ini

To stop movies, in WillowEngine.ini, just look for:
bForceNoMovies= and set to TRUE.
It will stop the cut scenes when you first visit Marcus and Zed.
If you only want to stop the logos, right click the game in library, select properties and click set startup options and enter -nostartupmovies

Oops my bad, I just assumed that the files in the actual game folder would be used instead and this worked for me either way...Thanks for the call out!

[Kitragantur]

ty for information, but it didn't help

[trukr]

Originally posted by Elyahu41:

Originally posted by trukr:

The files the game actually uses are in this path:
Documents\my games\borderlands 2\willowgame\Config

The ones you list, are the ones copied there when installed and first run.

DefaultEngine, is WillowEngine.ini

To stop movies, in WillowEngine.ini, just look for:
bForceNoMovies= and set to TRUE.
It will stop the cut scenes when you first visit Marcus and Zed.
If you only want to stop the logos, right click the game in library, select properties and click set startup options and enter -nostartupmovies

Oops my bad, I just assumed that the files in the actual game folder would be used instead and this worked for me either way...Thanks for the call out!

It can work, but in general it is a bad idea. If you edit the files in documents and mess up, you can just delete it and when you run the game it will copy the default from the install folder. If you are editing the default, you lose the backup and have to delete both and verify game files. It's all recoverable, just best to not edit the defaults.

[Casurin]

well, this touches some rare problmes but will not help 99% of the time.... you could at least have searched for the countless other problems and solutions - but nah, you write an "Ultimate" guide that is just ultimately useless.

[Elyahu41]

Originally posted by Casurin:

well, this touches some rare problmes but will not help 99% of the time.... you could at least have searched for the countless other problems and solutions - but nah, you write an "Ultimate" guide that is just ultimately useless.

lol. I admit I got carried away with the title... It worked for me and I got excited.

[Elyahu41]

Originally posted by Lenny The Spy Owl:

ty for information, but it didn't help

aww man sorry. Try putting PhysX on low. I heard that helps.

[Draekus]

Originally posted by Elyahu41:

Originally posted by Casurin:

well, this touches some rare problmes but will not help 99% of the time.... you could at least have searched for the countless other problems and solutions - but nah, you write an "Ultimate" guide that is just ultimately useless.

lol. I admit I got carried away with the title... It worked for me and I got excited.

hmm, maybe edit the Title ??

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

It's probably stemmed from running this game in windows 10 in general. This is an old DirectX-9 game (Borderlands 2) and windows 10 doesn't natively support DirectX-9 games very well (It's a DX-10/11/12 OS). Most of this can be solved by just running the game on a computer that runs windows 7 still. Which I do. 0 frame drops and constant 60-80 FPS everywhere even on max graphics on a 1080 Ti in win7x64. Perfectly smooth game even with physx maxed out.

[nomorevideos]

Originally posted by trukr:

The files the game actually uses are in this path:
Documents\my games\borderlands 2\willowgame\Config

The ones you list, are the ones copied there when installed and first run.

DefaultEngine, is WillowEngine.ini

To stop movies, in WillowEngine.ini, just look for:
bForceNoMovies= and set to TRUE.
It will stop the cut scenes when you first visit Marcus and Zed.
If you only want to stop the logos, right click the game in library, select properties and click set startup options and enter -nostartupmovies

-nostartupmovies also disables the pre-rendered introductions for Scooter, Zed, Marcus as well as disables all loading screen backgrounds. At least it did that for me when I tried it out a week ago.

[Draekus]

Originally posted by Aquafawks:

It's probably stemmed from running this game in windows 10 in general. This is an old DirectX-9 game (Borderlands 2) and windows 10 doesn't natively support DirectX-9 games very well (It's a DX-10/11/12 OS). Most of this can be solved by just running the game on a computer that runs windows 7 still. Which I do. 0 frame drops and constant 60-80 FPS everywhere even on max graphics on a 1080 Ti in win7x64. Perfectly smooth game even with physx maxed out.

funny, i'm running it on a Win10 rig with no troubles..

mind you, i got over the FPS thing.

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Originally posted by Draekus:

funny, i'm running it on a Win10 rig with no troubles..

mind you, i got over the FPS thing.

Yeah sometimes we get drops into the mid-40's FPS wise when we get in big fights with end-game weapons and tons of physx effects. But never any "FPS Drops", like no "hard stalls" or "Stutters" or anything. It still renders, just a little slower. There's nothing anyone can do for this though and no amount of changing any ini files or anything will make it go away. It's because Borderlands 2 is a DirectX-9 game and as such it's main render engine is single-threaded (As are all DX-9 games, due to the nature of DX9 in general). The only real solution is to buy a system with a modern CPU that runs at very high clock speeds (Or overclock it if it's not high clock speeds out of the box) for high single-thread performance. Intel 9900K @ 5.1 Ghz or faster, or AMD Ryzen Zen2 3600 or 3900 series @ 4.6 - 4.7 Ghz. If you have any other CPU then you're probably just going to have to suck it up and deal with it.

@Elyahu41: Your problem is your CPU. It's only 2.7 Ghz, 3.3 Ghz if you turbo-boost up. That's not fast enough to get high performance in DX-9 single-threaded games. And you can't overclock it. There's nothing that can be done other than upgrading to a faster / unlocked CPU. Editing INI files aren't going to fix the underlying problem of a weak CPU.

[trukr]

Originally posted by Aquafawks:

It's probably stemmed from running this game in windows 10 in general. This is an old DirectX-9 game (Borderlands 2) and windows 10 doesn't natively support DirectX-9 games very well (It's a DX-10/11/12 OS). Most of this can be solved by just running the game on a computer that runs windows 7 still. Which I do. 0 frame drops and constant 60-80 FPS everywhere even on max graphics on a 1080 Ti in win7x64. Perfectly smooth game even with physx maxed out.

No, this is the same thing that was happening in 2013 when Winsoze 10 was not a thing. I am running it fine on Widoze 10 now.

[trukr]

Originally posted by nomorevideos:

Originally posted by trukr:

The files the game actually uses are in this path:
Documents\my games\borderlands 2\willowgame\Config

The ones you list, are the ones copied there when installed and first run.

DefaultEngine, is WillowEngine.ini

To stop movies, in WillowEngine.ini, just look for:
bForceNoMovies= and set to TRUE.
It will stop the cut scenes when you first visit Marcus and Zed.
If you only want to stop the logos, right click the game in library, select properties and click set startup options and enter -nostartupmovies

-nostartupmovies also disables the pre-rendered introductions for Scooter, Zed, Marcus as well as disables all loading screen backgrounds. At least it did that for me when I tried it out a week ago.

I had that, and still got the cut scenes from first visits to Scooter, Zed and Marcus, bForceNoMovies= TRUE stopped startup and those as well.

[Freibier]

i got with this guide only more fps drops with my 1070