Major Performance & Stability Issues - After Latest PATCH! (Updated APRIL 1st)

[Slayer Seraph]

Hey,
I noticed that as soon as I played after the new mysterious patch - the performance and overall stability suffered greatly:

1) I get many major FPS drops in various locations especially while exploring and combat. I was used to mostly steady 60 fps - but now I spend a lot of time in the 50s.

2) I had short full freezes and hangs - that released after a while. Sometimes as slideshow out of no where.

3) I also noticed extreme CPU usage during said drops: with the CPU reaching 9-100% load. That lasted around a minute after the freezes finish.

4) Overall there are many new stutters that weren't there before. Especially in combat with many effects and enemies in later levels. (From midway onward). And in exploration also - like mission 15 (horrible performance and huge dips and stutters).

5) Lower GPU utilization! This is very troubling.
I'm using Vsync and my GPU more often than not have lower than full utilization and lower than maximum clocks.
Meaning:
1300mhz-1500mhz Core and 3300-3500mhz memory and 60-75% load.
Instead of full 1900-2000 Mhz Core and 5800Mhz Memory at 90+ load.

6) The CPU usage also increased more than before.
I usually had 10-30% with spikes to 40-50% but now it's significantly higher. Reaching 50+ more often (and GPU usage dropping to 70s more often too)
Playing at full 4K with 1080Ti and i5-3570k.

7) Finally - I had a single hard crash to desktop.

Never really had any of these issues before.

I should note that I also updated Window 10 to 1809 the same day the new DMC5 vague (Denuvo?) patch arrived.

Anyone else encountered these? Or notice a tangible performance and stability decline?


*CAPCOM INSTEAD OF OPTIMIZE YOUR GAME FURTHER AND GIVE US MORE OPTIONS TO TWEAK - YOU MADE IT MUCH MUCH WORSE!
FIX THE PC VERSION ASAP!*

[Kaldaien]

Originally posted by Lilith:

One word );

Denuvo...

Remove it entirely the game will likely run better );.

That's not true. It will be more stable, but performance won't change any.

Nearly all the problems are caused by some rather profound incompetence when it comes to storing graphics settings and initializing graphics hardware. I'm completely at a loss for words when describing how poorly this game was developed, this is a new low.

[Kaldaien]

Also while on this topic, the game's running input and SteamAPI on a dedicated thread and has assigned that thread Highest priority. Meanwhile, the Steam overlay is polling input on the render thread, which has normal priority and which is subject to Critical Section lock acquisition and thread rescheduling when the game's dedicated input thread happens to try and read from an input device at the same time as the overlay and other middleware is also reading that device from a different thread.

I was wondering why the game stuttered so horribly whenever I tried to type something into my menu system. It's because they designed this stuff backwards and input is causing render and filesystem threads to stutter.

The higher priority thread gets ... higher priority when two threads are competing for the same locked resource. So the SteamAPI thread is bullying everything else into submission and causing late frames frequently.

This is easily fixable using my tool and the Thread widget. The game's actual performance problems don't come from Denuvo, that's not how any of this stuff works ever. Pirates may get a faster performing game, but that's only because they don't have SteamAPI blocking the execution of other threads. That's basically what it comes down to in 80% of these scenarios. A cracked game has to pretend to implement SteamAPI, but its pretend SteamAPI doesn't do anything and thus never gets tangled up in cross-thread performance deterioration.

[ToveriJuri]

Well this was unexpected. I thought you had abandoned the game. Thank you for this.

[Kaldaien]

Originally posted by ToveriJuri:

Well this was unexpected. I thought you had abandoned the game. Thank you for this.

I had, but I'm preparing to launch the v 0.10.0 product line of Special K officially either this week or next and I'm in development crunch mode right now gobbling up every possible HDR game that I can to finalize testing and release my HDR enhancement software officially.

Luckily, when looking for a broken HDR game ... just take any modern release and that's good enough :) I'd classify every single HDR game in my software library as broken to some degree, but this game takes the cake. It's the most broken game I can recall ever modifying.

[Rhythmless Ninja]

Will this fix the constant renderdevicedx11.cpp crash or do i give up hope of actually playing this game without pulling my hair out?

[Kaldaien]

Just FYI, I have devised an automated fix for the Steam / input device-induced stuttering and re-uploaded this thing. It's unlikely I will produce a proper game-specific mod for this game, but this should help most people out. It's likely to also reduce load times slightly and hitching that might happen during loading.

Also, if ReShade does not strike your fancy, feel free to remove it. I just try to bundle it with all my mods because I have that fancy-pants uniquely re-designed version I modified to work independently from the UI.

That's not a feature you'll get anywhere else, so in games that I can get compatible, I try to ship it. If you don't want ReShade, then don't take whatever minor performance penalty might come from it.

[Slayer Seraph]

Originally posted by 7K7DA:

The loadings were much faster on day one, the first patch definitely messed up with something in the game, now the loadings are a bit longer

Indeed. Uninstalling and reinstalling the game - while also deleting every single file and folder in Steamapps>DMC5 - might help (temporarily perhaps).

The points of the story is: Capcom have a long, ever expanding list of old backlog problems and new issues alike - that are crying to be solved.
Tons of optimization to do. Removal of denuvo DRM (like other games did). Shortening of loading times. Stability fix (they added crashes to desktop or full PC crash/BSOD!!). Adding extra support and features - and more.

The launch version wasn't perfect, but it was miles better than this.
It had pretty much zero crashes, much higher framerates, less stutters, instant-loading times (so fast I couldn't read texts at all). Yet there was still room for optimization (cutscenes and network levels) and adding more PC Options (turning off AA for example).
But they are practically ruining the game in a degrading deteriorating fashion.

I appreciate efforts to solve some of this unofficially - but the game is still very new and there's no reason for Capcom and the Developers to totally abandon and destroy their awesome game - instead of working on making it perfect for everyone.

The fact they are deliberately ignoring all of this - and relegating it to rare individual bugs - is unacceptable and inexcusable.

Even newcomers that say it "runs like butter" don't understand it could have ran like "X3 EXTRA CREAMY BUTTER".

[Kaldaien]

Originally posted by Ransom Seraph:

I appreciate efforts to solve some of this unofficially - but the game is still very new and there's no reason for Capcom and the Developers to totally abandon and destroy their awesome game - instead of working on making it perfect for everyone.

The fact they are deliberately ignoring all of this - and relegating it to rare individual bugs - is unacceptable and inexcusable.

It's Capcom, this is what they do. They won't even listen to me and I bend over backwards to explain every single bug in great detail. If they ever want to change, they know where to find my analysis and fixes.

Until then, I'd rather just help the actual community and the fact that we have yet another uncooperative developer doesn't matter much. It's not as though my efforts are hindering their own or anything to that effect. I literally do this for the benefit of the user, who otherwise never gets any recognition that issues even exist :(

[The Radio Demon Alastor]

Originally posted by Dargil:

Originally posted by Ransom Seraph:

Even newcomers that say it "runs like butter" don't understand it could have ran like "X3 EXTRA CREAMY BUTTER".

Feedback is still feedback, and my specs aside my GPU aren't anything stellar or that modern. It's not that i'm saying that the issues you're having are not real

There is def issues with this game, even I have massive amounts of frame loss and stuttering, glad someone knows how to fix it so I might be able to play it soon, I play some alpha games that run better than this does.

TT P-3 open case
i9-9900 3.6 GHz + Waterblock
Z390 Aorus Pro Mobo
RTX 2080 8GB + Waterblock
32GB T-Force 3K DC Gaming Ram DDR4
Samsung M.2 500 GB SSD
Samsung 860 EVO 500 GB Internal SSD
TT RGB 750W PS
Liquid Cooling Loop

[Fish]

After a painstaking, nearly complete DMD boss fight that ended in a crash citing a drive that doesn't exist, I just wanted to thank you. I haven't even tried your fix yet, but your reputation precedes you and your effort is certainly appreciated.

[Kaldaien]

Sadly, the one thing that means the most to me -- HDR -- I cannot fully fix for this game :-\

I've fixed the resolution issues, I've fixed stuttering cause by SteamAPI interacting with other threads. But ... I can't figure out how to get the engine to turn HDR back on after you alt-tab out and back in.

Of course Capcom won't fix this because they totally suck and are wasting time making Denuvo unstable in their games :sigh:. I literally added HDR to Monster Hunter World before they did, but I've met my match here.

------
To be clear, I can totally put the game back into HDR mode, I'm very experienced with this topic. What I cannot do, is get the game to start applying HDR image processing after I force the driver into HDR mode. The game believes it's running in SDR and I can't figure out how to convince it that the display is using an HDR signal.

This engine is b0rked big time :-\

[JBeckman]

Originally posted by Kaldaien:

Sadly, the one thing that means the most to me -- HDR -- I cannot fully fix for this game :-\

I've fixed the resolution issues, I've fixed stuttering cause by SteamAPI interacting with other threads. But ... I can't figure out how to get the engine to turn HDR back on after you alt-tab out and back in.

Of course Capcom won't fix this because they totally suck and are wasting time making Denuvo unstable in their games :sigh:. I literally added HDR to Monster Hunter World before they did, but I've met my match here.

------
To be clear, I can totally put the game back into HDR mode, I'm very experienced with this topic. What I cannot do, is get the game to start applying HDR image processing after I force the driver into HDR mode. The game believes it's running in SDR and I can't figure out how to convince it that the display is using an HDR signal.

This engine is b0rked big time :-\

Hmm wonder if that's NVAPI related or something, if you override the features via DirectX then it kinda needs to be the driver and go on a slightly lower level for it to mess that up doesn't it?

Which I guess assuming that is the case at least it also makes it very hard to override or interact with, guess one would have to go to pretty extreme lengths to get that all set up then from what would be needed for a third party utility without having source code or getting stuff patched.

Interesting to read about this and the various challenges and problems with these types of things, wonder if there's future patches planned now that Bloody Palace is out haven't really checked the status of this game at all.
(Did I even pick it up. Can't quite remember.)

EDIT: Yeah the mouse cursor icon of ownership is there, heh. Backlogged but what else is new.

EDIT: Yep title update #4 and some vendor branches for stuff not like it's possible to actually see detailed info anymore due to Valve changing certain things because oops data got leaked. :P

https://steamdb.info/app/601150/depots/

[Kaldaien]

Pfft, I just noticed the game polls over 200 different keys per-frame using GetAsyncKeyState.

Special K can disable this for you if you don't need keyboard input. The overhead caused by reading keyboard input that way measures almost exactly the same (CPU-time wise) as certain render code. So it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that could hurt low-end systems. I have a moderately high-end system and even I don't want the game polling my keyboard this way and slowing things down.

[Slayer Seraph]

Hey guys, I haven't played the game in a while, having 100% Platinumed it and doing everything possible full S Ranks.

Have they released any performance optimization Patch? Or any patch at all in the past 1-2 months?

[ToveriJuri]

Nah the game was abandoned after BP and there have been public statements that the dev teams have moved on to other projects. So don't expect any kind of support for this game anymore, unless they decide to release a special edition much later.