Game is super choppy even on my specs?

[Alex]

Running the game on a 1080p 60Hz monitor. I have it on the lowest possible graphics settings including the resolution (lowest it goes is 800x600). Despite this, I cannot for the life of me get any kind of smooth framerate. It's just way too choppy, and my specs aren't even that bad! This is strange for a Unity game.

GTX 1660ti
Ryzen 5 1600 Six-Core
16 GB RAM
Windows 10 Professional
Installed on D:\

[Nert]

That is very unusual, I'm only on a 1060 and it's rock solid

Worth keeping in mind it's not a standard unity game, it is doing physics modelling of an entire solar system in realtime, but still should easily be within those specs

The only similar issue I can recall is when trying to run at more than 60hz, there is a tweak for that at least in the support forum

[Warp]

The game has some weird issues with framerates. I have an RTX 3080 and a 120Hz 4k g-sync display. Playing at 4k resolution, according to MSI Afterburner the game runs at over 100 FPS, yet the visible refresh rate of the game looks like it's running at 20-30 FPS. I'm not even kidding. It's extremely choppy and jittery, as if it were running at less than 30 FPS. There's no screen tearing, but the refresh rate is abysmal, even though Afterburner claims 100+ FPS. If the framerate goes up to 120 FPS, it will look completely smooth, but immediately when it drops below that, it looks like 20 FPS.

Curiously, if I lower the resolution to 1440p and turn vsync on in the game's settings, it will run at 120 FPS and look extremely smooth. Perhaps because it's able to run at a constant 120 FPS.

This is the only game I have encountered that does this.

[Nert]

That's the 60hz thing - even if the framerate is going 100s of frames a second, the physics engine upon which everything runs, is locked to 60fps. 120fps will look smoother just because it's exactly double but tldr your graphics card is like GIMME NEW FRAMES and the engine is like "no I'm going at 60 and you'll like it"

Fix for that is to ramp up the physics engine, at your own risk but plenty of people have done it without issue to my knowledge:

In your C:\Users\<username>\AppData\LocalLow\Mobius Digital\Outer Wilds directory, create a new .txt file called secretsettings.txt in that file, add the line PhysicsRate=120 , or instead of 120 whatever your target framerate is save the file, close it, and re-launch the game.

[Alex]

Originally posted by Nert:

That's the 60hz thing - even if the framerate is going 100s of frames a second, the physics engine upon which everything runs, is locked to 60fps. 120fps will look smoother just because it's exactly double but tldr your graphics card is like GIMME NEW FRAMES and the engine is like "no I'm going at 60 and you'll like it"

Fix for that is to ramp up the physics engine, at your own risk but plenty of people have done it without issue to my knowledge:

In your C:\Users\<username>\AppData\LocalLow\Mobius Digital\Outer Wilds directory, create a new .txt file called secretsettings.txt in that file, add the line PhysicsRate=120 , or instead of 120 whatever your target framerate is save the file, close it, and re-launch the game.

But 60Hz is my maximum refresh rate, and I have VSync on. Having framerates higher than my monitor can use will result in screen tearing.

[Nert]

Originally posted by Jack Foxtrot:

But 60Hz is my maximum refresh rate, and I have VSync on. Having framerates higher than my monitor can use will result in screen tearing.

Sorry this was in response to Warp - I mentioned it in my reply to you that it likely wasn't the issue since you specifically mentioned you were already at 60hz!

It probably won't hurt to try anyway, this would push the physics harder but wouldn't cause tearing since your refresh rate would still be 60, but I'd be surprised if it was the answer

Maybe PhysX is running in software mode instead of hardware? total guess

[V3NOM]

It just helped me going into nvidia control panel - manage 3d settings. Then select the "Program Settings" tab. Add OuterWilds.exe and then go down in the list of settings until you find "Max framerate" and cap it to 60.

It worked for me at least.

[flipya4real]

Originally posted by V3NOM:

It just helped me going into nvidia control panel - manage 3d settings. Then select the "Program Settings" tab. Add OuterWilds.exe and then go down in the list of settings until you find "Max framerate" and cap it to 60.

It worked for me at least.

This is a great way to hard cap games. I'm having a similar issue and plan on doing this next.

[Warp]

Originally posted by Nert:

That's the 60hz thing - even if the framerate is going 100s of frames a second, the physics engine upon which everything runs, is locked to 60fps.

I don't understand why the physics engine would cause the screen refresh rate to look like it's running at about 20 frames per second, for example when I turn the camera horizontally.

(But as to your point, I can't really say if the game's display updates at 60 FPS or 120 FPS when Afterburner says 120, as I'm not that good at distinguishing between the two framerates. It could well be that the game is updating 60 times per second, and each frame is just being shown for two screen refreshes, which makes Afterburner think it's actually running at 120 Hz.)

[Nert]

Originally posted by Warp:

Originally posted by Nert:

That's the 60hz thing - even if the framerate is going 100s of frames a second, the physics engine upon which everything runs, is locked to 60fps.

I don't understand why the physics engine would cause the screen refresh rate to look like it's running at about 20 frames per second, for example when I turn the camera horizontally.

If the game is running at 60, but you look at it at 120fps you'll see the same image twice before it changes, like 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4, but it'll be consistent so it seems smooth at least

If you're going at 100 or 144 or some other number it'll be uneven, something more like 1 1 1 2 3 3 4 4 4 5 6 6 7 7 7 and it'll look stuttery, even though underneath it the game's still going the same speed

That's my understanding at least!

[NegentropicNomad]

I wanted to get back in and explore more after beating the game ~ a year ago. Now all of a sudden I've got terrible input lag only trying to run 1080p60. Ryzen 2700X (9% usage), 32GB ram (game uses 1.4GB), and RTX 2080 (game uses 20%)

https://imgur.com/Tw8M08D

Okay as I was typing this and trying to gather evidence I noticed windows only had my display rate set to 30hz in the advance monitor settings. OMGWTFBBQ Microsoft?! Made sure the display output was set to 60hz and the above video turned into clean cripsy goodness even with the graphics settings turned all the way back up. Crisis averted, all I wanted to do fly around again!

[Alex]

Originally posted by NegentropicNomad:

I wanted to get back in and explore more after beating the game ~ a year ago. Now all of a sudden I've got terrible input lag only trying to run 1080p60. Ryzen 2700X (9% usage), 32GB ram (game uses 1.4GB), and RTX 2080 (game uses 20%)

https://imgur.com/Tw8M08D

Okay as I was typing this and trying to gather evidence I noticed windows only had my display rate set to 30hz in the advance monitor settings. OMGWTFBBQ Microsoft?! Made sure the display output was set to 60hz and the above video turned into clean cripsy goodness even with the graphics settings turned all the way back up. Crisis averted, all I wanted to do fly around again!

Excuse me but what the ♥♥♥♥ is that mouse?