Massive Input Lag + Units Freezing + Normal Time + Offline

[KWAiRT]

So right out of the box I cap my FPS at 120. Odd that a title like this doesn't have a built in frame limiter but Ok I'm prepared. Tutorial loads like I remember it twenty years ago only this time when I click on my unit to move from point A to B he moves stops moves stops moves stops freezes moves stops freezes moves.

So right away I'm like WTF is this garbage. My units are acting like they have 2000ms of input lag then freeze up with a simple command with 1 unit visible on the screen. Something is clearly wrong. I decide to just load a standard game AI skirmish to see if its just Tutorial related. Nope as soon as the game starts my units are freezing everywhere.

So at this point I start messing with resolutions and reload the client a few times. Same damn thing. Decided to run the ranked benchmark utility and scored 1280 or something. The game didn't drop a single frame in the benchmark. So I go back to my standard offline skirmish and its technically "BROKEN out of the box." Windows 10 seems to be working fine. Looks like it's entirely a game client issue. Nvidia drivers all up to date and no hardware related issues to speak of.

So Im curious how I can see so many people playing this game with no issues yet it basically looks like en entirely different game when I install it and it's most certainly not running like it should be despite blazing high fps. Capping the FPS lower did nothing either. I even fiddled around with gamebar and some of the Microsoft dependencies and nothing. I had no choice but to refund it.

Seriously Microsoft you need some better QA. There is no way in hell an rts this old with this many remasters and this many man hours should out of the box exhibit game breaking client side mechanics like this. I say mechanics because the performance was off the charts. This also leads me to believe that it could be reverse engineered too effect other clients in the same bugged way.

Had no choice but to refund. Someone else has a similar post in the Technical Forum but it was unanswered. At this point I don't have time to debug a twenty year old game that has been remastered twice but I can think of three things I didn't try because I just don't have time to debug in the refund window sorry.

[Scourge012]

Are you using Wallpaper Engine by chance? I have to turn it off to make the game run, otherwise it behaves like you describe.

[KWAiRT]

Originally posted by Scourge012:

Are you using Wallpaper Engine by chance? I have to turn it off to make the game run, otherwise it behaves like you describe.

No I'm not using Wallpaper Engine or any other third party apps aside from MSI Afterburner which is my frame limiter. I did forget to unplug the XBOX gamepad just in case though lol.

I should have also tested gameplay without the frame limiter(I did boot the game without) however it would be unplayable at 400 plus FPS and just max out the hardware anyways. At 120 fps I was running 8ms per frame and the hardware was basically idle.

Which leads me to my next point. How do we have a Microsoft Studios Game Remaster without a built in frame limiter? Is the engine not capable of a custom frame limiter? If so then surely it was tested with the common 3rd party frame limiters out there? Technically a driver hook could cause those problems but surely this is not the case here. At least I hope not because that would be really sloppy.

[☬✞ 𝓓𝖔𝖓 ✞☬]

I have the same problem.
Unfortunately I have not yet found an effective solution. My friends also have the problem, alone or together.
as soon as we want to play mutiplayer, that's exactly what happens and one by one it flies out. or against Ki's

[KWAiRT]

I played the original game for thousands of hours so I knew right away what I was looking at was "broken." After some quick searching and looking around I only found a few mentions of the problem at all which was very very disappointing, especially this long after release.

[-Dare Devil/x/]

Originally posted by Talos:

I played the original game for thousands of hours so I knew right away what I was looking at was "broken." After some quick searching and looking around I only found a few mentions of the problem at all which was very very disappointing, especially this long after release.

-I have only really seen 5 or less people post what you are experiencing.

-One guy solved it by Windows updates. One guy solved it by GPU driver updates. One guy solved it by closing his injector software.

-However there have been a couple people that have never figured it out like yourself which may end up being a game issue.

-It would be interesting to see if removing controllers and joysticks solved the issue. I know in some other games a plugged in controller prevents the game from even starting.

-Other than that, I feel like you may have no other option than to refund since it doesn't work on your PC which just sucks.

[Javoo on Fire]

Im having same problem cpu is about 40% memory about 50% gpu is sitting at 30% at all maxed out settings doesn't matter if im on low settings or high i go from a steady 150fps to stuttering every 10 seconds for a second or two online or multiplayer doesn't matter. 150 fps to 40 in 2 seconds. Also benchmark was about 1213

[-Dare Devil/x/]

Originally posted by Javoo On Fire #drunk:

Im having same problem cpu is about 40% memory about 50% gpu is sitting at 30% at all maxed out settings doesn't matter if im on low settings or high i go from a steady 150fps to stuttering every 10 seconds for a second or two online or multiplayer doesn't matter. 150 fps to 40 in 2 seconds. Also benchmark was about 1213

-Can you try turning on vsync?

[mattlubuman]

got a similar problem with my copy, frames drop to 0-1 most of the playtime and it maxed out my disk and memory on and off. Yes i dont have much more than a upmarket hp laptop but since my cd copies of the game wont launch (despite several attempts and adjusting the compatability settings) but a game this old should be easy to run on most up to date hardware. i think in some cases it needs some optimisation fixes.

[-Dare Devil/x/]

Originally posted by mattlubuman:

got a similar problem with my copy, frames drop to 0-1 most of the playtime and it maxed out my disk and memory on and off. Yes i dont have much more than a upmarket hp laptop but since my cd copies of the game wont launch (despite several attempts and adjusting the compatability settings) but a game this old should be easy to run on most up to date hardware. i think in some cases it needs some optimisation fixes.

-Do you meet the recommended specs? This is a 2019 game not a 1995 game so it still is different.

[Javoo on Fire]

Originally posted by -Dare Devil/x/:

Originally posted by Javoo On Fire #drunk:

Im having same problem cpu is about 40% memory about 50% gpu is sitting at 30% at all maxed out settings doesn't matter if im on low settings or high i go from a steady 150fps to stuttering every 10 seconds for a second or two online or multiplayer doesn't matter. 150 fps to 40 in 2 seconds. Also benchmark was about 1213

-Can you try turning on vsync?

I think i found my problem every time i open nvidia control panel i change a setting what ever it may be hit apply and the game runs flawlessly, but after restarting my computer I have to this every time I just toggle a setting on and off. maybe it is an nvidia problem. Oh well enjoying 100 stable fps on high particles i love it =]

[mr.johnathan.kemp]

Well I tried the Nvidia control panel change and apply trick. I changed power management mode from Nvidia driver controlled to "prefer maximum performance". Made no difference, the game still lags to the point of becoming unplayable. Oh well!

[Javoo on Fire]

Originally posted by mr.johnathan.kemp:

Well I tried the Nvidia control panel change and apply trick. I changed power management mode from Nvidia driver controlled to "prefer maximum performance". Made no difference, the game still lags to the point of becoming unplayable. Oh well!

actually it stopped working well again, i really dont know whats the problem anymore before i could cap my fps through nvidia and it ran flawlessly, now i run the game and it shows my integrated graphics are doing work as well as my dedicated card, i wish i knew wtf is going on.

[-Dare Devil/x/]

Originally posted by Javoo On Fire #drunk:

Originally posted by mr.johnathan.kemp:

Well I tried the Nvidia control panel change and apply trick. I changed power management mode from Nvidia driver controlled to "prefer maximum performance". Made no difference, the game still lags to the point of becoming unplayable. Oh well!

actually it stopped working well again, i really dont know whats the problem anymore before i could cap my fps through nvidia and it ran flawlessly, now i run the game and it shows my integrated graphics are doing work as well as my dedicated card, i wish i knew wtf is going on.

-Did you ever try vsync?

[mr.johnathan.kemp]

Just to update my experience, I have found to today that if I put vsync on and change the screen setting from "full screen" to "full desktop" that the lags go away, at least in a lan based game. I have yet to try a remote server based game. Hope this is the fix I have been hoping for.