DXVK may help with performance problems

[Leezus]

The biggest problem I had with the game were microstutters that would genuinely not go away, no matter how low my settings were. I was on the cusp of asking for a refund, when I thought as a last resort, I'll try and use DXVK, having used it on other games to varying levels of success.

I used the async version, as that seems to remove the initial shader compilation stutter? One problem is that editing the display settings in-game absolutely tanks the FPS, and requires you to restart the game. Changing settings from the main menu, however, seems to work perfectly fine.

Another little tip is that NVIDIA forced vsync seems to cause a flickering effect when pausing the game. Nothing game-breaking, but may be worth using the in-game vsync option if it bothers you! Hope this can help some people in a similar position to me!

https://github.com/Sporif/dxvk-async - the version I used
https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk - the original DXVK download

May 27th Edit:
I finished the game's story tonight, and these were my findings:
- DXVK DOES completely get rid of that stutter, at least for me.

- It does, however, impose that stupid 22 FPS cap on the cutscenes. Unfortunately, I've no idea why. Maybe setting the max frame cap to 120 solves it? I pushed mine back down to 60, as I play on my TV with a 60Hz refresh rate, so setting the frame rate to 120 seemed redundant. YMMV if you have a higher refresh monitor.

- I found that setting the vertical sync in the control panel helps a bit with cutscenes (I think) and disabling the in-game one. However, this creates a weird flicker when you pause the game or open the map. Nothing unplayable, but I did notice it.

- The game just utterly slowed to a crawl for no apparent reason? I noticed it after returning from the STAG ship in 'My Name is Cyrus Temple.' It might have something to with the shader compilation, as the ship is completely seperate from the city map. Otherwise, the only other time I recalled it happening was during the Trouble with Clones missions, once again because it might be a completely seperate map from storymode Steelport. The slowdown after returning the city was easily fixed by quitting to the main menu, then loading my save right back up.

DXVK worked wonders on my GTX 1060 card, on medium settings for everything (volumetric fog and DOF on low) and made the game actually playable.

It's not an ideal solution, but as someone who's very nostalgic for the Saints Row series, I was a bit desperate to play through the remaster of one of the first games I 100%'d on my PS3 back in the day. Hopefully this can help other people who might have similar problems!

[Leezus]

Originally posted by Lifell:

Did you do anything specific to get DXVK to work? For me, it gives a "Failed to create graphics device" error and refuses to start. I'm on Windows 10 x64 with a 1080 Ti.

Make sure you only put d3d11.dll and dxgi.dll in the folder, as I think putting the others in (for DirectX9 and 10) might cause the game to get completely lost. Otherwise, I'm not too sure!

[beefcat]

For me, using DXVK brings back the weird bug where cutscenes run at 22 FPS, gameplay runs at 66, and some cars don't make sound.

[Leezus]

Originally posted by beefcat:

For me, using DXVK brings back the weird bug where cutscenes run at 22 FPS, gameplay runs at 66, and some cars don't make sound.

If you're on an NVIDIA card, try forcing the max frame rate to 60 in the NVIDIA control panel, as well as vsync, while turning off the one in-game. RTSS might work as well, though it didn't for me. Not too sure about the cars, sadly.

[Leezus]

Originally posted by Lifell:

Originally posted by Leezus:

Make sure you only put d3d11.dll and dxgi.dll in the folder, as I think putting the others in (for DirectX9 and 10) might cause the game to get completely lost. Otherwise, I'm not too sure!

Oh wow, I just discovered that based on some old github issues post :P. And fair enough. I suppose I need to tinker a bit more.

It's not a perfect solution, but it gets rid of the stuttering for me, which was my biggest problem.

[forth]

d3d11.dll and dxgi.dll work, thank you.

[Leezus]

Originally posted by Lifell:

Originally posted by Leezus:

It's not a perfect solution, but it gets rid of the stuttering for me, which was my biggest problem.

I was mostly trying it to experiment and see if I could get an performance increase. Probably not but it was worth a try. I couldn't get it to work however so I just gave up. I'm not sure what the issue is but I'm going to reinstall Winderps in a few days anyway so I will try it again after the reinstall.

Thanks a lot for your responses :). Glad that you managed to bypass the stuttering that way and nice that you shared. Hopefully more peeps will see your post and will be able to experience the game stutter free.

Not a problem at all! Fingers crossed there's enough community uproar on Steam for them to patch it, as the stuttering is absolutely not a hardware problem. The fact that some people have to go to such lengths to actually play the game is such a pisstake.

[beefcat]

Originally posted by Leezus:

Originally posted by beefcat:

For me, using DXVK brings back the weird bug where cutscenes run at 22 FPS, gameplay runs at 66, and some cars don't make sound.

If you're on an NVIDIA card, try forcing the max frame rate to 60 in the NVIDIA control panel, as well as vsync, while turning off the one in-game. RTSS might work as well, though it didn't for me. Not too sure about the cars, sadly.

I already did that. It fixes the game's performance out of the box. Adding DXVK into the mix seems breaks it again.

[Leezus]

Originally posted by beefcat:

Originally posted by Leezus:

If you're on an NVIDIA card, try forcing the max frame rate to 60 in the NVIDIA control panel, as well as vsync, while turning off the one in-game. RTSS might work as well, though it didn't for me. Not too sure about the cars, sadly.

I already did that. It fixes the game's performance out of the box. Adding DXVK into the mix seems breaks it again.

It's a tricky one - doing all the standard stuff in the control panel got rid of the weird FPS cap, but I was still stuck with this god awful stutter that would occur no matter how low my settings were - it's really weird. I'm going to edit the original post with my findings!

[cyclone]

Thank you for this post, I have the game on EGS but I had shelved it due to the poor frame pacing. This seems to have fixed it for me.

[JaredX7]

Don't think DXVK would help with a number of Volumetric Fog issues I've seen with SR3 Remastered (black square, incorrect water lighting, bright coloured streets).

Originally posted by Leezus:

If you're on an NVIDIA card, try forcing the max frame rate to 60 in the NVIDIA control panel, as well as vsync, while turning off the one in-game. RTSS might work as well, though it didn't for me. Not too sure about the cars, sadly.

Use both FPS caps at the same time (Nvidia AND Rivatuner's). It actually helps more (with playing as well as video recordings with OBS Studio).

This was a Reddit Post I found a fair while ago, dunno the source anymore (so coppied from my own Discord Server)

RTSS is the best for GPU-limited games. It will provide perfect frame pacing and minimum input lag (if you're using it with Freesync/G-Sync).

When it comes to CPU-limited games, gameplay really does get choppy despite showing perfect frame pacing in RTSS. The frame presentation gets messed up on the way to the monitor. This is where Nvidia's frame limiter really helps - it ensures perfect frame presentation at the cost of input lag - I guess it's buffering frames. This is why Nvidia's limiter (and its AMD equivalent, FRTC) helps with Freesync/G-Sync brightness flickering. And it's the v2 version that gives best results.

At the same time, RTSS is actually better at managing frametimes in CPU-limited games. Basically, if you're getting 50-70fps frametimes, RTSS can stabilize them around 60, with little judder. Nvidia's framelimiter can only "cut off the peaks", so to speak, and stabilize them around 50. So if you want perfect frame pacing and high framerate in CPU-limited games, the solution is to use both at the same time - RTSS for frame pacing, Nvidia's limiter for frame presentation. Set them both to the same number.

[Leezus]

Originally posted by 💗Quality Miku💗:

Don't think DXVK would help with a number of Volumetric Fog issues I've seen with SR3 Remastered (black square, incorrect water lighting, bright coloured streets).

Originally posted by Leezus:

If you're on an NVIDIA card, try forcing the max frame rate to 60 in the NVIDIA control panel, as well as vsync, while turning off the one in-game. RTSS might work as well, though it didn't for me. Not too sure about the cars, sadly.

Use both FPS caps at the same time (Nvidia AND Rivatuner's). It actually helps more (with playing as well as video recordings with OBS Studio).

This was a Reddit Post I found a fair while ago, dunno the source anymore (so coppied from my own Discord Server)

RTSS is the best for GPU-limited games. It will provide perfect frame pacing and minimum input lag (if you're using it with Freesync/G-Sync).

When it comes to CPU-limited games, gameplay really does get choppy despite showing perfect frame pacing in RTSS. The frame presentation gets messed up on the way to the monitor. This is where Nvidia's frame limiter really helps - it ensures perfect frame presentation at the cost of input lag - I guess it's buffering frames. This is why Nvidia's limiter (and its AMD equivalent, FRTC) helps with Freesync/G-Sync brightness flickering. And it's the v2 version that gives best results.

At the same time, RTSS is actually better at managing frametimes in CPU-limited games. Basically, if you're getting 50-70fps frametimes, RTSS can stabilize them around 60, with little judder. Nvidia's framelimiter can only "cut off the peaks", so to speak, and stabilize them around 50. So if you want perfect frame pacing and high framerate in CPU-limited games, the solution is to use both at the same time - RTSS for frame pacing, Nvidia's limiter for frame presentation. Set them both to the same number.

That's genuinely so interesting! I always only opted to use one or the other as I assumed they'd conflict. People have also mentioned the remaster doesn't really listen to RTSS.

Does using both at the same time keep the cutscenes at 30fps? After I got the game to a consistent 60 I didn't mind if the cutscenes were capped at 22.

[Trevor Philips]

This is crazy. I can play with DXVK on my laptop with a RTX 2060, but the FPS are not too high because of the graphics card. On my PC the game does not start with DXVK. Same settings and everything but it just shows a black screen and throw me back to the desktop. I dont understand it. I really would like to play it on my PC. But I cannot stand the stutter every few seconds. :(

[FROST]

Originally posted by Leezus:

The biggest problem I had with the game were microstutters that would genuinely not go away, no matter how low my settings were. I was on the cusp of asking for a refund, when I thought as a last resort, I'll try and use DXVK, having used it on other games to varying levels of success.

I used the async version, as that seems to remove the initial shader compilation stutter? One problem is that editing the display settings in-game absolutely tanks the FPS, and requires you to restart the game. Changing settings from the main menu, however, seems to work perfectly fine.

Another little tip is that NVIDIA forced vsync seems to cause a flickering effect when pausing the game. Nothing game-breaking, but may be worth using the in-game vsync option if it bothers you! Hope this can help some people in a similar position to me!

https://github.com/Sporif/dxvk-async - the version I used
https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk - the original DXVK download

May 27th Edit:
I finished the game's story tonight, and these were my findings:
- DXVK DOES completely get rid of that stutter, at least for me.

- It does, however, impose that stupid 22 FPS cap on the cutscenes. Unfortunately, I've no idea why. Maybe setting the max frame cap to 120 solves it? I pushed mine back down to 60, as I play on my TV with a 60Hz refresh rate, so setting the frame rate to 120 seemed redundant. YMMV if you have a higher refresh monitor.

- I found that setting the vertical sync in the control panel helps a bit with cutscenes (I think) and disabling the in-game one. However, this creates a weird flicker when you pause the game or open the map. Nothing unplayable, but I did notice it.

- The game just utterly slowed to a crawl for no apparent reason? I noticed it after returning from the STAG ship in 'My Name is Cyrus Temple.' It might have something to with the shader compilation, as the ship is completely seperate from the city map. Otherwise, the only other time I recalled it happening was during the Trouble with Clones missions, once again because it might be a completely seperate map from storymode Steelport. The slowdown after returning the city was easily fixed by quitting to the main menu, then loading my save right back up.

DXVK worked wonders on my GTX 1060 card, on medium settings for everything (volumetric fog and DOF on low) and made the game actually playable.

It's not an ideal solution, but as someone who's very nostalgic for the Saints Row series, I was a bit desperate to play through the remaster of one of the first games I 100%'d on my PS3 back in the day. Hopefully this can help other people who might have similar problems!

Just wondering how do you patch Dxvk with async on windows? I just dragged the dxvk-async.patch into my saints row directory with the dxgi.dll and d3d11.dll but I'm not sure if that's the correct method? Thanks

[Philipz]

Originally posted by Leezus:

Originally posted by beefcat:

For me, using DXVK brings back the weird bug where cutscenes run at 22 FPS, gameplay runs at 66, and some cars don't make sound.

If you're on an NVIDIA card, try forcing the max frame rate to 60 in the NVIDIA control panel, as well as vsync, while turning off the one in-game. RTSS might work as well, though it didn't for me. Not too sure about the cars, sadly.

AMD GPU Fix?

[Arokhantos]

AMD got dx11 fix and getting opengl fix to very soon, is this still a problem tho they should just patch there games to have option to run in vulkan as well its not that hard to port over.