Nvidia filters cause long load times, crashes and stuttering

[Conor]

TLDR: Turn off your Nvidia game filters before entering the initial loading screen or any pre-rendered cutscenes. Having Nvidia filters on during cutscenes (including the one in the background of the initial loading screen) seems to cause the game to use up all the systems memory causing stuttering (both during and after the loading screen), crashes, and long load times. Once you are past the initial load screen or the pre-rendered cutscene you can turn the filter back on.

So ever since I bought this game at launch, I’ve had issues with the initial loading screen taking 2+ mins and completely freezing when it neared the end of the load time. In the past I have just ignored it since I was still able to play. Recently I came back to the game to play the Hawkeye dlc but when I tried to start it, the game would cause 100% memory and disk usage and eventually crash. Sometimes the game would crash my entire PC and I would have to reboot it from the box.

Today I decided to mess around to see if I can fix it, and eventually found that the Nvidia filters were causing it. Just by simply turning off (not disabling the whole overlay) my filters, the initial load screen went from 2+ minutes to 16 seconds. I’m not running the game on an SSD either. I decided to do more testing and found that depending on what point you turn off the filters, your load times will be faster or slower. Here are the results:
• Not turning them off – 2+ minutes (also crashed a couple times)
• Turning them off before clicking ‘Avengers Initiative’ – 1 minute, 21 seconds
• Turning them off before clicking the ‘start’ button – 43 seconds
• Turning them off as soon as the game starts – 16 seconds
• Having them off before the game starts – 16 seconds

Not only were the load times much faster, but once I was in the Chimera, I had no stuttering at all when running and looking around. Without turning the filter off before the load screen, I would normally be stuttering a lot until it would eventually die down.

Once you are past the loading screen you can turn the filters back on without any issues.

With this improvement I tried to play the new DLC but, with my filters back on, once the ‘previously on’ cutscene started the memory and disk usage shot up until the game eventually crashed. So I tried again, this time disabling the filters for the pre-rendered cutscene. This time, it ran all the way through the cutscene with no stuttering. My memory and disk usage didn’t shoot up at all.

Since there is also a pre-rendered cutscene in the background of the loading screen, it seems that the combination of Nvidia filters and pre-rendered cutscenes are causing a memory leak.

If you’re having any of these issues, try disabling the Nvidia filters and let me know if it helps. I haven’t played since fixing this so I don’t know if it will help with any other performance issues or not, let me know if it does.

Hopefully this fixes the issue for you and if it does hopefully a dev can see this and potentially fix it. I’ve had the loading issue since the launch of the game so it’s been around for a while now, and it’s fixed a more recent crash that I’ve ran into so who knows what other issues it may be causing.

[Nixxes_Official]

Thank you for this report.

Are there others seeing the same result? We are looking into this currently to see if we can reproduce this problem. In the meanwhile it definitely sounds like a good idea to keep them turned off.

[Bruce Killis]

How do i disable "Nvidia Filters"?

[Conor]

Originally posted by Bruce Killis:

How do i disable "Nvidia Filters"?

You disable them through the Geforce Experience overlay whilst in game, there is a 'game filter' button on the left hand side. They are off by default I believe so this unfortunately might not help you.

One thing I just thought of though is if you have 'Image sharpening' on in the Nvidia control panel, I think that is one of the filters. If it's on in 'global settings' or 'application settings' it could cause an issue.

[Conor]

Originally posted by Nixxes_Official:

Thank you for this report.

Are there others seeing the same result? We are looking into this currently to see if we can reproduce this problem. In the meanwhile it definitely sounds like a good idea to keep them turned off.

Just as an update, I've found that Nvidia filters only become an issue when you are using more than one at a time.

I use 'Brightness/Contrast', 'Sharpen' and 'Color'. When I use them by themselves the game loads fine, but if I try and use more than one of them at a time, that's when issues start to occur.

[Bruce Killis]

Hmm I don't have the Nvidia Experience overlay enabled...

[Hawkeye1]

were are these filters please?