Frequent Low Fps Occurrences - Mid To High End Hardware

[EChondo]

*Edit 3, it looks like the fix I found a month ago has been broken by the U15.2 or U15.3 patch. I'll try and see if I can find some different setup with RadeonPro, but as of November 25th Warframe is broken again for me.

 

*Edit 2, I have found a fix. You can read about this fix on the 11th post in this thread, here is a direct link for the lazys: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/322336-frequent-low-fps-occurrences-mid-to-high-end-hardware/#entry3670386

 

 

 

As of U14.10.1 I am experiencing low FPS situations in the Liset, on Corpus tilesets, Grineer tilesets, Void and Derelict. It doesn't matter if the mission is inside or outside and it doesn't matter if it's a Capture(little to no enemies, using Loki) or Survival(big map, lots of enemies). My FPS is going from constant 59.99-60 and then dropping to around 30-35, sometimes hovering around 42-44.

I've tried lowering settings(not resolution) down to the minimum and maximum, trying; borderless, fullscreen and windowed mode. Also I have tried switching between DX11, DX10, and DX9, and switching between 32bit and 64bit. I have verified and optimized the game through the launcher as well.

I have also updated all drivers possible(only new driver was 14.9(tried the WHQL and Beta versions) from AMD, and yes I have tried and reverted to an older driver, two different ones actually). I have restarted my computer multiple times. I have also tried Windows Update.

Right now I run the game through the Steam client(I have over 300 Steam games, so downloading Warframe through there with a queue is easier). I also downloaded the standalone client and have tested it, same thing and I was playing off of my SSD and the only thing on my SSD that might be running at the same time is my web browser and the OS. Steam is ran on my first hard drive, which has write speeds of around 150MB/s, and the read speeds are higher. I play all of my games off of this drive and have only had problems with Warframe. And no, my hard drive isn't failing since I've ran Seagate's tool and DiskCheckup and both reported it as a healthy drive with no bad sectors. I could stick this drive in my Linux server and scan it with FreeNAS, but that might take a while and I personally do not feel like doing that right now. Also I could defrag it, but spending the last 5-6 hours playing around trying to fix this, I don't have the drive(get it?) to do anything else currently.

My temperatures for both my CPU and GPU while idle are around 45C each and when on load(not even 100% load) while playing Warframe they are around 60C-65C(I live in Southern California and have no AC, ambient temps are around 30C-35C). And I've seen some of you say that is "hot", yes it might be to you for your person, but CPU's and GPU's are more than fine in that range and you should only be worried in the upper 80C's to 90C's+. So stop misinforming people.

And no, there's no dust in my system and I repasted both my CPU and GPU a month back. If you think that you need to repast your hardware every month then you've got a problem.

So, having said all that, nothing has fixed my problem. I have had this problem since U14.9, but since U14.10.1 it has gotten better, however I still experience it. It used to be in random intervals of 5-10 seconds, but now it is every minute or so. I could be standing in the Liset and it randomly drops and then goes back to normal a couple seconds later, which is also how it is in-game.

My PC Specs;
Motherboard : Gigabyte Z68XP-UD4
Processor : Intel Core i7-3770
Physical Memory : G.Skill 32GB(4x8GB)
Video Card 1: MSI Radeon HD 7870 2GB
Solid-State Drive : Samsung 840Pro 128GB(OS)
Hard Disk 1 : Seagate 4TB(Steam/Games)
Hard Disk 2 : Seagate 4TB(Media)
Hard Disk 3 : Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB(Recording)
Monitor 1 : Dell U2312HM 1920x1080 23"
Monitor 2 : Viewsonic 1440x900 19"
Operating System : Windows 8.1 (64-bit)
Power Supply : Seasonic Platinum 760w
Case : Fractal Design Arc XL
Page File: 4096MB(Set on my SSD)

Oh and nothing is overclocked. I don't see the point in it right now, so I don't do it. Technically the GPU is a factory overlcock, but I've underclocked it to the stock settings from AMD and I still have issues.

Also, I just noticed that my pagefile is almost at 100% full, specifically Warframe adding close to 2GB while the game is running. I will play around with this in a bit setting it higher and seeing if Warframe will consume more and will try turning it off, but since you know it's 2014, I thought games made now wouldn't be using the pagefile and only use RAM, but since I guess Warframe is still supporting DX9(kudos by the way), you might expect people to only have 1GB at least, so I understand. However, if this is the case here for me, can you guys and gals at DE have a launcher option to only use RAM and not pagefile? If you're wondering why I still have a pagefile set, well it's because I play a lot of older games as well and they like to use it and some of my newer games refuse to start without one or run like crap. So setting 4GB isn't going to hurt my SSD in the long run, but if I have to set a 8GB or higher one, that's going to start causing problems storage wise for me.

If anyone has any insight to what I should try, feel free to suggest it. I have provided nearly anything and everything I can think of. Now I'm going to go try different pagefile settings to see how Warframe reacts(both the Steam and non-Steam versions).

 

*Edit, post #9 is my update explaining how pagefile effected my system and what else I've tried. Still out of ideas on what to do.

Edited November 25, 2014 by EChondo

[arslayer86]

Got the same issue and it's not my PC.....

[Omgitsyou0]

I have the same problem but I can't tell if the cause is the need update or the new AMD drivers

[EChondo]

Got the same issue and it's not my PC.....

Would you mind posting your PC specs? Or do you have another thread about your situation? I'm just curious if it's specific hardware or something else.

 

I have the same problem but I can't tell if the cause is the need update or the new AMD drivers

Well I've tried different drivers myself. I was using AMD's 14.7 driver since August and before U14.9 I didn't have problems and right after U14.9 I started having issues. So far I've tried AMD's 14.9, 14.9.1 Beta, 14.4 and 14.3 drivers. Still the same issues.

 

Would you mind posting your specs as well? If Arslayer has a AMD GPU, then this could be AMD related, maybe down to a certain architecture?

[Zyreth]

I was having the same issue a few days ago but across all mission types. I fixed it by disabling my V-Sync. If you have V-Sync set to On or Auto, I recommend disabling it to see if it increases your performance.

[Nagoob]

Im having the exact same issue as the one described in the top comment of this post, also tried lowering the setting including the V sync and nothing happens, it is curious how sometimes the game runs just swell and the the framerates drop drastically or it starts getting choppy, from all the information I've seen in the posts of other players who had been having the same issue recently it i something related to the game , so if you have a mid or high end pc and you have this issue is currently out of our hands, soo maybe well have to be patient and wait for a patch :)

[Nagoob]

other thing (and forgive me if this is a little off topic) but a while ago DE released a patch to improve the performance of survival missions in which multiple objects or enemies were causig the framerate to drop, it worked for a while but then the issue with the framerate and enemies on screen appeared again...just wangted to knwo what was or is causing this beacuse the other mission types were working fine before this new issue appeared

[ClockworkSpectre]

I have been noticing this as well, though I have an Nvidia card rather than AMD so I am guessing it isn't driver or card dependent.  I used to run at a constant 60 fps but lately its been a little lower and some times drops to 40ish.  While playing this weekends tactical alert it was really bad, occasionally dropping to 20-25 fps.  For me it is mostly noticeable in excavation missions, far more than anywhere else.

Edited October 11, 2014 by ClockworkSpectre

[EChondo]

So I've finally gotten around to playing around with my pagefile. I removed it from my SSD and moved to my secondary drive(my game drive where Warframe is) and my frametimes jumped up and I was playing at a constant 23FPS. So obviously this game is pulling from pagefile and can be effected from it as well.

 

I then removed it from my game drive and didn't set one at all, hoping the game would pull from my RAM, but then I was under constant FPS drops and it would stay below 30FPS for 5-20 seconds at a time. I was getting 60FPS, but I had to set a pagefile back to my SSD just so my FPS drops stay under the 5 second area.

 

Also, I did a test turning off 64bit mode and it didn't help either. No matter what settings I turned off or on, didn't effect the FPS drops. It seems as if pagefile and v-sync settings effect me the most, so if anyone is reading this, try and tweak it yourself.

 

I was having the same issue a few days ago but across all mission types. I fixed it by disabling my V-Sync. If you have V-Sync set to On or Auto, I recommend disabling it to see if it increases your performance.

 

The problem with disabling V-Sync is that it makes my hardware run harder and hotter than it needs to be. Sure, disabling it does increase performance to 600FPS+, but makes my CPU and GPU run at 100% usage and the temperature increases to 70C+.

 

Plus 600FPS doesn't help me since my monitor is only 60HZ, so I won't see more than 60FPS, ergo there's no point in having V-Sync off.

 

However, turning V-Sync off did help, but I'm not going to keep it off and then have to deal with my room going up an additional 10C and be sweating the entire time I'm playing Warframe.

 

Oh and I tried setting a framelimit with both MSI Afterburner and RadeonPro, but MSI Afterburner made my game hang and I had to kill the process and for some reason RadeonPro's parameters do not effect the game, even if I set a custom launcher and I've tried both 32bit and 64bit mode for both of these tests.

 

Im having the exact same issue as the one described in the top comment of this post, also tried lowering the setting including the V sync and nothing happens, it is curious how sometimes the game runs just swell and the the framerates drop drastically or it starts getting choppy, from all the information I've seen in the posts of other players who had been having the same issue recently it i something related to the game , so if you have a mid or high end pc and you have this issue is currently out of our hands, so maybe well have to be patient and wait for a patch :)

 

other thing (and forgive me if this is a little off topic) but a while ago DE released a patch to improve the performance of survival missions in which multiple objects or enemies were causing the framerate to drop, it worked for a while but then the issue with the framerate and enemies on screen appeared again...just wanted to know what was or is causing this because the other mission types were working fine before this new issue appeared

 

It could be a similar issue as described in your second paragraph, but that doesn't really explain my constant frame drops even just standing idle in the Liset. I guess we'll just have to deal with it until DE fixes this issue.

 

 

I have been noticing this as well, though I have an Nvidia card rather than AMD so I am guessing it isn't driver or card dependent.  I used to run at a constant 60 fps but lately its been a little lower and some times drops to 40ish.  While playing this weekends tactical alert it was really bad, occasionally dropping to 20-25 fps.  For me it is mostly noticeable in excavation missions, far more than anywhere else.

 

Thanks for posting your experience, especially that people with either Nvidia or AMD can experience this. From what I've experienced, it's pretty much any gametype and any tileset that I can experience this issue in. Guess I'll just have to keep bumping this thread until we hear from someone about this and if a fix is coming.

 

Edited October 17, 2014 by EChondo

[EChondo]

Hey guys, just wanted to keep you all informed as to what I'm trying and how things are going.

 

From reading other threads I've been doing some more testing, since reading these I'll be doing a "Cause and Effect" scenario where I'll post what others have recommended in other threads and what effect it has had on me and my situation.

 

Situation 1;

C: Web browsers can lower performance, especially if you have two monitors and you're watching YouTube videos or something on the secondary screen.

E: I do this a lot, so to test this I restarted my computer so nothing is running in the background(I double checked processes and killed anything extra, including Steam) and to also clear my RAM, I booted up Warframe right at the start and played a few matches. This did not work. I am still getting FPS drops. If you're wondering, I use the latest Opera web browser with very few extensions such as YouTube Center, Adblock Plus(I whitelist), RES and Disconnect. Opera has never given me problems while FireFox has bluescreened my computer multiple times and Chrome has been slow on me before.

 

Situation 2;

C: Setting Warframe into "Windows 7" mode via the compatibility tab via properties can increase performance since Windows 8/8.1 doesn't like Warframe or vice-versa.

E: I set every single Warframe/64.exe and even the launcher, jiraclient, and crashreporter into Windows 7 mode, restarted my computer so it's a clean slate and...nothing. Still getting FPS drops. Actually, I think it got worse when I did this.

 

Situation 3;

C: You have viruses or background software eating up resources, so ergo you are losing performance!

E: Lol, no. I have a very strict background process system where if I am not using it, it's killed. I don't have anything starting up except for RadeonPro and MSI Afterburner and I only have Afterburner start up when I'm doing testing, like this right now. Also I do routine virus scanners with Malwarebytes, Microsoft Security Essentials, CCleaner, Avast! and a few other programs. These programs do not run in the background except for MSE and they all have shown up as clean.

 

Situation 4;

C: Your X piece of hardware is failing, better RMA it quickly!

E: Again, "Lol, no". I run all of my hardware at stock settings, I've benchmarked my GPU, CPU, RAM and hard drives, they all pass as healthy and have no defects. I'm not going to start buying new hardware and backing up my data because one game is giving me problems while all my other games run at constant 60FPS with no hiccups.

 

If you guys and gals have anything else for me to try and test I'd love to hear it. I'll be playing around the next couple days and see what I can do, but if I don't fix it by Thursday/Friday I'll send a support ticket with EE logs.

[EChondo]

Final update for this situation. I have finally been able to force a FPS cap on Warframe using RadeonPro which fixed my FPS drop issue, thanks to the help of JoshInSpace over on the Warframe sub-Reddit.

 

I'm going to copy and paste his post over here;

Just to make sure you haven't made the mistake I made when fiddling with RadeonPro, be sure that you select the Warframe executable either 32 or 64bit when adding a profile for them, *not the launcher*. This is either the *warframe.exe* or *warframe64.exe* found in the root directory of Warframe.

 

From there head over to the Advanced tab: http://i.imgur.com/gDKptfZ.jpg of that profile and make sure every checkbox is blank; no tick or square. I've had problems forcing any of those options so I'd say do the same.

 

Heading over to the Tweaks tab: http://i.imgur.com/lsXRPQ3.jpg make sure Vsync control is set to default as you don't need to force anything. From there you have two choices:

 

1) Tick the Dynamic Framerate Control and set it to your desired framerate

 

OR

 

2) Tick the "Lock framerate" option directly below if your monitor's refresh rate is the framerate you're targeting.

 

The next step would be turning on the overlay to see if everything is working. Switching to the OSD tab: http://i.imgur.com/OpgjJrN.jpg check the *OSD Settings* box at the top and then head straight to the bottom and tick *Show current API and FPS counter*. This will enable you to see if you're hitting the framerate cap that you set.

 

The final crucial step is to right click the profile and hit Apply Now.

 

So having V-Sync set to "Off" and using his steps above has made my FPS drops nonexistent. I ended up choosing DFC as the setting and having a target of 70FPS because if I set it to 60FPS it drops slightly sometimes and I can feel when it dips below the 60FPS marker. With a 70FPS cap it sits around 65-70.

 

So as of right now, V-Sync is causing me a ton of problems with the game. If you're having issues, I believe even Nvidia owners can too, download RadeonPro and use the settings above to cap the framerate.

 

Best of luck and I'll be linking this thread to the devstream, hopefully to raise awareness about this issue.

[NightFate]

Final update for this situation. I have finally been able to force a FPS cap on Warframe using RadeonPro which fixed my FPS drop issue, thanks to the help of JoshInSpace over on the Warframe sub-Reddit.

 

I'm going to copy and paste his post over here;

 

 

 

So having V-Sync set to "Off" and using his steps above has made my FPS drops nonexistent. I ended up choosing DFC as the setting and having a target of 70FPS because if I set it to 60FPS it drops slightly sometimes and I can feel when it dips below the 60FPS marker. With a 70FPS cap it sits around 65-70.

 

So as of right now, V-Sync is causing me a ton of problems with the game. If you're having issues, I believe even Nvidia owners can too, download RadeonPro and use the settings above to cap the framerate.

 

Best of luck and I'll be linking this thread to the devstream, hopefully to raise awareness about this issue.

For Nvidia users just go to nvidia control panel, Vsync, Adaptive, Done. :D 

[Seraphyx]

Final update for this situation. I have finally been able to force a FPS cap on Warframe using RadeonPro which fixed my FPS drop issue, thanks to the help of JoshInSpace over on the Warframe sub-Reddit.

 

I'm going to copy and paste his post over here;

 

 

 

So having V-Sync set to "Off" and using his steps above has made my FPS drops nonexistent. I ended up choosing DFC as the setting and having a target of 70FPS because if I set it to 60FPS it drops slightly sometimes and I can feel when it dips below the 60FPS marker. With a 70FPS cap it sits around 65-70.

 

So as of right now, V-Sync is causing me a ton of problems with the game. If you're having issues, I believe even Nvidia owners can too, download RadeonPro and use the settings above to cap the framerate.

 

Best of luck and I'll be linking this thread to the devstream, hopefully to raise awareness about this issue.

How are you running the game through radeon pro? I can't seem to get the settings to apply in-game. Followed it step by step, made sure everything is unchecked except for locking framerate to monitor (and trying to manually input 60 a different time) and the OSD settings. Right clicked and applied to the profile.

 

If I try to start the game through radeon pro (I selected the 64bit exe) it says I have to use the launcher. If I try to start it via the launcher manually it tries to redownload the entire game. If I use steam it starts up like normal through the launcher but the FPS is not locked when the game starts and gets to the login screen.

 

Is there some other step I'm missing to getting this working in-game?

[EChondo]

How are you running the game through radeon pro? I can't seem to get the settings to apply in-game. Followed it step by step, made sure everything is unchecked except for locking framerate to monitor (and trying to manually input 60 a different time) and the OSD settings. Right clicked and applied to the profile.

 

If I try to start the game through radeon pro (I selected the 64bit exe) it says I have to use the launcher. If I try to start it via the launcher manually it tries to redownload the entire game. If I use steam it starts up like normal through the launcher but the FPS is not locked when the game starts and gets to the login screen.

 

Is there some other step I'm missing to getting this working in-game?

Actually this is broken for me right now as well. Ever since U15.2 or around there, RadeonPro isn't applying parameters to Warframe.

 

DE really needs to implement a FPS limiter in-game. I'll try and do some more testing with RadeonPro, but right now with the settings provided above it's broken, again.

[Seraphyx]

Actually this is broken for me right now as well. Ever since U15.2 or around there, RadeonPro isn't applying parameters to Warframe.

 

DE really needs to implement a FPS limiter in-game. I'll try and do some more testing with RadeonPro, but right now with the settings provided above it's broken, again.

/sigh

 

I was really hoping this would work... Thanks for confirming it's not working though.

 

Here's hoping there's another solution to limiting fps somewhere out there.