FPS drop/graphical stutter due to infested

[timmifshode]

Running a GTX 970, 16GB RAM and i7-4770k -

Game is set at 1920x1080 borderless fullscreen

After almost every single micro update released there is a graphical glitch that occurs but only when infested enemies are present. The framerate drops suddenly to 1 fps every couple of seconds causing infested missions to be pretty much off limits until oddly a day after the updates are released. I've tweaked every setting I can think to, reinstalled GPU drivers, optimized the game and analyzed the game cache but its a process I go through frequently. By the time I feel like I'm just going to give up it kind of just, goes away. I can sort of tell when its going to be an issue when the game starts up -the initial loading splashscreen before the login screen appears at 75% of the screen and then resizes itself to the 100% it should be. If this happens then infested missions are a sh*t show. It is ONLY when infested enemies are spawned. Every other enemy type does not have this issue, an infested survival mission works fine until life support is deactivated and exterminate missions are great once everything is dead. 

 

Edit: While monitoring CPU and RAM usage, every time there is a stutter the CPU usage drops from 20-22% to 4-5%

Edited September 16, 2016 by timmifshode

[God_is_a_Cat_Girl]

I've noticed this a few updates ago, Infested units were making performance drops, but it just got worse with the itches (though I only noticed those when playing with other people).

However it's pretty weird, I had well over 10 units in the same tile without any issues, but in the same tile later with less than 5 units I noticed that my performance took a hit and I just couldn't see why. If you look at the FPS counter you just see really weird jumps that sometimes you just can't justify.

Infested tilesets also bring what's been the culprit in most performance drops in the latest updates, lightning, because the tiles are much darker they use more lightning effects, and those make the performance take a nose dive, both lightning and enemy units really could use a round of optimizations.

I took a couple of screens that show how the lightning takes it's toll. In one screen I'm aiming at a corridor with the flashlight on and I'm at around 56fps or something, then in the next screens I'm aiming in the same corridor but a few steps forward and now I'm at 70+fps, what actually changed? My flashlight turned off. I had cases where I went from 90fps to 40fps because of the lightning effects, and honestly, at this point I just wish we had an option to turn them off, because it's hurting and I can live without that.

Edited September 16, 2016 by God_is_a_Cat_Girl

[timmifshode]

Adding this in again because as usual it started working again just fine about an hour after I updated, but now that there is a new update, I'm back to being unable to play infested missions. Again, only when infested enemies are spawned and only immediately after an update.

 

http://imgur.com/9jcYeVV.png

http://imgur.com/nR5XDXS.png

 

The pictures are how the splashscreen looks on loadup, it appears smaller than it should and then stretches back out. If this happens, then I already know that I'm going to experience the stutters. The video is showing everything running smoothly until the infested appear, and I was able to make the stutter happen during a corpus mission as well when activating an ability and capturing a target. Maybe has something to do with the physx engine or all the floaty particles? 2 hours after updating though I can play again without the stuttering and didn't change a single setting to cause it to go away.

Edited September 22, 2016 by timmifshode

[Nep_Blanc]

Contributing to this forums is nice but well to ask is your HDD busy when this happens?

also the i7-4770k was known of having S#&$ty IHS thermal compound so it can be that it is overheating and throttling, seeing its age did you clean up your PC lately?

Are you on carpet or in a environment with loads of dust?

If so clean out your PC or defrag your drive.

also take a look into the larger threads that took a look into it already, they are still relevant although they are somewhat older.

Chao, The Roaring Lion

[timmifshode]

Nope I keep it pretty clean and watch for outside performance suckers, hasn't been an issue lately but with new updates there's always new bugs. Thanks for the links though, I'll keep digging and hope that it doesn't present itself again

Edited November 18, 2016 by timmifshode

[Dauggie]

in all these post people seem to have better specs than me, so since i have an really old pc most ppl may just point out my hardware and tell me to upgrade, but reading all these post kinda makes it pointless to do so. before all these hotfixes appeared i used to play at 30fps capped (i did set it to 30fps since i prefer constant fps and 60fps my hardware wont support)  no issue nothing. even the quest itself i did at that rate no issue what so ever my settings were at 1280x720 res low-med settings. im pretty sure the hotfix 2 messed up the performance, cuz after that the game is pretty much not playable for me. it takes forever to even load missions and get like single digit fps with settings set to low, and seriously playing with no special effects just takes the fun out of this game like i cant even see blood now. i hope they fix it