Stuttering/Choppiness

This isn't a rant but a cry for help, I guess.

I haven't seen any discussion on this, just a few off hand remarks in game, about navigating after the mar 25 update. In guild channel, a few pple have mentioned about town being almost un-navigable.

Previous to that I had been trying to address some annoying, once-a-second brief pauses. Anecdotal posts on the web said it was a common, albeit rare persistent problem some people had with Unity. After the mar 25, I could hardly navigate anywhere, and towns where people are (ie, Serbule, constantly) become teeth grinding visits. I literally can not turn around rapidly without incurring a full second long stall, after which I'm facing a random direction. If I was moving while turning, I might be 10 feet from where the pause started, again in a random direction.

Subsequent patches got a _little_ better, and I've since upgraded to an RX 480 which is a little better still. However, the same stalls & choppiness can still be had anywhere. Between the nvidia & radeon I did a complete reinstall of the game, though there's really little to screw up in that regard.


I have, of course, tried every level of graphic quality & fiddled extensively with the additional graphic options. None seem to reduce the choppiness or really raise my fps.

Interestingly, while this stuttering is going on, the fps shown doesn't go down. It didn't with my nvidia gtx660 ti and it doesn't now with the radeon rx 480. Otherwise my machine, while older, isn't being taxed. (i7-920, 80% idle, and no one core at more than 40% usage. 24 gb ram, ssd as system drive and which the game is also installed on.) I'm tempted to install the game in a ram drive & see if the stalls get shorter, then at least I'll be clearer that it's some kind of I/O interrupting things.

There is really no reason at all for this to be happening. Are others seeing this as well and just not talking about it?

edit: playing from a ram drive has again sorta reduced the choppiness, but there are still frequent complete stalls while the game does..... something, then resumes smooth operation. I guess the next experiment is on a fresh install of windows.

I'm not sure what could be causing that. All the usual causes would visibly reduce the displayed FPS.

First guess is that the game is being interrupted a lot by some other program that's running, like a video-capture app or something. Hm, have you tried disabling your run-time virus protection to see if that affects performance?

(Edit: and just to be sure -- make sure the "auto-adjust performance" checkbox is disabled in the options. Although if that was the cause you should see a bobble in the FPS display.)

I have the same problem along with crashes. I have sent you an older crash report but it happens with higher frequency after the hotfix (the one the I understand fixed the crashes for most). Whatever Unruly describes that's exactly my experience, stuttering, jerky movements and random camera rotation, it takes me few attempts to get out of a store.

Atm my graphics are set to "fastest" and the auto adjust is not enabled.

edit - my graphic driver updated today and when I tried to log in PG the client crashed again. I don't use fraps or any capture thing atm and PG is set as exception for my av protection (I don't use Avast, Norton or anything that conflicts with Unity afaik)

Unity Player [version: Unity 5.5.2p2_03f34082a9c0]

d3d11.dll caused an Access Violation (0xc0000005)
in module d3d11.dll at 0023:65fbee4e.

Error occurred at 2017-04-08_232912.
C:\Users\....\AppData\Local\ProjectGorgon\WindowsP layer\WindowsPlayer.exe, run by ......
37% memory in use.
0 MB physical memory [0 MB free].
0 MB paging file [0 MB free].
0 MB user address space [2998 MB free].
Read from location 00000031 caused an access violation.

Context:
EDI: 0x03e816c8 ESI: 0x0000000f EAX: 0x00000000
EBX: 0x00000002 ECX: 0x06e411e8 EDX: 0x00000000
EIP: 0x65fbee4e EBP: 0x08a8ebb4 SegCs: 0x00000023
EFlags: 0x00010206 ESP: 0x08a8ebac SegSs: 0x0000002b

> and random camera rotation

I did say random, but I feel I know what's causing that: the game stalls, during which time my mouse/cursor button indicates turning. When the game comes back and notices the turning input, it thinks zero (or very little) time has gone by so that means really fast turning. The duration of the stall & degree to which I moved means the results are all different. Not truly random, but not reliably similar either.

I'm just guessing, but it seems like the stalls happen when the game is fetching new info on the environment. In town, that's often players & their stuff, which is why I hoped the ram disk would make a difference. It didn't, and I'm at a loss. My graphics card is 8gb, I just wish it would load the entire set of resources for each zone once and be done with it.

I get the stuttering and choppiness along with the random turn rotations. The random turn rotations is REALLY BAD in south serbule for me. Its awful there. I don't know what does it but its really bad. I get the stuttering and chopiness in the larger cities too like Serbule but not so much of the random camera turning. Its been like this for me for quite a while now. It isn't due to a recent patch I don't think. For example, ever since south serbule was implemented, i've had impossible camera turning and stuttering.

My computer is insanely powerful too. I have LGA115 4.0 Processor, 16 gigs ddr4 ram, GTX1070 graphics card and i play this game on maximum settings.

@Unruly - prior to the April 1 update, the game did in fact load every asset it could need when you entered each zone. And with an 8gb video card you wouldn't have needed to even swap assets. After the April 1 update, it loads-on-demand for some resources, but slowdowns due to loading would definitely be visible in the FPS display. (And a little hourglass would appear in the top right for a split second -- near where the "sprinting" and "in combat" icons are.) What FPS do you get when it ISN'T locking up?

The FPS display not hiccuping is a big clue because it rules out a lot of causes. Hm, it could be caused by constant exceptions in the client's main thread, maybe -- can you grab the output_log.txt from your installation and email it to eric@projectgorgon.com? It might have a clue. (It'll be in a subfolder of wherever the game has been downloaded to -- but NOT the patcher's output_log.txt, that's just for the patcher program.)

@Khaylara - hm, that bit of crash info doesn't give me any clues, except that it's not an out-of-memory problem. May be a driver bug. If you get a crash folder afterwards, please email the files (especially the output_log.txt) to me!

Sent today's folder. The crashes happen mostly teleporting to Gazluk and teleporting out of Gaz Keep.

The rest (stuttering, camera rotation thing) is pretty much everywhere but more noticeable in serb and in dungeons.

(I have a semi-crappy computer but it's able to run games like Black Desert in terms of graphics and resources)

Let me rein the problem in a little here: there are lots of known performance problems! But most are caused by problems with the assets or the level design -- there's too many visible monsters around the lake in south serbule, for instance. Those will get fixed in time. Even I get framerate spikes when turning in Serbule and South Serbule (more often at high graphics settings than low). But my FPS display bobbles when that happens, at least a little bit.

The reason I jumped in here was because it sounded like it might be something else -- if the FPS display is showing a steady, decent (>20fps) rate, despite noticeable framerate hiccups happening constantly, that's probably not due to the usual causes.

@Khaylara - crashes related to Gazluk Keep seem to be due to something else, which I'm still trying to debug. Unfortunately, I've seen other peoples' crash logs for that one, and there's no clues in there. I'll have to add more debugging info in the next snapshot to try to catch what's going on.

@Khaylara - actually, I just looked at your crash log, thanks! Can you try something for me: ... actually, I'll just reply in email, because I think it's unrelated to the problem Unruly is having, and I don't want to derail it too much in here.

I haven't noticed any out of usual fps drops if anything in GK the fps count is better. But my character still does a full 180 degrees and runs the opposite direction. It started with the last big Unity update.

edit-thanks I'll check now

Yeah, all my pauses are when a bunch of objects are being added, or there's active lag to the server. Coming around corners when there's a bunch of players or NPCs is just horrible for me. I understand my system is not top-tip, but it lags in those spots the same as others are saying (and often less worse).

@Citan - Your question has made me realise that the fps IS lower after the stall, very briefly. Here in serbule, on 'beautiful', I'm getting about 30fps. If I go into joeh's shop and then try to leave, the fps very, very briefly drops to yellow 18's. There's no hourglass at any point during the episodes we're talking about.

I'll email the output log.

Thanks so much, btw, for taking time to respond. I'm sure you wear many hats, but answering a forum post at 10pm on a weekend is above and beyond, imo.

edit: let me add, I don't care about the fps drops - they make total sense, but the random-direction and the complete halts/stalls are driving me wild..

For clarity: If we started having "chugging" issues (and crashing) in the last week-ish which was not present before hand should we be sending the output logs via email or cut and paste in the normal suggestion box?

Just making sure I put them in the right place.

Thanks to whomever knows and answers ^^

Yak

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Originally Posted by Yaksnot

For clarity: If we started having "chugging" issues (and crashing) in the last week-ish which was not present before hand should we be sending the output logs via email or cut and paste in the normal suggestion box?

Just making sure I put them in the right place.

Thanks to whomever knows and answers ^^

Yak

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Please don't send those in game. Thanks!

Even though people seem to have some weird hate for updating old posts, I just thought I'd add that the problem that I've been encountering all this time seems to be entirely connected to animating. My fps still does go down if I try to go to serbule with the game on ultra, it still doesn't *do much of the infuriating freezing when I turn Entity Animation Distance to something very small, like .5 or 0.

I can use Ultra most places except serbule, but even there going down to merely Great is still fine as long as anim. dist. is low.

You would think there would have been a solution to this by now.
Very disappointed

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Originally Posted by Reads1

You would think there would have been a solution to this by now.
Very disappointed

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I'm not. I'm amazed at what just 2 developers have accomplished.

I am experiencing nearly the same issue as the others. Random turning, FPS drops when turning, and a slide-show travel through south Serbule. One thing I noticed after the patch though, behavior wise. It may or may not have any value, but at least I'm sharing. I'm also impressed with just two developers on the task. ^_^

There is a change after the last patch that I noticed right off. When I would power nap before the patch, my character would lay down on the bed while the seconds ticked down. After the patch, now my character runs around the bed in many different directions, then sits by the bed, and the bar appears and counts down. Only once today did he lay down on a bed, and that was on a farm outside of Serbule. In Serbule, he runs around and sits until the power nap is done.

What it means, I do not know. Hopefully that helps some.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Unruly

Even though people seem to have some weird hate for updating old posts, I just thought I'd add that the problem that I've been encountering all this time seems to be entirely connected to animating. My fps still does go down if I try to go to serbule with the game on ultra, it still doesn't *do much of the infuriating freezing when I turn Entity Animation Distance to something very small, like .5 or 0.

I can use Ultra most places except serbule, but even there going down to merely Great is still fine as long as anim. dist. is low.

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Turning down entity animation literally fixed everything! The freezes when trying to move through Serb Keep, the turn lag, and the stuttering are all gone. Thank you, Unruly!

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Originally Posted by Lyramis

Turning down entity animation literally fixed everything! The freezes when trying to move through Serb Keep, the turn lag, and the stuttering are all gone. Thank you, Unruly!

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Bingo! Mine was set to 1.25 by default. I turned it down to 0.7 and my FPS shot up quite a bit. Before, when I turned in South Serbule, it would drop to 12 to 15 FPS for a couple of seconds before shooting back up to 55 FPS. If I held still, I would bounce between 42 and 55. Once I turned the Entity Animation Distance to 0.7, now I get between 55 and 65 FPS and when I turn, it drops to 32 FPS for a few seconds.

It's still laggy, but nowhere near as bad, and the slide-show frame by frame issue has gone away when walking across the area. Nicely done.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xarduvik

Bingo! Mine was set to 1.25 by default. I turned it down to 0.7 and my FPS shot up quite a bit. Before, when I turned in South Serbule, it would drop to 12 to 15 FPS for a couple of seconds before shooting back up to 55 FPS. If I held still, I would bounce between 42 and 55. Once I turned the Entity Animation Distance to 0.7, now I get between 55 and 65 FPS and when I turn, it drops to 32 FPS for a few seconds.

It's still laggy, but nowhere near as bad, and the slide-show frame by frame issue has gone away when walking across the area. Nicely done.

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Just thought I woould add to support that I also had all the issue mentioned from this original post. Like the others once I turned off the entity animation, I no longer have the insane camera jump that would literly cause me to spend as much as a full minute to actually get out of a building.
Thank you for the fix and hope this helps dev's find a resolution.

Specs:
i7 4790k
16GB RAM
GTX 1080
Game installed on EVO 850 SSD
Win 10

I want to get into this game, but I'm not sure I can with the stuttering I'm experiencing. It's in no way as bad as some people in this thread seem to have it, but it's constant and annoying. Even setting the game to -2 graphic preset does nothing. I tried lowering the entity animation, but I can only seem to alter it in values of 1. I'm not sure how people are lowering it to .7. If I lower it to 0 there are no animations whatsoever.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lufia22

I tried lowering the entity animation, but I can only seem to alter it in values of 1. I'm not sure how people are lowering it to .7. If I lower it to 0 there are no animations whatsoever.

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Have you tried manually entering the value into the text box instead of using the slider?

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Originally Posted by alleryn

Have you tried manually entering the value into the text box instead of using the slider?

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I didn't know you could do that, but it doesn't seem to have helped. I did notice an improvement if I dropped it to 0, but there's absolutely no way I'm playing the game like that. Even at 0.1 I was stilling getting annoying stuttering.

Here's a video of what I'm experiencing. It's really annoying to navigate town when you're constantly losing control over your character.

https://youtu.be/vjnHvbwCw5U

When you have a lot of latency it seems to help to use the keyboard to turn instead of the mouse. Might be worth a try while the devs continue to optimize. Also it really only happens in Serbule so you can still experience a lot of the game without a problem.