Lag and fps drop - Windows 10

[0293jesse]

Hi,

Issue: EU4 runs extremely slowly on a system that it previously worked fine on. It takes several minutes to load the game, main menu is fine, but on unpause days tick very slowly even on the fastest speed and fps drops to almost single digits. Before I could zoom through a month within a few seconds.

Attempted fixes:
1. Fresh install (deleted all files in both the Paradox folder and the steamapps folder. Did this multiple times.)
2. Verified via Steam the game files
3. Wiped all save files
4. Gave exception to windows defender for the .exe
5. Updated BIOS
6. Upgraded RAM card (maybe overkill, but it was on my to do list anyway)
7. I do not use mods
8. Cleared hard drive space
9. Updated graphic card drivers
10. Set priority to "high power"

Technical specs:
Windows 10
Gigabtye B550 GAMING X v2
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-core processor
AMD Radeon Rx 5700 XT
Corsair Vengeance DDr4 16 gb Ram (32 gb total)

At my wits end. I have 1,200 hours most of which was on this PC and it randomly ground to a halt. All other games run smoothly on high graphics with 60+fps such as BG3 and Fallout 4 (except Vic3 but that's always slow). Any assistance would be appreciated!

 

[AndrewT]

Issue: EU4 runs extremely slowly on a system that it previously worked fine on.

When did it last work fine? IOW, what change or update (to the game, Windows, hardware, etc) seemed to trigger this?

Right click on eu4.exe , properties, compatibility. Tick "disable fullScreen optimisations" untick every other box in that dialog, Apply and exit.

Edit settings.txt to say:

refreshRate=60
fullScreen=yes
borderless=no

vsync=no

Then in the launcher Game Settings menu, select fullScreen display mode.


IF that doesn't help:
DXDIAG is a program you run from the Windows search box on the task bar. After running it will open a window and start collecting info with a progress bar in the lower-left corner. When it completes click the 'save all information' button and save it to a file then attach that file here.

Please attach here your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Europa Universalis IV/settings.txt and pdx_settings.txt .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Europa Universalis IV/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log .

 

[grotaclas]

You could try to run a CPU benchmarking tool to check if the single core speed of your CPU is as fast as it should be. The FPS in other games is not a good indicator, because that is more a measurement of GPU performance. But eu4 day tick speed entirely depends on the CPU(and startup speed depends on the CPU and disk). And how long does it take your system to run from 1445-01-01 to 1446-01-01 (let it run from 1444-11-11 to 1445-01-01 without measuring to get the initial AI calculations out of the way)?

 

[0293jesse]

When did it last work fine? IOW, what change or update (to the game, Windows, hardware, etc) seemed to trigger this?

Right click on eu4.exe , properties, compatibility. Tick "disable fullScreen optimisations" untick every other box in that dialog, Apply and exit.

Edit settings.txt to say:



Then in the launcher Game Settings menu, select fullScreen display mode.


IF that doesn't help:
DXDIAG is a program you run from the Windows search box on the task bar. After running it will open a window and start collecting info with a progress bar in the lower-left corner. When it completes click the 'save all information' button and save it to a file then attach that file here.

Please attach here your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Europa Universalis IV/settings.txt and pdx_settings.txt .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Europa Universalis IV/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log

Thanks for the reply, apologies on the delay in response. That fix seemed to make no difference.

It worked fine sometime in December. I first noticed the issue in March and have been researching and trying different fixes since. There was a gap in playtime during Jan and Feb, so the change was abrupt in March. No hardware changes at that time, still using Windows 10. I believe I last played on the 1.36.2 update and it was fine. I don't use mods at all. Worth noting I tried to play today on 1.37 and it did the same thing.

Attached are the requested files. The error.log was empty and would not attach. Thank you!

 

[0293jesse]

You could try to run a CPU benchmarking tool to check if the single core speed of your CPU is as fast as it should be. The FPS in other games is not a good indicator, because that is more a measurement of GPU performance. But eu4 day tick speed entirely depends on the CPU(and startup speed depends on the CPU and disk). And how long does it take your system to run from 1445-01-01 to 1446-01-01 (let it run from 1444-11-11 to 1445-01-01 without measuring to get the initial AI calculations out of the way)?

I'll try the benchmarking tools and see, I'm not the most technical person but I'll do my best. The total time was 1:59:86 (just shy of 2 minutes). For MP that's not the worst speed but on singleplayer it's like late game Vicky 3 lol

 

[grotaclas]

The total time was 1:59:86 (just shy of 2 minutes)

That's quite slow. With your AMD Ryzen 5 3600 I would have expected a time below 1 minute. For comparison, my Ryzen 5 7840HS can run the year 1445 in 30-35 seconds

 

[0293jesse]

That's quite slow. With your AMD Ryzen 5 3600 I would have expected a time below 1 minute. For comparison, my Ryzen 5 7840HS can run the year 1445 in 30-35 seconds

Oh yeah, it's extremely slow. Before the issue I'd say maybe 30 seconds or so per year in the early game.

 

[AndrewT]

No obvious issues in there; can I get the dxdiag.txt please? If you are having trouble attaching it, rename it to say dxdiag.log

 

[0293jesse]

No obvious issues in there; can I get the dxdiag.txt please? If you are having trouble attaching it, rename it to say dxdiag.log

Third time's the charm!

 

[AndrewT]

I see a couple of Bluescreen (BSoD) events in there. Have you seen those happen, are they related to this game or something else? Next time you get one, record the text on that screen for us please.

I see no other cause of this problem in there. Is it like this from day one in 1444 in a new unmodded campaign? Or only in mid or late game play?

If you have any overclocking enabled please turn that off while we work on this.

 

[0293jesse]

I see a couple of Bluescreen (BSoD) events in there. Have you seen those happen, are they related to this game or something else? Next time you get one, record the text on that screen for us please.

I see no other cause of this problem in there. Is it like this from day one in 1444 in a new unmodded campaign? Or only in mid or late game play?

If you have any overclocking enabled please turn that off while we work on this.

I know of one bsod, that was after I updated my BIOS and had to fix a setting I forgot. I'm not aware of any others, at least that I noticed.

It's Day 1, 1444, unmodded. I've tried various countries, Ironman and no Ironman.

I'll confirm any overclocking is turned off. One thing I did forget that I only saw once was an error message in eu4 itself. When I moused over the date it said "your computer is not fast enough to run on this speed". I only saw it once and it was gone the next day, and hasn't showed up since.