Game performance is a nightmare

[Demyan]

I don´t exactly know with which patch it started to become that bad for me, I think it was shortly after 3.3. I started a medium galaxy yesterday to see what 3.4 changed, and performance wise I think it got even worse. Its around 2430 now, the ever present Unbidden are roaming the galaxy. They are on the other end of the galaxy, and I have no outposts there yet, L-Gates are all closed but mine, no usefull wormholes. So my reinforcements take quite their time to get there, thus I fast forward a lot. B.... ut.... it.... is... horr.... .. ibl..... e, be ..... ca..... ua.....se..... it..... go .....e ....s.... l ..... ik.....e ...... th...... i .......s.
Even on fastest, clicking on something means I have to spam the mouse button so it gets accepted. Watching fleets travel feels like watching some kind of closed control loop, which regulates itself down. Ships travel a bit, then slow down to a halt, then travel a bit normal again, then slow down to a halt, and so on.....

I wanted to get the addon right away, but no way I´m throwing my money at you for that. I mean did anybody play test this at least once until 2400-something ? It feels like an "it compiles - lets ship it" - kind of release.

My System:
Processor AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 16-Core Processor, 3401 Mhz, 16 Core(s), 32 Logical Processor(s)
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 64,0 GB
Disk Drive CORSAIR MP400 Gen3 PCIe x4 NVMe M.2-SSD 4TB
GPU AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT
OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

I really like the current game rules, and would love to play it - and even tried to play with the lag last night. But it gets worse every single game-day, up to a point were it is anything but fun.

Edit: Game is pure vanilla, no mod installed (and I never have on this PC, so no weird mod "leftover" issues possible as well).
2nd: Game Version is v3.3.4

 

[prismaticmarcus]

are you using any mods?

 

[Demyan]

No mods at all

 

[Redshift]

I guess you mean the latest 3.3.4 version. It has some performance issus.
Try to use the 3.3.2 version via the Beta rollback. It has better performance but is missing some bugfixes. I am using this version due to its late game benefits.

 

[StellarXe]

I think the next update 3.4 might fix this issue, whereby whenever :
1. game reaches every 2nd of the month, the game freezes itself for a few seconds despite everything looks working.
2. Fleet cycling / not merging among all Ai Empires might cause massive slowdown later. (this is because the Ai gotten so good that they starts spamming a lot fleets compare to the past, dev mentions this and they said they will fix this)

and try not to use Fastest , use Faster for the game speed instead, it will get much better from my experience.

 

[bloodyglasspuppet]

I'm a bit surprised reading that. I have an old i5 4590 and am fighting with a bad performance too, but not on the level that you are describing with the far better CPU (with the game not accepting your clicks etc.). The last game in a medium galaxy I abandoned at around 2370, but it would theoretically have been possible to slog through it, even it didn't look and feel very good.
I think they at least should update the recommended specs for the game, because I'm easily within them and it doesn't run well pretty early into a medium galaxy run. It's a bit misleading right now.

 

[Olterin]

This is a weird one, but do you perchance have any other applications (that you could close down) running while playing? I've recently found that trying to watch a twitch stream via firefox while playing is a massive performance drain.

I have a much older system than yours, but haven't experienced that kind of lag. Though in fairness, I "only" play on 600-star galaxies.

 

[Demyan]

and try not to use Fastest , use Faster for the game speed instead, it will get much better from my experience.

If I play on anything lower than fastest, one month takes forever, even on fastest one month takes longer than it does on normal early game. Like I wrote it feels like some feedback loop, like they tried multithreading things more but then it has to synchronize and there is something wrong with it. It´s just unplayable at that point, I went down from huge to medium for that reason, and it didnt even change a bit.

I play many Early Access games, but really all of them have better performance than this current build.

 

[Demyan]

This is a weird one, but do you perchance have any other applications (that you could close down) running while playing? I've recently found that trying to watch a twitch stream via firefox while playing is a massive performance drain.

I have a much older system than yours, but haven't experienced that kind of lag. Though in fairness, I "only" play on 600-star galaxies.

No, nothing running in the background other than the OS, and medium galaxy is 600, so thats the same. I´ve also never had that kind of lag lategame before v 3.3. I´m not sure if it happend directly with 3.3, or some later patch. But for my system it was, by far, never that bad than it currently is.

 

[Clockdude]

My friends and I play on 400 (small) galaxy, with 4 humans and 11 AI we usually get to 2350 before it's kinda a slog. So we just lower the end-game year. I'd recommend just trying those two things.

 

[AndrewT]

Please do a full **clean** re-install:

- move any valued save games elsewhere, and user_empire_designs.txt from /Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/ if you have made any custom empires or races.
- "uninstall" in Steam-Stellaris
- manually delete both the Steam/SteamApps/common/Stellaris AND Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris folders
- re-install game in Steam, run a Steam Verify when done.
- add stellaris.exe to the exceptions list of your antivirus app; ESPECIALLY if you have Windows Defender, add it to the Ransomware "Apps Allowed Through" list.
- start the game with no mods active and test

In particular you need to make sure there are no files or folders left under either the Steam Stellaris or Documents Stellaris locations, before installing again.


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/Stellaris/settings.txt and pdx_settings.txt .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log .

 

[Demyan]

I´ve added the files, but the error.log file has zero bytes, so its empty.
Windows Ransomware protection is turned off, and I dont use any other antivirus software.

Didn´t do the reinstall yet, but will try in the next couple of days, thx for the input.

 

[AndrewT]

Right click on stellaris.exe , properties, compatibility. Untick every box there, then tick "disable fullScreen optimisations". Apply and exit.

Then in the launcher-game settings area, set display mode to fullScreen, Vsync off, and refresh rate 60. Is the game any better then?

 

[Demyan]

Thats it!
I got the new screen right about the same time 3.3 was released, and didn´t even think about it defaulting to 240Hz and VSync on when I swapped it out with my old one. I just played a few turns with Vsync off, set Frequenzy to 60Hz, fleet movement and general response was waaaayyy better than before. Maybe I play around to reduce screen tear, but even if I don´t get rid of it, it´s much better now.

Since it´s an Ironmode game, I dont wana let it run just to look how it performs, but I will surely play more soon enough, and I´m postive that it works fine now - Thanks a lot!

Is there a way to close the thread and mark your response as solving the issue? Don´t wana do it right away but in a few days I most likely can - Cheers!

Edit: Didnt have any Compability options checked, but used the one you wrote about. Maybe I turn it back on to see if it helps reduce screen tear a bit, or play around with those options in general.

Edit 2: Could you maybe change your games initial settings, to turn Vsync off by default ? Because while I usually look at it for more 3D hungry games, if performance is worse than expected, I did not even think about it being an issue here. And maybe I am not the only one like that

 

[AndrewT]

Edit: Didnt have any Compability options checked, but used the one you wrote about. Maybe I turn it back on to see if it helps reduce screen tear a bit, or play around with those options in general.

You'll need to keep "disable fullScreen optimisations" set when in fullScreen mode, you'll probably find the game will not run otherwise.

Edit 2: Could you maybe change your games initial settings, to turn Vsync off by default ?

You are welcome to post that request in the Suggestions forum here.

I just played a few turns with Vsync off, set Frequenzy to 60Hz, fleet movement and general response was waaaayyy better than before. Maybe I play around to reduce screen tear, but even if I don´t get rid of it, it´s much better now.

You could experiment with, say 72hz - you can see in your system.log file what resolution/refreshRate combinations the game can use on your hardware.

All the best!