In Review Horrible Stuttering/FPS Drops During Map Zoom/Pan

[ratking_ratking]

Required​

Summary​

Horrible Stuttering/FPS Drops During Map Zoom/Pan

Description​

I've filed an issue through the in-game tool as well - in short, while moving over the map and zooming in and out, the game drops to between 1-4 FPS until the action is complete. This is much worse from stutters I have seen in the past updates, or from the stutters I have seen posted in the forums here; the issue I am facing makes the game super painful to play and is incredibly obtrusive. I have monitored my CPU/GPU util during these stutters and am not seeing anything that would lead me to believe this is normal. I've tried every troubleshooting option I can think off, yet this issue persists.

Steps to reproduce​

Move around map/zoom in/out on game map. Does not need to be a new/old game. On ogre update. CPU = 9800x3d, GPU = RTX 5080, both drivers up to date. I also have the Giant Kings DLC - FYI this is not an option in the Owned DLCs template below.

Platform​

Steam

Game Version​

V1.010.001.105705

Owned DLCs​

• Dragon Dawn
• Empires and Ashes
• Primal Fury
• Eldritch Realms
• Herald of Glory
• Ways of War

Optional​

Affected Feature​

• World_Map

Attachments​

 

[ratking_ratking]

Example issue:

 

[Flour420]

Going to reply here to say that I'm also getting the same problem. Also have a 9800x3d and a RTX 5090 using Nvidia Drivers 572.83

 

[Astronlmo]

I have, 7600 and 3060ti and don't have That level of stuttering. But when I move near crystal dwelling it does stutter a bit.

 

[Wyrd Deofol]

I have, 7600 and 3060ti and don't have That level of stuttering. But when I move near crystal dwelling it does stutter a bit.

4060ti - i712700K

A bit of stutters especially around the dwelling as Astronimo pointed out.

 

[ratking_ratking]

It's a bit hard to see in the video (screenshot of clog attached as well), but the worst of the fps drops seems to be captured in the logs - with some frames apparently taking over a second to process. I've attached the relevant CLOG as a ZIP below.

 

[Zursk]

I am experiencing these stutters as well. 7950X3D, 4080 Super

 

[Flour420]

Tried game version 1.010.001.106191 and unfortunately this still happens.

 

[ratking_ratking]

Don't see any improvement after updating to Ogre 1.1 either. Is there anything I can provide that would be helpful in identifying the issue? After playing some more I feel like the worst experience is in the underground, while the surface is better and umbral layer is the best. Moving around the underground is so painful

 

[Sniffle]

I am also having this exact issue with an RTX 5080 and 9800X3D, all drivers up to date.

 

[Triumph Jordi]

Hey Guys, since the reports for this appear to be steadily increasing I'll get our Rendering Programmer to take a look at some of the reports that have been made and see what we can do.

For users on 40 Series GPU's that have updated their Drivers, there is a general call to rollback to the December 2024 Drivers due to 572.XX Drivers causing regressions on older GPU's.

Game developers urge Nvidia RTX 30 and 40 series owners rollback to December 2024 driver after recent RTX 50-centric release issues

Rolling back to older drivers seems to be the only fix for some.

www.tomshardware.com

 

[ratking_ratking]

Thanks Jordi, if there’s anything I can provide that would be helpful (clgs, saves, videos etc.) please let me know

 

[Maskius]

Adding my voice to this - seeing the exact same issue on high-end hardware:

Ryzen 9 9800X3D / RTX 5070 Ti / 32 GB DDR5 / Win 11

Consistent microstutter only when panning across revealed areas with visible units/structures. No stutter over fog-of-war terrain. Doesn’t matter whether graphics settings are Ultra or Low.

I’ve tested extensively:

• CPU affinity limited (2, 4, 6 threads)
• VSync off, FPS capped (56), Threaded Optimization off
• Shader cache cleared
• Tried both “Driver Workaround” on/off
• Reproducible across drivers

Interestingly, I ran AoW4 on an older PC (i5 + RTX 3060) using the same NVIDIA driver — and the stutter was gone. Suggests this isn’t a GPU driver issue per se, but how the engine scales animation visibility logic on modern hardware.

Based on Triumph Jordi’s comment in another thread, it appears the issue stems from how the engine initializes or tears down unit animation/modularity systems as they come into view during camera panning.

My guess: these systems may not be properly buffered or offloaded from the main thread, causing pacing stalls or thread hitches even when framerates are stable. If the animation visibility logic could be deferred, pooled, or more predictively managed, it might resolve this.

Happy to help with testing or provide frame pacing data if needed.

Regards
Thomas

 

[Yorkston]

9800x3d / 7900xtx / 64gb ddr5 / win10

Also getting similar issues since the GK update, so its not purely an nvidia problem. For me it almost exclusively happens while panning around underground, regardless of explored/fogofwar. GPU utilization drops 60>20%-ish and fps momentarily craters from 140 to sub-10fps.

 

[Jack of Carabas]

I had this problem, high end machine. Never had it before Ogre and played this game alot.
I tried a few things without success- graphics and mods etc. For me, it's the handcrafted regions. There's something about them causing massive video lag. I made a map with them turned off (after loading an old game and seeing it still ran fine) and problem appears to be solved.

...or at least improved, until I came across a "gaint bird's nest" spawner and it happened again... it looks like they "improved" the graphics around the giant birds nest map area, I don't recall the branches everywhere. Yeah some of the graphical updates are not making my machine happy.

Yeah...definitely the graphics additions are doing it in my case. Started another game on medium, played fine for hours until I captured a mystic town... there's little huts that weren't there before Ogre, they look nice but I have a cloud of lag hanging everywhere they are.

I'll take a break until they patch this.

 

[ratking_ratking]

After playing with it more, the stuttering is definitely (at least partially) caused by the crystal dwelling - without, moving around the underground seems fairly fine. You can see the two gifs below for a comparison of what the underground looks like with:

and without:

 

[DuplicitousDemiurge]

Not sure if this is helpful information but I'm experiencing this as well, and it does seem to be exclusively caused by the new hand-crafted giant kings map features. I have all DLC, a 3090 and the latest drivers. Additional chatter elsewhere indicates this issue is triggered by mods that add additional units like Expanded Cultural Units.

I first noticed it with the (forgot the name sadly) feature that has a million dragon deathstacks invading. The game started stuttering in that area specifically but was resolved by scrolling away. Later on after persisting through that, it moved to a totally different section of the map, underground, and remained there for the duration of the playthrough.

Currently it appears to be happening in this playthrough by "The Godkeep" and I can confirm disabling Expanded Cultural Units the issue has resolved. Probably more to do with a known outdated mod however that being said, it was working just fine until GK regardless, and just because it was triggered by a mod does not in fact mean there is not an underlying bug. Hopefully this grab bag of random information helps in some way.

 

[Triumph Jordi]

Not sure if this is helpful information but I'm experiencing this as well, and it does seem to be exclusively caused by the new hand-crafted giant kings map features. I have all DLC, a 3090 and the latest drivers. Additional chatter elsewhere indicates this issue is triggered by mods that add additional units like Expanded Cultural Units.

Could be both issues affecting things differently. Any mods that add Units currently are causing performance issues because they're no longer up to date to our modularity systems. That will be something that the Modders themselves will need to address, we can't do anything there. Issues that may be originating from 50 Series Hardware or 572.XX Drivers is something we can investigate and possibly apply mitigations for.

 

[ratking_ratking]

Tried the open beta for five minutes and things seem significantly better! Not seeing any of the issues as shown in the videos above. If anything changes I will write here again, but for now things look good. Thanks Jordi and team

 

[Zursk]

I tried the latest beta. For me the stuttering is noticeably better but still not ideal. Transitioning to and from the overmap is a lot better. Hopefully there are more things you can do to make it less annoying to play. Its especially noticeable on endgame maps.

I tried wiping my drivers with DDU and installing the 566.36 driver but I still have the same issue.

AMD 7950X3D, 4080 Super