Huge performance loss after changing graphics card

[Adamson]

Hello,

After years of playing on an old gtx 970 I finally managed to buy a new graphics card rx 6750xt, to my surprise the performance in eu4 has dropped by 2/3. The game even during pause cannot maintain 144fps, where the old card could do it without any problem, while the new one has a problem to display even 60fps. Playing on the old card the game slowed down noticeably but only in mid-game and end-game, on the new one this slowdown occurs right from the start and is much worse.

Things I have tried :
- deleting the game and reinstalling
- reinstalling the latest amd driver
- disabling all options in amd adrenaline ( i had problems in stellaris with dark screen and poor performance - i had to disable amd sharpening )
- disabling all mods ( game runs the same without and with )
- change of parameters in settings.txt file
- disabling CPU overclocking

Nothing has helped and the game is practically unplayable.

 

[AndrewT]

60 fps should not be unplayable in this game , unless you are seeing other performance symptoms such as slow loading times or jerkiness in scrolling and zooming the map?

I'm not familiar with AMD adrenalin, but if it is like nVidia GeForce Experience in trying to optimise the game, I'd suggest unloading it before starting the game - any different?

If not, Please do a full **clean** re-install:

- move any valued save games elsewhere
- "uninstall" in Steam-EU4
- manually delete both the Steam/SteamApps/common/EU4 AND Documents/Paradox Interactive/EU4 folders
- re-install game in Steam, run a Steam Verify when done.
- add EU4.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 make sure there are no files or folders left under either the Steam EU4 or Documents EU4 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/EU4/settings.txt and pdx_settings.txt .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/EU4/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log .

 

[Adamson]

We're talking 60fps while the game is on pause and I'm not moving the camera, unstable 25-30fps when the game is running at speed 4 and 15fps at speed 5 ( moving the map is so laggy it's practically impossible ).

Removing AMD andrenalin and installing the driver alone did nothing. Deleting all game files and reinstalling the game itself also did not change anything.

 

[AndrewT]

There's a mod error in that log - please make sure ALL mods are disabled while we work on this.

Some Windows errors and LiveKernelEvent entries in that dxdiag; are you having problems on this machine outside the game? LiveKernelEvent happen when the machine or Windows is forcibly downed.


First please manually edit that settings.txt to say:

refreshRate=60
vsync=no

Then Right click on eu4.exe , properties, compatibility. Tick "disable fullScreen optimisations" untick every other box in that dialog, Apply and exit.
Then in the launcher Game Settings menu, select fullScreen display mode.


Then start a new test campaign with NO mods enabled - is that any better?

 

[Adamson]

I forgot that reinstalling Eu4 automatically fires all mods without user permission so this error probably comes from there. As for Windows errors, sometimes when I accidentally hit the desktop the computer likes to shut down, it's rather nothing to do with game problems. Changing the settings admittedly made 300-400fps in the main menu as well as in the country selection menu, but as soon as the game itself loads this number drops to the previous 50fps ( still on a paused game ). The game running on speed 4 and 5 behaves the same there.

 

[AndrewT]

Well, 50fps ought to be adequate for a non-action game like this - higher fps will not produce any visible benefit over that, IME. Are you still seeing other performance symptoms such as slow loading times or jerkiness in scrolling and zooming the map?

If so, before you start the game run Task Manager-performance. Now start the game in windowed mode ; when the problem occurs what do you see in CPU, GPU, memory, network etc ? Any of them seem to be maxing out or cycling in time with the issue?

 

[zkajo]

Well, 50fps ought to be adequate for a non-action game like this - higher fps will not produce any visible benefit over that, IME. Are you still seeing other performance symptoms such as slow loading times or jerkiness in scrolling and zooming the map?

I'm sorry to butt in, but I've had a similar problem in the past on similar hardware (it never got resolved) and I ended up playing EU4 on a different PC. What he is saying is that he has 60 fps when the game is PAUSED. When it's running (not paused), fps grind to a halt and the game becomes practically unplayable. It ends up running at 5 to 15 FPS. It's even impossible to move the map. It's clearly an issue with the game, as it can run fine on worse hardware. Perhaps it's Radeon related.

 

[Adamson]

This is what my gameplay looks like, but I found the culprit the game doesn't load the graphics card. During the month the game uses less than 10% of the card. When the month ends the usage increases to 30% but only for that moment.

 

[AndrewT]

This is what my gameplay looks like, but I found the culprit the game doesn't load the graphics card. During the month the game uses less than 10% of the card. When the month ends the usage increases to 30% but only for that moment.

That's not my interpretation of those measurements! To me that means the game's requirements of that video card are very modest, as they should be for such a beast, and the cause is elsewhere.

Do you get this with CK2, Stellaris and HOI4 as well?

 

[Adamson]

To my surprise it is the same in Ck2, Stellaris and Ck3 run much faster. Unfortunately I don't currently have Hoi4 installed but my problem seems to only affect older games.

 

[AndrewT]

CK2 and EU4 are from the same era, using almost the same Clausewitz version. Stellaris and HOI4 are from the next era, and CK3 much later still. So it seems clear your issue is something between that old Clausewitz version and your setup, in some way! Those older games will not be rewritten with newer Clausewitz versions, I am sure, but that doesn't leave us much to look into or tweak to improve your situation.

A bit random, but what if you exit the Steam app entirely and run them from ck2game.exe and eu4.exe directly from File Explorer, any different?