Significantly More Stutter Issues on High End Hardware vs Older Hardware

[teddy_bear13]

Required​

Summary​

Significantly More Stutter Issues on High End Hardware vs Older Hardware

Description​

Game is bordering unplayable due to intense stutter and tearing when simply moving around on the world map on a high end PC. There is already a thread on Steam with multiple users reporting the same exact issue on similar hardware.

Game stutters A LOT, a whole hole full of LOT :: Age of Wonders 4 General Discussions

I was super excited to play it, so I got the complete edition with everything... but daaamn, the game lags and stutter a lot. I was able to minimize it by following some online instructions and make some adjustments, using RTSS to lock FPS and all... but still. And the game is not as pretty as...

steamcommunity.com

I tried everything that's in the current troubleshooting guide. The game is using the correct GPU, and I've turned off/down every graphic setting, without seeing any improvement for the stutter issues. I've turned off the driver workaround on and off w/o any impact.

Just to rule out user error, I've tested the game on lower end machine with older hardware. The game was running much smoother (to the point where I would not complain and raise a bug report) on a machine that is theoretically ~50% less powerful.

Baseline system, less stuttering, higher 1% lows:
CPU: Ryzen 6800H
GPU: RTX 3070ti Mobile
32gb DDR5 at 4800MT/s

Current system, intense stuttering, lower 1% lows::
CPU: 7800x3d
GPU: RTX 5080
32gb DDR5 at 6000MT/s

I've recorded and uploaded the videos captured from both machines here. The stuttering actually looks *slightly* better in these videos since the capture was capped at 60fps, and you don't feel it as badly when watching vs moving around the map yourself, but still very much apparent imo.

I understand this game is CPU-bound and that this might be caused by unit animations. My question is - should it not run smoother on a more powerful CPU, instead of running significantly worse? Also if it's caused by animations, why does turning them down to low not improve the stutter?

Steps to reproduce​

Have a high-end machine with latest hardware -> try to play

Platform​

Steam

Game Version​

v1.009.004.102259

Owned DLCs​

• None

Optional​

Affected Feature​

• World_Map

Attachments​

 

[Zursk]

I experience the same issue with similar hardware.

7950X3D
4080 Super
32GB DDR5 6000
PCIE5 NVME SSD
4K 240hz Gsync monitor
1ms Mouse
1ms Keyboard
Windows 11
All drivers up to date, Latest Bios, Windows updated. Consistently had this issue since launch. Just reinstalled Windows a couple weeks ago

The GPU usage is all over the place. At half vsync it is playable but there is still a bit of noticeable stuttering. It feels bad. I can get Planetfall to run perfect if I use Vsync off or Vsync on but it is pretty much unplayable if I limit the framerate. They both use the same engine I think so Im not sure what is going on. I recall this being an issue with my older computer was well but that one barely met the system requirements.

Ive tried every CPU configuration I could including using Process Lasso. Tried the driver workaround setting.

It seems the only answer we are going to get is "the engine sucks, shrug". Hopefully they figure it out someday.

 

[Triumph Jordi]

Hey Teddy Bear, thank you for your question.

My question is - should it not run smoother on a more powerful CPU, instead of running significantly worse?

Fundamentally lower-end hardware has a much narrower window of operation than higher-end hardware. On your higher-end machine you're playing the game at a much higher base frame-rate then when you play on your lower-end device. When these spikes happen and the frame rate drops, they will do so from a higher FPS and be more noticeable on your higher-end machine then on your lower-end machine.

Your different devices can also be limited by different pieces of hardware. On your laptop you are most likely GPU bound while on your PC you're likelier to be CPU bound, which creates more bandwidth on your laptop.

Also if it's caused by animations, why does turning them down to low not improve the stutter?

Because that setting controls the animation quality. As we've explained on several occasions, these stutters occur due to the initialization and deinitialization of the Animation/Modularity Systems on the units.

I can get Planetfall to run perfect if I use Vsync off or Vsync on but it is pretty much unplayable if I limit the framerate. They both use the same engine I think so Im not sure what is going on.

Planetfall is a game that released in 2019 and used tech that was even older. AoW4 is made on the next iteration of the Creator Engine, as all our different games are, which has seen several improvements and changes. PF f.e. uses DX11 while AoW4 has transitioned to and only supports DX12.

 

[Ironchunk]

Hi,

i have also experienced stutter on my newer hardware.

9800X3D
5070 TI
Samsung 990 Pro NVME

I have installed the latest open beta via Steam and the stutter issue got significantly better. (with VSYNC @ half)

@Triumph Jordi could you please confirm that there are fixes to this issue and these fixes are coming to the mainline release and when ?


Thank you all!

 

[Triumph Jordi]

@Triumph Jordi could you please confirm that there are fixes to this issue and these fixes are coming to the mainline release and when ?

What we have in the Open Beta branch is the only mitigations that are currently being worked on/pushed.

 

[teddy_bear13]

Hey Teddy Bear, thank you for your question.

Fundamentally lower-end hardware has a much narrower window of operation than higher-end hardware. On your higher-end machine you're playing the game at a much higher base frame-rate then when you play on your lower-end device. When these spikes happen and the frame rate drops, they will do so from a higher FPS and be more noticeable on your higher-end machine then on your lower-end machine.

Your different devices can also be limited by different pieces of hardware. On your laptop you are most likely GPU bound while on your PC you're likelier to be CPU bound, which creates more bandwidth on your laptop.


Because that setting controls the animation quality. As we've explained on several occasions, these stutters occur due to the initialization and deinitialization of the Animation/Modularity Systems on the units.


Planetfall is a game that released in 2019 and used tech that was even older. AoW4 is made on the next iteration of the Creator Engine, as all our different games are, which has seen several improvements and changes. PF f.e. uses DX11 while AoW4 has transitioned to and only supports DX12.

Oops this has somehow escaped my inbox. Thanks for the clarification! So even when I set the vsync to half on both builds, essentially capping the framerate to about the same max, should I not expect it to perform the same?