Surviving Mars - Game stutter gets progressively worse the farther into the game I go

[Micwlsn91]

Description
Game stuttering gets progressively worse the farther into the game


Windows


Steam

What is your game version?
1011166

What DLC do you have installed?
Space Race, Green Planet, Below and Beyond, Stellaris Dome Set, Colony Design Set, Project Laika, In-Dome Buildings Pack

Please explain your issue is in as much detail as possible.
Once I get too far into a game, it begins to stutter. It does not happen in the main menu, nor does the loading icon stutter until the game opens. All menus, and the entire interrace, on the bottom, buttons to navigate the game, are fine. Though the games itself, when in any speed, has a very noticeable stutter. In other words the game motion freezes for maybe a quarter second, every second. I have played through the game many times, with and without mods, and it seems to happen after a certain amount of activity is created. I have never made a post, but have gone through forums and always end up getting discouraged and give up. This time, I thought I would create this post, hoping my issue is unique, and can be resolved.

Here is what I have done so far:
1.Clean install on the game and all DLC content.
2.Clean install of graphics driver
3.Started a new game with NO MODS.
4.Once the stutter started, I went though forums again, tried everything. Removed rovers, looked for stuck drones, removed all hubs, trains, lakes, searched for glitched citizens, nothing seemed to be wrong in that regard.
5.I played through until SOL 730 where the stutter made the game unplayable.
6.Again, did another clean install of graphics driver, game, and DLC again.
7.Lowering the graphic setting does not change the stutter at all. Even lowering the setting all the way to low, just makes it more of a blurry stutter.
8.Cleared temp files, ran disk clean up, and scans.
9.Verified temps and usage rates on GPU and CPU, both are under half its available usage during gameplay. Ram, Voltage, total power, never exceeds 50 - 60%
9.Started going back in saves and noticed the stutter lessoned, the more I went back. Once I got back to SOL 270 the lag was gone. The only difference would be the amount going on and number of citizens.

My Rig:
Windows 10 Pro - 10.0.19044.2075 Version 21H2 - Updates checked daily
ROG STRIX X470-F Gaming
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Eight-Core Processor 3700Mhz
64MB Installed Ram
ROG STRIX RTX 2070 8GB
MSI Optix MAG27CQ 27" 2560 x 1440 WQHD 2K Resolution 144Hz

Other info:
GPU never gets above 50 to 55 degrees C
CPU Temp never gets above 65C
GPU set to default settings, no overclocking done.
Sound does not seem to be effected. Music or effects
Changing the FPS settings do not change anything. With V-sync on or off, no matter the FPS limit, in game, it never goes above 60. Video below will be with V-Sync on, and the limit set up "unlimited."

Attached are a few saves I picked out depicting the stutter getting progressively worse the more going on in the game. It seems after about 1k citizens it is noticeable. The first video is SOL 270 where you cannot tell at all there is a stutter, then the from there on it gets worse. Settings are set to "optimized" by Nvidia Geforce recommendations, but again, changing them from Low, to Ultra does not effect this stutter.

I am at a loss. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Can you replicate the issue?
This issue is constant, and begins the moment the game is loaded.


File(s) attached

 

[AndrewT]

Settings are set to "optimized" by Nvidia Geforce recommendations, but again, changing them from Low, to Ultra does not effect this stutter.

I have seen that app make things worse. If you unload it entirely before starting the game, do you still get this?

I see some crashes in GPUTweakII.exe in there, which is apparently an ASUS utility. Please unload that before starting the game too.


If those don't help, please install and run the free utility Speccy. Send its output to a text file and attach that here , thanks.


Then can you test those saves on any other machine you have access to, to see if they get the same problem there?

 

[Micwlsn91]

I have seen that app make things worse. If you unload it entirely before starting the game, do you still get this?

I see some crashes in GPUTweakII.exe in there, which is apparently an ASUS utility. Please unload that before starting the game too.


If those don't help, please install and run the free utility Speccy. Send its output to a text file and attach that here , thanks.


Then can you test those saves on any other machine you have access to, to see if they get the same problem there?

Hey thanks for the quick reply.

GPU tweak came with the graphics card. It's brand is Asus. I use it to monitor the gpu. Not nessacary so can be removed.

I don't know why I never thought to test the saves on another PC, I will do that as well tonight and if that fails will post results of test you recommended.

Thanks again

 

[Micwlsn91]

Here is the report you requested
Also tried on another PC with same result.
Removed programs as well before running Speccy report

 

[AndrewT]

As you can see, numerous failed or In Progress Windows updates there, dating back 2 years! Whether they have anything to do with this problem I'm not sure. You could run the Windows Update utility and see if it finds anything to install; if so apply that and reboot.
Do you see anything like that in Speccy run on your other machine?

And does it also use Avast ? Make sure you disable realtime scanning of this game's Steam and C:\Users\{UserName}\AppData\Roaming\Surviving Mars\ folders.


I see GeForce Experience is still loaded in there - you did test with it unloaded, is that right?


And finally, see if you can unload \ASUS\AI Suite III and Nahimic for testing purposes, especially if they are on this second machine too.

 

[Micwlsn91]

Can't seem to respond here with more than few words. Giving up

 

[AndrewT]

Users with low post counts cannot include links in their posts. This is a forum anti-spam measure.

Anything else ought to be okay, just no links.

 

[Micwlsn91]

Users with low post counts cannot include links in their posts. This is a forum anti-spam measure.

Anything else ought to be okay, just no links.

Let me try again, I have only been attempting to respond with text, not sure what the issue is. As you can tell the frustration is building. LOL

Speccy is not showing the failed updates on the other PC.

Running the update utility does not pick them up, nor have I gotten errors while updating. I contacted MS support who proved to be less than helpful, though they did give me the idea to google some of the update numbers and I found they were updates to pervious versions. Not associated with 21H2. I wonder, if when I did the last clean install of windows, the utility skipped a few versions and only updated the newest one? Should I have forced it to do one version at a time?

As far as the other software, asus, geforce, I had only disabled and rebooted, I did not completely unload it. I will attempt that next. And the other PC does not have any of them. He does have MSI after burner for his graphics card.

Antivirus is Avast on both PCs, i will also disable the Realtime scanning and try again.

Though in the meantime, what do you think would cause the update error, if I am not getting them during the install?



Thanks!

 

[Micwlsn91]

As you can see, numerous failed or In Progress Windows updates there, dating back 2 years! Whether they have anything to do with this problem I'm not sure. You could run the Windows Update utility and see if it finds anything to install; if so apply that and reboot.
Do you see anything like that in Speccy run on your other machine?

And does it also use Avast ? Make sure you disable realtime scanning of this game's Steam and C:\Users\{UserName}\AppData\Roaming\Surviving Mars\ folders.


I see GeForce Experience is still loaded in there - you did test with it unloaded, is that right?


And finally, see if you can unload \ASUS\AI Suite III and Nahimic for testing purposes, especially if they are on this second machine too.

Some additional things i have tried since last message:

Completely removed all the asus software, and drivers, and reinstalled the AMD chipset, drivers with the newest version.
Also removed GPU tweak and AI suite and GeForce, completely. Only thing that remains is the control panel that installs with the GPU driver.
I noticed my BIOS was out of date, and the newest update mentioned stutter being a fix. so I reflashed my bios with the newest version.
Then I moved the install files for the game to my SSD drive, before I had them on a separate drive to conserve space on the SSD.

Update: 10/14/22
Last night i also performed an in place update of windows 10 and now all of those failed updates are no longer showing in the speccy report.

After all of that, the game remains unchanged. except for the frame rate which now jumps from 30 to 144. Before it was only jumping between 30 and 60.

UPDATE 10/15/22
I spent some more time on this this morning and may have found an issue that may be related. After reviewing the game log file, in Appdata/Roaming... I found a mod called "massive universal depot" that I cannot get rid of. Seems to cause an error. This mod was used years ago, and has nothing to do with this game, nor has it been used in this current game, or since this game was started. I also confirmed it is for a previous game version.

I have verified nothing is syncing from the steam workshop.
I removed the game, and steam, then reinstalled steam, then the game, with DLC one item at time. The game installs, but once opened this mod creates folders in the Appdata/Roaming/SurvivingMars location, then create the error on the log.
I also removed all my saves, and attempted a fresh install, one the game is ran, the files are still created, and the error shows in the log.
When navigating to the mod manager, and clicking on installed mods, a number 1 flashes as it opens, then shows 0 installed mods. So it is there, but not there.
The game recreates the files once ran, that show up in "Roaming," if deleted.

I feel like this could be related?

 

[Void1001]

I have a similar issue my game just goes and stutters super slow making it unplayable, top it all off with mass suicide, I'm gutted, my favourite game is now unplayable

 

[Micwlsn91]

I have a similar issue my game just goes and stutters super slow making it unplayable, top it all off with mass suicide, I'm gutted, my favourite game is now unplayable

Is the stutter there for you, at any speed, and any graphic settings?
Could upload your game log so i can compare it to mine? See if we are getting the same error?

It is really discouraging, I love this game, and some of the colonies I've seen, I want to be able to build!!! but once I get too big, this starts to stutter. I am really hoping the developers can find something based on all the info I have provided above.

Sorry to say, glad I'm not the only one with this issue.

 

[Micwlsn91]

I received an email telling me this support ticket has been closed and was solved. THIS IS NOT RESOVED. The issue is not with my PC.

 

[AndrewT]

I assume you lodged a ZenDesk ticket, as these threads are never closed by us like that.

If so, they auto-close if we've replied to you, but you have not responded for two weeks. You can re-open it as a new ticket linked to the old one.