Small freezes / fps drops with increased frequency when speeding up game

Started by RayZoar-Z, July 10, 2019, 06:05:10 PM

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thejazzmann

Okay, so I've done some further testing (again).

Using the steamdb manifest information and steam's depot download function through the console, I downloaded several previous versions of the 1.0 release:

Version 1.0.2096 (November 23, 2018, Manifest ID 2990835901037261399) - No Spike
Version 1.0.2150 (January 20, 2019, Manifest ID 4677681625388671945) - No Spike
Version 1.0.2231 (April 7, 2019, Manifest ID 3518976739099334473) - No Spike

These three were run completely vanilla and no lag or spikes occurred. I purposefully spawned in several different events including a number of raids per colony.

The versions following this, however, did spike.

Quote from: Tynan on November 19, 2019, 10:11:45 PM

... It would be amazing if you could actually tell me how many milliseconds the spikes are on each version...


While measuring the exactly millisecond would be difficult (unless you know some easy way for me to do this?), I can confirm that on all versions I've tested so far that have spiked, it's been 1/4 of a second. This is true of both modded and vanilla, the spike duration doesn't change.

I believe I've exhausted all possible testing abilities for myself here, unless anyone has any further ideas. Hopefully this will shed some light.

atewithouttabIe

All x64 versions or 32?

Also, did you try a handstand while balancing a frisky gerbil on one foot during a full moon on an odd day not ending in Y yet while further testing?

...you axed  :)

thejazzmann

Sorry, should've mentioned that! All tests above done on x64 versions. Given that the x86 version is basically relegated to 32-bit systems (and that it worked on the latest version without issue) I didn't bother testing it.

Kaelen Mosar


thejazzmann

Yeah, probably a good point.

CPU: Core i7 7700K
GPU: MSI GeForce 1080Ti Gaming X 11gb
RAM: 32gb (4x8gb) Corsair Vengeance DDR4
Running Rimworld from a Samsung 960 EVO NVME 500gb SSD on Win10 Home

Tynan

That's some hardcode Steam hacking. Nice.

The versions are:

Oct 1, 2019    1.0.2408     main default branch
May 27, 2019    1.0.2282       
Apr 7, 2019   1.0.2231   
Jan 20, 2019    1.0.2150
Jan 16, 2019     1.0.2096     beta branch: catalina_test

So basically you're saying something happened between April 7 and May 27 which causes lag spikes.

We didn't change any content during that period, the only change was optimization to game loading as described in this blog post. However that code shouldn't in principle do anything during play at all; it only made loading faster. But, bugs can be weird.

What I'd be interested in is if anyone else can try those same observations and see what happens to you. The beta branch catalina_test is version 2096, so you don't need to use the Steam console to get it.
Tynan Sylvester - @TynanSylvester - Tynan's Blog

Asero

Well, I didn't test with without any mods installed or tried any different versions, but I did stumble across something that may be relevant. (Or perhaps it's a fluke and it's only working for me.)

I recently started playing Cities Skylines again and as a result I use a lightweight memory optimizer especially since the game can be extremely resource hungry with all DLCs and mods installed. Either way, I ran the memory defrag beforehand as per usual; but decided to play Rimworld instead :) Rimworld suddenly had almost no fps drops, which was pretty surprising since I'm playing on an i3 and the lag used to get pretty extreme in my case. Could these stutters perhaps be caused something that changed how Windows 10 manages system memory?

Please note that I did not run the memory optimization at any point whilst playing the game. In fact it's a pretty bad idea and can really mess things up--which is why I'm using Wise memory Optimizer as it's lightweight, free, easy to use and doesn't try to constantly screw with the memory when you're busy playing the game. Either way, I doubt this will work for everyone but it's probably still worth a mention.

Geist3

Hi everyone,

I have 172 hours in Rimworld since 2018, played mostly with mods without any problems.

Recently I reinstalled the game but found that the game stutters every few seconds as described by the posters in this thread. This happens in vanilla right at the start of a game. I can deal with  low fps or stutters due to mods but this seems like a persistent 'baked in' stutter that kills enjoyment of the game.

I kept checking forums and reddit every few weeks to see if anyone came up with a solution, just signed up now since the head dev seems to be investigating personally (awesome, thanks for listening :))

My specs:
Windows 7
i7 3.5ghz
R9 270
8 gigs of ram


atewithouttabIe

Quote from: Asero on November 21, 2019, 08:51:40 AM
... Could these stutters perhaps be caused something that changed how Windows 10 manages system memory?
...

Discussed at lenght here https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/fix-game-stutter-on-win-10-1703-1809.420251/page-36

been futzing around w ISLC as well as exploit protection toggling on and off, so far its been "promising" to a certain degree esp w regards to the aforementioned "game has to take a dump first" analogy i used - worth a try at this point huh

What your Mem Optimizer did was most likely nothing more that is being discussed in that thread ie stopping windows from filling all free memory w standby stuff so theres nothing left for apps that actually need it right now thus causing stuttering and abysmal performance in general - just flick through that thread and you'll see

Kassenschlager

Hey, wanted to thank you for this post.

For the last few weeks i have had the same problem as everyone described here.
I thought the problem were too many mods, worktypes and pawns which seemed to exacerbate the problem. Prioritizing Wortypes etc. helped a little. In the end it was the standby list though. When i start a savegame and purge the standbylist, the freezes are gone completely. To anyone here, this is the program mentioned in the thread: https://www.wagnardsoft.com/content/intelligent-standby-list-cleaner-v1000-released.


ReZpawner

Kind of.
A number of savegames are(or will be) analysed by the developers.
I've tested the vanilla game for 137 hours for the past two weeks, and while the vanilla game does slow down (at times significantly), and there are stutters, the microstuttering is not at all present in a 1.5 million wealth colony at the current time at year ~12 ish. Other than that, you'll have to ask the devs, as they are sure to know more than the testers.

reuven

I too did some mod enabling and disabling because there was a noticeable 1 sec freeze between intervals or around 20 or 30 seconds, and I chalked it up to only two activated mods: Hugslib and Jecstools. It does seem that after deactivating Jecstools it seemed to improve the stutter (it was so bad that it seemed to stutter when I was in the main menu switching between options. It kind of sucks because the mod is required for a lot of other ones. I'll do some more experiences with my modlist.

Kaelen Mosar

Quote from: reuven on December 25, 2019, 08:32:19 PM
I too did some mod enabling and disabling because there was a noticeable 1 sec freeze between intervals or around 20 or 30 seconds, and I chalked it up to only two activated mods: Hugslib and Jecstools. It does seem that after deactivating Jecstools it seemed to improve the stutter (it was so bad that it seemed to stutter when I was in the main menu switching between options. It kind of sucks because the mod is required for a lot of other ones. I'll do some more experiences with my modlist.

yea well thats bad bec hugslib and jectools pretty needed for everything <3
but thanks for your intel

ruPal

Quote from: Tynan on November 19, 2019, 10:11:45 PM
Quote from: thejazzmann on November 19, 2019, 10:07:04 PM
A small amount of further testing: The 32-bit (x86) version of the game also runs without issue, zero spikes.

Now that's really interesting. It would be amazing if you could actually tell me how many milliseconds the spikes are on each version.

We're looking at possibly doing an update that comes with a new Unity version update, and Unity updated their Mono runtime which includes an improved garbage collector, so it may solve these issues. But, don't hold your breath - it isn't planned for the immediate future.
Don't like to be that person, but are there news about that update?