Help needed with intermittent lag in A21

[John Tangor]

Howdy folks,

 

I am getting lag spikes every 15-20 seconds from 60-70FPS down to 6FPS.  I've tried using GeForce Experience to optimize.  I have turned off VSync in-game and turned it on in NVidia control panel.  I have also turned off Occlusion in-game. 

 

My specs:

Processor = AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX with Radeon Graphics 3.30 GHz

GPU = NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop

RAM = 64GB DDR5 4800MHz

 

I'm playing in low graphics mode now just to avoid the spikes but would like to take advantage of what the game and my computer have to offer for quality and performance.  

 

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

 

Cheers,

JT

[Jugginator]

There is a known issue with mid-game loads that can be costly, but it shouldn't be that frequent. Post a log file to pastebin and give the link here for us to take a look at

[John Tangor]

I created an account on Pastebin.com but am not sure where to locate the log file.

[Jugginator]

You just copy and paste it in that box and hit the publish button below. CTRL + A and then CTRL + C will highlight everything/copy

[John Tangor]

Pastebin link

 

[Jugginator]

14 minutes ago, John Tangor said:

Pastebin link

 

Ah okay, so you've got the compopack mod installed, that isn't ready for A21 yet. I would remove all of those and generate a new world and a new save. That would cause those lags for sure.

[John Tangor]

I did a clean uninstall, delete folders and reinstall.  Same issue.  Here's the new LOG

[Jugginator]

On paper it seems to be doing better but you are still having hits. I'm curious, what kind of storage device is your operating system and game on? Nvme ssd/regular ssd/hard drive?

[John Tangor]

The OS and game are both on my C drive, I believe it's Gen 4 SSD 1TB with over 100GB free.

[Jugginator]

Hmm, something to look at before thinking of a solution would be to ensure you've got firewall/antivirus exceptions for the main game folder and the 7daystodie folder in appdata (saves, just add the whole folder). It appears to be load times/unloading unused assets which rely on your storage device and CPU, you've got a laptop CPU but it's a good one, and if it was overheating and throttling then you likely would experience an overall FPS drop and not just on those functions. Try that, or if you want to do it faster just disable those and try it for a quick test. Your NVME drive COULD be getting really hot in that laptop and throttling itself down, you can use something like HWINFO64 to see that (look for the drive temperatures, ideally an NVME should be between 40-60c. You've a pretty similar system to mine and the Mrs which I use hers to test sometimes and she plays on it a lot, and your unload unused assets are like 1000% higher than those two systems. 

[John Tangor]

In Windows Defender, the application is on the exception list.  I'm not sure how to set folders as exceptions.

 

I downloaded HWINFO64 and the NVMe Drive SMART check is all OK, and the drive temp is 61c.  The warning temp is set to 80c and the critical temp is set to 82c.

 

Also noted that the fan is running steadily (CPU & GPU) at 3800-3900RPM.

Edited June 27, 2023 by John Tangor (see edit history)

[SylenThunder]

7 hours ago, John Tangor said:

The OS and game are both on my C drive, I believe it's Gen 4 SSD 1TB with over 100GB free.

Drive should have 40% free space for optimal operation. Less than that and performance will suffer.

[Jugginator]

Yeah that is true what Sylen said, performance degradation is exponential the further you go below 40% on an NVME drive, 50% for a HDD. For exclusions, don't forget that Public and Private network are different, make sure you match the one Windows has your network set to, you can see this by going to the network tab and view your connect (usually it's default set to Public, I would change it to Private), to add a folder:

 

 

[John Tangor]

I uninstalled a bunch of games on my C drive:

 

And I followed your directions for the exclusions.  I'll reboot and try again. 

[John Tangor]

Getting better but still with spikes.  At least I can play on Optimal settings again.  Here's the latest LOG.

[SylenThunder]

I'm thinking the spikes may be more related to the CPU getting throttled. Common problem with laptops. If you can ensure it's adequately cooled, and maybe even get a separate cooler (I have one for mine), that might help. I set mine to max fan, have the cooler, and force it into maximum performance. 

 

Also because of the laptop CPU, drop your resolution to 2650x1440. Ultrawide isn't doing you any favors with a voxel game. Higher resolutions require more CPU performance. We have a similar screen, and run the game like this without issues. We're on an R9 3900X and RX 6800XT's. In terms of performance, our system is only about 10% faster than yours.

[John Tangor]

I set my laptop on a cooling fan bed and now the laptop fan is running slower.  I have a ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 laptop and am trying the GPU Mode of Ultimate (it also has Standard, Eco and Optimal).  I don't play on the laptop screen and use an external Samsung Neo G9 set to 5120x1440. 

[Jugginator]

28 minutes ago, John Tangor said:

I set my laptop on a cooling fan bed and now the laptop fan is running slower.  I have a ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 laptop and am trying the GPU Mode of Ultimate (it also has Standard, Eco and Optimal).  I don't play on the laptop screen and use an external Samsung Neo G9 set to 5120x1440. 

Ah yeah that resolution is a bit much especially with such a demanding cpu game this one is, and that cpu being in a laptop will certainly struggle. Try running it at a natural 1440p resolution and that should drastically reduce the load (2560x1440). You can also set the dynamic resolution to scale, try about 80%.

[John Tangor]

I dropped the resolution down one notch and despite the black bars on the left and right of the screen, it's working great!  I was starting to get flashing screens at 5120x1440 but there were no lag spikes.

 

Thank you very much for the help!!