25% FPS loss out of the blue

[Billy Pilgrim]

I'm looking for a bit of help.

A week or so ago, I started getting 20 to 30% fewer FPS when using AC. I wondered if it was Dynamic Shaders so uninstalled it but that doesn't change much, if anything. I can't figure it out. (the fps drop didn't come just after installing Dynamic Shaders anyway)

Wondering if a Windows update may have done this. I can't think of any graphics-type mod that I installed a week ago either.

I've got a 1080 ti and an i7 4770k (with an overclock). Triple screens. But there has been no hardware change recently that could have caused this.

 

[Bruno Iwanczuk]

Have you checked CPU and GPU temps?

 

[Kek700]

I'm getting with 24 AI ,104 FPS at start with main T at 94%, simular cpu , with a 980ti.

My system apart from GPU was very simular to yours

 

[Kek700]

As pointed out in these articles above; it is usually "not" something major causing this problem.
But something inconsequential. So minor you don't even consider it.

 

[Kek700]

As pointed out in these articles above; it is usually "not" something major causing this problem.
But something inconsequential. So minor you don't even consider it.

 

[Billy Pilgrim]

I'm getting with 24 AI ,104 FPS at start with main T at 94%, simular cpu , with a 980ti.

My system apart from GPU was very simular to yours

Are you using triples too? Max / ultra settings?
If so, those fps are very very good.
24 AI is resource heavy too.

 

[Billy Pilgrim]

Have you checked CPU and GPU temps?

I'll check next time I race

 

[Kek700]

5760 x 1080 . I5 6600k, gtx980ti , brands hatch, on start, by the time the race is on its second lap
That figure is up to 144hz with dips down to 120 hz. But and this is a big but i now have to
deal with the occasional stutter initially in the race and micro stutter that i cannot see but i can sense.
I can give you my temps if you wish.

 

[Billy Pilgrim]

5760 x 1080 . I5 6600k, gtx980ti , brands hatch, on start, by the time the race is on its second lap
That figure is up to 144hz with dips down to 120 hz. But and this is a big but i now have to
deal with the occasional stutter initially in the race and micro stutter that i cannot see but i can sense.
I can give you my temps if you wish.

Holy mackerel! How can you have such good performance? You're getting way better than I am on a supposedly slower GPU and CPU.

 

[Kek700]

By constantly reading articles that @RasmusP has posted. “in which others have also contributed.”
and methodically applying those. If i had had to do it all myself, i woud have lost the will to live long ago.

 

[Billy Pilgrim]

By constantly reading articles that @RasmusP has posted. “in which others have also contributed.”
and methodically applying those. If i had had to do it all myself, i woud have lost the will to live long ago.

Where would I find those articles of @RasmusP 's?

 

[RasmusP]

Where would I find those articles of @RasmusP 's?

Do a search for posts containing words like fps, performance etc and set my name for the "posted by user" box. That's what I would do to find my own posts
Here's an example:
https://www.racedepartment.com/search/29342093/?q=Fps&o=date&c[user][0]=248219

But please select "most recent" instead of relevance. I wrote a lot of stuff without having a clue back then ..

 

[Kek700]

I did quite a few changes to the ini files, plus nvidia control panel and obviously AC setting.
Carefully selecting which settings made very little difference to the graphics quality but had
an impact on FPS. All i am interested in, online racing and a bit of AI.
So looking at a great static image is one thing but starring at a 5 cm moving image whilst
racing is another.
There are some great suggestions for improving the graphic quality via nvidia control
panel and by passing the game image settings that subtract FPS. I think i have mine all
off in the AC game settings.
It really was a couple of FPS here and there, done many times that really helped.
The problem with online racing, the number of background processes that need to run to be
online in racedepartment that are a killer.
I would love to list them all; most, all now forgotten. I would be somewhat buggered if i had
to completely reload AC. But at least i understand the process.
One point, watch your onscreen apps, also dormant apps, only use what is absolutely necessary.
You will be surprised how many they FPS collectively they eat.
That’s one problem with a powerful GPU, you become a bit over confident with it’s horse power.
Also, i did it over a protracted period, as soon as i read an update by @RasmusP , i read it,
looking for new information.
Again, just to say, this became more important when i had to drive 5760x1080.

 

[Jempy]

Mostly Apps ( except shadows and some graphics settings ) are the biggest FPS eaters .... just only activate the ones you absolutely need.
Even an activated App not visible on screen may still be working if it is activated and not displayed on screen.

Example: Ptracker ... even if this one is not displayed ... it still runs in background.
How do I know ? .... simply doing a better lap on the server Stracker ... makes hear the sound of a done best lap.

That's surely not the only one. .... as I suspect many more are doing the same. ( not sure for the Light shader patch and/or BLM Cars or Lights ).

NB: I'm also quite cautious with new Nvidia Updates. Mostly when I have a good one and see it working perfectly .... I don't update except if I absolutely need it.
No Nvidia update with Win10 updates and no Gforce Experience installed .... I mostly believe that driver updates may work very perfectly with new GPU but less or badly on little bit older GPU.
How to be sure a general driver has good effect on every GPU ? .... not sure at all.

 

[Billy Pilgrim]

I did quite a few changes to the ini files, plus nvidia control panel and obviously AC setting.
Carefully selecting which settings made very little difference to the graphics quality but had
an impact on FPS. All i am interested in, online racing and a bit of AI.
So looking at a great static image is one thing but starring at a 5 cm moving image whilst
racing is another.
There are some great suggestions for improving the graphic quality via nvidia control
panel and by passing the game image settings that subtract FPS. I think i have mine all
off in the AC game settings.
It really was a couple of FPS here and there, done many times that really helped.
The problem with online racing, the number of background processes that need to run to be
online in racedepartment that are a killer.
I would love to list them all; most, all now forgotten. I would be somewhat buggered if i had
to completely reload AC. But at least i understand the process.
One point, watch your onscreen apps, also dormant apps, only use what is absolutely necessary.
You will be surprised how many they FPS collectively they eat.
That’s one problem with a powerful GPU, you become a bit over confident with it’s horse power.
Also, i did it over a protracted period, as soon as i read an update by @RasmusP , i read it,
looking for new information.
Again, just to say, this became more important when i had to drive 5760x1080.

Thanks for the tips.I have hardly any activated apps and very few on screen (track map, essentials, and one other).I have the various Kunos apps (on the right of the screen) that I can access. Do these affect framerate too? If so, is there a way of turn them off?

When I monitor CPU and GPU usage, my GPU isn't at max, not even in the ninety percents so i'm assuming it's my CPU that's holding things up. Any tips for this? I noticed @RasmusP recommends turning down reflections. I tried this and it didn't seem to make a lot of difference. i'll give it another go though just in case.

You say:
There are some great suggestions for improving the graphic quality via nvidia control
panel and by passing the game image settings that subtract FPS. I think i have mine all
off in the AC game settings.
Could you give a bit more info? I had no idea such a thing was worthwhile.

Any tips would be most welcome

 

[RasmusP]

Regarding reflections: only the update rate is important. So I have them at static but with the highest quality.
Disabling shadows helps too but it's a bit... Well I like shadows

One great new thing I've come across is getting the custom shader pack, disable everything but "custom font rendering" with ticked hardware acceleration. Makes substanding only eat about 5 fps instead of 25 on a full server

 

[Dan Costa]

Personally, the approach that every problem has an explanation and a proper solution wears very thin after it happens constantly and i spend more time diagnosing FPS losses/stutters than actual racing. Specially since win10 and VR came onto the picture.
Free time with actual energy to spend comes at a premium, and I already spend my daily energy/attention quota doing that exact same approach in my day job taking care of a few hundred computers and servers, so I just said screw it and did the following:

• Two SSD's with two separate win10 installations. One is for everything else I play and do in the computer at home (general use; every game other than racing games; web browsing; movies etc).
• The other SSD only has windows 10 ver. 1809 with updates disabled by WUB tool and VR + Racing Sims + teamspeak and that is it. I even have a clone of this installation when everything is working right.

Windows 10 can be "great" at times, but man, I don't wan't it at my job and I don't wan't it at home. I lost count on how many Saturdays I have lost on performance problems. Modern PC gaming.

Edit: needless to say that even this approach is not immune to problems. The other day steam launched an update that disabled Odyssey+ when I was going to practice for a race. Man, chairs almost flew this time around the house such is the BS with modern pc gaming. People on PS4 only focus on roasting the other guys. Not us. This is a workload

 

[Case_]

I have the disadvantage of remembering quite distinctly without rose tinted glasses of nostalgia being involved on how PC gaming was "back in the day", and I'll certainly take the "modern pc gaming" any day over endless tweaking of extended/expanded memory, loading specific drivers through CONFIG.SYS (in specific order) and stuff like that, just to be able to (hopefully, maybe) start a game that never got any updates for any bugs or issues. And if you got lucky, your soundcard worked together with your mouse, even.

But yeah, the modern PC gaming sucks.

 

[Dan Costa]

I have the disadvantage of remembering quite distinctly without rose tinted glasses of nostalgia being involved on how PC gaming was "back in the day", and I'll certainly take the "modern pc gaming" any day over endless tweaking of extended/expanded memory, loading specific drivers through CONFIG.SYS (in specific order) and stuff like that, just to be able to (hopefully, maybe) start a game that never got any updates for any bugs or issues. And if you got lucky, your soundcard worked together with your mouse, even.

But yeah, the modern PC gaming sucks.

Mate, I lived through that stuff plus a plethora of even older school shenanigans that I remember fondly, but I was in high school and had all the time of the world.

The stuff I see today with windows 10, jesus man. In the old days, once working, stuff didn't just stop working out of the blue . Games were released in a form you could call "approximately finished product". Today, everytime I see windows updating when trying to restart, I fear for my free time. And when I buy a game today I know it may only work as intended a few months down the line, or even quite the opposite (to be working well out of the gate, and get rekt later on because developers want the gameplay to appease more to the noobs. See Battlefield5). This stuff was unthinkable and far far away from the future you and I imagined.
I can escape games from crazy millennial developers, but I cannot escape windows 10 and sudden 20fps drops out of the blue.

 

[RasmusP]

Mate, I lived through that stuff plus a plethora of even older school shenanigans that I remember fondly, but I was in high school and had all the time of the world.

The stuff I see today with windows 10, jesus man. In the old days, once working, stuff didn't just stop working out of the blue . Games were released in a form you could call "approximately finished product". Today, everytime I see windows updating when trying to restart, I fear for my free time. And when I buy a game today I know it may only work as intended a few months down the line, or even quite the opposite (to be working well out of the gate, and get rekt later on because developers want the gameplay to appease more to the noobs. See Battlefield5). This stuff was unthinkable and far far away from the future you and I imagined.
I can escape games from crazy millennial developers, but I cannot escape windows 10 and sudden 20fps drops out of the blue.

I have Windows 10 on my Surface Pro 3 as I need it for actual features but I'm on dual boot at my Desktop PC. Every now and then I use Win 10, update it, check if all is okay, see if I should do the move to it and then decide that I'll happily stay with my Win 7 until I can't any longer.
There's nothing better than coming home from university, wanting to quickly complete the task I didn't finish at uni, starting my Surface and see it standing still, fan going crazy, CPU load at 100%, WLAN at 100% and this thing getting hotter as I'd like for safety reasons lol.
Yep, my "usage time" isn't blocking updates any longer and I forgot that the 30 days of blocking updates are over again.
Seems like I'm gonna read a book until I can use this piece of crap again. And if I don't plug it in it will just go into standby and never finish... Or my battery will go down about 35% so I have to plug it in before finish my task...

Anyway, it rarely happens as of today since I switch my home WLAN into "costly network" or whatever it's called in English so it can't download updates and also always set an alarm in my calendar to remind me I'll have to update it manually and block it again for 30 days.
What annoys me is that Microsoft really tries to block the user from having an experience that won't bother him with workflow-crushing updating. Why can't there be pop-up 3 days before the 30 day blocking period ends, reminding you to update within 72h and set them again?

 

[Dan Costa]

Yeah the waste of our free time is just surreal. Before the WUB tool that disables updates entirely, I often spent my lunch times watching the update percentage instead of a netflix show I'm just getting too old for nonsense I guess.