[for 0.16] [0.15.4] Fairly serious framerate issues

[Malor]

I've been running Factorio for ages, and have a medium-sized factory. So far, in 0.15, it's been running as beautifully as it always does, until today's update. Suddenly, it's really janky and nasty when there's a lot of stuff on the screen, starting shortly after loading the factory. I've never seen Factorio do this, ever. Nothing has changed about my setup except the 15.4 update.

I tried running CoreTemp for awhile, just in case, and it maxed out at 65C.

Hardware: 4790K @ stock 4.0/4.4 GHz, GTX 970 stock (edit: with 381.65 drivers), 32 gigs DDR3-1600. Windows 7. Again, this has been running Factorio beautifully for at least a year.

One suggestion: I tried dropping my video ram usage to 'medium', and that seemed to delay the problem a little bit. (takes about thirty seconds to manifest after game start.) One possibility might be that you're somehow hitting the slow RAM on the 970? I'm not sure if it's slow enough to mess up a 2D game, but it's the only thing that's coming to mind. I don't see any other bug reports about FPS here, so I suspect it's something unique to my configuration... and the 970 does have that known slow-VRAM issue.

[Rseding91]

What graphics quality settings are you using? I've got a 970 myself and am having no problems with game performance.

Can you take a screenshot of the graphics settings and upload it here?

[Malor]

Ok, here are my graphic settings. The only things I remember changing were setting Sprite memory to high (when I first started 0.15, was working in 15.3), and just recently, turning the video memory down to Medium, when the choppiness started.

[Anyone]

I'm also having severe frame drop issues every once in awhile (0.15.0+). I'm mainly having this when zoomed out a bit and I'm near ore. Bigger patches cause a severe FPS drop, I also have this in my base (but again, I suspect the ore + miners), with smoke off. I noticed that in 15, the smoke is causing severe fps drops as well for me.

Edit: this illustrates the issue, pushing my GPU to 100% usage. Note that I'm hosting a game with 2 other people, which is fairly annoying as this is causing them to lag too.
- https://youtu.be/yvu4Tgs-YLU
- https://youtu.be/6k58aAH01EQ

Here are my settings:
- https://i.imgur.com/3OIQg1y.png

My graphics card is a GTX 680 and I'm running a i5 2500k at 4.5ghz.

[Rseding91]

Ok, here are my graphic settings. The only things I remember changing were setting Sprite memory to high (when I first started 0.15, was working in 15.3), and just recently, turning the video memory down to Medium, when the choppiness started.

Turn video memory usage to "all" - anything less reduce the game performance and I know for a fact the 970 can handle it - since I have one.

Also try disabling linear filtering on the icons - it may help.

[Rseding91]

I'm also having severe frame drop issues every once in awhile (0.15.0+). I'm mainly having this when zoomed out a bit and I'm near ore. Bigger patches cause a severe FPS drop, I also have this in my base (but again, I suspect the ore + miners), with smoke off. I noticed that in 15, the smoke is causing severe fps drops as well for me.

Edit: this illustrates the issue, pushing my GPU to 100% usage. Note that I'm hosting a game with 2 other people, which is fairly annoying as this is causing them to lag too.
- https://youtu.be/yvu4Tgs-YLU
- https://youtu.be/6k58aAH01EQ

Here are my settings:
- https://i.imgur.com/3OIQg1y.png

My graphics card is a GTX 680 and I'm running a i5 2500k at 4.5ghz.

If you're having FPS issues on the "high" graphics quality option and your GPU is at 100% load that means your GPU can't handle the high quality option - you'll have to use the normal setting or get a faster GPU.

[TK_Neg]

I've also been having issues since the 15.1 patch on both normal and high sprite resolution settings, high Vmem. I get some kind of framerate stuttering or noticeable drop in smootheness that happens seemingly whenever the notion occurs to it: low zoom, high zoom, in trees, in factory, riding the train, or even nothing nearby. one notable exception would be when using the zoomed in map.

To make matters worse the fps/ups tally doesn't change all that much. it'll stay within 57.3-60.1fps/ups.

intel i7-6700K 4.00GHz
M.2 Hard Drive
32gb ram
Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M

[Malor]

Yeah, that's almost my exact symptom, stuttering at random times, but frequent. It's never done this before, and I bet if I fall back to an old version, it will stop doing it again.

Remember, I didn't change anything except knocking sprite memory down to Medium. It was working gorgeously yesterday, and today it's messed up. I shouldn't need to be making any changes on my end.

[Harkonnen]

Please report VRAM amounts as well.

[Anyone]

I'm also having severe frame drop issues every once in awhile (0.15.0+). I'm mainly having this when zoomed out a bit and I'm near ore. Bigger patches cause a severe FPS drop, I also have this in my base (but again, I suspect the ore + miners), with smoke off. I noticed that in 15, the smoke is causing severe fps drops as well for me.

Edit: this illustrates the issue, pushing my GPU to 100% usage. Note that I'm hosting a game with 2 other people, which is fairly annoying as this is causing them to lag too.
- https://youtu.be/yvu4Tgs-YLU
- https://youtu.be/6k58aAH01EQ

Here are my settings:
- https://i.imgur.com/3OIQg1y.png

My graphics card is a GTX 680 and I'm running a i5 2500k at 4.5ghz.

If you're having FPS issues on the "high" graphics quality option and your GPU is at 100% load that means your GPU can't handle the high quality option - you'll have to use the normal setting or get a faster GPU.

No offense but it's running at fine at any given point, except that smoke and the mines lag it severely. in 0.14 I didn't have this issue with the mines, only the smoke, and it's not a memory issue either. You can tell in the video by the stats counters I've summoned to show that it's only GPU usage. My guess is that there's an issue with the ore causing this, because I don't always have it only with miners, but it does seem to amplify it and cause more issues. Not sure how I can proof this, I can join a big game and show it works just fine in any other location, would that be sufficient? I don't think it's my GPU, I think there's an issue in-game.

[TK_Neg]

Copypasta'd, VRAM added to bottom.


intel i7-6700K 4.00GHz
M.2 Hard Drive
32gb ram
Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M
4gb VRAM, plus 4gb shared system memory according to the properties menu.

[wahming]

Can testify, I'm having random drops to 30 FPS, under ALL conditions, even when zoomed in. No consistent map area. I've even lowered my settings from 0.14 to 0.15, so it's definitely not my hardware specs. It'll drop for 3-5 seconds, then pop back up to 60 FPS, even in the same spot. Max VRAM usage.

[Anyone]

I would like to add some details: I've tried running it without v-sync and that became 1 big stutterfest. I was zoomed in to where you can clearly see your chars pixels and a train passed by, my FPS stuttered like mad and when the train passed, went back to normal. Walking around caused terrible stuttering as well, up to a point where I had to restart and put v-sync back. I noticed from OP, that in the screenshot posted, v-sync was off. Could try it with v-sync on to see if that improves it.

[BlakeMW]

I had to turn off smoke to get smooth performance. Altough I think setting video memory to "All" might have solved that.

[Malor]

As a followup: turning on vsync fixes the problem. In other words: limiting the framerate *increases* the frame rate. Instead of constant micro-stuttering and frequent 30fpsish (I don't have a counter, I'm just guessing) performance, I get a nice steady 60 with vsync on.

Yet another rephrase, putting Factorio on idle for (relatively) long periods of time improves overall performance quite substantially. It looks like 15.2 and earlier, instead of the janky 15.3 and later. Something is Not Right in that and (so far) later versions.

I have a 970, so 3.5 gigs of VRAM, but only 3G that are really properly usable. I set VRAM usage up to "All", but that didn't seem to make any difference. It was originally on the default of High when it first broke, and I've tried both Medium and (now) All. Turning on vsync, however, instantly fixed it.

edit to add: it's quite unlikely to be a CPU problem, as CoreTemp shows a nice steady 65C. Whatever's going wrong here is probably somewhere in the video card, though I don't have an easy way to check its temp and usage. It's not OCed in any way, never has been. It's just a pure vanilla EVGA 970, run at pure vanilla clock speed, whatever that is.

[exi123]

I'm running in the same issues mentioned here. The game runs fine until the 0.15.6 update. Its a totally mess until today. The framerate drops down from 60 to 12 on my medium big factory. I got lag spikes (every 3-4 seconds a stand-still) in the early days, fixed them with switching to the medium sprites and it worked perfectly. Same with the lags: In 0.15.2 i switched v-sysnc off and the game runs perfectly... now i have to turn it off again?

So, when idling in my factory and NOTHING happens around me the framerates a falling, rising, falling. theres no reason for that. TBH: Im running factorio with an i7 4770, 16 gb ram and a gtx 960 gpu. that the ups are falling caused by the single core cpu at very big factories is accepted for a game in development. but that an gpu running modern 3d fps games with 100+ fps can not handle a 2d sprite-based gane is... no comment. if this is a bug and will be fixed it will be fine. even an "old" gtx 680 should be able to handle that.

And now i cant play further, becuase my pc-setup is to "slow" to catchup with my headless-server, running on an i3 6100 cpu... well...

*edit* saved the game from my server and started it as an singleplayer on my pc. the lags are there and the ups are down to 45. the factory isnt even big compared to the ones build in older versions an which reached that point way way later in the game

[Rseding91]

I'm running in the same issues mentioned here. The game runs fine until the 0.15.6 update. Its a totally mess until today. The framerate drops down from 60 to 12 on my medium big factory. I got lag spikes (every 3-4 seconds a stand-still) in the early days, fixed them with switching to the medium sprites and it worked perfectly. Same with the lags: In 0.15.2 i switched v-sysnc off and the game runs perfectly... now i have to turn it off again?

So, when idling in my factory and NOTHING happens around me the framerates a falling, rising, falling. theres no reason for that. TBH: Im running factorio with an i7 4770, 16 gb ram and a gtx 960 gpu. that the ups are falling caused by the single core cpu at very big factories is accepted for a game in development. but that an gpu running modern 3d fps games with 100+ fps can not handle a 2d sprite-based gane is... no comment. if this is a bug and will be fixed it will be fine. even an "old" gtx 680 should be able to handle that.

And now i cant play further, becuase my pc-setup is to "slow" to catchup with my headless-server, running on an i3 6100 cpu... well...

*edit* saved the game from my server and started it as an singleplayer on my pc. the lags are there and the ups are down to 45. the factory isnt even big compared to the ones build in older versions an which reached that point way way later in the game

Are you using the "high" quality option? If so, try the "normal".

As for UPS: feel free to upload your save file but it's probably 1 or 2 things: lots of belts or lots of biters.

[Rseding91]

*edit* saved the game from my server and started it as an singleplayer on my pc. the lags are there and the ups are down to 45. the factory isnt even big compared to the ones build in older versions an which reached that point way way later in the game

Also if you've got a 0.14 save file feel free to upload that one as well and I can test it compared to 0.15.

[exi123]

So, we use many bots and belts but play without biters at a peacefull mode...

[Harkonnen]

I've checked your save with core-i7-2670QM, 24Gb, GTX 570M (1.5Gb) - 5-year old gaming laptop. fps is at 60 at 1080p fullscreen, no stuttering have been noticed. UPS sometimes drops to 45, main consumer are belts. In my belts-optimized branch belts are x5 faster on this save, sorry for not putting it yet in 0.15 - comes soon. If that stuttering is update-related it could be due to one of mods, I did not check them.

What I did notice however with my rig in Win10 - I get terrible stuttering with --force-opengl switch, even in main menu - I think it's bad texture streaming in opengl drivers. Sprites are 'high', vram usage is 'high' (no difference for me with 'All'), even though not everything fits into 1.5gb vram that I have.