[0.9.8][PC] Performance issues (large fps drops)

[Magikaas]

I don't know if it's something on my computer that's causing it or some settings, but I frequently get framerate drops to 30 or even 15 randomly, with no real apparent reason, I have turned off any unnecessary background processes and have given the game higher priority, but it does not seem to fix anything.

Are there minimum and preferred hardware specs for this game or does it still need a performance update?

I am running on a third gen i5 with SLI'd GTX580s, so hardware wise I shouldn't be bottlenecking.

If anyone has any ideas of what I may be doing wrong or what I could try to fix these issues, please let me know, because as the game's overall speed is linked to the framerate, the game itself slows down to a crawl whenever the framerate drops.

[Gammro]

Does it happen every few minutes? Because that might be the autosave that's eating at your performance. I'd increase the time between autosaves and see if it happens less often.

If it is that, an SSD or a RAMdisk(Dimmdrive can do this easily) might help to improve the situation.

[Magikaas]

I have an SSD, that's what I am playing it from, but I will increase the frequency of autosaves.

Thanks for the suggestions

[MF-]

Yeah, increasing the autosave rate seems like a very good idea for SSD owners.

[Magikaas]

Oops, I meant decrease, but I haven't noticed any difference =/

[Sedado77]

I also have the same problem from time to time... and what's funny is that I play Factorio both at home and at work.
@home: Core i7, 12GB Ram, SLI MSIGTX460 1GB(each), 2 Vertex3 SSD in RAID0... x64
The game sometimes slows to a crawl, not while saving... mainly when radar discovers a new grid.

@work: Core2Duo, 4GB Ram, Intel Integrated Grafics and HDD... x32
Only slows down when autosaving.

I feel retarded
Is there maybe some issue with SLI?
Anyone else with issues?

[Magikaas]

I've turned SLI off, to support a third screen, so that shouldn't be the issue then. But It has sort of lightened up, though it's still super slow if any flash embed is running in an active browser tab.