LOW FRAME RATE DURING AI TURN

[ChanceBS]

Slow frame rate during AI turn. Quite annoying.
I have turned down optional graphic setting except for resolution (1680x1050) with no improvement.

This machine should have no problem running something like this. Operates high end game sims on top graphics with out issue.

AMD A8-5500 APU 3.2GHZ QUAD
R7 SERIES ATI VID CARD 1GB
16GB RAM
Win 8.1

Any ideas would be helpful.

Thanks
ChanceBS

[Myrddraal]

Hi ChanceBS,

You're right, with those specs you shouldn't have any issues...

I'm not sure, but this might help:

This hasn't been tested much yet, but there is a hotfix which allows you to disable the 'spinning flag' animation that plays during the AI turn:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lc8g1fvafc6ga ... a.zip?dl=0

This might help framerate at this stage of the game?

Probably a silly question, but do you have any other programs running in the background?

EDIT: once you install the hotfix, you'll find a new checkbox in the settings to disable the animation.

[ChanceBS]

Running perfect on a 1280 resolution. This is acceptable.

Probably a local issue here, but wanted you to know about it.

Thanks for the reply.

[dobrodukh]

Similar problem. During the turn the AI opponent has a strong slowdown.

[Cheetah25]

Also similar problem. Massive slow downs in AI Turns and also in Player Turns.

i7-4790k
GTX 980
16 RAM
Win 8.1

[VPaulus]

Where's the game installed?

[Greven]

Where's the best place to install it?...

[VPaulus]

In a local disk (non-external).
Also if you have in C:\Program Files (x86)\..., try installing in a different folder, like for example, C:\Games\....

[Greven]

O.k. Thanks.
Also, about the "spinning flag", I downloaded the script but where to put it exactly? I unzipped it in "data" but can't see the check box in settings when I restart the game....
Thanks for your help.
This is a great game! I have a lot of fun so far discovering everything. I'm already in New Guinea in the US campaign.

[Myrddraal]

Another tip: reducing the lighting quality has a big impact on the rending cost, but (I think) doesn't have a big impact on the quality of the visuals, so reducing the lighting quality is a good option.

Another point - if you're playing marathon sessions, maybe try restarting the game between every few scenarios.

Other general points - always check that your video drivers are fully up to date with the latest drivers from the video card manufacturers website.

[BHunterSEAL]

I'm relatively sure it's a CPU bottleneck issue. I have exactly the same problem. Not strictly speaking unplayable, but certainly enjoyable to watch the AI turn play through.

I use a program called ProcessLasso to monitor and tweak performance, during the AI turn OOB spikes to 100% across all 4 cores. I am going to try a few things (like limiting to 3 cores, etc.) to see what impact they have. I never had this problem in WH40k Armageddon or Panzer Corps.

[Myrddraal]

Hi all,

High CPU is certainly what you would expect to see during the AI turn. The AI runs asynchronously through many threads to take advantage of any available CPU cyles across all available cores to make it's calculations.

The AI runs on low CPU priority and should defer to the main game thread, so that even when the AI CPU usage is maxed out, the game should run smoothly (although AI and game share memory, so there is inevitably some impact, especially when it comes to garbage collection, but it shouldn't be caused by the high CPU usage).

However, given the reports from you, it's apparent that there is a noticeable impact for some players. Because of this, we are currently testing an optional performance setting which allows the game to throttle or completely interrupt AI calculations whilst the game is playing animations. If it helps, we'll include it in a patch.

Would any of you be willing to test this for us? It would be useful to have feedback from those who are experiencing the problem.

[terje439]

Another point - if you're playing marathon sessions, maybe try restarting the game between every few scenarios.

This is what I am suffering from. Why is that, seems almost like a good old fashioned memory leak?

[Dragoon.]

The hot fix didn't work for me, neither did disabling the spinning animation.
It happened to me again in Midway (USA). They tend to happen when it's the IA turn and there are a lot of planes I get slowdowns. When it happens the Taskmanager shows all my CPU cores spike to 100% (got an i7-4790k 4,4ghz). I can even hear my fans spinning up suddenly.
Interesting enough, I went immediately to the game options to test turning off spinning animations, but clicked on return to main menu first. My CPU cores stayed at 100%, I could my mouse was barely responding to my moves. Had to quit via ALT+F4.

[rafal71]

Hi all,

High CPU is certainly what you would expect to see during the AI turn. The AI runs asynchronously through many threads to take advantage of any available CPU cyles across all available cores to make it's calculations.

The AI runs on low CPU priority and should defer to the main game thread, so that even when the AI CPU usage is maxed out, the game should run smoothly (although AI and game share memory, so there is inevitably some impact, especially when it comes to garbage collection, but it shouldn't be caused by the high CPU usage).

However, given the reports from you, it's apparent that there is a noticeable impact for some players. Because of this, we are currently testing an optional performance setting which allows the game to throttle or completely interrupt AI calculations whilst the game is playing animations. If it helps, we'll include it in a patch.

Would any of you be willing to test this for us? It would be useful to have feedback from those who are experiencing the problem.

I will be happy to test it. I noticed the problem on both my laptop (I7) and my desktop (I5) both with 16GB ram and in case of my desktop 2GB Nvidia GPA.
I even tried to install the game directly on SSD, no much difference.

[BHunterSEAL]

I noticed that applying hard throttling via ProcessLasso leads to lower framerates at all times but more consistent performance during the AI turn. Limiting the game .exe to three cores had no discernible impact.

There are some other tweaks I didn't get around to trying, but I'd definitely be down to test a potential fix. I have a 4x2.0Ghz core 2 quad, 6 GB of RAM and a GTX 260M.

[Hurinowski]

Well, i guess it's something old fashionned like the already mentionned memory leak. Sometimes i alt+tab out to browse the forum during the ai turn, because i am bored of watching m-o-v-e-m-e-n-t-s and e-x-p-l-o-s-i-o-n-s in a slide show. But when i alt+tab back into game after like a minute the ai turn runs all over sudden very smoothly. Btw, I checked pause when game is not focussed.

[Myrddraal]

The AI calculations will continue even when the game is not in focus (but the animations will pause).

So by tabbing out of the game you are giving the AI a chance to do finish its calculations. When you tab back in, it plays out the animations for the moves it has decided.

Our hope is that an option to pause the AI calcs during animations will have the same effect. Watch this space.

[KLINK77]

I have been having the same low frame rate problem, but it carries on into my turn. It seems to happen more specifically when the engineers animation firing the flamethrower plays and/or and explosion occurs. The only thing that fixes it is saving and then closing and restarting the game entirely. After several turns(maybe 5-7) it happens again on my turn. I have tried lowering all settings and the same thing happens. It does feel like a memory leak, but I'm not certain.

On a side note, I am loving the game.I really enjoy playing the Japanese campaign so far. I hope you guys can fix this issue though. Its kind of a pain playing long sessions like this.

[ChanceBS]

Still having low frame rates here. Have the new patch and tried things mentioned here.
Software moved to SSD drive with no help.

One possible variable not mentioned. Is "Steam" a commonality among the peep having low frame rates.
I open the sim through "Steam". I dont have this problem with other sims on steam.

Thanks