Europa Universalis IV Sudden Lag. Possibly Fixed

[Yarhammer]

I don't know if this is the best place to put this, I'm not really reporting a bug or anything. Since the Wealth of Nations release and the patch updates, I've experienced a sudden increase in a dramatic slowing of the game to the point where it's difficult to play because of how laggy it is. I haven't really had a problem with lag in the game before. However, I think I may have fixed my problem.

This is probably a good idea anyway, but delete all of your unused save games. I haven't been doing it because I'm lazy, but in my attempts to fix my lag problems I decided to try. I don't know what effect this may have, but it seemed to help for me.

This will probably be the more dramatic change. I'm writing this from my use of Nvidia, so I'm not sure what the equivalent is, but if you right click on your desktop there will be an option for Nvidia Control Panel. Once you're in that, it should start on Manage 3D Settings. Change the 'preferred graphics processor' to 'High-performance NVIDIA Processor.' Then start up EUIV and see if the changes you've made actually work.

Again I wasn't sure where to put this and the changes that I made may not be useful other people, but it seemed to improve in my case. If anyone has anything further to add or anything please let me know.

 

[Yarhammer]

Hmm...now I'm not really sure if it did make a difference...it still is a good idea to delete saved games you're not using anymore or are outdated. I'm not sure that what I did with NVIDIA even helped, it may have made the problem worst.

I fiddled with the settings even more, making all my NVIDIA settings back to the default settings, and changed all of the EUIV settings to the default settings; changed the resolution to my desktop resolution, turned all of the settings to on, and changed my multisample level back to the default at 4 (I had changed it to 0 in hopes of increasing more performance). And suddenly, everything worked fine and the framerate was back to what I was used to. There's occasional stuttering if a lot of things are happening at once, but that was usual in my experience with the game.

I think I just overreacted to a sudden increase in lag, and all of my changes either had no effect or made things worse.

One more thing, in my brief internet research about the problem, some people haltingly recommended using your task manager to 'set priority' for the EUIV application, but these same people cautioned that this can cause instability with your computer. Well I tried it for EUIV, and while there is a noticeable improvement at first, whatever change it made is negligible, and if they're right that it can be detrimental to your computer, then it's not worth it to try.

Naturally, I did find that turning off everything in the game's settings (except for rivers. You definitely want to be able to see the rivers) does increase performance, but for me it's better to look at a slightly slower pretty map, than a slightly faster 'uglier' map.

Lesson learned. I shouldn't mess with things I don't understand. EUIV runs fine.

 

[Yarhammer]

Ok, one last revelation before I'm done with the lag topic, which I now definitively believe I've fixed.

The fix was actually quite easy, and is mentioned, I believe, as a recommendation on the tech support in the forums, which is to update your graphics drivers, and mine were a bit out of date. Performance improved, but there are still moments of lag, but those moments are getting closer to what I was used to before I noticed the problem. The game runs much more smoothly now, but while trying to fix the problem and playing after I think I've fixed it, I've noticed quite a few things.

1. For me at least, the game always runs smoothly right after I start it, and then (Civilization V players probably know this pain) the game will slow down as time goes on. However, Civilization V will always be slow in the late game, and whenever you load up where you left off it'll be slow, with EUIV, I've always started fine when I load a save game, and then it'll gradually get slower.

2. This is a bit obvious, but the game gets slower depending on what's going on. If you're in a war, with several allies and war partners and you moving their stuff around and you're moving your camera around the game's going to slow down a bit. If not as much stuff is going on, the game runs better.

3. It no longer matters what speed you've set the game, or if you're paused. I remember that when the game first came out, if you were experiencing lag, the easiest fix was to either pause the game for a few seconds and/or slow the game down. This no longer seems to be effective.

I'm not sure what more to add, but it definitely seems to be the safest bet to update your graphics drivers. I should mention that I use a laptop, and while I was searching the internet for other people's opinions on how to fix the problem, there were people saying that the issue is memory and also that, particularly if you're using a laptop, EUIV will use your internal graphics card, and not the graphics card you want it to use (in my case that would be NVIDIA). However, I have no idea how to check up on these, nor do I know how to check whether EUIV is using the graphics card I need it to use.

Sorry for the long post, but overall I've found that, like other people have said and the forum's tech support, updating your graphics card is the best solution, and, at least on my computer, there has been an increase in lag and slowing down of the game since the game's release.

 

[Yarhammer]

One last thing, and one more thing I've discovered. Again, this is going to seem obvious to people:

Not only should you check for updates on your graphics drivers, but if you've been having your computer on for several days at a time, turn off your computer and turn it on again. Performance for both EUIV and CKII went back to normal for me.

And yes, I just said turn it off and on again.

 

[Fryslan0109]

The only changes speed-wise that I've noticed with WoN is that the trade mapmode is a lot laggier than before. Besides that, while the game does occasionally slow down and then speed up, I suspect that it more due to the fact that my graphics card has been overheating a bit as of late.

 

[Yarhammer]

The only changes speed-wise that I've noticed with WoN is that the trade mapmode is a lot laggier than before. Besides that, while the game does occasionally slow down and then speed up, I suspect that it more due to the fact that my graphics card has been overheating a bit as of late.

One new change that has nothing to do with graphics that mildly annoys me (but is completely manageable and not a problem at all) is that before the update you could open up a trade node screen and there would be buttons/tabs to all of the trade nodes connected to that one, so that you could plan out where to send your merchants and light ships. Now you can just look at the trade mapmode to find that information. And you're right, there is lag on the trade mapmode, but that's kind of to be expected since there's so much moving parts for the trade mapmode.

 

[Mortac]

I had some slow down issues as well, and I'm not sure about the severity of yours (mine was quite minimal) but lowering the multisample level from 8 down to 4 solved it for me. I have a pretty good computer so it's odd to experience FPS drops in such a graphically simple game. Still, no more issues, and I don't have the latest drivers installed either (AMD).

 

[Yarhammer]

...But lowering the multisample level from 8 down to 4 solved it for me.

I lowered mine from 4 to 0.

I have a pretty good computer so it's odd to experience FPS drops in such a graphically simple game. Still, no more issues, and I don't have the latest drivers installed either (AMD).

Yeah, I'd highly recommend updating your drivers, there was an immediate improvement for me.

 

[Yarhammer]

Ok, well I both found and fixed my specific problem with lagging for Europa.

...If you are getting temperatures so high your machine slows itself down, you have a cooling problem and need to get it looked at. Either a fan is dead, or the air vents are blocked with duct, or the GPU heatsink is not installed properly, or you need a cooling pad....

It was my computer's fans and my computer was overheating, causing lagging...I think. But cleaning out the dust from my vents in the computer seemed to fix the problem. No more lagginess for me. Yay!

Edit: I checked around the tech support subforum to look for similar issues and piggybacked onto one. I hope it's ok to post from another thread and to quote a moderator, at least I think this person is a moderator.

 

[reesir]

I was having similar problems, I tried cleaning the dust. Another possible issue that seemed to work for me is the graphics card performance settings matching the same frame rate as EU4.

 

[Vulkandrache]

Dude, why.

 

[gigau]

Reminder : as a general rule, note that a thread without posts for several months, especially if dates back from before the previous DLC/patch release, should be left dormant.

Instead of necro'ing, create a new thread, possibly linking this thread for reference.