Performance since the patch has rendered the game unplayable

[SpectralShade]

Strange. How big is the file? Maybe it just takes a while to upload.
If all else fails you could always just upload it to a free file hosting service and post the link here.

file size was about 50MB but the dialog box opening when wanting to upload a file says it accepts up to 300Mb, so dunno why it doesn't upload it.

 

[ShaTiK]

I suppose I could do one. My game's never stuttered.

It's slow, yeah, but a perfectly smooth slow.

There is a very simple thing to do. Count, with a timer, how much time in seconds it take for a game to progress one month on 3 game speeds on your mid to late game save. Then start a new game with the same galaxy settings (size, AI, mods, all that stuff) and check again.
If you have less then 12 seconds for fastest speed in the lategame and no stuttering - well, congrats. You are among the lucky ones, I guess.

 

[jaerv]

Yes.. I think I experience roughly the same thing... obviously the game does calculation at every day tick that will have to do with mostly fleet movement.

When I run you save it run quite well without major issues at Normal speed and at Fast I start to experience some stutter at day ticks... it depends on how zoomed in on the map I am though. So it probably have something to do with displaying ship movement or something, the only thing I can think of when this happens. Hard to say.

Those spikes are there at earlier stages as well and you can sort of feel them, they are just not as high and gets more and more pronounced as a game goes on.

Yeah, I thought as much.
Again, thanks for taking the time.

So you actually do get the stuttering issues we're all talking about. Maybe in your game you haven't reached the game's breaking point yet, but it'll happen.
This savegame is only mid game, once you reach the year 2450+ it'll be unplayable, trust me.

Since the Le Guin update I had to abandon two campaigns because of this issue. Thereafter I've started multiple observer games (the savegame's from one of them), of which every single one showed the same problems at one point.

Obviously, alot depends on the pc's performance, and some people seem to be more sensitive to these performance issues than others, but at this point I'm certain that everyone is going to experience them sooner or later.

There's something wrong with the game and the devs have already admitted as much.

 

[SpectralShade]

ok. I created a vimeo account and managed to upload the video there

 

[jaerv]

ok. I created a vimeo account and managed to upload the video there

I appreciate the effort, but aside from the fact that the days are ticking by at an acceptable pace, the video doesn't really show us anything.

Most people here are complaining about a stutter that occurs on every day tick ( see my video and savegame, for example ), which you can't see when nothing is moving on screen...

EDIT: Would it be possible to upload a save file of this game? I'd like to give it a go on my machine. Thanks.

 

[Delta_Force]

I hope the next patch is dedicated towards performance fixes. I simply can't play Stellaris anymore, the performance is getting so bad for me even in small galaxies very few AIs. Before the update I was able to play on a huge galaxy with around 10 AIs but now it's impossible to beat the end game crisis simply because my fleet takes about 10 minutes to cross a single system since the FPS are down to 15 or even 10.
Playing in extremely small galaxies with 3 or 4 other empires is really boring... especially if even that does not run smoothly.

 

[SpectralShade]

I appreciate the effort, but aside from the fact that the days are ticking by at an acceptable pace, the video doesn't really show as anything.

Most people here are complaining about a stutter that occurs on every day tick ( see my video and savegame, for example ), which you can't see when nothing is moving on screen...

EDIT: Would it be possible to upload a save file of this game? I'd like to give it a go on my machine. Thanks.

I tried some experiments after watching your video.

I was able to force some "stutters" to happen if I was moving the screen fast accross the map while on fastest. No "stutters" while paused and the stutters didn't happen by itself on movement from a fleet alone (I tried following a fleet to mirror your video). The 'stutters' I can experience is only when moving the camera itself, not when stuff is moving.

It is not a scenario I ever find myself in while playing normally (trying to race the camera as fast as possible across the map of a system while zoomed in, as I usually play zoomed out to be able to see an entire system at a time).

So while it IS possible for me to force the issue to happen, it is not something I will ever notice during regular play since the issue only occurs to me in situations I don't normally experience.

I wouldn't really call what I experienced for 'stutters', though, as it seemed more like an inabilty of the screenupdate routine to be able to paint fast enough. No problems on paused, so it would lend credence to the theories about code being performed between screen updates.

Again: the thing I could force would not be from objects moving on the map, but only when I was trying to move the camera itself as fast as I could while on fastest game speed.

 

[jaerv]

I tried some experiments after watching your video.

I was able to force some "stutters" to happen if I was moving the screen fast accross the map while on fastest. No "stutters" while paused and the stutters didn't happen by itself on movement from a fleet alone (I tried following a fleet to mirror your video). The 'stutters' I can experience is only when moving the camera itself, not when stuff is moving.

It is not a scenario I ever find myself in while playing normally (trying to race the camera as fast as possible across the map of a system while zoomed in, as I usually play zoomed out to be able to see an entire system at a time).

So while it IS possible for me to force the issue to happen, it is not something I will ever notice during regular play since the issue only occurs to me in situations I don't normally experience.

I wouldn't really call what I experienced for 'stutters', though, as it seemed more like an inabilty of the screenupdate routine to be able to paint fast enough. No problems on paused, so it would lend credence to the theories about code being performed between screen updates.

Again: the thing I could force would not be from objects moving on the map, but only when I was trying to move the camera itself as fast as I could while on fastest game speed.

Very interesting.

I believe there are a lot of variables at play here.
Your system seems to be pretty high end, which obviously makes a huge difference.
Also, in my experience the severity of the problem and the time when it starts to occur can vary significantly from campaign to campaign. I've had games where the stutter only got really bad after the year 2450, and others where it started as early as 2350. No idea what the underlying causes are. It always starts at some point, though.

Of course a huge factor will be the overall galaxy configuration. And from what I could gather from the outliner in your video your fleets and population seem to be a good deal smaller than in my savegame. I'm sure this also influences the performance.

And of course there's the factor of play style. You obviously won't notice the stuttering as much when you're playing completely zoomed out most of the time, as you seem to be doing.
Me, I like to watch some battles from time to time, and that's where it gets very obvious late-game.

EDIT: If you've got the time it would be great if you, too, could give the savegame I've uploaded earlier a try. It would be very interesting to see how it runs for you.

 

[ShaTiK]

ok. I created a vimeo account and managed to upload the video there

That's actually quite interesting. For game to be able to go as fast as your's well into 2350.. Now I really want to see that save game - and, while we are at it - your PC specs. 'Cause that's some very solid performance, one that I, sadly, never really saw in 2.2 so far on my own PC.

 

[AlanC9]

There is a very simple thing to do. Count, with a timer, how much time in seconds it take for a game to progress one month on 3 game speeds on your mid to late game save. Then start a new game with the same galaxy settings (size, AI, mods, all that stuff) and check again.
If you have less then 12 seconds for fastest speed in the lategame and no stuttering - well, congrats. You are among the lucky ones, I guess.

Like I said, it's slow. About 16 seconds per month in the late game. My point was just that it doesn't stutter, not that it's acceptably fast

 

[SpectralShade]

trying to see if I can upload the savegame (considering it wasn't too keen on letting me upload the video )

My system specs:
OS: Win10 Home 64bit
Processor: intel i7-8700 cpu @ 3.20 GHz
Ram: 16 GB
GFX card: Nvidea GeForce GTX 1080

I can also see Stellaris is installed on my C: drive which is a solidstate drive, so that might be helpfull too in performance.

 

[SpectralShade]

Very interesting.

I believe there are a lot of variables at play here.
Your system seems to be pretty high end, which obviously makes a huge difference.
Also, in my experience the severity of the problem and the time when it starts to occur can vary significantly from campaign to campaign. I've had games where the stutter only got really bad after the year 2450, and others where it started as early as 2350. No idea what the underlying causes are. It always starts at some point, though.

Of course a huge factor will be the overall galaxy configuration. And from what I could gather from the outliner in your video your fleets and population seem to be a good deal smaller than in my savegame. I'm sure this also influences the performance.

And of course there's the factor of play style. You obviously won't notice the stuttering as much when you're playing completely zoomed out most of the time, as you seem to be doing.
Me, I like to watch some battles from time to time, and that's where it gets very obvious late-game.

EDIT: If you've got the time it would be great if you, too, could give the savegame I've uploaded earlier a try. It would be very interesting to see how it runs for you.

don't got Megacorp installed (I refused to buy it before they got things ironed out with balance and the AI). I tried running the savefile but was told I needed the DLC to be able to load that save.

 

[jaerv]

trying to see if I can upload the savegame (considering it wasn't too keen on letting me upload the video )

My system specs:
OS: Win10 Home 64bit
Processor: intel i7-8700 cpu @ 3.20 GHz
Ram: 16 GB
GFX card: Nvidea GeForce GTX 1080

I can also see Stellaris is installed on my C: drive which is a solidstate drive, so that might be helpfull too in performance.

Thank you for the save file.
I just gave it a test drive and I'm happy to report that it runs perfectly fine for me. Only veeeery minimal lag ( hardly noticeable ) when I'm following a fleet like in my video. The spikes in the frametime graph aren't even a third of those I'm seeing in my own savegame. The days are also ticking by very fast when I'm at fastest speed ( Not quite as fast as in your video, but your pc is a good deal better than mine, after all ).
If the game ran for me like this all the time I'd be a very happy camper!

Seems to me whatever happened that tanked the performance in my game hasn't happend in yours (yet?).
Very interesting.

don't got Megacorp installed (I refused to buy it before they got things ironed out with balance and the AI). I tried running the savefile but was told I needed the DLC to be able to load that save.

That's a shame. But thanks anyway for trying!

EDIT: Maybe the reason why this savegame runs so much better is that the Megacorp features aren't enabled in it, since you don't own the DLC?

 

[Glavius]

Try my mod. I've done a pretty massive overhaul of a lot of the biggest offenders when it comes to performance. It maybe an AI focused mod but there's a LOT of low hanging performance fruit that I've started to go after.

 

[jaerv]

Try my mod. I've done a pretty massive overhaul of a lot of the biggest offenders when it comes to performance. It maybe an AI focused mod but there's a LOT of low hanging performance fruit that I've started to go after.

I already did (latest version).
In an already existing game it doesn't seem to affect performance all that much, at least not to an extent that I could tell a difference.
Maybe a new game is required for the changes to take effect?
I think I'll let an observer game run over night with your mod enabled. I'm very curious whether the game will still be playable in late game.

Big fan of your mod, btw. Fantastic work!

 

[Glavius]

I already did (latest version).
In an already existing game it doesn't seem to affect performance all that much, at least not to an extent that I could tell a difference.
Maybe a new game is required for the changes to take effect?
I think I'll let an observer game run over night with your mod enabled. I'm very curious whether the game will still be playable in late game.

Big fan of your mod, btw. Fantastic work!

So a running game is going to take a while to show a performance benefit. Once the AI gets the planets moved over to what the mod is looking for they'll start costing less. What happens is a "perfect" planet no longer checks for new buildings to build, no longer checks to move pops, and no longer does a number of other checks. It instead checks for a much more simple things such as the planet having a missing pop, building in need of upgrade, and the like.

Running one from the start has a performance benefit throughout in that the mod AI builds what it needs to and then stops checking the planet until the planet has unemployment.

If you are going to let it run overnight I wouldn't mind seeing a comparison video between the mod and the vanilla performance. It would be nice to see how far they get in 1 or 2 hours of running.

 

[skymad]

I just did a test with suprising results. I started a game with gateways set to 0 and wormholes to 0,5x. It's past 2400 already during a war in heaven, there are no active gateways at all - game lags much less! It's still there but playable.

 

[jaerv]

So a running game is going to take a while to show a performance benefit. Once the AI gets the planets moved over to what the mod is looking for they'll start costing less. What happens is a "perfect" planet no longer checks for new buildings to build, no longer checks to move pops, and no longer does a number of other checks. It instead checks for a much more simple things such as the planet having a missing pop, building in need of upgrade, and the like.

Running one from the start has a performance benefit throughout in that the mod AI builds what it needs to and then stops checking the planet until the planet has unemployment.

If you are going to let it run overnight I wouldn't mind seeing a comparison video between the mod and the vanilla performance. It would be nice to see how far they get in 1 or 2 hours of running.

That sounds extremely promising!
Sure thing, I'm going to let it run overnight (hopefully it doesn't crash halfway through...) and report back with the results . I'll try to cobble together a video and I'll post a savegame in this thread.
Could take me some time though, I've got a pretty busy day tomorrow.

 

[ShaTiK]

trying to see if I can upload the savegame (considering it wasn't too keen on letting me upload the video )

My system specs:
OS: Win10 Home 64bit
Processor: intel i7-8700 cpu @ 3.20 GHz
Ram: 16 GB
GFX card: Nvidea GeForce GTX 1080

I can also see Stellaris is installed on my C: drive which is a solidstate drive, so that might be helpfull too in performance.

Would've loved to test this save, but apparently the lack of frigging cosmetic DLC's (along with Distant Starts Story pack, which is more important) is not allowing me to do that. Dam

 

[ShaTiK]

So a running game is going to take a while to show a performance benefit. Once the AI gets the planets moved over to what the mod is looking for they'll start costing less. What happens is a "perfect" planet no longer checks for new buildings to build, no longer checks to move pops, and no longer does a number of other checks. It instead checks for a much more simple things such as the planet having a missing pop, building in need of upgrade, and the like.

Running one from the start has a performance benefit throughout in that the mod AI builds what it needs to and then stops checking the planet until the planet has unemployment.

If you are going to let it run overnight I wouldn't mind seeing a comparison video between the mod and the vanilla performance. It would be nice to see how far they get in 1 or 2 hours of running.

Wow. Man, I have no idea what exactly was fixed, but I had a game form a few days back, with your mod, on beta branch. It was around 2320, on small galaxy, with default wormhole/gateway count for small galaxy. By 2320 game slowed down like 25% or even more. After your post I loaded that save and let it run for a year - and, it, dam it if it didn't fix the slowdown of game speed! Right now it takes 8 seconds on average for a month to finish. That's at least 40% more than what I was getting.
Thing is, it might be something else. This particular save was made right after a big war with Purifiers. Lots of fleets moving out, I got a planet, that is now in the process of modification and all other stuff is happening.
Still, looks extremely promising. Will run a new game for a large default galaxy with increased number of empires to test