Why am I only getting 20fps +-

[waynetarlton]

Can't understand it. Have I somehow locked the fps at a low rate ....
Have the setting on low quality and only getting 20 fps (+-) but
Ryzen 2700 at 15% usage and 40C,
RX570 at 22% usage and 36C
RAM 16GB 3200Mhz,
all on SSD.

Any ideas?

[X2-Illuminatus]

Game version? Mods? Dxdiag?

How (i.e. with what tools) are you measuring performance? Both ingame FPS and of your hardware. Does "Ryzen 2700 at 15%" mean that all cores are running at 15 %?
How advanced is your current game? Do you experience the same problems when starting a new game?
Since when do you get these FPS numbers?

[Imperial Good]

20 FPS with a fresh start is far too low. Even my ancient Intel I7 920 performed better with a fresh start and the Ryzen 7 2700 is a lot better in every way.

What OS? What resolution? Any way here are some suggestions to try, the order you try them in is up to you.

• Could just be the location you are at. Try flying to another sector. Some sectors just naturally perform like mud.
• Make sure X4 is running in exclusive full screen mode. Windowed modes can apply an artificial frame rate limit due to relying on the window composer to draw them.
• Some people have reported performance issues when multiple audio outputs are available, especially HDMI. Disable all other audio outputs at an OS level.
• Turn off overlays such as steam, discord, etc. These can negatively effect performance.
• Try the beta for 3.00. There have been some performance optimizations.
• Make sure your OS is up to date. Windows 10 has recently added kernel improvements which newer AMD chipset drivers kind of expect for optimal performance. This should only affect third generation Ryzen processors, but it might affect older ones as well.
• Make sure that the system power plan is set to balanced. If using Windows 10 it should no longer be required to set it to Ryzen Balanced, as Windows balanced has inherited the required properties and instead Ryzen Balanced is now intended for third generation Ryzen processors only. Any sort of energy saving other than balanced will potentially disable precision boost which will heavily impact performance.
• Make sure your AMD graphic drivers are up to date. If they are, then try using Display Driver Uninstaller to remove them and installing a version from a few months ago. Graphic drivers can make a huge difference with game performance. Both AMD and NVidia occasionally release ones with massive performance regressions for some tasks/games which are usually quickly patched but can end up installed on some users.
• Run a benchmark like Cinebench R20 and confirm that your Ryzen 7 2700 processor is performing approximately near or better than what other peoples Ryzen 2700s are. This includes both all core scores and single thread score. Compare against stock results.
• Make sure both motherboard BIOS and AMD chipset drivers are up to date. This is not done automatically. AMD patches in performance to some extent, which is why the latest version of both can make a significant difference to performance. Be aware that updating motherboard BIOS might reset motherboard settings to default, requiring any sort of overclock to be applied again.
• If overclocked, try disabling all overclocking and returning to stock performance. Overclocking does not necessarily improve performance, and with bad parameters can even degrade performance of some workloads.
• Second generation Ryzen was apparently very picky about memory timings and frequency as it required 1:1 sync with the infinity fabric. Try derating your memory to the maximum stock supported frequency. For the Ryzen 7 2700E this is DDR4-2666. For all other SKUs of Ryzen 7 2700 this is DDR4-2933. This is important for a proper "stock" test since 3200 is technically overclocking.
• If using multiple displays, try turning all off except the one used to play on.
• Make sure the RX570 has all the required power connectors plugged in. Even if it can in theory run with fewer plugged in, it might do so with a reduced power limit and hence reduced performance.
• Make sure the XMP profile for your memory is used. Even if a kit is rated at 3200 MHz, it will not automatically be so unless made so by using the XMP profile.
• Make sure the system memory is optimally installed. In your case ideally 2 single rank DDR4 sticks operating in dual channel mode using the ideal memory slots. 4 sticks in dual channel mode or double rank memory may support different, slower memory timings which are usually explained by motherboard documentation.
• Make sure the SSD has at least 20% free capacity. It should obtain a maximum queue depth random or large sequential read speed of over 600 MB/sec.
• Make sure the page file is enabled. Windows refers to this incorrectly as "virtual memory" in some of the settings. Contrary to misinformation spread by some, this will not significantly degrade SSD life in a system with sufficient memory as it will practically never be used. It almost always is required for correct and reliable system operation.
• The Ryzen 7 2700 appears to be made of multiple core clusters. Try limiting X4 to only running on a single core cluster. Specifically limit it to threads 0 to 7 (inclusive) and exclude it from threads 8 to 15. This reduces crosstalk between the clusters and so can improve performance with some poorly scaling applications. However this is more likely to reduce performance.

Does "Ryzen 2700 at 15%" mean that all cores are running at 15 %?

Probably average load. This corresponds to about 2.4 cores being loaded without any hyper thread cores being loaded. This is within what one would expect from X4. It will actually be using more cores/threads loaded with short tasks running in parallel resulting in low utilization of individual threads except for the 1-2 threads that do heavy lifting.

How (i.e. with what tools) are you measuring performance?

I am guessing the in game FPS display one can toggle on/off with a key press.

[waynetarlton]

Wow, major response. Thanks for going to all that.
I'm in process going through the list of things you've listed. Most of them I've already done but a few I hadn't thought of.
Thanks.