Entering new sectors low fps

[Pisti]

Hi,

maybe this has alredy been discussed / resolved, but I had no success in finding anything so far.

So I usually have around 20-35-ish FPS ( full map unlocked, loads of satellites , lots of ships, so I basically accepted my fate - old intel i5 CPU ) .

BUT- FPS dropping to 0-4 FPS when entering a new sector every time , it's a bit strange and quite frustrating. Could not find any solution so far. X4 is installed on SSD, wiht the abouve mentioned Intel i5.
Old PC, I know. But then the "normal" fps shouldn't be 20-35 either, after spending some time in a sector. So it's a loading assets issue, but how can it be, when the game is installed on an SSD ,it should be superfast ,no ?

I do have a few mods, but the issue persisted even when those were disabled.

I'm not an IT guy , so, please, if anyone can help, I'd very much appreciate it.

Thank You in advance.

[CBJ]

First of all, if you have mods installed then you are going to need to reproduce this in an unmodified game (not just your current modified save with the mods disabled) otherwise we can only assume that the mods are indeed the cause of the problem.

Second, if you can reproduce it in a completely unmodified game as above, then you need to give us some information to work with if you want us to help. The very first thread at the top of the forum, entitled "Technical Support Requests - Please read this before posting!", tells you what information you need to provide and explains how to provide it.

[Pisti]

First of all, apologies ,

I always forget these instructions before posting.
So I did dxdiag, vulkaninfo , can You tell me a site where I could upload them ? I'm not used to doing this, have no idea which site is good and safe enough.
I have a savegame file, but it is - as You said, NOT a completely new game, but a current one, with disabled mods.
I don't know if I should disable ALL the DLCs installed for a proper unmodded game ? Furthermore, If I start a comlpetely new game, I'll see way less sectors on the map, no satelites, no 10000 ships, I'm around 720 hours into the game... how will that help ?

BTW, the version is 7.10 ( 538965 ) , started the Untested Explorer campaign, waay back.
PS : this FPS drop happens in every scenario, where are more than one stations, ships. And always, regardless of what kind of ship, what speed and who's piloting. Except for the "empty" sectors, there the fps drops to around 10-12 and grows back up way faster ,than in more populated sectors.

Thank You again

[CBJ]

...or ideally you can upload the data to a reputable public fileshare site (a few examples are Google Drive, DropBox or PasteBin, etc)...

You don't need to disable DLCs, only third party mods. And you're right that a savegame with only a few sectors revealed may not exhibit the same problems, but one of the risks of using mods is that they can make unknown changes to the game, making it impossible for us to provide support on issues with games that use them.

[Scoob]

May I suggest something to try? This helped me when I ran in to a similar issue some time back (5.x IIRC) in a heavily modified game. I'd get "zero fps" moments during gameplay, often as I switch my view / teleported / transitioned sectors. I.e. I'd go to F3 view on a distant station and I'd get the freeze for a moment. A ship / fleet would come into range and I'd get the same issue. It could also happen when entering a new sector, especially if there was a fleet or station in the immediate area.

Anyway, what helped was running the game in HIGH Priority, rather than the default Normal. This actually sees the game more aggressively hold on to stuff in RAM. Doing this, I'd see the game using significantly more RAM - especially during a longer session - but these zero fps moments stopped.

I've not needed to do this for quite some time myself, but I have a better hardware than I did, and there have been dozens of Windows and Driver updates in the mean time. As your hardware is older, perhaps this "trick" will help? Worth a shot.

Note: I use a tool called Process Explorer, which is basically a Task Manager replacement. It allows me to right-click a task and set the Priority. As this worked great for me at the time, I created a little script to automatically launch the game High Priority. I can dig this up for you if you like? It definitely helped me when I was on weaker hardware, in a heavily modified game.

[Pisti]

Hi Scoob,

thanks for the tip, tried it, didn't work for me - strange, because it usually worked with other , demanding games in the past. But THX anyway.
So I did a short highway loop run in a completely new game without and mods enabled, new savegame, the issue remained, though not as bad, as it is in my old game.


Please let me know where to upload this savefile along with the Dxdiag and vulkaninfo files.

Thank You, have a great weekend

[Alan Phipps]

How/where/what when uploading things is all in the first Sticky on this forum.

[Pisti]

https://filetransfer.io/data-package/4b30tbuO#link

[Alan Phipps]

From your DxDiag, your Nvidia graphics driver (and hence Vulkan) is over a year out of date.

Also you have a Microsoft generic driver for your Realtek onboard sound chipset; get a Realtek driver from the Realtek driver update site or Windows driver cache.

Many of your Windows Error Reports seem to be with updating issues.

See if something here helps at all. Good luck.

[Pisti]

Well, never would've thought of that, 10000 thanks Alan !

[Alan Phipps]

Heh, I'll take all those thanks if they helped to solve the issue. If not then we can try something else.

[Pisti]

Unfortunately didn't help (((

Additional observations, might be of some help : when on capital ship bridge, the crew always reloads when I look around ( again, some kind of asset loading issue ? )
Also, when on capital ship bridge, not piloting, just watching, when it goes into new sector, the fps drop isn't that dramatic, sometimes it drops only to around 10-12.

[Alan Phipps]

Could you upload and link a new DxDiag made after the changes please?

[CBJ]

Additional observations, might be of some help : when on capital ship bridge, the crew always reloads when I look around ( again, some kind of asset loading issue ? )

This won't affect performance because assets are loaded on separate threads, but it does suggest that your GPU is running short of memory. With only 4GB of dedicated VRAM, my guess is that your in-game graphic settings are too high for your hardware to handle, and that you need to turn them down a bit. Adding your config.xml file to the list of files we can see might help someone spot which settings are likely to help the most.

[Pisti]

https://filetransfer.io/data-package/Pv1HFwb2#link

As for the graphic settings, I messed around a lot with them, didn't really affect the general gameplay...

[Alan Phipps]

Thanks for the new DxDiag.

You have found a Realtek sound driver but it is from 2017 and so very old. Get Realtek HD Audio Codec R2.83 for Win10 x64 dated 15 Aug 2024 from Realtek here.

Almost all of your Windows Error Reports are update issues apart from one uTorrent AppCrash.

[Pisti]

Hi, okay, I updated to that driver, the issue still remained... and what about that utorrent crash ? How does that come into play ? I mean I bought the game on steam and every DLC to it.. ?

https://filetransfer.io/data-package/0uXYPoyC#link

[Alan Phipps]

That's odd, the new DxDiag run today still shows the same 2017 Realtek driver. The driver update should have first uninstalled the old driver (and perhaps asked for a system restart) before installing the new one.

[Pisti]

And that's exactly what it did ....restarted twice, once after the deletion of previous version, and once after the new installation.....

[Alan Phipps]

You are correct - I had a more detailed look at the ReadMe supporting the driver package. The R2.83 package contains the same main sound driver as the R2.82 package from 2017; just some of the supporting files in the package have been updated. I guess even Realtek use the approach that if it isn't broken then don't change it. Personally I still use Realtek but with my new system I use their USB Audio driver rather than their HD Audio Codec driver and so I didn't notice their continued use of the older main driver. Sorry for the confusion.