Stuttering every second or so

Pondera

Newcomer

6 000g2g pts

9 years ago

Jun 22, 2015, 4:15:10 AM

As the title of this thread suggests, I'm having a strange problem with a stutter every second. It's smooth as glass most of the time, but one can count "thousand and one" and the game will hang for a half a second or so. It's enough to make one miss a button click. Altering graphics options seems to do nothing, nor does wrestling with the Nvidia control panel. Game is a very large world, started with 8 factions, 2 of which have been eliminated and the game has progressed to turn 148. Computer specs are as follows

Processor: intel(r) core(tm) i7-480k CPU @ 3.70 Ghz

Ram: 16.0 GB

System type: Windows 8, 64-bit OS

Graphics card: GeForce GTX Titan

Sigurre

Newcomer

Sigurre

Newcomer

9 years ago

Jun 22, 2015, 4:35:46 AM

I'm having the exact same problem. It's driving me nuts. My game is at turn 111, 8 factions on large world (none eliminated yet).

Processor: AMD A10-5800k APU 3.8 GHz (quad core)

RAM: 8 GB

System: Windows 7, 64-bit

Graphics: AMD Radeon R9 200 Series

Pondera

Newcomer

Pondera

Newcomer

6 000g2g pts

9 years ago

Jun 22, 2015, 6:29:54 AM

I recently used the task manager to set Endless Legend as high priority, and this really smoothed the game out. Not sure if it permanently fixed it, but it's definitely helping in my current play session.

Orderzero1243

Newcomer

Orderzero1243

Newcomer

100g2g pts

9 years ago

Jun 22, 2015, 8:51:23 PM

Same problem here. I run the game on highest settings perfectly, but when I get around 8 cities, I get a stutter about every 3 seconds. Adjusting grafix settings doesn't do anything, and trouble shooting hasn't helped.

my rig

I7 duel core 3.20 ghz

12 GB Ram

GeForce GTX 970

Windows 7

C:\Users\User\Documents\Endless Legend\Temporary Files\Diagnostics (2015'06'22 @1558'37'').html

Sigurre

Newcomer

Sigurre

Newcomer

9 years ago

Jun 23, 2015, 12:33:55 AM

Pondera wrote:
I recently used the task manager to set Endless Legend as high priority, and this really smoothed the game out. Not sure if it permanently fixed it, but it's definitely helping in my current play session.

Tried this, but saw no increase in performance. Normally I would attribute this to something like AI, since that's a CPU issue and not a graphics issue, but I don't think the AI runs checks every second, does it? CPU spikes between turns is expected, but not every second.

I tried playing a game with 6 players instead of 8, and a game speed of Normal instead of Endless, and everything ran smooth as butter. Going to try the game on Endless but with 6 players to see if it has to do with the number of players, or the game speed. I should also mention that I've been playing Cultists, so I only have one city. I also wasn't doing great, so I only had a few villages converted.

I don't think it has to do with city size, but potentially map size/number of players.

Sigurre

Newcomer

Sigurre

Newcomer

9 years ago

Jun 26, 2015, 1:33:33 AM

I can confirm that reducing the number of players from 8 to 6 resolved the issue. It may be possible that it could still be map size though, so I'm going to try a 6 player game on an 8 player map and see if it occurs. My CPU isn't the greatest, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's just stuttering while running calculations.

Agryppa

Newcomer

Agryppa

Newcomer

9 years ago

Jun 26, 2015, 4:58:26 PM

So, Sigurre, any news on that experiment? Same issue here, of course. Game runs smoothly till somewhere around 150 turns. Only recognizable pattern I can see is that it started when 8 cities became visible on my screen. That's 4 of mine and 4 of my neighbor's. No other zones or cities or players are visible at the moment. 8 player Huge map on Endless speed.

I'm about to start another thread echoing the same thing if this one doesn't get developer attention pronto. This is a little ridiculous, I mean, there's threads about this issue dating back to September of last year, and now we're halfway through the next. Every thread I've viewed has been a dead end. All solutions claimed haven't worked and any developer attention on those threads have just been asking for the OP to upload some system information... then they don't respond.

Anyway, rant over. My specs are:

Phenom X4 965 3.6Ghz

8Gb Corsair Vengeance 1866 RAM

EVGA GTX 980 SC

Windows 7 64bit

Edit: It's definitely possible that the issues from 2014 are something else entirely. This one appears to be recent. Sorry for the frustration.

Agryppa

Newcomer

Agryppa

Newcomer

9 years ago

Jun 26, 2015, 8:30:39 PM

So I decided to tough it out and play anyway. A few turns past 150, the stuttering got worse. It went from hitching every second to every half second, or so. But when I ended turn 156...

... it cleared up! No more stuttering. Really bizarre, but it's silky smooth again. So I reloaded a previous save and sure enough, the stuttering was back. When I resolved turn 156 again, it cleared up. So something is going on in the game world that was resolved somehow and thus, the stuttering went away. Or maybe some bizarre memory leak? The only visible event that occurred after turn 156 (when the stuttering went away) was that a Dredge finished building at one of my cities. Though, more than likely, it was something far less visible going on in the background. Could be any one of a thousand things.

It's been a couple dozen turns since and the stuttering hasn't returned. I hope it stays that way, but if it comes back, I'll post an update.

P.S. About 5 turns after the stuttering disappeared the game crashed. It was a driver crash. Nothing but a gray screen and sound. First time this has happened in a loooong time. No clue what's with all the instability but I'm just glad I might be able to finish this game.

Update: It's stuttering again.

Update 2: And one turn later it cleared up again...

Sigurre

Newcomer

Sigurre

Newcomer

9 years ago

Jun 26, 2015, 10:02:30 PM

I have been unable to test out the larger map yet, but I'll try and do it this weekend.

It's really interesting that it cleared up for you. Were any civilizations exterminated? It's possible that there could have been an army or a city that got disbanded/razed for whatever reason, which reduced CPU load.

Agryppa

Newcomer

Agryppa

Newcomer

9 years ago

Jun 27, 2015, 10:28:57 AM

That's possible. But I don't think it's the CPU. I believe it's something with the GPU. Why? Well, I've been running CPU monitoring software and everything looks nominal. Same with the GPU, but my GPU has always had the faintest coil whine and if you listen really closely you can hear it responding to different loads depending on what is going on in game. Whenever the game hitches, the GPU coil whine falls off completely. So essentially you can hear the GPU buzzing or whining in 1-second intervals. But strangely enough, GPU monitoring software shows no hitching happening in terms of GPU load, voltage, temperature, clock -- anything.

Anyway, I've returned to say that it came back.

Turn 287 and it was hitching every second again, but then a turn later it cleared up.

Sigurre

Newcomer

Sigurre

Newcomer

9 years ago

Jun 29, 2015, 9:34:25 PM

Playing a 6 player game on an 8 player (large, not huge) map. Around turn 100 and I haven't had any stuttering whatsoever. I guess we can attribute it to the number of players.

Interesting that the GPU whines. However since GPU monitoring doesn't show anything, and CPU monitoring doesn't show anything, you can't really rule out the CPU. That being said it means that we can add the GPU back into the possible culprits.

Agryppa

Newcomer

Agryppa

Newcomer

9 years ago

Jun 30, 2015, 7:24:40 PM

You are correct. I did a little research and it turns out that any activity at all, CPU stress included, can influence GPU whine. For anyone reading this comment though, don't forget, GPU whine isn't the issue of the thread (it actually doesn't indicate any issue with the GPU at all).

The issue is that, with more than 6 players present, the game seems to be exhibiting annoying hitching at regular intervals. Hopefully this gets some attention. Still doing it for me every now and then.

Sigurre

Newcomer

Sigurre

Newcomer

9 years ago

Jun 30, 2015, 10:28:50 PM

Whelp, my computer crashed and I had to reinstall Windows. So that's a thing. That being said it does provide an opportunity for me to do a test on a larger map and see if I encounter the same issues. Will report back when I do so. In the meantime everyone can just assume that the issue lies in the number of players.

Hope it gets the attention of Amplitude. Seems like lots of other people are having a similar issue.

DarkNexus

Newcomer

DarkNexus

Newcomer

28 400g2g pts

9 years ago

Aug 22, 2015, 1:19:15 PM

I think I found the cause.

/#/endless-legend/forum/13-tech-support/thread/5208-stuttering-jittering-fps-drops-every-second-or-two-explained

Stanley

Newcomer

Stanley

Newcomer

200g2g pts

9 years ago

Aug 23, 2015, 12:25:39 AM

Agryppa wrote:
That's possible. But I don't think it's the CPU. I believe it's something with the GPU. Why? Well, I've been running CPU monitoring software and everything looks nominal. Same with the GPU, but my GPU has always had the faintest coil whine and if you listen really closely you can hear it responding to different loads depending on what is going on in game. Whenever the game hitches, the GPU coil whine falls off completely. So essentially you can hear the GPU buzzing or whining in 1-second intervals. But strangely enough, GPU monitoring software shows no hitching happening in terms of GPU load, voltage, temperature, clock -- anything.

Anyway, I've returned to say that it came back.

Turn 287 and it was hitching every second again, but then a turn later it cleared up.

I have exactly the same thing. In my vaulters game I noticed it was stuttering around turn 100 or so (normal speed). It eventually cleared up though and ran fine for most the rest of the game. Sometimes I would get a turn where it was stuttering but it usually fixed itself upon hitting end turn.

Now I'm playing with the broken lords and it's been stuttering for about 10 turns straight, really annoying. I'm about 120 turns into a slow speed game, but I'm hoping it will clear up again like my vaulters game.

player1

Newcomer