fps halved at certain places for no reason

Why does this sudden fps drop happen for no particular reason? I notice it happens more frequently upon entering a new instance that requires loading.



And why is it fixed when I do these steps?

1 - Set Shadow Quality: Off
2 - Click Apply Display Settings
3 - Click Revert



I want to understand what causes it, I want to prevent it from happening. I know these quick steps fixes it for the moment, but it will be bound to happen again.
Last edited by Xarick on Jan 28, 2016, 10:08:47 AM
Last bumped on Mar 20, 2016, 6:28:26 PM
This seems weirdly related to your latency. What networking mode are you using, Deterministic Lockstep or Predictive?

What happens with vsync turned off?
I'm using Lockstep (auto). I don't like to play with vsync off as the video card is uber noisy, but I'm trying vsync off for a while today to see if the issue happens in this mode.

EDIT: I just turned Vsync off, and the fps which was at normal 59-63 fps went down to 22-26. I'm at the Grand Arena level. In the small dark corridors, the fps is 22-26, in the arenas, the fps is over 100.

EDIT 2: The trick with turning shadows off, then reverting changes didn't fix this. Seems that the trick only works with vsync on.
Last edited by Xarick on Jan 29, 2016, 12:12:52 PM
Hi again. Yesterday I played with vsync off and it is also susceptible to the same fps drop. I had it as low as 22 fps, though it is harder to find the right spot in the area. To find exactly where it triggers the fps drop, I had to move the character around in very small steps to find where the fps drops. And it drops massively, from a steady 144 fps to a steady 26 fps.

I went further and investigated CPU and GPU usage during these occurences.

CPU usage is higher, ~19% and GPU usage is nearly none when I am in the spot causing 26 fps.
CPU usage is lower, ~12% and GPU usage is much higher when I am in the spot with 144 fps.
BUMP.

System specs:

Radeon Software Version - 16.1
Radeon Software Edition - Crimson
Graphics Chipset - AMD Radeon (TM) R9 390 Series
Memory Size - 8192 MB
Memory Type - GDDR5
Core Clock - 1025 MHz
Windows Version - Windows 10
System Memory - 8 GB
CPU Type - AMD FX(tm)-8150 Eight-Core Processor

Radeon Settings Version - 2015.1223.1060.19763
Driver Packaging Version - 15.301.1201-151223a-297971C
Provider - Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
2D Driver Version - 8.1.1.1533
Direct3D® Version - 9.14.10.1171
OpenGL® Version - 6.14.10.13417
OpenCL™ Version - 2.0.4.0
AMD Mantle Version - 9.1.10.99
AMD Mantle API Version - 98309
AMD Audio Driver Version - 10.0.0.2

Graphics Card Manufacturer - Powered by AMD
Graphics Chipset - AMD Radeon (TM) R9 390 Series
Device ID - 67B1
Vendor ID - 1002
SubSystem ID - 22BD
SubSystem Vendor ID - 1458
Revision ID - 80
Bus Type - PCI Express 3.0
Current Bus Settings - PCI Express 2.0 x16
BIOS Version - 015.049.000.002
BIOS Part Number - xxx-xxx-xxx
BIOS Date - 2015/06/05 08:22
Memory Size - 8192 MB
Memory Type - GDDR5
Memory Clock - 1500 MHz
Core Clock - 1025 MHz
Total Memory Bandwidth - 384 GByte/s
2D Driver File Path - /REGISTRY/MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001/Control/Class/{4d36e968-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}/0001
I have submitted a driver report issue to AMD with the following description:
"
Display Mode: Windowed Fullscreen
Resolution: 1920x1080
VSync: On
Shadow Quality: High
Antialiasing Quality: High
Texture Quality: High
Texture Filtering: 16x Anisotropic Filtering
Post Processing: On
Screen Shake: On

The issue isn't easy to replicate, and requires some time playing the game until it happens. Usually the game has lots of frame spikes in some levels where Necromancer (but not limited to just these) monsters spawn, like the Crypt in Act 2, or the Catacombs in Act 3. I get 59-63 fps normally with some spikes here and there, but some other times, this fps is halved to a constant of 29 or 46 or in some severe cases it can even go as low as 7 fps, in some portions of the area I am in. It increases input delay by too much, becoming almost impossible to control the character, stutter becomes very noticeable, even when there's no action taking place, when all monsters are killed. Sometimes moving a few screens away with the character, the fps goes back to normal, but if I go back to that place, the stutter returns. I used a tool named Process Explorer to see what seems to be happening to PathOfExile.exe process and it appears to be the driver module taking too much CPU usage when this situation occurs while the main process gets too little cpu usage. I wonder if AMD can do something about this, or if it's something that must be fixed by the game developers or by both parties. This issue has been happening for a very long time, but lately it's aggravating.


I don't even know if it's a driver issue, but nobody from GGG seems to answer. I've been trying to get some help for some time, but my posts end up unanswered.

My updated system specs:

Radeon Software Version - 16.3.1
Radeon Software Edition - Crimson
Graphics Chipset - AMD Radeon (TM) R9 390 Series
Memory Size - 8192 MB
Memory Type - GDDR5
Core Clock - 1025 MHz
Windows Version - Windows 10 (64 bit)
System Memory - 8 GB
CPU Type - AMD FX(tm)-8150 Eight-Core Processor

Radeon Settings Version - 2016.0314.1810.30700
Driver Packaging Version - 16.15.2111-160314a-300497E
Provider - Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
2D Driver Version - 8.1.1.1546
Direct3D® Version - 9.14.10.1183
OpenGL® Version - 6.14.10.13431
OpenCL™ Version - 2.0.6.0
AMD Mantle Version - 9.1.10.109
AMD Mantle API Version - 98309
AMD Audio Driver Version - 10.0.0.2

Graphics Card Manufacturer - Powered by AMD
Graphics Chipset - AMD Radeon (TM) R9 390 Series
Device ID - 67B1
Vendor ID - 1002
SubSystem ID - 22BD
SubSystem Vendor ID - 1458
Revision ID - 80
Bus Type - PCI Express 3.0
Current Bus Settings - PCI Express 2.0 x16
BIOS Version - 015.049.000.002
BIOS Part Number - xxx-xxx-xxx
BIOS Date - 2015/06/05 08:22
Memory Size - 8192 MB
Memory Type - GDDR5
Memory Clock - 1500 MHz
Core Clock - 1025 MHz
Total Memory Bandwidth - 384 GByte/s
2D Driver File Path - /REGISTRY/MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001/Control/Class/{4d36e968-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}/0001
Last edited by Xarick on Mar 20, 2016, 6:30:35 PM

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