Sharp FPS Drops - Most Custom Maps Not All

[HowDoYouDo]

I have been playing Gold Crest Valley for a while now and run it at 120 FPS with little to no FPS drops. If I have 6 or so workers going at once it will drop to 110 but other than that my FPS is a solid 120.

I am starting to look at custom maps to play on modhub via the in game mod tab and on about 60% of them when moving around every 25-100 meters my FPS will drop from 120 to 90 or so and then right back up to 120. How often this occurs varies by map.

For example on the West Coast this happens every 25 meters but on East Coast Hills it rarely happens.

It seems like something is being loaded (even though I see nothing pop up on my screen) that cause the split second FPS drop. Even though its only for a second its vary jarring and makes me not want to play the map.

Does anyone else experience this? And if so does it get better with time due to some sort of caching? There are some custom maps that I would like to play but with these drops I cant as its visually too jarring.

My system specs are:

i7-7700K @ 4.5 Ghz
GTX 1080
32 GB Ram
SATA SSD
Win10

[fcdrifter13]

So maps do not have good LODs, you can try to set your processor to high priority in the task manager in the details tab. This helps a lot of my FPS issues on custom maps.

[Alagos]

I'd say you shouldn't complain with fps being 90+ oO
Most people would be happy if it was at 60

[don_apple]

@HowDoYouDo: Since you say it only happens on new maps you are trying and the FPS drops are very short I'm guessing that they occur because the game is building up the shader cache since the mod maps contain new textures etc.

You can find some tips on how to find out more what is causing these FPS drops in the following thread: viewtopic.php?f=893&t=124978&hilit=FPS#p983627

[HowDoYouDo]

@HowDoYouDo: Since you say it only happens on new maps you are trying and the FPS drops are very short I'm guessing that they occur because the game is building up the shader cache since the mod maps contain new textures etc.

You can find some tips on how to find out more what is causing these FPS drops in the following thread: viewtopic.php?f=893&t=124978&hilit=FPS#p983627

Thanks for the link to the thread. From what I am reading its up on the map maker to address the issue as it may have to do with how things are being loaded in so theres not much I can do on my end.

With regards to the shader cache, how long does that take to build?

[don_apple]

It takes until all the shaders for the map have been built

The general recommendation to make sure the shader cache contains all the shaders for a map is to completely explore the entire map twice, once during daytime and once at night.

If you activate the render stats by pressing F8 you can check the line 'Shaders built'. If this says at 0 then all shaders for the map are already in the shader cache, but if the number is growing then the game still needs to update the shader cache.

[HowDoYouDo]

It takes until all the shaders for the map have been built

The general recommendation to make sure the shader cache contains all the shaders for a map is to completely explore the entire map twice, once during daytime and once at night.

If you activate the render stats by pressing F8 you can check the line 'Shaders built'. If this says at 0 then all shaders for the map are already in the shader cache, but if the number is growing then the game still needs to update the shader cache.

Fair enough on the "when its done" . Thanks for the tip about using the F8 key, I noticed that as I drove around things got better so it would appear to be a caching thing on at least some of the maps.

Thanks again for the help.

Edit: When I hit F8 nothing pops up, is there something I need to enable in the settings for the stats to show?

[Guil]

You need to open the game.xml and look for console and change it to true. You can use some like notepad++ to edit the xml. Game.xml can be found in the same folder as the log.

[Smith Modding]

So maps do not have good LODs, you can try to set your processor to high priority in the task manager in the details tab. This helps a lot of my FPS issues on custom maps.

How does one set the processor to high priority?

[fcdrifter13]

So maps do not have good LODs, you can try to set your processor to high priority in the task manager in the details tab. This helps a lot of my FPS issues on custom maps.

How does one set the processor to high priority?

go to your task manager, under the details tab find farming simulator and right click its icon and set priority to high, only do this after you are loaded into the map because the main screen is like a separate thing and it wont take, you have to do this every time you play though so keep it in mind.

[W1der]

I had some similar issues with "sharp frame drops" ... actually it was beahaving exactly as you describe it.

"Sadly" I found a solution that works really well.
Setting my screen to 59Hz (not 60Hz) made my game super steady with a rock solid 60FPS.

I find this really strange as my system should be able to handle this game without any problems and usually does.
Even if the frame rate did not drop below 60 FPS it was enough to irritate me as I noticed the "flickering" in the screen.

I have learned to live with having my screen set to 59Hz ... but I do "imagine" that my eyes are getting "tired" from it.

[Rbk_3]

I find the unlocked frame rate fluctuates wildly. Are you playing on a 144hz monitor? If not, it doesn't really matter, lock it to 60fps, otherwise you'll be getting crazy screen tearing.

[W1der]

I am playing on a 144Hz monitor.

The strange thing about my finding is that even with screen set to 60Hz I get the same issue.
But not at 59Hz.