Precaching areas - Stuttering

Ice_Ice_ Join Date: 2009-06-05 Member: 67700Members
Running a 5 year old PC here, it's an old i5 processor overclocked to 3.6 ghz, 8 gb ram and an old GTX 560 TI card.

The game runs smooth but it occasionally stutters (not running experimental graphic option). I notice this when moving forward in higher speeds or turning around sometimes, it's like the game is trying to precache the area I'm looking at (which I guess it does), it also happens in areas I've already been in but not just as much.

Comments

  • ConfusedConfused Wait. What? Join Date: 2003-01-28 Member: 12904Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester
    So, I am going to take a guess that you are running with a mechanical hard drive and that is the root cause basically the terrain is getting loaded and everything stutters a second if you get going too fast.

    How bad is the stutter? Like game breakingly bad or sort of annoying etc etc

    You should get a frame time graph from the f1 menu. You may need to press f8 to get a working mouse on the menu (I don't know if that is fixed right now or not) and check the frame times graph check box. and you should get a graph of how well SN is performing.
  • Ice_Ice_ Join Date: 2009-06-05 Member: 67700Members
    Yeah I use a mechanical harddrive (7200 rpm) and after the post I kinda thought about that because the harddrive activity was high during gameplay.
    The stutters can be game breaking, like I went into this cave and I met one of those kamikaze fishes. I instantly turned around trying to swim away but during the turning I got a stutter and the game thought I turned around 360 degrees, so instead of fleeing I swam into it, lol.
    This kind of thing doesn't happen that often but often enough to be annoying.

    Is there a way to precache the most common textures/models before actual gameplay (longer loading screen)? I noticed it stutters when corals etc. appears. Don't know if it's the actual model or the terrain causing the lags but I get the impression it's the objects.

    I'll try the frame time thingy when I get home from work, thanks :).
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    I also wonder if there is a way to precache much much more.
    Its a 64bit executable. For folk with much RAM it may be nice to shove more into that.

    I mean, I dont want to install every game I own on my SSD, but ive got gigs of RAM doing absolutely nothing atm.
    Yesyes, ramdrive is a option.. but still.
  • Ice_Ice_ Join Date: 2009-06-05 Member: 67700Members
    edited July 2015
    I couldn't find that time graph check box anywhere, only a button to stop the time graph thingy. I recorded a 2 min video of it though, 720p @ 60 fps (no sound):

    You'll see when it starts to lag like crazy and it happened 3 or 4 times during the 2 min video I think. There is also a FRAPS FPS counter in top right corner that'll "proove" it's actual in-game lag and not some faulty video error :).
  • Racer1Racer1 Join Date: 2002-11-22 Member: 9615Members
    Precaching more will only help for a while. As long as you are moving faster than the disk media can support, you will eventually see stuttering.

    Also, precaching more brings up the question of what should be precached.
    - The easy answer is to precache everything in a 360 sphere around the player -- but this means you more than cube the amount of memory used every time you double the distance (radius) cached.
    - Another answer could be to precache the area in the expected direction of the player, as it does not use nearly as much memory. But then you run into problems every time the player changes direction.

    There are also options like pre-caching a low-res version of the terrain, as that can be much less memory intensive. It will still look strange as you enter the area, but at least it wouldn't stutter like you described.
  • thenderofallthenderofall Texas Join Date: 2015-07-21 Member: 206315Members
    I have subnuatica installed on an SSD and I still have the same issues.
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    As ive talked about in my frametime topic, its not 'just' the disk.
    The disk is not doing all that much. It does not seem to be that much hardware related at all.
  • ConfusedConfused Wait. What? Join Date: 2003-01-28 Member: 12904Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester
    so watching that video of your problem, it looks a lot like a bug people used to get for ns2 where the executable would be periodically virus scanned while running.

    Any chance you can whitelist the game with your AV, and let us know if that helps.
  • thenderofallthenderofall Texas Join Date: 2015-07-21 Member: 206315Members
    Could Microsoft esstentials be scanning the .exe? I didn't thing MSE did that.
  • thenderofallthenderofall Texas Join Date: 2015-07-21 Member: 206315Members
    Me and Ice_ have the same processor I believe. I have the i5 2500k overclocked to 4.6 Ghz.
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    ive also excluded AV. :)
  • thenderofallthenderofall Texas Join Date: 2015-07-21 Member: 206315Members
    Honestly I think it has to do with the way the game processes/handles changes to the environment and what resources you have gathered. Each save seems to get worse worse the more I build or harvest. An area that I never touched runs well, but the more I harvest, 3D, store, or build in the area the worse the performance.

    For example I just got to the floating island and they ran great. Harvested sooo much quartz. Now traveling across the island causes bad lag.
  • Racer1Racer1 Join Date: 2002-11-22 Member: 9615Members
    This could also be caused by the game engine (Unity) doing garbage collection (freeing memory after an object is no longer in use).
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