Increased lag in city zones after update?

[kyothinks]

Hi y'all, here's hoping somebody can help me out. I'm running Homecoming on Win10, and after the most recent patch the game is nigh unplayable for me due to lag in city zones. I'm fine in small instances, but every time I zone out of an instance into a neighborhood I'm immediately dropping to <1 FPS. I was previously running full mothership raid instances on Ultra mode with no lag, so you can imagine how irritating this is. I've already tried verifying files, updating my graphics card, reducing my graphics settings to the lowest values, completely uninstalling and reinstalling the game...nothing. I haven't changed any of my hardware, and the only software change I can think of is the recent update that added the 64-bit client. I've tried using that, using regular mode, and using safe mode, and they all have the same issue. I checked to see if it was just happening on Everlasting, but it's happening across all servers. The only clue I have is that whenever I load into a city zone, the game suddenly starts pulling a ton of RAM for no apparent reason. I don't know how to stop it from doing that. Any ideas?

[Zep]

My performance degraded some too though not so drastically.

 

The experimental cell shader triples fps for me -- at a loss of some details. Can go though the settings and start lowered textures, shadows and the like.

 

What GPU and CPU are you using? What resolution do you play at?

[Apparition]

Yeah, something in the 08/27 patch lowered my FPS at times as well, but not all the time.  Not even most of the time.  Just enough to be noticeable.  It'll be normal the vast majority of the time... then *WHAM* 5 FPS for several seconds.  Then it goes back to normal.  It's like being in a Hamidon raid for a few seconds every ten minutes or so.

[Number Six]

Just now, Apparition said:

Yeah, something in the 08/27 patch lowered my FPS at times as well, but not all the time.  Not even most of the time.  Just enough to be noticeable.  It'll be normal the vast majority of the time... then *WHAM* 5 FPS for several seconds.  Then it goes back to normal.  It's like being in a Hamidon raid for a few seconds every ten minutes or so.

5fps sounds like the issue with the PhysX lock being held that is still happening intermittently, though not as much as before the hard sync requirements with the main thread were removed.

 

Try setting your particle physics quality to medium or low and see if that clears it up.

[kyothinks]

Turning down the particle effects and lowering the max particle count made a huge difference. It's not perfect, but it's playable, so I'll take it. Thanks all!

[Tahliah]

Yes, much increased lag.  Every zone has become like a loaded AP, and it's ungood.  I don't run Ultra mode on my laptop, so I'm not sure what I can do to fix it. 

[Korbian]

On 8/30/2019 at 5:48 PM, Tahliah said:

Yes, much increased lag.  Every zone has become like a loaded AP, and it's ungood.  I don't run Ultra mode on my laptop, so I'm not sure what I can do to fix it. 

How high is your anti-aliasing set?  Even monster computers have a hard time at the high settings.

[Tahliah]

10 hours ago, Korbian said:

How high is your anti-aliasing set?  Even monster computers have a hard time at the high settings.

I'm just a normal person, and I have no idea what you are asking me :(  Like many people who play games, I am not a techie, and I have no idea what most of you are talking about most of the time (but I do try to learn).  I do know that I am not running COH Homecoming on anything approaching a monster computer. 

 

I just noticed that the lag is bad.  I don't have the graphics maxed because I know I can't run them on this lappie, but I really can't address your question about anti-aliasing since I have no idea what that is.  Like most people, I just know lag and rubber-banding when I experience it; I don't fiddle with graphics settings (since I have no idea what most of it means, but I do know Ultra won't work on my laptop so don't run it).

 

This is kind of like the cockroach/mouse/rat thing: if you see one, there are (definitely) many more.  If I'm experiencing lag in every zone that feels and looks and acts like lag in a packed AP, then many others are, too.  It's probably not our fault since it wasn't happening before and most of us are just humming along not messing with settings and stuff (since we wouldn't know what to mess with anyway).

[Korbian]

1 hour ago, Tahliah said:

I'm just a normal person, and I have no idea what you are asking me 😞 Like many people who play games, I am not a techie, and I have no idea what most of you are talking about most of the time (but I do try to learn).  I do know that I am not running COH Homecoming on anything approaching a monster computer. 

 

I just noticed that the lag is bad.  I don't have the graphics maxed because I know I can't run them on this lappie, but I really can't address your question about anti-aliasing since I have no idea what that is.  Like most people, I just know lag and rubber-banding when I experience it; I don't fiddle with graphics settings (since I have no idea what most of it means, but I do know Ultra won't work on my laptop so don't run it).

 

This is kind of like the cockroach/mouse/rat thing: if you see one, there are (definitely) many more.  If I'm experiencing lag in every zone that feels and looks and acts like lag in a packed AP, then many others are, too.  It's probably not our fault since it wasn't happening before and most of us are just humming along not messing with settings and stuff (since we wouldn't know what to mess with anyway).

I hear you.  I'm not super techie either, but I do try to pass on what little wisdom I can glean from the smart folks around  here.

 

If you look under Options>Graphics one of the top settings above the Ultra Mode stuff one of them is called FSAA.  The F and S stand for big words I can't spell from memory, but the last two stand for anti-aliasing.  It's what makes the edges of your characters looks smooth instead of jagged around the edges.  If it's set too high it's the biggest cause of lag in my experience.

 

But, if you haven't adjusted any settings it wouldn't have just changed on its own.  So that probably isn't even it.  If you know your system specs or even just what kind/model of laptop it is, it might help pinpoint the issue.

 

Also, which version of the client are you using?  (Homecoming, Homecoming 64-bit, or Homecoming Safe Mode.)

[Tahliah]

On 9/3/2019 at 8:50 PM, Korbian said:

But, if you haven't adjusted any settings it wouldn't have just changed on its own.  So that probably isn't even it.  If you know your system specs or even just what kind/model of laptop it is, it might help pinpoint the issue.

 

Also, which version of the client are you using?  (Homecoming, Homecoming 64-bit, or Homecoming Safe Mode.)

It's a pretty old (like five years!) HP 17" laptop.  It runs Windows 10 (which I hate).  I tried running on Homecoming, but it was super duper laggy and would boot me out when I switched zones, so I switched to 64-bit, which is way better but often still laggy.  It doesn't boot me out, so I consider that a big plus.  :)

 

Thank you so much for your kindness in helping me.  I'm not sure it's my laptop, though, since all was well until the latest update.  I trust it will be addressed in future updates, though, so I'm not really worried about it right now.  (I'm just so happy to be back in our City!!)