Re: Sudden Performance Drop: SWToR

@BAYoung

Could it be possible that you have not disabled the onboard GPU built into your CPU via your Bios? and that is what is actually running your swtor?

Your GT 240 isn't anything 'flash' but I would still expect a reasonable game play on medium with shadows off.

Being Windows 7, I would check to ensure that Windows Aero is off; as this is the Translucent visual effect for your Windows Task Bar at the bottom of your desktop, this will give you a night and day feel to your game play.

Turning off 'Overlay's' will be helpful also if you use any with your VOIP programs such as Mumble/TeamSpeak.

@ron_harmeling

Deleted DiskCacheArena and I got to about 10 minutes before it got as low as 5 fps.

This is quests on Nar Shadaa - graphics were set to default.

I did set the graphics to the lowest possible with no change; even AA and bloom and Shadows were off and the problem persists.

I have checked CPU and CPU temperatures and the highest recorded was 50 degrees Celsius which, as far as I know, is within acceptable levels.

I will attempt the clean install of display drivers tomorrow although I'm reliably lead to believe that a conflict between the Nvidia and the HD 4600 but at this point I'll try pretty much anything if it can get the game working like it should.

@DBWoodynz

All of your suggestions are plausible, although why would they suddenly start causing issues with only one game (as SWToR is the only game so affected) after 5-6 days of playing?

It was literally a case of the game running perfectly when I shut the PC off on Tuesday night, and then it ran terribly the next day for no apparent reason.

I still had Chrome and Skype open while playing from the 1st to the 6th. Even had Windows Aero on.

I'll try turning that off to see how it goes though I can't imagine why it would suddenly make a difference xD

I appreciate the input regardless and will follow up on your advice.

Yeah, 50 degrees is largely acceptable for both CPU and GPU. Beyond 90 is worrysome and may cause downclocking.

I have an odd feeling your game is somehow running on the HD 4600, which gives 5-10 fps on medium settings. Heck, it's even a slideshow on Low settings.

@ron_harmeling

I'm not sure I know how to disable the on-board via the BIOS; as a rule I stay out of there because I generally stuff something up regardless of what I do. So I'll just clean off the drivers I currently have for the Nvidia and do a fresh install.

Normally, NVidia Optimus will deal with the activation of the NVidia card, but for some odd reason sometimes the Intel driver doesn't let it do that. Doing a complete cleanup and reinstall of both drivers should fix the issue.

@ron_harmeling

I've found that half of the nvidia side programs, like the GeForce Experience, doesn't do much because my card isn't supported apparently; any reason to think Optimus would be?

BAYoung wrote:

Hey,

Latest test shows that the game starts off at 60+ fps and after 3-5 minutes of sitting idle (not even fighting or doing anything) fps drops to 20 and below; the highest I noted at this stage was 16 fps and the lowest was 5 fps.

@BAYoung

The Intel card is disabled according to the diag so shouldn't be an issue

Can you pull the side of the case off and blow a fan directly in

See if this affects the actual time before performance drop occurs

Have a check all the system fans are working

Just because the temps reported appear ok doesn't always equate this still isn't heat related

Worth looking at in my opinion

@BAYoung

Just to go a different tact your system only has 4GB Ram, will benefit going to 8GB

Shut down as much of the background programs as possible before playing, does the HDD appear to always be doing something ?

Look for Disk Thrashing this could affect performance if the page file is in heavy use

@proxos666

If only getting more memory was that simple; for various reasons it's not an option at this time.

There's a lot of read activity; star wars being the most of it while it's active. After a while, when idle, everything drops to below 50k B/sec with star wars swtor_main_bnk_streamed_a_1.tor and swtor_main_bnk_streamed_a_1.tor going to the high 100k B/sec.

The paging file does seem to be in heavy use though I have no idea if that's normal or not; we're kind of going beyond anything I've ever looked into before; it's reading often but the highest I saw it at was around 40k B/sec.

I would know if any of this is really high or what to do about it if it is.

@ron_harmeling

I did do a clean installation of my graphics drivers but that just seems to have made it worse; upon login today the game started at around 20 fps and it hasn't gone higher since at lowest graphic settings and in combat it drops to below 10.

Also Windows Aero is off and I had nothing on in the background that shouldn't have been there. All of which is kind of moot because I had loads in the background between the 1st and the 6th of October and the game still ran perfectly.

@BAYoung

Given the 4GB Ram , to get the best use I would recommend ditching the bitraider streaming version and switch to the non streaming

now this is a new game download initially but it is worth it , to remove bitraider running in the background.

once switched , you can use directions here to do a clean boot and free up as much as possible in order to get used by the game and stop pagefiling as often.

Another option is if you have a fast usb drive setup readyboost , it isn't a miracle cure to more memory but It may help a little.

See the post here how to disable bitraider if you want to give it a go.

Okay so I can't follow these instructions:

right mouse click on game shortcut and select open file location

open the launcher.settings file in notepad and locate the below line and edit to the below

, "PatchingMode": "{ \"swtor\": \"SSN\" }"
, "bitraider_disable": true

SAVE the changes.
Delete the BitRaider, Movie and Asset folders then start the launcher.

I can't open the right file and do anything in there. Notepad doesn't respond and MS Word shows gibberish.

@BAYoung

Try opening notepad and select file open and navigate to launcher.settings and open that way (will need to select all files extensions instead of just .txt)

This is just a txt file are you certain you have the right one called launcher.settings

@proxos666

Cool that worked; I don't have a bitraider folder though.

@BAYoung

Was the setting set as BR or SSN already maybe you already have the non streaming ?

In which case clean boot step will just work

@proxos666

"PatchingMode": "{ \"swtor\": \"SSN\" }"
, "bitraider_download_complete": { }
, "log_levels": "INFO,SSNFO,ERROR"
, "bitraider_disable": true

I changed the bitraider part

@BAYoung

Ok that means you are using non streaming already

good news is no new game download required

Play on a clean boot and see if any change

@proxos666

I'm reaching my wits end.

Clean boot didn't make any difference. Reinstalling my graphics drivers seems to have made it worse because now it starts at low FPS; updating those but it's a 20 minute download right now.

What else is there to do? I'm thinking a fresh install is in order right now and that's not something I want to do; it took 12 hours to update the most recent patch I can't imagine how long a fresh install would take.

I'm open to more ideas; I don't know what else to do. Nothing has worked so far.

@BAYoung

Are you playing any other games are they similar behavior ?

@BAYoung

1. Press the [Windows] Key + [R] at the same time.
2. Copy the following in to the text box and press ok:

@proxos666

Guild Wars 2 seems similarly affected. Presumably World of Warcraft would be as well.

Not sure why but CPU usage while updating GW 2 was 100%.

While in SWToR I opened Google Chrome to get to this page and CPU usage went to 100% again; before that CPU usage was around 50%

At the time of writing this post CPU usage with just google chrome open is 5% and Disk usage is minimal registering 1% highest active time over the last 60 seconds.

I deleted the client_settings file without any significant improvement in the problem.

Also, CPU usage while both Chrome and SWToR are active is around 78% at the time of the alt+tab and below 30% after a few seconds; Disk usage remains minimal.

@BAYoung

Run Malwarebytes or SpyBot just to be certain nothing else is affecting

Just uninstall them later if need

Sorry have to go 1 am here

@proxos666

No problem; will run those and let you know. Sleep well and thanks for all the help so far.

@proxos666

With World of Warcraft, Guild Wars and Star Wars having the same issue it doesn't look like it's a game related thing.

Games like Skyrim, Saint's Row 4, Mortal Kombat 9 and Oblivion are unaffected.

I cleared off a few files of adware and malware in my Temporary Internet Files.

CPU usage while in game is high at 80% or higher. 

I ran a check disk on both hard drives without any problems. Boot disk scan is going to be run overnight.

Disk defrags will be done within the next week but beyond that I don't know what else I can do; I want to reinstall my PC only as a last resort. I've considered system restore but there are no restore points to where I didn't have these issues.

I don't believe it's a hardware issue because, and this is supposition as I'm no expert, then all the games should be affected in some way even if SWToR, GW and WoW are the most demanding on my PC, but I do meet the recommended spec for those three games so there shouldn't be an issue. Reducing graphics settings doesn't help at all in either of the 3 games so I've restored the defaults.

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@BAYoung wrote:

@proxos666

With World of Warcraft, Guild Wars and Star Wars having the same issue it doesn't look like it's a game related thing.

Games like Skyrim, Saint's Row 4, Mortal Kombat 9 and Oblivion are unaffected.

CPU usage while in game is high at 80% or higher. 

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Have you confirmed what is using the CPU % when it occurs in task manager

proxos666 wrote:

Have you confirmed what is using the CPU % when it occurs in task manager

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Not exactly; it jumps around lot with the game in question using the majority of CPU; I narrowed it down to the paging file and avast anti-virus services. Just tested and it's just Star Wars or the other games using most of the CPU... just alt+tabbed now and CPU was 77% with Star Wars and Chrome using the most of it.

I test with Chrome open because I used to have Skype and a good few tabs of Chrome open while playing without incident.