Hi Eleventh Hour Games team and community,
I wanted to share a comprehensive performance analysis I recently conducted on my system. Like many players with high-end rigs, I was experiencing severe FPS drops and micro-stutters during high-density endgame content (especially during Omen windows), often dropping from 160+ FPS down to 20-50 FPS.
I spent the last few days running extensive hardware and software diagnostics using HWiNFO64 logging to pinpoint exactly where the bottleneck occurs. I hope this data helps the team with future engine optimizations.
My System Specifications:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X
- GPU: Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti EAGLE (12GB)
- RAM: 32GB DDR5 (DOCP enabled, stable at 6000 MT/s)
- Monitor: 1440p @ 165Hz (G-Sync/FreeSync enabled)
Step 1: Hardware & BIOS Optimization (Ruling out Thermal Throttling)
Initially, my CPU was hitting 98°C and thermal throttling. I optimized the BIOS by applying a Curve Optimizer (-15) and a hard Thermal Limit (90°C). Result: The CPU is now running perfectly stable, boosting correctly, and no longer thermal throttling (averaging 89°C under heavy load). RAM is perfectly utilized. Hardware bottleneck completely ruled out.
Step 2: Software & Game Settings Testing
With the hardware running flawlessly, I ran several HWiNFO logs to test different variables:
- Core Affinity (CCD Latency): Since the 7900X has two CCDs, I forced the game to run only on Cores 0-11 to prevent cross-CCD latency. Result: Marginal improvement in 1% lows, but the core issue remained.
- Launch Options: Tested
-force -d3d11. Result: No measurable difference in average FPS or 1% lows. - Graphics Settings (Ultra vs. Minimum): Whether on absolute Minimum or Ultra settings, the severe FPS drops remained identical. During the heavy FPS drops (down to ~50 FPS), my RTX 4070 Ti was sitting at only 35% to 45% usage.
Step 3: Finding the true Engine Bottleneck
Since the GPU was basically sleeping, it became obvious this was a strict CPU/Engine calculation bottleneck (the engine struggling with the sheer amount of math per frame).
I was finally able to stabilize my FPS and achieve an average of 107 FPS (with 1% lows around 46 FPS instead of 2 FPS) by doing the following:
- Setting Shadows, Volumetric Lighting, and VFX Quality to VERY LOW (This had the biggest impact, relieving the CPU of pre-rendering physics/lighting calculations).
- Extremely Strict Loot Filter (Hiding all unnecessary items).
- Disabling Damage Numbers and Enemy Health Bars (This provided a marginal, but welcome, improvement to stability).
- Unequipping Cosmetic Pets (I removed the cosmetic hand and the new season’s animal pet. While I don’t have isolated metrics for this specific change, it noticeably helped with overall stability).
- Note: I kept Textures, Anti-Aliasing, and Ambient Occlusion on ULTRA, as the GPU can easily handle them without dropping frames.
Conclusion
The data clearly shows that the current iteration of the game engine struggles heavily with calculation density on the primary CPU thread. High-end GPUs are severely bottlenecked because they are constantly waiting for the CPU to finish math calculations. This issue is heavily exacerbated when playing builds that involve a massive amount of on-screen effects, frequent hits, and ailments.
I absolutely love the game and the direction it’s heading. I hope this technical breakdown provides some useful metrics for the engineering team as they continue to refactor and optimize the engine in future Cycles!
I have attached my raw HWiNFO .CSV logs directly to this post so your engineering team can review the raw data. I am also fully available to run additional tests or try specific configurations if needed.
Keep up the great work.
logfiles.zip (377.0 KB)