FPS Dropping in maximized/Full screen mode

Technical Support
1

Hi,

I’ve been trying out the latest patch after having played LE last year, and this time, with the same computer specs, I’m getting FPS drops when playing fullscreen mode, or with a maximized windowed screen. I don’t have these issues when playing on windowed mode, while the screen is manually decreased to about 80% of the full display.

The issue manifests itself more pronouncedly when mobs spawn on screen, but it is also noticeable just walking around towns.

Here are some of the screen shots showcasing the issue with the top left FPS counter:

Small windowed screen (no FPS drops):
https://imgur.com/a/fAhRbDZ

Maximized windows mode (has FPS drops):
https://imgur.com/a/S1bxa4G

Fullscreen mode (also has FPS drops);
https://imgur.com/a/cUnTw0Y

As per the performance tech thread rules, here are the DxDiag and the le_graphicsmanager.ini files:

DxDiag.txt (65.8 KB)
le_graphicsmanager.ini (526 Bytes)

2

Welcome to the forum.

You are running the windowed mode at a smaller resolution than your fullscreen mode, which means less game pixels for the system to process so logically higher performance - i.e less FPS drops. So to me this simply means that the game is struggling at the higher resolution.

You havent provided your player.log so I cannot see if the game is logging that its having any issues wrt performance but based on the info you have provided there are a few things to note.

  • Your settings file is out of the normal order - this shouldnt make a difference, but there have been instances in the past with people returning to the game after a long time (missing patches inbetween) and the game having issues. I recommend you reset the settings to defaults by deleting the le_graphicsmanager.ini file while the game is not running. Once its running then you can re-adjust the settings. Note that if you want to run at 1440p, I would definitely recommend keeping the 60fps framerate limit AND enabling the background fps limit too. Because of the issues you are having, I wouldnt set the quality above Very Low and I would also recommend that you make sure all special features are on thier lowest settings or disabled. The key here is to find stable performance you are happy with, and then mess around so its best to start on the lowest options first.

  • You do not say if you are using the Steam version or not but I would recommend double checking that the install is ok by running Steams Game File verification option or reinstalling if you are using the standalone version (Steam is recommended by the Devs)

  • I see you are using a Laptop. You need to confirm and be very sure that you have the latest drivers and laptop specific applications running and that you are ONLY attempting to run LE in performance mode - this can make a huge difference to performance and stability in the game. I see from a quick check on MSI that there are bios and firmware updates for your system. No idea if these are involved, but you need to check.

  • On the same note, you need to ensure that the game is ONLY running on the 2080 GPU and not on the Intel 630 iGPU. You can manually do this in the Windows advanced settings or at the GPU driver level. This has been a problem with Laptops in the past - especially when not on performance mode.

  • The dxdiag seems to indicate that it crashed previously (end of the first section on System Information) - what was the cause of this crash? If dxdiag is crashing just doing a report then thats not a good sign.

  • I see your GPU driver is recent. Did you install this with an upgrade install or CLEAN install? This is very important as upgrade installs dont always address any driver issues that could happen due to corrupted driver files etc.

  • Note about the GPU driver - make sure that its not overriding any in-game settings - i.e. it could be forcing its own settings like framerate etc that could make a big difference if the game is trying to do something else.

  • LE is very CPU intensive in certain situations and will have FPS drops - especially if its already being taxed by higher resolution requirements as it has to then perform the required calcs and keep your GPU “fed”. Your comment about mobs is specifically one such situation and its important to realise that each additional load placed on the game will compound the issues.

  • The diagnostic section at the end of the dxdiag is showing that the MSI Dragon Centre application has crashed numerous times - this is something you need to resolve. There have been other players that have had issues with this software before. This is especially important if you are using it for any graphical settings.

  • More importantly, the diagnostics are reporting that your system is crashing dwm.exe. on kernelbase.dll. DWM is the Desktop Windows Manager and is a core windows application involved in handling windows based hardware accelleration, windowed modes and various interactions between your GPU and Windows OS. (you can Google for more info). No system should ever be having DWM.EXE errors and this could definitely be involved in your experiences with LE. This could be GPU driver related, it could be system file corruption or other things. I would recommend that (including reinstalling your GPU driver with a clean install) you run Using System File Checker in Windows - Microsoft Support to check if there are problems with your system files.

  • Temperature and power issues - have you monitored your system to see what temperatures and power draw are happening and if they are in spec? Older laptops collect dust and can overheat causing various issues - the least of which is throttling themselves to compensate and reducing overall performance.

  • Do not run any other applications while testing LE - doesnt matter how irrelevant you think they may be. Just do not run them to test if they are involved in the problems.

Thats about all I can think of right now. The player.log may have more info to work from.

3

Thanks for the comprehensive laundry list. Here follows the player log file, after I did a few of your suggestions: I deleted the le_graphicsmanager.ini, and I reduced the resolution:

Player.log (75.9 KB)

Also, from another thread, I disabled steam overlay (yes, I’m using the Steam version). Each and every single one of these things individually makes things better for sure, but nowhere close to the performance I was having 1 year ago (it was either patch 0.8.2 or 0.8.3). There are still frame drops when in combat. With all of these optimizations in place, even attacking the training dummy in town makes the FPS drop from 59 to 30.

The other points are interesting, but I’m confused: why I don’t have any FPS issues with other system intensive games such Path of Exile, Ori and the Will of the Wisps and Torchlight Infinite, but I do with the current patch of Last Epoch?

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I am assuming that this player.log is AFTER you changed things based on my suggestions? It is pretty much a standard debug file without any unexpected debug messages - it would be interesting to see what the previous one contained but they cycle so you probably dont have it.

Its important to know which exactly of my suggestions you have addressed/tried/monitored and confirmed. The dwm.exe errors for example - those are far more important than getting LE performance improvements as they point to an underlying problem with the OS. Its important to know if your GPU is throttling itself due to temps or anything else. Steam overlay is what I intended by not running anything else while testing LE.

Its impossible for me to speculate on the performance without resolving the issues first as they could very well be involved.

Comparing performance to 3 versions ago isnt useful as the game has changed a lot since then and who knows what has changed on your specific system since then either. Have you reinstalled your OS? Is the system still performing as it did then? Have there been any other issues since? Has there been any maintenance? Things like dxdiag crashing & dwm.exe errors are serious as they point to other problems.

Comparing LE to other games is only useful to say that your hardware is working. They were developed using different game engines, at different times, some have had years of optimisation after release. LE isnt even released yet - its a beta.

The key here is that LE is a beta product and is generally unoptimised performance wise - in certain instances and with certain settings, it behaves more like a benchmark than anything else. For instance, if you stress your GPU by chosing higher resolutions, quality or dont use an appropriate FPS limit, the game WILL have huge FPS spikes, freezes and can crash. If you, on the same hardware, drop settings to the point where the GPU always has enough headroom to handle busy in-game situations without staying at max, then the FPS drops will be less. This has been tested by many players for a long time now.

Add to this specific known issues that cause FPS drops and it becomes pretty obvious what is going on. E.g. having lots of minions running around or lots of mobs or on specific maps with lots of particle effects or using skills that proc a lot of visual effects OR even cause the CPU to calculate these effects applying to everything on the screen.

You do not say what you have settled your settings on right now, but what is your GPU usage and CPU usage are doing? Especially when you get the FPS drops?

BTW. I didnt notice before but you are also using an external monitor via displayport? What happens if you use the internal laptop monitor? Also, what configurations is the monitor applying? Is it on any special dynamic modes that affect refresh rates in any way?

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