Microstutters

[kukki]

Hello. When I've first played this game in ~2012, it was on a pc that could barely run it. Over time I've tweaked the files a lot and made it playable on the lowest settings. Since then I've built a decent pc and had several times tried jumping back in the game to check it out. Being able, now, to reliably run it at 100+ fps at max settings, one issue persisted. Every several seconds, the game seems to freeze for a ms or a few. It may not impact my playing performance, but it prevents me from enjoying the game. It doesn't feel smooth. Granted, this is a fresh install, with no .ini tweaks. 

Perhaps any of the remaining veterans are familiar with what I'm talking about and are able to pinpoint which graphics or performance option could be the culprit and what could be the fix for it, if any?

Cheers.

[Spoiled]

What are your specs? 
 

[Dasimoge]

APB is running on 32bit.

Wait till UE3.5 goes live and it will run on 64bit. (Better performance)

[TheSxW]

@kukki

and turn off "One frame lag" or something simillar maybe this will helps you out (eventually vsync and other features crap)

Edited May 20, 2019 by TheSxW

[kukki]

Holy shit, I need a degree to run this game. I've subjected myself to 3500 hours of sub 30fps playdoh graphics of this, I'm not gonna suffer a minute of this if it won't run at 120fps without freezing. See you when UE 4.0 is out, I heard it's being deployed Q1 2015.

[FakeBungo]

5 hours ago, kukki said:

Holy shit, I need a degree to run this game. I've subjected myself to 3500 hours of sub 30fps playdoh graphics of this, I'm not gonna suffer a minute of this if it won't run at 120fps without freezing. See you when UE 4.0 is out, I heard it's being deployed Q1 2015.

The stutters are caused by the servers, little orbit hasn't fixed this problem for over a year now.

[jerycho]

6 hours ago, largeAPBgamer said:

The stutters are caused by the servers, little orbit hasn't fixed this problem for over a year now.

Please stop spreading bullshoot misinformation. Better servers won't make the game run better for you. Unless you are talking about rubber banding which I saw but like a week ago once happen. It is true that the game is badly optimised but the servers have nothing to do with that.

Edited June 7, 2019 by jerycho

[AsgerLund]

I remember reducing microstutters by disabling File Indexing and Windows Search Service:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=246361373

 

However that was on an ancient HDD, so I have no idea if it has any effect on newer hardware.

[BlatMan]

It's because the garbage collection system can't keep up with APB's sloppy code. By default, it runs every 60s and clears up unused memory.  There's tons of memory leaks. There's also been a lot of new content added which uses more memory. Faster RAM can help reduce the stutters.

 

You can limit the garbage collector in the config files, but it has a downside. The garbage collector will run less, but when it does run it will stutter harder due to there being more memory to clear. You may also get an out of memory error if it's set too high or if you swap districts often.

 

- Goto APB Reloaded\Engine\Config\

- Open the file BaseEngine.ini.

- Find TimeBetweenPurgingPendingKillObjects=60

- The value is in seconds, change it to 120 or higher.

[kukki]

On 6/10/2019 at 4:59 AM, SquirrelFace said:

 

DDR4 2666mHz 2x8
Any microstutters whatsoever are unacceptable.

[TheSxW]

@SquirrelFace

my friend finds that long time abo that messing with TimeBetweenPurgingPendingKillObjects and GarbageCollectionMemoryCeilingGb option which is setted by default to 9.9 will help with stutters alot

for example:

TimeBetweenPurgingPendingKillObjects=1800

GarbageCollectionMemoryCeilingGb=3.0

additionally use launch command "-NoVerifyGC"

Edited July 8, 2019 by TheSxW

[BlatMan]

I tried changing that setting a while back. It would cause the game to freeze for 2-5 seconds when that limit was reached. Not the best way to go about it but I guess it's better than microstutters every minute. If you have more than 8GB of system RAM, you probably won't benefit from it.

 

I just ran a few benchmarks in FRAPS using that launch command. This is on about a full waterfront district. I drove the same path around Brittany Bloodrose, avoiding hitting pedestrians. The NoVerifyGC test had more combat in the area, so the results may not be 100% accurate. I didn't notice anything obvious between the two going by feel, and the benchmarks are about the same.
 

Default:

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
 38466,    300000,  87, 146, 128.220

 

-NoVerifyGC:

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
 37408,    300000,  88, 146, 124.693

Edited July 9, 2019 by SquirrelFace