Severe frame drops during combat

I have a serious problem with frame drops during intense combats in the game. The game runs fine when nothing is happening but when too many things are happening it becomes a slideshow. Sometimes it also freezes for 3 - 5 seconds. This happens randomly and is a nightmare when it happens during a combat because the image is frozen but the game is still running as enemies are on top of me after it unfreezes.

This isn’t anything new as i have been searching for a solution for months and found many people on Reddit and other places reporting similar problems. I tried every single fix that i could find but nothing has helped so far. I have also tried reducing graphical settings to minimum but it makes no difference. So i decided to ask here for the sake of clarification: is my computer good enough to run the game? It’s a notebook with a Ryzen 7 2700U, Radeon 540 (2 GB) and 8 GB RAM. The Radeon Software says that it meets the requirements but at this point i’m not sure anymore. I know that the game runs on an outdated engine that forces the usage of a single core on a multi-core CPU which causes all sorts of issues. I’m pretty sure this is what is causing the problem but i just want to be sure about my specs and take this off my head. I don’t think anything will help at this point.

7th December 2018 stream:

Dragon_RW : Hi, will this engine still use a single core to do all processing?

Zantai: That is a misconception. I am well aware that the engine is heavily based on one core, it does not however run on a single core, it never has. We’ve actually made improvements to that over the years and it utilises additional cores more than it does many years ago. Could that be improved? With infinite resources anything can be improved, but there are diminishing returns.

Have you tried limiting the frame rate to 60fps? Tried running the game in the DX9 legacy mode? You could also try this and see if it helps.

Yes, i tried using external software to limit the frame rate to 60 but nothing changed. I also already tried the Core Switcher but the only thing that happens is that the game abandons the current overloaded core and jumps to another core and starts overloading that one. The frame losses continue to happen. One core is always getting overloaded which probably is the cause of all the issues.

I don’t think there’s any solutions left. I already tried everything else. CPU Affinity (this makes the game run a little better but doesn’t stop the frame drops), editing the INI for MaxResourceThreads, start up command lines (/nocommit), dx9 legacy mode (the game runs even worse in this case) and so on. The Core Switcher was my last hope but that didn’t help so…

What are your in-game settings at? You can just take a screenshot and drag’n’drop it into the forum post editor.


I’m not so familiar with AMD stuff but I did a comparison between your GPU and mine here:

https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-960-vs-AMD-Radeon-540/3165vsm316090

…and I’m very surprised to see that my GTX 960, even tho it’s at least 2 years older, destroys your card in performance.

Which leaves me wondering if you are simply just trying to run the settings higher than your card can truly handle in these heavier scenarios (your screen resolution matters here as well). I’m also curious if you are playing single or multi when these severe drops are happening.



Late Edit after reading your OP and pondering it some more

  • After closer reading it occurred to me you’re using a notebook. Which explains why your GPU doesn’t hold up to mine even tho it’s much newer than mine… annnnd it makes me wonder if this massive freezing is being caused by your laptop switching to the integrated card during these intensive moments.

Have you created an “Application Profile” for GD?
https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/dh-012#faq-Creating-Application-Profiles-

Have you set the profile for “High Performance”?
https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/dh-017#faq-Assigning-Switchable-Graphics-Mode-to-an-Application

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The newer versions of the Radeon Software don’t require a manual set up for a game profile. I already tried messing around with the settings following the recommendation of people in those solution threads that i found and nothing helped. I also made sure that the game run on the dedicated GPU. I went to the settings in Windows and set it up to high performance. Nothing changes.

These are my settings. I already tried putting everything at minimum, lowering the resolution and it doesn’t help. It only makes the game look awful so i gave up on doing that. Edit: Another thing is that i never play on battery energy because that can cause the system to switch to the other GPU.