Hey, I just bought PA and I realized that my frame rate was really low. I looked up how to improve performance on PA and I changed my NVIDIA settings, as well as in - game settings. It worked, however the more and more units I build, I get lag spikes. One moment the game is running smoothly, then the frame rate drops low. Usually, the frame rate will restore itself after a few seconds, but it always has another lag spike. The intervals between these spikes range form 5 to 15 seconds and they begin to occur when I have around 20 or 30 units. Does anyone know how to fix this issue?
Hi, firstly have you updated your graphics divers? Also there are a number of programmes that can cause this behaviour, e.g. msi afterburner. @DeathByDenim can give you details what software to look for. can you give specifics, what game mode are you playing? Skirmish, galactic war, multiplayer? Finally if possible can you post a Dxdiag so we can check your system for issues? Ps sorry for all the questions!
Usually, the lag spikes occur when I am battling in skirmish mode or galactic mode (Spikes occur whether actually in combat or not). I believe my graphics drivers are up to date, however I may be wrong. Also, here's my DxDiag:
There are actually newer drivers for your card (6 months newer). See here: http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/85817/en-us Also, do you have any software from the following list? http://steamcommunity.com/app/233250/discussions/2/558751813508748383/
I have none of the software on the list, but I do have McAfee, is there anyway McAfee might cause some issues. I will also update my graphics drivers and see if that will help with the lag.
Your graphics card performance might be a problem, the 720 is real bottom rung entry level stuff, it's not a lot of rendering power for 1080p... As an experiment, try changing your windows desktop resolution to 1366 x 768 and run the game (pa runs at whatever your screen is set to). If that cures the problem you may need to look at a more powerful graphics card...
Changing my desktop resolution did not fix the problem, (It may have gotten even worse). Something else I noticed playing this time was that the game has much bigger lag spikes when I press shift to queue tasks for my commander. Do you know what this might be caused by?
The wire frames that appear when you press shift need to be rendered then as well. That does cause lag. You can see it most clearly if you do a planet wide area build of metal storage for example. Can you press <Ctrl>+P during a test game and make a screen shot when a lag spike occurs? <Ctrl>+P cycles through the performance stats for the client, server and sim, in that order.
