Stuttering while exploring

gpfwestie

I made a video to try and explain what I mean.

My PC spec is currently -

AMD FX8300
GTX 960 (2Gb)
8Gb RAM
SSD

I've tried 16Gb Ram (no difference) and have already upgraded from an AMD FX4100 (no difference). I'd like to get the game to run smoothly, but I don't want to spend more money if it doesn't fix it.

What I don't get is, neither my CPU or GPU are showing anything like 100% utilisation, so what is the problem ?

gpfwestie

Oh, the worst part of stuttering is at about 2:04 where it shows about 7-8 FPS for a second or two. Just when I'm coming back into the creep vines.

0x6A7232

Is Subnautica installed on the SSD or just the OS?

gpfwestie

I moved it onto the SSD using Steam Mover - which just creates a symlink of the steamapps/common/Subnautica directory.

Looking at the video again, the stutter does seem to happen when moving into a new area, maybe the game engine only loads the textures and models it needs from disk when it needs them ?

gpfwestie

I looked into this a bit more, and noticed a correlation to disk activity on the files in

Subnautica/SNAppData/SavedGames/slot0000/CompiledOcteesCache

The disk activity goes up to about 7MB/s during the stuttering, compared with around 1KB/S normally. It's pretty big too, about 1.4GB of data in there.

I will try on a brand new game.

0x6A7232

gpfwestie wrote: »

I looked into this a bit more, and noticed a correlation to disk activity on the files in

Subnautica/SNAppData/SavedGames/slot0000/CompiledOcteesCache

The disk activity goes up to about 7MB/s during the stuttering, compared with around 1KB/S normally. It's pretty big too, about 1.4GB of data in there.

I will try on a brand new game.

Try wiping the CompiledOctreesCache to force the game to get a fresh copy (CompiledOctreesCache = world terrain).

gpfwestie

Brilliant, that fixed it. Thanks for the help !

Sennera

That folder holds a copy of ALL the terrain data for saves since terrain is voxel and subject to change under certain conditions (like crashing the Cyclops full-speed into a rock face), FYI. It seems that the game first loads fresh terrain from game files, unloads information about it to that save folder, then on return it reloads information from the save folder rather than game files. For some reason, loading saved terrain vs. fresh terrain makes a huge strain.

Deleting that folder undoes changes to the terrain, primarily alterations automatically made when you build a base piece into the ground, but if you're careful about building your base above the ground instead of inside the ground, it shouldn't become an issue ;D

0x6A7232

@Sennera base terraforming is no longer allowed (it won't let you build bases into the dirt, it places them above and drops legs).