Just to see if it'd make my stuttering better.

Nope.

In fact, not only did I have stuttering, it took a couple of minutes to complete loading of the terrain. This is also new.

I am *not* using a SSD. I expect the game to be fully loaded at the end of a load bar, not 2 minutes after the game loads.

Moving it to my SSD is not an option, the game is too big now. Your update increased the size a lot. I'm afraid for release size.

Ideas? Or am I just pooched til next patch?

I think by full release if you want to have this game installed on an SSD you'll need one entirely devoted to JUST the game. Patch 6 was insane it added 20 gigs to the thing.

Yeah I have a few games installed on it already and one of them is 80 gigs(Skyrim, 68 gigs of that is mods lol). Having my MMOs not on the SSD is a no go. I have two installed. I only have a 500 gig SSD.

Wrath of the Righteous, Diablo 3 and Baldur's Gate 3 are installed on my 1 TB HDD. I had no problems loading with Vulkan, but the performance was trash. Now the loading with DX11 is trash.

They got a lot of optimizing they need to do.

Have you tried lowering your graphic settings?
They did add a ton of stuff to graphics, so even if you haven't changed settings from patch 5 it might just be too much for your graphic card.

My graphics card is well above the requirements. And it's doing this regardless of settings.

Recommended:

OS: Windows 10 64-bit
Processor: Intel i7 4770k / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB / AMD RX580
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 150 GB available space

I'm using a 2060.

It ran completely fine during the nautilloid, and no hiccups on cinematics like I thought there'd be.

Soon as I get on the beach it takes forever to load after getting in game and I'm down to slideshow fps.

I think many games these days rely on streaming data from the drive and so if you are not using an SSD you will experience issues like missing assets and pop-in.

SSD's are cheap as chips (fries if you're outside the UK) these days, so go out and get yourself one asap

I have one. It doesn't have enough room on it anymore.

Vulkan loads just fine, but ran at slideshow fps.

Thankfully I do not experience any kind of prolonged stuttering, but I have noticed it under certain graphically demanding circumstances, such as mid-spell casting with lots of enemies on screen + zoomed in. I too swapped to DX11 and I have more consistent performance with my RTX 2080 Super.

On Vulkan it would start off reasonably fine, but after about 30 mins to an hour worth of play, the frame rate would gradually dip. I can exacerbate the issue by adjusting the display options once I notice the FPS dropping, and then it drops more and more each time I change and save the settings. This is especially noticeable if I continually switch from Borderless to Fullscreen.

DX11 does not exhibit this problem.

dude, you can get 1TB SSD for like 70 bucks

Same issue with DX11, super long pop-in time for textures and models. Takes about 30-45 seconds to actually have my character model load, landscape can take up to a minute. Vulkan runs like butter in the tutorial, turns to trash on the beach. The FPS drops with Vulkan on the beach make it unplayable, but the textures actually load in much faster.

And I can void my warranty by opening the case to install it.

I'm not buying another SSD.

This game does not take time to load on Vulkan, only Direct X. That's a problem and I'm reporting it. If you're going to get snarky, I'm just going to ignore you.

It shouldn't void your warranty opening a PC case, PC's and laptops are modular and designed to be upgraded. If your manufacturer or place of purchase is saying you can't use a primary function of the device you bought under the penalty of your warranty being void, you should challenge it.

This one is meant to be shipped back for upgrades by the company.

Still, the answer is no.

It should not take minutes to load in. No other game I own that is installed on that drive does this, and vulkan does not have this problem at all. I'd just run Vulkan instead, but the slideshow performance needs fixed first.

Quit trying to get me to get another drive I don't need.

Geeze no need to be defensive, not everyone knows how to install an SSD.

There's no helping some people!

I know how to install one, I'm just irritated than the solution anyone gives is to do so.

If I never mentioned that detail, I'd probably get actual answers.

Likely the reason is as I mentioned earlier, games are now streaming textures directly from the drive, so if you're using an HDD it causes the game to run slower with lots of pop in and missing assets.

I'm sure that BG3 has a host of other issues to go along with that though aswell.

I'm actually going to go test this on my laptop, which is running the game off a SSD. The battery has been dead for a few days and I haven't thought to charge it(oops) so I haven't tested it.

I fully expect the same problems, however.

I gotta install some more on it anyway.

Super interesting, let us know the results, you're likely correct that missing limbs and heads etc wont be fixed, but I bet there is a marked improvement elsewhere.

Can I move my saves over or do I have to restart? Spent most of my time updating the game (wasn't plugged in so the thing throttled me for whatever reason).

If I gotta restart I'll do it tomorrow. I had 0 issues on the nautilloid. And I need to figure out the "highlight everything" button. Can't find it in settings and my keyboard is different so I'm not sure which it is(Nordic keyboard). Don't remember what it is on my pc offhand. Ugh.

I'll update tomorrow after I figure it out.

I was looking at prices for SSDs and they're like 120 bucks for 1TB here. If I want a Samsung it's closer to 400. Stupid Sweden costing more than the US(prices were converted, I'm an American expat).

It is the Alt key on a US keyboard so I'd assume same or equivalent on a Nordic one. Don't know what those look like so I'm guessing/assuming. That is what highlights bodies and some containers and loot lying about. I wish it did more.

I run the game off SSD and I don't have the pop-in problem so there may be something to the drive you're using being a part of the problem. A lack of optimization in the streaming of assets from the drive by Larian is likely the rest of it. Defragging the drive and making sure of no bad sectors might help a tiny bit if they are issues the drive actually has but I have very low expectations there. You may just be stuck waiting for Larian to fix the problem or at least make it tolerable before you can play the game on that system again.

Maybe.

I haven't had the time to get through the tutorial again on my other computer to test that out. Ugh. So busy.

I've spent a ton of money getting ready for a trip to the US and really didn't want to have to fork out another 120 bucks for a new SSD.

My sympathies. It is just what my hardware knowledge suggests is going on with that system. I hope your other unit performs better. And if you're headed to the US, maybe you can snag a SSD while you're here at a better price than in Sweden if you have the time to do so.

Maybe, but I'm not headed til June. Got an order coming soon from the tech store, might just throw a NVMe drive in it despite my better judgment.