Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General CPU Bottleneck issue

Just played a quick session and on my Core i7 (overclocked to 3.4Ghz) D:OS uses 3 cores at 50% and a fourth at 10% so it does seem multicore capable. I'm also getting <600MB VRAM usage with all options set to max at 2560x1600 resolution and framerates in the 40s.

For those seeing single-core usage, I can only suggest checking affinity settings. Start D:OS, Alt-Tab to the Windows Desktop, fire up Task Manager, look for EoCApp.exe in the Processes tab, right click on it and selecct "Set Affinity" and make sure that all the CPU boxes are checked.

If only one CPU box is checked, then review the affinity settings for Explorer.exe - they'll probably be the same and try to find the cause of its settings (changing affinity settings will only apply while the process is running so would have to be done repeatedly). Creating a shortcut for D:OS (EoCApp.exe) using the instructions here may suffice as a workaround in such a case.

Most games do so. I'm not at all surprised. To me, this behaviour is the normal case.

To me, you are acting as if you demand that pretty normal streets should be replaced by Formular 1 racing courses ...

That's just not true. I've written about that on my last post:

Unreal Engine 3/4 -> multicore optimized
Frostbyte Engine -> multicore optimized
CryEngine -> multicore optimized
Anvil/Ubisoft engines -> multicore optimized
Unity -> multicore optimized (if you want so)

And you want to tell me that "most games" do not use multiple cores? The engines mentioned above cover about at least 80% of all big PC games. Of course some small 2D indie games don't use them but often they also don't need them because they don't offer spectacular graphics that makes multicore optimization important.

But D:OS is no small indie game with crappy graphics. It's a big game with a modern engine which requires quite some hardware. That's the big difference...



It's strange that the engine uses 3 or 4 cores while using an i7 and one one or two cores when using a Xeon. They should use exactly the same since they are basically the same tech/CPU...

Same here:


My game lags when i moving camera in city and FSP are jumping . Stable FPS are about 30+ when i stop moving with camera.

Here is picture of CPU usage:
Only one core? Wtf?

GPU was about 60 % of usage and about 800MB VRAM.

I have Q9450 and GTX 660. So it should be OK.

As I posted in another thread referring to this one...

I can affirm that this is definitely an issue. I am running on a 3630QM intel chip and the game auto allocates to the first core for the bulk of the load and then never goes above 18% while hardly using the other cores at all. I ran the support tool and the application told me that my CPU failed the test? My 3630QM CPU is clocked at 2.4 GHz and it is an i7. It has a turbo boost feature that auto-overclocks to 3.4 GHz. And the tool is telling me that it failed? I think not Larian. This issue needs to be fixed. My CPU is more than capable of handling this game but I cannot maintain even a frame rate above 40 at 720p. Something is definitely up with the optimization.

If you're not even seeing near-100% usage on one core, then the problem almost certainly is due to a bottleneck elsewhere on your system. Since you mention a CPU designed for mobile usage, the GPU on your laptop/netbook is most likely the cause. Verify which GPU you have and then look it up on NoteBookCheck.

Assuming the GPU is the limitation, reducing D:OS's graphics settings to the bare minimum is the easiest fix.

You haven't disabled turbo?

Turbo is a horrible feature that anyone who actually wants their hardware to work disables. It basically exists just for AMD/intel to sell to ignorant people who don't know that turbo actually doesn't work very well. It doesn't know when it's supposed to turbo and will often be well below the base clock when you want it to have gone up.

I have never, EVER, had any problems with the Turbo feature before and thus I don't have any tangible reason to suspect this as the culprit now.

Why would you suggest that Turbo is to blame? None of my other games have a problem with it so why should D:OS? It has always clocked itself appropriately on my system for the task at hand. And the issues that I am having far exceed the variation that a feature like Turbo Boost would have on the frame rate. Turbo Boost would not effect the percentage usage of the CPU when an application is running. It would only ever effect the power management of the cores and the clock speed. D:OS's overall utilization of my CPU is poor as well as the GPU usage.

But I will add that to the list of things I am experimenting with non the less.



Yeah, no. I should not have to play this game with minimal settings. That is absurd. Not when I can fully max out Bioshock Infinite on this same system with proper SLI/GPU/CPU/RAM utilization. This game does not look THAT good for it to be performing like it is. The issue is engine/developer side and needs to be looked into. All I want is a confirmation that this issue is being looked into.

Hello, on my side, Divinity : Original Sin correctly use my CPU threads (43% of total CPU time across all thread) with most of the CPU time used for nv3dum.dll (more than half of the 43% on ~3 threads) and i do see multiples threads for EoCapp.exe (5). To achieve more than 37,5% on my hardware, it means the game use at least 4 threads on the processor.

Needless to say the game is giving some work to my old CPU that was sleeping most of it's life. core get hit to 100% during play time.
I have an I7-870.

@Tyhan I have turbo and auto dynamic underclock activated, the CPU multiplier jump to no-turbo max as soon as i start the game. On desktop CPU multiplier is at 9. The problem is elsewhere, dynamic clocking and turbo boost work. When i have a mono core heavy task and other core are sleeping, i do have +2 CPU multiplier than max on the working core, and other core are still sleeping at CPU multiplier 9. (I think Turbo Boost 2 on newer CPU activate on all cores and not just one, at the condition of proper CPU temperature) For instance, when i set CPU affinity to use only one core on the game, Turbo boost do kick in.

My personal experience says the bottleneck is clearly elsewhere than CPU (I/O read lag, bad ram, bad vram, slow vram, slow GPU) try lowering texture quality, if it doesn't help, try lowering everything graphic related and activate notebook mode. Be sure to not force any settings on GPU driver's configuration. You could give a try to a graphic driver update.

And what GPU does your system have?

I have two (2x) Nvidia Geforce 650m cards running in SLI. I don't have any of that optimus nonsense to deal with. Both of those cards were able to max Bioshock Infinite at 1280x720 resolution and maintain a constant 60fps. The game felt like butter. But this game cannot even maintain 40+ frames. Something is definitely up with the engine and the optimization.

SLI doesn't seem to work in D:OS currently (it didn't in Divinity 2 initially either) so you're relying on just one 650m. For comparison, I see 40-45fps with 2x580GTX (effectively one thanks to no SLI and with all settings maxed out) at 2560x1600, so your performance figures don't seem that far out of line.

Performance will likely improve (previous patches have already helped with factors like save times) but if you want a smooth, bug-free game from the outset, put D:OS aside for a couple of months. Once you come back to it, things should be much better.

Edit: Might be worth checking your power settings - even without Optimus you may find your GPUs being downclocked if you haven't enabled maximum performance.

This game is heavily dependent on CPU. Unfortunately it uses only one core! In these days it is inconceivable that modern game is not multicore optimized.

The game itself is awesome but from technical point of view it is rubbish. Only one thread, not possible to move camera as desired, FPS drops with now reason (after save FPS goes back to normal).

[quote] FPS drops with no reason (after save FPS goes back to normal). [/quote]

Yeah, this happens to me to, regardless of the graphic settings which is super puzzling, if anybody has a fix it would be very much appreciated.

It seems to happen when you start trading with people or checking inventories.

I think they are not able to improve it. It would require rewriting game code or engine can`t use more CPU cores. I have Core i5 4670K@4200Mhz so one of the best CPUs for gaming but still it is bottleneck in this game.

What nobody has thought about in this thread is the state of their Windows installations. An older installation, especially vendor-supplied "enhanced" installations that came with all kinds of crapware and driver issues - may simply cause performance bottlenecks with no good explanation. Add to that the wrong graphics driver (not recommended for your GPU, outdated etc) and you have a problem.

I was able to play and finish D:OS without any lagging on this modest hardware:

Intel core i7 Q840 at 1.87 GHz
Nvidia Quadro FX 1800M (Driver 340.66)
Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (Clean and Minimal Install - I use Windows for gaming only)
8 GB RAM

I am not sure what the framerate was, but it was sufficient (with settings mostly on High/ Ultra and VSync enabled). CPU was maxed out (slightly overclocked through MSI Afterburner) with temperatures around 80ï½°C, D:OS ran on all eight available CPU threads. Total CPU Load between 17% and about 70%, depending on situation.

I believe that there is some good evidence that these issues are isolated and maybe traced to bad Windows installation or hardware issues. Some of you guys with issues literally have twenty times more GPU power in your systems than my laptop and at least two or three times faster CPUs.

Common hardware issues that people tend to overlook:

- Flaky Power Supplies
- Memory Problems
- Motherboard/ bus errors

And no, not all games and software will show hardware issues in the same way. Anyways, if your Windows install is older than about two years or vendor-supplied, I would probably start by doing a clean install from an original, stock Windows 7 image (not some weird vendor "system recovery" junk)

For some reason on my i7, all my cores are used.

[quote=Jebio][quote] FPS drops with no reason (after save FPS goes back to normal). [/quote]

Yeah, this happens to me to, regardless of the graphic settings which is super puzzling, if anybody has a fix it would be very much appreciated.

It seems to happen when you start trading with people or checking inventories. [/quote]

I have the same problem and quick saving the game temporaly solves de problem, but its really annoying to have to quick save every 5 minutes, please try to fix it.

"- Flaky Power Supplies"

You are joking right?


I have newly installed win8.1 with all latest drivers and still the problem persists.

I think people who claim that in their case everything is ok, they just simply do not see difference between 40 FPS and solid 60 with v-sync

I put up a video the week the game went live not to do a nah nah nah nah nah, but to show and prove to others, at least some setups are working properly. Shows the game and the cores as it runs. Frames went near 100 FPS as well during the test.

I have no problem surrendering on certain hardware combo's the game may not use cores correctly, but that isn't all systems, I tend to think newer 4 core processors work correctly with D:OS. If it was across the board, there would be a lot more complaining about it. The big issue was the stutter, I still don't think everyone has been fixed but is seemed most have and not everyone had the stutter.