The Continued Ignorance of Performance Issues Continues to Hamper Player Fun
Recently, it's been getting more and more difficult to enjoy this game and to look over the glaring issues. The Console port of DBD has shown that the game is extremely poorly optimized, and performance will continue to get worse unless BHVR addresses the issues now.
I fear that soon, the game will become unplayable for us on current-gen Consoles. Resident Evil broke the game for a month, and it still hasn't fully recovered. What this shows is that the issue is built into the game itself, and will likely continue to worsen if it is not resolved. Likewise, we are seeing the return of bugs long thought patched, which makes me suspect that the entire code is starting to crumble under the weight of the game. I hope BHVR takes the time to do this correctly and fixes their game. If they do not, I fear we will soon lose the ability to play it at all.
Here are some videos demonstrating my points, please note that these were all taken PRIOR to the RE patch in June of 2021. These issues have been plaguing Console players since the game was ported in 2017. I doubt there will ever be an official confirmation from BHVR, but it is important that we do not let these issues go silently. The only thing we can do is continue to talk and spread awareness about them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl7zIxwMUn0&ab_channel=PulsarGaming360 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7p_8C649Rs&ab_channel=PulsarGaming360 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSa8yNir8wU&ab_channel=PulsarGaming360 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlwQc0rdiM0&ab_channel=PulsarGaming360 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tQaee-Od90&ab_channel=PulsarGaming360August Edit: Well, we are nearing 100 pages. Congrats everyone. We still haven't gotten an answer from BHVR about what happened to Optimization, but we have inspired others to start to question it. I've furthered clarified the purpose of the thread and adjusted some of the language used in this opening statement to better reflect that.
Thank you.
Comments
Some killers are worse than others. Weird.
Still, something dies at the BHVRs servers whenever somebody unhooks or dead hards :L
Yeah I'm still having stuttering but its drastically improved to the point where I dont have to fear the game bricking my console
I don’t know if this is a good place to post this and if this is even a general issue or just my finding, but as the console performance discussion was a lot about HDD issues lately, maybe it can give some additional information/insight.
I did some hard disk activity logging with Windows Process Monitor because I was interested what might cause the issues that could be related to the HDD/SSD issue, even I don’t really have this issue on PC.
As the findings in terms of performance were mixed with the 5.1.0 patch, I was not sure what to expect, but there was and still is a lot of situational hard disk activity during a match, which I find questionable because I believe these assets could also be load to memory during loading screen, but I don't want to speculate about how the game works.
However, what’s new with patch 5.1.0 for me is a lot of failed reading of HUD assets from the hard disk (and probably replaced the NAME INVALID errors I have seen in 5.0.2). E.g. the game permanently tries to load the icon for undetectable status (while playing Ghostface) and perk icons (even if they are still there visible) from hard disk, it can’t find on the hard disk.
Numbers (all from the same match):
filtered hard disc activity during the recorded trial: ~28000 log entries
including NAME NOT FOUND messages: ~46000 log entries
including PATH NOT FOUND messages: ~234000 log entries
I just thought the Steam update didn’t worked out well, so I freshly reinstalled DBD after this first finding, but nothing changed.
As I don’t experience significant performance issues with this, I don’t mind, but it’s still questionable.
Logged KYF match on PC (played vs myself, PC Ghostface, Stadia Nea):
https://youtu.be/MkeR6zwZ0OQSituational hard disk access:
scratch marks first time: 3:12
idk, just moving: 5:30
reveal + injured: 5:40
…
ProcessMonitor filter options:
excluded NAME NOT FOUND at 1:55
included PATH NOT FOUND at 8:30
excluded PATH NOT FOUND at 9:40
included PATH NOT FOUND at 9:55
excluded PATH NOT FOUND at 10:05
Just to make it clear: I don't want to proove or speculate about issues. I just wanted to share my findings. Maybe somebody else can confirm this, especially PC players that experience more stuttering/freezing issues with 5.1.0. I don’t know if PC is different to consoles in this aspect or even PC exclusive with 5.1.0 or just a finding with my installation.
BTW, it looks like Stadia has these stuttering/freezes many console players reported here (when finish gens and so on), but could be network related as well (didn’t Google said they use SSD on their Stadia server blades?).
Some other public match ProcessMonitor footage:
DBD 5.0.2. Game + Logs on SSD (NAME INVALID Messages at 0:20 and 5:25, related to HUD icons):
https://youtu.be/RS3rPGnVPvIDBD 5.0.2 Game + Logs on HDD (feels less smooth than on SSD):
https://youtu.be/24PMltAk1nQDBD 5.1.0. Game + Logs on SSD (with NAME/PATH NOT FOUND filtered):
https://youtu.be/O1RpZHoZq08My ssd is only 500gig and it runs perfectly, actually gained bonus fps from the last patch which is nice, just make sure you don't get a hybrid ssd as they are fake ssd's and don't do much to help the issue.
This is really good. So it does have to do with how the game is handling the HUD elements now, may have something to do with the new HUD settings then.
So what started this was mostly the new HUD? Would the same happen if you turn off all HUD elements? Because the way I see it, the game will still call for the HUD to appear and then deny it given the element has been turned off.
This is actually great, and we thank you for your efforts.
@Pulsar what do you think of that
So there are some asset that can't be read on hdd if I read that correctly.
I'm pretty sure I'm my first game playing on the new patch with nemesis there were problems like hatch was considerably delayed when there was one survivor or at the end, nemesis had blight weapon.
Can you put this in layman's terms? I'm afraid I'm much too stupid to understand that. What does this mean?
@RandDBD Perks and status icons can't be deactivated in my installation, so I can't check this.
@Pulsar If I would have to make a guess, the current issues with HUD elements I have seen just amplify an underlying issue.
The game is obviously dynamically accessing assets in different situations ingame form the hard disc. This might be textures for blood pools, sound or texture files for attacks or dead hard animation or whatever - I don't know what this situational access to the *.pak files during the match really is. These assets are probably accessed in a blocking way during the render cylce. So the render cycle maybe has to wait until the asset is loaded to render it correctly or has to skip a frame.
I don't know if this is exactly the case, it's just guessing. In general, all of these situational assets could be loaded at the beginning of the match, but maybe it's not like this with DBD (or maybe it is the case and it just tries to load them by accident anyway) or at least let's assume this scenario. At the end, only the devs can tell.
On top of that you have additional hard disc activity from logging and at least on windows D3D/OpenGL library access (which both could be non-blocking but causing hard disc load anyway). And on top of this there is at the moment a constant hard disc activity because the game permanently tries to load icons.
On a fast hard disc like an SSD this might be not a problem, but on slower drives this might lead to situations where the render cycle maybe has to skip frames, because the assets are not ready. This would lead to freezes or stuttering when a lot of assets are requested from hard disc. So the underlying issue might not be the HUD icon hitches but the situational loading of assets.
purely hypothetical of course
I think this is good summary. My game is running better than it was after the RE chapter but worse than it was before RE chapter. The mid chapter did fix some of the issues from the RE chapter but there is plenty more to be done to have to back to at least the performance prior to RE release. Much more to be done to also fix performance issues we were experiencing before the RE chapter.
I've mainly played survivor. Out of the killers I've faced Nemesis, Freddy, Huntress, Wraith and Ghostface have been the worst for me as survivor. There's way more freezes with them, both from triggers and just randomly - or at least whatever the trigger was must be new because it seems like there's no reason for the freeze. The worst maps for performance have been RPD, Ormond, Autohaven, and Dead Dawg. Before RE chapter Dead Dawg was ok for performance issues but now it's pretty bad. On these maps the freezes from triggers feel worse than they do on other maps. If I had one of the killers listed on those maps it's a really bad time.
I think I'm going to rescind my original statement that the game runs better.
It was running better for a bit, but now it's back to normal.
How unsurprisingly disappointing.
It’s gonna get worse again when more updates come out I think.
Wow we've come so far starting in April and we got something. A start
But sadly its not over yet. this update was great and hopefully they can do another to fix the last of the issues
And make the game playable for a long time for everyone
Now I can agree to a whole chapter to fix the game instead of more chapters that generate costs.
Can't believe how far this thread has come. I remember back when it only had a few pages.
And it's utterly and completely disappointing how we haven't even gotten a proper response yet.
I mean they haven't made a response but but they took action and I cant be mad if they keep it up
I will admit the fact this post has as many views and posts I'm surprised we haven't seen a DEV response.
The game runs better and I can finally play M2 killers, but I hope we have another hotfix soon or maybe a big update involving the HDD issue to fix the remaining slutters.
It is the largest in Forum history.
Since the update survivor has improved but as killer I got lag with every dead hard. Tried out Bubba and Billy to avoid that issue and Bubba lagged whenever charging his chain saw.
Did the latest update really helped last gen console performance? Or its better for some, same for others?
Seems like with current-gen consoles its very mixed.
The games FPS is still #########, and some of the freezing is better but some is worse.
That yellow glyph challenge is pretty rough with fps drops. Luckily it respawns if you mess up. Gotta hope for good killer/map mix - I'm happy I didn't end up on RPD with Nemesis while trying to do it. If these skill checks are hint at something to come in future they have to put way more effort into the performance fixes. Those on last gen console or low end PCs will definitely be screwed. Next gens probably same thing based on comments I keep seeing that they are experiencing issues.
I'm on base ps4 and it fixed most stutters issues, they still happen sometimes depending on the map and what's happening, deadhard still freezes the game but not as often as before.
The framerate is still terrible tho but it's slightly better than before altho it's really Map dependant.
For me on PS4, mostly playing survivor, it's better than it was AFTER the RE chapter but worse than it was BEFORE the RE chapter. I still have the same old triggers freezing the game from before the RE chapter as well as new ones that came in with RE chapter and there are random freezes that I haven't been able to pinpoint the cause. There are map/killer combos that on their own are bad but when they're together they cause worse freezes than I experienced before RE chapter.
At least some of the bugs have gotten fixed but we still got a little ways to go.
I still can't use dead hard without my ps4 having an aneurysm on the spot and I've been getting some of the same lag spikes like when sloppy butcher procs on hit. As far as I'm concerned this latest patch was all smoke and mirrors. R.I.P.
We got absolutely nowhere,in fact we made negative progress.
This update only partially fixed the performance issues that came with the Resident Evil Update.
Yeah, that about sums it up. There are still instances where my ps4 stutters over minor things happening in a match.
But none so bad as a blight match on RPD. The stuttering on that map basically made it unplayable whenever I slammed into something.
To be fair,they HAD to take action considering how unplayable performance issues made this game for us.
Now we're at semi-unplayable 🙂
FYI for console players:
Killers that have power bars suffer a constant low framerate when using the power bars (eg plague puking). This primarily effects:
I will update the list as I gradually test some other killers. The only exception I've found is billy, he suffers literally no performance issues when charging his saw.
Myers seems to be alright, if you consider that a bar.
It's more of the charging bar at the bottom of the screen like a oni charging demon dash. Good to know myers is still playable tho.
Haven't seen any issues with Spirit but Legion's Frenzy TANKS FPS.
It's opposite for me. Spirit stutters when phasing and Legion is fine. Also, are servers a factor, because I feel like some days I get more random drops?
Pyramid Head is absolutely unplayable. He drops to 10~20 FPS whenever he puts the sword on the ground and passing near trails also kills performance.
RCPD is still ######### to me. Nemesis at Midwich was impossible for me to play today. This happens to me on some occasions that the Nemesis performance drops, but RCPD that disgusting map keeps giving me low fps, flickers and freezes when being in a certain area of the map, outside the police station I do well, Inside I suffer from performance.
I finally got a ps5 because l couldn't stand how the game performed on PS4 and to my surprise it still runs like ######### on ps5.
It's surprising how many people are complaining about performance on PS5 as well after the last updates. It seems that argument of "DBD is a next gen game" was just a myth.
With the RE patch and the two after I lose plenty of frames using Piggy's dash attack, and now it makes sense it too has a charge bar.
I dont have an issue with wraith unless they use an exhaustion perk mod speed boost
We will have an update on all platforms next week, hopefully there is a response.
Damn that’s a shocker
Yea i play on ps4 and its to a certain point where i dont play killer as much and just play survivor because the frame drops are so bad
is it better now? I didnt play on my ps4 since nemesis and Im not going through 90 pages to see whats up atm^^
It's better than it was after the RE chapter patch but still worse than it was before RE chapter. They still have a ways to go just to get performance back to the way it was pre-RE chapter.
So here's how the update is on Switch. My first game I try Oni to see if there's any significant change in frame rate, and I get sent to Mt Ormond. Already we've got a demanding killer in terms of processing power and demanding map due to the snow.
Surprisingly, it was pretty smooth with only a few stutters here and there. A few players I was up against tried to use dead hard but that bug is still in affect, RIP to those unfortunate souls. My games as Trapper on other maps were very smooth so I can say I'm satisfied with this patch.
The game still needs work and as I've seen from the posts above, this patch didn't do much for a lot of you. I hope things get better for you all somehow.
Don't worry, the PS6 will fix our problem so we don't have to. - BHVR probably
That seems to be the consensus.
Some people are saying it's worse, others say it's slightly better but I'm just wondering when I'll stop getting penalties for crashing.
Performance on Switch is definitely worse since the update. The framerate is super choppy. My friend bought and installed the game on his Switch the day of the RE chapter, and the game worked just fine, no problems except the ridiculously dark maps. Every update since has made the performance worse.
Also, ######### YELLOW SKILL CHECKS?! I did 'em fine on the PS4, but they are awful on the Switch. My friend is trying over and over and over again and hasn't succeeded once so far; the frame drops make it damn near impossible.