Playstation 4 - Frame Rate Issue Problem

Hello everyone,

At launch and for months after, the PS4 had almost consistent 60FPS, and no issues in terms of performance. However in the last 2-3 patches, there has been a very obvious frame-rate issue occurring more frequently that can easily be replicated in a variety of situations.

This happens in many places, and all involve pointing the camera at the large settlements. As soon as the camera looks away from the settlements, 60FPS returns instantly.

My first obvious idea is that Occlusion Culling is not working correctly or perhaps something with LOD processing or caching.

I would love for all PS4 players to try this, hopefully we can get some traction on this and have this looked at by the developers, as I am worried that this issue will continue into Heavensward.

Areas:

Coerthas Central Highlands, Natalan, (34-22), looking NW to Dragonhead
"Urth's Fount" Trial Instance, looking NW to Quarrymill
"Shadow and Claw" Guildhest, Coerthas, looking toward Dragonhead

Cheers.

It could be due to population. If there are people there, even if they aren't drawn, the system is still communicating with the server to get those locations causing a slow down in the PS4. Will have to check it out, but I remember quite a bit of FPS drops when ever I go through a populated area (such as Limsa).

i agree! i was complaining about this with my friends the other day, since 2 patches the fps dropped for ps4 =(

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Originally Posted by DragonFlyy

It could be due to population. If there are people there, even if they aren't drawn, the system is still communicating with the server to get those locations causing a slow down in the PS4. Will have to check it out, but I remember quite a bit of FPS drops when ever I go through a populated area (such as Limsa).

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A likely scenario, however this happens in instanced content too. This makes me feel that this may well be a graphical issue, as people's locations at a settlement would not be broadcast into an instance on a separate server.

The only time i get true framerate screwups are doing S-rank hunts, if i forget to turn off outsider VFX, in which case my PS4 hits worse-than-ps3 level GPU struggle.

I personally noticed slowdown in the coearthas area, in the spot where the entrance to snowcloak is. There is nothing in the area that could ever cause the PS4 version to dip, but it gets noticeably low over there.

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Originally Posted by Edellis

The only time i get true framerate screwups are doing S-rank hunts, if i forget to turn off outsider VFX, in which case my PS4 hits worse-than-ps3 level GPU struggle.

I personally noticed slowdown in the coearthas area, in the spot where the entrance to snowcloak is. There is nothing in the area that could ever cause the PS4 version to dip, but it gets noticeably low over there.

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I don't suppose it could be that you're looking toward Dragonhead's general direction when the slowdown at Snowcloak occurs?

I haven't noticed any of these issues. . . well OK, maybe on S Ranks. but I have not been specifically looking for it. I'll try and remember to test it tonight and report back. Don't hold your breath though. not unless you wanna msg me IRL around 11pm East tonight or so haha.

And just in case you do, Tweet @MishiniDracoto

8D

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Originally Posted by Mishini_Dracoto

I haven't noticed any of these issues. . . well OK, maybe on S Ranks. but I have not been specifically looking for it. I'll try and remember to test it tonight and report back. Don't hold your breath though. not unless you wanna msg me IRL around 11pm East tonight or so haha.

And just in case you do, Tweet @MishiniDracoto

8D

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4am in the morning for me! I'll make sure to remember! =P

I've been getting instances where my frames drop slightly, despite my interface and display showing a consistent 60. Is this similar to what youre experiencing?

That's actually normal for the PS4 version. In a less dense populated area you will get 60 fps, but when you move to a large area with other players then you can forget the 60fps. All you can do like on PC is limit the amount of characters that are displayed on screen at once. The PS4 is a huge step over the PS3 version, but in no way shape or form is it anywhere near performance wise to a good PC.

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Originally Posted by Kiyashi

That's actually normal for the PS4 version. In a less dense populated area you will get 60 fps, but when you move to a large area with other players then you can forget the 60fps. All you can do like on PC is limit the amount of characters that are displayed on screen at once. The PS4 is a huge step over the PS3 version, but in no way shape or form is it anywhere near performance wise to a good PC.

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It's not that, I've experienced these issues the OP is talking about, but ever since I got my ps4. There are times where if you're looking at a certain direction, popular or not, the FPS dips really low. To me it happens when I look at WhiteBrim when I'm on the north side looking south. It also happens at the snow cloak entrance. I have no idea why it does this, and it doesn't seem to be a hardware issue (my ps4 isn't overheating, fan noise is minimal).

Sounds like it's the Dravanian army amassing...

Do the frame-rates stay that low or do the start to climb back up and stabilize?

This could be a number of things causing this.
1) as mentioned it could be due to the recent population boom caused by the free login campaign as well as the release of the gold saucer. As far as I can tell, characters are some of the most taxing things on the system so large groups of them, such as those around player hubs will cause a noticeable dip in performance.
2) It could just be the occlusion/loading causing the frame-rate drops and you never really noticed it before or it has become compounded and therefore worse due to #1 above. When first entering into or the system loading an area, there will often be a noticeable dip in frame-rate as the system begins to cache and render the assets for that area. Often the frame-rate will stabilize as the assets and characters are cached and loaded in, but if you move away from the area and the system unloads the areas you will notice that dip when you move back since the system is then having to load them again. Ignoring player population, some areas are just more system intensive than others and will have cause lower frame-rates due to them being more graphically fancy-schmancy and eating up more resources or them not being optimized quite as well as other areas.
3) While the most unlikely, your system could be having hardware issues. Is it only this game that is having decreased performance? Is your console running hotter than it used to? Are there any other strange random graphical anomolies occurring? Any and all of which may point to something up with your system. Again, this is the most unlikely possibility but shouldn't be ruled out.

IMO it is most likely a combination of #1 and #2.
Even I, playing on PC, have noticed a more pronounced drop in frame-rate and area loading time recently, but it is always in areas that players gather and I have definitely noticed an increase in the number of players milling about in these areas.

Best of luck with getting this all figured out.

People are not understanding. You can recreate this frame rate drop in these certain areas like in the Odin fight. Which doesn't have a bunch or people to load. Its some sort of graphics provlem, not "on S ranks you get lag and less loading to".

I've noticed this, too, and this is the only explanation I could come up with given the nature of the game:

The PS4, compared to the PS3, is rendering most assets at a higher quality. Given that, it can also render most locations with a much larger draw distance (discarding the need for fogging to "hide" the surrounding location); that means that it also renders part, if not a lot, of that terrain.

Regardless of the population in a given area, the game still is rendering said area, and although the PS4 is a step above the PS3, it still struggles to render these areas simply due to the load it's getting from the current situation as well as background areas.

I notice this a lot in Urth's Fount and Coerthas. These areas are big compared to most, but it's not just that; moving the camera and getting the FPS is dependent on the player location. So if you moved closer to the background area and looked back to where you were, you may still get the same FPS drop. However, looking towards an area exit won't produce these effects. That's because beyond the exit there is nothing much else to render, hence the FPS being stable.

Really just has to do with the fact that the PS4 actually renders mostly everything in its totality; unlike the PS4, the PS3 is customized to the point to where it doesn't render most of the assets in a given area until you step within a few yalms of them. Even then, it loads a low-res texture of the object until you get even closer. The PS3 chooses what to load based on location whereas the PS4 just loads everything flat-out (one thing on the PS4 that is adjusted is the shadows of players on PS4. If you zoom out while standing next to lots of players, only your shadow stays whole, for the most part, while everyone else's turns into a low-res version of themselves/a standard shadow placeholder. If you zoom back in, it returns to normal for everyone around you; this is due to the fact that the PS4 is experiencing a lot of load because the more one zooms out, the more it needs to render, which means its essentially rendering everything "on-screen" at once and then rendering everything else off-screen as cached assets, which implies a lower quality.).

However, I think that the PS4 is still a bit lacking in terms of hardware performance; 8 GB of RAM doesn't mean anything if the CPU and/or GPU are bottlenecking it. It's good enough for this game, but because of its nature to render most of the assets as-is without any adjustments, you'll get those unavoidable FPS drops. The PC version is the same way, except nothing in the game is adjusted; meaning that no shadows are toned down or all terrain is rendered immediately when the zone loads. I've experienced these drops ever since I've gotten the game on PS4 on its launch day; nothing has changed since then.

Thanks everyone for their replies so far, but as mentioned I don't believe this is at all tied to population. Thank you for everyone's time and patience in replying.

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Originally Posted by JonLuso

...These areas are big compared to most,...The PS3 chooses what to load based on location whereas the PS4 just loads everything flat-out ...

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Your summary is the most likely, and I appreciate your time writing it up. Do you think this is something we could get changed? If the PS4 had calculations to cull based on distance and view, then it would solve the issue. This might be a tall order for the developers to implement, being so busy with the expansion, but I feel that this might be even more pronounced in Heavensward when it comes to zones that are seemingly more than double what Coerthas is, in all directions.

From what I've seen, they've done SOME customizing for the PS4, and it's not entirely a port of the PC version.

To be honest, the FPS drops are not that bad, either, but if the developers were to go out of their way to further optimize the PS4 version, that would be time spent and I highly doubt they'll do so, just like you said.

Again, though, I don't really mind it, but it IS noticeable. It could be fixed, sure, but that would mean that the PS4 would need to have its draw distance lowered to the point to where it only loads a fraction of it. It'll still function the same, only it won't load the background unnecessarily. The only thing that is lost is the sense of realism, but I doubt most people care about this and favor a more stable platform.

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Originally Posted by Kiyashi

TThe PS4 is a huge step over the PS3 version, but in no way shape or form is it anywhere near performance wise to a good PC.

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That depends on your computer and how much money you have sunk into it and good PC is rather subjective. There are many different things that can affect performance from RAM to processor caching and all the way through to the ISP you use.

Can confirm the lag in Odin, it's so odd though it's only at a certain angle..

I've also noticed this in coerthas.

But, these are very minor issues and honestly I'm not really going to complain. Every other instance I do is a solid fps. 'One' angle in Odin (that I never face anyway) with a dip in fps isn't a problem with me.

Now 72m slaughter and Sranks drop in fps quite a bit but, with slaughter I can understand that. Same with the S ranks.

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Originally Posted by JonLuso

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Rhyou knows what's up.. I don't care what DM says about you :P

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Originally Posted by Rhas

That depends on your computer and how much money you have sunk into it and good PC is rather subjective. There are many different things that can affect performance from RAM to processor caching and all the way through to the ISP you use.

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To an extent. I built my wife a PC that cost around $500 and runs FFXIV 60 FPS on max settings no matter what she is doing. Has never had any lag issues (even in hunts). Our internet is subpar (10mbps Down/750kbps Up). My PC on the other hand, I have to put mine on around medium settings but my PC was new when 1.0 released.

On my end, it drops a bit of frames (again, interface and all still shows a steady 60) but it normalizes and smooths itself out eventually. There's no pattern to it though, it happens when it happens and smooths out when it smooths out.

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Originally Posted by Sighearth

i agree! i was complaining about this with my friends the other day, since 2 patches the fps dropped for ps4 =(

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yep.., there has defenitly been a framerate drop (ps4), like in mor dhona or most orther outer areas

and it has nothing to do with the amount of players.., looks more like they tweeked some textures and the PS4 cant handel it..., now even TW3 feels smoother (wtf)...

SE needs to fix this.... cant play long like this..... atleasrt in some duties its fine. but in the "open" its really not optimal..., used to enjoy hunts, but now im getting a headached

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Originally Posted by Drazzan

Areas:

Coerthas Central Highlands, Natalan, (34-22), looking NW to Dragonhead
"Urth's Fount" Trial Instance, looking NW to Quarrymill
"Shadow and Claw" Guildhest, Coerthas, looking toward Dragonhead

Cheers.

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Yep, I've tried this and indeed the framerate drop is really disturbing. I think the DEVs should take a look...

My frame rate on PS4 doesn't drop

I've also noticed awkward dips in awkward areas.

The area near the snowcloak is the prime example. There is nothing special about that area, and there are plenty more graphically intense areas that it handles perfectly, but the dip there is extremely noticeable. I feel like it goes down to about 20 fps there

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Originally Posted by Akiza

My frame rate on PS4 doesn't drop

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Count yourself lucky and leave this thread because it's only for those that have the problem.

Same thing happens to me on PC. It doesn't matter how many walls, rocks or mountains are between Revenant's Toll and myself, the frame rate always dips when I look in its direction. I see the same thing happen in all the same areas when I'm over at my friends house and he's playing on his PC.

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Originally Posted by WHS

Count yourself lucky and leave this thread because it's only for those that have the problem.

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I highly doubt they don't have FPS issues. People who say this are either oblivious to the drops and don't notice it because the game has ALWAYS worked like this on the respective console or they just don't accept that their platform has issues.

104 FPS = PC Master Race.

I do rather enjoy reading forum posts like this from the ghetto. Carry on!

i really hope SE attends these problems (even if the fps drop isnt much, its enough to really disturb the feeling upto getting headaches when playing longer)

EDIT: they clearly changed something with the textures, to make it look more detailed or better..., its not the same as before (I compared old Pics of the same areas...)

and hope that heavensward wont be like this..., prefer less details but a good framerate

I want he old good look back, with the same smoothness

(like as if this is a prep for heaveansward, that's got more details textures or something..)

The only time my frame rate noticeably drops is in frontlines and thats with all spell effects turned on otherwise it runs smoothy I'm guessing it's a memory leakage issue or some other bug. Pretty sue SE hasn't maxed out the capabilities on PS4 since other developers are still saying they can squeeze more out of next gen consoles.

I've never had any frame rate issues on my ps4, even in Mor Dhona or the GS, (even a few days after it came out when the population was at it's max). The ONLY time I have issues is when a few hundred people are attacking an S rank all at once, and as such, a few hundred attack effects are being played at once. And that I could simply solve by turning off the animations before the fight.....