Game breaking bug, lagspikes, slowdowns. [PC]

[supersnel 7]

RobPro24 said:

When I compete in career mode (Australia), the fuel very quick run out. So when i use standard mix with medium-short shift, then the fuel going lower, and this is very annoying.

In Quick race mode, the fuel works good.

Another bug, when i use the flashback then decrease my fps for a second.  Stuttering the game, and this is bad feeling.

What i want, how the Ferrari car look like the real Ferrari, I would like to say the car mirror in real life fit to the Halo, and in game the mirror fit to the car chassis. Please guys fix this.

Thank you!

If your issue has nothing to do with the bug we are discussing here, please go post it somewhere else. This is not the place for it. Make a new topic and post it in " Technical Assistance". Go into detail and explain your problem there please.
Before posting anything on this forum, first read this: http://forums.codemasters.com/discussion/132514/f1-games-technical-assistance-bug-reports-please-read-before-posting#latest

[ECGT28 0]

@hoo
The texture streaming trick is interesting, I tested time trial (montreal) for a few laps and was fine (no stutters). I went into career mode (also montreal) and found the stuttering during the programs. Having horrid textures seems to help an older system like mine, but during career mode the stutters were still there.

Perhaps the game is using too much vram? I noticed that my vram usage spiked all the way to 1995mb (max vram) in previous tests. This gpu can handle more than this for sure, so better optimization should be the answer here. I will continue testing but I hope that you also continue probing for problems.

Also i had to double check if the texture streaming was at 0, it did not save the first time around so guys check that out if the trick doesnt work. If your textures go to pixels then it should be working.
EDIT: Testing in Canada on Benchmark mode and playing in grand prix mode had stuttering as well. Maybe the game does not like multiple cars on track because time trial was smooth with no stuttering.

Specs BTW
AMD A10 6800k APU
8GB DDR3 RAM
EVGA GTX 1050 OC 2GB
installed on HDD

[Willemq12 0]

supersnel said:

Willemq12 said:

AMD released 1.18.2 drivers for their CPU which include improvement of optimalisation of F1 2018. if that works then the game will work even better for me! 

Can you list the link to the source? Would be greatly appreciated. But I don't really get what you mean with "CPU driver". Do you mean a bios update for a motherboard?
The only "driver update" I could find that was CPU related, was for the Ryzen Master Utility.
I guess you have seen it wrong and mean this one: https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-rad-win-18-8-2
It's a driver update for AMD graphics card and is version 18.8.2
Did I spot a little mistake ;) , or am I looking over something here?

Yes you spotted me misspelling it. Also, as I predicted the lag spikes are gone and i can play without any complications, so drivers helped as well there. If i would be at place of GTX people, I would wait for new drivers from Nvidia and I would try having some experiments with GeForce Experience, as i did with Radeon Settings which helped me getting 60 fps at my framerate. Checked it without Radeon Settings and i could barely play the game :/

[AndrewEwen 0]

The texture_streaming hack worked for me. Most of the textures look like crap now but I'm not having stuttering or slow downs any more as far as I can tell. Hopefully we get a patch for the underlying problem :)

[supersnel 7]

ECGT28 said:

@hoo
The texture streaming trick is interesting, I tested time trial (montreal) for a few laps and was fine (no stutters). I went into career mode (also montreal) and found the stuttering during the programs. Having horrid textures seems to help an older system like mine, but during career mode the stutters were still there.

Perhaps the game is using too much vram? I noticed that my vram usage spiked all the way to 1995mb (max vram) in previous tests. This gpu can handle more than this for sure, so better optimization should be the answer here. I will continue testing but I hope that you also continue probing for problems.

Also i had to double check if the texture streaming was at 0, it did not save the first time around so guys check that out if the trick doesnt work. If your textures go to pixels then it should be working.
EDIT: Testing in Canada on Benchmark mode and playing in grand prix mode had stuttering as well. Maybe the game does not like multiple cars on track because time trial was smooth with no stuttering.

Specs BTW
AMD A10 6800k APU
8GB DDR3 RAM
EVGA GTX 1050 OC 2GB
installed on HDD

Good evaluation there!
Yes, I noticed something similar regarding the VRAM usage, as you can see in the graphs I uploaded, the vram usage is always arround 85%, which is not necessarily high, but it is for the low quality textures. I have acces to 3GB of vram.

And yes, I made sure I saved the file. It's quite easy to spot when it didn't save, because the textures look horrible when it's at 0 but are readable at any other setting.

I don't know if it has certainly anything to do with bad optimization, because we're seeing people here with GTX 1070's also having the problem. We've definitely ruled out "weaker" (I'm running a GTX 1060) hardware as a main factor for causing the problem a long time ago now.

I've suggested the multiple car thing as well, but from my further analysis, I can say that it doesn't necessarily has to do with that. It also lagspikes during a cutscene in the same way it does on the track.

Installing the game on an SSD may help, but I thought I read on the first page that somebody tried this already and it didn't work.

I guess this bug/issue is more down to the backbone of the game than we might think. From what I've read, it seems to be a structural problem, because I saw people reporting the same issue for previous games.

Everybody definitely has to keep posting their findings and experiences on this topic right here.

@ecgt28
Great job, keep reporting your findings and your vision on the problem.

[ECGT28 0]

@supersnel 
Yeah I did also find stutters during cutscenes before and after the trick, but afterwards the stutters were way rarer, almost eliminated. 
I know that a lot of players are experiencing this issue have high end systems unlike mine with 1070s, 1080s, ryzens and whatnot, but from my end I'm guessing (with no professional knowledge on the subject) that the game is not optimized too well, which is what I was getting at in my last statement (poor pc port i guess). 

The game dips in both cpu usage and gpu usage frequently and the benchmark mode is telling of this too, with minimum fps values as low as 8,3, and even 0 in one test (this is worst case scenario, in my 2-3 lap tests, the min fps was around 23 which still means it stutters bad). The game has trouble keeping min fps where it should be when my average and max fare way better at 57-83 fps (no vsync). Audio would also cut during stutters in cutscenes and on track, maybe there is audio interference? Looking at my task manager disk performance, maybe how the game renders from the disk has something to do with it, hence why people on SSDs suffer as well? Disk perf. where it spikes  could be telling.

BTW i cant change the Audio Update Rate to Medium, it is stuck on Low and when i change it it just tells me to restart and when i go back in advanced audio settings it is at Low again.

All the solutions I tried, Vsync, nvidia control panel, defrag hdd, mess with in game settings, disable steam overlays, nothing worked, closest is texture streaming but it still stutters. I also ran the game at 900p but it stuttered too. New nvidia drivers did not help. My only hope now is CM releasing a patch that not only fixes this but also the fuel issues and corner cutting detection that I found WHILE I was testing for stutter where I can cut between turns 8/9 at montreal. F1 2018 is not fun as of  v. 1.04 for me, because i want to play career mode, not time trial.

With all the hype that surrounded this game I put my faith in CM to iron out this stutter bug that i faced in 2017, but no. I really hope we don't get shafted with the "we could not replicate the issue" statement again @Hoo

RIP my preorder money

[ECGT28 0]

So this is my 2 lap Benchmark Mode test at Montreal, Clear weather, Cycle Cam. Game ran well, only stuttered a few times at the start and one big stutter around the start of lap 2. Texture Streaming at 0mb. Vsync off, Medium preset. One test before ran really well with min fps at 44, this screenshot had min fps at 23. Just wanted to share.

For the cpu part, the last few bits are after the test.

MSI Afterburner BTW

[Ash12345667890 0]

ECGT28 said:

With all the hype that surrounded this game I put my faith in CM to iron out this stutter bug that i faced in 2017, but no. I really hope we don't get shafted with the "we could not replicate the issue" statement again @Hoo

I'll be doing races and recording on all the tracks in the game and documenting all the screenfreezes to give CM all the info they'll need to replicate it. I'll also be making any and all changes recommended by Hoo.
I've done 25% races on Australia, Bahrain and China so far and will be rendering and uploading them tomorrow.

[Reece251 1]

I am still having this issue even after applying the fixes suggested correctly. 

Is there anything else I can do to help? 

[supersnel 7]

Reece251 said:

I am still having this issue even after applying the fixes suggested correctly. 

Is there anything else I can do to help? 

Not really, but very good that you are reporting it. I am also still getting the issue. 

If there is some new information on how to solve this, you could try it out. They're currently working on a solution and they will let us know if there's anything we can try. 

At the moment you don't have to do this, but when they release a new solution to try, you could make a detailed bug report, with for example a video, your experiences and your findings. 
When they have a number of these, it could help them with troubleshooting. 
But for the moment there's not specifically anything you can do.

Thanks for the information though.

[supersnel 7]

@Hoo
Is it possible that the frame drops have something to do with the Denuvo anti-tamper software?
I have read some articles stating that Denuvo may be the cause of frame drops during gameplay in some other games.

I know F1 games use Denuvo, and maybe it's worth looking into? Of course the main game that there were problems with was Tekken 7. Hopefully the issue on their side is resolved by now and has nothing to do with what we're experiencing, but it could be a suspect.

I'm now just searching for clues and hope to find a lead or some answers. 

[Guilhermao 2]

I really hope this is not denuvo... CM should find a PC where the stutters are happening and then try the game version without denuvo, just to be sure... 

[Reece251 1]

supersnel said:

Reece251 said:

I am still having this issue even after applying the fixes suggested correctly. 

Is there anything else I can do to help? 

Not really, but very good that you are reporting it. I am also still getting the issue. 

If there is some new information on how to solve this, you could try it out. They're currently working on a solution and they will let us know if there's anything we can try. 

At the moment you don't have to do this, but when they release a new solution to try, you could make a detailed bug report, with for example a video, your experiences and your findings. 
When they have a number of these, it could help them with troubleshooting. 
But for the moment there's not specifically anything you can do.

Thanks for the information though.

I will try and get a video of my experiences if that will help. Its such a great game but it's just these slight freezes that literally make it unplayable.

[TheBaconDoctor 0]

i get little 1 second lag spikes randomly i had my taskmanger open and noticed my gpu and cpu usage dropped a bit and my hdd went up (game is on a ssd)

[supersnel 7]

Guilhermao said:

I really hope this is not denuvo... CM should find a PC where the stutters are happening and then try the game version without denuvo, just to be sure... 

Yeah, I really hope it isn't the case. But looking at what @TheBaconDoctor said about his HDD usage going up and stuff, it is definitely a possibility. CM have to look into this for sure.
I will also look at HDD usage when playing the game, and see if there's a similarly between them.

[jcode1919 0]

Hey guys, this is my first time here about the issue, and a HDD problem was immediately what had come to mind first. I have the game installed on a 2TB WD Black drive (7200rpm), but i'm going to move the files over to my M.2 to see if the lag spikes disappear.

[supersnel 7]

So, I have some more news to tell to you guys. 
I really didn't want to do a long races, because of the amounts of stutter I was getting. I started one anyway just for the lolz of it. The first, I would say, 2-3 laps were as usual; with a couple of stutters per lap. But then, the game started to really go and wonder o wonder, there were no stutters anymore for the rest of the race. Seriously no more at all. I would say I got 7-8 framedrops at the start, but then none. A smooth 100 FPS all the way till the end. (I may have missed one, but it surely weren't a lot anymore.) 
The Texture Streaming was disabled.

I am really happy with this result, but there definitely needs to be a little bit more investigation. I assume small races of 3-5 laps are still impossible to drive, both offline and online. I haven't got the time to test that further for today.
I didn't see any huge inconsistencies from the usage of my hard drive. So I would say it doesn't have to do with that, but I'll keep monitoring the situation.

[Slick_Rick_ 24]

I have an issue on the PC version of F1 2018 where during a grand prix weekend and in career mode while sitting in the cockpit of the car, when I go into camera mode to see how the other drivers are doing during practice/qualifying, I notice a very considerable lag and it becomes almost unresponsive when navigating the car monitor screen menus afterwards.  Hopefully there is a patch being worked on to resolve this.

[Desmond0313 9]

I read thru all 5 pages of this thread and it is indeed very interesting. I have a 1070Ti with an i5-8600K, running the game in 4K, High preset, and my game has been butter smooth since day 1, not even the slightest stutter. The only place where I'm getting slowdowns are certain cutscenes, the interview screen and when you navigate the data center/car monitor, but those are not stuttering, just clearly lower FPS than what the game normally runs at, and to my knowledge these are being worked on.
On the other had, I had small stutters back on F1 2017 which became worse the higher I went with the graphics... until I switched to the 8600K from my FX-6300. After that, no stutters at all and it's been the same with F1 2018, even in the beta.
So looks like it's not really hardware specific, I will be very interested about what the root cause was when it gets fixed. 

[ECGT28 0]

I heard that the EGO engine these games from CM run on are pretty poor when it comes to multi core cpu performance. I cannot disable hyperthreading (common solution that i found) because i have an amd cpu, best i can do is to turn threaded optimizations off in the control panel but does not kill the problem.  Upgrading my CPU is out of the question. Its fine right now as I had put in fresh thermal paste when i put in my 1050 recently and cleaned the dust out of my PC.

Yeah my CPU is old but none of my other games stutter like this. I never had to troubleshoot this hard for any other game. I dont think its a hardware issue either, theres something wrong with the game. Maybe it hogs too many resources?  I too experienced low fps in the interview screen, cutscenes, and data center / car monitor screens.

In the meantime I will further test and am uploading a video to show some of my problems. Interesting stuff to come in regards to the audio of the video.

[LukEditz 1]

i5 7500 and gtx 1070 here, no lag spikes
I've only been having freezes afterusing a flashback but managed to fix that by setting weather quality down from ultra high. Maybe this might be a reason for the lag spikes.

[ECGT28 0]

@Hoo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw0hZkPBl1c&t=117s
Stutters at 
0:32, 1:08, 1:47 (revs scream with the freeze), 1:57, 2:14, 3:05, 3:44, 4:26, 5:44, 6:26, and a few more stutters during the cooldown lap and celebrations.

The sound at 7:17 is my mic being muted.

EDIT: I found a thread in the steam discussions about a potential fix: Disable Steam's Cloud Synchronizations in the Steam Settings. Doesn't work for me but give it a try guys.

[supersnel 7]

ECGT28 said: 

@Hoo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw0hZkPBl1c&t=117s
Stutters at 
0:32, 1:08, 1:47 (revs scream with the freeze), 1:57, 2:14, 3:05, 3:44, 4:26, 5:44, 6:26, and a few more stutters during the cooldown lap and celebrations.

The sound at 7:17 is my mic being muted.

EDIT: I found a thread in the steam discussions about a potential fix: Disable Steam's Cloud Synchronizations in the Steam Settings. Doesn't work for me but give it a try guys.

Glad I saw this. It's the first time I see someone else posting a video of the problem. So yeah, it's the exact same issue I am experiencing. 
You mentioned the Steam Cloud Synchronisation, but that didn't really do anything in my case. 

What you did is a 5 lap race around Canada. 
So, from what I've learned: Canada is one of the tracks where the stutters are bad for me too. A 5 lap race is as I mentioned filled with these stutters, just like a 3 lap race. I tested that out now, and I can confirm I am getting them again on these shorter races.
I'm going to have to test further to really find out if 100, 50 and 25% races are fixed for me, if I disable the Texture Streaming. 
So, 3 and 5 lap races are still quite impossible for me.

I feel like we are getting closer to find out a solution, but it's in the power of CM now to fix it for good. 

[ECGT28 0]

supersnel said:

Glad I saw this. It's the first time I see someone else posting a video of the problem. 

If you go back in this thread there are a few videos showing the same thing.

[supersnel 7]

ECGT28 said:

supersnel said:

Glad I saw this. It's the first time I see someone else posting a video of the problem. 

If you go back in this thread there are a few videos showing the same thing.

Yeah, but those are all mine.