Challenge Trophies (and similar effects) cause pulsating CPU spikes
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Preamble:
I pretty much always play with the performance metrics graph on. Lately I've noticed the CPU bar 'pulsating' at some times (not always). After a long 'investigation' I traced this behavior to the challenger trophies and Delve torches (and something in the delve encounters themselves that I haven't been able to pinpoint, maybe the cart or the delve waypoints that the cart sits on). Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciniMGArJKU Troubleshooting: I've reset settings and cleared cache, verified integrity of files (Steam), and tested with alternate hideouts and characters (no MTX). I did not notice any change in this 'pulsating CPU bar' issue. It does seem to 'build up' in intensity over time (within an area), moving a few screens away reduces the intensity and changing areas entirely seems to 'reset' this to normal 'no spikes', until it builds up again. Hope: These spikes can get pretty intense in delves and seem to be mostly caused by some sort of particle effect. Which leads me to wonder and hope that maybe we'll be able to turn these effects off/down at some point. If anyone has ideas or has/is experienced similar please let me know. If you think alternative videos or testing might help or provide more information I'd love to hear about it. Afterthought: I forgot to look at Task Manager/Process Explorer while recording the above video but I ran another test with results that look the same and PoE's CPU usage stayed around 2-3% with a very flat graph. Whatever the slowdown is PoE doesn't appear to use more CPU power to solve it (which seems bizarre, so maybe I'm reading the graph wrong again).
Specs
Ryzen 9 5950x
GTX 1070 32GB RAM @3600MHz PoE and Windows 10 (v21H2) installed on a Samsung 980 Pro (NVME) Motherboard: Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro V2 (F15a) (ECO mode on and off, though I couldn't verify it was ever in either state). New Motherboard (this issue still present): Asus B550-F Gaming WI-FI (2604) Last edited by SirGuySW on Apr 26, 2023, 11:01:24 PM Last bumped on Apr 26, 2023, 10:59:56 PM
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I swapped my motherboard for a different model and reinstalled Windows 10. I'm no longer getting the 'pulsating' CPU bar effect when near trophies/Delve. Framerate/fps still suffers greatly but that CPU line is pretty flat.
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Posting your motherboard spec/model would be helpful. Could be something in the Bios/MB chipsets themselves that could be causing issues.
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!" Last edited by Aragorn14 on Apr 4, 2022, 8:44:54 AM
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Good idea. I hope it helps if anyone else encounters similar issues (even if just as a 'I had this issue too'). Unfortunately I have no fix to share other than 'use a different model motherboard'...and I'm not even sure that was the actual fix. There are a lot of differences between the software environment I'm using now and when I was encountering the 'pulsating CPU bar' issue.
On a side note I've noticed the CPU bar goes from 3-4ms to 11-12ms (flat/consistent though) when I have the Achievements/Challenges/Bestiary/Delve panel open. FPS/Frame time don't change though. No other panel has similar effect with the exception of the full-screen character and atlas passives and atlas panels (which appear to disable world-rendering so naturally reduce the GPU load (if a frame limit is set)). I guess the increase on the Achievements panel is normal? I've just not noticed it before. | |
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Without actually being at your PC to see what's going on, this is one of those things that is hard to diagnose, especially since your PC states have changed so much. Out of curiosity, same AV/Firewall, same Windows build, same driver versions on your Vid card etc?
I ran into an issue a while ago where a certain Windows update basically fragged my entire machine and forced me to reinstall windows. Even after the reinstall, same update kept causing Page Fault BSODs non stop and I just went to Win 11, cause F that noise. Any issues with any particular Windows updates on your end? Running a 3950x with a 5700XT on a MSI MEG X570. I have never noticed anything "odd" when opening the Achievement window before. With 16 cores and 32 threads, I basically built this thing to brute force POE into submission and anything else I feel like running. Will keep an eye out though to see if anything pops up. "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!" Last edited by Aragorn14 on Apr 4, 2022, 11:37:44 AM
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" It's even more difficult to diagnose due to the 'broken' state now being lost. I haven't noticed any issues with updates. Both installs were/are fully updated. Both ran the same Windows version (I'm not sure about build but there was only about 2 weeks between installs). Non-motherboard drivers and software should also be the same. One caveat regarding software is with Windows Defender: I've noticed scans (MsMpEng.exe) *loudly* starting at odd times on the current install, despite doing everything I can to disable Defender. I did not notice this on the previous install where I did far less to disable Defender. Its possible the CPU pulsation was caused by Defender *quietly* running/scanning without my knowledge (but why it's now changed to loudly spinning up all my sleeping drives I can't guess). Demonstration of the achievements panel thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19ROyZ9K18A Last edited by SirGuySW on Apr 5, 2022, 12:57:59 AM
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Hrrrmm, since I am now on Win 11, when I go into Settings/Update&security/Windows security/Virus&Threat protection/Virus&Threat protection settings and then manage settings - I am able to turn off completely and for an unlimited time (I don't know how - it *should* turn back on but it doesn't) real time protection.
I know on Win 10, that real time will come back on, but you could try to disable that and see what happens. Just watched the vid - that freaking weird. I don't know. What the hell..... Edit: Have you noticed if it's only pulling load on one core or is it all 16? Edit #2: Just played around in game, and I don't get those spikes, either with or without defender active. This is really mucked up. I really have NO CLUE WTH is going on now... "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!" Last edited by Aragorn14 on Apr 5, 2022, 8:30:08 AM
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Hey SirGuy, just found this: https://www.pcgamer.com/amd-adrenalin-software-reportedly-alters-user-set-bios-cpu-settings/
Don't know if this would be relevant to your case or not, but it's worth the read. (It isn't, forgot you had a 1070) "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!" Last edited by Aragorn14 on Apr 5, 2022, 11:29:14 AM
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Yeah it's a mystery.
As far as I can tell (and remember of what worked on my previous computer) we should be able to prevent Defender scans any of 3 ways:
"That's the interesting thing. When I open the achievements panel PoE's CPU usage does double...but that's only going from 3% to 6% so it's a little difficult to see in Task Manager's CPU cores graph. When I surround myself in challenge trophies PoE's CPU usage doesn't change (GPU bound I guess: CPU bar is at 3ms, GPU bar is at about 30ms), which is consistent with how it behaved during the pulsating behavior. I noticed similar behavior (RE: PoE's CPU usage not corresponding with (very large, 100ms+) CPU bar spikes) on my previous computer and made a thread about it here. This video from that thread shows PoE's CPU usage via Process Explorer remaining mostly consistent while I'm causing CPU bar spikes by moving the mouse in-game. I also found that if I pushed my CPU to 100% usage via Cinebench the 'CPU bar spikes when moving mouse' issue vanished. I didn't think of testing this pulsating issue in the same way but I wonder if the pulsating behavior was some sort of automated ultra-low power mode (missing from my current motherboard) turning on and off. Something like:
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I regret to report that this 'pulsating CPU bar' issue has returned with the new motherboard (thus I guess we can rule out the previous motherboard being the issue). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuHdovC2jPg shows frequent pulsations from 3 to 10 with regular spikes up to 20ish. At about 41 seconds I move to the edge of the map and the pulsations drop to about 3-5 with occasional high spikes.
I was able to restart my computer to finish the map and the pulsating effect vanished. However, I noticed PoE was incredibly sluggish (FPS was in the 50's while just standing around in the map and inputs seemed delayed (my 'panic dash away' button became more of a, "when you feel up to it dash in this direction please")). On the plus side this annoyed me enough for me to take the figurative hammer to my services tab. The result: Defender is no longer running. Since then things appear to be a lot smoother (2ms base CPU bar from 3ms before, achievements panel still raises the CPU bar to 500%ish of normal) but since I don't know what causes the CPU pulsation issue and since it apparently can happen on this motherboard too I'll be keeping an eye out for it and will try to document when/where it happens to try to pinpoint a cause.
Regarding disabling Defender
Apparently Defender protects itself (even with tamper protection turned off) and immediately resets any attempt to disable it. Conventional Windows wisdom says 'kill the process' then try setting the disable flag...but the Defender process can't be killed (the option is disabled). Well, how about just suspending the process? Sure, can do...but that also freezes the Group Policy editor so the disable flag can't be set. Ok, just prevent the process from starting ... in order to prevent the process from running. Egg, meet Chicken.
But that actually worked. I'm not sure of the exact services or order they need to be disabled, but apparently if enough are disabled Defender won't start with Windows, allowing the 'Disable Defender' policy to be set (and to remain set) in gpedit. It occurs to me that doing this in Safe Mode might have been easier. Internet also recommends using 'Autoruns' by Sysinternals to disable the services instead. And my next attempt was going to be using Linux to replace all Defender executables with placeholders. Last edited by SirGuySW on Apr 6, 2022, 8:47:12 AM
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