Most Roblox games are unplayable at graphics quality levels higher than 1 due to low frame rates and lag

Bug Reports Engine Bugs
#1

Hello,

I can’t play most Roblox games smoothly at any graphics quality level higher than 1 either because the frame rates are at an extremely low level like 15fps or even lower or because of massive frame rate drops. I was able to play most if not all games smoothly at a stable 60fps at the maximum graphics quality before but now I can’t even play most games smoothly at graphics quality 2 without lag issues. I am sure it’s not due to weak hardware because everything was fine and smooth before.

Hardware and system information:-
Operating system: Windows 10 version 22H2 Build 19045.3930
CPU: Intel core I7-1065G7
RAM: 8.00 GB (7.78 GB usable)
GPU: Nvidia Geforce MX330
DxDiag.txt (171.2 KB)

Expected behaviour:-
To be able to play at least most Roblox games smoothly at high graphics quality levels again.

Microprofiler logs from different affected games:-

Granny:-
microprofile-20240115-124946.html (6.5 MB)

Multicrew Tank Combat 4:-
microprofile-20240115-125325.html

Cart Ride Delivery Service:-
microprofile-20240115-125052.html (3.3 MB)

Da Hood:-
microprofile-20240115-124753.html (6.2 MB)

These microprofiler logs at taken at graphics quality level 10. I could take microprofiler logs from lower graphics quality levels if needed.

Thanks.

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#2

What’s your internet speed?
Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling Roblox Player to see if it’s a glitch on your version?

1 Like
#3

My internet speed is 100 megabits/s down and 20 megabits/s up. Yes, I’ve tried uninstalling and then reinstalling Roblox player, in fact multiple times, and even tried clean-installing the Windows install. Btw, I’ve contacted Roblox support to help me with this issue before making this bug report, but unfortunately they couldn’t help me.

#4

Is your computer running anything else while you’re playing?
I used to stream Spotify while playing (with my old computer) and it just couldn’t hack it.

Use your computer’s Task Manager to see your computer’s CPU usage and memory used while playing.

#5

No, I usually don’t have anything open in the background while playing Roblox. Sometimes I have Discord open in the background but it doesn’t make a huge difference in performance. I have plenty of CPU and RAM available to open one or two more apps beside Roblox.

#6

Hello,

Sorry to hear your frame rates are suddenly super low. I’ve looked at the profiles you have attached and what’s somewhat puzzling is that at some point the GPU just takes 2x the amount of time for a nearly identical work load:

image
image778×658 59.1 KB

Are you sure no other program is trying to use the GPU in the background? (In general these types of things occur when either another program, could be background program, starts using the GPU and they time share. Or when there is high memory pressure on the system and WDDM starts moving video memory to system memory and vice versa.)

Also, are you sure the quality setting is what you think it is? In your original description you mention how you could play games smoothly at quality level 2, but in the micro profile captures you have attached, everything is at maximum quality (what you see in the menu as 10, which internally is 21)

image

(Note that that doesn’t take away that it is odd that the GPU suddenly takes 2x the time, but it might make things playable again to set it back to 2)

1 Like
#7

This might be a little bit of a stupid answer, but have you tried closing all the other apps that are open when you play roblox?

#8

Hello,

I usually don’t run anything besides Roblox when playing it and don’t think any program including a background program is trying to use the GPU in the background. I have checked the GPU usage in Task Manager and no program was using the GPU other than Roblox. Yes I have captured a microprofile log in the maximum graphics quality because I thought it would be the most useful. In most cases, most games would run smoothly at graphics quality 2 but in some cases I would notice sudden fps drops that would cause stuttering.

Here are microprofiler logs from the same games but in graphics quality 2:-

Granny:-
microprofile-20240118-215552.html (2.8 MB)

Multi-crew Tank Combat 4:-
microprofile-20240118-221629.html (6.7 MB)

Cart Ride Delivery Service:-
microprofile-20240118-221943.html (2.5 MB)

Da Hood:-
microprofile-20240118-222739.html (4.3 MB)

1 Like
#9

Yes, I’ve tried that. But it doesn’t make a difference.

1 Like
#10

Perhaps do you have a moving background? I had one of those and it made it very laggy for me.

#11

No, I do not have a moving background. I just have the default Window 7 wallpaper set as the background. I am using Windows 10 btw.

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#12

I didn’t see anything suspicious in the dxdiag but I’m reading it on my phone and it’s hard to parse. In the past I’ve had Roblox pick up the wrong graphics device (Citrix display driver used for remotely using another computer) which was not a GPU and hence used software rendering instead. Do you have any software installed that lets you access another computer remotely? E.g. citrix, parsec, or other such software?

Have you tried updating your driver’s recently?

Anything else you changed recently?

#13

I only have the “Remote Desktop Connection” program that comes pre-installed with Windows, other than that I don’t have any other software.

The last time I’ve updated any of my drivers was probably in June or July or August last year.

I haven’t changed anything in my device recently.

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#14

I would suspect other running software then if it onsets suddenly in the middle of running the client. You could take a look at task manager and watch the gpu column to see if anything else is using it excessively when you see framerate drop.

The other alternative is your computer switching down to your integrated GPU if that’s something your drivers are set up to do. I’m not sure if that’s possible gracefully or not with the Roblox client though.

#15

Currently while I am playing “Da Hood” I can see that “Desktop Window Manager” or DWM is having around 10% GPU utilisation but it’s using GPU 0 which is the integrated GPU while Roblox is using GPU 1 which is the dedicated Nvidia Geforce MX330.

#16

So on the latest profiles I see mostly 60 FPS… and where it isn’t 60 FPS it is due to fast cluster invalidation, which some engineers are looking into to improve in the coming year. (it is a really complicated issue)

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#17

Yeah, it really seems like a complicated issue but I have some more information to share.

In graphics quality level 1, most of the times I get small frame drops for example the frame rates would drop to 58 or 59 from 60fps which isn’t a big deal. But in the game “Multicrew Tank Combat 4”, I would still get huge frame rate drops. The fps in the game average at around 30fps but when it drops, it drops to around 15fps which is very low. But to be fair, this game is very complex. The maps that are included in the game are large with a lot of trees and buildings and there can be over 50 players in a server and a lot of moving vehicles. But I don’t think it’s normal to get the average fps at 30fps in graphics quality level 1 and have huge frame rate drops at this graphics quality level.

image
image1920×162 111 KB

This may be useful so I am posting microprofiler logs in graphics quality level 1:-

Granny:-
microprofile-20240119-185947.html (2.8 MB)

Da Hood:-
microprofile-20240119-201024.html (3.8 MB)

Multicrew Tank Combat 4:-
microprofile-20240119-201408.html (7.6 MB)

Cart Ride Delivery Service:-
microprofile-20240119-202017.html (2.9 MB)

Doors:-
microprofile-20240119-212731.html (2.0 MB)

Brookhaven:-
microprofile-20240119-212851.html (2.6 MB)

I could play most games smoothly at graphics quality level 1 but the experience would be very bad since the render distance is very low and a lot of effects are gone. Also this isn’t a solution since I was able to play almost all games smoothly at graphics quality level 10 before. I would prefer a “permanent” solution. I could also send you logs privately if it’s needed.

#18

Thank you for the extra information.

Based on your profiles above (where “smooth” means not a lot of frame rate invariability)

Granny - smooth

Da hood - smooth in general, here and there a frame drop due to FastCluster invalidation (which is being worked on, see previous poset)

Multicrew Tank Combat 4 - bad frame drops due to moving a lot of instanced clusters (see the updateInstancedClusters marker in microprofile)… this is something that we’ve been wanting to fix for a long time, it is basically a problem with the way the content is authored… each tank contains many many small pieces and it all moves at once… this does not play well with our caching system. This type of issue happens on a very small subset of games, so it isn’t the highest priority for us to fix (though we’ve had it on the plan for multiple years now)

Cart Ride Delivery Service - smooth
Doors - smooth
Brookhaven - smooth

In general though, I don’t think it is a surprise to anyone that there are performance issues here and there with the engine… which is something we’re continuously addressing.

Unfortunately though, a large part of the performance issues also comes from not using the technology right, and this is something that other game engines struggle with as well. (For example if you have a particle emitter that emits 10000 full screen particles that are alpha blended, well then performance is going to be bad. Or if people attach scripts that take very variable long time, then there is not a lot we can do. Or if people have massive amounts of instanced parts that they move around individually then there are limited things we can do.)

An other unfortunate side effect is that very popular titles in general have engineers monitor and tweak their game’s content based on performance performance. So they do work arounds for inefficient things (e.g. manually combining multiple parts in a mesh would solve the tank game’s issue.) So we (Roblox engineers) often don’t even get to see the real problems, because the popular games with a lot of players have already worked around them (e.g. currently the use of decals performs very slowly.) Now we are fully aware of most of those things, but the reality of those things is that you then have different performance issues in games with lots of players which take priority.

I am aware that this answer doesn’t address your specific situation, but I hope it gives some insight into the process. As you mentioned

I would prefer a “permanent” solution. I could also send you logs privately if it’s needed.

I would encourage you to provide additional information and feel free to send private messages as well.

All the best

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Big physical assemblies with CanCollide and CanTouch set to false cause extreme fps drops
#19

Thank you for your reply and I apologize for the late response.

I am glad that FastCluster invalidation is being worked on and I am looking forward for the fixes and improvements that will come to it. I am also looking forward for occlusion culling which should come this year (according to the creator roadmap) and should help a lot in performance but I don’t think it will help a lot with the tank game performance. I want to talk more specifically about this game.

Manually combining multiple parts in a mesh could be a workaround but it’s not perfect and it doesn’t suit this game. The tank models in this game have ERA, thermal cameras, turrets, individual machine guns, etc. Basically almost anything you could find in a real world tank since it’s a realistic simulator. It also allows players to attach additional ERA on tank models which are very small. In addition to that individual tank parts can be damaged in the tank for example the barrel can be damaged individually, the engine can, etc. Another thing is that, there are seats for the crew, driving parts like brakes, steering wheels, monitors, turret baskets, etc. So it just wouldn’t work on the game. I am aware that this issue happens on a very small subset of games and isn’t the highest priority to be fixed but I still would like it to be fixed as soon as it can be fixed especially because it’s causing realistic and complex games like these to have poor performance and it has already been on the plan for multiple years.

Returning to the original issue, I have sent you privately log files and I hope it would be helpful.

#20

Roblox problem, a lot of games started becoming laggier and laggier on my PC too
CPU: Intel Core i7 4770 (i know that it’s old)

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