Tech Help, Bioshock Infinite - *unexplainable fps drop, unplayable game

[TheIronRuler]

I've bought a brand new boxed Bioshock Infinite PC game yesterday and I'm very pleased with it. I knew beforehand that my computer could only run it on average settings and lower, and running it on average would strain my machine. I carried on. After a long session with the game (7 hours) I turned it off because I noticed a significant slowdown in the game itself even when I turned the graphics settings down to low.

I checked my machine's temperature and saw that my GPU temp was at around 80 C, and my CPU was at around 59 C. These are incredibly dangerous temperatures for my machine, and I understand why I had the slowdown happen to me.

I opened the box and checked to see if the fans worked, and they did work just fine. I don't know what had happened to my machine. I left it out for the night hoping it could cool down, but when I turned it back on today I saw it didn't change much.

Is there anything I can do to cool down my CPU and GPU so I could continue to smoothly play Bioshock Infinite? I don't have much time off and I hoped I could finish the game in 4-5 days.

EDIT: My problem here is the huge fps drop in the game which I can't explain. When I wanted to load it up again the fps was at around 10 or lower. it's unplayable this way, and it seems like the temp isn't the problem here.

 

[GoaThief]

The temps don't seem ridiculously bad at all to be honest, my 480gtx runs higher than that when pushed and is fine. What are your exact specs?

 

[Pjotr84]

Those temperatures are fine if they're load temps, which seems likely. If you still want to shave off a few degrees, you can always look into better system ventilation (more casefans and/or better cable management so they don't block airflow).

 

[Esotera]

That doesn't sound like an abnormal temperature for either. You could always invest in more (or more powerful) fans. And it would be worth removing any dust that is on the fan, and updating drivers.

 

[TheIronRuler]

I cleaned the machine again and I get 55 C in my GPU unit when I turn it on, it then spikes up to 80 C in a few minutes after launch.

I don't know what the hell causes the MASSIVE fps drop. It's below 10 fps and I have no idea what causes it. I thought it was the machine slowing down to avoid overheating, but now I know that is not the case.

 

[psych0r3bel]

Well, firstly I'd say post your system specs. What card/processor/RAM setup do you have? Secondly, if your specs check out, then you're likely falling victim to the same thing I did. Found this looking around on Google, not sure if I should link to it so I'll just copy/paste.

A quick note of my own: If you're using the Steam version, the config file is going to be in \steam\steamapps\common\BioShock Infinite\Engine\Config\BaseEngine.ini for whatever reason they chose to do that. You can look for it in your My Games directory too, if you find XEngine.ini there then just edit both. For the Steam folder, set the file to Read-Only after you fix it, or it might just get overwritten. (Though it might get overwritten anyway, I literally found this thread as I was following the directions below the second time. Haven't tested with Read-Only, worst comes to worst just unset it. Or Steam will overwrite it again. Idk. I'd turn off Cloud Sync for this game if it keeps doing that.) Anyway here you go:

First thing first :
Ingame menu: Dynamic Shadow set it to HIGH, VERY HIGH and ULTRA(DX11) have major fps impact on the game and they are broken on nVidia cards.
Postprocessing set it to NORMAL, ALTERNATIVE(DX11) has major fps impact on the game and it makes little difference(close to NONE)
Lock Framerate set it to OFF...this form of ingame vsync is broken and it will cause a lot of framerate issue.Instead force vSync from nvidia cPanel or CCC panel...or use D3DOverrider to force vsync and triple buffering, since triple buffer works better forced through D3DOverrider!
If you do all of that your game will run better at higher fps...BUT you may still encounter FPS DIPS!
Those FPS DIPS(stutters) occur when entering(re-entering) new areas of the game.You have a stable 60 fps and all of the sudden for a brief period of time(a second or two) your frame rate drops bellow 10(fps), after that the game comes back to 60 fps...but it is very annoying when going back and forward through areas of the game.
This is a well known U3(the graphic engine that Bioshock uses). A good example is Batman: Arkham City...but in Arkham City when you would enter a new area of the game the fps would not drop so drastically...in Bioshock it drops under 10 fps!!!
Here is a fix which will make your fps not to drop that much when entering new zones/areas(on my machine i was going from solid 60 to 5-10 fps for just a second when etering new areas...now it drops only to 30 - 40 and also the time is much shorter...like...just a fraction of a second)
Go to C:\Users\\Documents\my games\BioShock Infinite\XGame\Config
Open XEngine.ini and:
Change bUseBackgroundLevelStreaming to False and bSmoothFrameRate to False, this seems to stop the stuttering when loading.
You can also change OneFrameThreadLag to False and PoolSize...i have set my PoolSize to 1024...but you can play with it to see how well it fits you.

Edit: By the way, you edit the .ini files with NotePad if you don't know that. If it becomes that difficult for you, I can upload my BaseEngine.ini for you. Good luck!

 

[TheIronRuler]

Well, firstly I'd say post your system specs. What card/processor/RAM setup do you have? Secondly, if your specs check out, then you're likely falling victim to the same thing I did. Found this looking around on Google, not sure if I should link to it so I'll just copy/paste.

A quick note of my own: If you're using the Steam version, the config file is going to be in \steam\steamapps\common\BioShock Infinite\Engine\Config\BaseEngine.ini for whatever reason they chose to do that. You can look for it in your My Games directory too, if you find XEngine.ini there then just edit both. For the Steam folder, set the file to Read-Only after you fix it, or it might just get overwritten. (Though it might get overwritten anyway, I literally found this thread as I was following the directions below the second time. Haven't tested with Read-Only, worst comes to worst just unset it. Or Steam will overwrite it again. Idk. I'd turn off Cloud Sync for this game if it keeps doing that.) Anyway here you go:

First thing first :
Ingame menu: Dynamic Shadow set it to HIGH, VERY HIGH and ULTRA(DX11) have major fps impact on the game and they are broken on nVidia cards.
Postprocessing set it to NORMAL, ALTERNATIVE(DX11) has major fps impact on the game and it makes little difference(close to NONE)
Lock Framerate set it to OFF...this form of ingame vsync is broken and it will cause a lot of framerate issue.Instead force vSync from nvidia cPanel or CCC panel...or use D3DOverrider to force vsync and triple buffering, since triple buffer works better forced through D3DOverrider!
If you do all of that your game will run better at higher fps...BUT you may still encounter FPS DIPS!
Those FPS DIPS(stutters) occur when entering(re-entering) new areas of the game.You have a stable 60 fps and all of the sudden for a brief period of time(a second or two) your frame rate drops bellow 10(fps), after that the game comes back to 60 fps...but it is very annoying when going back and forward through areas of the game.
This is a well known U3(the graphic engine that Bioshock uses). A good example is Batman: Arkham City...but in Arkham City when you would enter a new area of the game the fps would not drop so drastically...in Bioshock it drops under 10 fps!!!
Here is a fix which will make your fps not to drop that much when entering new zones/areas(on my machine i was going from solid 60 to 5-10 fps for just a second when etering new areas...now it drops only to 30 - 40 and also the time is much shorter...like...just a fraction of a second)
Go to C:\Users\\Documents\my games\BioShock Infinite\XGame\Config
Open XEngine.ini and:
Change bUseBackgroundLevelStreaming to False and bSmoothFrameRate to False, this seems to stop the stuttering when loading.
You can also change OneFrameThreadLag to False and PoolSize...i have set my PoolSize to 1024...but you can play with it to see how well it fits you.

Edit: By the way, you edit the .ini files with NotePad if you don't know that. If it becomes that difficult for you, I can upload my BaseEngine.ini for you. Good luck!

.
Thanks, my graphics card is Nvidia Geforce 420M and I checjed to see if I can run it before I bought the game. What's curious is that I played the game for several hours before the issues started cropping up, and then I closed it off and went to bed. The next day it was just unplayable!

 

[Danceofmasks]

You may want to look into getting a laptop cooling pad .. might help.

However, keep in mind that a 420M is less powerful than an 8800 GT.
Meaning, it is below spec for Bioshock Infinite.

 

[TheIronRuler]

You may want to look into getting a laptop cooling pad .. might help.

However, keep in mind that a 420M is less powerful than an 8800 GT.
Meaning, it is below spec for Bioshock Infinite.

.
Maybe it was a Nvidia GeForce 420 GT. I used canyourunit and it said I can run it well enough.

 

[ThePuzzldPirate]

I've heard some people that it has some memory issue that after 2-3 hours of play, they have to stop cause it's un playable. They boot it up right after and it's fine. I suggest trying again, the temps aren't that bad, and if you got 7 hours through with hiccups, should be fine.

 

[Christopher Fisher]

Those fps drops are most likely just textures loading. Go into your XEngine.ini and increase the texture pool size from the default to how much VRAM your GPU has (1024 for 1Gb and 2048 for 2Gb). That should help some, although you'll still have occasional stutters from textures loading.

 

[TheIronRuler]

Those fps drops are most likely just textures loading. Go into your XEngine.ini and increase the texture pool size from the default to how much VRAM your GPU has (1024 for 1Gb and 2048 for 2Gb). That should help some, although you'll still have occasional stutters from textures loading.

.
It didn't help in the slightest.

I'm sad. I wasted my vacation on trying to play this game and not actually playing it.

 

[cip_raziel]

Just do what ThePuzzldPirate said: quit the game every 2-3 hours and start it again immediatly, thats how I play it since I got a very old PC, yet its still playable and looks great too (I'm on my second playthrough).