Huge lag when Uber Ancients start spawning minions

I've got a full statue set and a pretty decent ES Warlock set up in ladder, but I haven't dared try Uber Ancients yet. Instead I ran some test runs in single player today with various characters to get a feel of them. But everytime they start spawning the minions, the game gets super laggy - so much, that I only get a click through here and there and that obviously gets me killed very quickly.

I've got a decent computer that can normally run 3 instances of D2 with high settings with no problem whatsoever, but trying different graphic settings did absolutely nothing to this issue. So now I'm afraid of trying Uber Ancients on ladder cause if the same problem persists, I just lose all those statues.

Has anyone else experienced this and was there a difference in single/multi player?

It would help if you told us your PC specs. Also your ram/cpu usage in task manager when the lag happens. This could help us determine what's the cause and perhaps rule out something else. Is the lag only happening in this area of the game? Do other areas of the game lag when there are a lot of stuff on the screen? Test

Uber Tristram, does it lag when the ubers begin spawning in minions?

Run MSI Afterburner, monitor temperatures, usage, vram, etc.

AMD Ryzen 5 5500, GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, 32 Gt RAM, SSD. Processor peaks at around 40%, GP at around 30-40% and Memory is a steady 50% during the lag.

I actually just now tested frame rate

Cap to 30, that removed the problem. Normally I can play with uncapped framerate.

Also there is no lag in

Uber Tristram with higher frame rates or graphic settings.

kurpiza wrote: 1 month ago

I actually just now tested frame rate

Cap to 30, that removed the problem. Normally I can play with uncapped framerate.

So when you play with an uncapped frame rate, your FPS tanks when Uber ancients start spawning their minions, but capping it at 30 alleviates the problem. What are your temperatures? Is it possible you are experiencing thermal throttling? Is this a laptop?

Have you ever run any benchmark stress tests on your PC?

Haven't seen anything of the sort on SP or online.

Have you only tried it in one session so far?
If so, give it another go on SP. Might've been some bad timing with a massive spike in background activity -> performance loss..antivir kicking in for a quick scan or whatever.

It's not really FPS tanking. Now that I tested again it seems to be related to my mouse or USB, cause the problem is that mouse starts lagging / commands are not transferred, but everything still moves (and kills me) in the screen. It's a Logitech MX Master 3S and connected to USB3.0 port. I had similar problem in another game but changing the port from 2.0 to 3.0 fixed it. It's a desktop PC. I've ran benchmark stress tests yes.

I tried it 5-6 six times at Uber Ancients, always the same thing. Rebooted the game three times in between. In

Uber Tristram just one trial with no problem. Ran some other places too, Shenk with the fireworks after he's killed - no problem. Hephasto with aura and place full of monsters, some mouse lagging but not nearly as bad.

EDIT: And like I said in the first post, this has not happened in multiplayer and I've played all the content there except Uber Ancients.

Can you test with another mouse? You mentioned this has happened in another game, which means it's not D2R specific. Definitely a hardware issue, possibly driver issue with the mouse or USB. Try connecting it via Bluetooth instead of USB, see what happens.

It also wouldn't be the first time Logitech randomly does that.

I've actually had a similar issue with a logitech wireless keyboard a few years back. Stopped responding properly at the most random of times, despite no real load or anything, but reliably when recreating those arbitrary circumstances.
Different, non-LG keyboard in the same circumstances..no problems whatsoever.

One of the reasons I don't use Logitech anymore.

Personally I think capping the frame rate is a good choice when playing a poorly optimized game like D2R.

By capping the fps at 60, I know that the game is at least "trying" not to wander off into some dubious display stunt that would drag the performance down and kick everything else into an

Abyss.

Thanks for all the comments! I thought I'd be yelling into a Void, I was very positively surprised to get many constructive replies so quickly. Just going back and forth with someone else helps make sense of the issue. I'll get another mouse to test, maybe it's time to ditch Logitech (or the MS series at least).