What the??? Performance Issue

[crimsonknights2]

In the hopes of the community stepping up to help identify a performance bottleneck and hopefully providing some insight, I'm starting this thread with my quest findings tonight regarding a singular, yet reproduce-able performance issue.

I am not running a high end machine, however, I do run DDO at 122-150fps smoothly with MSI Afterburner running (yes I always play with it running). I run at graphics level set to 100% Ultra High. I never really notice any issues. Tonight, running the black loch, I noticed a huge amount of client lag. My FPS dropped from 150+ fps to 9fps! My GPU utilization went from flatline at zero to 100% pegged..... My mouse basically is unresponsive and the game is unplayable.

What was I doing? I dared to look at the pirate ship. That's it. Stare at it, 9fps, look away, 150 fps. WT?? Whether this is the first time you see the ship, or the second, it was the same result. BTW - I toggled EVERY advanced graphics option, and if I either turn off post-processing, or leave it on and turn off surface reflection, I can raise it to about 30+ fps, but that's my maximum gain. But...At that 30+ fps my mouse becomes responsive again.

Can you guys duplicate? Thoughts, insights? This is 100% repro'd for me at will. Set graphics level to Ultra High, you get it. Change Surface Reflection, it relieves a ton of pressure on the GPU.

I would appreciate any insights and I'm sure if we can provide enough data, maybe it would be helpful to TB. If I get reports here in the thread of repro I'll bug it, otherwise I'll write it off as my rig.

Thanks folks.

[voxson5]

Its just that area. It happens to everyone, and it has been that way since the arc was released.

[crimsonknights2]

Its just that area. It happens to everyone, and it has been that way since the arc was released.

Superb. There is nothing better than a 100% duplicate-able defect. Easy to replicate means easy to identify the issue. If, perchance the root of the issue happens to be the same issue we see causing lag spikes in raids and areas like eveningstar and the marketplace center, that would be nice.

[dredre9987]

It is the water. Shut down reflections and shadows and watch fps jump right back up...Something has never been right in there.