loosing cpu priority causing random lag

[H.Thompson]

system specs
Asus M51AD
I7 4790S quad core 3.2mhz 4.0 turbo
16g vengeance gamming ram
Evga Nvidia GTX 1080ti 11g video ram
Samsung 850 ssd
Windows 10 home version 21H1 os build 19043.1288
Kenshi 1.0.51 x64 (Newland) with no mods

geforce experience ingame overlay shows
fps
main menu 240 fps
ingame 80-120 fps
99% fps 0-120 fps
cpu 20-30%
gpu 40-80%

the game has started freezing up randomly, lasting for 1 to 15 seconds. this happens randomly and repeatedly(1 to 3 times per minute) once the game starts, even at the main menu. during this freezing Sound still plays, all video output seems locked until unfreeze.

my attempts to fix this include, in this order:
1) verifying local files. thru steam validate
2) update drivers
3) update windows
4) delete all local files and folders, %appdata% files and folders, save files and folders, restart system then reinstall from steam
5) format ssd, fresh install of windows, fully update windows, update drivers, restart system, reinstall from steam

thru all these attempts I have failed to find a solution. I have been fighting this for months and it has made Kenshi unplayable for me.

Nvidia support said that the 99% fps counter meant a desync between video buffer and output buffer.

I started a trace of the Kenshi64.exe process with windows performance monitor. I noticed that Kenshi is loosing its process %privileged time, %processor time, %user time. I have found these happen at the same time ntoskrnl.exe spikes up in %processor time. I was unable to detect any disk/memory/network activity to go along with this spikes.

there was no crash so Kenshi made no crash logs. I could try to create a process dump from the task manager if you need it, but the ability to create a dump at the same moment of a freeze would be hit and miss.

I love Kenshi and I truly hope you can help solve this issue. If there is anything else I can do please let me know.

Thank you for your time with this matter

[H.Thompson]

Is it possible to download older versions of the game, I did not have this issue before an update to the game

[Shidan]

If you want an easy method to revert to older versions, there isn't a very good option. If you don't mind using DOS commands, there is a third party program that can do it, provided you are willing to log in using your Steam account, and own the game on steam. While I have no reason to believe the program is dangerous, you should be cautious of providing you login to third parties. I personally always change my password immediately after downloading anything using it.

You can download DepotDownloader here.
https://github.com/SteamRE/DepotDownloader/releases

There is a good guide on the process of using it here, complete with images if needed.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 2353930763


To make thing a little easier, here are Kenshi's IDs.

The app ID for Kenshi is:
233860

The depot ID for the main stable build:
233861

You can pull the manifest IDs here:
https://steamdb.info/depot/233861/history/

The most recent non-current stable build's manifest ID is:
4145010368677772709


If you run into any issues trying to use the program, feel free to ask any questions and I'll try to answer.

[H.Thompson]

ok, I tried the steam beta old versions. the issue persisted with them all but the further back I went the less noticeable the lag was. I tried to use an older version of my nvidia driver but I could not find one to roll back to so I uninstalled all my nvidia drivers and restarted with the windows basic display driver. yeah my system looked really bad at that point but the lag was still there. so I reinstalled GeForce experience and my drivers

I did find somewhat of a workaround.
1. click the icon to launch Kenshi_64 launcher
2> before you click ok to start the game press ctrl-alt-del to get to task manager
3>go to details and find Kenshi_64 and set its priority to high
4>close task manager, go back to the Kenshi launcher and start the game

the lag is still there but it is greatly improved. at least the game is playable again

[Stone-D]

That sounds to me like something else is interfering. Check anti-virus and other apps running in the background. Kill as many processes as you can before running Kenshi, see what happens.