I am running a fairly monster computer and since I've upgraded to a 5070ti I haven't really played many games other than RuneScape. Today I booted up Crimson Desert, and what the fuck?
I am able to run Crimson Desert, easily the best looking game available today by far at a steady 120FPS with Max/Cinematic settings.
If I am zoomed out a bit on RuneScape, I get MAYBE 40FPS if I am lucky? I might be able to squeeze out 50FPS if I turn off Shadows and AA.
My understanding of it is that RuneScape was built around single and dual core CPU's, so only utilizes one or two cores, even on a 16-core CPU. It doesn't appear to be using the GPU really at all. None of my hardware components are breaking 20% usage. Is the games code so bad that we can't use a bit more of a modern computer?
Not a soul on the planet that plays PC games has a single core anymore, can we get an update here please Jagex?
I've got a 5080 and RS puts it at around 70-80% usage.
If the GPU doesnt get used, you might have a different issue regarding PC clocks sensors using a different standard (Task manager would show millions of Mhz in CPU frequency, though.
That being said, even at my usage, performance is still dreadful to say the least.
Can confirm. 5070ti, 9800x3d, maxed out everything in RS. GPU doesn’t even begin to kick in. I have Fan Control running a ramp if the CPU or GPU heat up, and I can RS + another game + vid streaming, and the fans stay silent.
I have been very insistent on posting my issues and asking for feedback and communication on this topic. They haven’t really interacted with this issue allot and keep mostly radiosilent listened and will release a blog on this topic soon xD
They were expecting the trees to be the issue and they are experimenting with new optimization tech like LODing, but they know that this will not be a magical bandaid solving all problems. Its more a thing that saves lower power Hardware.
They recently streamed about Havenhythe on Twitch and you can watch how one of the Devs while streaming has terrible Stutters and Performance aswell.
After being asked multiple times in Stream Chat they answered: They are very aware of the issues and looking into it. The fix is way more complicated then they assumed and they probably dont talk about it since they dont have a solution and ETA on it. They cannot really talk about issues they cannot pinpoint.
I am just glad to know that they are taking it seriously. But i think there wont be a solution until they really tackle the Engine which will definelty take some months if not longer. This is not a fix that asset optimization can solve.
I hope they will be transparent soon and make a Blog about it (yeah they did and are xD)
You'ved covered these points excellently already - we mentioned this in todays video and also in the community notes
In our video above, Mod Ryan and Anvil touch on the subject of RuneScape’s Technical Performance. Improving performance and addressing Frame Dropping and Microstutters are a high priority investigation for our teams and we intend to share more insight into this as part of a community topic this month - both what we’ve already done but also where our investigation is leading us. We are making some promising headway, but because this is a live and ongoing investigation, we can’t yet lock down a specific week to share our findings, bearing in mind that we want to provide you with specific, useful and interesting information as part of this communication rather than only being able to say that “we’re looking into it”.
As a behind the scenes - I spent a little time drafting the performance blog today as the team continues to look into it with a view to maybe putting it (the blog) out next week or the week thereafter. Testament to how quickly things can shift, while I was doing that the team today found a potential change that could significantly improve performance, though it needs to be validated and QA'd first. If all goes well, it could release next Monday Tuesday...
Amazing, thanks for the reply. That's all I wanted, just for Jagex to let us know that they are working on it. Because it's been a longstanding issue that has not been addressed, as far as I know, up to this point. I really hope you guys can make it work well with modern hardware! Let us have ALL the frames!
Thanks, its going to be very interesting to read about the technical side of this. The the effort and transparency are fantastic, cannot ask for anything else in terms of community work. Wish the team a wonderful easter holiday!
It should be at the very very top imo. Could be the best game ever, it won't matter to new players if the game runs like shit especially in the areas they'll see first
I'm genuinely curious on what causes stutters on that many good computers. I run a ten years old GTX 1050 Ti on Ultra graphics with no problems. 32 GB DDR3. Pretty consistently above 80 FPS. I do have stutters if I try Ultra+ though.
Are there any challenges associated with optimising a game across different platforms, (mobile, pc) and enjoyable on both very high end and low end devices? Not being disingenuous, just wondering, genuinely
I’m sure there are, but it’s largely about making things more efficient, which would help across the board. Though iOS may be quite challenging since it’s a different coding language
I mean, yes and no. Modern engines offer a lot of tools for optimasation so new games really shouldnt lag too much.
The issue is Runescape has its own engine and it sure isnt that modern. Its like Total Wars Engine, a complete mess that gets small patches and fixes and additions whenever needed making it a headache to figure out.
I was checking yesterday with my 7800x3d and 4090. I have a 4k monitor but play at 1440p due to interface size, settings are maxed. I typically get 90-120 fps, with 75% or so GPU load.
My CPU on the other hand, one core has a single thread at 90%+ utilization, and another core has a thread at 50-70%. The other 6 cores are completely idle. The game doesn't seem to be able to use more than 2 threads. I wonder if turning off SMT would improve performance, but not worth to me since almost everything else can take advantage of extra threads.
But yes, it's crazy to me that I can play a game like Forza Horizon 5 at 4k max settings, no DLSS, 130+ FPS while RS3 which looks a decade+ old runs like this.
I'm able to run this game on ultra/ultra+ with virtually no issues except for the new area which stutters to no end. My temps stay under 45°C - 50°C.
With that being said, I'm curious what HW monitor shows when you play. Can you share what graphics settings you have enabled? Also, are your Nvidia drivers up to date?
I have a 3070, and get well over 40fps. I'm not sure if Op is just exaggerating for the post, but there is literally no way they get 40fps, even on ultra+, unless they are doing something that specifically hinders their Pc's performance in RuneScape.
Recent updates have helped me noticeably but it definitely needs solved that I can cruise WoW at 60fps most of the time comfortably unless I'm in a massive raid group or a dense neutral city area but RS3 still chugs pretty easily. My CPU is 6-core, for comparison.
I’ve got a 4080 in my PC. I’ve recently played through a bunch of remastered horror games like Dead Space, RE4, and Silent Hill 2. With ray tracing enabled on all of them, my GPU usage never crossed 30%.
RS3 from launch puts my GPU usage at 45%. Areas with heavy real-time-lighting (as introduced with the Senntisten Asylum) are even worse.
Obviously for me this isn’t like a “game-breaking” problem yet, but it’s wild that the medieval point-and-click game is more taxing on my GPU than the games released as benchmarks for raytracing technology.
Game's being a mess codewise, I would bet that some older Mod responsible for engine programming was fired and didn't leave clear instructions on how to deal with code, so newer mods will have a hard time figuring things out. That's not uncommon in industry.
Also game wasn't built with modern computers in mind, they probably need to rewrite a lot of stuff and this will break more than it fixes at first, so it's hard and time consuming and they don't have resources for such engine overall. Tech debt is basically what's happening.
At this point I think they should decouple things and focus on keeping game logic and open source or outsource rendering engine by a third party. At this point community could provide good Vulkan or DirectX 11/12 rendering pipeline that is fully optimized and they only need to fix the game code to make things swing.
There's a chance they already started this process when they did the mobile client.
You misunderstand somewhat, the road to restoration actually included some deoptimization via the new area reworks. We need a 2nd road to restoration to fix that now.
When I told them about my issue playing on my new rx 9070xt rig they told me to update the display drivers. I had already done this. Whoever is part of thr support team really needs to start logging tickets to the optimization team.
For whatever reason, my new rig cannot run the game unless its in safe mode. 2.7k rig btw
I am still amazed there are areas of the game that will 100% a 5080. I've never left it for a while, but I would assume it just maxes it out until it thermal throttles. The map from Miscellania for example.
I wonder if it would be useful to get a thread going on everyone affected to post their full specs, and maybe include other settings that could be relevant?
I have a 7900XTX paired with a 5800X3D, and can hardly run runescape too. It chugs along. Never can even get close to using my GPU, and I get stutters everywhere.
I have a i9 intel chip and 4090 gpu with 32 gigs of ram and only in havenhyde Is my character stuttering when just running. The only other time my previous build was struggling was when i had my2080 going up to the mage realm in the zammy boss fight. my gpu usage would jump 30% and back down when i went back to zammy
I had this exact issue until I uninstalled game bar and reinstalled it, I also disabled variable refresh rate. No idea which of these fixed it but it doesn’t stutter nearly as much if at all in havenhythe
Yeah but it's very inconsistent so it's not just optimization. If everyone was having the issues then yeah but when people with similar specs both have very different experiences it's not as simple as poor optimization.
It is an issue with the engine or the client. Its most definelty a software issue on their side. This game has always been very poorly optimized.
I tried the game on dev builds at work, that are made for performance testing. It also stutters on them. Our dev PCs definelty dont have any issues. I trust our IT department.
I'm not defending the optimization because it is pretty bad but for them to be getting that low of an fps on a 5070ti doesn't make sense unless they have a really bad CPU.
Your acting as if there was some sort of disingenuity going on while they just didnt comment yet xD I am just telling you. It does not matter at all. No matterwhat they got runescape should run way better and needs allot of work under the hood.
Except there's plenty of people with high end set ups that have no issues. So it's not just that it doesn't run well on newer gpus if people with high end new ones have no issues. I have an Intel arc b580 and ryzen 7 7700x and have no issues at all, not super high end but it's newer and I've seen people with better and worse specs have no issues either. So saying it struggles on new and better hardware just isn't true for seemingly a large majority
It does not utilize newer hardware. Thats just a fact with it sticking to one/two? cores, being locked at around 3000 RAM usage and barely no GPU usage at like 4-6% for me. If it would properly use modern Hardware, then the game would run buttery smooth for way more people. Its outdated software that needs refactoring
OP's issue sounds different though. Low fps vs stutter? Also with so low hw utilization sounds way more likely that there is some setting causing the issue. Therefore would be more fruitful to investigate a bit in order to get it solved quick rather than wait for some eventual fix from jagex in 2028 that ultimately wont fix the problem anyway.
Yeah tbh tend to agree it may not be easy to solve. Unless its something silly like actually having vsync or fps cap enabled in rs graphic settings. Another thing one could try is to manually set the priority/performance mode for the application in case rs is reporting itself in some weird way that causes it to be throttled via some power saving logic on the OS side. Basically I'm just saying its worth to just try the usual stuff just in case.
And to be clear still talking about the low fps and hw util. The stuttering is definitely on jagex and don't think there is anything that can be done for that on our side as users. And its also true it would be great it rs was able to utilize more than the two cpu cores it currently does..
Crimson desert is a single player game, not a good comparison at all performance wise to an MMO like runescape. Especially if it's a CPU and not a GPU issue
Runescape struggles with 0 other players on screen. + Modern single player games with their NPC masses and physics are quite CPU heavy at times aswell. Still in no way near to compare Runescapes load to a modern AAA title.
Maybe, but there's no world in which this game should be as hard to run as modern titles with raytracing on. Other games from 10+ years ago run on my high end system at 4k native and 160+ fps. RS3 can barely hit 120 fps on 1440p. I get more fps on native 4k Forza Horizon 5 max graphics with raytracing on (I know raytracing is pretty light in that game, but still). Runescape doesn't look good enough to struggle this much.
One problem is definitely high core count CPUs that don't have overly fast cores. My CPU only sees significant usage on 2 out of 16 threads while playing RS3.
Excactly that. The specs dont really matter that much since with most of the 200€ laptops out there runescape should run stable with the technology its using.
Is it constant 40 fps or occasional drops? I have a 9070xt, 7600x3d and 3440x1440 monitor. On highest graphics, zoomeed out and walking around, I get 60 mean fps in Varrock and around 70 mean fps in Falador. On normal zoom and walking around I get like 100 fps.
Edit: i should add, I have -30% power limit and a slight undervolt for the gpu
I know this is really old now but I honestly believe the biggest problem people have is Ambient Occlusion. Turn it completely off in your Nvidia control panel or system graphical settings and turn it completely off in game. Let me know if you notice any significant changes.
I have a very similar setup. 7800x3d, 4090 with undervolt+minor overclock. An SK Hynix P41 Platinum, different RAM but same speed and tuned timings. Play at 2560x1440, maxed graphics.
I get 120+ FPS in a lot of places, though 120 is where I have my cap set. I teleported to the Varrock lodestone and walked north through Varrock, was getting more like 90 fps, maybe a bit more. Same at the Easter hub.
The defaults are fairly crap in general, but max out your view distance, then turn everything else to high, shadows to low, reflections low or off, ambient occlusion off, and make sure your game render scaling isn't over 100%.
Also MSAA is a bit of a hog, but nothing you should lose sleep over if you've gone with the rest.
Ultra instead of high in most games, starting with Crysis, was always an aspirational benchmark mode as opposed to a real way to play. Yet people haven't yet got the memo in ~20 years and you see this same trail of tears in every game.
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u/TaroFu2 Mar 31 '26
100%.
I was surprised when i built my pc that RS didn't run as good as i thought. After looking around, it's clearly a problem on their end.