Star Wars Squadrons is now available, however, it appears that the PC version suffers from some optimization issues. The game currently has 30fps animations during both cut-scenes and gameplay sequences. Furthermore, there is a bug/issue that causes the CPU to be used at 100% for the first 5-10 minutes.
For these initial tests, we used an Intel i9 9900K with 16GB of DDR4 at 3600Mhz. We’ve paired this machine with an NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti, and we also used Windows 10 64-bit as well as the latest version of the GeForce drivers.
For those wondering, we’ve been able to replicate these issues multiple times. This 100% CPU usage could explain the stuttering issues that some PC gamers have reported. These stuttering issues will be more noticeable on CPUs with few CPU cores/threads. For what it’s worth, we didn’t have any stutters during our initial playtesting.
Below you can find some screenshots, showcasing the 100% CPU usage bug. Again, this issue happens during the first 5-10 minutes. If you immediately run the single-player campaign or an MP mode, you will be affected by it. After these 5-10 minutes, CPU usage drops to 70-80%. Still, this is an abnormal behavior that affects the gameplay. We don’t really know what is causing it. So, the only workaround here is to launch the game and wait for 5-10 minutes on the main menu, which is kind of ridiculous. This could be either due to the anti-cheat system, due to Denuvo, or simply due to a bug. Still, EA Motive needs to fix it as soon as possible as it will undoubtedly introduce stability issues in a lot of PC systems.
Regarding the game’s 30fps animations issue, there was no way via which we could fix it. We’ve tried setting our desktop resolution to 1440p/60hz (instead of 1440p/144hz), however, the game still had those 30fps animations. We also tried disabling the “fullscreen optimizations” which – again – did not fix our issue. Due to these 30fps animations, the game feels awful. Naturally, this low framerate also affects your movement and reaction, making the game feel sluggish and unresponsive.
I’d also like to note that both Star Wars Battlefront 2 did not suffer from these issues. So yeah, EA Motive has dropped the ball and should release a PC performance/optimization patch as soon as possible.
UPDATE
After a lot of testing, we were finally able to enable 60fps animations. In order to achieve this, you’ll have to set your refresh rate at 59.95Hz in the Screen Settings. Then, you’ll have to enable V-Sync. By doing these, you’ll force the game’s animation to run at 60fps. However, you’ll lose all the benefits of your high refresh rate monitors. Those with 60hz monitors will not encounter this issue. This is obviously a bug that EA Motive will have to fix via a post-launch update. The 100% CPU usage still occurs every time we restart the game, so there is currently no solution to that issue.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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