Framerate drops

[lars708]

So I've seen the topic of framerate drops come up in several threads now so I figured I'd make an actual topic on it.

What are framerate drops?
Many video games have a framerate capped at either 30fps or 60fps. The amount of fps (frames per second) meaning how many images the game displays per second. Thus, the higher the fps or framerate (the terms can be used interchangeably) the smoother the video will look. Animal Crossing: New Horizons has its framerate capped at 30fps. However it's quite an open game in the sense that it allows you to place either a lot of furniture around your island or none at all. This can create a ton of extra processing load for the console and if it becomes too much for the game to handle it'll slow down to catch up with the processing before displaying a new frame. This can cause a frame to appear twice as long as the previous ones, and is called a framedrop. It has an effect on the smoothness of the game and by extension, the user experience.

Observations so far:
So what's interesting is that on my island the framedrops occur quite consistently within a few areas. Those areas are also jam packed with furniture and other decorations so it makes sense for that to happen there. I'm personally quite sensitive to framerate issues and am a bit disappointed with this but I suppose it was unavoidable, and luckily it doesn't ruin the game.

However I've seen people report that it the issue occurs in fairly empty areas as well. So this makes me curious...


Have you run into any framedrops yet? And when did they occur? Was it in a well decorated area or did it happen at a seemingly random moment?

Things we've learned:

• Flowers seem to have a considerate impact on the framerate. Try removing excess flowers if you can.
• Having too many bugs and fish displayed can cause issues, as a workaround you can store them in your house or sell them to Flick/CJ.

 

[UglyMonsterFace]

I've not experienced frame rate drops. However, sometimes when I walk into an area, furniture takes time to appear. So they'll just start popping up as I walk by. But I also have A LOT of clutter all over my island. I'm hoping that once I clean it all up, this will improve.

 

[Ananas Dragon]

So I've seen the topic of framerate drops come up in several threads now so I figured I'd make an actual topic on it.

What are framerate drops?
Many video games have a framerate capped at either 30fps or 60fps. The amount of fps (frames per second) meaning how many images the game displays per second. Thus, the higher the fps or framerate (the terms can be used interchangeably) the smoother the video will look. However Animal Crossing: New Horizons is quite an open game which allows you to place either a lot of furniture around you island or none. This can create a ton of extra processing load for the console and if it becomes too much for the game to handle it'll slow down to catch up with the processing before displaying a new frame. This can cause a frame to appear twice as long as the previous ones, and is called a framedrop. It has an effect on the smoothness of the game and by extension, the user experience.

Observations so far:
So what's interesting is that on my island the framedrops occur quite consistently within a few areas. Those areas are also jam packed with furniture and other decorations so it makes sense for that to happen there. I'm personally quite sensitive to framerate issues and am a bit disappointed with this but I suppose it was unavoidable, and luckily it doesn't ruin the game.

However I've seen people report that it the issue occurs in fairly empty areas as well. So this makes me curious...


Have you run into any framedrops yet? And when did they occur? Was it in a well decorated area or did it happen at a seemingly random moment?

My framerate drops everytime I go into my field full of flowers

my island is full of flowers, like too many so i get the framerate drop everytime i go into a patch of flowers

its worse when there are trees too

 

[lars708]

I've not experienced frame rate drops. However, sometimes when I walk into an area, furniture takes time to appear. So they'll just start popping up as I walk by. But I also have A LOT of clutter all over my island. I'm hoping that once I clean it all up, this will improve.

Pop-in is in essence different to framedrops but rather the game not being able to load in all the objects in time. It's also a result of Nintendo trying their best to keep the framerate consistent because loading and rendering too many objects at once CAN cause framedrops. They're related but not the same

Honestly the pop-in can be pretty bad even with nothing going on, if you place a floorlight and pay attention to it while walking to the north you can easily see the light shaft disappearing before it's actually fully off-screen

Post automatically merged: May 30, 2020

My framerate drops everytime I go into my field full of flowers

my island is full of flowers, like too many so i get the framerate drop everytime i go into a patch of flowers

its worse when there are trees too

Interesting, I'll see if removing my flowers will change anything. Now that I think of it, the areas with issues have a bunch of flowers planted. It would make sense because the flowers in this game are quite detailed, maybe unnecessarily so.

 

[spawnpoint]

My framerate drops everytime I go into my field full of flowers

my island is full of flowers, like too many so i get the framerate drop everytime i go into a patch of flowers

its worse when there are trees too

I can support this, ive been there before and geez the lag is unreal

 

[Neechan]

No frame drops, but pop Ins are more common when I come to my small community area..

 

[tajikey]

If it has happened to me, I couldn't tell.

 

[lars708]

If it has happened to me, I couldn't tell.

Fair, for the untrained eye it's kind of hard to tell. I'm very sensitive to it which probably means I play too many vidya gaems

 

[Noctis]

My frame always drops when I make a left turn to my nooks also depending what direction I'm coming from my outdoor library takes a while to load. I've never experienced it before but now it's like a normal thing.

 

[sunset_succulent]

framerate drops also occur when you have a lot of stuff on your island. glitches are made using this to their advantage and getting to places such as the fourth tier and the ocean.

 

[lars708]

framerate drops also occur when you have a lot of stuff on your island. glitches are made using this to their advantage and getting to places such as the fourth tier and the ocean.

Yes I've seen this actually, but that only really happens if you deliberately go out of your way to glitch the game out. During normal gameplay you (luckily) won't see such severe problems happening.

 

[nammie]

Yes, the frame rate drops considerably in certain areas of my island. At first it was just in one area with some flowers (NOT covered in flowers, I have other areas that have considerably more flowers). I tried removing the flowers but the frame rate still drops in that area so I just put the flowers back. This has been happening for around a month now.

Recently the frame rate is also dropping in other areas of my island where I haven't changed anything in weeks now, and it kinda seems like it's.... spreading? from the original spot. And I haven't made any changes to any of these areas where it's happening, so it's just started randomly. Another area where the frame rate drops is super far away, and again I don't have that much stuff out there. It's strange because I DO have areas of my island full of furniture, flowers, trees, etc. but those areas are fine.

 

[lars708]

I can relate to that actually, it does seem to get worse as of late.

Kind of hoping it doesn't get too much worse than this as time goes on, because I don't know how much more I can tolerate before being turned off by it tbh... Hopefully future updates improve upon it!

 

[Clock]

It happened to me a bit, although I saw someone on twitter with alot of framerate drops when they cluttered their island with bugs to sell to Flick, it was really laggy.

 

[angiepie]

The only place I experience frame rate drops is my flower field and that’s understandable because there’s a lot going on in that area.

 

[Olivetopia13]

I just recently started having frame rate issues with an area next to my resident services which shouldn’t really happen because I haven’t changed the amount of furniture there in over 3 weeks and this only started happening about a week ago. I’m hoping if I pick up some dropped diys that we’re relatively close to that area that the problem will be solved.
It’s seriously annoying to feel like I’m running in slow motion when I go through that area to get to the campsite for a new villager!

 

[brockbrock]

Yup, I definitely experience it on one section of my map. It's filled with decorations and villager houses so it's to be expected, but initially I was feeling quite disappointed about it. Now it doesn't bother me so much, though I do still notice it every time I run past.

I also had this happen in a very large flower field that I left unattended and that exploded with hybrids. I was lazy and didn't keep it in check, so every time I even walked through there I'd notice a drop in fps.

 

[Rosch]

I experienced it on my island back when I was doing the campsite method. I forgot to fence my flowers so it covered my island. There were several hiccups while I was digging up the flowers. Framerate drops were gone when the flowers were slowly being cleaned up because there are finally more empty space than flowers.

 

[lars708]

So flowers seem to be the big issue huh, I wonder how the game would run if you were to fill up an entire area with a ton of furniture

 

[Red Cat]

It happened to me a bit, although I saw someone on twitter with alot of framerate drops when they cluttered their island with bugs to sell to Flick, it was really laggy.

I have this exact problem. I desperately need Flick to show up soon.