Project Playtime – How to improve performance in a CPU-limited scenario

I have a Ryzen 5 3600 with an all core overclock of 4.2GHz which can handle any game I throw at it and give me 60+ fps no matter what. But this game is weird and doesn’t use CPU properly, here’s how to fix it!

A guide to improving performance

Give the game high property from task manager.

This is a basic fix that will give you a slight boost in fps during CPU limited scenarios.

1. Open “Task Manager”.
2. Go to “Details”.
3. Search for “Playtime_Multiplayer-Win64-Shipping.exe” (not “Playtime_Multiplayer.exe”)
4. Click on it with the right mouse button.
5. Then go to “Set Priority” and select “Advanced” (not “Realtime”)

And done!

Note: You will need to apply this tweak every time you launch the game.

Switch to DirectX 12.

This game is packed with good old DirectX 11. Although reliable, it is a high-level API and performs significantly worse in CPU-limited scenarios than its successor, DirectX 12 (which is a low-level API). Although there is no DirectX 12 option, we can force it to use DirectX 12 since this is an Unreal Engine 4 game. Here’s how:

1. Go to your Steam library.
2. Search for “Project Playtime”.
3. Right-click on it and select “Properties”.
4. Enter “-dx12” in the “Launch Options” box.

(last resort) lower than “sight distance”

I call this solution a last resort because the other two options will give you better performance without sacrificing anything visually. Most of the graphical settings are GPU heavy with minimal impact on the CPU but there are some graphical settings that have a high impact on the CPU. In terms of “Project Playtime” the only one I could find was the “View Distance” option. You can reduce it with these steps.

1. Open the game.
2. Go to “Settings”.
3. Set “Viewing Distance” to “Low”.
4. Click on “Apply”.

And done!

Results

Before applying any tweaks I was dropping to 30 fps in some parts and it was unbearable, now with these tweaks (except the last one) I get 1920×1080 resolution at max settings. Was getting 100+ fps and only on rare occasions it dropped to 80 fps range. I have a pretty good CPU equivalent of an i7-8700K and an i5-10400f so seeing as initial performance was pretty disappointing but it’s early access appeal, I felt I should write this guide for those folks. Needs to be made that are not tech. Wise as I am, I will update this post if I find new information!

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