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Question - IDE GameMaker IDE is extremely slow (low framerates) when opened in dual monitor

Gunner

Member
After a while of opening the IDE in dual monitor, that is, you got workspace 1 on one and workspace 2 on another monitor, the IDE starts to run very very slowly.

Measured the FPS, from steady 50-60 FPS doing things like panning around, even when typing code, drops all the way down to 10-20.

I've only noticed this on the most recent IDE update (version 2.3.2.560 IDE), although it could have as well happened on prior versions only I didn't notice.

Before anyone starts recommending me to suck it up and spec bump my PC, I got a pretty above average setup here. Intel i9 10900K, 64GB of RAM, and Samsung 980 PRO 500GB as the C drive (scratch drive) as well where the project is sitting on.



As soon as you close that window on the second monitor, the FPS quickly recovers back up to a workable 50-60 FPS, so it works fine on single. Which sucks for people who have invested in multiple monitors for GM alone. This also somewhat explains the nature of the beast, chances are its just a misconfigured inactive window power-saving feature or whatnot. There's some settings on preferences that sets the frame rate percentage limit for "AC", "Battery", and "Background". Set everything to 100%, and no effect.
 
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50-60 seems awfully slow even for one screen. Sounds like something with your PC setup. I run a 5600X, 32GB, 3070, NVMe, 1440p + 1080p setup, and I get 155FPS on one screen, and... 265 on two (???).
 

Gunner

Member
50-60 seems awfully slow even for one screen. Sounds like something with your PC setup. I run a 5600X, 32GB, 3070, NVMe, 1440p + 1080p setup, and I get 155FPS on one screen, and... 265 on two (???).
You're really missing my point here. Nothing to do with 50-60. It's only an FPS limiter in place on some GPU driver configs that limit my FPS at that. NOT how much my PC can push. Nonetheless, its irrelevant. Its not a benchmark. The point is the FPS drops.

Curious if you're you running on the latest IDE version (2.3.2.560)? How long do you run it for? Leave it running for a while while switching between tasks, desktops, etc. and let me know if it still runs fine.

Let me rephrase
Initially its running fine. 50-60 FPS. Workable. Until you start switching tasks around, opening other programs, shifting the window focus out from GM. That's when it starts to slow down rapidly. Closing the second window quickly recovers the framerates thus its back at full speed again.

My guess would be a poorly optimized power saving feature in GM that doesn't play nice with certain hardware, thus you get quirks like this. Its running normally as long as the window focus doesn't get shifted out from GM
 
I know it's not a benchmark. My main monitor is a 144HZ display and the IDE is set to match, so I would expect the 144+ FPS, but to increase when running two displays was not expected. I'm running the latest IDE and my project stays open for days, even weeks at a time, as GM is always running when my PC is on. At rare times, GMS2 idles at a higher CPU usage, but only under specific conditions, and without compromise to the IDE's performance. For you to get less than 60 when things are "fine" only looked to me like it's not even running well to begin with, which is why I stated that it must be something about your setup.
 

kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
I'm also guessing it is something on your specific setup. I have 4 monitors, and have split GM over 2 of them for days at a time and have never noticed any slowdown. And I'm on only a "mid-range" gaming PC, a GTX1070, i7-8700K going 3.7Ghz, and the SSD of course. And yes, I typically leave my PC on for several days at a time, maybe rebooting once a week(when I remember, or if there is an update or something).
 

YellowAfterlife

ᴏɴʟɪɴᴇ ᴍᴜʟᴛɪᴘʟᴀʏᴇʀ
Forum Staff
Moderator
I would suggest to check if this happens on any project or this specific one - e.g. if you have a whole lot (read: hundreds) of open windows in a workspace that you forgot about, IDE will have a hard time.

If it's for any project, might be some specific caveat - I'm running GMS2 fine on a slightly worse setup (i9-9900K, 32GB RAM, GTX 1660 Ti, KINGSTON SA400S37480G) and slightly higher resolution (1440p, 75hz) on a three-monitor setup - and for days at a time.
 
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