NBA 2K18 PC Frame Rate Drops - Share your conf

Well, game ran awful the first at the first start (CPU i7 4790K / 8 Go Ram / GF 970 )

So I tweak my game settings (and my drivers months ago). Here's my conf, feel free to use it, and also share yours

So the NBA 2K18 config file is VideoSettings.cfg (extension can be hidden) located at this path : %APPDATA%\2K Sports\NBA 2K18
You can open it with Notepad.

My file contains theses datas :

Code:

{
   "WIDTH": 1920,
   "HEIGHT": 1080,
   "REFRESHRATE": 59.0,
   "BUFFERCOUNT": 1,
   "VSYNC": 0,
   "DYNAMIC_VSYNC": false,
   "LETTERBOX": true,
   "UI_ASPECT": true,
   "CURSOR_IDLE_TIME": 1.0,
   "WINDOWMODE": 0,
   "WINDOW_X": -2147483648,
   "WINDOW_Y": -2147483648,
   "MSAA": 8,
   "MSAAQUALITY": 0,
   "SSAA": 0,
   "MONITOR": 0,
   "MAXANISOTROPY": 16,
   "ALLOW_BLURRY_UI": false,
   "TEXTURELOD": 0,
   "ENHANCEDAA": true,
   "VIBRATION": 3.0,
   "ABOVE_NORMAL_PRIORITY": 2,
   "D3D_INTERNAL_THREADING_OPTIMIZATIONS": true,
   "FAST_TEXTURE_FORMAT_CONVERSION": true,
   "JIT_SHADER_CREATE": false,
   "ADAPTER": 0,
   "ADAPTER_VENDOR": "NVIDIA",
   "ADAPTER_DESCRIPTION": "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970",
   "ADAPTER_VENDOR_ID": 4318,
   "ADAPTER_DEVICE_ID": 5058,
   "ADAPTER_SUBSYSTEM_ID": 331485360,
   "ADAPTER_REVISION": 161,
   "ADAPTER_DEDICATED_VIDEO_MEMORY": 4255711232,
   "ADAPTER_DEDICATED_SYSTEM_MEMORY": 0,
   "ADAPTER_SHARED_SYSTEM_MEMORY": 4268107776,
   "SYSTEM_MEMORY": 8536215552,
   "CPU_VENDOR": "GenuineIntel",
   "CPU_DESCRIPTION": "Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz",
   "CPU_CLOCKRATE_GHZ": 4.0,
   "CPU_CORES": 4,
   "CPU_THREADS": 8,
   "OVERALL_QUALITY": 3,
   "SHADER_DETAIL": 0,
   "SHADOW_DETAIL": 0,
   "CACHE_SPOT_SHADOWS": true,
   "CACHE_SUN_SHADOWS": false,
   "TEMPORALAA": true,
   "AMBIENT_OCCLUSION": true,
   "VOLUMETRIC_LIGHTING": true,
   "DEPTH_OF_FIELD": true,
   "MOTION_BLUR": true,
   "BLOOM": false,
   "FLOOR_REFLECTIONS": true,
   "MIRROR_REFLECTIONS": true,
   "PLAYERLOD": 0,
   "MEDIAPEOPLELOD": 0,
   "CROWDLOD": 0,
   "HAIRLOD": 0,
   "USE_COMPUTE_SHADERS": true
}


Notes :
> i play @59fps for reducing input lag (on all game - custom resolution FHD @ 59 fps in drivers)
> vsync off game config and in drivers
> Max. PreRender frame = 1 in game config and in drivers
> This guide helps me months ago for tweaking my drivers.

Thank you for that.

So with these changes what are the frames you are getting? Also what about when there is a fast break or contact around the rim. I get 60 fps (full ultra settings and even trying with crowd and media details on medium) and during quick fast break changes/steals or rebound battles the frames drop. Frames also drop when there is a cut scene, timeout or even free throw cutscene.

With these new settings, are you getting screen tearing?

My gpu is Amd Radeon RX 480 8gb.

On all other games I receive 80+ fps consistently but never on NBA 2k lol

And what the better settings in the Nvidia control panel?

Thxs

Gtx 1080 1440p with 144hz monitor

All ultra but 1 x anti aliasing

Vsync off 143hz - frame rate drop near mid court

Vsync on - smooth as butter

Vsync on - dynamic vsync smooth

I5 3450
Gtx 970 ftw
8GB RAM


Fullscreen windowed mode
AA set to 4
Vsynx on
Dynamic Vsynx off
Ultra preset


I get 60 fps (which is due to my monitor anyways) 90% of the time. I get massive stuttering during some inbound plays and sometimes during fastbreaks towards the end of a quarter.
Also, some arenas give me better results over others. Probably because of the camera angle which is different from team to team when set to broadcast. Therefore, a bigger part of the crowd is invoved in some situations.

No Nvidia control panel tweaks where made yet

---------
When AA is set to 8, the stuttering scenarios increase their numbers. I get them more often during fastbreaks and
inbound plays. For some arenas like the Mavericks, the game performs horrible. I get fps drops whenever the ball crosses the halfcourt, no matter the speed of the ball carrier. That happens for the first 10 to 12 seconds until all players get on the same part of the court and stick to their position. After that, the framerate slowly recovers. This is definitely game breaking and I can't enjoy the game in those situations


The good thing is that I honestly can't tell the difference between AA set to 4 or 8. A quick fix for the AA set to 4 situations
would be more than enough for me to call myself more than satisfied. I am satisfied overall with the optimization but
there is room for improvement if someone is willing to patch somethings up.

So with these changes what are the frames you are getting? Also what about when there is a fast break or contact around the rim. I get 60 fps (full ultra settings and even trying with crowd and media details on medium) and during quick fast break changes/steals or rebound battles the frames drop. Frames also drop when there is a cut scene, timeout or even free throw cutscene.
With these new settings, are you getting screen tearing?

My gpu is Amd Radeon RX 480 8gb.

On all other games I receive 80+ fps consistently but never on NBA 2k lol

So, 59 fps, no tearing while playing.
frame drops something on replay or half time show

If you dont have a gsync/freesync montior, take vsync off + PreRender to 1 + Capping RefreshRate minus 1 (59, 79, 119, 143, 164 fps...) in game and in the drivers (with Nvidia drivers, i can create a custom resolution 1920x1080 59hz)

i5 6400
gtx 1050 ti
8 GB ram
isnt enough to play game 1080p with high settings anti aliasing 4 :\

What option is responsible for portraits quality?

From what I hear stutter wise nothing has really changed from 2k17 so I recommend you guys try mess around with my 2k17 settings:
NBA2K17 PC Frame Rate Drops - found a fix for Nvidia GPU's - new finding!!!
viewtopic.php?f=224&t=102193

Since then I've moved to ps4 pro so I don't have a chance to test the game on pc..

Situation is as usual quite unacceptable . I spent 50 euros and the game isn't optimized at all.
I run my game on GTX980M . With my laptop I have NO PROBLEM With any single high spec game. But 2k17 and 2k18 are out with the same issues.

I would help people with a small suggestion . FOr me it's bettere to disable V-Sync in game and Enable it on NVIDIA PANEL CONTROL.
Result isn't perfect but without a serious fix by 2K I don't think we can do more.
Greetings .
Alessandro

I do not use VSync at all, I just limit my FPS to 60 and run with it.

I do not use VSync at all, I just limit my FPS to 60 and run with it.

I want to try that too, I remember that limiting my FPS to 60 for FIFA games made a huge difference in comparison to the "No limit on FPS" setting.
How did you limit your fps? Any second party software?
Also, are you running the game in Fullscreen mode or Fullscreen Windowed?

I think I run Exclusive Fullscreen - at least I try to do that with every game.

And I force the drivers to limit the FPS via profile. To do that with nVidia you need nVidia Inspector to be able to set hidden settings for the profile, but you really only modify the profile you create in the standard Control Panel.

Some of the stuff in the game seems to be tied to framerate, so I have the limit set up. Not that I'd be pushing much more at my resolution (3440x1440).

When I was Tom Cruisin (mission impossible) with nba 2k stutter/framedrop editions I initially, before testing other parts of video settings, always tested the following variations:

A.
1. Vsync + tripple buffering ON in nvidia cp;
2. Vsync OFF in game settings;
3. Full Screen Windowed in game settings;

B.
1. Vsync + tripple buffering OFF in nvidia cp;
2. Vsync ON in game settings;
3. Full Screen Windowed in game settings;

C.
1. Vsync - Use the 3D application setting in nvidia cp (dont remember what i did with TB, but i guess it was on);
2. Vsync ON in game settings;
3. Full Screen Windowed in game settings;

^^^^^^^^^^^
Dynamic vsync was always OFF and option C always worked the best overall.

When I was Tom Cruisin (mission impossible) with nba 2k stutter/framedrop editions I initially, before testing other parts of video settings, always tested the following variations:

A.
1. Vsync + tripple buffering ON in nvidia cp;
2. Vsync OFF in game settings;
3. Full Screen Windowed in game settings;

B.
1. Vsync + tripple buffering OFF in nvidia cp;
2. Vsync ON in game settings;
3. Full Screen Windowed in game settings;

C.
1. Vsync - Use the 3D application setting in nvidia cp (dont remember what i did with TB, but i guess it was on);
2. Vsync ON in game settings;
3. Full Screen Windowed in game settings;

^^^^^^^^^^^
Dynamic vsync was always OFF and option C always worked the best overall.

This is the case this year too, option C seems to be the best.

I usually don't display a FPS counter anywhere on my screen, I don't want to see the fps dropping by numbers, I want to actually feel it happening while playing. There are a lot of games losing 4-5 fps constantly but you don't feel that transition. Without that counter, you wouldn't notice the difference. Therefore, I don't want to have a negative placebo on myself and start seeing "huge problems" when I shouldn't. The thing was, NBA 2K18 definitely had a problem for me in certain situations so I had to check the numbers.

I've turned on the counter this time. It seems that my FPS drop on AA set to 8 is just around 2 to 6 fps. Never got below 54, this bottom value being reached in the worst case scenario (Mavericks arena fastbreaks). Correct me if I'm wrong, but this small difference in fps should be barely noticeable on a 60 refresh rate monitor.

For some reason, before turning on my fps counter, I could've bet a kidney that the FPS drop was anywhere between 20 and 30, lol. So it might be more than a FPS drop, it could be a little bit of stuttering and everything. Still, AA set to 4 runs smooth as butter 90% of the time.

It seems that the Mavericks arena will be my goto enviroment when testing the FPS because again, for some reason, this arena is very demanding GPU-wise.


@Dommy, tried the nvidia inspector but it didn't work for me. Everything felt sluggish for some reason, as if I was recording everything HD. Thanks for answering anyways

I have an AMDRx480, so I'll try to play around with the settings in the AMD profile/software thingy.

I spoke with D43 about it recently, he suggested locking in the FPS to 60 and turning AA to 4. Honestly, I did the change of AA down to 4 and don't notice a difference in graphics, edges, or screen tearing. However, game play is A LOT smoother. Also, locking the FPS to 60 also helped tremendously. I do see the game fighting every now and than during game play but it is minimal and sometimes does not happen.

One other thing I did was turn the Crowd details to Medium and the commentators/broadcast/camera crew to medium as well. Everything else is Ultra/High.

Also, I turned off the cutscenes. During cutscenes, game would drop 1-9 FPS or have that battle where it would jump between 60 to 54 back to 59 down to 52 etc.

I turned game speed to 51 and got faster animations.

Also I want to want, I haven't put in any mod's yet. I sense that courts, jerseys, players might be higher quality of textures and therefor slow the game a bit even during game play. That's my next step into this.... hopefully it does not slow down lol I really wanna try the sweatfx and courts created by all the talented people here.

It also seems that the game runs smoother if you allow it to connect to 2K servers even i you play, like me, only with Quick Game / MyLeague modes.

My game has been running pretty solid compared to last year. Currently playing at 4K using Nvidia DSR w/LG Ultrawide Panel 1080Ti and 4770K. I also have a few mods installed.

Here's a video

phpBB [video]

My Config

Code:

   "WIDTH": 3840,
   "HEIGHT": 2160,
   "REFRESHRATE": 60.0,
   "BUFFERCOUNT": 3,
   "VSYNC": 1,
   "DYNAMIC_VSYNC": false,
   "LETTERBOX": true,
   "UI_ASPECT": true,
   "CURSOR_IDLE_TIME": 5.0,
   "WINDOWMODE": 2,
   "WINDOW_X": -2147483648,
   "WINDOW_Y": -2147483648,
   "MSAA": 8,
   "MSAAQUALITY": 0,
   "SSAA": 0,
   "MONITOR": 0,
   "MAXANISOTROPY": 16,
   "ALLOW_BLURRY_UI": false,
   "TEXTURELOD": 0,
   "ENHANCEDAA": true,
   "VIBRATION": 0.0,
   "ABOVE_NORMAL_PRIORITY": 1,
   "D3D_INTERNAL_THREADING_OPTIMIZATIONS": true,
   "FAST_TEXTURE_FORMAT_CONVERSION": false,
   "JIT_SHADER_CREATE": true,
   "ADAPTER": 0,
   "ADAPTER_VENDOR": "NVIDIA",
   "ADAPTER_DESCRIPTION": "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti",
   "ADAPTER_VENDOR_ID": 4318,
   "ADAPTER_DEVICE_ID": 6918,
   "ADAPTER_SUBSYSTEM_ID": 2246316099,
   "ADAPTER_REVISION": 161,
   "ADAPTER_DEDICATED_VIDEO_MEMORY": 11657019392,
   "ADAPTER_DEDICATED_SYSTEM_MEMORY": 0,
   "ADAPTER_SHARED_SYSTEM_MEMORY": 8557111296,
   "SYSTEM_MEMORY": 17114222592,
   "CPU_VENDOR": "GenuineIntel",
   "CPU_DESCRIPTION": "Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770K CPU @ 3.50GHz",
   "CPU_CLOCKRATE_GHZ": 3.5,
   "CPU_CORES": 4,
   "CPU_THREADS": 8,
   "OVERALL_QUALITY": 4,
   "SHADER_DETAIL": 0,
   "SHADOW_DETAIL": 0,
   "CACHE_SPOT_SHADOWS": true,
   "CACHE_SUN_SHADOWS": false,
   "TEMPORALAA": true,
   "AMBIENT_OCCLUSION": true,
   "VOLUMETRIC_LIGHTING": true,
   "DEPTH_OF_FIELD": true,
   "MOTION_BLUR": true,
   "BLOOM": true,
   "FLOOR_REFLECTIONS": true,
   "MIRROR_REFLECTIONS": true,
   "PLAYERLOD": 0,
   "MEDIAPEOPLELOD": 0,
   "CROWDLOD": 0,
   "HAIRLOD": 0,
   "USE_COMPUTE_SHADERS": true

Here's my Nvidia Control Panel

Capture.PNG

Capture1.PNG

Here's my mods

Capture2.PNG

You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

I find this year to run significantly better than 17. I get a consistent 60 fps @ 4k.. Slight drop during *some cutscenes.
I5 3570k
2x Gtx 970 ssc SLI

In Nvidia Inspector
Same settings as 2k17 & 2k16

In nvidia control panel
I turn off fxaa,
turn on triple buffering and vsync(off in game)
Pre rendered frames @ 1
In Game everything on high (no ultra)
Full screen
Vsync off
All AA off
Temporal AA off (helps a lot)

For 17 I had to turn off Bloom, DOF, Media people, and in video settings turned enhancedAA to off to get steady 60fps @ 4k.

If anyone has any suggestions to improve this I'm all ears

What option is responsible for portraits quality?

I want to ask the same thing! pls help. Every video settings are on ultra or high and portraits and menu panels have poor quality..

My rig has
i7 4790K
GTX 970 Strix
16GB ram
256 SSD
24" 1920x1200 60Hz monitor

For all those who experience stutters or lags and FPS drops, please check while you play if Steam Client is running. It seems that Steam Client has a bug and showing up and take 20-30% load of CPU and causing lags. This is not only happening with 2K18.
I have it on other games too. Even with non-steam game like FIFA18 or Mass Effect.

It does not happen every time. And cannot replicate what cause the Client to appear and use that much the CPU.

PS. It even cause lags and stutter when I am watching a movie on VLC.

With alt+tab out of the game the CPU for me is at 1-2% of load overall. With this Steam Client is at 30-35%. I just click and end the process. Never found any side effects or a feature not working.

i had issue with network driver (chipset killer integrated on my motherboard). I even couldn't see the process in windows task manager.
So it could be (many) other things

t seems that Steam Client has a bug and showing up and take 20-30% load of CPU and causing lags. This is not only happening with 2K18.

It does not happen every time. And cannot replicate what cause the Client to appear and use that much the CPU.

Hmm that is definitely odd. I've checked a few times I've played and the steam client takes up no more than 3% from what I've noticed, and I'm even running an older i5-2500k processor. I can't imagine this is a common issue, Steam wouldn't want their customers being affected by fps drops due to their client taking up processing power. Dunno how you solve it on your end though.

anyone can help me? ive been running a smooth medium settings with 2k17 and the specs of my laptop was intel core i3-7100u (2.4ghz), NVIDIA GeFroce 940mx with 2gb vram and 4gb of ram. but when i played 2k18 i was getting a hard time playing it smoothy. pls pls pls help

On a laptop, make sure you run the game with your nvdia chipset
try the differents settings posted before.
it's probably your nvidia drivers settings.