I recently got a new laptop (after my old one overheated a bit too much) and I wanted to try Divinity Original Sin to test it. Despite surpassing the system requirements as far as I know, the game runs incredibly slow, even in the menus (including Character Creation). I looked at the options and the settings are quite high (even on auto detect) and even after fiddling a bit with it, I'm still not getting an improvement in performance.

Here are my laptop's specs:
CPU: AMD A10-5745M APU 2.1 GHz with Radeon HD Graphics
RAM: 8 GB
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 8610G
OS: Windows 8.1 64-bit

I'm not sure how to fiddle with my GPU settings and I really wonder how I can at least get a bit more performance (at least to make the game playable).

Thanks in advance.

Performance of this is lower than the minimum requirement Radeon card, though better than the Intel HD 4000.

Have you tried lowering the game resolution? What is it set at?

Right now, my screen resolution is at the maximum my laptop screen can handle (1366x768). I haven't tried lowering it, but at the same time, I'm not sure if it'll change much considering how low it is. I'll try, though.


OK. I did try to lower my resolution and only got a barely noticeable increase. I wonder which of the graphic options (like v-synch and anti-alising) are the most performance intruding so I'd know which ones to turn off.

And something I'd like to add. One of the symptoms is that there's an incredibly long delay between the moment my cursor is over an option and the moment when it is properly highlighted, as if the input is struggling to catch up.

Texture quality, shadows and post processing effects like ambient occlusion.


For the input lag, try disabling the deferred renderer for the game; that has helped some people, though it is more likely to cause a crash on startup than help. It is easy to check, though, and easy to changed back.

In the '..\Documents\Larian Studios\Original Sin\graphicSettings.lsx' file, search for the term 'RenderDeferred', and in the second row after that, change the one to a zero, and save the file.

<attribute id="MapKey" value="RenderDeferred" type="22" />
<attribute id="Type" value="0" type="5" />
<attribute id="Value" value="1" type="4" />


Check if DEP (Data Execution Prevention) is set to default, or exclude the game:
1) open the Start menu
2) right click 'Computer' and select 'Properties'
3) click 'Advanced system settings'
4) select the 'Advanced' tab and click the 'Settings' button in the 'Performance' section
5) select the 'Data Execution Prevention' tab
6) if it is not already set to default (Turn on DEP for essential Windows programs and services only)
.A) change the DEP setting to the first option
.B) leave it set to all programs, and add an exception by clicking the Add... button and browsing to the '..\Divinity - Original Sin\Shipping\EoCApp.exe' program file
7) confirm by clicking the OK button

OK. The input problem is corrected and the game runs at a decent framerate (at the expense of some effects, but I can live with that). However, once I started a game (I didn't because the character creation was WAY too tedious with the lag), I ran into another problem. There was no ground texture. It was plain white with some lightning (and some grey where there are roads). And changing the texture quality didn't help.

I wonder what could that be. Is it my GPU drivers (which were updated, last time I checked)? Is some sort of obscure option I should've checked out?

Try enabling the deferred renderer again and see if that was what caused the problem with the ground texture.

Check your graphics drivers 3D settings, and make sure anti-aliasing isn't being forced (should be set to application controlled). That can cause texture problems, though generally just in the End of Time for (missing) ground textures. You could try resetting all the 3D options to default.

OK. The good news is that the textures are back (by enabling the deferred renderer again). The bad news is that the input lag is back too, but strangely, it's not as bad as it was. At least the game is playable.

Thanks.

Disabling texture streaming can help performance in general (though that will increase memory usage, which could cause stability issues), but I'm not sure it would help with input lag.
To try it, you can edit the graphicSettings.lsx again and in the section below (search for 'Stream'), change the 1 to a zero.

<node id="ConfigEntry">
<attribute id="MapKey" value="TextureStreamingEnabled" type="22" />
<attribute id="Type" value="0" type="5" />
<attribute id="Value" value="1" type="4" />
</node>