Low FPS on first run of exe. Fine on second+

Development Platform & Builds
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1

So i build my game, which normally gets around 200 FPS in its current state.

I send the game out to testers and they all get low fps (110 ish) for the first run of the game until they exit the game and run it again and then they are getting 220+ FPS.

Im still in conceptual phase of the game, on a barren, nearly stock unreal flat map. Game just starts on that map.
I have NPC’s using manny, firing weapona and using unreal EQS system to move around. I have dynamic navmesh enabled. Not alot of assets. Some sound playing when weapons shoot.

Pretty simple stuff. Im curious as to why the first run of the game is giving awful FPS. More then curious… It NEEDS resolved. Im new to making a game from scratch in unreal like this so i hope im just not doing something obvious here. Thanks!

2

Hey there @Coyotekins_YouTB1! It sounds like for the first run the shaders were being built and cached. This is a somewhat intensive process most of the time, and modern games tend to cache those in a menu when the game launches.

It’s recommended to load the shaders before the game can be run to avoid what you’re seeing now.

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/tech-blog/game-engines-and-shader-stuttering-unreal-engines-solution-to-the-problem

3

I heard about that, but when watching shader stutters in a video it was stutters or hitches for a brief moment, not an overall FPS decrease until the game restarted.

But this is all i got to go on right now so ill look into it, thanks.