## Darktide – Severe Long-Session Performance Degradation with FSR Frame Generation
### Summary
I am experiencing a **severe long-session performance degradation in Warhammer 40,000: Darktide that appears to be related to FSR Frame Generation / the game’s rendering pipeline**.
The most important point is that **the game runs exceptionally well immediately after a fresh launch using my normal settings**. The problem develops only after playing for an extended period and through multiple missions/lobby transitions.
A complete restart of Darktide restores the original performance immediately.
This makes me strongly suspect a **game/engine/FSR Frame Generation state or resource-management problem rather than insufficient GPU performance or inappropriate graphics settings**.
### Hardware
* **GPU:** NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti
* **CPU:** AMD Ryzen 7 5700G, overclocked
* **CPU Time Spy score:** approximately **10,554**
* **OS:** Windows 10
### Graphics configuration
* Resolution: **1080p**
* Preset: **Ultra**
* Ray Tracing: **Enabled**
* Upscaling: **DLSS Quality**
* Frame Generation: **FSR Frame Generation**
* CPU threads: **8**
* NVIDIA Reflex: **Enabled** (not Boost)
* HAGS: **Enabled**
* NVIDIA Control Panel power management: **Prefer maximum performance**
* NVIDIA shader cache: **100 GB**
* Portrait rendering: **Disabled**
* Darktide memory-leak fix mod: **Installed**
* FSR/Frame Generation DLLs: **Updated/replaced with newer versions**
I have deliberately kept the graphics settings unchanged because the system demonstrates that it is capable of running these settings extremely well.
### What happens
Immediately after launching Darktide, performance is **excellent**.
The combination of:
**Ultra + RT + DLSS Quality + FSR Frame Generation**
produces an extremely smooth experience. GPU utilization, power consumption and fan behavior are normal for the workload.
I can play the first mission/session for approximately 30 minutes with excellent performance.
However, after a **longer continuous play session and multiple missions**, something changes.
The GPU subsequently appears to be doing considerably less work:
* GPU utilization becomes lower than during the fresh launch
* GPU power consumption decreases
* GPU fans become noticeably quieter
* Overall frame-generation smoothness/performance is significantly worse
* Restarting Darktide completely restores the original performance
This is why I do **not** believe this is simply the RTX 3070 Ti being insufficient for the graphics settings.
If the GPU were simply too weak, the game would perform poorly from the beginning. Instead, it performs extremely well after a fresh launch and only develops the problem after prolonged use.
### Important observation regarding Frame Generation
I strongly suspect that **FSR Frame Generation itself, or its integration with Darktide’s renderer, is entering a degraded state during long sessions**.
The behavior is consistent with the game no longer utilizing the GPU/Frame Generation pipeline in the same way it does immediately after launch.
A restart of the game restores the original behavior without changing:
* GPU
* CPU
* graphics settings
* DLSS settings
* RT settings
* resolution
* drivers
* Windows configuration
The only thing that changes is that the Darktide process and its rendering/FG state are completely reinitialized.
### Motion Blur observation
There is also a separate unusual behavior during long sessions.
At some point during a session, **motion blur can disappear even though I have not disabled it in the settings**.
If I die and enter the camera/spectator view of another player, motion blur returns. After I am rescued and return to my own player camera, motion blur can remain active again.
**Important:** I am NOT claiming that the disappearance of motion blur causes the performance degradation. The two observations appear to be separate.
I mention this because it may indicate that **camera/rendering state is being reinitialized during player-state transitions**, which could potentially be useful when investigating the renderer/FSR state.
### Things I have already tried
I have already gone through many of the commonly suggested fixes:
* Memory-leak fix mod
* Increased NVIDIA shader cache to **100 GB**
* HAGS enabled
* NVIDIA Control Panel set to maximum performance
* Updated/replaced FSR/Frame Generation DLLs
* Disabled portrait rendering
* Restricted Darktide to **8 CPU threads**
* Tested NVIDIA Reflex **Enabled** rather than Boost
* Confirmed the issue is not present immediately after launching the game
* Confirmed that restarting Darktide restores the performance
The 8-thread configuration actually gives me **better behavior/performance**, so I have kept it fixed during testing.
### CFG / Windows Exploit Protection test
I also briefly tested disabling **Control Flow Guard (CFG)** specifically for Darktide through Windows 10 Exploit Protection.
This did not provide enough evidence to establish that CFG is related to the issue, so I removed the application-specific override and returned Windows to its normal configuration.
I do not consider CFG the primary suspect at this point.
### Why I believe this requires investigation
The unusual aspect is the **state-dependent nature of the problem**.
The same hardware and exactly the same graphics settings produce excellent performance after a fresh launch.
After a sufficiently long session, performance changes and GPU workload decreases.
Restarting Darktide restores the original behavior.
This strongly suggests that something is accumulating, becoming invalid, or otherwise changing state inside the game during prolonged gameplay.
Possible areas worth investigating include:
* FSR 3.1 Frame Generation state
* Frame-generation resource management
* Renderer state after multiple mission/lobby transitions
* Temporal/motion-vector resources
* Render-target/resource lifetime
* GPU workload submission
* CPU/render-thread interaction
* FSR FG synchronization with the game’s native frame rate
* Resource cleanup/reinitialization between missions
* Long-session engine state accumulation
### Requested investigation
Could the developers please investigate whether **FSR Frame Generation can enter a degraded state after multiple missions or prolonged continuous sessions**, particularly when used together with **DLSS Quality on NVIDIA GPUs**?
I would also appreciate clarification on whether there is currently a known way to **reinitialize/reload the FSR Frame Generation/renderer state without completely restarting Darktide**.
At present, restarting the entire game is the only reliable way I have found to restore the original performance.
The frustrating part is that the game is capable of looking and running **phenomenally well** on this hardware with 1080p Ultra + RT + DLSS Quality + FSR Frame Generation. The problem is that this behavior does not remain stable throughout
a long session.
I would be happy to provide additional logs, configuration files, performance metrics or a detailed reproduction timeline if required.