Is anyone else struggling with low FPS?

[Hsn97]

For probably about a month now, my game jutters when I run around. It’s not super noticeable like on highly decorated islands but it’s enough that I notice it.
My island isn’t particularly decorated and the areas that have more items I tried to simplify down but I’m still getting the FPS drop.
I wonder if it caused by the amount of transparent designs I have on the floor to stop flowers and weeds spreading.

Does anyone else struggle with this or have any ideas on how to stop it?

 

[Kattea]

Not exactly the same, but I started to get thin white lines on the ground in areas with custom pathing (I don’t even use that much). They appear when I’m moving and disappear when I stop. It’s not a big deal but definitely noticeable.

 

[Bluebellie]

I haven’t really felt it much. Just in the nooks shop. I’m not exactly sure what’s making that area feel like that. It’s not really too noticeable, it’s not like those crazy weird dreams that it takes time to load....it’s just something weird. It makes me dizzy when I pass that area and I’m not exactly sure what’s going on. It’s very very subtle though. I’m not even sure what’s causing the issue because it’s not more decorated than other areas. I feel like I have other areas that are more decorated. There’s also no custom designs there.

 

[Shellzilla_515]

From my experience, it's a hit or miss. When I start up the game, the frame rate is slightly choppy. Starting it up again on another day and it's at 30 fps. The Switch can be a little weird sometimes and I haven't even drastically changed up my island!

 

[Sgt.Groove]

Sometimes it's fixed by entering docked mode, though I haven't noticed any changes when doing that. It's a really bizarre issue NH has. It might be the sheer amount of data in each chunk of the island (flowers cause the most lag it seems) but it could just be the switch itself.

 

[annex]

Not exactly the same, but I started to get thin white lines on the ground in areas with custom pathing (I don’t even use that much). They appear when I’m moving and disappear when I stop. It’s not a big deal but definitely noticeable.

I've recently had this same thing happen. I don't use custom paths too much either.

 

[VanitasFan26]

Its been like this since the game came out. Everytime I go to an island that is very decorative and has a lot of stuff placed it lags like crazy and there is a lot of pop ins that happen.

 

[simplehobbit]

I haven't had any issues.

The transparent tiles could be the issue, but that's not the only possible problem. It could be due to low storage on your Switch. Even if you have an SD card, if your system storage is full you'll experience loading issues and slow downs with games since that's where all game saves are stored. So, your actual Switch storage, the base 32 GBs, needs to have some room available.

I'm no expert, so I can't say for sure how much space you need to have for the best loading time, but if you have a full GB free it should definitely be fine.

If your storage is fine, though, then I'd say it's coming from something on your island--perhaps the transparent designs.

 

[bebebese]

I've never had any issues, although I haven't decorated my island much, and I always turn my switch off completely (not sleep mode) when I finish playing to prevent memory leak. I do get some pop-in, though.

(...) It's a really bizarre issue NH has. It might be the sheer amount of data in each chunk of the island (flowers cause the most lag it seems) but it could just be the switch itself.

For whatever reason, each flower's movement in the breeze is calculated individually. That and objects have their own real shadows in this game, so I imagine trying to plot shadows in real time takes up a lot of memory/processing power.

 

[niko@kamogawa]

This is quite normal if you have places that has lots of furniture and flowers. Unfortunately, they didn't optimise the hardware to handle that. Perhaps a second generation console can possibly fix this.

 

[JemAC]

I had it happen a couple of times about a month ago but I've since begun redecorating my island and the area it happened in has now changed so I don't get the problem anymore. Also I currently don't have a lot of furniture in a small space and am only using the in-game paths so that probably helps.
I've visited a few beautifully designed islands in dreams recently though that unfortunately seem to suffer from it, presumably due to the amount of furniture/paths the islands had, which is a shame as it makes it harder to explore the islands and must be a pain for anyone trying to play.

 

[_Donut_]

This actually happened this morning for the first time! When I play docked my game suddenly goes into low fps (all other games are fine though?). I just played handheld for new, hopefully It'll get fixed soon

 

[Bilaz]

I have very heavily decorated sections but with no problems, because I don’t use custom designs outside? I noticed whenever I visit a dream town the whole thing lags like mad whenever they use custom paths

 

[bam94-]

Yes I do, 100%. It’s way worse for me when playing in docked mode, or when it’s really windy on my island. I’ve actually started completely redoing my island and taking things down because it was driving me so mad.

I used to think it only happened on islands that were cluttered, but mine wasn’t cluttered at all. But I’ve had to dig up all my flowers and put fences away, etc. I didn’t use any custom designs at all so mine wasn’t caused by that.

In my experience, I’ve decided that mine wasn’t caused by flowers, because I’ve moved LOADS of flowers to my beaches (they’re completely covered) and there’s no framerate drop there. Honestly a lot of mine cleared up when I took up my fences and furniture...

 

[Cloudandshade]

I have mild issues with this in just one small area of my island, and it's most noticeable when it's windy and I'm playing in docked mode. I do have a ton of flowers, but it's weird that it only affects one random area that has hardly any plants. I've always read that waterfalls can cause lag problems, but I don't have many, and there aren't any at all in the problem area. Same with customised simple panels, but getting rid of those didn't change anything for me. I remember seeing someone on reddit a while back that was doing a deep dive investigation into this, and last I saw they seemed to find that objects with certain light effects can add to juttering problems. For me, it seems to be the objects where you can kind of see light 'glinting' off of them - like the foosball table, and the drink/snack machines. Those are just my observations, but it doesn't seem like anyone's found a definitive answer!

 

[MartyFromCherryfall]

I don't think its custom paths as I use those exclusively and don't get any slowdown. There was a part of my island that used to lag but it stopped when I lowered the terrain there, which is really odd. I have practically nothing stored on my Switch HDD tho.

Post automatically merged: Feb 15, 2021

I have mild issues with this in just one small area of my island, and it's most noticeable when it's windy and I'm playing in docked mode. I do have a ton of flowers, but it's weird that it only affects one random area that has hardly any plants. I've always read that waterfalls can cause lag problems, but I don't have many, and there aren't any at all in the problem area. Same with customised simple panels, but getting rid of those didn't change anything for me. I remember seeing someone on reddit a while back that was doing a deep dive investigation into this, and last I saw they seemed to find that objects with certain light effects can add to juttering problems. For me, it seems to be the objects where you can kind of see light 'glinting' off of them - like the foosball table, and the drink/snack machines. Those are just my observations, but it doesn't seem like anyone's found a definitive answer!

Does your laggy area have dark dirt? Mine did... and that shines depending on time of day and weather.

 

[JKDOS]

I see frame drops typically in dreams, especially those with objects like the teacup ride. I don't think I've noticed any drops in my own town though. I don't use the Switch Lite, and typically play docked. I don't know if it's related to custom paths or not. I don't use them. When I tried in the past, I noticed graphical bugs that caused white lines in the path that made me decide against it. That may be a separate issue.

Spoiler: graphical bug with custom paths

A Reddit user demonstrates it here.

https://imgur.com/SYzqPwt

https://i.imgur.com/SYzqPwt...

My towns are usually simple. Maybe the frame drops are caused by too many certain items too close together, waterfalls, or a mix of them.

 

[Cloudandshade]

I don't think its custom paths as I use those exclusively and don't get any slowdown. There was a part of my island that used to lag but it stopped when I lowered the terrain there, which is really odd. I have practically nothing stored on my Switch HDD tho.

Post automatically merged: Feb 15, 2021

Does your laggy area have dark dirt? Mine did... and that shines depending on time of day and weather.

It doesn't have any, no. And the small areas where I do have a bit of dark dirt have no lag at all, weirdly. It's so hard to pin this problem down! It's been bugging me for months, and I don't even have it that bad. I visit some dreams where it's like the entire island is in slow motion, and it must be so frustrating.

 

[Plainbluetees]

I only experience low FPS in the front of my island. I used to have a bunch of custom paths laid down, but I ended up changing my design. Without them, my FPS has slightly improved. It could just be because I have an older console.

 

[Hsn97]

I’m really struggling to understand why I’m still getting low FPS. My island is sparsely decorated, with few flowers and and weeds. A couple of fences here and there nothing major. I’ve taken up all the custom paths I had down. And ensured that I have loads of free space on the switches storage, but I’m still getting the jutters! ACNH it the only game my switch does this for. Literally Skyrim and Sypro play better than NH.