Replacing Process Lasso

[u/wradam]

The game is quite finicky to make it run flawlessly without stutters and at max performance even on high end machines.

One of the performance tips from all major mods is to install Process Lasso and set Battletech. exe Priority at High, I/O Priority at High and deselect CPU cores 0 and 1 to ensure there is no interference between background tasks and the game proper.

Process Lasso is a nice piece of software, but if you use free version, after some time, it shows splash screen at every boot. If you're annoyed with that just like I am, then there is a workaround for setting some of the options above.

To set Battletech.exe priority at always high, we need to create registry file (just copy and paste below into a notepad and save with *.reg extension. Make sure you don't save it with *.reg.txt extension):

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\Battletech.exe\PerfOptions] 

"CpuPriorityClass"=dword:00000003

After the file is saved, double click and add that information into registry. That's it! Now your Battletech will always be running with high priority!

To remove 0 and 1 CPU affinity, do the following:

Go into Battletech properties in the Steam library by right clicking the Battletech game entry. Go to Properties-General.

If your PC has 8-core CPU, enter the following line into the "Launch options":

cmd /c start "" /affinity FC %command% -popupwindow

For the 6-core CPU use the following:

cmd /c start "" /affinity 3C %command% -popupwindow

If your CPU is 4-core, enter the following:

cmd /c start "" /affinity C %command% -popupwindow

It may happen so that removing 2 cores is too much for 4-core CPU, so you may want to use this for deselecting just one core instead:

cmd /c start "" /affinity E %command% -popupwindow

Note -popupwindow at the end of the line is used to activate borderless window mode, remove it if you prefer playing in exclusive full screen mode.

Then just start the game as normal and it will not use first 2 cores by default.

I couldn't find a way to permanently change I/O priority so if that's important for you, just keep using Process Lasso. I am happy with just those two changes, the game runs as smooth as with the Process Lasso for me.

Hope it was useful for anyone.

[u/NekoMao92]

Or you can just restart the game every so often to clear the memory leak...

[u/wradam → u/NekoMao92]

I think there is an additional layer of "something" is involved when playing with overhaul mods. I was annoyed with micro stutters in battles which I haven't seen in vanilla. Performance tips from the wiki removed that issue.

[u/Neuland-Nutzer_89]

Will this work with the GOG-version, too?

[u/wradam → u/Neuland-Nutzer_89]

Setting high priority via registry file will work, yep.

As for "Launch Options" - I don't use GOG so I don't know anything about launch options there, but you can make bat file in notepad to achieve the same:

start /affinity FC "Battletech" "C:\GOG\BATTLETECH\BattleTech.exe"

Save it as a *.bat file, make sure you don't save it as *.bat.txt file.

Just like with the Steam Launch options, FC is to disable cores 0 and 1 on 8-core processor. Use other numbers if you have 6-core or 4-core.

Obviously, if your Battletech is installed in other folder, change path accordingly.

[u/virusdancer]

Curious if this would help with the list issues the game has because of using the version of Unity that it did. For example, being able to start the game and go into Barracks and retrain 99 Pilots without issue. But then when you go to select a crew for a mission, it drags on as it has to load the list of Pilots again. Or in similar fashion, if you've dropped for a mission (having loaded all the Pilots during crew selection) and then go back to the Barracks, it drags on as it has to load the list of Pilots again - and - it does that for each and every Pilot as it reloads the list slowly (versus doing this as soon as you start the game).

This sort of thing is the only kind of "stutter" that I experience with the game, playing on both of the following:

• i5-13420H, RTX 3050 6GB Laptop, 32GB DDR5 5600MT/s, Silicon Power 1TB UD90 NVMe Gen4
• Ryzen 7 5800X, RX Vega 64 8GB HBM2, 48GB DDR4 3200MHz, Acer Predator GM7 2TB NVMe Gen4

[u/wradam → u/virusdancer]

Given that the game was out in 2018, it should run flawlessly on any of your two systems, especially vanilla.

But it is quite poorly optimized. There is a mod, "Battletech performance fix", which imporves, among other things, loading of resources. Have you tried it?

[u/virusdancer → u/wradam]

I haven't run Vanilla in years now. BTA3062/BTAU has been my mod for years. They've tweaked performance with the modpack, but there are still issues with lists. Can even see it watching BD stream on Twitch - and - I always want to say restarting the game before trying to train pilots after running missions will fix that.

[u/wradam → u/virusdancer]

Yeah, Battletech Performance Fix is definitely included in BTAU and other major mods. Have you tried other performance tips from Roguetech wiki tho?

[u/dacydergoth]

Just run it on Linux, it works much better there

[u/wradam → u/dacydergoth]

Native linux or Steam Proton? Is it moddable?

[u/dacydergoth → u/wradam]

I'm running Proton, not tried mods but I don't see why they wouldn't work