Hello Villagers & Heroes Support Team,

I am experiencing a severe performance issue with Villagers & Heroes on my Windows 10 PC and I hope you can help me identify the cause.

The game used to run at approximately 80 FPS on this exact PC. I had not played for a week, and after returning to the game I am now getting only 10–15 FPS.

My system:

• Windows 10 Home 64-bit (Build 19045)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070, 8 GB
• Intel Core i5-3570K @ 3.40 GHz
• 16 GB RAM
• Resolution: 1920 × 1080
• Two monitors, both connected to the GTX 1070
• Windows display scaling: 100%

The most unusual part is that changing the graphics settings has essentially no effect on the framerate. Ultra gives me approximately 10–15 FPS, and changing everything to Low still gives me approximately 10–15 FPS.

During the issue, neither the CPU nor GPU appears to be fully utilized. Windows Task Manager typically shows only around 10–20% GPU utilization, and no individual CPU core is continuously at 100%. The GTX 1070 also clocks up correctly while the game is running (I observed approximately 1632 MHz), so it does not appear to be stuck in a low-power state.

I have already tried extensive troubleshooting:

• Changed graphics settings from Ultra to Low – no meaningful FPS difference
• Tested fullscreen and windowed mode
• Disabled NVIDIA Overlay
• Closed Edge and other applications
• Checked individual CPU core utilization – no core is continuously at 100%
• Checked GPU utilization and clock speed
• Set NVIDIA power management for VillagersAndHeroes.exe to "Prefer maximum performance"
• Disabled NVIDIA VSync
• Confirmed NVIDIA Max Frame Rate is disabled
• Explicitly selected the GTX 1070 for VillagersAndHeroes.exe
• Reset the Villagers & Heroes prefs file and allowed the game to create a new one
• Cleared the DirectX shader cache
• Installed/repaired the Microsoft DirectX legacy runtime
• Tested an older NVIDIA driver (552.22) with a clean installation
• Tested the standalone Villagers & Heroes client
• Installed a completely separate copy through Steam – same 10–15 FPS
• Tested Windows high-DPI compatibility settings
• Windows display scaling was already set to 100%
• Tested with Windows Game Mode disabled
• Tested running VillagersAndHeroes.exe as Administrator
• Checked dxdiag: DirectDraw, Direct3D and AGP Texture Acceleration are all enabled and dxdiag reports no problems
• Both monitors are correctly driven by the GTX 1070

I also tested "Disable fullscreen optimizations". With this option enabled, Villagers & Heroes would no longer start. After disabling the option again, the game starts normally, but remains at 10–15 FPS.

The game itself also detects the low framerate and displays the "Low Framerate" warning recommending lower graphics settings. However, lowering those settings does not improve performance.

Since the same problem occurs with both the standalone and Steam installations, and even with a substantially older NVIDIA driver, I am unsure what else could be causing the game to render at such a low framerate while barely utilizing the GPU.

The same PC previously ran Villagers & Heroes at around 80 FPS, so this is a significant regression.

Is there perhaps a log file, debug option, renderer information, or diagnostic file from Villagers & Heroes that I could send you to help identify what the game is waiting on or why the GPU is not being fully utilized?

I would be happy to provide dxdiag information, log files, screenshots, or perform additional diagnostic tests if needed.

Thank you very much for your help!

Best regards,
Hannes

I finally found the cause of the problem, and Villagers & Heroes is running normally again!

The solution was completely unexpected, so I wanted to post it here in case it helps someone else in the future.

To check whether the performance problem was specific to Villagers & Heroes, I installed Portal 2 through Steam. The game itself ran fine, but I noticed that I had no sound.

I checked the Windows sound settings and discovered that Windows had selected a headset as the audio output device, even though the headset was not currently connected/active.

I changed the Windows audio output from the unavailable headset to my speakers. The sound immediately worked again, as expected.

Then, hoping for the best, I started Villagers & Heroes again – and suddenly my FPS were back to normal as well!

So apparently, in my case, having an unavailable/inactive audio device selected in Windows caused Villagers & Heroes to run at only 10–15 FPS, instead of the approximately 80 FPS I was getting before.

I would never have suspected the Windows audio output device to be responsible for such a massive graphics performance issue, especially since neither the CPU nor GPU was fully utilized.

For anyone experiencing a similar problem:

Check your Windows audio output device and make sure the selected device is actually connected and available.

Hopefully this strange solution will save someone else from going through all the troubleshooting I did.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to look into this!