Airport CEO terrible performance

[Tallyrald]

Hello! I'd like to report Airport CEO having major issues.

Symptoms and step to reproduce:

- Right after opening the game, the main menu causes 100% CPU usage with <10FPS and whole system lag

- Build an airport or open one from the workshop that has passengers / baggage / vehicles (important!) and observe stuttering and severe FPS drops

Disclaimer: I know the game doesn't have the best performance ever on any system, however the main issue here is the CPU spike and the stuttering / FPS drops instead of getting consistent frame pacing at whatever the game can run at.

For reference: I've had an  NVIDIA GTX 1060 before and that ran very consistent FPS rates without stuttering or drops which leads me to believe that this is an Intel Arc driver issue.

GPU: Intel Arc LE B580

Driver: 32.0.101.6651 WHQL

Game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/673610/Airport_CEO/

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900

Motherboard: B650 AORUS ELITE AX V2

RAM: 64GB

OS: Windows 11 Pro 24H2 26100.3476

PSU: Seasonic Vertex GX-750

[RandyT_Intel]

Hello @Tallyrald ,

Thank you for reaching out to our community. To help us investigate the issue and provide assistance, please share the following details with me.

•  Have you previously performed a clean installation of the graphics driver, before using either an older or the latest version? 
• Kindly share some screenshots and recordings of your game settings so we can replicate and check the issue on our end using the same settings you use during gameplay. 
• Additionally, you may follow this guide on how to report performance issues in the game. 

Once I have this information, we can start from there. Additionally, please check my initial recommendation below and let me know if it works on your system.

Initial Troubleshooting: Performance Issues Encountered While Gaming with Intel® Graphics

Looking forward to your response.

Regards,

Randy T.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Tallyrald]

Hello,

Thank you for your response.

- I have made a clean driver installation, yes.

- I have attached a screenshot of the graphics options from the main menu.

- I have also attached CapframeX logs for both the main menu and the in-game performance loss. I have restarted the game between each recording.

For reference:

The save file I've used for this issue report should run with an average of 32-34 FPS consistently on my system. As you can see in the CapframeX logs, the current situation only manages half of that.

I know this, because after a couple of system restarts the game magically launched without any problem. So I made a CapframeX recording of that too (see attachment).

After yet another system restart the issue is present once more.

[RandyT_Intel]

Hello @Tallyrald ,

Thank you for sharing this information. I will begin investigating the issue and attempt to replicate it on our end. I'll post an update here or notify you directly once there are any developments. If I need further details, I'll reach out to you here. I appreciate your patience as I work on this matter. 

Regards,

Randy T.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[RandyT_Intel]

Hello @Tallyrald ,

Could you please use Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) to remove the Arc driver and then install the latest Arc driver (version 101.6653). After doing so, check if the issue persists.

Randy T.  

Intel Customer Support Technician  

[Tallyrald]

Hi,

Using DDU and then installing 6653 did not solve the problem, however 6732 seems to be working fine (after another round of DDU). I guess the in-built clean installation isn't as clean as it should be.

Also as a side note: I had to uninstall Intel Driver & Support Assistant, because it was constantly using CPU and failing to check for any updates.

I'm much happier with stability now, thank you for your time.

[RandyT_Intel]

Hello @Tallyrald ,

Thank you for sharing the resolution to your issue. I'm glad to hear that installing version 6732 after using DDU has improved stability for you. Your feedback about the in-built clean installation and the Intel Driver & Support Assistant is valuable and will help us enhance our services.

As your case is now resolved, we will proceed with closing it. However, if you encounter any issues in the future, please feel free to contact us again. You can submit a ticket or post a thread and will be happy to assist you.

Thank you once again for your cooperation and for sharing your experience with us.

Regards,

Randy T.

Intel Customer Support Technician