Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction: Significant performance loss when minimap is drawn

[PlatypusFNC]

Title

https://xemu.app/titles/4c410015/#Mercenaries

Bug Description

The game performance is significantly reduced when the minimap is drawn on the screen. You can test this very early in the game when you first pick up your PDA.

Perhaps any HUD element also causes this performance loss, but I don't know if there's a way to test the rendering of other HUD elements independent of the minimap.

Expected Behavior

The minimap should not significantly affect the game's performance.

xemu Version

Version: 0.8.46
Branch: master
Commit: 57cdee7
Date: Mon Mar 31 19:44:38 UTC 2025

System Information

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-9400F CPU @ 2.90GHz
OS Platform: Windows
OS Version: Windows 8.1 Pro
Manufacturer: NVIDIA Corporation
GPU Model: GeForce GTX 1050 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
Driver: 4.0.0 NVIDIA 442.59
Shader: 4.00 NVIDIA via Cg compiler

Additional Context

My computer is far from good, but the issue is observable in higher spec machines, such as in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rIJU4OUsTU
Around 2:15 the player takes control and the framerate is locked at 60
Around 2:30 the player gets the minimap for the first time and the framerate drops to 50-55 as long as its drawn

Maybe the game can run in full speed if this issue is resolved?

[mborgerson]

• Try switching the renderer to Vulkan
• Use 1x resolution scale
• Try things mentioned here: https://xemu.app/docs/troubleshooting/#windows-performance-considerations

[PlatypusFNC]

After trying the Vulkan renderer, I now get 60 FPS even with the minimap displayed in the starting scene (inside the cargo plane), but when the player is out of the plane and on the ground where the scenery is much more complex, I only get about 50 FPS while the minimap is displayed and 60 FPS when the game is paused. I don't know any other way to hide the minimap during gameplay besides pausing the game, and I think the game's graphics are still being rendered while paused because they are affected by the resolution scale. Even during the cargo plane scene, the MSPF increases from about 8 to about 12 after the minimap is displayed. These tests were done with 1x resolution scale and with Threaded Optimization disabled.