How to Check Whether Async Particles Is Actually Improving Your Performance

Why you should measure

Async Particles helps particle-heavy scenes, but it will not change performance in a quiet area with no particles. If you judge it by walking around spawn, you may conclude it does nothing. Measure in the right place.

Steps

1. Pick a repeatable test spot: standing in rain from a weather mod, or in a scene with many effect particles.

2. Enable an FPS and frame-time overlay. Note both average FPS and frame-time spikes, since stutter shows in frame time more than FPS.

3. Record your numbers with Async Particles enabled.

4. Disable the mod (or remove it from the mod list) and restart the game fully.

5. Return to the exact same spot and record again. Compare frame times, not just FPS.

6. Repeat once more with the mod enabled to rule out random variation.

Reading the results

A clear improvement in frame time during particle-heavy moments means the mod is working. If numbers are identical, check that the mod loaded and that your particle mod is not bypassing normal particle rendering. If performance is worse, disable culling first, since aggressive culling can add overhead in some scenes.