Special K

I can show you an example, how DCS handles the cores. I have an Intel 14900HX here, which is a CPU with 8 P-cores and 16 E-cores: P-Cores: PC2 (4): 8, 9, 12, 13 PC1 (12): 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14, 15 E-Cores: EC0: 16-31 This means, I have 2 P-cores (logical cores 8/9, 12/13) in performance class 2 and 6 P-cores (logical cores 0/1, 2/3, 4/5, 6/7, 10/11 and 14/15) in performance class 1. DCS now assigns my cores as follows: 2025-02-28 15:14:22.797 INFO EDCORE (Main): common cores: {4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14, 15} 2025-02-28 15:14:22.797 INFO EDCORE (Main): render cores: {8, 9, 12, 13, 0, 1, 2, 3} 2025-02-28 15:14:22.797 INFO EDCORE (Main): IO cores: {16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31} So - my fastest cores get assigned to the rendering threads, which is correct. The rest of the P-cores are assigned to typical other tasks, where my least performant cores, the E-cores get assigned to IO tasks. ---- Looking at your CPU, it looks like so: P-Cores: PC1: 0, 1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19 E-Cores: EC1: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 17 You do not have different performance classes, which means that your P-cores should be all about the same performance. This is likely, as your CPU is optimized for a more balanced power / thermal distribution. Now, what does DCS do to your CPU? 2025-03-04 19:55:19.543 INFO EDCORE (Main): common cores: {12, 13, 18, 19} 2025-03-04 19:55:19.543 INFO EDCORE (Main): render cores: {0, 1, 10, 11} 2025-03-04 19:55:19.543 INFO EDCORE (Main): IO cores: {2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 17} Now, from the looks of it, your CPU does not have hyperthreading anymore, which makes your logical and physical cores even. So you only use 4 cores for rendering and 4 cores for common tasks, which is a bit of a pity, as you can only run 4 rendering threads in parallel, where my CPU can run 8. In your former example with E-cores disabled, DCS looked like so: 2025-03-04 03:04:11.354 INFO EDCORE (Main): common cores: {12, 13, 18, 19} 2025-03-04 03:04:11.354 INFO EDCORE (Main): render cores: {0, 1, 10, 11} 2025-03-04 03:04:11.354 INFO EDCORE (Main): IO cores: {} This means, that your common cores had to do the IO tasks also. All in all, I am not 100% sure if these new Core Ultra CPUs are really a great idea for gaming. At least, DCS tries to distribute the tasks as good as it goes from the schema that works for all other CPUs. If you see a high load on the E-cores btw, you might have a lot of IO tasks to be done. Would be interesting what that could be in your case.

Absolutely. You have paid for them. DCS detects which core is which and spreads the tasks accordingly.

As mentioned earlier, please do not play around with process lasso on your own. 2025-03-04 03:04:11.351 INFO EDCORE (Main): system affinity mask: 11111111111111111111 2025-03-04 03:04:11.351 INFO EDCORE (Main): process affinity mask: 11000011110000000011 2025-03-04 03:04:11.351 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 2 is not available for this process 2025-03-04 03:04:11.351 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 3 is not available for this process 2025-03-04 03:04:11.351 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 4 is not available for this process 2025-03-04 03:04:11.351 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 5 is not available for this process 2025-03-04 03:04:11.351 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 6 is not available for this process 2025-03-04 03:04:11.351 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 7 is not available for this process 2025-03-04 03:04:11.351 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 8 is not available for this process 2025-03-04 03:04:11.351 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 9 is not available for this process 2025-03-04 03:04:11.351 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 14 is not available for this process 2025-03-04 03:04:11.351 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 15 is not available for this process 2025-03-04 03:04:11.351 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 16 is not available for this process 2025-03-04 03:04:11.351 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 17 is not available for this process

Which antivirus do you use?

MSI Afterburner has known issues with the 9800x3d (you can google it also), where it causes stutters due to slow reading of sensors on this CPU. In all fairness, many measuring solutions have the same issue. As people tend to run these solutions in parallel to their normal day to day use, I just want to make you guys aware that that can be already the cause of your stutters. Can you send your dcs.log please, while recreating the issue. Thanks. This is an interesting comment of the developer of MSI Afterburner about the issues btw:

If any of you guys would be so kind and provide a simple dcs.log, that would help a ton. Screenshots unfortunately don't help at all. => For the guys using E-Core CPUs, please make sure that you are on Windows 11 and that core parking is disabled. => For the guys using Ryzen CPUs, please make sure that you do not have MSI afterburner installed. Happy to look at any log, if provided.

You're completely hijacking a report for a different thing. I have seen that also. It happens with many AV solutions when the scanner for whatever reason takes a ton of time to scan. I assume you've created an exclusion already and you're on windows standard?

The ones of you that use TrackIR, you might want to check if you downgrade to an older software version. There are a lot of complaints about the latest one together with DCS.

Yes, but you can not reproduce it yet Fingers crossed though!

Yes, there is a known critical issue with MSI Afterburner and AMD CPUs.

2024-12-29 20:02:05.013 TRACE SECURITYCONTROL (42148): do_check_resource(mods/aircraft/a-10c_2/bin/a10.dll, ) ... 2024-12-29 20:11:54.019 INFO EDCORE (Main): Loaded F:/Program Files/Eagle Dynamics/DCS World/Mods/aircraft/A-10C_2/bin/A10.dll It takes 9 minutes (!) to load that DLL. Which antivirus do you use? And do you use MSI Afterburner by chance (have it installed)?

Ok, upload this file to Saved Games\DCS\Config, recreate your issue and send me the new dcs.log please. autoexec.cfg

Which antivirus do you use?

It can be that you have no issues at all, but usually if you use any other application that uses your GPU, which can be Discord or YouTube, you can see stutters. That is why I usually ask to turn it off.

You need a pagefile, that was not a good advise. Windows virtual memory management is built around pagefiles. And you still want to have valuable RAM available and long-time-no-see RAM pages paged out, even with 64 GB. You can have it on system managed though. Do you have resizable BAR enabled?

Do you have core isolation, game mode and hardware GPU scheduling disabled? Have you tuned your Nvidia 3D settings also? The rest is looking quite ok. Your pagefile (even if it is not needed that much) is on a fast NVMe? If you like, you can send me your dxdiag.txt also.

You're using mods and they crash your DCS, especially the Su30. Same issue.. Su30 mod. Guys please, whenever you encounter these issues, the first thing you need to think about is removing the stuff you did to DCS.

Can you get me your dcs.log please? I have 5 PCs with different hardware now here, from potato to powerhouse, VR and non VR, I don't see that. And I don't have stutter on my two real gaming rigs.

You better disable core parking than telling the CPU to check it more often in my eyes.

Fair enough. It is the only OS where Microsoft puts their love in atm. There were issues, yes, with the first versions, but currently it is very stable. Vendors tend to apply only changes to Win11 these days, as you see with AMD. CPUs with E-cores are not even properly supported on Win10, which does not hit you in this case.

Sorry haven't seen it earlier. There were some significant performances improvements by AMD that they only applied to Windows 11, so I would assume that yes. It's a completely different story than with the E-core CPUs though.

Run a windows tool named dxdiag, press save everything and send the resulting dxdiag.txt Try again with Debug logging enabled. For that, put the attached autoexec.cfg in your Saved Games\DCS\Config folder and recreate the issue. Send a new log please. autoexec.cfg

Because DCS MT knows which cores are P and which are E. Look at the startup and you see that DCS detects the performance class of each of your logical cores and it then decides which ones to use for what. Unless you are on Windows 10 (which doesn't make much sense with these CPUs, but I see that every day), you can use them with DCS.

64 GB is always better than XMP. XMP does not give you much, some single digit FPS maybe, unless your system is completely unbalanced.

You always need a pagefile, but you can keep it on system managed with that setup. I use the smoothing with my Pimax, and have quite good results with it. The lags and jitter come for me, if I try to achieve some FPS that my GPU can't handle.