Crippling stutters

[bassdemon69]

Hi everyone.

 

First, I'll say that this is my first post here, though I've been a big fan of this line of games since the old LOMAC days. I will mention as a disclaimer that I'm not terribly advanced as far as "under the hood" computer workings, so consider this in your replies please. However, I have read through many of the posts here, so I will do my best to answer any potential questions with this first post.

 

When playing DCS, I usually start out flying with reasonable, acceptable FPS readings (in the 20-30 fps range, which I guess for my rig is alright, at least the game is playable) but after playing for a few minutes, I basically always have episodes (usually 30 seconds or so) where the FPS drops to below 10, and usually it gets worse than this, with the game basically freezing, reading less than 1 FPS, and this is accompanied by intense audio stutter, which doesn't happen until these REALLY bad lag episodes. If I can manage to not crash the plane when this happens, the FPS usually recovers for a time to playable levels again, before the cycle repeats.

 

I'm playing on an Acer laptop running Windows 8.1

Intel Core i7-3632QM 2.2GHz with turbo boost up to 3.2 GHz

NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M

8GB DDR3 memory.

 

I initially assumed this was a graphics issue, but after adjusting every option in the game, including turning everything to the lowest setting, I was only able to squeeze a marginal FPS increase. I have also turned civilian traffic off. I've made sure all my drivers are up to date. I recently tried disabling my Norton AV and Firewall and that seems to make no difference. I also tried flying the plane outside the "rendered world" in DCS, hoping to eliminate any trees, objects, or buildings, seeing if I could isolate the issue. While initial FPS was higher, the stutters continued. I'm also using GameBooster to hopefully shut down unnecessary processes that might slow things down, and, after reading another thread about this somewhere (I don't remember where) I had been using TimerResolution to set the timer resolution to maximum (not sure how this works, but it seems to help marginally initially).

 

I had also read somewhere that this could be a latency issue? To be honest, I don't understand latency, but after downloading LatencyMon, I did notice latency spikes that are being attributed to ndis.sys. I don't know exactly what this means, or how to fix it, or if that is even the cause of my problem.

 

I know I don't have a fancy gaming rig or anything, but I did pour more money into this laptop purchase in order to be able to game on it, and unfortunately the only one I really want to play is more like Digital Kamikaze Simulator than Digital Combat Simulator. I would just like to figure out the problem causing this stutter so the game can be playable.

 

 

Thanks very much for any and all help anyone can provide. If you need me to track down more specs or details about my system, I'm happy to try and track it down.

[Rhinox]

...I did pour more money into this laptop purchase in order to be able to game on it...

 

I honestly doubt there is something like "gaming laptop", but *IF* you were buying laptop with intention to use it for games, why did you pick a one with such a weak graphics??? GT650M is good for video and office-work, but sure not for 3d-gaming. Just a small hint: if we talk about NVidia mobile chips, "GTX" graphic adapters are for gaming, not those "GT".

 

I said it here zillion times: if you are buing laptop for gaming, pick the one with the best GFX you can find, because you will have to live with it! You could change CPU (yes, even in laptops), add more memory, switch disk for SSD, but you can do nothing with GFX (except for a few very rare laptops which have GFX as module in slot, i.e. MXM).

 

Recently I tested GiBy P34Gv2 laptop with DCS: it had i7, 8GB RAM and GTX860M. I was surprised it could play DCS quite well, with moderate settings. Basically the only difference compared to yours is GFX, but unfortunatelly for you, the most important...

[EtherealN]

I honestly doubt there is something like "gaming laptop", but *IF* you were buying laptop with intention to use it for games, why did you pick a one with such a weak graphics??? GT650M is good for video and office-work, but sure not for 3d-gaming. Just a small hint: if we talk about NVidia mobile chips, "GTX" graphic adapters are for gaming, not those "GT".

 

I said it here zillion times: if you are buing laptop for gaming, pick the one with the best GFX you can find, because you will have to live with it!

 

No, pick the one with the best cooling you can find (usually also means a fairly heavy and thick machine) that will not see it's fancy 870M thermal-throttle itself after a couple minutes of gaming, as I am almost willing to bet is what is happening here.

 

You could change CPU (yes, even in laptops), add more memory, switch disk for SSD, but you can do nothing with GFX (except for a few very rare laptops which have GFX as module in slot, i.e. MXM).

 

I'd be much interested in seeing someone swap out a BGA-package CPU. You know, the ones that are vibration-soldered onto the motherboard? ;)

 

Recently I tested GiBy P34Gv2 laptop with DCS: it had i7, 8GB RAM and GTX860M. I was surprised it could play DCS quite well, with moderate settings. Basically the only difference compared to yours is GFX, but unfortunatelly for you, the most important...

 

Which "i7" did it have though? In the mobile space, saying "i7" means very little, really. The i7-3632QM is a low-power SKU, though it does offer four cores at least. My search on the GiBy P34Gv2 indicate that that one has the i7-4710HQ, which is both a performance chip AND a Haswell chip (which is an okey deal as far as thermal dissipation goes in the mobile space).

 

The problem description really sounds like a THERMAL issue. Some component(s) are most likely getting overheated, and the computer starts to lower voltages and clock frequencies to ensure there is no meltdown or other damage, adversely affecting gameplay.

 

Easiest way to check whether this might indeed be what is happening is to install and run HWMonitor: http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

 

Start it, keep it in the background while running the game, and once the issue has manifested check through the list to see what kind of temperatures you're getting on the components while the machine is being "stressed".

 

Sadly, this is a common mistake in laptop design now in the age of ultraportables and the quest for slim; the more portable you make it, the harder it'll be to ensure it can perform adequate cooling.

[bassdemon69]

Thanks for the responses!

 

As far as why I chose the laptop I did: I basically bought as much machine as I could/can afford. Did I purchase a machine with the wrong combination of components? Quite possibly, but again, I don't know a whole lot about this stuff. Considering what I was upgrading from (an 8-year-old Dell tower) everything I could possibly buy seemed like an infinite improvement.

 

EtherealN, I ran that program while I played a quick round of Instant Action A10A, and while it only had the stutters once (amazingly), I checked after I was done and got this:

 

Type 2 Board Vendor Name1 VA70_HC

Temperatures

THRM Max: 101 C (213 F)

Intel Core i7 3632QM

Voltages

VID Max: 1.036V

Temperatures

Core #0 Max: 99 C (210 F)

Core #1 Max: 100 C (212 F)

Core #2 Max: 102 C (215 F)

Core #3 Max: 98 C (208 F)

Package: Max: 102 C (215 F)

 

Seems like your suspicions were correct. Is there anything I can do, or am I totally screwed? Would a huge beefy cooling pad help to any extent? Should I only play while sitting outside on my patio in the wintertime? Or should I just shelf the game until I can buy something better, and consult people here when I decide to upgrade?

 

Hopefully it isn't the last option.

 

Thanks again.

[EtherealN]

Yup, that is definitely a case of overheating. Max allowed temp for that CPU is 105 degrees C, so it does look like it was trying really hard to avoid reaching that temp.

 

What you can do about it depends a bit. If you've used it for a bit you could try doublechecking that it's not full of dust inside. You could also "stress" it for a bit and check if it is getting really warm on the underside of the chassis. If that is the case, you might be able to improve things by purchasing one of those USB-powered cooling stands and have the laptop standing on that one while playing. They're usually not that expensive (just make sure to get one that is big enough), something between 20 and 50 euro. Though there's no guarantee that they'll fully fix the problem either, though.

 

Also, in the case of that option, make sure to see whether the laptop has "feet", so that the chassis would actually have a little bit of space for air to flow through. If it would end up completely flush against the fan tray it wouldn't help at all, but as long as you have feet I'd definitely recommend those cooling pad/fan assembly thingies as a first things to try since they are so cheap.

[bassdemon69]

I appreciate the advice. The laptop does have feet that maintain a little airspace under the chassis, but it definitely gets pretty warm. I wouldn't be surprised if a bit of dust has accumulated in there as well. And I will certainly pick up a cooling pad at my next opportunity. Thanks very much!

[Rhinox]

I'd say there is nothing suspicious in that output. CPU-temperatures of 95+ are quite normal for laptops under full load, and have no impact on performance.

 

If you want to be sure, I'd recommend to start some serious cpu-benchmark i.e. SuperPI (remember to fire it 4 times for your 4 cores, as SuperPI is single-threaded app). This will bring load on your laptop really to max (except for GFX, of course). Then start some frequency-monitoring app (cpu-z being my favourite) and check if there is some cpu-throttling (automatic cpu-frequency reducing in order not to overheat cpu). Or you can test it with load only on 2 cores (more similar as DCS). Just "turbo" frequency is different, depending on number of cores loaded...

[EtherealN]

I'd say there is nothing suspicious in that output. CPU-temperatures of 95+ are quite normal for laptops under full load, and have no impact on performance.

 

If you want to be sure, I'd recommend to start some serious cpu-benchmark i.e. SuperPI (remember to fire it 4 times for your 4 cores, as SuperPI is single-threaded app). This will bring load on your laptop really to max (except for GFX, of course). Then start some frequency-monitoring app (cpu-z being my favourite) and check if there is some cpu-throttling (automatic cpu-frequency reducing in order not to overheat cpu). Or you can test it with load only on 2 cores (more similar as DCS). Just "turbo" frequency is different, depending on number of cores loaded...

 

So your suggestion to test for system overheat is to switch from something that EVIDENTLY taxes everything to tMAX specification, for something that leads to less thermal output. SuperPI does not "bring load on your laptop really to max". It loads the compute cores. Even within the CPU there are more things to worry about.

 

That's not how it works. GPU thermal output and the heat dissipation thereof is a BIG deal here, most especially since we are talking about a laptop. When it heats up, there's less temperature delta available in the internal airstream to cool the CPU.

 

So, your proposed test to check for thermal performance might come back saying it's AOK, but it won't have said anything about thermal performance in games. Because you eliminated one of the big thermal spenders present in that slim little chassis. All you will have proven is that it can run CPU-only tasks.

 

Topping this all off, why test synthetic when you can test realworld? His issue is in DCS World, he has DCS World, why would he want to omit GPU from testing and then configure a synthetic CPU test to try to emulate DCS's workload when... he could just run that frequency logger in the background while playing DCS! ;)

[bassdemon69]

Update: I'd like to thank you guys for helping me out with this. Seemed as though the temperature issue is all it was. I have since found a way to prop up the back of my laptop and try the game out. So far I have been able to play smoothly and actually turned the graphics settings back up a bit higher and am still able to play it pretty comfortably around 25-35 FPS. Maybe not the 60FPS some people are getting on better rigs, but it makes all the difference to me and the game is quite playable now. I've got myself a nice laptop cooling pad on the way, and look forward to being able to actually enjoy the game now.

 

I appreciate the help!

[Soulres]

530$ can get you a really good gaming rig that runs the game on max settings at 1600 resoultion 120fps.Itll outlast your laptop, Cost a fraction of the price and play games better.

 

"Gaming Laptops" dont last long and litterlly burn themselves out.dont ever buy one.

 

Windows8,Windows8.1,Windows9(10) are trash and if you have to worry about compatibility with your operating system,might aswell run Linux as youll save your self150$+

[Sceptre]

Hi, I have a GTX 750 Ti, 8GB ram, Windows 7 64bit and can run singleplayer at about 60FPS with no issues. But quite a lot of the time in MP, my game just locks up at random times for about 10 seconds, and then when it unfreezes I sometimes find my plane has crashed.It is most common at airfields and even more so when landing which is the worst time for it. Also, my internet is not the best, but is good enough and I'm sure it is not the problem.

 

Any reason for this?

Sorry if this is wrong thread....