Consistent stutter issue in VR, have tried many fixes, unplayable on powerful PC

[Exigeous]

This is sorta my last ditch effort to see if I can actually get to play DCS and get some enjoyment from what I spent on the A10-C module. First a bit about my PC then the issues.

 

PC Details

Core i7 4770k 3.5 Ghz (non-OCed)

32 GB DDR3

2 Samsung EVO 850 256GB SSD RAID

1 Samsung 7200 RPM SATA (data drive, game run from SSD)

Zotac Amp!Extreme GTX 1080 8GB

ASUS ROG Hero VII MB

Gigabit NIC, 100MB down, 25MB up net connection

Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS

VKBSim Mark IV flight pedals

Pagnain V2 Motion Seat Platform

Oculus Rift

3 27" 1080p 60hz Samsung displays

Thrustmaster TX racing wheel, Fanatec V2 Pedals, Fanatec SQ Shifter, Custom handbrake

Custom USB Button box / racing dash

 

(I only mention the racing hardware incase there is some bizarre conflict, I've tried them disconnected)

 

Problem Details

When in cockpit (in VR) there is a momentary stutter/pause every 2 or so seconds. It's about 15-30 frames or so (from observation, not a scientific measurement). It's consistent from the minute I'm in air for as long as I fly, starts immediately. If I hold perfectly still it still stutters, if I look around in VR it gets quite a bit worse, huge stutters as new terrain is drawn in.

 

What I've Tried

I've read a number of threads about this or issues like it and have tried a number of things. A few of them are:

- In game visual settings make no difference. Have tried everything at their lowest to everything at highest and there is zero difference

- Disabled hyperthreading

- Disabled CPU power management

- Set Windows power management to "off", basically setting everything to performance / no throttling

- Set the Nvidia driver to always prefer performance

- "Other" BIOS settings (can't find the thread now but used a thread that had a number of changes to try)

- Originally installed to my SATA drive then installed to SSD

- Created a 20GB RAM Disk and installed there

- Full uninstall/clean of video drivers, reinstall

- Confirmed all drivers are current

- All Windows 10 updates, Anniversary edition

- Have played without VR, same issues

- Have used several version of Oculus Home, same issues (has happened since purchase)

- Clearly a gaming focused machine, play many other AAA titles perfectly. Most notably Elite Dangerous with multiple add-on apps and software for my motion platform and additional hardware

- Have tried right after a complete clean Windows 10 install (after all current drivers)

- Tried setting the DCS thread to high priority via launching from a batch file

- Tried flying the A10-C and the default plane that is included (just can't remember it now)

- Playing in Single player

- Using Windows Defender AV, no secondary or other anti-malware (very clean machine, I'm a senior network engineer)

- No other busy or large background processes. The machine is my Plex server but I've been sure to stop that to ensure it's transcoding processes are not running (as they can effect Elite).

- As I've worked in IT for 20 years I've done a lot of performance tuning in my day, this current build is fairly vanilla with only a handful of services stopped (I can share the list but I can also assure you nothing even remotely related)

 

UPDATE - new things I've tried with no good results

- Setting the DCS process to high priority

- Verifying that maxfps isn't set

- Deleted DCS folder in my Windows profile

- Set Preload Radius to maximum

- Confirmed that none of the Asus add-on tools (Sonic Radar, etc.) are not installed/running

- No Anti Virus running (other than Windows Defender)

- No Cloud or other background service running using CPU (killed all that were, namely Dropbox)

- Confirmed that all Windows power/performance settings are disabled or set to max performance

- Verified the firmware on all drives, SSD and HDD, all are current.

- Have tried resetting the BIOS to defaults and to turn off hyperthreading and CPU throttling off. Again neither helped

- Fresh install of Windows, drivers then DCS, still stutters

- Have had DCS and OS installed to SSD, had OS on SSD and DCS on HDD

 

So that's the story, I'm at a loss as to what to try next. I've read threads that 1.5 isn't great with VR and that I should move to 2.0 beta but I'm not about to spend another dime on a game that I've already spend $50 on and haven't been able to play for more than a few minutes, instead spending hours trying to make it work. My system is well above the recommended specs and I've gotten replies from several users to my Steam review with significantly less powerful hardware than I have who have no issues. As a huge fan of VR and flight sims and owner of the Thrustmaster Warthog I've wanted to get into DCS for a long time but every time I try I'm thwarted and it's simply unplayable. I don't think I'm being too picky as a stutter in VR like this can be extremely sickening.

 

I welcome any input you guys have otherwise I suppose DCS will just have to sit in my library of games that were a mistake to buy.

 

-Ross

 

Here's 2 Youtube videos showing the problems

 

VR Stutter test - starts at :26

 

Non-VR Stutter test - starts at :14

Edited November 7, 2016 by Exigeous
Added updates

[will-]

Is this single player or multiplayer having the fps issue?

[BIGNEWY]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

 

Don't give up so easy, plenty here willing to help :)

 

What antivirus are you using, and any other processes running in the background that my be impacting performance, like cloud services and so on?

 

also take a screenshot of your ingame settings for us

Edited November 1, 2016 by BIGNEWY

[Revelation]

One thing I would try off hand is verifying your power settings on your computer. Ensure that you are not using any Power Saver or Balanced settings. There should be an option for Performance, select that and see if it helps.

[Exigeous]

Thanks for the replies guys, I do appreciate them.I've updated my original post with the answers to the above questions, they are:

 

- Single player

- AV is Windows Defender, no secondary or anti-malware. I've worked in IT for 20 years so know how to keep a machine very clean, this is only a gaming system and never anything funky on it.

- No ther large or busy background processes. It is my Plex server but I've stopped Plex to ensure that it's transcoding processes aren't running.

- Visual settings in-game make no difference, I've tried everything at it's lowest or at highest and the stutter is exactly the same. (can't beleive I didn't mention this before!

Set Windows power management to "off", basically setting everything to performance / no throttling

- Set the Nvidia driver to always prefer performance

[Rangi]

Overclock that K.....

[Exigeous]

also take a screenshot of your ingame settings for us

 

Sorry I forgot to do this earlier, do you still need? I have tried everything on low with the exact same results.

 

Overclock that K.....

 

Yeah, no thanks - I'm on air cooling, a nice big Noctua but still would rather not. Besides it's well above the recommended specs and I never see more than about 60% CPU utilization at any given time.

 

Any other ideas or I suppose I'll just have to punt.

[amazingme]

What RAM do you have installed? How many modules and @ what freq?

[Vlerkies]

This is sorta my last ditch effort to see if I can actually get to play DCS and get some enjoyment from what I spent on the A10-C module. First a bit about my PC then the issues.

 

PC Details

 

ASUS ROG Hero VII MB

 

Hi

I dont have rift so cant check, and this is an absolute long shot but it sounds like you are willing to try anything, and this is quick.

 

Asus mobo, if you have the Asus bundled software like 'sonic suite/studio' running, turn it off and try.

 

The only reason I say this is that it is known to cause graphic glitches in IL2.

So just kill it, try, if situation is the same, no harm no foul, takes 2 secs to do, no reboot required.

[Exigeous]

@amazingme - Crucial Ballistix Sport XT 4 x 8GB DDR3 1866 - I can't believe for a second that would have anything to do with it but I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Again I play a number of AAA titles that all run fantastically (Overwatch, Battlefield 1, Elite, Assetto Corsa, Project Cars, Doom (4), Descent Underground, Fallout 4, GTA V, etc.)

 

@Vlerkies - first, yes, I'll try just about anything at this point as I've tried just about everything I can think of to figure it out. I really have done a lot of investigation and troubleshooting trying to figure it out as my inner geek gets very annoyed when I can't work out an issue like this.

 

Now to answer your question/idea I do not have that installed. While I've played around with these various Asus add-ons like that with my current Windows 10 build I didn't install any of those apps when I rebuilt, just the drivers / BIOS. While I do play some FPS games from time to time that's not my normal gameplay and I have no need for goofy apps like those. The only background apps that start at login are:

 

- Dropbox

- Plex (which I've tried disabling before DCS, no difference)

- Plex.py (a Plex log file processor, I've tried killing it, no diff)

- Windows Defender (again I've tried killing it)

- ShareX (great simple screenshot app, guess what I've tried...)

- And that's it

 

There aren't any goofy processes running and nothing using anything more than a few percent of my CPU at any given non-gaming moment. When I play the AAA titles above at most I get about 45% sustained CPU usage with no more than about 60% of system RAM ever used. As I mentioned before I even installed the game to a RAM drive with the same issues.

 

I really am at a loss - my frustration wants to say "damn is crappy software" but given how many are enjoying it just fine it's clearly not the game but rather some conflict with something odd on my PC. It's just so odd that it would be this specific to DCS since all my other games run so great. Hell I can get 150+ fps in Doom on full Ultra across 3 displays at 5760x1080 so it's not exactly a slow PC.

 

Any other ideas gents??

 

~X

[Vlerkies]

@amazingme - Crucial Ballistix Sport XT 4 x 8GB DDR3 1866 - I can't believe for a second that would have anything to do with it but I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Again I play a number of AAA titles that all run fantastically (Overwatch, Battlefield 1, Elite, Assetto Corsa, Project Cars, Doom (4), Descent Underground, Fallout 4, GTA V, etc.)

 

@Vlerkies - first, yes, I'll try just about anything at this point as I've tried just about everything I can think of to figure it out. I really have done a lot of investigation and troubleshooting trying to figure it out as my inner geek gets very annoyed when I can't work out an issue like this.

 

Now to answer your question/idea I do not have that installed. While I've played around with these various Asus add-ons like that with my current Windows 10 build I didn't install any of those apps when I rebuilt, just the drivers / BIOS. While I do play some FPS games from time to time that's not my normal gameplay and I have no need for goofy apps like those. The only background apps that start at login are:

 

- Dropbox

- Plex (which I've tried disabling before DCS, no difference)

- Plex.py (a Plex log file processor, I've tried killing it, no diff)

- Windows Defender (again I've tried killing it)

- ShareX (great simple screenshot app, guess what I've tried...)

- And that's it

 

There aren't any goofy processes running and nothing using anything more than a few percent of my CPU at any given non-gaming moment. When I play the AAA titles above at most I get about 45% sustained CPU usage with no more than about 60% of system RAM ever used. As I mentioned before I even installed the game to a RAM drive with the same issues.

 

I really am at a loss - my frustration wants to say "damn is crappy software" but given how many are enjoying it just fine it's clearly not the game but rather some conflict with something odd on my PC. It's just so odd that it would be this specific to DCS since all my other games run so great. Hell I can get 150+ fps in Doom on full Ultra across 3 displays at 5760x1080 so it's not exactly a slow PC.

 

Any other ideas gents??

 

~X

 

Ok cool. Sry it didnt help.

If any of those background apps are DX related just kill them if they are running, actually, kill all of them as a starting point to trouble shoot.

 

As a baseline run only absolute bare essentials.

 

Sometimes these things hook into and interfere with games.

Best of luck, and I am jealous of the rift.

:thumbup:

[pietpuk]

Have you tried to play the game with highest priority?

This solved this problem for somebody in Elite Dangerous.

[Flocke.LE]

I had the same peridoc stuttering and found a solution:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2842194&postcount=8

 

maybe this helps in your case, too?

[Shrike_AU]

With those PC specs, make sure your preload radius is set to maximum in your settings. A screenshot of your settings page might help track down the problem as well.

[Exigeous]

Sry it didnt help... ...As a baseline run only absolute bare essentials.... ...Best of luck, and I am jealous of the rift

 

First thanks much for trying to lend a hand, very appreciated. Have done this several times. Killed every app I could such that only the game and, as you say, the bare essentials were running - same behavior. Finally the Rift is pretty fantastic, still a long way to go, in 5 years VR is going to be incredible.

 

Have you tried to play the game with highest priority?

This solved this problem for somebody in Elite Dangerous.

 

No, I haven't yet but I'm familiar with the technique and thread you're referring to. I'll give that a try later this evening, I haven't yet as that feels rather hackish where I shouldn't have to do something like that on a PC like mine. That said if it fixes it then great.

 

I ... found a solution... ...maybe this helps in your case, too?

 

Thanks as well, I've seen several posts about these types of issues but this sorta can't be my problem or if it is I can't fix it. What I mean is my main drive is a Samsung EVO 850 SSD, a rather nice/fast one. My second drive is a standard hard drive, so moving temp files there would have far less performance. I've run disk benchmarks several times to ensure there are no issues, in fact about 6 months back my main SSD (a PNY at the time) was bad and writes were insanely slow. With the Sammy all tests are screaming.

 

...make sure your preload radius is set to maximum in your settings. A screenshot of your settings page might help track down the problem as well.

 

If I recall the settings page has several different tabs for graphics, controls, audio, etc. Am I right that all you'd want would be the graphic settings? Is it possibly a case that "low" would possibly be slower than something higher as it doesn't pre-load or pre-cache something that would help? Just an FYI but I have tried every level of the presets from Low to Highest (can't recall the actual name)

 

I really do appreciate everyone's help. I'll say that I almost don't expect to figure this out as I've spent at least 8 hours total with various forum posts and troubleshooting. That said it would be great if we found that magic bullet that would get it going.

 

~X

[pietpuk]

No, I haven't yet but I'm familiar with the technique and thread you're referring to. I'll give that a try later this evening, I haven't yet as that feels rather hackish where I shouldn't have to do something like that on a PC like mine. That said if it fixes it then great.

In DCS you don't have to run some crazy batchfile. If you set it to highest priority, it stays that way.

[Exigeous]

So I did more testing last night, first I went ahead and set the process to High priority with no change. Same stutters as before. Next I realized that I had my 3 screens setup using NVidia Surround which has caused issues with other games. I disabled that and rebooted but still same issue. I then killed every process I possibly could so that nothing else was running, same issue. I confirmed nothing was pegging the CPU or GPU and tried again, same issue.

 

So I then setup OBS to record the two examples below. For both the only things running were DCS, OBS (for recording) and CAM (a CPU/GPU performance/temp monitoring app - very light weight). Here are the two clips I recorded. In both videos the stutter happens a few seconds in and while I didn't record for long you'll see the stutters I'm mentioning. They aren't as bad here as they usually are actually. You can also see from CAM that I'm not using more than 40% of my CPU and 20% of my GPU.

 

VR Stutter test - starts at :26

 

Non-VR Stutter test - starts at :14

 

Both videos were recorded with all visual settings at low, save for Preload Radius which was at max (I tried it max and zero, not difference). I then grabbed screenshots of all the settings pages (save for key binding). Forgive the low quality images, I grabbed these while in VR which is sorta tough as this was the image mirrored to my desktop of what I see in headset.

 

I'm at a total loss as to what to try next. Clearly my PC is powerful enough. Clearly I couldn't set lower settings. Clearly the stutter is extremely frustrating. But there is also clearly something different about my setup as others can fly on much older/slower PCs. As always I welcome any help you guys have.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 4, 2016 by Exigeous
fixed video links more better

[zaelu]

In DCS you don't have to run some crazy batchfile. If you set it to highest priority, it stays that way.

 

How do you do that?

 

@Exigeous

 

It was a thread around here these days where someone deleted the maxfps line from graphics.lua file (I guess you could just disable it with -- ) to get rid of some stutters. I even disabled mine but I can't say something about performance as I haven't the time to do some extensive tests.

 

Also check the DCS folder from user\saved games\ for some bad autoexec file or anything.

 

Finally I heard about problems with some motherboards and their USB controllers that simply induce stutters. Try searching about your mother board similar problems with USB controllers.

[Exigeous]

How do you do that?

 

@Exigeous

 

It was a thread around here these days where someone deleted the maxfps line from graphics.lua file (I guess you could just disable it with -- ) to get rid of some stutters. I even disabled mine but I can't say something about performance as I haven't the time to do some extensive tests.

 

Also check the DCS folder from user\saved games\ for some bad autoexec file or anything.

 

Finally I heard about problems with some motherboards and their USB controllers that simply induce stutters. Try searching about your mother board similar problems with USB controllers.

 

In Windows before Windows 10 you open Task Manager and on the "Processes" tab right click the process, go to "Set Priority" and select. In Windows 10 open Task Manager and go to the Details tab, find the process, right click and "Set Priority". Advice though, generally don't go above "High" as it can have serious side effects (system instability) if you go higher.

 

As for the suggestions I've verified maxfps isn't set via settings and the file and I've tried deleting the whole DCS folder and letting it get recreated - no go again.

 

Any other thoughts? I know we're starting to run out of ideas...

 

~X

[Flocke.LE]

...

What I mean is my main drive is a Samsung EVO 850 SSD, a rather nice/fast one. My second drive is a standard hard drive, so moving temp files there would have far less performance. ~X

 

Actually moving to HDD solved the issue in my case. It's a SATA issue with some ssd-models. ssd/hdd benchmarks might be misleading here...

[Exigeous]

Actually moving to HDD solved the issue in my case. It's a SATA issue with some ssd-models. ssd/hdd benchmarks might be misleading here...

 

While that sounds a little odd I've even tried that. On my machine the SSD is my C drive with a 1TB 7200 RPM D drive. Usually I install my games to D and leave C as clean as possible for just the OS. When I first tried DCS at the beginning of this saga DCS was installed on D and I had the issue. As I began troubleshooting I saw suggestions of installing DCS on the SSD so I moved everything there. Hell I even created a RAM drive and installed the game there, and guess what -- no better.

 

Thanks again, any other idea folks? This is just so incredibly frustrating.

Edited November 5, 2016 by Exigeous
Editing comment

[Flocke.LE]

It's not about installing DCS to another drive. Ist about moving Windows TEMP-FILE folder for the useraccount to another drive, simply by changing a variable. Check my link above again and give that a try, costs you 5 minuntes.

[Exigeous]

It's not about installing DCS to another drive. Ist about moving Windows TEMP-FILE folder for the useraccount to another drive, simply by changing a variable. Check my link above again and give that a try, costs you 5 minuntes.

 

Sorry I misread you - that said I didn't think this would do anything and sadly once again it didn't. At least it only took a few minutes to switch things around and then back again.

 

Dear God this is frustrating as all hell, I suppose at this point we're just not going to get it to work as clearly there is some kind of conflict in the game and my system. I think whatever that is it's not something we can change so I'll just have to wait until 2.5 drops to give that a try. Not willing to try 2.0 as I'm not about to spend another dime on this franchise until I know it will work.

 

If however anyone else has any other ideas I'm up for giving them a try.

 

~X

[Exigeous]

Bumping this one last time before I just give up trying to get this POS game working properly. While I've said several times there must be something different about my machine with the amount of time I've spent and number of things I've tried I just can't imagine what it would be.

 

I suppose I have a parting question - if you watch the videos I put up do you see that kind of stutter when you play or is it always smooth? I mean I know all games are going to have a few hiccups here and there but is it anything consistent like my issue? I'm just baffled by this as I hate it when I can't finally figure something out.

 

If you have any further ideas please, *please* toss them out.

 

Thanks for the conversation so far,

 

~X

[zaelu]

In Windows before Windows 10 you open Task Manager and on the "Processes" tab right click the process, go to "Set Priority" and select. In Windows 10 open Task Manager and go to the Details tab, find the process, right click and "Set Priority".

 

...

 

Any other thoughts? I know we're starting to run out of ideas...

 

~X

 

I know about it but it doesn't stay. You need to set it like that each time you start DCS. pietpuk said you can make it stay. I managed to do it only with an external program (System Explorer).

 

Regarding your problem I think too is a hardware related one. You should try different ram or SSD or something else (other PC? :) ). I don't think there is much you could still do. Maybe tun off mirrors and lower the resolution on second screens inside cockpit...