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

[BIGNEWY]

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

 

We have seen users with this issue and I am as baffled as you are, I have done many troubleshooting sessions with people, but can not find any common ground for the cause. As you know it could be almost anything, from hardware, software, and drivers.

 

Personally I do not see any stutter at all.

Edited November 7, 2016 by BIGNEWY

[Exigeous]

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).

 

Had setting the process to High made any difference or fixed the problem I would just write a script to launch the game with the process set to high. In my testing once set to high with Task Manager the executable stayed on high until I exited the game. A user on the Elite Dangerous forums had a similar problem with Elite but had to use a script to keep the process at high priority. That fixed his problem with Elite but not mine with DCS. As a said note Elite is what I play the vast majority of the time and I have zero issues with it, runs amazingly well.

 

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...

 

I assume you're kidding as suggesting that I replace perfectly good and extremely fast components because DCS doesn't run properly is pretty absurd. It'd be one thing if I wasn't already running near state of the art hardware but as I am and as I've run multiple benchmarks and tests on all components to ensure they are all working perfectly, and they are. I also play over a dozen other modern AAA titles in and out of VR and they all run flawlessly. As for turning off mirrors I assume you mean in cockpit and they already are turned off. If you'll look at the post I shared with all my settings screens everything is as low as it will go. And while I do have 3 monitors and VR I've turned everything off except for 1 1080p display. With how powerful my setup is it should be butter smooth and a great experience, again just like every other game I play.

 

We have seen users with this issue and I am as baffled as you are, I have done many troubleshooting sessions with people, but can not find and common ground for the cause. As you know it could be almost anything, from hardware, software, and drivers.

 

Again huge thanks for all the help you've tried to provide BIGNEWY, it's just so damn frustrating as it looks like a fantastic sim and is something I've wanted to play for years. It just makes no sense why a PC that is significantly faster than what was available when DCS was released several years back would have any problem playing the game smoothly. While I don't see how it can be my machine it is clearly something about my machine and DCS that is causing the problem. If it was just that DCS sucks everyone would have issues and not just me. That said I've seen dozens and dozens of reports of issues like mine with the majority having no fix or no fix that's been shared.

 

I can't see how it's disk related as I installed DCS to a RAM drive making the "disk" incredibly fast. I can't see how it's GPU related as on my GTX 1080 I never see utilization above 20% or so. I can't see how it's CPU as again I never see the process use more than about 30%. I can't see how it's my Windows install as there isn't anything funky or hacked about it and when testing DCS every single app that can be closed is closed and nothing shows funky in Task Manager. I can't see how it's network, I'm gigbit in the house and have 100mb down, 25mb up cable modem. I can't see how it's display as I've tried full screen or window at native 1080p (full screen) or 720p (window). I've tried it will all 3 displays 5760x1080 or just on at 1080p. I've unplugged all USB devices save for my Warthog and keyboard/mouse with no change.

 

The only thing I haven't tried yet is dancing on one foot while praying to the great spaghetti monster, guess I'll try that next....

 

I really do appreciate the help everyone and I did open a ticket so we'll see what they say.

 

~X

[BitMaster]

Sounds really bad :(

 

I have seen SSD's bad firmware that can cause this...if yours is of that kind..I doubt it, that was back in the days of OCZ going south...but you never know, even Samsung 840 SSD's had similar symptoms on certain files....make a FW upgrade if you can.

 

Reset your Bios to OPTIMIZED DEFAULTS and check again.

 

Your problem sounds to me like a deep down gears teething problem...and your gears just dont teeth properly into each other.

 

 

I run a spare rig now with a 920 oc'ed to 3GHz and I have no stutter....up to 120fps in NTTR (nalmost cant believe that myself ) and only see stutter if I get lower than 15fps in some NTTR scenarios. What I wanna say is, you dont need the biggest rig around to play stutter and jitterfree with TiR-5 and somehow demanding seetings ( 1440p and high/extreme settings but a few selected turned down ).

 

I'd reinstall that rig from scratch and go step by step, Win10-DCS-TESTING leave all other stuff OFF.

[Migo]

Exigeous did you install OS and DCS to SSD or DCS only and left the OS on an HDD?

[zaelu]

I assume you're kidding as suggesting that I replace perfectly good and extremely fast components because DCS doesn't run properly is pretty absurd.

 

I wasn't kidding but I was meaning to make the "changes" for purpose of investigating the problem, not for good. A second PC beside the main one would give you an indication... a start.

[M460]

What type of RAID did you set for the SSD''s

[Exigeous]

...if yours is of that kind..I doubt it....make a FW upgrade if you can.

 

Just confirmed it's running the latest firmware, that was a good suggestion though.

 

Reset your Bios to OPTIMIZED DEFAULTS and check again.

 

Been there, done that. I've reset to defaults and I've tried some of the suggestions I've seen here such as turning off thermal throttling and hyperthreading. Neither made any inpact.

 

Your problem sounds to me like a deep down gears teething problem...and your gears just dont teeth properly into each other.

 

Well said my friend.

 

...I have no stutter....up to 120fps... ...you dont need the biggest rig around to play stutter and jitterfree

 

Totally believe you, that's why this is so damn frustrating!!!

 

...I'd reinstall that rig from scratch and go step by step, Win10-DCS-TESTING leave all other stuff OFF.

 

It would take 20+ hours work to reinstall everything. However if youk Also I have done basically this exactly - the last time I rebuilt the machine from scratch, about 9 months ago, I installed DCS first, and only DCS (and drivers of course) and guess what, same stutter.

 

Exigeous did you install OS and DCS to SSD or DCS only and left the OS on an HDD?

 

I've done both. Currently both the OS and DCS are installed on the same SSD but in the past I had Windows on the SSD and DCS on the HDD. I've also had DCS on the HHD and Windows on the SSD, exact same issue.

 

I'll say again I really appreciate you guys trying to help - honestly I think if it was something I/we could figure out we would have done so by now. I hate to say it but I think I'm just gonna have to give up and eat the $50 I spent on the game. While that sorta sucks I'm more disappointed that I can't even play it, especially as it's sorta why I bought my Thrustmaster in the first place.

 

As always I welcome any other ideas. I've updated the first post with these items.

 

~X

[amazingme]

FSB

 

@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.)

 

~X

 

The game engine needs CPU (single thread) power to do most of the calculations.. For this, you'd need to maximize the bandwidth between the CPU and RAM. This can be done by increasing the CPU's clock ratio (multiplier), by increasing the front-side bus frequency, or both.

For your CPU I would try to increase the FSB frequency, as your motherboard pretty much allows you to do that, from 5 to 5MHz and test it using MaxxMem. You have to decrease the clock multiplier to keep the CPU running at a constant frequency.

My old CPU (i7 875K) @ default settings runs @ 2.9GHz, that is: 133MHz FSB x 22 clock ratio. With water cooling I managed to run it @ 200MHz FSB x 21 clocks = 4.2GHz and the improvement noticed both in synthetic tests and in-game is..huge. You also need to pay attention to the voltages when doing so..Let me know if you need help with the overclocking.

[Exigeous]

Updated original post with all the stuff I've tried so far.

 

What type of RAID did you set for the SSD''s

 

Mirroring and striping. Currently I use mirroring for not only performance but security. And again no difference when either force to you i.

[dabomb]

What about this:

 

[kunterbunt]

Hi Exigeous,

had a look at your video and compared to my system behavior.

I do remember seeing similar stutters on my system, but usually in very rare cases.

We need to find the bottleneck of your system.

What kind of mission are you using to measure the stuttering? We need to determine what is causing the problem, AI, USB, or other things.

1- CPU. I just ran a simple mission and checked. My CPU is constantly at 20-25%. Which is actual a lot, as with 4 cores and 4 virtual cores, this means that 2 cores are fully busy.

I felt as if your CPU is getting heavier load when the video started to stutter.

2- Please use right control pause to collect system statistics. E.g. FPS should be 45 all the time.

3- HDD did seem to be bottleneck, as it is not so busy.

4- Are you using any tool like TechPower GPU-Z to check GPU load?

5- Please check Windows event log of system errors that can show hardware issues. E.G. once had hard disk that caused thousand of problems per second.

 

P.S. You are getting these stutters also without video capturing? That can cause stutter.

[Exigeous]

The game engine needs CPU (single thread) power to do most of the calculations.. For this, you'd need to maximize the bandwidth between the CPU and RAM. This can be done by increasing the CPU's clock ratio (multiplier), by increasing the front-side bus frequency, or both.

For your CPU I would try to increase the FSB frequency, as your motherboard pretty much allows you to do that, from 5 to 5MHz and test it using MaxxMem. You have to decrease the clock multiplier to keep the CPU running at a constant frequency.

My old CPU (i7 875K) @ default settings runs @ 2.9GHz, that is: 133MHz FSB x 22 clock ratio. With water cooling I managed to run it @ 200MHz FSB x 21 clocks = 4.2GHz and the improvement noticed both in synthetic tests and in-game is..huge. You also need to pay attention to the voltages when doing so..Let me know if you need help with the overclocking.

 

So while this is interesting and I can see how it might be important on an older chip I find it near impossible to believe that a 3.5 Ghz i7 4770k needs to be overclocked to play a game that came out in 2013 (when my chip was top of the line in 2014). While I want to do or try things that will allow me to play the game I have zero interest in overclocking my CPU to do so. Where my PC is installed I already have some minor heat issues as I'm not using water cooling but rather a nice, big Noctua copper heatsink. I appreciate the detail you've shared, I'm just completely unwilling to overclock my CPU so I can play a 3+ year old game on a PC that can play *many* other brand new titles in their full/ultra glory at far above 60 fps.

 

What about this:

 

 

As for ASW I've had this setup on my machine for several weeks now, ever since it was announced. While it helps quite a lot with frame rate issues it's not something that would fix or impact my issues with DCS. The main reason is that I get this stutters in non-VR mode when playing on one of my monitors at 720p. What ASW does is basically fill in the gaps in framerate that can happen when playing a demanding title in fast motion. I use this quite a bit in Elite Dangerous and in mode 4 - that mode kicks in ASW as needed, so when the card drops below the 90 fps needed it will add-in the frames to create a 90 fps signal therefore making things stay smooth. You do get some visible artifacts and while they aren't great by doing that it can keep your fps pretty solid therefore your eyes are tricked into it being a solid 90. In Elite that happens in large combat areas (dozens of ships) or in stations where there is a lot of graphic detail and shading. In mode 4 on my machine it doesn't kick in all that often as it's not needed.

 

So while it's not the kind of thing that should help DCS I have already tried it as it's very easy to enable once the registry hack is done. And again guess what, no improvement. As ASW injects frames as needed it can smooth out an otherwise perfect game in those instances where they are less smooth. As such I wasn't surprised it didn't help.

 

And again I'm still at/back to square one. I've had a case open with support for several days, since last Friday afternoon - so I'll just wait until I hear back from them or if in the mean time someone's suggestion works to fix things (which I hate to say I doubt).

[kunterbunt]

GPU-Z on my system does not max out because of ASW that will limit the FPS to 45.

I have the feeling that some process is eating up CPU circles on your system.

Can you check if any process is busy when you experience stuttering?

[Exigeous]

First thanks again for taking your time to try and help, it's very appreciated. Now to answer your questions:

...What kind of mission are you using to measure the stuttering? We need to determine what is causing the problem, AI, USB, or other things.

 

I'm using the "Instant Action" from the main screen. I'm in an A10-C and think I remember the mission being in Georgia USSR?

 

1- CPU. I just ran a simple mission and checked. My CPU is constantly at 20-25%. Which is actual a lot, as with 4 cores and 4 virtual cores, this means that 2 cores are fully busy.

I felt as if your CPU is getting heavier load when the video started to stutter.

 

If you watch the video you'll see that CPU load stays constant when the stutters start/happen. In both VR and without the max CPU load is 35%

 

2- Please use right control pause to collect system statistics. E.g. FPS should be 45 all the time.

 

Not exactly sure what you mean here but actually framerate should be 90 rather than 45. Using ASW you can lock the framerate to 45 in mode #2 but I use mode #4 which only uses ASW when dropping frames. All that said we shouldn't get too focused on VR as the stutter happens when all Oculus services are stopped and the headset unplugged. That all but proves the issue isn't VR related.

 

3- HDD did seem to be bottleneck, as it is not so busy.

 

It's a little hard to see as it's rather small but if you watch the VR stutter test you'll see that disk C (OS and where DCS is installed) is rather flat not getting above 20%, and likely lower than that. I've run CrystalDisk Mark on my drives many *many* times and everything checks out perfectly in terms of disk IO.

 

4- Are you using any tool like TechPower GPU-Z to check GPU load?

 

2 apps, first just good ole Task Manager and second CAM from NZXT. CAM logs the data and displays it in real time, that's what's generating the gauges at the top of the video.

 

5- Please check Windows event log of system errors that can show hardware issues. E.G. once had hard disk that caused thousand of problems per second.

 

Been there, done that. Nothing in the Windows logs related to the issue.

 

P.S. You are getting these stutters also without video capturing? That can cause stutter.

 

Yup, 100% I am. The only game I play and stream/record at the same time is Elite Dangerous. When I do Elite uses about 35-40% CPU with OBS using a little less at around 25-30%. I also used to use an AutoHotKey script that would return focus to Elite when I move the stick but that started using 10%+ CPU so I stopped using it (haven't had time to work it out yet, no biggie)

 

GPU-Z on my system does not max out because of ASW that will limit the FPS to 45.

I have the feeling that some process is eating up CPU circles on your system.

Can you check if any process is busy when you experience stuttering?

 

ASW will only limit you to 45 fps if you use mode #2 or #3. Mode 2 locks you to 45 fps at all times where mode 3 will drop you to 45 when needed. Mode 4, which I use, only drops you to 45 when things are really bad, apposed to mode 3 that is far more aggressive.

 

That said as far as processes that are busy no, I see none. I see none when I look at Task Manager, none when I look at CPU load in TM or CAM. None when I use Performance Monitor to log CPU usage wihle playing. In all cases DCS is using around 35% of the CPU with about 20% GPU. There aren't any spikes or other events that happen (at least that I can see) when the stutters start.

 

I've had to do extensive troubleshooting many times in my career but this has to take the cake as the hardest one I've ever tried to track down. There isn't anything that makes sense here at all as you're right that when something like this happens there is usually a corresponding event/process that is taking CPU priority than the exec we're concerned with. I just. Don't. Get. It.

 

I'm hoping that ED has some idea as to what the core issue is, I opened a ticket on Friday but haven't heard back on it yet. Believe me I'll share whatever they have me try as soon as I hear back.

 

Ugh, so damned frustrating.

 

~X

[pietpuk]

Since it is time for long shots.

In the older days one solution to stop stuttering video, was to disable hardware acceleration of the sound with dxdiag. Rather strange, but it often helped.

I do not think you can do this now with dxdiag, but as far as I have read this thread, you never looked at the sound (hardware or software) as a possible culprit, so maybe time to do that? :)

[Exigeous]

Since it is time for long shots.

In the older days one solution to stop stuttering video, was to disable hardware acceleration of the sound with dxdiag. Rather strange, but it often helped.

I do not think you can do this now with dxdiag, but as far as I have read this thread, you never looked at the sound (hardware or software) as a possible culprit, so maybe time to do that? :)

 

Interesting idea as you're right, I haven't touched or considered anything sound related. And while that is definitely a long shot as you say we're looking for long shots at this point.

 

I'm wondering what would be the best way to go about testing this idea. I suppose I could disable all my sound devices and see how it flies then. My machine does have a number of sound devices:

 

3 HDMI displays (all have speakers) - disabled

Motherboard sound - enabled, 5.1 output to my speakers

SoundBlaster USB card to run my Butt Kickers

Oculus Rift headphones and mic - used for Discord/voice chat

 

So with that many devices I suppose I could see how that might cause an issue. It certainly shouldn't but we're long past "shouldn't" at this point. I'll try disabling all of them next time I'm at my machine, if you have a better suggestion than that I'm all ears...

 

~X

[BIGNEWY]

A long shot, and normally only required for windows 7 users

 

directx 9c can help with sound issues.

 

give it a go

[AOG]

I have a couple of long shots for you. Long shot number 1 bad graphics card. My original GTX-980 had a bad RAM chip in it that manifested itself as studders when I had multiple monitors attached. Turn off all of the monitors (including the VR) and try it. Long shot number 2 thermal throttling. Looking at your videos your CPU is in the 75-76C range. On my motherboard bios 75C is the default throttling temperature. It may be worth a look.

 

 

AOG

[pietpuk]

So with that many devices I suppose I could see how that might cause an issue. It certainly shouldn't but we're long past "shouldn't" at this point. I'll try disabling all of them next time I'm at my machine, if you have a better suggestion than that I'm all ears...

No, I don't have a better suggestion. That's the obvious first thing to try.

You could also look at the drivers of course. Sometimes older drivers work better.

And in the settings, I would disable any "enhancements".

 

Talking about long shots. Since DCS uses only one core, maybe there is a way to test all cores of your CPU?

 

You could also try to install windows 7 and DCS.

Wouldn't take too much time (considering you already put a lot of time in this) and after that you can restore a backup.

I know this gets kind of desperate, but it can be done in a few hours.

Edited November 8, 2016 by pietpuk

[Exigeous]

...bad graphics card. ...(or)... thermal throttling

 

I'm 99.9% sure neither are true but I'm not sure how to prove or test it. First, bad card - as I've said several times I can play more than a dozen other AAA titles with absolutely no issues whatsoever. I have to think that if it was a bad card that it would be manifesting itself in other ways. I can't sweat I had these issues on my last card, the last gen Titan Z, I'm pretty sure I did have them. I'm also unsure how to test this, I don't have another card I could drop in and with all other games/benchmarks work great I just can't see how this could be the case.

 

Thermal Throttling is a very interesting idea as well but again I think I can rule that out. As you say I do get some high temps at times recently, as in 2 days ago, I learned one of my case fans was dead so I replaced it. As such temps have dropped a ton since. I have throttling disabled in the motherboard bios (so no throttling for the CPU) and in the NVidia driver I have it disabled for the GPU/card as well. Any thoughts on how to test/rule this out?

 

You could also look at the drivers of course. Sometimes older drivers work better.... ....would disable any "enhancements".

 

Can't argue with that but as I've had this issue for several months now (just now trying to figure it out) and I've been through many driver versions I'm also not sure how to rule this out. I can't really try installing every version of the driver to see if I get lucky, again any suggestion on how to test/rule out?

 

...maybe there is a way to test all cores of your CPU?.

 

Again possible but as I've run several different benchmarking tools, from some built into games (Tomb Raider, GTA V) and 3D Mark I'm 99.9% sure this isn't the case.

 

You could also try to install windows 7 and DCS... ......it can be done in a few hours.

 

This is a fair enough idea and you're right, one that wouldn't take too long. I'm trying to think of the best way to go about it, I don't want to try to setup dual boot with my current config. I could drop in another HDD/SD but at the moment I can't have either. Thoughts on testing this

 

Later today I'll figure out getting Win 7 installed so I can test it with just that, drivers and DCS. I think this is the best all around way to rule out my software and also likely my hardware. If I still have problems after this it's just gotta be some incompatibility with the game and some piece of hardware.

[pietpuk]

Don't tell me you do not make backups on a regular basis !

If not, this is a good time to start :)

Anyway, make a backup of your C:

Install win7 and DCS and after testing, you can restore the backup and your system is like it is now.

[AOG]

I wouldn't rule out a bad card just because other games work ok. When my 980 died it would play battlefield 4 and titanfall just fine. If the other games don't use the bad section of memory you'll never know you had a problem. In my case it wasn't the game itself caused the problem it was drawing the teamspeak window on the other monitor while I was playing. If I did one or the other I had no issues.

 

AOG

[kunterbunt]

There is a CPU throttle that you cannot disable. It is built within the CPU and guards it against melting. Bad heat pipe or not proper contact to the heat pipe can lead to down-throttling the CPU. It would probably lead to what you experience. Not sure how to test that.

[kunterbunt]

Also, does your graphic card have an auxilary power connector to provide additional power to the PCI-E and PCI slots? If so, verify that you have the appropriate power cable connected.

[kunterbunt]

Did you try to run the Oculus performance test? It can show you ho many frames are dropped. It should theoretically visualize what you experience graphically.