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

[Exigeous]

Don't tell me you do not make backups... ...you can restore the backup

 

Ha, don't worry my friend, of course I do. I've worked in IT for 20+ years so I know what I'm doing there. That said I always backup "data" and not the entire drive, that way if/when I rebuild I just restore the data rather than the whole machine so I get the benefit of a fresh install and not just restoring the old build. Either way we're talking a minimum of say 4 hours of work to test out a long shot to get 1 game working. Remember that when I built my current install I did exactly this - I installed Windows then DCS first and tried it, same problem I have now. That's why I don't expect this to work but I'm willing to try to cover all bases.

 

I wouldn't rule out a bad card just because other games work ok

 

While I get what you're saying and agree that it's technically possible that 1 block of RAM could be bad this is a moot point anyway as I have no other card to test with. It's not like I can ask Zotac to swap my card because 1 game doesn't play smoothly when dozens of others play flawlessly. So as this is something I can't in any way test I have to take it off the list. Also remember that before I got my GTX 1080 I had this problem on my Titan Z so I sorta have used 2 different cards already.

 

There is a CPU throttle that you cannot disable... ...Not sure how to test that.

 

As you say there's just no way to test this anyway. Many times when I've tested this it's the first thing I do in a gaming session - so my machine is at ambient temp, around 70C CPU or so and it doesn't get above 80C while playing/testing DCS. At those temps I can't believe it's throttling especially when I see no signs of it anywhere else and again remember that dozens of other games run flawlessly, games that run my CPU far hotter than it is when running DCS.

 

does your graphic card have an auxilary power connector... ...verify that you have the appropriate power cable connected.

 

Absolutely it does and absolutely it's using the proper 8 pin connectors to my power supply. I have a 1000 watt Corsair modular power supply and I'm using 2 GPU 8 pin cables from the PSU to the card. No adapters or other funkiness here at all. Looking at GPU stats there are no undervolts or other electricty issues.

 

Did you try to run the Oculus performance test?

 

Yup, many times. I use it often with VR games to make sure I'm getting a solid 90 fps or if not that I enable asynchronous space warp, the new feature Oculus added for lower end cards. It shows a number of dropped frames in DCS - but again please remember I get these exact same problems when playing on a single 1080p display. I get the issues playing in a 720p window on a single 1080p display (meaning I've disabled my other 2 displays so the card is only having to run 1 single display). An 8 GB factory overclocked GTX 1080 should be able to run DCS on a single monitor at 720p with great ease, agree? That's why I turned off VR as I wanted to rule out as many things as possible.

 

Again I appreciate all the help, I'm sorry that I keep shooting down all the ideas. I'm certainly not shooting down you guys, it's just that I've already tested everything I possibly can think of and I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. Hell I've spent more than 10 times as much time thinking about playing this game than I've actually gotten to play it!

 

~X

[MadDog-IC]

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 highly sympathize with your dilemma, I have had a some curly issues in my IT work also.

 

After looking at all the others solutions, it is hard to come up with something meaningful.

 

But I would try, so don't shoot the messenger if you have tried this:

 

• Fresh load of win 7 or a 10 non anniversary version with minimal driver upgrades.
  
• Stick to single screen and resolution of 1920x1080 and Non-VR.
  
• No USB controller peripherals plugged in at all, including your Warthog stick, (keyboard and mouse are acceptable)
  
• Just fly with the keyboard and mouse and monitor with GPU-Z and or MSI afterburner to see what is happening with speeds, voltages, etc and if the stutter issue persists.
  

If stutter persists in above config:

 

• Then it can't be the USB port causing the issue with the controllers.
  
• Bu also try turning the "Power off" components on the USB hubs or port in the device driver sections of Windows so it doesn't try to power down the USB ports to save power, this caused me some grief with my X52pro joystick and other USB devices.
  

So if no abnormal readings from GPU-z, such as GPU not hitting its recommend non throttled speeds, power settings, etc, and pci-x bus is running at PCI-x v3.0. (pictures of my system running the instant action mission east georga showing benchmarks with afterburner and GPU-Z) then it would be unlikely to be a graphics card issue.

 

 

Also doubt any issue with HDD of any sort:

 

• But check they are running on the fastest sata ports that support 6gb or faster speeds and not 3gb as my M/b has mixture of these.
  
• I have run DCS 1.5x on standard 7200rpm drives and now a hybrid hdd/ssd all in one and have never had the stutters.
  
• As you mentioned you used a ram drive at one stage, pretty much negates any hdd issue.
  

Finally:

 

• If all the benchmarks of the graphics system are looking correct with dcs when monitored by GPU-z and it is still stuttering, then it may be settings on the motherboard Bios or the bios version itself that has issues with your brand of graphics card or it may even be the bios on the graphics card, but as you stated you have had two diff cards with same result, so I would suspect M/B, ram or cpu maybe.
  
• My GPU GTX-780 wouldn't even run with DCS 1.216 when I first got it till I reflashed the bios with modified voltages for each stage of throttling, earlier dcs didn't even get it loaded enough to get above its base voltage of 0.880 and the gpu chip kept stalling and crashing the driver, i reflashed them with a min of 1.13 and fixed the issue.
  

Either way I hope it can be of some help to you, and that you can get it resolved.

 

 

Video of my flying test for stutter, no problems.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2l4mdt6njg34kwx/DCS_2016_11_09_21_00_32_031.avi?dl=0http://

 

 

Regards, Ian.

Edited November 9, 2016 by MadDog-IC

[JetBLASTER]

Ha, don't worry my friend, of course I do. I've worked in IT for 20+ years so I know what I'm doing there. That said I always backup "data" and not the entire drive, that way if/when I rebuild I just restore the data rather than the whole machine so I get the benefit of a fresh install and not just restoring the old build. Either way we're talking a minimum of say 4 hours of work to test out a long shot to get 1 game working. Remember that when I built my current install I did exactly this - I installed Windows then DCS first and tried it, same problem I have now. That's why I don't expect this to work but I'm willing to try to cover all bases.

 

 

 

While I get what you're saying and agree that it's technically possible that 1 block of RAM could be bad this is a moot point anyway as I have no other card to test with. It's not like I can ask Zotac to swap my card because 1 game doesn't play smoothly when dozens of others play flawlessly. So as this is something I can't in any way test I have to take it off the list. Also remember that before I got my GTX 1080 I had this problem on my Titan Z so I sorta have used 2 different cards already.

 

 

 

As you say there's just no way to test this anyway. Many times when I've tested this it's the first thing I do in a gaming session - so my machine is at ambient temp, around 70C CPU or so and it doesn't get above 80C while playing/testing DCS. At those temps I can't believe it's throttling especially when I see no signs of it anywhere else and again remember that dozens of other games run flawlessly, games that run my CPU far hotter than it is when running DCS.

 

 

 

Absolutely it does and absolutely it's using the proper 8 pin connectors to my power supply. I have a 1000 watt Corsair modular power supply and I'm using 2 GPU 8 pin cables from the PSU to the card. No adapters or other funkiness here at all. Looking at GPU stats there are no undervolts or other electricty issues.

 

 

 

Yup, many times. I use it often with VR games to make sure I'm getting a solid 90 fps or if not that I enable asynchronous space warp, the new feature Oculus added for lower end cards. It shows a number of dropped frames in DCS - but again please remember I get these exact same problems when playing on a single 1080p display. I get the issues playing in a 720p window on a single 1080p display (meaning I've disabled my other 2 displays so the card is only having to run 1 single display). An 8 GB factory overclocked GTX 1080 should be able to run DCS on a single monitor at 720p with great ease, agree? That's why I turned off VR as I wanted to rule out as many things as possible.

 

Again I appreciate all the help, I'm sorry that I keep shooting down all the ideas. I'm certainly not shooting down you guys, it's just that I've already tested everything I possibly can think of and I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. Hell I've spent more than 10 times as much time thinking about playing this game than I've actually gotten to play it!

 

~X

 

Hi Exigeous I have about the same problem for more than 4 weeks .Since I did the upgrade on my pc. Before I have 2 gtx 680 and make lot of noise but not as much stutter. You can see on my sign what I have. I have 2 ssd and use one drive D only for DCS. I don't use VR only trackir V5. The stutter I see on you video is nothing compare with I have including game crash and long time to load. You looks smart on computer and I do not know much.

I play ARMA 3 and the game run very smooth. I will keep follow this tread ,maybe one day some idea will solve the problem. I believe my computer is good enough to run DCS with no problem and don't know what's going on .

[amazingme]

@Exigeous What power supply do you have?

[BitMaster]

I am not sure if this has been stressed enough but you need serious CPU power to drive VR.

 

Honestly, I doubt that 4GHz is enough. I have played on systems from i7-920's to 4790k's, High End Desktops and Notebooks ( Alienware, Asus )...and none of them delivered enough juice

to drive DCS in it's darkest hours. I play on a i7-920@3.2GHz as a makeshift right now and I can clearly see the missing 2GHz...

 

Also, depending on what you cool with, 70°C is HOT !! for a NOT OVERCLOCKED CPU that is almost alarming if you game at that temp, something MUST BE seriously wrong with your cooling paste and coolblock. I have built hundreds of PC's and seen enough dried out cooling paste and high temps to know wherte this comes from, my own 920 had the same after 4 years...50°C in idle and high 70's in game....INCLUDING STUTTER...redid the cooling paste and OLA..back to normal temps and no stutter.

 

Definitely, whatever you cool with, SEVENTY Celsius in a game that uses ONE core is a clear indicator for a cooling issue, from all I know from building and fixing PC's.

 

* my current makeshift i7-920 runs at 70°C --OVERCLOCKED--- with ---standard Intel cooler---- from 2.8 Turbo to 3.2 @ FSB 150..... when using all FOUR cores 100% I get 70 !!!!

 

you already get 70 on a far superiour non-overclocked CPU---!!!!!!! act fast or fry a cpu pal

Edited November 11, 2016 by BitMaster

[kunterbunt]

I am not sure if this has been stressed enough but you need serious CPU power to drive VR.

 

Honestly, I doubt that 4GHz is enough. I have played on systems from i7-920's to 4790k's, High End Desktops and Notebooks ( Alienware, Asus )...and none of them delivered enough juice

to drive DCS in it's darkest hours. I play on a i7-920@3.2GHz as a makeshift right now and I can clearly see the missing 2GHz...

 

Also, depending on what you cool with, 70°C is HOT !! for a NOT OVERCLOCKED CPU that is almost alarming if you game at that temp, something MUST BE seriously wrong with your cooling paste and coolblock. I have built hundreds of PC's and seen enough dried out cooling paste and high temps to know wherte this comes from, my own 920 had the same after 4 years...50°C in idle and high 70's in game....INCLUDING STUTTER...redid the cooling paste and OLA..back to normal temps and no stutter.

 

Definitely, whatever you cool with, SEVENTY Celsius in a game that uses ONE core is a clear indicator for a cooling issue, from all I know from building and fixing PC's.

 

* my current makeshift i7-920 runs at 70°C --OVERCLOCKED--- with ---standard Intel cooler---- from 2.8 Turbo to 3.2 @ FSB 150..... when using all FOUR cores 100% I get 70 !!!!

 

you already get 70 on a far superiour non-overclocked CPU---!!!!!!! act fast or fry a cpu pal

 

Agree, I tried instance action DCS 1.5.4 with A10c with i7-3770K. No core was more than 62 degrees Celsius.

 

Max temp for your CPU is 67°C. Something is off with the cooling of your CPU.

[BitMaster]

Deattach the coolblock, clean both surfaces with isopropyl alcohol and apply new thermal grease according to one of the many methods told, usually line vs. blobb method. Check for the 4th gen i7 method and work carefully. Maybe good time to change coolsystem as well if needed.

 

 

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk

 

edit* Tapatalk has limited keyboard lol...

 

Reading up all that you did etc.. would make perfect sense with what I and kunterbunt think it might well be. It wouldnt matter what you try to fix, if the cpu throttles nothing goes.

 

You did not mention what cooler you use, if it is still stock Intel it would be as said above a good chance to change it to something better, even if you dont overclock.

Edited November 11, 2016 by BitMaster

[Exigeous]

Well I finally got a reply from support, here's what they said:

 

I don't know what else can advise to people with 20-years IT experience. Did you tried to move temp folder to another drive?

 

I replied that if they mean the Windows temp folder yes, I've tried it on another SSD and HDD with no results. If there is an in-game temp folder no, as I don't know what/where it is. I also requested that at this point they help me get a refund from Steam as after spending more than 10 hours troubleshooting a game that I've not gotten to play more than a few minutes of is pretty unfair.

 

@Exigeous What power supply do you have?

 

Corsair 1000 Watt modular, can't remember the exact model at the moment but a rather nice one that's way more power than I need.

 

...you need serious CPU power to drive VR... ....I doubt that 4GHz is enough.... ....70°C is HOT !!

 

First you are/were right that I had a cooling issue, the 2 120mm case fans had come unplugged and that's been corrected since the day after I started this thread, so a good while now. Temps run around 80C at times as the PC is a bit sandwiched in an area with less than perfect airflow. That said it's not throttling and I can play dozens of far more demanding games than DCS just fine.

 

As for CPU and VR clearly you don't own VR as this is yet another misconception about VR. Of course you need a modern, powerful PC but GPU is FAR FAR more important for VR than CPU. It also seems you haven't read much of the thread, fair enough as it's rather long, but I have the exact same issues without VR on a single monitor running at 720p (with all VR services stopped and disconnected). So VR is not at all the issue here and there is no doubt whatsoever than my system is MORE than powerful enough to play DCS. And again I play many other games that are far more demanding with much higher system requirements than DCS with 60+ fps and no stutter at all. I play Elite Dangerous for 12+ hours at times with around 40% CPU and the same GPU usage and it is a very demanding game, and that's in VR - with 90 fps only dipping very occasionally. Trying to say that my system isn't powerful enough to play DCS on a single 1080p display in a 720p window is, well, laughable.

 

....You did not mention what cooler you use, if it is still stock Intel.... ....change it to something better, even if you dont overclock.

 

As stated above it isn't a cooling issue at all, not only did I corrected the bad fan issue a while back but I've both disabled CPU throttling in BIOS and verified that I'm not getting CPU throttling via software (can't remember the damn app I used right now). As for CPU cooler of course it's not a stock Intel cooler - it's one of the largest Noctua copper core heatpipes, again I can't remember the model. While I wish I'd have done an integrated liquid cooled setup (and will likely upgrade to that at some point) cooling isn't the issue here at all. Another good guess and thing to check given my previous issues but clearly not the problem.

 

At this point I've all but given up. I've asked ED to help me get a refund as I can't keep spending hour upon hour troubleshooting this when I've already gone FAR FAR beyond what virtually any other player would do. I've easily spent over 10 hours, probably closer to 20, trying to get this one game to work when all others run beautifully and the time investment no longer makes sense. It's clear that I'm not going to figure this out and when support essentially agrees and shrugs their shoulders with me (after taking a week to reply) it makes little sense to continue working on this.

 

I greatly appreciate everyone's time and input trying to help me figure this out. Fortunately there are many other fantastic flight/VR games that I can enjoy, it's a shame that DCS won't be one of them. Hopefully I won't have to eat the $50 I spend on the game but something tells me I will, I suppose we'll see how good ED is to their customers.

 

-Ross

[piXel496]

@Exigeous

 

Your gear and knowledge seems well, allthough I don't see the advantages of raid in reallife apps. Don't get disconcerted, it's part of tweaking and resolving issues is fun, sometimes the issue hides well.

 

It seems your system is polling for something or retards for a reason. Here some methaphisical tweaks because I don't have hard solutions and you already tried many:

 

-Disable all background apps (to debug)

-Do use flat shadows in gfx options.

-Maximum prerendered frames set to 1 in 3dsettings in NVidia control settings (not waiting for the frame buffer to fill more frames)

-Set adaptive verticalSync in 3dsettings in NVidia control settings and Vsync on in game. (to let it work formally correct)

-Disable NVidia experience center if you not need it.

-over_Overclocking can give hickups destroying the advantage of an overclock.

-Force DCS using the last two cpu cores with autoexec.cfg. (they are often idle and Windows will have the rest and it will not hurt) Set with "affinity_mask = 84" (I believe you have 4 cores and 4 threads)

 

location: C:\Users\[userName]\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Config\autoexec.cfg

example file attached:

 

 

 

Never :surrender:

autoexec.cfg

Edited November 12, 2016 by piXel496
you can always go further..

[Exigeous]

....Your gear and knowledge seems well

 

Thanks, in cases like these I try to point out that I do know what I'm doing to hopefully avoid the simple "did you reboot" suggestions but at the same time don't want to come off as conceited.

 

...I don't see the advantages of raid in reallife apps

 

While SSDs make this far less important than in the past running in RAID 0 (striped) can effectively double disk IO. In a striped array the OS/hardware can read from one drive while writing to the other. While that's not an exact doubling of speed it can add real world benefits. The biggest downside is one drive goes and you're screwed. You can do RAID 10 where you have 2 mirrored disks striped with 2 other mirrored disks, using 4 total. That way any single drive can fail and you're still good. On a consumer PC that really makes no sense due to cost but in enterprise applications it can be fantastic.

 

-Disable all background apps (to debug)

- Absolutely done, have shut down every single service and process possible.

 

-Do use flat shadows in gfx options.

- Again done, I've set every single option as low as it will go to test.

 

-Maximum prerendered frames set to 1 in 3dsettings in NVidia control settings (not waiting for the frame buffer to fill more frames)

- Interesting idea, haven't tried this but might one last time before giving up.

 

-Set adaptive verticalSync in 3dsettings in NVidia control settings and Vsync on in game. (to let it work formally correct)

- Same here, will try as well

 

-Disable NVidia experience center if you not need it.

- Yup, disabled.

 

-over_Overclocking can give hickups destroying the advantage of an overclock.

- No overclocking whatsoever, not to CPU or GPU

 

-Force DCS using the last two cpu cores with autoexec.cfg. (they are often idle and Windows will have the rest and it will not hurt) Set with "affinity_mask = 84" (I believe you have 4 cores and 4 threads)

location: C:\Users\[userName]\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Config\autoexec.cfg

- Again a new and interesting idea that I'll try.

 

Never :surrender:

- I *really* don't want to but as some point I gotta cut my losses.

Edited November 13, 2016 by Exigeous
fixed quotes

[Exigeous]

Sadly I'm now at the end of this journey. Spent over 2 hours last night trying the new suggestions and trying to dig through log files, etc. to find anything wrong that could be the cause - and nothing. Very few random errors in the Windows logs, not in any way related. Have confirmed CPU isn't parked or throttling, etc.

 

After the 2 hours I played the following with these results

- Doom 2016 - 5760x1080 (3 monitor), 100+ fps with everything maxed

- Overwatch - 1920x1080 (they don't all triple), 150+ fps

- Descent Underground in VR - 90 fps constant, all maxed (Rift VR wants 90 fps to be perfect)

- Elite Dangerous in VR - all maxed and using 1.5x supersampling - 90 fps 90% of the time, a few dips below 75 but rarely.

 

The interesting thing about testing with Elite is I use a number of additional tools while playing that pushes my overall CPU load to about 80% and GPU around 50%. That's with the following open as well:

 

- Discord

- Voice Attack

- JoyToKey

- Motion Platform LE

- Windows Media Player

- mIRC text-to-speech chat bot

- Chrome (with Twitch open)

- IE (with Twitch open)

- OBS streaming live at 720p

- EVGA control panel to dynamically adjust the CPU fans

- AutoHotKey (watches for joystick input and when found it puts Elite in focus)

- CAM (resource monitoring tool)

- Task Manager (just to check occasionally

- Elite in VR so Oculus Home is running

- Steam (as EVGA's app runs from there)

 

Given I can play Elite in VR at 90 fps with all those other apps open and streaming and get a great, near perfect experience but can't get DCS to play smoothly when running on a single monitor at 720p with everything I can possibly close closed and well, I gotta point the finger at DCS is some way.

 

It's a real shame as I think I'd really enjoy it, especially in VR with my Warthog HOTAS. But at this point I'm just not willing to waste anymore time on this. I certainly think everyone would agree that I've gone way *way* beyond what other users would and that I've turned every stone and looked behind every tree.

 

-Ross

[Exigeous]

Well a bit of good news - oh, not that news something else.

 

As ED has no suggestions, really at all, they just replied and said to be patient they are working on it. I asked to clarify but from the thread of the tone I'm sure they mean issuing me a refund.

 

Assuming they do that I have to give them a ton of respect and will plan to try the game in the future. Few game companies would issue a refund 6+ months after a purchase so color me impressed.

[hughlb]

It might be worth just waiting it out until 2.5 releases. I have no idea what changes will come, but ED has clearly put a great deal of work into the engine. I'm personally hoping it fixes some trackir stutter problems.

 

A problem like yours is incredibly frustrating, and like you, I've had some issues that I just don't see in other game engines. As a side note, I played the beta of xplane 11 and on absolute minimum settings I'm getting 45fps (I know, I know.. it's beta). However, DCS 2.0 at 120fps, high settings, with Gsync has ruined me for all other flight sims. ;) Hang in there, I'm sure ED will keep working to improve the engine.

Edited November 28, 2016 by hughlb

[Exigeous]

 

I'm really trying but my ticket with them has now been open for over a month and the last time they replied was over a week ago. At that time they said

 

please wait, we will do it as soon as possible.

 

That was in response to me asking several times for them to put me in touch with someone who could give me a refund. I don't know if the response means they'll give me a refund soon or if they'll have someone who can do that reply to me. Either way this has gone on for WAY too long and I just want my money back.

 

Given this experience with them I have zero interest in either waiting for 2.5 or in spending another dime with them. I've been more patient than I think any normal customer would be. I've posted 14 updates/questions to the support ticket and they've replied to me 3 times, each time they do reply it takes them over a week to do so. Customer service like that isn't going to be rewarded with my dollars.

 

Fortunately for me there are many other games that are fantastic in VR and run perfectly on my system so I'll happily play those.

[Exigeous]

Just thought I'd update everyone so you know how truly terrible ED support is. The last response I received was from Konstantin Kharin OVER 3 WEEKS AGO. That reply was

 

Sorry for a long response

please wait, we will do it as soon as possible.

 

I've bumped the ticket 5 times since then as they now won't reply to me. It's been over 6 weeks since I opened the ticket and I've easily spent 50 hours or more troubleshooting, searching, asking questions, contacting support, etc.

 

Apparently I paid $60 for that privilege as I certainly didn't get to enjoy it in any way. If support happens to see this please, PLEASE help me resolve this.

 

-Ross

[AussieM8]

Hi Exigeous

 

Not sure if this helps you but have you tried this? Myself and Highway are waiting for ED or someone to confirm our findings.

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=178470

 

Cheers