Jump to content

DCS stutter coming from USB devices?


Recommended Posts

Hi guys, I would really appreciate your help in trying to remedy my stutter issues. I've had DCS since 2015 and never been able to run it smoothly. I recently narrowed down, what I believe to be the source of the problem, to my peripheral devices.

 

PC:

DCS 2.5.2

Intel i7 4790K (DCS split evenly on all cores)

ASUS Z97 MkII Motherboard latest drivers

16GB Corsair DDR3

240GB PNY SSD for OS

1TB PNY SSD for games library

ASUS 1080Ti 11GB latest drivers

Windows 10 current on updates

 

Saitek X55 Stick and Throttle

Saitek Combat Pro Rudder Pedals

STIKE 5 keyboard & Razor Gaming Mouse

 

With this setup I can run the game at Highest settings and maintain 60FPS until I start to create any sort of USB input, be it mouse, keyboard, or flight controls. Its the worst with the flight controls in because I believe that even when centered, they are streaming data to the PC and I will stutter every few seconds from 60FPS down to 18FPS. With controls out, my FPS are completely smooth until I start moving the mouse around. It takes a minute, but eventually it will accumulate the same stutter until I stop typing or moving the mouse. I tested a flight where I used my flight controls to get airborne, then disconnected them, and used my mouse to trim out my P-51D to fly level, let go of everything, game rendered perfectly thru flight.

 

I have tried using an external powered hub with no change. The Hub I was using was 5V at 2.6Amps. I've tried my USB 2.0 ports and my USB 3.0 ports. My motherboard has my USB 3.0 ports (which are blue) xHCDI set to smartmode, which detects the device and enables/disables 3.0 accordingly. I still am worried tho, that maybe I had my devices in the 3.0 in error and burned something up, but every other sim is fine. I can use my controls for X-plane, IL-2, you name it, no stutters, only DCS.

 

Any ideas? I have a huge list of things I've already tried to narrow down the source of my stutter, nothing worked. Will post later. Shader folder, meta.. etc etc, done all that. This seems to be coming straight from my USB connections.

 

I'm dying to get this game running. Its been too long. I burned out once trying to figure it out, and Im trying to persevere this time and nail it down, but I need more help.

 

[sOLVED]

So it was not USB related. It was completely hard drive related. I must have bought a defective SSD from PNY, because removing it from the equation solved my problems. Of course, this was my OS SSD, and naturally I had to reinstall windows. Sooo, I guess windows could have also been the culprit, but I really doubt it. I had already been having other problems with this hard drive.

 

Basically, my theory: DCS writes a ton of data real time to your OS drive and the slowest part of your system will cause stutters as it tries to keep up. In my case, not related to Graphics processing at all. The FPS dip I was experiencing was not for lack of GPU or RAM or PSU or even CPU power. Rather, real time writing to my SSD, which is defective. My system nearly locks up when I try to write a lot of data to it. I tried everything to get DCS to NOT run off of the OS drive, but even when I tried to relocate my AppData Local/LocalLow/Roaming folders to another drive, the game still wrote to the OS drive. I think its innate to its programming. Plus, doing that is a pain in the ass and broke more stuff on my computer than I cared to deal with. So, I bought a new SSD, and problem gone. I hope this might help some of you, I know this one was kind of unique to my scenario, but maybe you can follow similar trouble shooting techniques to identify if maybe you have one piece of hardware in your system that is lagging the rest of it.


Edited by -Daemien-
added Resolution

Intel i7 4790K @ 4GHz - 16GB Corsair DDR3 - ASUS 1080Ti 11GB - ASUS Z97MkII Motherboard - SAMSUNG 200GB SSD - PNY 1TB SSD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey champ,

 

Go into devicemanager and disable power management for all USB devices.

 

See if that helps.

 

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

Romiko Derbynew

 

---------------------------------------------------------------

Intel® Core i5-9600K CPU @ 4.8GHz

Corsair Vengeance XMP 32GB - CMW32GX4M4C3000C15

MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Gamzing Z 8GB

MSI Z390 Gaming Edge AC Motherboard

NZXT H500 Case

EVGA 650W P2 Power Supply

NH U12S CPU Cooler - 2 fans

2 Inlet fans - Noctua

2 outlet fans - Noctua

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for the suggestions Derbynew,

I did find my USB 3.0 were checked for powermanagement. I unchecked them, but I am still getting the stutter.

 

One thing I did notice was that even in a replay, at the moments where I was moving my controls, I got the stutter again. Even though it was a replay and I had my controls disconnected to test. Its almost as if when the game needs to calculate how to transition my position and acknowledge key commands, its laggin the game in increments until there is no more input.

 

Even when flying level in the replay, smooth 60 FPS. The moment I bank or logged a keypress, stutter to 16-24 FPS.


Edited by -Daemien-
spelling

Intel i7 4790K @ 4GHz - 16GB Corsair DDR3 - ASUS 1080Ti 11GB - ASUS Z97MkII Motherboard - SAMSUNG 200GB SSD - PNY 1TB SSD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is not easy, there is a manifold of things that can affect USB...

 

 

I would use "usbdeview" to delete all obsolete USB devices in the List, maybe disconnect all but mouse and keyboard and have them reinstalled onced plugged back in. A PS2 mouse is a cool thing to have in such a scenario, also keyboard btw.

Usbdeview list all devices that have everbeen connected to your USB ports, that can be MANY if your OS is a few years old etc.. . Just throw them all out and clean it up.

 

 

Make sure you run the latest drivers for your USB chipsets, Intel and your USB30 vendor. Either use Asus website but they likely dont have the newest ones for 3.0, so try your chip vendor ( ASMedia, NEC, TexasInstr., etc...)

or

go to win-raid.com forum, that's a very good place to find the newest drivers but you have to read and understand what he tells you, RTFM so to say, as you need to install certificates as well for some options. I use those drivers whenever I come across a USB error the mainboard driver wont fix.

 

 

Other than that, work after a scheme with USB.

Try with fewer devices, change the ports used, 2.0 or 3.0, avoid hubs, avoid too long extension cables, do it ONE by ONE to see what causes the effect and what is ok to connect anywhere. If 1 device turns out to cause the issue, try another port, try another device driver.

 

 

Inateck USB30 PCIe AIB is another option. The question is, will those ports also stutter then ? That would then be a PCH problem, as all those chips and lanes go through your PCH. You got the latest Intel chipset driver ?

latest Bios ? any other PCIe add-on cards installed ?? like a soundcard or such ?? all that can cause stutter if the system cant keep the flow up.

Gigabyte Aorus X570S Master - Ryzen 5900X - Gskill 64GB 3200/CL14@3600/CL14 - Asus 1080ti EK-waterblock - 4x Samsung 980Pro 1TB - 1x Samsung 870 Evo 1TB - 1x SanDisc 120GB SSD - Heatkiller IV - MoRa3-360LT@9x120mm Noctua F12 - Corsair AXi-1200 - TiR5-Pro - Warthog Hotas - Saitek Combat Pedals - Asus PG278Q 27" QHD Gsync 144Hz - Corsair K70 RGB Pro - Win11 Pro/Linux - Phanteks Evolv-X 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi BitMaster,

 

I'm working on a lot of the items you listed. I downloaded USBDeview and cleaned up my USB devices. Haven't tested DCS yet. Currently downloading latest BIOS, there was one that just came out in April. I saw other updates for USB, chipsets, LAN, and SATA controllers Im also going to update. Hopefully it doesn't break my computer. As for your last suggestion, I've done a lot of that already, but I will do again now that my drivers and USB list may be in better order.

 

I have a dying SSD aswell, and I'm wondering if that might be playing into things too. I should have a new one this week as well as a new HDD that I will run my system pagefile onto. I'm wondering if Win 10 and DCS nuked my OS SSD with all the temp folder, page file data swapping.

Intel i7 4790K @ 4GHz - 16GB Corsair DDR3 - ASUS 1080Ti 11GB - ASUS Z97MkII Motherboard - SAMSUNG 200GB SSD - PNY 1TB SSD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have had problem with io before. It ended up being my psu. Try and eliminate the issue at a repair place.

 

Try different psu then

Motherboard - ensure no shorts on mount

Memory

Graphics card

 

Move all the way up.

 

This is the only way to eliminate the hardware.

 

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

Romiko Derbynew

 

---------------------------------------------------------------

Intel® Core i5-9600K CPU @ 4.8GHz

Corsair Vengeance XMP 32GB - CMW32GX4M4C3000C15

MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Gamzing Z 8GB

MSI Z390 Gaming Edge AC Motherboard

NZXT H500 Case

EVGA 650W P2 Power Supply

NH U12S CPU Cooler - 2 fans

2 Inlet fans - Noctua

2 outlet fans - Noctua

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No change. USB run by ASMedia and I installed the latest drivers, etc.

 

My testing ingame is: spawn in, sit and wait to check steady FPS, then mouse view left to right. If stutter, stop, let FPS smooth out again. Shake mouse around, while not connected to view, just static shaking of the cursor, if stutter: stop and let FPS smooth out. Keyboard view left to right, if stutter: stop, let FPS smooth out. mash random keys that have no actually ingame function, if stutter... connect Stick: move around control; if stutter... hat switch view left/right; if stutter... disconnect/connect throttle, throttle 1 up/down; throttle 2, rz rot,ry rot; check stutters on all..; disconnect/connect rudder, check toe 1/2, yaw; stutters on all... stop check smooth FPS.

 

On every single step, the game will stutter, and once the input is stopped, all FPS will settle and return to 60. I've tried devices in all USB ports, same on all. With and without hubs.

Intel i7 4790K @ 4GHz - 16GB Corsair DDR3 - ASUS 1080Ti 11GB - ASUS Z97MkII Motherboard - SAMSUNG 200GB SSD - PNY 1TB SSD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey Derbynew,

Im running an 860W PSU right now. I just recently upgraded from an Nvidia 780Ti to the 1080Ti. I had the stutter before the graphics card swap. I did a clean driver removal and install using DDU from guru3D.

 

I built this PC in 2015, same time I bought DCS. I've had the stutter from the beginning and this is the only program that I've ever had a problem in. I was building a full cockpit simulator for DCS but halted 'cause I gave up. I had lots of peripherals. The thrustmaster MFDs, Saitek TPM, radio, multiswitchpanel, 3 monitors, Logitech GPad, and Track IR. I don't run any of it anymore because I want to figure this out.

 

using: https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator its saying I need 575W to cover my load, but of course I'll round up and plan for higher, but still 860 seems ok?


Edited by -Daemien-
added link

Intel i7 4790K @ 4GHz - 16GB Corsair DDR3 - ASUS 1080Ti 11GB - ASUS Z97MkII Motherboard - SAMSUNG 200GB SSD - PNY 1TB SSD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have you tried killing DCS completely and just reinstalling it? I don't think I read that yet. Complete uninstall, killing the SAVED GAMES directory etc.

 

 

Also, others have run into issues with USB including microphone input causing issues. Since other games are not having issues, it doesn't suggest a hardware issue. But I will tell you that programs that drive HW *hard* can cause issues to pop up. I never knew my PSU was bad until I tried playing PUBG. Who knew?

 

 

Oh, and the most obvious one you *have* to rule out. Look at the Axis settings for your planes. DCS has a habit of assigning pitch/rudder/throttle to random USB devices. So make sure you clear out the entire category of input for AXIS. For example TM MFDs should have zero things configured in the AXIS settings.

hsb

HW Spec in Spoiler

---

 

i7-10700K Direct-To-Die/OC'ed to 5.1GHz, MSI Z490 MB, 32GB DDR4 3200MHz, EVGA 2080 Ti FTW3, NVMe+SSD, Win 10 x64 Pro, MFG, Warthog, TM MFDs, Komodo Huey set, Rverbe G1

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Hansangb, I did try wiping everything clean but didn't have any change. I've redownloaded the game fresh like 4-5 times. Wiped out my TEMP folder, nuked my save games folder, even tried meddling with relocating my windows user appdata folders (local/locallow/Roaming) to another drive to see if it had to do with writespeed problems to my SSD. I decided against that because of it breaking things, so I reversed all those changes. I did move my system page file to another drive. I have a suspicion that when the game writes to the appdata folder on my SSD it is bogging up.

 

Im having doubts it is indeed USB, and maybe just how the game interpolates the input data. I wish I knew what the game was doing behind the scenes, but could it be writing game data to TEMP and appdata based on USB inputs? I had read somewhere that DCS is incredibly data HEAVY on its temp/appdata read/write duty. I half wonder if that's why my OS SSD is shot. It has gotten to the point that when the computer needs to write a lot of data to it, the drive usage can get to 100% and slows the whole system down. That's why I diverted everything over to the 1TB SSD. Only thing on the 200GB SSD is the OS now. But I can't avoid DCS from writing to it because of how its designed.

 

Oh and to add to checking if the game installation was corrupt, I transfered the whole game, file for file to my Alienware M17xR3 with a 780M modded GPU and 16gbRAM. It ran the game perfect, no stuters, at 45FPS. Same peripherals, minus keyboard, smooth as butter. That, I feel, at least confirms that the game works, and its fighting my system.


Edited by -Daemien-
added last line

Intel i7 4790K @ 4GHz - 16GB Corsair DDR3 - ASUS 1080Ti 11GB - ASUS Z97MkII Motherboard - SAMSUNG 200GB SSD - PNY 1TB SSD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's a list of other things I tried:

 

  1. Delete FXO folder
  2. Delete metashaders and metashaders2 Folders
  3. Rename options folder to force defaults
  4. Locate Pagefile onto an SSD (always had one, but moved it to a bigger one)
  5. Delete Savegames folder
  6. Install game onto SSD (always was, but installed onto bigger one)
  7. Relocate AppData folder to SSD (always was, tried it, not worth headache, left it alone)
  8. Switch between Windowed/Full-screen using LALT+ENT (no affect)
  9. Verify DCS is being used by all CPU cores (it is, was by default)
  10. Have lots of RAM (I gots 16GB)
  11. Remove any overclocking to CPU (I dropped my OC, did nothing, back to 45% BOOST)
  12. Check Windows Power setting is set to High Performance (it is)
  13. Check Vsync off (no change)
  14. Try Nvidia 388.71 drivers (no change)(used DDU to ensure clean install)
  15. Try with internet disabled (maybe lagging due to internet traffic and bad LAN drivers) (nope still stutters even when disabled)
  16. Try low game settings ( low vs high make no difference, stutter always present)

Intel i7 4790K @ 4GHz - 16GB Corsair DDR3 - ASUS 1080Ti 11GB - ASUS Z97MkII Motherboard - SAMSUNG 200GB SSD - PNY 1TB SSD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Motherboard - ensure no shorts on mount

 

 

I like this thought, When I get some time to strip my PC I will run some continuity tests and see if the MB is somehow having grounding issues. Tho I feel that if the MB had a stray short to ground, wouldn't it cause problems in every other program calling for USB data/voltage?

Intel i7 4790K @ 4GHz - 16GB Corsair DDR3 - ASUS 1080Ti 11GB - ASUS Z97MkII Motherboard - SAMSUNG 200GB SSD - PNY 1TB SSD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

you could try an external pici-e usb card with its own controller, like the inatek which has a frescologic controller which is reccomened officialy also by oculus rift.

 

It could be your motherboard at this point.

  • CPU : Intel i7 8700k@5.0ghz cooled by Noctua NH-D15 / Motherboard:Asorck Z370 Taichi / RAM: 32GB GSkill TridentZ @3600mhz / SSD: 500GB Nvme Samsung 970 evo+1 TB Sabrent Nvme M2 / GPU:Asus Strix OC 2080TI / Monitor: LG 34KG950F Ultrawide / Trackir 5 proclip/ VIRPIL CM2 BASE + CM2 GRIP + F148 GRIP + 200M EXTENSION /VKB T-Rudder MKIV rudder /Case: Fractal Design R6 Define black

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Regardless how You see it....

The stutters are game code related.

I have alot of games installed, some with high requirements, but none of them stutter and can easily be adjusted for smooth running, mainly by lowering graphics settings.

 

 

I find the devs. should put more effort into finding the culprit for these stutters. Instead we are just recommended to buy more RAM or a heftiger PC.

Problem is just that even some people with plenty of RAM and powerfull PC's are getting stutters as well.

i7-10700K 3.8-5.1Ghz, 32GB RAM, RTX 4070 12GB, 1 x 1 TB SSD, 2 x 2TB SSD2 TB,  1 x 2 TBHDD 7200 RPM, Win10 Home 64bit, Meta Quest 3.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Regardless how You see it....

The stutters are game code related.

I have alot of games installed, some with high requirements, but none of them stutter and can easily be adjusted for smooth running, mainly by lowering graphics settings.

 

 

I find the devs. should put more effort into finding the culprit for these stutters. Instead we are just recommended to buy more RAM or a heftiger PC.

Problem is just that even some people with plenty of RAM and powerfull PC's are getting stutters as well.

 

 

 

 

If that was true many more systems incl. mine would stutter but they don't, despite I have all USB utilized, + 2 Hubs...and it works !

 

 

No, it's not DCS, it's the rig's config/firmware that can't keep pace when DCS shifts into 5th gear.

Gigabyte Aorus X570S Master - Ryzen 5900X - Gskill 64GB 3200/CL14@3600/CL14 - Asus 1080ti EK-waterblock - 4x Samsung 980Pro 1TB - 1x Samsung 870 Evo 1TB - 1x SanDisc 120GB SSD - Heatkiller IV - MoRa3-360LT@9x120mm Noctua F12 - Corsair AXi-1200 - TiR5-Pro - Warthog Hotas - Saitek Combat Pedals - Asus PG278Q 27" QHD Gsync 144Hz - Corsair K70 RGB Pro - Win11 Pro/Linux - Phanteks Evolv-X 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

you could try an external pici-e usb card with its own controller, like the inatek which has a frescologic controller which is reccomened officialy also by oculus rift.

 

It could be your motherboard at this point.

Thank you for the idea Goa, I have a couple piece of hardware coming, going to re-install windows to a new drive, and then I might check out this route.

Intel i7 4790K @ 4GHz - 16GB Corsair DDR3 - ASUS 1080Ti 11GB - ASUS Z97MkII Motherboard - SAMSUNG 200GB SSD - PNY 1TB SSD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Daemien... did you try running the game with the in game fullscreen checkbox unchecked rather than attempting to alt-enter between the two modes?... you have attempted soo many things...

Ryzen R7 1800x|EVGA FTW3 1080Ti|32gb Corsair Dominator Platinum@2666mhz|Samsung 750 EVO|LG 4k 50" Main Display|ASUS PB278Q Reference Display|

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Daemien... did you try running the game with the in game fullscreen checkbox unchecked rather than attempting to alt-enter between the two modes?... you have attempted soo many things...

 

 

Hi DflippinK, just tried that method with no change. Thanks for the idea, and I'll look into that CPU affinity. I don't think I have that, and I've already checked that DCS is running in all cores and threads. I don't know what affinity is so I will look into it, thanks.

Intel i7 4790K @ 4GHz - 16GB Corsair DDR3 - ASUS 1080Ti 11GB - ASUS Z97MkII Motherboard - SAMSUNG 200GB SSD - PNY 1TB SSD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have you considered setting the affinity of DCS.exe and disabling hyperthreading? It worked for me, the FPS became steady while before it would sporadically drop.

This guy explains it:

 

 

Hi Coach, I just followed that video and disabled the hyperthreading on the cores. No change. going to install my new equipment tomorrow, we'll see what that does.

Intel i7 4790K @ 4GHz - 16GB Corsair DDR3 - ASUS 1080Ti 11GB - ASUS Z97MkII Motherboard - SAMSUNG 200GB SSD - PNY 1TB SSD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[sOLVED]

So it was not USB related. It was completely hard drive related. I must have bought a defective SSD from PNY, because removing it from the equation solved my problems. Of course, this was my OS SSD, and naturally I had to reinstall windows. Sooo, I guess windows could have also been the culprit, but I really doubt it. I had already been having other problems with this hard drive.

 

Basically, my theory: DCS writes a ton of data real time to your OS drive and the slowest part of your system will cause stutters as it tries to keep up. In my case, not related to Graphics processing at all. The FPS dip I was experiencing was not for lack of GPU or RAM or PSU or even CPU power. Rather, real time writing to my SSD, which is defective. My system nearly locks up when I try to write a lot of data to it. I tried everything to get DCS to NOT run off of the OS drive, but even when I tried to relocate my AppData Local/LocalLow/Roaming folders to another drive, the game still wrote to the OS drive. I think its innate to its programming. Plus, doing that is a pain in the ass and broke more stuff on my computer than I cared to deal with. So, I bought a new SSD, and problem gone. I hope this might help some of you, I know this one was kind of unique to my scenario, but maybe you can follow similar trouble shooting techniques to identify if maybe you have one piece of hardware in your system that is lagging the rest of it.

Intel i7 4790K @ 4GHz - 16GB Corsair DDR3 - ASUS 1080Ti 11GB - ASUS Z97MkII Motherboard - SAMSUNG 200GB SSD - PNY 1TB SSD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...