Troubles with FPS and stutters: CPU core affinity and Process Lasso

[REDEYE_CVW-66]

A story of stuttering woes and CPU affinity, process lasso and stupidity.

 

After upgrading to GTX 1080ti, I experienced smooth framerates, but had toubles with stutters.

 

I scoured the forums, did the usual (checking drivers, deleting fxo and metashaders- trying different settings) but the stuttering was still there.

 

I read that setting up cores could help. I used Process Lasso to tune my humble i5 3.4 ghz.

I found that only two out of four cores were set. By enabling them ALL, either manually through Task Manager (has to be done every time DCS is started) or by Process Lasso- I found that my stuttering was all but gone, and I experienced a very solid performance overall.

 

But in my stupidity, I might have clicked on more than I should…

 

In game I was experiencing smooth performance, until missions became populated. Then I would experience HUGE fps drops, as the PC was “crunching” some new data, with FPS down in single digits. This would go on for 2-8 seconds, before the frames jumped back up to super smooth.

 

This happened again, and again and again- ending up in these superlow FPS “crunching” session every other minute, almost making the game unplayable.

 

So this is where I am at now:

 

1: Just have two physical cores selected (Set by default for DCS in Task Manager) : (Stuttering- very much so)

 

2: Process Lasso enabling all cores: Super smooth, with HUGE intermittent FPS drops lasting many seconds at a time.

Both are unplayable in any enjoyable way.

 

Any advice would be appreciated, but you can skip the usual tips related to tuning graphics settings, drivers and deleting folders in DCS. It has all been done.

[Shadow KT]

Amount of RAM ? On what kind of a drive is DCS installe ? SSD/HDD? What is your pre-load set to ?

[paradox64]

Sooo many reasons possible..

We need more informations about your config but at least, you must fix your swap file and in nvidia inspector fix v/sync, set 1 to "maximum pre-rendered frames" ,try "threaded application"=off and power management mode to "prefer maximum performance". Also you probably use process lasso performance mode, did you check cpu temp ?

Edited February 13, 2019 by paradox64

[REDEYE_CVW-66]

All the usual settings have been tried at length

(Preload, shadows, mxaa, visibility range, etc)

 

They make no difference.

 

Power settings: Maximum perf, in NVCP, and Windows 10 general settings.

 

Prerendered frames: 1

 

16 GB ram, installed on SSD. ( I know 32 is recommended, but I have been flying heavy MP mission for months and months without anything like this).

 

I am 99% percent sure it has to do with the CPU settings, as I flew the exact same setup with a 1080 (not ti) before without issues. So its not the RAM, not the SSD, not the NVCP settings and not the game settings. No heating problems either.

 

But when looking in Process lasso, I can see that the CPU has spiked, and that PL have been "doing things". Will continue to tweak settings- just wondered if any had experienced anything like this, fiddling with CPU affinity

[paradox64]

Could you test vsync 30 and 60 to see if you have the same problem? Did you check cpu temp under game since process lasso ?

[tees]

A story of stuttering woes and CPU affinity, process lasso and stupidity.

 

After upgrading to GTX 1080ti, I experienced smooth framerates, but had toubles with stutters.

 

I scoured the forums, did the usual (checking drivers, deleting fxo and metashaders- trying different settings) but the stuttering was still there.

 

I read that setting up cores could help. I used Process Lasso to tune my humble i5 3.4 ghz.

I found that only two out of four cores were set. By enabling them ALL, either manually through Task Manager (has to be done every time DCS is started) or by Process Lasso- I found that my stuttering was all but gone, and I experienced a very solid performance overall.

 

But in my stupidity, I might have clicked on more than I should…

 

In game I was experiencing smooth performance, until missions became populated. Then I would experience HUGE fps drops, as the PC was “crunching” some new data, with FPS down in single digits. This would go on for 2-8 seconds, before the frames jumped back up to super smooth.

 

This happened again, and again and again- ending up in these superlow FPS “crunching” session every other minute, almost making the game unplayable.

 

So this is where I am at now:

 

1: Just have two physical cores selected (Set by default for DCS in Task Manager) : (Stuttering- very much so)

 

2: Process Lasso enabling all cores: Super smooth, with HUGE intermittent FPS drops lasting many seconds at a time.

Both are unplayable in any enjoyable way.

 

Any advice would be appreciated, but you can skip the usual tips related to tuning graphics settings, drivers and deleting folders in DCS. It has all been done.

I had very bad experience whit process lasso especial in viggen whit PL when i turned ground radar my fps drop under 10fps usually around 60+. So i uninstalled PL and now still have stable 60fps whut my quite old PC cpu i5-3570k@4,4Ghz 32Gb Ddr3 and and strix 1060-6gb OC

[REDEYE_CVW-66]

I uninstalled PL- and Task Manager returns to it's preselected 2 (out of 4) cores. When ticking these manually, things work great it seems.

 

Now I just have to find out how to force it without PL (I head that the exe file can be modified- but don't want to rush it now).

 

Thanks for the input fellas.

[REDEYE_CVW-66]

Seemd to have found my fix here:

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=118535

 

"Originally Posted by L0op8ack View Post

Set CPU affinity automaticly while game starts .

Add this line to "C:\Users\[YOURNAME]\Saved Games\DCS\Config\autoexec.cfg":

affinity_mask = xxx

 

xxx = cpu bitmask (decimal )

ATTENTION: affinity_mask=0 means all cores, default"

 

So I typed in "Affinity mask = 0" and now DCS default to all cores!

 

I suspect that some of the power/booster/priority etetcetc. settings of PL was the culprit- but I can't tell. As long as it now works- I am a happy man!:D

[Conz]

Can confirm this. After a lot of bad language and tinkering I finally checked the cpu affinity only to find it limited to 'Processor 0' Setting DCS.exe to all cores cleared all the stutters and cut loading times back to 1/3rd of what it was. This is on a 8/16 core I7-6900k Maybe it's a good idea to set this affinity to all cpu in the default config ?

[vladimusmaximus]

I tried this, and it made it so that my mission briefing window wouldn't come up... anyone else had this issue?