Stutter in Persian Gulf

[Laer]

Hi. I've got an old system that has an i7 920 (2.6gHz) CPU, 12 gigs of RAM, and a GTX1060 3G video card... Win7 Premium. Playing at 1920x1080 (non-VR), with reasonable settings (...I'm not complaining!)

 

 

 

When running the Caucasus map, I'm usually getting 90-100fps... much to my surprise... but with the Persian Gulf map, I still get good frame rates (at least 30fps, which is all I ask for, really)... but I get quite regular micro-stutters (single 1/4 second pause every few seconds... sometimes one will be a longer pause).

 

 

I hear this map does have different system requirements compared to the default map, but unfortunately I have to make do with the system I have now until I finally get my killer rig... someday.

 

 

I've played around with the pre-load radius, but even at 100 (minimum), I still get stutters every few seconds. I've been trying to see if I'm better with larger or smaller pre-load settings.

 

 

Otherwise, it's running nice... just those stutters, which I assume is the world loading in (off my 2TB WD Black SATA secondary drive). Doesn't appear to be much strain on the GPU or CPU, actually.

 

 

 

I heard that there MAY also be some stutter/pause issue with TrackIR (...I have the TrackIR5).

 

 

So, I'm wondering if someone could fill me in on what might be happening... what I could try... etc. I'm monitoring the strain using the CTRL+Pause DCS feature, plus also using Afterburner's GPU/CPU reading display overlay.

 

 

Thanks...

Edited June 5, 2019 by Laer

[Harlikwin]

The PG map is more "Demanding" than the other maps.

 

Sometimes the afterbuner display can cause problems, i.e. its checking on things too often.

 

In general the PG map should be "ok" far from cities like dubai, down there forget it.

 

Try the opposite on the pre-load, you have a decent amount of ram see if that helps.

 

If you have a SSD maybe move DCS to it.

 

I ran a relatively low end rig for a long time and it ran fine in pancake mode, but your low end proc is likely the problem.

[glycbz]

Hi Laer,

 

 

I could imagine you won´t find reasonably well settings for your current system which eliminate these stutters on the PG map... This map is quite demanding. A couple of weeks ago we discussed similar problems with this map in the german ED forum. A user with a quite fast system (i7-8700K, GTX 1080Ti, 32 GB RAM, 500 GB Evo 970...) told us his fps are dropping from time to time down to <50, accompanied by micro stutters, even though he only plays in full HD, SSAA off.

So I´m affraid it could be very challenging to find good settings for your rig.

But maybe you are lucky and someone knows some secret tricks...

 

 

 

VG Marcel

[Laer]

Hi, Harlikwin. Ya, I think I did try a quite high pre-load, and that seemed worse. I think the general rule is smaller = more frequent but quicker pauses... and larger = less frequent but longer pauses.... which makes sense.

 

 

As lame as my CPU is, it's actually doing fine here (and with my other flight/racing sims). From what I can see, it seems it's the world loading that is the issue. An SSD might help, although the drive I have DCS on now is new, and virtually empty. DCS was the first or second thing I installed on it (and that was just this year)... so it wasn't installed on a fragemented drive or anything.

 

 

If anything, I'd think maybe the VRAM needs to be higher... but that card was bought last year, so I'm not going to go and get another one. I'll be getting a whole new (and much better) system eventually, but I'm just trying to see what I can do with this one. The new card and new, clean drive were pretty much all I could do... along with re-visiting the settings.

 

 

The frame rate on the PG map is usually 30-60. It's just those stutters. Setting the pre-load to minimum (100) is probably the best I've found. it's just a 1/4 second pause... if that. Doesn't jar me, but.... well.. it's there.

 

 

I'm wondering about that TrackIR issue that some have talked about. I have to look that up, and see if there's some workaround. I'm running the latest drivers.

 

 

I also gave DCS high priority when it runs, too.

 

 

Maybe adjusting the visibility range or something... I don't know. That's why I'm writing here, to see if it's a known thing, or if there's something obvious that it sounds like might be happening.

 

 

I read somewhere that there is a 'structures' item in the config(?), which can be reduced. I certainly wouldn't mind reducing the buildings, as they are kind of repetitive anyway, and (being in the desert) it won't look so much like big holes in the city, like it might in XPlane.

[will-]

Get rid of the HDD.

[Rudel_chw]

Hi. I've got an old system that has an i7 920 (2.6gHz) CPU, 12 gigs of RAM, and a GTX1060 3G video card... Win7 Premium. Playing at 1920x1080 (non-VR), with reasonable settings (...I'm not complaining!)

 

When running the Caucasus map, I'm usually getting 90-100fps... much to my surprise... but with the Persian Gulf map, I still get good frame rates (at least 30fps, which is all I ask for, really)... but I get quite regular micro-stutters (single 1/4 second pause every few seconds... sometimes one will be a longer pause).

 

I had the same problem, and it went away when I added more RAM to my PC (I went from 16 to 32 GB). Your PC uses older ram, so perhaps it isnt too expensive to think on upgrading it to 24 GB, you could even try to buy it second hand.

 

Best regards

[Laer]

Hi, glycbz. You snuck in as I was responding, I think!

 

 

Really odd, as you would normally think a map made mostly of barren sand would perform way better than the Caucasus map (filled with trees and stuff)! That map not only gives me 100fps, but virtually no stutters. Still a few here and there, but not 'regular' like the PG map seems to (usually).

 

 

Runs quite smooth (PG)... you just get these micro 'pulls'. I have to check again, but the CPU and GPU seem to be breathing pretty easy.

 

 

I ALMOST went out and bought more RAM (I can go up to 24, if I completely ditch the current 12 I have... or go to 16 if I just buy 2 new sticks to fill the empty slots).... but was convinced it wouldn't really help for any of my sims.

 

 

Meh... If there's no tweek I can do (be it in the settings or config), then I'll just live with it for now, and focus more on the Caucasus map (...which I actually much prefer, actually). Once I get my new rig, I'll be able to crank a few things (....although, really, there's not much to crank, at my current settings). I don't do 4k.

 

 

Certainly totally playable, 'smooth' and responsive. Seems to sometimes do a random hold once in a while (usually at the start, as I move my head in TrackIR, but then I guess it 'loads everything in' and it's happy again.

 

 

I'm going to see if I can find that 'structures' parameter in the config, and dial that down. That may help (less to load).

 

 

But, ya, if that guy with the great rig is also having some stutters, then I guess I can't complain! (...and may not even get it fully solved with the new rig, either)

 

 

Ya, I was considering getting a SSD specifically for DCS and XPlane. Those should fit on one okay.

 

 

But, ya, it's hardly a problem... Just seeing if it was a quick fix, as otherwise, it's golden.

[Laer]

I just found a reference to the structures attribute in the config.

 

 

It's the graphics.lau file, but unfortunately there's about 8 references to the structure attribute (for 4 different quality levels, and another 4 for the mirror).

 

 

So, I'm not sure which one to edit.

 

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=107551

 

 

(2nd post)

 

 

 

 

 

Any ideas?

Edited June 5, 2019 by Laer

[glycbz]

Sometimes it helped for some people in some special cases to switch off the mirrors, especially when flying really deep. But as been said, this map ist the most demanding so far.

 

During the discussion I mentioned before, I monitored my fps in the fast mission "landing on dubai airport" (or whatever this mission is called). At the beginning I had ~85 fps (full HD, all settings max, SSAA off, radius max...), then I started descending and when I was directly over the airport (~100m) with all the houses and hangars and planes on the ground, my fps were fluctuating between 50-65! Back in the sky (~5000m) I had stable 85 fps again. Possibly it is due to a non-optimal programming

but I'm not well-versed in this area.

But I´m not sure if it would really help in your case, to change only a few single components like HDD-->SSD. During the test I made I figured out, that my processor never worked with max power (it could go up to 4.8 GHz, but it never went higher than 4.4) while my GPU ran with full power all the time (1960 GHz, 100% GPU load, 6.5/8 GB VRAM in use). Also my RAM usage wasn´t at its limit (10/16GB).

Maybe it also helps to switch civilian traffic completely off...

 

 

neway...bedtime...here it´s 20 mins before midnight (:

[Laer]

Also, could someone fill me in on how you make graphics.lau edits via an autoexec.cfg file? By that, I just mean what code would I put into that file? If I just do the structures = {20, 10000}; code, it won't know what line that is replacing... and I suspect there's more code than that I'd have to put in. Or is that it?

 

 

They say not to edit the graphics.lau file directly, as it will just be written over on the next update.

 

 

 

Further into that thread, some more suggestions are made (view distance, etc).... which are also done via an autoconfig.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yup, I turned off civilian traffic, and reduced a few things... but, again, it really doesn't seem like my CPU is getting stressed (oddly enough). Either a VRAM or hard drive thing. I just read that it might be best to do a HIGH pre-load, as (apparently) it just means longer mission loads (...although I'd fear that it would overload my RAM). Turns out (according to the post) that the pre-load may actually be the amount of world loaded into SYSTEM RAM (not VRAM), so it loads from that, rather than from the drive. I'll have to try that again...

Edited June 5, 2019 by Laer

[Laer]

Bonus question: Is the Nevada map similarly demanding? I thought I read that the Gulf map ran better between those two.

 

 

 

 

UPDATE: Wow, I just set the pre-load radius to around 50%, and did a quick flight.... and it was smooth! I mean, it always was smooth, but had that regular 1/4 second pause. This time, it didn't. If there was microstutters, they were pretty much unnoticable.

 

 

At one point (several minutes into the flight) there was a 1/2-1 second pause, but that was it.

 

 

So, I guess that is a factor. I just wish there was more precise way to determine the ideal pre-load slider position. Maybe I could do 75%... or maybe it's 60%. I just tried 50% randomly, and it worked well.

Edited June 6, 2019 by Laer

[KTFBGB]

The FPS always drop the closer to the ground you get. Especially if there are buildings. With the new update while flying the PG ma, with the AMD overlay on to watch parameters, its using 16 - 17 gigs of RAM and 4 gigs of VRAM. I think you are maxed out and probably would benefit from some more.

[lharv71]

FPS - Possible Solutions

 

Hello Everyone,

 

I am an avid Mission Developer, and most of my new mission development has been in reproducing today's situation in the Persian Gulf and I too have noticed the following graphical & FPS issues;

 

1. Random Micro-Stutters tuch detailhat have NO effect on FPS but is visually annoying,

2. Serious FPS drop close to the ground - especially around the red sands in South UAE and Iran around Lars, and around the buildings and Airfields with much detail

 

First of all the DCS team has done an AMAZING job at reproducing the textures and layout of the the Persian Gulf, done for most what we have been requesting for years.

 

That being said I have done many hours of reading and testing to find ways to change my settings to overcome these issues and I feel I have found possible solutions that we (consumers) should try;

 

1. All SSD users should match their RAM using "Page File" which turns your unused Hard drive space as additional RAM, information on methods are on Tom's Hardware website, just search Page File,

2. STOP using DCS to control your graphical settings i.e.; MSAA and Anti-Alaising, zero all of these settings and open NVDIA and use your 3D settings to set these settings, and

3. Zero your Clutter and Grass & Tree Visibility to 30%, and

4. Drop your visual radius from 60% to 50%, and turn off VSync

 

You will see an amazing increase in Frame Rates and the micro-stutters although still there are smoothed over.....

 

I believe that we as users have some responsiblity to work together to help each other get the best out of what DCS develops.

 

Ozzy

 

feel free to pass on any additional information and comments to my theories!

[KTFBGB]

I have found that the page file helps. Did that some time back.

 

In my experience and what I have read with others is that DCS does not recognize any MSAA or Anisotropic filtering from my AMD card. I tried this as well a while ago. Ya I jumped from 50 FPS at high settings on everything to 140FPS. However when I looked at any straight lines it was painfully obvious that no MSAA or Anisotropic filtering was happening. That’s why I had a huge jump. This is confirmed by many others as well. Unless recent updates allow DCS to recognize the external settings?

 

My system gained no FPS gain messing with trees or preload radius. This is a RAM function. Actually when I lower preload yes I save RAM usage but drop FPS because I’m constantly rendering terrain instead of preloading it.

[Ryback]

 

All SSD users should match their RAM using "Page File" which turns your unused Hard drive space as additional RAM, information on methods are on Tom's Hardware website, just search Page File,

 

Could you elaborate?

I checked Tom's hardware.He has 2GB ram but he sets the pagefile to 8GB (8192MB)-Or at least looks like it.

And the sentence is: In the now-enabled fields, type the minimum and maximum size of the Pagefile in megabytes (MB) according to the physical memory present in your computer.

I have 8 now, at the end of the week i will have 16.I have 2 ssd's.One for the system which is M2 and other one just for games ( Samsung EVO). What shall i set the page file size? Min and Max?

 

Thank you!

[KTFBGB]

I tested again this morning. At least for AMD cards you can not apply settings to the card and turn off settings in game. The card will not overwrite the in game settings. That’s why there is a large FPS boost. One finding i had. As you increase settings in the card you get subsequent drop in FPS while getting no MSAA or Anisotropic filtering in game. Basically the card is applying those settings then the game overwrites it afterward it seems. I maxed out the card settings and had none selected in game and had a big drop in FPS but all lines were extremely jagged. Switched back to zero on the card and in game and no difference in quality was observed but frame rate went back up to 90 -140 range. Applied old settings in game and was back to normal 40-80 FPS.

[ac5]

The stutters are caused by the rapid fluctuation in fps.

It is much smoother a solid, fix 60 FPS, wich matches the refresh rate of my monitor,

60 hz, than a higher frame rate fluctuating every second or less from 80 to 100....

Settings included. I get perfectly fluid experience with this in Caucasus, Nevada and PG,

excepting the disastrous Normandy, wich is very poorly programmed, as show many threads in this forum.

[lharv71]

Calculations

 

In response the easiest way to calculate pagefile is;

 

16GB RAM

 

16*1024=16,384

 

Initial Size = 16384

Max Size = 16384

 

For myself I have 32GB RAM so what I did was

 

32768 for C/ and for my DCS Drive

 

see picture

[Laer]

Hello, me again (several weeks later)...

 

 

Curious (and frustrating) thing... I'm playing DCS2.5 on the Caucasus map, using the F-15 from FC3... and suddenly now I'm getting regular 1 second pauses ever 10-20(?) seconds or so. The frame rate, otherwise, is nice and smooth... but I get these (new) regular 1 second pauses now for some reason (when it previously didn't, even with more complex planes like the A-10 (not the FC3 one).

 

 

Any theories on why this might suddenly be happening? Is it probably a map loading thing, or what? The flight model can't be too strenuous (especially since I've flown the A-10 for a long time with no pauses), and it's not a demanding map (like the Persian Gulf one, where I HAVE had micro pauses).

 

 

Any settings or config hacks I can try?

[David OC]

System spec would help.

 

Ram 16gb (minimum) SSD drive a must.

 

dcs preload radius. try changing this. I have it maxed out, running 32 gb ram.

 

A mechanical drive can do this if using a page file etc.

 

Updated lately? Try deleting the stuff in the FXO and metashaders2 folders. DCS will rebuild these when you play next time.

 

C:\Users\Username\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta -->FXO

 

Updated GPU drivers? Do a driver clean or rollback to the one's you had that worked etc.

 

Hi. I've got an old system that has an i7 920 (2.6gHz) CPU, 12 gigs of RAM, and a GTX1060 3G video card... Win7 Premium. Playing at 1920x1080 (non-VR), with reasonable settings (...I'm not complaining!)

 

Thanks...

 

More ram and get an SSD.

 

Even an SSD will help here a lot, ram would be good to tho (set your windows page file to the ssd) very easy upgrade. Just add the drive to your system and copy the DCS folders to that drive, grab the links from the bin folder and done.

 

No need to reinstall, I have backups of DCS on external drives etc.

Edited September 13, 2019 by David OC

[Laer]

Hi, David. Thanks for the response.

 

 

Yep, you found my specs.

 

 

I haven't seen a DCS update in ages... I assumed it autoupdates, but I'll have to check that!

 

 

Interesting note about the FXO/Metashaders2 folders... I'll look into that, too. Thanks.

 

 

 

I THINK I may be able to upgrade to 16gb RAM (my motherboard is unfortunately limiting... It's a premade system, and things like the CPU can't really be upgraded. But, I think 16gb RAM is the ceiling on it, so that may be an option, as long as the MB doesn't have some stupid restriction).

 

 

An SSD should be no problem, hopefully. Hopefully there's a port left on the MB.

 

 

If I go that route, maybe I could/should move my X-Plane11 install to it as well, assuming that would benefit.

 

 

One thing I should check... if I get the pauses while sitting on the ground. The only thing I can imagine it is, is bottlenecking of terrain data... although I was running the vanilla map no problem for years.

 

 

Maybe it was affected by the preload setting, as I probably changed that when I got the Persian Gulf map (to fix the similar pauses I'd get with THAT map... which made a bit more sense).

 

 

Too bad you can't set preload values for each map individually.

 

 

But, ya, the main thing I was after was verification on what specifically may be causing that.. terrain preload, AI computations, flight model, etc. (I get the pauses without any AI, so I don't think it's AI... and I'm using a FC3 plane, so the flight model shouldn't be a strain).

 

 

Weird, as the frame rate is lovely, otherwise... Just this relatively regular (10-20 seconds?) one second pause.

[Laer]

(Later...)

 

 

Ya, there must be something to this 'probably the terrain loading slowly from the hard drive' thing... I was just switching through the F11 (Airport) views, and with virtually every airport, it started with just some bunkers on the water, and then (after maybe a second or two!) the buildings and ground loaded in.

 

 

Wow... That was really awful... I don't get it, though... It's a Western Digital Black.... and it's NEW (and has very few things on it). That doesn't make sense. It seems like my ancient (C drive) Hitachi (almost full) performed better.

 

 

Well, I'm seriously considering getting an solid state drive tomorrow, just to put my flight sims on.... (or at least DCS and X-Plane11, as IL2 Great Battles seems to run fine, and I don't imagine that Falcon BMS, which I plan on installing for the first time, will put up much of a strain... but then again, I would have thought a new, almost empty WD Black drive wouldn't perform like it's heavily fragmented near-death!)

[David OC]

It's also a ram issue Laer.

 

DCS use a lot of ram + what windows needs.

 

So 16 in my book is absolute minimum here. Otherwise it's using the hard drive and system page file more and more. This needs to be minimized as much as you can for large high rez graphic files like DCS has.

 

WD Black Speeds

Read 155

Write 140

https://hdd.userbenchmark.com/WD-Black-1TB-2013/Rating/1822

 

Samsung 860

Read 469

Write 439

https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Samsung-850-Evo-500GB/Rating/3477

 

Accessing your drive because of not enough ram....you need your page file on a quick drive. Load times will be much MUCH quicker to.

 

Definitely an SSD (This will speed up load times and help with all the sim's you use)

Look at bumping your ram up a little when possible too.

Edited September 15, 2019 by David OC

[KTFBGB]

What David said. I have DCS on its own SSD. Nothing else on there. I have 24Gig of ram and and a RX5700 GPU that has 8Gig of ram on the card. I hardly ever play multiplayer so these numbers are for single player.

 

In game looks like this;

 

Ram usage 16-18 gig usage

GPU Memory 6-7 gig usage

 

So you certainly need more than you have. Granted I run almost all settings as high as they go but I hardly ever get any stutters. I’m not sure what MP numbers look like but when I do jump on a server I only notice minimal FPS drop from single player and the only time I really stutter is when the server has a hiccup.

 

Other things that help.

Run Process Lasso and and give DCS high priority along with cranking the power profile.

 

If you have one drive or any other cloud based stuff running, make sure to pause it before running the game. If i forget to pause one drive, I get bad stuttering even when not online.

 

I probably don’t need it but I have a page file mapped for DCS on the DCS drive, not the C drive.

 

If you have a CPU with turbo boost, go into the BIOS and enable it. It is off by default.

 

Keep the inside of your tower clean to get every bit of cooling you can get.

[Laer]

Hi, guys. Thanks for the helpful responses! (...and for not just hitting me with the traditional 'Get A New Computer!!!!' response! Hehe...).

 

 

I'll look into all of that. Ya, a shame Win7 can't KEEP the priority setting permanently, as I did try that trick before, but you have to do it every time, unless you have 3rd party software to remember it (as you point out).

 

 

Might go get a SSD today (although it seems my local store has them as special order only). Thanks for the brand suggestions.

 

 

I played around with the preload setting again, but can never figure out where the sweet spot is. A shame it doesn't autodetect it, based on your settings and system...or at least give you SOME sort of clue where to set it.

 

 

Frame rates are surprisingly smooth... just those 1 second pauses every so often.

 

 

I'll have to check if there's a page file on that secondary drive. I assumed there was, but I might be wrong.

 

 

The system is old and limited... Gateway FX. CPU (i7 920) can only be upgraded to a VERY slightly faster CPU.... not worth the trouble. RAM can only go up to 16 (from my current 12)... Motherboard is restrictive in what can be used.... System is (even when new) notorious for getting warm... and, to top it off, the connector on my front hot-swappable drive bays shorted out, so those two drive bays are out of the picture (resulting in me having to cram my drives into the already cramped rats nest of a cable-fest interior.

 

 

A new system is WELL overdue... but just not in the near future, as I have so many other things more important to have money spent on (... plus, I'm not looking forward to having to re-install/configure everything... plus, being forced to use Win10 on top of that...)

 

 

But, the good news seems it IS probably the terrain loading... and that the CPU is actually performing oddly well. So, that SSD is probably going to help (as would a RAM increase, even if it's only going to go up to 16 from 12).

 

 

It'll be glorious if/when I do get a new system. This old (easily well over 10-15 years) system DOES play all my flight/racing sims quite nicely, with generally high settings (at 1080p, which is all I ever wanted anyway)....

 

 

Thanks again for the many great suggestions. I'll be checking those out.