Severe freezes every 2-3 minutes

[July]

Here's the tasklist.

process_list.txt

[Flappie]

Here's the tasklist.

Thank you.

Here's an enhanced version of your list. I suspect one of the orange or white processes to cause your stutters.

 

Please disable NVIDIA Share and see if your issue is gone.

[July]

I will try, but the stutters have been present even before I enabled Nvidia Share ~3 weeks ago. However, I will still try with Nvidia Share disabled once again. I'd like to also note that during the stutter, GPU usage drops to 0%, and in task manager a system process begins using 100% of my disk. Going into the task manager details for the process says that the process is named "System", and when I open the file location of the process it leads me to "ntoskrnl.exe". From what I've read about the process, it potentially has something to do with my pagefile?

[Flappie]

ntoskrnl.exe seems to handle a lot of things in Windows, and amond them the memory cache, yes.

 

Do you have HDDs in your PC? You don't want your pagefile to be stored on an HDD. You might want to check this.

Are you using a NAS to store your personal data (C:\Users\...) ?

Edited November 1, 2020 by Flappie

[July]

I do have an HDD, but only use it to save videos/clips. I am not using a NAS. The stutters continued to be present even after disabling NVIDIA Share. Afaik, my pagefile is correctly used on my SSD.

[Glide]

This may be a long shot, but Windows has a bad habit of making everything wait on the network. Can you try unplugging from the network to see if it clears up?

[July]

I have already gone into safe mode for testing as Flappie suggested. It disables networking.

[Flappie]

I want to be sure it's not tied to antivirus activity. Have you tested flying with your antivirus turned off?

 

EDIT: You should try the Windows Resource Monitor to find out what your disk is reading/writing when the stuttering happens.

 

1. Click on "Disk". Above is the name of the processes doing disk accesses.

2. When the stuttering appears, click on "ntoskrnl.exe" if you see it, or simply click on "System".

3. In the "Disk activity" area, click on top of the "Total" column, and look closely at the paths. For starters, which disk is being used? Then, what files are being accessed?

 

 

@Reflected: if you're still reading this, you should try it too.

Edited November 2, 2020 by Flappie

[July]

If you mean Windows Defender, no. I have not tried with it off yet. I will try disabling it and will report back.

[Flappie]

Yes, I meant Windows Defender.

And if it doesn't change anything, please try the Resource Manager procedure above.

[Reflected]

Yeah, it occurs much less often now that I dumbed down shadows, terrain textures and preload radius. Which is a shame, because until the stutters happen my PC can handle DCS on pretty high settings...

 

So now I'm just waiting for the crazy VRAM usage of DCS, as well as the Channel map to be optimized.

Edited November 2, 2020 by Reflected

[Reflected]

OK, I did what you suggested - I hope. There are 2 kinds of stutters:

 

1) when flak comes on or planes are shooting. Then it's D: that's peaking, the drive that has DCS only.

 

 

2) The freezes I mentioned in the OP. Then it's C:, the Windows drive that's peaking.

 

 

[Scotch75]

I have often thought these stutters have something to do with the real-time recording of events on the debrief page when a lot is happening. Although I would have to say this doesn't always work, I have accessed this page by the apostrophe key (') during stutters, it writes what it has to, then when exiting the page, everything is smooth again. However, I don't have a way to prove it repeatedly. Maybe it points someone more computer savvy in the right direction.

 

Cheers!

????

 

 

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

 

 

[Flappie]

@Reflected That's very interesting. You should try moving your pagefile to drive D:\ (see my parameters as a reference).

 

[Reflected]

OK, I did that. hard to tell the difference. MAYBE I got less stutters due to flak. But overall it was more stuttery. See screenshots.

 

[Flappie]

OK. Could you try the same thing but this time by monitoring files accessed by DCS.exe (instead of System)?

This is what I get.

[Reflected]

I couldn't get those pronunced long freezes, but maybe this is something too:

 

[Flappie]

Thank you. I didn't think we would directly see the pagefile being accessed by DCS.exe. There's no need to monitor "System" disk activity, then.

Next time you get one of those long freezes, check the same thing to see if the issue is tied to some file other than pagefile.sys.

[Reflected]

Does this tell you anything?

 

[Flappie]

Your screenshot made me discover this "NV_Cache" folder. It seems DCS generates some of the files it contains. I've read emptying this folder can speed up things, even for DCS.

I've tried it myself and I had no issue: DCS creates new files in it when launched, just like it does with "fxo" and "metashaders2" folders.

 

Since I don't experience stuttering, I'm not convinced it will make things better for you, but if you want to try, here's what I did:

1. Close DCS.
   
2. Empty both "fxo" and "metashaders2" folders in "\Saved Games\DCS".
   
3. Select all files in "C:\ProgramData\NVIDIA Corporation\NV_Cache" and delete them.
   
4. Windows might tell you some files are protected by running processes like Chrome or Firefox. Just hit "Cancel".
   
5. Launch DCS and test.
   

[Reflected]

OK, I'll test. Do you think I should turn off shader cache in the Nvidia panel?

[Flappie]

I don't think so. This is activated by default, and I've never heard anyone having issues with it. I'm thinking maybe you're having an old shader file in NV_Cache, nothing more.

[July]

Testing was done on Syria, but the stuttering is consistent on Caucasus and Persian Gulf as well. **This was done with Nvidia Share both on and off, with no appreciable difference.** I have tried deleting my fxo and metashaders2 folders in the past, again, with seemingly no gain. Deleting the contents of the NV_Cache folder is something I had yet to try but after doing so I was still getting the stuttering.

 

Edit: All screenshots were taking during or 1-2 seconds after the stuttering (which themselves lasted minimum of 2, upwards of 15 seconds)

Edit 2: D: is Windows System reserved partition (which should be a part of my SSD (C: )), E: is my HDD

**Turns out, Nvidia Share continued to run and record in the background despite me turning instant replay off and making sure it wasn't recording so these results are somewhat invalidated

[July]

I'm reading online that this temp directory in my AppData that's using up my disk read/write is related to Nvidia Shadowplay/Share, I thought I had disabled it but somehow it continued running in the background. I may try uninstalling it. Will report back with results once again.

 

Here are the relevant threads I found this info in:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport..._emptying_out/

https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport...d_drive_and_i/

[July]

With Nvidia Share off (for real this time), the frequency and length of the stutters has lessened considerably but are still present. Significant pagefile usage here.