Years of stuttering finally solved !

[Plon]

Hello, after years of stuttering (30 to 40 fps loss, every 10~20 seconds) in flat screen and VR, years of trying everything I read on DCS forum, I finally find the solution given here :

I just disabled the power service in services.msc

No single stutter since then !

As I don't know the effect of doing this on power consumption and anything else, does anybody knows how I can disable it and enable it with batch file/command line ?

Hope this help people here !

[FupDuck]

Ha, as I just wrote in the original thread, I've been doing this for the past three months or so with no ill or even observable effects. When I'm not gaming my computer is quiet and cool, using very little power. The power plans I set in Windows still seem to be working, there's just no throttling or stuttering when at high usage. 

I can't explain it but it works. I expect it has something to do with how DCS deals with power management or something like that because it doesn't happen in any other game I play. 

Anyways, if you are experiencing regular stuttering every second or two like I was, I suggest giving this a try to see what effect it has. It's a very easy change to undo if you have any issues. Its as simple as typing services.msc in the Windows search bar, find the service called "power", and set it to disabled. I think you have to be in safe mode to do this, so I don't think a batch file will work, unless it includes a reboot command. It's been a few months since I did it though, so feel free to give it a try and see! 

 

Edited January 8, 2022 by FupDuck

[Plon]

Ok thanks, I did it in normal mode and rebooted the computer. I found a way to do it via cmd line, I will experiment it later. I have to test if a reboot is needed or not.

[silverdevil]

https://www.coretechnologies.com/blog/windows-services/power/

has it been attempted to just pick high performance or ultimate performance in power settings? 

https://www.howtogeek.com/368781/how-to-enable-ultimate-performance-power-plan-in-windows-10/

as the first article says, it is not fully understood what effect disabling the service has. i guess if nothing is amiss with your computer after doing so, you are cleared for take off.

[Plon]

I tried ultimate perf, with no change in stuttering.

[FupDuck]

2 hours ago, silverdevil said:

 

as the first article says, it is not fully understood what effect disabling the service has. i guess if nothing is amiss with your computer after doing so, you are cleared for take off.

This is pretty much how I live my life

2 hours ago, Plon said:

Ok thanks, I did it in normal mode and rebooted the computer. I found a way to do it via cmd line, I will experiment it later. I have to test if a reboot is needed or not.

Excellent! You are definitely smarter than me!

Are you sure it's necessary though? Like I said, my power service has been disabled for some time with no discernable effects. Maybe just try it with it off for a bit and see how it goes.

[Plon]

I think I was on ultimate performance settings before shuting down the service... I'm pretty sure that less agressive power settings will perform the same without power service running... If shuting down service keep the last power settings used... I didn't find any information about that.

Edited January 8, 2022 by Plon

[jurinko]

Awesome stuff. I am back in 2.5.6 fps wise or so. Thanks!

[Plon]

Nice !

[Wizard1393]

Dude what is this trickery??!

I gave this a try, disabling the "Power" service, and all stuttering and "hickups" are gone. FPS might not be much better, but it feels so much smoother now. Thank you!!

[silverdevil]

this tidbit may help the developers in finding why doing this stops the jitters. any empirical data is nonetheless data. 

Quote

svchost.exe is a shared service process that allows many Windows services to share a single process. Sharing a single process helps Windows to decrease its overall resource usage. By checking your Windows Task Manager you’ll notice that more than one Windows service can run under svchost.exe.

svchost is a very used portion of windows for all sorts of things. 

Quote

Starting with Windows 10 version 1903, Microsoft changed the way services are grouped into host processes. On client computer systems with more than 3.5 GB of memory, services are no longer grouped into shared host processes. Instead, each service is run in its own process. This results in better isolation of services, making the computer system more resilient to service failures and vulnerabilities and easier to debug. However, it adds some memory overhead.

so perhaps doing this just removes a process that puts the computer over a memory limit. dunno really but it makes sense. 

[jurinko]

What more, I have feeling that the whole picture in VR is more stable. DCS VR picture was always a strain for my eyes, like it was micro flickering compared to VR in Il-2. If I wiggled the virtual stick, its movement had micro stutter but now everything is smooth and firm like looking on real objects, stick moves like real. I am very pleased. Thanks to OP for sharing the fix. 

 

Edit: roughly at the same time I unchecked "Gaming mode" in GeForce Experience, so I will re-check. 

Edited January 11, 2022 by jurinko

[Hiob]

Sounds very interesting. I have no particular problems atm, but I will give it a try anyway.

I'd love @speed-of-heat to incorporate this in his testings.

Edited January 11, 2022 by Hiob

[Wizard1393]

1 hour ago, Hiob said:

Sounds very interesting. I have no particular problems atm, but I will give it a try anyway.

 

This was my take on it as well. I thought I had no issues, but doing this made me aware about the stutters I'd been having.

[Plon]

3 hours ago, chrisofsweden said:

This was my take on it as well. I thought I had no issues, but doing this made me aware about the stutters I'd been having.

The stutters where not so awkward in flat screen but totally game-breaker in VR... (I did not use VR in DCS for more than a year because of this).

[Boosterdog]

For the stutters I have, and have always had, there is no difference. Not that I expected there to be. All of my stutters in this game come from clunky AI coding battering an already sweating single core. 

Whilst I remain on the fence as to whether this is a fix for DCS or a solution to a past misconfigaration/incorrect power settings implmentation in windows itself, Im happy for those it helps nonetheless. 

[Nealius]

I have to agree with Boosterdog. All of the stuttering I experience is due to AI, particularly on already demanding maps like Syria. Once I remove the AI the stuttering is gone. 

[Hiob]

Edit: nevermind, found it

Edited January 11, 2022 by Hiob

[Hiob]

Power Service enabled:

11-01-2022, 19:50:36 DCS.exe benchmark completed, 11837 frames rendered in 139.907 s
                     Average framerate  :   84.6 FPS
                     Minimum framerate  :   71.1 FPS
                     Maximum framerate  :   95.6 FPS
                     1% low framerate   :   73.8 FPS
                     0.1% low framerate :   47.0 FPS
11-01-2022, 19:53:17 DCS.exe benchmark completed, 11784 frames rendered in 139.844 s
                     Average framerate  :   84.2 FPS
                     Minimum framerate  :   74.1 FPS
                     Maximum framerate  :   95.2 FPS
                     1% low framerate   :   73.8 FPS
                     0.1% low framerate :   71.6 FPS
11-01-2022, 19:56:30 DCS.exe benchmark completed, 11764 frames rendered in 139.843 s
                     Average framerate  :   84.1 FPS
                     Minimum framerate  :   74.3 FPS
                     Maximum framerate  :   95.1 FPS
                     1% low framerate   :   73.7 FPS
                     0.1% low framerate :   71.5 FPS

 

Power Service disabled:

11-01-2022, 20:22:12 DCS.exe benchmark completed, 11752 frames rendered in 139.797 s
                     Average framerate  :   84.0 FPS
                     Minimum framerate  :   69.7 FPS
                     Maximum framerate  :   97.5 FPS
                     1% low framerate   :   49.7 FPS
                     0.1% low framerate :   38.7 FPS
11-01-2022, 20:24:55 DCS.exe benchmark completed, 11773 frames rendered in 139.750 s
                     Average framerate  :   84.2 FPS
                     Minimum framerate  :   74.4 FPS
                     Maximum framerate  :   94.8 FPS
                     1% low framerate   :   73.8 FPS
                     0.1% low framerate :   62.5 FPS
11-01-2022, 20:27:38 DCS.exe benchmark completed, 11663 frames rendered in 139.406 s
                     Average framerate  :   83.6 FPS
                     Minimum framerate  :   71.6 FPS
                     Maximum framerate  :   95.3 FPS
                     1% low framerate   :   49.0 FPS
                     0.1% low framerate :   37.4 FPS

 

Take note of the 0.1% low fps. If anything - turning of the power service made things worse for me. I can't do a proper Benchmark in VR though.

[will-]

i still think has track ir has something to do w/ stutters, as someone once pointed out you can use ur mouse to look around w/ no stuttering but w/ track ir there is stutters.  But also these threads are hard to distinguish what severity of stutters we are talking about, unplayable? noticeable stutters? lower fps stutters? lag from server?  

[Plon]

I think there is definitely tons of different source of stutters... I'm just sharing the solution I found to resolve my problem if it can help someone else. I played all the evening on multiplayer caucasus server without a single stutter or loss of fps. I had before a freeze every 20-30 seconds. Solid 45 fps all the time now. in vr. DCS was unplayable in VR before.

 

[Boosterdog]

19 minutes ago, Plon said:

I think there is definitely tons of different source of stutters... I'm just sharing the solution I found to resolve my problem if it can help someone else. I played all the evening on multiplayer caucasus server without a single stutter or loss of fps. I had before a freeze every 20-30 seconds. Solid 45 fps all the time now. in vr. DCS was unplayable in VR before.

 

Please dont think Im de-crying this. It seems to be helping quite a few whatever the reason so well worth sharing. 

There are also a whole host of other things that can be reported as issues but are caused by software such as Afterburner polling a lot of things a lot of tiimes. I had an irksome tick that was caused by Avast over-zealously scanning automatically even when supposedly dosabled. That simply needed some default settings deactivating. 

It does no harm at all to give people information that they can troubleshoot with. Especially if it can fix something for them. 

3 hours ago, will- said:

i still think has track ir has something to do w/ stutters, as someone once pointed out you can use ur mouse to look around w/ no stuttering but w/ track ir there is stutters.  But also these threads are hard to distinguish what severity of stutters we are talking about, unplayable? noticeable stutters? lower fps stutters? lag from server?  

There as many different takes on what TIR does and doesnt do when when the fps is away from its 120/60 capture rate as there are units sold. Some will say it doesnt affect them, others (like me) will anchor the fps using vsync as they will tell you it does. The stutters here are describes as fairly regular "ticks" which id say are unlikely to be TIR induced (usually that the "when I turn my head" sorta posts). 

 

[Hiob]

Agreed. Different problems affect different people at different times. It's never harmful to post a possible solution/improvement.

@Plon I didn't mean to debunk anything. I don't suffer from noticeable "regular" framedrops in the first place. I just figured that measuring if the 0.1% low fps change would be the closest I can get to see any effect. Be aware that in 2D with a good average framerate, you don't even notice those differences in my measurements above (unless perhaps you are very sensitive).

If for whatever reason, a windows system draws resources every now and then to do "something" with the power service - it is very well possible that it affects DCS. Perhaps I'm uneffected due to different power settings, because I use a ryzen... or any other variable - I don't know!

[Plon]

@Hiob Thank you for doing this test, digging the problem and being constructive as I don't have time to do it myself. In 2D I played with 60+ FPS (60Hz display) and never drop below exept during these stutters.

I tried almost every solution found here without success, I've changed so much settings windows side, it's hard to keep any trace of what I did past year. So much thing could be linked.. Or not...

The fix do not affect nor improve overall FPS, but definitely eliminate all stutters I had. (More than 4 hours playing VR online without a single stutter).

To see if there is any correlation between hardware (AMD/Intel...) and power service fix, @jurinko, @chrisofsweden and everyone else who find this fix usefull, could you please post your specs ?

Also I will try to reinstall Tacview to see if it introduce stutters now.
 

[jurinko]

5600x, 3070, 32gb ram, x570 based mobo, HP G2, Win10

It is like some internal throttle was removed, I rock the wings and the scenery moves smoothly like in reality, even above small cities. Only low in the woods or big cities the picture shimmers a bit since I am on almost highest settings, 1.0/100% resolution. This is something I imagine Vulkan should bring.