Years of stuttering finally solved !

[SpecteRED]

@LadanHow did you turn off this service? Windows won't let me. And if I turn it off anyway, then the system crashes because it is a critical service. Win 11

[scommander2]

nullFrom "Computer Management"->"Service"->"Power":

[SpecteRED]

8 минут назад, scommander2 сказал:

nullFrom "Computer Management"->"Service"->"Power":

is it Win 10? on win 11 i cant stop this service

 

[MAXsenna]

46 minutes ago, SpecteRED said:

is it Win 10? on win 11 i cant stop this service

 

Set it to disabled, and then reboot. 

[Ladan]

2 hours ago, SpecteRED said:

@LadanHow did you turn off this service? Windows won't let me. And if I turn it off anyway, then the system crashes because it is a critical service. Win 11

Search for : Services, then go down the list and look for Power. Double click on it, and it will show Startup Type. In the dropdown list, there is an option that says Disabled.

48 minutes ago, SpecteRED said:

is it Win 10? on win 11 i cant stop this service

 

Win 11

[Ladan]

Update : Noticed a bit of stuttering last night, but prob bc I was on Multiplayer. I mean, it started out fine, until one of my buddies joined me on same mission... but idk

[Why485]

After noticing that DCS seems to run stutter free, but only when I run it off my C drive (NVME), I've been pulling my hair out trying to figure out why that is, especially because the drive I normally had DCS on was literally the exact same model of NVME, just not the Windows C drive. 

I did the thing to remove the power service and yeah, it's shocking. It runs without stuttering at all. I cannot believe DCS looks like this, because for years I've had this stuttering and while some of that was just my hardware, even in an empty SP map I would get these awful periodic stutters spaced every 1 to 3 seconds.

Basically with this trick after a massive hardware upgrade, DCS has gone from this, to this:

  

As for side effects of doing this, I suspect that the Windows thing where it powers down hard disks if they aren't in use for a while might not work anymore, but that's not a big deal to me.

Edited Tuesday at 07:35 AM by Why485

[scommander2]

Yes, it is the first step to isolate the issue if power management service is disabled to ensure that no device is capped by it.

Edited Tuesday at 05:21 AM by scommander2

[Hiob]

9 hours ago, scommander2 said:

Yes, it is the first step to isolate the issue if power management service is disabled to ensure that no device is capped by it.

It's not only the power saving, but the thousands of interrupt requests that service generates. It is a prime example of how not gaming optimized Windows is....

[scommander2]

Agree with 100%, Windows tuning is only one but many (or too many). 

 

[MoleUK]

I swear windows really does hate DCS. The list of windows tweaks that do appear to help fix DCS performance issues continues to get longer.

[Dangerzone]

is POWER service one of those ones that automatically gets re-enabled by Microsoft when a windows update is done? If so - it might be worth adding to the top of a 'DCS issues checklist' that's stuck to the side of the computer for when stutters suddenly introduce again when 'nothing has changed'. 

4 hours ago, MoleUK said:

I swear windows really does hate DCS. The list of windows tweaks that do appear to help fix DCS performance issues continues to get longer.

Sadly, I think it's only going to get worse. I'm seeing some systems now come out with certain options disabled - to try and force more power saving features on. Not sure if it's part of a push to the Paris agreement / reduced emmisions thing or what the go is - but I see this as only getting worse, not better. As already shown - Microsoft is doing a **** poor job of keeping computers good for high-performance gaming. Maybe another reason and hope for steam to be more successful with their products and/or a Linux port one day. 

[speed-of-heat]

Part of the challenge, is it’s not consistent, I’m not disputing that disabling the power service works for some, but it has a negative impact for me… so I suspect there is more to this than “Microsoft is bad”…and there is some other factor at work that the power service is a proxy for…

[Hiob]

8 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

is POWER service one of those ones that automatically gets re-enabled by Microsoft when a windows update is done? If so - it might be worth adding to the top of a 'DCS issues checklist' that's stuck to the side of the computer for when stutters suddenly introduce again when 'nothing has changed'. 

No, you can just permanently turn it off. (security updates and fixes usually don’t change any settings and feature updates are basically a new OS version, that should a) postponed as long as possible and b) thoroughly scrutinised)

[mukisuki]

Am 18.11.2025 um 19:23 schrieb MoleUK:

I swear windows really does hate DCS. The list of windows tweaks that do appear to help fix DCS performance issues continues to get longer.

By the way, do we have such a list anywhere?  Would be a good idea....

[Hiob]

On 11/18/2025 at 7:23 PM, MoleUK said:

I swear windows really does hate DCS. The list of windows tweaks that do appear to help fix DCS performance issues continues to get longer.

It’s not only DCS. Windows is just a hot mess, a patchwork particularly not build for slick performance. A lot of games actually perform better under the proton compatibility layer in linux. They kinda found their way with NT and its derivatives (XP, 7….) and then totally lost it again when they introduced spyware windows.

Flightsims are just particularly sensitive to the issues that windows has…..

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

4 minutes ago, Hiob said:

They kinda found their way with NT

Yup: I was surprised at how good Windows 2000 was for gaming starting from SP4. I had a dual-boot W98 and W2000 back then, but when I noticed how good 2000 SP4 was, I ditched W98 altogether  

[BJ55]

3 hours ago, Hiob said:

Windows is just a hot mess

Are we talking about the same company that to solve performance issues now will add more performance issues? https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/11/22/microsoft-says-it-will-always-run-windows-11-file-explorer-in-the-background-to-load-it-faster/  . In my case disabling the power service does nothing except rising VR VCC current from 1.4A to 5.8A when idle, have yet to check for other issues or potential side effects, but I'm on Windblows 10. The 10+1 mess is having performance issues since 23H2, the power service is bugged and vulnerable, like many other services, add al the bloat they're forcing on users and results are pretty obvious...

Blame Satya & Co.

Edited Saturday at 01:03 PM by BJ55

[Hiob]

45 minutes ago, BJ55 said:

Are we talking about the same company that to solve performance issues now will add more performance issues? https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/11/22/microsoft-says-it-will-always-run-windows-11-file-explorer-in-the-background-to-load-it-faster/  . In my case disabling the power service does nothing except rising VR VCC current from 1.4A to 5.8A when idle, have yet to check for other issues or potential side effects, but I'm on Windblows 10. The 10+1 mess is having performance issues since 23H2, the power service is bugged and vulnerable, like many other services, add al the bloat they're forcing on users and results are pretty obvious...

Blame Satya & Co.

Yeah, thats the obvious downside. No more power saving features. (Which are however first and foremost present and important to save battery on mobile devices). No difference when the system is stressed, but when you let it sit idling around 24/7 it will increase energy consumption. So I recommend turning it off when not used. Fortunately, it boots up a lot quicker then back in the days…..

[scommander2]

I am wondering how many of us have the power management off today ...  

[silverdevil]

4 hours ago, scommander2 said:

I am wondering how many of us have the power management off today ...  

my system has that service enabled. i do however use the default windows ultimate power plan. the power plan has to be specially enabled. i do not have or ever had stutters. my system is an i9 11 series cpu and a 3090 gfx card.

 

[scommander2]

16 minutes ago, silverdevil said:

use the default windows ultimate power plan. the power plan has to be specially enabled.

Thanks so much ...

EDIT: quick checked CPMAX/CPMIN/CPCONCURRENCY/CPDISTRIBUTION are set as max value in the attributes "max" and "min".... cool... for people do not need deal with the registry settings   

Edited Saturday at 08:54 PM by scommander2

[Hiob]

On 11/19/2025 at 8:02 AM, speed-of-heat said:

Part of the challenge, is it’s not consistent, I’m not disputing that disabling the power service works for some, but it has a negative impact for me… so I suspect there is more to this than “Microsoft is bad”…and there is some other factor at work that the power service is a proxy for…

 

10 hours ago, silverdevil said:

my system has that service enabled. i do however use the default windows ultimate power plan. the power plan has to be specially enabled. i do not have or ever had stutters. my system is an i9 11 series cpu and a 3090 gfx card.

 

“Microsoft is bad” is not so much the point as “Microsoft is not well suited or optimised for gaming”…. the “Bad” part though comes by virtue of the <profanity>ty “telemetry” (aka spyware) and bloat and now the AI stuff nobody asked for…..

However, it is true that some systems are affected by the power service and some are not. I don’t know why that is. Maybe it’s just lucky circumstances that the process is bothering a Core isn’t used by the game.
The issue is the constant polling and probing this process does which causes cpu latency. And it doesn’t stop when priority processes are running like most other background stuff does.

Unfortunately it doesn’t go away with choosing another power plan either. When you are plagued with the issue, I doubt that the ultimate power plan will change anything. The problem (when it affects you) is the process itself, not its settings.

That said, there is of course no harm in trying. Due to the somewhat “random” nature of windows problems, the outcome of countermeasures seems to be equally random.

My strategy with windows for the longest time has been to keep it as minimalistic and slick as possible. And that worked well for me. So just getting rid of stuff completely is right down my alley. But I can see how others may prefer a different approach.