solved Massive stuttering(can only be resolved temporarily after flushing fxo and metashader folders)

[m005106]

I'm recently experiencing massive stuttering in DCS(steam version). 

The game stutters horribly from the start. Log files of both normal and stuttering cases attached.

  1. Normally the game will run at 110ish FPS in Caucasus free flight. GPU99%, CPU15% load

  2. When stuttering, it will drop to 28~45 FPS with GPU10~30%, CPU15% load

      While the metric says 28~45 FPS, it actually feels like a slideshow. 1~2 FPS

 

My rig is a 5800X3D, 6800XT, 3200Mhz 32G DDR4, 1TB NVMe SSD system with all the latest drivers. Pagefile is set to auto. Windows gaming mode off.

I have trackIR, Voiceattack, SimAppPro, SimShaker for Aviators running in the background.

 

The stuttering can only be resolved by flushing the fxo and metashader folders. However, after 1~2 runs(exit DCS) it comes back. 

 

Been trying to ascertain the cause but nothing came up. 

1. System restart

2. VGA Driver reinstall, rollback(This works like flushing the two folders. Only works for the first 1~2 runs, then stuttering returns)

3. Auto HDR on/off

4. Turning off aforementioned programs

5. Removing Mods

6. Setting FPS caps(Adrenalin control panel and DCS autoexec.cfg)

7. VSYNC on/off

8. Freesync on/off

9. Full screen on/off

10. Disabling everything in export.lua

 

EDIT : Noticed that stuttering depends on where I am looking at. (Camera shot attached. All shots taken at starting position of Caucasus freeflight) 

           1. Looking straight ahead results in stuttering. If the canopy frame or HUD comes into view, stuttering starts.

           2. Panning Right also stutters. 

 

           3. Anything from MFD and downwards it becomes smooth again.

 

           4. Panning left is smooth

 

           5. Looking directly up is also smooth

 

Also Noticed When stuttering, External MFDs on Cougars flicker too. 

 

Save me.

 

dcs(normal).log dcs(stutter).log

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by m005106
Added more observations

[durp]

For AMD make sure you run at the high-performance power plan in windows power options. AMD does have some issues with USB devices in the balanced power-plan.
(this sorted out micro stuttering in intervals for me which was every 5-10sec)

 

USB Devices:

From what I have picked up here, try unplugging some of the not needed devices and see if it helps, if you say it does flicker your external MFD something is going on with the USB controller. (I also read somewhere that a wireless mouse can cause issues... just seach for 'wireless' on this forum.

WIngWing Joystick/Throttle:

They had an issue where the polling was too frequent. It's a lua file in your scripts directory. 

 

Hotplug:

Disable it in DCS

 

Likely a little less related to your problem:

there was an issues with AMD and having fTPM enabled that caused now and then a massive system stutter, it would even affect audio playback. It does however not happen that frequent as you describe, but make sure you have that one fixed with a recent BIOS version for your motherboard.

 

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by durp

[m005106]

@durp

Thanks for your input.

Yeah, It's constant troubleshooting with this AMD rig I have. 

I'm trying your suggestion one by one. Will let you know how it turns out.

 

Another observation is when stuttering occurs, I can change the view distance in the options and when the game restarts, the stuttering disappears.

I'm not sure if it's just the view distance or any other options that require a restart though.

Edited November 24, 2022 by m005106

[durp]

Your AMD (5800X3D) is fine, it should run well in games and give a boost in DCS and other outdated tech titles, even beats the 5950x.
(There is a youtube video running a comparison 5800X3D vs 5950x, search for "dcs 5800 X3D 5950x") 

You might want to also monitor your pagefile usage, seems yours is set to 2GB, that's too little, try 16GB (or 32GB) (and make sure it's on a fast drive, with M.2 it's fine on the OS drive). 

Keep in mind that there is also an issue (several actually...) with shadows (flat broken, and performance penalty) (...and more) in 2.8. Did the game run okay in 2.7?

 

 

[Flappie]

@m005106  Does it keep stuttering if you unplug your mouse?

[m005106]

@durp Yeah, I upgraded(kinda) to the 5800X3D from a 5600x specifically for DCS. It really helped with the low 1%

Good point on the page file. Didn't realize it was set that low. Just changed it to 32GB. It did run well on 2.7. But to be honest, I was away from my PC for a while, and when I came back there were tons of updates that happened all at once including 2.8. Still trying to figure out what went wrong.

 

@Flappie I tried unplugging, and changing to a wired one. But nojoy.

 

The more I look in to it, the weirder the symtoms get. Ugh.

[m005106]

@durp  @Flappie

I think I've found the problem.

Sometime ago, I adjusted my MFD screens' brightness through the Adrenalin control panel's "custom color" settings for each display, since the Hornet's MFD export was too dim.

That was the culprit. I disabled custom color and everything is back to normal. That was the last thing I suspected since I seriously thought the problem was one of the numerous updates that happened all at once. 

I am being cautious though since every time I thought I'd figured it out, I was proven wrong a couple of days later. Keeping my fingers crossed.

[Flappie]

Many thanks for your feedback.

Please report back if you're proven wrong again.

[m005106]

1 hour ago, Flappie said:

Many thanks for your feedback.

Please report back if you're proven wrong again.

Wilco!

[Renansjp]

Had the issue these days. With me it was micro-stuttering in regular time intervals, like 2s. After finding this thread, simply tried changing the windows power plan, from Ryzen High Performance to Balanced (windows default) and the problem was gone. So, just came to give my testimonial. 

R9 5950X + RX 6900XT + 32gb RAM here. DCS running on NVMe 3k R/W.