Severe Stuttering Caused by SSS - 2.9

[Wavehopper]

Afternoon.  Problem has not been solved as I thought it had.  Stuttering is back, including menu lag.

 

My performance had plummeted since the 2.9 update with no alteration to graphic settings (or so I thought).  Even the menu wasn't immune to lags and stutters.

 

Done the usual: Installed on an NVME, Cleared Metarshaders and fxo, cleared Nvidia Folder, disabled Hot Plugging, slow repaired twice.

 

Switched off SSS and it was back to a steady 180fps in the Gen 3 Constant Peg Instant Action mission (F14 Module).  Not sure what's going on but that graphic option brought my PC to its knees.  MT.

 

This solution now has stopped working and seems to vary depending on the the mood it's in.  First try this evening, horrendous lag and stutter. Restarted, perfectly smooth, restarted again, horrendous lag and stutter.

 

Also a sidenote, so Super Sampling has now been removed in the ST version? Grrrr.

 

Pretty much unplayable in this state.  Anyone able to take a look and give me a clue?

Stutterific.trk DxDiag.txt

dcs.log

Edited October 22, 2023 by Wavehopper
Problem is back

[Reflected]

According to Matt’s video it shouldn’t cause much of a hit, but I also noticed severe stutters when I turned it on. 

[slo_mo]

I also experienced the same stuttering on both Syria and Marianas with various DLSS configurations. With no assets and with many. 
 

I turned off SSS and stuttering was gone. 

Edited October 20, 2023 by slo_mo

[SharpeXB]

6 hours ago, Wavehopper said:

Switched off SSS and it was back to a steady 180fps

You need 180 fps? Don’t get me wrong, more is always better but I didn't think displays went that high. 

[Wavehopper]

No of course I don’t need 180fps, but I do need a steady frame rate. At the moment it’s stuttering and dropping erratically even on menus.

I’d settle with 30fps at this point providing it stays smooth.  The lag is so bad I can't navigate the main menu.

Edited October 20, 2023 by Wavehopper

[Glide]

I did some testing on this with my 3080Ti/G2 doing some low flying over Caucasus.  With TAA, Shadows High, Secondary Shadows On, Terrain Shadows Default, and Visib Range Extreme as a baseline, I tested the scenery sliders.  Forest Details and Forest Visibility at maximum make it very jittery.  Both at max or either one at max is jittery.  Both off is silky smooth.  Clutter/Grass did not seem to be a factor, nor did Scenery Details Factor.

I did not zero in the sweet spot, but with Forest Visibility at 40% and Forest Details Factor at 0.24 it's smooth.  I maintained 60 fps during all the tests with the F-16. 

 

Edited October 20, 2023 by Glide

[Wavehopper]

Thanks Glide.  The odd one here is that I used the following settings earlier today and it was a constant 180fps.  Didn't budge and was silky smooth. 

Put DCS on a couple of hours later and it was horrendous.  Something very odd going on here as even the menus are spiking performance. 

 

Edit: Just tried Glide's settings, fine for the first flight, problem resumed on second flight and DCS crashed entirely.

Edited October 20, 2023 by Wavehopper

[Glide]

Yeah, that's odd.  Memory leakage, perhaps?  I use the OpenXR Toolkit FPS HUD to monitor vram usages and frame times.

[Wavehopper]

A couple of videos to demonstrate the issue:

 

[Glide]

I take it with Vsync enabled you have a 180hz monitor.  You might want to try Low Latency Mode = Ultra in the NCP, and experiment with HAGS on and off.  I have it off right now with my i7 11700k.

[Wavehopper]

I don't usually have V-Sync on, I just wanted to see if it prevented menu lag in this instance but it doesn't.  I've switched it off again.

[Glide]

DXDiag reports: Native Mode: 2560 x 1080(p) (144.001Hz)

You have 3 screens?  or a custom resolution?

[Skyracer]

I have the same issue. Sometimes i have 30 fps in the main menu. 

[Wavehopper]

Two screens.  Just tried it as a single monitor 2560x1080, set to single screen and no effect.  Switched it back to two screens again with my odd resolution and DCS is running perfectly smooth again.  Something strange is afoot at the Circle K.

 

How it should look (it has since gone back to the stuttering on subsequent flights):

 

The movement you're seeing on the graphs is from the Geforce screen capture software.

Edited October 20, 2023 by Wavehopper

[Predator-78]

hey friends, same exact problem and I've been reporting it to the ED for a long time. I also opened a support ticket without having the solution to the problem and I also have a fairly high-performance PC. Stuttering also in the sim menu, freezes in multiplayer for several seconds and then resumes on its own. Will the ED do something to solve this damn problem?

Inviato dal mio SM-G998B utilizzando Tapatalk

[Skyracer]

7 minutes ago, Predator-78 said:

hey friends, same exact problem and I've been reporting it to the ED for a long time. I also opened a support ticket without having the solution to the problem and I also have a fairly high-performance PC. Stuttering also in the sim menu, freezes in multiplayer for several seconds and then resumes on its own. Will the ED do something to solve this damn problem?

Inviato dal mio SM-G998B utilizzando Tapatalk
 

Mine was working fine on 2.8 but since yesterday it seems to be impossible to play. Lowest setting/ Highest setting does not matter

[Pavlin_33]

I am also having horrible stuttering issues after the 2.9 update.
DCS used to be butter-smooth with 60-70fps, but now with exactly the same hardware I have horrible jagged edges (not a huge problem) and intense periodic stutter that freezes the sim for short periods of time.

Edited October 20, 2023 by Pavlin_33

[Flappie]

Check this thread:

 

[Skyracer]

For me running DCS in MT mode solved the stuttering problem. 

[Reflected]

@Wavehopper is it like DCS sometimes stutters, and sometimes doesn't? As if it was a roll of the dice and you don't know which one you;ll get when you start the game? I'm seeing the same. No changes in the setting, and all of a sudden DCS is a stutter fest - or silky smooth.

So it wasn't SSS in the end? Because SSS is such an amazing new feature, it makes a huge difference in visuals.

Edited October 21, 2023 by Reflected

[Wavehopper]

Okay, embarrassing, but a revelation.  The DCS Shortcut no longer leads to the Single Thread version as had in 2.8, so I've now redirected it to the single thread .exe in the correct bin folder.  Now I've checked the single thread version, it's all fine and dandy again.

 

The stuttering exists purely in MT so at least it's playable in ST.  Still odd though.

 

TLDR- The auto generated desktop shortcut goes via the dcs_updater which now directs to the dcs.exe in the bin-mt folder instead of the bin folder.

Edited October 21, 2023 by Wavehopper

[Skyracer]

9 hours ago, Wavehopper said:

Okay, embarrassing, but a revelation.  The DCS Shortcut no longer leads to the Single Thread version as had in 2.8, so I've now redirected it to the single thread .exe in the correct bin folder.  Now I've checked the single thread version, it's all fine and dandy again.

 

The stuttering exists purely in MT so at least it's playable in ST.  Still odd though.

 

TLDR- The auto generated desktop shortcut goes via the dcs_updater which now directs to the dcs.exe in the bin-mt folder instead of the bin folder.

 

Funny! Because for me it was vice versa. 

[Skyracer]

8 hours ago, Skyracer said:

Funny! Because for me it was vice versa. 

What happend now it was superslow in MT but then i switched to single core, and all the stutters are magicly gone

[Pavlin_33]

Please don't quote me on this one, but I somehow believe that my stutter has something to do with texture loading.
It increases in intensity if I zoom in or switch to external view. Happens both on multi-thread and single-thread.

[AfterLyfe]

I doubt it's related, but I've been having a stutter every second or so since the update. Removing the line for my streamdeck from the export.lua completely fixed it. Now I gotta figure out how to make the streamdeck work again.