DCS VR MT occasional very high load / unresponsive system on start, hourglass, Quest Pro, non-Steam

[Hippo]

I've been seeing this for around four months or so.  When I start DCS, sometimes the system will become almost completely unresponsive.  There are variations on exactly what happens: sometimes I'll see the interface screen, sometimes a black screen, but I always see the Oculus hourglass spinning continuously.  It looks as if the sim is running at less than 1 fps.  I am eventually able to get the keyboard or oculus controller to respond and kill the task, and try to run it again until it works correctly.  I would say I see this around 25% of the times I start DCS.

I have attached a log file, as this has just happened.  Spec in sig.

 

dcs.log

Edited October 23, 2023 by Hippo

[BIGNEWY]

from your log, it seems to stop here

2023-10-23 13:36:11.769 INFO    DXGUI_WIN_ADAPTER (Main): resize main window to [1128, 1160]
2023-10-23 13:36:11.893 INFO    EDCORE (Main): (dDispatcher)enterToState_:1
2023-10-23 13:38:40.644 INFO    DXGUI_WIN_ADAPTER (Main): resize main window to [1128, 1160]

What resolution are you running? 

 

[Hippo]

19 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

What resolution are you running? 

Thanks for responding so quickly.

Windows desktop resolution = 3840 x2160

Oculus App VR rendering resolution = 5408 x 2736 (1.3x) @ 72 Hz

Resolution in DCS config screen = 3440 x 1440 (this might seem strange, but I recently upgraded my monitor and didn't bother to change this - my old monitor res).

I've just tried again, after a black screen with the Oculus hourglass for a long time it did get to the main interface and was working correctly, so maybe I just needed to be more patient.  I don't think so though.  Normally it loads up pretty quickly and I don't get this (or similar) issues.

Here's the log for this time.

dcs.log

Edited October 23, 2023 by Hippo

[BIGNEWY]

Yes be patient, especially on first load as shaders are being created

RAM: 32603 MB, Pagefile: 9216 MB

try increasing your pagefile if you have room to 32603 MB
 

[Hippo]

And yet another log, where the game loaded up correctly - and quickly.  Also please note that it has sometimes loaded into the main interface normally and then I get the hourglass making the game unusable - although I don't think I've seen this with 2.9 (so far).  Responded before your I saw your response above.  Will try the above.

When you say "first load" is this after a version update?  Or following a reboot?

dcs.log

Edited October 23, 2023 by Hippo

[Hippo]

Having a bit of a nightmare with this atm, where I have now had the system stall in the main interface, and whilst waiting for a mission to load.  In each case it was taking so long that I had to kill the process.  It looks like one of the cores is being hammered at 100% by the dcs process, notice how it's hopping back and forth between cores 9 and 10.

Also attaching a log.dcs.log

[Ramstein]

I get the same issue... driving me crazy, my computer is no slouch (weak link in Nvidia 2080-TI) Hourglass issue really sucks!

[sze5003]

I have seen the same thing happen. With e cores disabled instead of CPU #8 and 10 and being hammered at 100% it's two other cores.

Eventually if it does freeze I go into task manager and select affinity and uncheck CPU #8 and then it unfreezes. Im on a 13900k and 4090.

[Lee Dove]

I think your problem is related to the Oculus app amd MT.  I had no problems with the Occulus app in ST but endless issues in MT and had to reduce quality right down to get it to work.

I have just installed Virtual Desktop and run wireless which with airlink was rubbish but works great. I have decided that the Occulus App when run with DCS MT overloads the CPU rendering thread.

[Ramstein]

I have installed a bat file which shuts down the oculus background b.s.. and seems to help. I shut it down when starting my sims in vr. and re-enable it when I am finished. the oculus tray tool helps too. But, the damned hourglass comes back if I change settings in graphics in DCS. I cannot pinpoint the root of this.  it  does not show up in task manager, so I cannot pinpoint what drags it down. If I didn't have a home to put money in, I would just toss my video card for a new one.

[S D]

On 11/14/2023 at 12:45 PM, Lee Dove said:

I think your problem is related to the Oculus app amd MT.  I had no problems with the Occulus app in ST but endless issues in MT and had to reduce quality right down to get it to work.

I have just installed Virtual Desktop and run wireless which with airlink was rubbish but works great. I have decided that the Occulus App when run with DCS MT overloads the CPU rendering thread.

Lee, have you experienced issues with Virtual Desktop since the pre Xmas update?  I had the same as you, constant issues using Oculus App and Meta Link (Official Cable).  Switched to VD and it was great, but since the last updates either to the game or there was one to VD, I have been getting aweful latentency/stutters using VD aswell now.

[Lee Dove]

20 hours ago, S D said:

Lee, have you experienced issues with Virtual Desktop since the pre Xmas update?  I had the same as you, constant issues using Oculus App and Meta Link (Official Cable).  Switched to VD and it was great, but since the last updates either to the game or there was one to VD, I have been getting aweful latentency/stutters using VD aswell now.

No, everything works as before.  

[S D]

Turns out I just needed a router reboot ,  still hard to believe VD is so much more stable than using Link. 

[Hippo]

Back in October when I first posted about this, I tried using Virtual Desktop instead of Oculus and at the time it seemed as if VD didn't have the issue.  Because of <reasons> I shortly afterwards took a break from DCS, until now.

I've been using the Apache with VD for over a week, and I'm now getting a very similar issue again.  Start up DCS and (around 75% of the time) the PC will lock up, in DCS I will either see a black screen, or when I get to the main menu pauses that last 1-2 seconds during which the PC is unresponsive.  As suggested above (thanks to all replies) I can eventually get back control by alt-tabbing out and turning off affinity for core 9 (first core = core 0) in task manager.  The issue only appears to manifest in the interface screens (never in cockpit)

Sorry to sound like a bit of a git, but this is really an extremely frustrating issue, which I'm rather surprised isn't affecting more people.  I'm as sure as I can be it's not my PC, I don't get issues with any other games or software, just DCS.

Looking at the replies on here, it seems that all who have also seen the issue seem to have i9-13900k CPUs.  Have DCS testers checked if they can duplicate this issue with this CPU?  It seems to me that all is not quite right with multithreaded DCS.