Intel hybrid CPU Getting stutter? Please try this in multithreading DCS

[II.JG1_Vonrd]

A quick check showed all cores utilized pretty much equally. Ryzen 5 7600X. On 2D. I'll check VR when I have the chance.

[Toddieie]

So....I tried the File.....it ONLY Slowed my Play IN GAME.....Reduced the Frame Rates.....  and .....I tried 3 different Terrains... and....2 different times of the day.

4YA Syria US Beta - First time period 7-9 People on with me.  For 40 minutes.... Air to Air.... Hard to Lock Targets....AI  missles locked and held me...Slaughtered Me !  But....less Stuttering and Jumping.

4YA Caucasus US Beta - 20-30 People 2 Times I played.....Air To Air.... Hard to Lock Targets.....Stuttering and Jumping seemed less... But ...again....AI....Slaughtered Me.

Everything else....F-10....F-6....F-10.....All same.  Normal - Sometimes Stuttering or hang up.  Also, Hotas switches....sometimes don't register....takes several harrowing moments to get them to register.  This IS NORMAL for game play since 2.9 Beta

Core I-9 12900K Overclocked 5.3Gh custom core range 54 52 52 51 54 51 52 52 ecores 50  No  Throttle  ...64GB Ram 5400....Asus RTX 3080 Ti...Pimax 8kx...All up to date Drivers.

Verdict ??  Did NOT Help.

[SkateZilla]

9 hours ago, Lurker said:

This should NOT be the case. The thread scheduler for Windows 11 exists and should fully work in Windows 10 as well. In fact this was patched in by Microsoft soon after the 12th gen Intel CPUs were released. 

Windows 10 Scheduler does not recognize the differences in E/P Cores, that was part of Windows 11 and used to push people to Windows 11,
If you have a Intel CPU with P and E Cores, Windows 10 will treat them both the same.

[Eder Nucci]

Way better on my low clock cpu. Using harrier on caucasus at batumi, same config without the script, 45~50 fps. With the script, 60 fps almost all the time.

Not seeing any spike anymore.

(edit)

After 4+ hours of multiplayer gaming, got the same experience. No spikes and no lag at all. Tested with AV8B, F16 and Mi-8, all with good results.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Eder Nucci

[MadKreator]

I will start this by saying I'm on 2d , 5120x2520 ( includes Helios screen). I managed to get rid of any small microstutters previous to this by enabling g-sync on top of v-sync that I always run.

-Both tests were F-16, Instant Action-Free Fight, Caucuses. MT

-Helios not running, all graphics pretty much maxed, DLSS on

-Win 11, HAGS disabled, i7-13700k no OC, 64gigs DDR5 @6400 XMP active, RTX 4080

-Both screenshots roughly 1 minute into the flight banking right and diving from starting altutude over buildings, just after heading into the sun.

Took a couple screen shots of the resource monitor with the file added and without.

This means almost nothing to me but it may be in someones interest.

 

Without MT.Lua--looks like only a few cores are really working hard

With MT.lua added  looks like much better core usage, P and E

Edited November 15, 2023 by MadKreator

[sze5003]

I'm using 13900k, 32gb rams and a 4090. Terrain, textures and shadows high and visibility extreme. SSR on and terrain shadows flat.

I'm in VR with a quest pro super sample via oculus tray tool at 1.5.

With the lua file it was initially very smooth. The performance frame time graph and CPU graph looked fine with tiny stutters when ASW kicked in.

So I tried several instant action missions. The longer I stayed in DCS the worse it got with the stutter and eventually dcs would hang and I needed to go to processor lasso and uncheck CPU core #8 for it to unfreeze.

Although this would happen randomly too without the lua fix.

So in all no effect for me but I still see processor lasso is reporting dcs only using 2 cores to the max and usually one is ways at 100% until it eventually freezes the sim it seems.

[SloppyDog]

14 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Hi all, 

we have been looking into the stutter issue some users are seeing, as you may be aware unparking CPU cores has helped many but this is not a ideal solution for end users. 

Please try the lua file below and give us some feedback. 

mt.lua 58 B · 174 downloads

place in saved games\DCS\Config folder

this should unbind the render thread from the highest performing core. 

Based on the feedback we get we could make this default for some CPU's 

thank you

I don't know what kind of magic this is, but it seems to have worked in my system. An old i7 4700K CPU.

[RealDCSpilot]

Just a hint:
Process Lasso was very helpful for years tuning DCS performance on a 10th gen Intel CPU and Win10. When i switched to a 13900K and a 4090 on Win11 it became the opposite, Process Lasso was the culprit for horrible stuttering. So i completely removed it and i'm enjoying smooth performance since i did that. Consider taking it out of the equation when testing the mt.lua.
The only thing i have running is unparked cores.
The mt.lua made no difference, everything runs fine.
All in VR, DCS mt exe, OpenXR, VDXR.

Edited November 15, 2023 by RealDCSpilot

[BIGNEWY]

Good morning from me, thank you for the feedback, we will continue to gather as much as we can to feedback to the team. 

OS may be a factor here, as windows 11 seems to handle it better than 10. 

So far it seems it either helps or makes no change, which I will take as a positive for now. 

 

[Lurker]

9 hours ago, SkateZilla said:

Windows 10 Scheduler does not recognize the differences in E/P Cores, that was part of Windows 11 and used to push people to Windows 11,
If you have a Intel CPU with P and E Cores, Windows 10 will treat them both the same.

Can you please provide some evidence for this? This used to be the case over a year ago but this should have been patched by Microsoft, and I have been unable to find any benchmarks or evidence that this is still true. 

Edited November 15, 2023 by Lurker

[YoYo]

After yesterday's tests (but I'm not writing yet whether the "lua fix" is good or not), let's say 8 DCS runs:

1/ I see the CPU parked still during gaming,
2/ during the game (already in the 3D environment) it was always ok (100% usability, no issues),
3/ 3x I had significant FPS drops (by 2/3 or 1/2 even) at the menu level, interestingly enough, in the game itself (3D) everything was fine, but when I opened the map (F10) or returned to the menu, there were significant FPS drops and noticeable stutter but at a much lower level than it used to be (now you could use the menu, but before you couldn't)

13900K, Windows 10.

The impression at the moment is better, but it doesnt solve all the problems. More information after a few days when I play longer.

[sze5003]

Just a hint:
Process Lasso was very helpful for years tuning DCS performance on a 10th gen Intel CPU and Win10. When i switched to a 13900K and a 4090 on Win11 it became the opposite, Process Lasso was the culprit for horrible stuttering. So i completely removed it and i'm enjoying smooth performance since i did that. Consider taking it out of the equation when testing the mt.lua.
The only thing i have running is unparked cores.
The mt.lua made no difference, everything runs fine.
All in VR, DCS mt exe, OpenXR, VDXR.

That's good to know, although in my case I'm still on windows 10 and I only ever had it running to investigate what was happening to the cores in DCS when it stutters and then would eventually freeze, which would happen before the application was even installed.

[SMH]

Tried it, hard to say for sure but it definitely still stuttered either way.

Then tried ST and it was perfectly smooth. PLEASE don't abandon the ST version until this is worked out!

i5-7500, Win 10.
 

[SkateZilla]

5 hours ago, Lurker said:

Can you please provide some evidence for this? This used to be the case over a year ago but this should have been patched by Microsoft, and I have been unable to find any benchmarks or evidence that this is still true. 

 

Windows 10's Scheduler was never patched for e-cores, and never will.
Windows 10 is out of Mainstream Support, it's done, only security updates now.

Windows 11's Scheduler was written knowing e-cores were coming, to work with Intel's Thread Director.

Directly from Intel's Site:
 

The optimization between the processor and Windows Task Scheduler relies on Intel® Thread Director technology. Intel's Thread Director is a microcontroller built in each Alder Lake processor  (12th Generation Intel Core processors ) that is optimized for Windows 11 Task Scheduler to decide which thread goes where (P-core or E-core). Thread director also works with Windows 10 Scheduler, but it is not optimized for it. In summary, for optimal performance for 12th Gen processors, you should go with Windows 11.

 

[darkman222]

What youre saying is that DCS should run better on W11 then? Running W11 myself currently, I am asking because I have no comparison.

[Lurker]

33 minutes ago, SkateZilla said:

Windows 10's Scheduler was never patched for e-cores, and never will.
Windows 10 is out of Mainstream Support, it's done, only security updates now.

Windows 11's Scheduler was written knowing e-cores were coming, to work with Intel's Thread Director.

Directly from Intel's Site:
 

The optimization between the processor and Windows Task Scheduler relies on Intel® Thread Director technology. Intel's Thread Director is a microcontroller built in each Alder Lake processor  (12th Generation Intel Core processors ) that is optimized for Windows 11 Task Scheduler to decide which thread goes where (P-core or E-core). Thread director also works with Windows 10 Scheduler, but it is not optimized for it. In summary, for optimal performance for 12th Gen processors, you should go with Windows 11.

 

I've found that little blurb on Intel's site, but all the benchmarks I've seen of numerous games\multithreaded in Win10 vs Win11 have been within the margin of error. 

Not sure how that could be true if Intel\Microsoft did such a poor job on the the Win10 task scheduler. Sorry if Im being a pain about this, but if this is indeed true I will gladly upgrade to Win11 TODAY, but I would really appreciate some real world evidence beforehand. 

Edited November 15, 2023 by Lurker

[Hiob]

21 minutes ago, darkman222 said:

What youre saying is that DCS should run better on W11 then? Running W11 myself currently, I am asking because I have no comparison.

Well, a certain kind of problem may be more prevalent on W10. I wouldn't go so far to say DCS runs better on W11 no matter what. When I switched from W10 to W11 there was no noticable difference regarding DCS - at all. And now I have "some" issues (may or may not be related to this topic) from time to time, while running W11. (but I'm on Ryzen - so all cores are equal  ...and equally discriminated by windows... )

Edited November 15, 2023 by Hiob

[YoYo]

By the way, did someone here do a free update from Windows 10 to 11 without installing a new system from scratch? Was it safe? Then DCS and other programs worked ok again?

[Hiob]

17 minutes ago, YoYo said:

By the way, did someone here do a free update from Windows 10 to 11 without installing a new system from scratch? Was it safe? Then DCS and other programs worked ok again?

Is your W10-Licence connected with a Microsoft-Account? Then you can just download the W11-Installer (via the Media Creation Tool) and do a fresh install from scratch if you so desire. Otherwise you can do an update. Backups of your important files are mandatory of course! (I'm not accountable! )

You may want to set a system restore point before the update. Just in case.

Edit: Too answer your question a little bit more precisely. The update from W10 to W11 went without issues and I have yet to find a programm that doesn't run. (which is no wonder because W11 is just a fancy name for a W10-update, which it still is in its core. Even the build number is still W10....so)

Edited November 15, 2023 by Hiob

[Gripen 4-1]

Absolutely no joy for me! Added the lua file, stuttering increased massively, also lower framrate than before. 

[Hiob]

4 minutes ago, Gripen 4-1 said:

Absolutely no joy for me! Added the lua file, stuttering increased massively, also lower framrate than before. 

W10 or W11? You have a similar hardware as I do, but I didn't experience a negative impact (or a positive for that matter)

[slughead]

On the plus side, I am not seeing the "big" pauses that I did without unparking cores or disabling core 8. I believe this "fix" was intended to address the big ones, not the microstutters.

On the negative side, I am seeing lower fps. Initially, in Caucuses I was seeing judder in turns which reminded me of VR without reprojection enabled and missing frame targets. Everything would be in double vision. The whole image. I only saw that on the first flight. Subsequent flights I haven't seen it but fps is lower.

So for me, I wouldn't prefer that this becomes a default change unless the team can resolve any performance loss.

I will continue testing and report any changes in my observations.

[Gripen 4-1]

24 minutes ago, Hiob said:

W10 or W11? You have a similar hardware as I do, but I didn't experience a negative impact (or a positive for that matter)

W10

@BIGNEWY in my opinion there is a problem with hyperthreading (SMT on AMD)

• the file made it worse for me with SMT disabled in uefi
• as soon as I remove the file it is smooth again - 5900X without SMT so only the 12 physical cores
• as soon as I activate SMT in uefi the OB MT starts stuttering for me 5900X 24 threads
• tested now with 24 threads with the lua file, also hardcore stuttering

 

I think you have a problem with the "non physical cores" / SMT /Hyperthreading!

Please consider to take a closer look at this. As soon as I disable my non physical cores (disable SMT/Hyperthreading in UEFI) DCS is nearly smooth for me

Edited November 15, 2023 by Gripen 4-1

[speed-of-heat]

Hi All

Windows 11 , 12700k, and 1) it treats my e-cores as available for this game to use and will use all four of them in preference to my p-cores (it still uses two of the p-cores as well)... 2) the mt.lua did not reduce the impact of the stutters i was receiving  and increased the overall frame times 

 

 

[Lurker]

7 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

Hi All

Windows 11 , 12700k, and 1) it treats my e-cores as available for this game to use and will use all four of them in preference to my p-cores (it still uses two of the p-cores as well)

Lol....so much for the famed Win11 task scheduler