MICRO STUTTERING DCS 2.9

[The_Nephilim]

can you try a clean boot to see if that helps maybe a program is interfering with DCS? Also do you have any mods or scripts you run?

[lovethewayoumove]

En 25/12/2023 a las 6:17, The_Nephilim dijo:

can you try a clean boot to see if that helps maybe a program is interfering with DCS? Also do you have any mods or scripts you run?

Hi, and merry XMAS to all.

I've tried also a clean and fresh installation of DCS, I've also removed all the mods from DCS open beta and the only script that I've had installed is voice attack and VAICOM that was perfectly working for me till the release of 2.9.

I've also updated windows from 10 to 11. Again no changes.

I've made several changes and attempts with core affinity as it seems for a lot of people it's working, but it's strange I don't see any minimal change on stuttering. 

What I noticed is what you can see on the attached video. With DCS loaded and running, on main menu, there are FPS drops as soon as you move the mouse. I don't know if could it be related or not, just trying to bring as much information as possible to ED to try to find a solution. Please @BIGNEWY just in case could it help. I don't know if my mouse (which is a wireless one, could be affecting in any way?) BTW I've also verified that on my device manager the USB energy administration is not set to allow computer to put on energy saving.

Anyway thanks to all and @The_Nephilim for your tips, if you have more ideas I will appreciate and continue testing. 

 

[Insonia]

those periodic pattern likely to be issue at system level.

Moving cursor introduce lag?
Try reduce Mouse's USB polling rate.

 

[lovethewayoumove]

hace 4 horas, Insonia dijo:

those periodic pattern likely to be issue at system level.

Moving cursor introduce lag?
Try reduce Mouse's USB polling rate.

 

Ok, nice to know. What kind of system level are you thinking about? Any idea where to I start working with?

I'll give a look at mouse usb pooling rate as well. Not done for now.

Thanks!!

[Insonia]

1 hour ago, lovethewayoumove said:

Ok, nice to know. What kind of system level are you thinking about? Any idea where to I start working with?

It's very difficult for non-professional to do those performance analyses..

Spoiler

 Windows Performance Toolkit | Microsoft Learn

 

Try establishing your performance degradation or spikes with any process and hardware usage.

Try xperf tracing those processes and try find out which module, drivers or APIs.. that has unusual lag and delays.

for example:

Malformed USB sound card/DAC causes stuttering, including DCS, utilize WPA trace down to the root : c++ - DirectInput8 EnumDevices sometimes painfully slow - Stack Overflow

But it is unfixable, avoid those hardwares.. no other way around

 

Dashost.exe and network discovery function with weird home smart devices creates unusual freeze and Spikes, narrow down via WIreshark capture the net traffic: 

RTX 3090 stutter and bizarre fix (DASHOST.exe, android TV) | TechPowerUp Forums

If there is something to do within Rendering and graphics drivers, GPUview is also quite handy.

With something like Windows ADK , API monitor, netmon etc.. and some knowledge and experience about the windows programing, you may eventually narrow down and pinpoint the issue.

let be honest. it not worth the efforts if you do not familar with those. It's easier just fresh install windows, not upgrade/downgrade, fresh install. unplug as many non-essential hardware as possible, avoid installing additional software, and experiment with different driver versions until the problems are resolved. then slowly reinstall your remaining hardware and software. if issue resurfaces, then you may at least know which one caused this.

 

Edited December 26, 2023 by Insonia

[lovethewayoumove]

hace 6 horas, Insonia dijo:

It's very difficult for non-professional to do those performance analyses..

  Revelar contenido oculto

 Windows Performance Toolkit | Microsoft Learn

 

Try establishing your performance degradation or spikes with any process and hardware usage.

Try xperf tracing those processes and try find out which module, drivers or APIs.. that has unusual lag and delays.

for example:

Malformed USB sound card/DAC causes stuttering, including DCS, utilize WPA trace down to the root : c++ - DirectInput8 EnumDevices sometimes painfully slow - Stack Overflow

But it is unfixable, avoid those hardwares.. no other way around

 

Dashost.exe and network discovery function with weird home smart devices creates unusual freeze and Spikes, narrow down via WIreshark capture the net traffic: 

RTX 3090 stutter and bizarre fix (DASHOST.exe, android TV) | TechPowerUp Forums

If there is something to do within Rendering and graphics drivers, GPUview is also quite handy.

With something like Windows ADK , API monitor, netmon etc.. and some knowledge and experience about the windows programing, you may eventually narrow down and pinpoint the issue.

let be honest. it not worth the efforts if you do not familar with those. It's easier just fresh install windows, not upgrade/downgrade, fresh install. unplug as many non-essential hardware as possible, avoid installing additional software, and experiment with different driver versions until the problems are resolved. then slowly reinstall your remaining hardware and software. if issue resurfaces, then you may at least know which one caused this.

 

 

Hi,

Thanks for your answer 

I'm working right now again in a fresh clean install of windows 11.

After that I'll do what you suggest.

I'll let you know

Thanks again

[The_Nephilim]

yes wierd when you move your mouse it causes the stutter in game and that was on the main menu?? You say it did not happen before 2.9?

I do not think it is the poll rating more less it is probally induced latency caused by the wireless mouse.. you get bad stutters ingame as well as the main menu?

 

Do you have a wired mouse anyone will work as long as it is wired for a test. unplug the wireless mouse dongle and plug in the wired mouse turn on the PC and see if the mouse still makes a stutter in the main menu like the wireless onedid. 

Edited December 27, 2023 by The_Nephilim

[Zimmerdylan]

OK guys......I think that I found a 90% solution for my particular stuttering problem. Please keep in mind that this may not and in all probability will not work for everyone.

 Last year I had to order a new Track IR. I ordered what I thought was a Natural Point system as it was advertised as such and the Ebay post showed the plastic bubble pack Track IR system. When it arrived it was in one of those little white boxes, not the bubble packaging. I knew that I had been the victim of a bait and switch. These guys were selling the cheapo Chinese knockoffs as natural point head tracking.  I got a full refund on the tracking system from Ebay and did not have to return the product. So....I used it instead. Well......Last week it up and completely died on me. This time I ordered the real deal. It came this morning. I hooked it up to my rig, fired up DCS, the micro stuttering has completely stopped. But....I also had been dealing with issues with 2-3 second stutters every minute or so. It still happens but not nearly as much. It has been cut in half now. So there are longer stutters still, but not nearly as severe as they were and not nearly as frequent. I can't tell you why or how. I can only tell you what I'm experiencing. 

 So if you are using head tracking and it's an El-cheapo or home made one (I have used those too) it may be part of the problem. This tells me that there is something to the idea that ED is having issues with Track IR. The cheapo setup worked well with all other flight sims until it completely died last week. With DCS, I had everything turned down to low res. and still had the stutters. With the new Natural Point hardware, I have my DCS settings back up to mid and high and the stuttering is pretty minimal now. 

 I still believe that this issue is partly due to something E.D. is or isn't doing, but if you have the better head tracking stuff, it seems to make a difference. It did for me. 

                        Food for thought guys. 

Edited December 27, 2023 by Zimmerdylan

[Gorn_GER]

On 12/22/2023 at 11:14 AM, lovethewayoumove said:

Ok, so I'm seriously thinking about to park my DCS for a time and see if ED can find a solution, I'm getting super tired and frustrated, and with no more ideas and things to test in order to be able to play comfortably.

Hundreds of euros invested for this!! very Nice.

 

two of my friends have similar problems but with worse computer hardware (but everything worked fine with 2.8.XX and we played alot). 

At the moment it is unplayable for them and they frustrated as they are stoped playing the game what was a big pushback for myself (because i do not like to fly without friends) I have a whole homade flightchair with VR and upgraded my GPU to 4090 just to get buttersmooth VR Gameplay just in DCS (all other games do not care if i have 4090 or way lower) and now i have to play alone and that makes everything lonely and frustrating. 

Therefor I am looking things up in the Forum since 2.9 release and all the suggestions require deep changes in Windows processes while playing without hope to help. We all are not interested in trying many workarounds that may, may-not work and it is annoying to install software that i do not know and that dos things that I cannot control in hope the Hardware wont brake. 

I always had the impression, that EDs developer work very hard on problems to fix them ASAP. 

Since this problem came from 2.9 update, in my opinion this has to be fixed by ED instead of 3rd party software or deleting Windows processes. A game just works when you can play it after installing without further changes in Windows. 

>1 sec shuttering with specs like i7-11700KF and RTX4060TI are not okay for a game that age. 

At the moment I am missing the part where ED tells people in the news that there are some unknown shuttering issues where the devs are working on. I think there are people out there wondering if they are the only ones experience this issue. @BIGNEWY maybe you could announce on your Website if the Devs are working on that or not. 

[rob10]

2 hours ago, Gorn_GER said:

At the moment I am missing the part where ED tells people in the news that there are some unknown shuttering issues where the devs are working on. I think there are people out there wondering if they are the only ones experience this issue. @BIGNEWY maybe you could announce on your Website if the Devs are working on that or not. 

Something like this?

 

[Gorn_GER]

9 hours ago, rob10 said:

Something like this?

 

No, not like this. Casual players are not interested to search the whole Forum to suddenly find a thread that is some kind of official by ED. The Thead is from 14.November? I just found out today and I am normally browsing in this forum from time to time. 
 

what I mean is the website Newsletter or the beta changelogs that everyone gets automatically in every discord server that has a DCS topic. 
 

people that gave up to fix the problem with unsafe methods lost interest in forum threads and wait for solution, mentioned in changelogs. 
 

with the last open beta patch, my friend just told me “hmm, no performance bug fix in that changelog? I not even try that new version then. I have other things to do.”

Edited December 28, 2023 by Gorn_GER

[TKNARMZ]

I didn't read everything but this happened to me a long time ago.  When I started playing DCS about 4-5 years ago it ran smooth.  Perfectly smooth.  A few months passed and all the sudden I had the exact same stuttering you're experiencing.  The only way I fixed it was by completely deleting it and reinstalling it on another drive and it worked flawlessly.  If you have not tried that, I would do that first.  Save all your missions you've created, anything else you want to keep.  Just don't add them at first when you do a clean install.  Make sure DCS runs smooth, then add them.  Hope you figure this out.  I have had DCS get corrupted before when the updates hit.

[Zimmerdylan]

Ok, so I'm seriously thinking about to park my DCS for a time and see if ED can find a solution, I'm getting super tired and frustrated, and with no more ideas and things to test in order to be able to play comfortably.

Hundreds of euros invested for this!! very Nice. 

 

  This has been my relationship with E.D. for 15 years................

[Vigo68]

after last update - nothing changed... thx ED

 

[lovethewayoumove]

hace 59 minutos, Zimmerdylan dijo:

Ok, so I'm seriously thinking about to park my DCS for a time and see if ED can find a solution, I'm getting super tired and frustrated, and with no more ideas and things to test in order to be able to play comfortably.

Hundreds of euros invested for this!! very Nice. 

 

  This has been my relationship with E.D. for 15 years................

And still no divorce hahahaha nice. 

Let's take with a lot of patience then

[lovethewayoumove]

En 26/12/2023 a las 15:31, Insonia dijo:

It's very difficult for non-professional to do those performance analyses..

  Revelar contenido oculto

 Windows Performance Toolkit | Microsoft Learn

 

Try establishing your performance degradation or spikes with any process and hardware usage.

Try xperf tracing those processes and try find out which module, drivers or APIs.. that has unusual lag and delays.

for example:

Malformed USB sound card/DAC causes stuttering, including DCS, utilize WPA trace down to the root : c++ - DirectInput8 EnumDevices sometimes painfully slow - Stack Overflow

But it is unfixable, avoid those hardwares.. no other way around

 

Dashost.exe and network discovery function with weird home smart devices creates unusual freeze and Spikes, narrow down via WIreshark capture the net traffic: 

RTX 3090 stutter and bizarre fix (DASHOST.exe, android TV) | TechPowerUp Forums

If there is something to do within Rendering and graphics drivers, GPUview is also quite handy.

With something like Windows ADK , API monitor, netmon etc.. and some knowledge and experience about the windows programing, you may eventually narrow down and pinpoint the issue.

let be honest. it not worth the efforts if you do not familar with those. It's easier just fresh install windows, not upgrade/downgrade, fresh install. unplug as many non-essential hardware as possible, avoid installing additional software, and experiment with different driver versions until the problems are resolved. then slowly reinstall your remaining hardware and software. if issue resurfaces, then you may at least know which one caused this.

 

 

Hi guys, 

Sorry for late reply, had a lot of work to do.

So, after follow this advice, I've moved in to a clean install of windows, discovering some interesting things. I've realized that I've had strange partitions on my SSD NMVe disks due to a windows cloning from one disk to another one that I've made about year and a half ago. It's like the EFI partition of windows remained on the original disk where I've had installed windows, and the new windows location continued on the new disk were I want to place. So I know a big mess, which I was not aware of.

So for now, first impressions just after a clean and fresh installation of windows and clean installation also of DCS open beta (only, not stable any more for now), with all the disks rearranged and cleaned of any partitions unnecessary.

Some irregular but weak stutter, more weak and much more less constant than before of picks on my FPS line.

So for now I could say that my main problem, was solved, however the stutter it's still present. What I don't understand is why it' has worked pretty well before the release of 2.9 an not any more after. Hope that @BIGNEWY and the Ed team could find a solution soon. In fact I've marked your answer as a solution because it has made a very big difference for me, realizing that my system was not in the optimal conditions. 

I will keep making tests and reinstalling super slowly all my peripherals and hardware as like the software to see if is there is something else interfering.

I'll let you know. Anyway thanks a lot for the ideas and suggestions. Very great help.

 

 

[lovethewayoumove]

This is how is running now. Completely upgraded comparing with the first video.

Edited December 28, 2023 by lovethewayoumove

[The_Nephilim]

8 hours ago, lovethewayoumove said:

This is how is running now. Completely upgraded comparing with the first video.

 

Hey That still looks bad spiking.. are you running any mods and is it a single player mission? Maybe repost your log from that session there and maybe we can get some ideas.. When I play mostly on MP servers I get a minimal spike in the graph like that when activity is happening usually when some disconnects. 

[DrBob]

I've tried almost everything. A lot of the suggestions seem placebo. It usually starts butter smooth but after a while the "seizures" start. More pronounced in multiplayer and more with the hind less with the viper. I guess its a bug in the MT version. Sometimes it is lethal especially when you are on final gears locked .... I'm also on another thread here because it seems to be related more to switching to map F10 and back. But sometimes its random. 

[TOViper]

lovethewayoumove, Read your story, and something is weird obviously.
I will give you a few other tips which I would try out. You may follow them or not, your decision.

First:
.) Have you ever cleaned your FXO and METASHADERS folders? If not, remove all of them, and let them re-build. Be patient, during the first flights YOU WILL RECEIVE STUTTERS because of them being re-built. Make NVIDIA control panel have them enabled under "Shader cache size" and set to UNLIMITED size.
.) De-activate the Windows service "Power" at all.
.) In Windows, add a "Graphic setting" for DCS.exe (in the MT folder!!!) for "High performance" (note that the default would be "Let Windows decide").
.) In your computer BIOS, make sure you have C-STATES deactivated (if your bios/cpu) supports this option.
.) Make sure Core 0 has no affinity to DCS.exe.
.) Make your swap file be fixed in size (e.g. 32GB), on a very fast drive (best is not the same drive as the DCS installation)
.) Check your virus scanner and make an exception for ALL folders that could be linked with DCS (install dir, user dir, exports bla bla)

Then do the following (if it is not already solved!):
.) Try to match the monitor frequency of 60HZ with the situation in DCS:
   1. In the NVIDIA control panel you can then activate VERTICAL SYNC > OFF.
   2. Make DCS at least run at 80 fps; this means to LOWER YOUR SETTINGS until you hit ~80 fps.
   3. In the NVIDIA control panel you can then activate VERTICAL SYNC > ON, and you then should have a good headroom.
With that headroom, move up the quality settings in DCS slowly one by one and see what it does.

Edit: damnit, I missed one of your posts (https://forum.dcs.world/topic/340089-micro-stuttering-dcs-29/?do=findComment&comment=5355958) ... anyway, I will leave this here, just in case you (or I ... ) missed anything

 

 

Edited December 29, 2023 by TOViper

[hannibal]

Add:

HAGS OFF (hardware accelerated graphics settings) in windows

go to the DCS.exe -> properties -> compatibility -> Disable full screen optimizations (box is check off)  for bin and bin-mt folders

 

if your studdering is in VR and you are on meta quest devices, increase or decrease the bit rate via oculus debug tool (by default it is 250... max is 600 i think.. i set mine to 450 on a quest pro.. at max, i would have problems 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2023 by hannibal

[Zimmerdylan]

On 12/28/2023 at 10:52 AM, lovethewayoumove said:

And still no divorce hahahaha nice. 

Let's take with a lot of patience then

  LOL........We've been through many trial separations. I've cut her out of my will a few times. But I always come back because when it's good, it's really good. 

[lovethewayoumove]

En 29/12/2023 a las 2:10, The_Nephilim dijo:

Hey That still looks bad spiking.. are you running any mods and is it a single player mission? Maybe repost your log from that session there and maybe we can get some ideas.. When I play mostly on MP servers I get a minimal spike in the graph like that when activity is happening usually when some disconnects. 

Hi, and happy new year to all!!

Find here attached the log, let me know if you have any ideas.

dcs.log

[lovethewayoumove]

En 29/12/2023 a las 13:51, TOViper dijo:

lovethewayoumove, Read your story, and something is weird obviously.
I will give you a few other tips which I would try out. You may follow them or not, your decision.

First:
.) Have you ever cleaned your FXO and METASHADERS folders? If not, remove all of them, and let them re-build. Be patient, during the first flights YOU WILL RECEIVE STUTTERS because of them being re-built. Make NVIDIA control panel have them enabled under "Shader cache size" and set to UNLIMITED size.
.) De-activate the Windows service "Power" at all.
.) In Windows, add a "Graphic setting" for DCS.exe (in the MT folder!!!) for "High performance" (note that the default would be "Let Windows decide").
.) In your computer BIOS, make sure you have C-STATES deactivated (if your bios/cpu) supports this option.
.) Make sure Core 0 has no affinity to DCS.exe.
.) Make your swap file be fixed in size (e.g. 32GB), on a very fast drive (best is not the same drive as the DCS installation)
.) Check your virus scanner and make an exception for ALL folders that could be linked with DCS (install dir, user dir, exports bla bla)

Then do the following (if it is not already solved!):
.) Try to match the monitor frequency of 60HZ with the situation in DCS:
   1. In the NVIDIA control panel you can then activate VERTICAL SYNC > OFF.
   2. Make DCS at least run at 80 fps; this means to LOWER YOUR SETTINGS until you hit ~80 fps.
   3. In the NVIDIA control panel you can then activate VERTICAL SYNC > ON, and you then should have a good headroom.
With that headroom, move up the quality settings in DCS slowly one by one and see what it does.

Edit: damnit, I missed one of your posts (https://forum.dcs.world/topic/340089-micro-stuttering-dcs-29/?do=findComment&comment=5355958) ... anyway, I will leave this here, just in case you (or I ... ) missed anything

 

 

 

Hi, and thank you to answer and all the suggestions.

Yes I regularly clear all metashaders and fxo folders. 

Regarding the other suggestions I will try with calm those that I still haven't tried. 

 

Make your swap file be fixed in size (e.g. 32GB), on a very fast drive (best is not the same drive as the DCS installation)

In Windows, add a "Graphic setting" for DCS.exe (in the MT folder!!!) for "High performance" (note that the default would be "Let Windows decide").

Could you please however explain me a little bit more about those two? not sure exactly what are you talking about. 

 

Thanks anyway.

En 29/12/2023 a las 14:17, hannibal dijo:

Add:

HAGS OFF (hardware accelerated graphics settings) in windows

go to the DCS.exe -> properties -> compatibility -> Disable full screen optimizations (box is check off)  for bin and bin-mt folders

 

if your studdering is in VR and you are on meta quest devices, increase or decrease the bit rate via oculus debug tool (by default it is 250... max is 600 i think.. i set mine to 450 on a quest pro.. at max, i would have problems 

 

 

 

Done both of them!! 

And for now still haven't moved into VR.

Thanks also to you

[TOViper]

2 hours ago, lovethewayoumove said:

In Windows, add a "Graphic setting" for DCS.exe (in the MT folder!!!) for "High performance" (note that the default would be "Let Windows decide").

 

 

Virtual memory (I am using my M2 drive, since its VERY fast):

Edited January 1 by TOViper