- Awful stutter -

[Lixma 06]

18 hours ago, jcookeusa said:

I just wanted to add to this thread that your fix (turning off and then back on again Core 0 on the DCS.exe affinity) works perfectly for me.

Good news! Although I must say I never came up with this fix, I found it elsewhere.

12 hours ago, LOW_Hitman said:

This can't be an option for us as customers to manipulate affinity settings and disable or enable processer cores to make that game running as it should be. This core issues are well known for a long time so its up to ED to fix this.

Faffing around with the affinity every single flight is purgatory. If certain CPUs are now deemed obsolete as far as DCS is concerned then I'd like to know.

 

[AKULA_OPTIMUS]

Another thing that worked for me, besides de affinity thing, is to turn the civil traffic OFF. No stutters at all after that.

[LorneMalvo]

Hi,
I came here to post this bug still in the game.. as you guys just said.

I hope ED will hear us and fix it.

[Mork]

I'm Dutch, so in my best English,

While playing I suffered a lot off stutters.

So bad that it wasn't fun to play the game.

Various FPS and other settings were not successful.

Until I found out that all my 8P/8Ecores were running around 40-60% and PCUtemp at 60-70C. You can expect this from the Pcores, but not from the Ecores AND Pcores both.

DCS used all P/Ecores largely for itself, so the programs running in the background, do not get much "air" VR/HOTAS/Virus scanner etc..etc.

And W10 doesn't help here either. W11 maybe more.

Given the DCS specs, it's not necessary to run all 8P/8Ecores at the same time.

Starting DCS and disable the last 4Ecores during/before logging in, via Taskmanager-Details-DCS-RightMouseClick-Affinity. (you have to start somewhere).

And what do I see, DCS loads a little bit faster, and everything works smoothly without Stutter.

Ok... sometimes an occasional hiccup (TobiiEyeTracker??), but this is acceptable.

Turning off the DCS Ecores every time is a bit annoying for this grandpa.

You can install (yet)another program that does this for you 24/7.

After some googling I was able to change the DCS shortcut, and disable the last 4Ecores at startup.

But the command must be in Hex(adecimal).

If you have a 4P/4Ecore CPU, and you want to disable the last 4Ecores,

Then this is for 4Ecores 0000(e4)-1(p3)-1(p2)-1(p1)-1(p0), so 00001111(binary)=hex F.

In my case i7-13gen(8P/8E) disabling the last 4Ecores (“0”).

8*Ecore 0(CPU15)-0-0-0(CPU13)-1-1-1-1(CPU8), 8*Pcore 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1(CPU0),

is 0000111111111111=hex FFF, on the internet (https://bitsum.com/tools/cpu-affinity-calculator/) does the job for you.

 

Open your DCS shortcut,rightmouseclick,properties, and put the following in the target.

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start "DCS" /affinity FFF "G:\DCS World\bin-mt\DCS.exe"

In my case FFF and DCS is loaded from the G:drive.

While playing DCS you can check then the P/Ecores if it’s working in your taskmanager (see above).

 

Hopefully it works for you, at least it worked for me.

See you, Henri

[bigcountry]

I am also having a stuttering mess after returning after about a year. I9 12900, 2070 GPU, SSD, 64 Gs of Ram. Getting huge Frame spikes and stutters. Game is unplayable for me atm. Really weird cuz it was smooth as silk for me in the past. Only hardware change was a new CPU. I even messed with graphics settings at lowest and went down to 1080p and still stutters very bad

Edited June 22, 2024 by bigcountry

[sMashPiranha]

3 hours ago, bigcountry said:

I am also having a stuttering mess after returning after about a year. I9 12900, 2070 GPU, SSD, 64 Gs of Ram. Getting huge Frame spikes and stutters. Game is unplayable for me atm. Really weird cuz it was smooth as silk for me in the past. Only hardware change was a new CPU. I even messed with graphics settings at lowest and went down to 1080p and still stutters very bad

 

Does the single thread exe run ok for you?  It's the only way I can play at the moment.

[Rene Coulon]

On 5/29/2024 at 3:31 PM, AKULA_OPTIMUS said:

Another thing that worked for me, besides de affinity thing, is to turn the civil traffic OFF. No stutters at all after that.

civil traffic especially on the Normandy map creates Massive stutters for me

13 hours ago, bigcountry said:

I am also having a stuttering mess after returning after about a year. I9 12900, 2070 GPU, SSD, 64 Gs of Ram. Getting huge Frame spikes and stutters. Game is unplayable for me atm. Really weird cuz it was smooth as silk for me in the past. Only hardware change was a new CPU. I even messed with graphics settings at lowest and went down to 1080p and still stutters very bad

 

Try turning of civil traffic

[SAM77]

On 2/24/2024 at 2:18 AM, AKULA_OPTIMUS said:

The terrible stuttering still there forme since 2.9. It always puts one CPU core to the max, 100% , while the rest have irregular performance.

The only way to solve it, is to turn OFF the affinity of one core with the task manager (I have 4), then turn it ON again, then all cores stabilize at smooth 90% and the game runs mostly great. But you have to perform this EVERY time you get into an aircraft.  

Just wanted to report that after the latest patch I no longer have to do the affinity trick every time I get in the aircraft. I just have to do it once per aircraft type. For multiplayer it's different. I only have to do it once upon entering server. I don't need to do it again even if I change to a different aircraft on the server.

Edited August 14, 2024 by SAM77

[Lixma 06]

Still goosed - still need to do the affinity hack every flight.

Can any dev weigh in on this?

[Jenson]

yes, this issue still there, can't get a steady fps. 

[TKNARMZ]

I updated my Nvidia drivers and now I get Micro stutters every 30 seconds.  Im still testing.  Tomorrow I will uninstall Nvidia drivers and install an older version.  If that doesn't work, I guess it's time to reinstall DCS for the 10th time.  No other flight sims have cause this many issues.  It does get frustrating.  I shouldn't have updated anything, but I was two to three updates behind.  

[MAXsenna]

25 minutes ago, TKNARMZ said:

I updated my Nvidia drivers and now I get Micro stutters every 30 seconds.  Im still testing.  Tomorrow I will uninstall Nvidia drivers and install an older version.  If that doesn't work, I guess it's time to reinstall DCS for the 10th time.  No other flight sims have cause this many issues.  It does get frustrating.  I shouldn't have updated anything, but I was two to three updates behind.  

Re-installation of DCS is a waste of time and won't help you one bit that a repair will not do. A full slow repair sets DCS back to plain vanilla installation. Have you tried to rename the DCS folder in Saved Games? A repair won't touch that one. But if you rename the DCS folder and perform a full slow repair, DCS will be as the first time you started it. 

Cheers! 

[PLUTON]

Personally I have more than stuttering because DCS freezes between 1 1 and 3/4 seconds regularly (about every 2 minutes)
so I installed a driver from at least 6 months ago and I reduced my problem to 70% But there is still work to do for DCS to become fluid again.
Of course I am not talking about being on a server, I only fly solo and my problem is visible on all MAPS and this for 1 or 2 months

[maks]

Dear all,

having the same issue but i noticed it happenes after windows security update to 24h3 ! Before dcs was running smooth! Now i have the same stutters but fps counter stays at 60 all the time ! Tried to uninstall 24h3 but cannot any longer! So sad! Maybe ed has a solution? 
 

brgds Maks

[Panzerlang]

Same issue here. It previously ran smooth as silk on very high settings, now on the stock VR setting it still has micro-jerking at low level (ground, trees, buildings etc). I've spent the last three hours going through everything I could find on the internet. Already had Process Lasso going. Mouse polling-rate to 500hz. DCS and Saved Games excluded from Windows Defender. Windows Power Service disabled. Crystal Render Rate set to lowest (DCS PD at 1.5).

13900k, 4090, 64GB RAM, game on separate SSD.
 

[maks]

You also updated the new sec windows 24h3?

[Papamiraculi]

vor 10 Stunden schrieb Panzerlang:

Same issue here. It previously ran smooth as silk on very high settings, now on the stock VR setting it still has micro-jerking at low level (ground, trees, buildings etc). I've spent the last three hours going through everything I could find on the internet. Already had Process Lasso going. Mouse polling-rate to 500hz. DCS and Saved Games excluded from Windows Defender. Windows Power Service disabled. Crystal Render Rate set to lowest (DCS PD at 1.5).

13900k, 4090, 64GB RAM, game on separate SSD.
 

Same. Microstutters after last patch. Ryzen 7800x3d 4090 64GB 6000, separate NVME.

[Panzerlang]

Hours...HOURS! 13900k, 4090, 64GB RAM, game on SSD (not C drive).

In-game graphics settings make zero difference. Ditto resolution. Both, max or minimum, same stutter jerking. Quadviews makes a difference but it's not the fundamental issue. Other things tested:

Windows Defender, DCS and Saved Games excluded. No difference.
Windows Power Service disabled. No difference.
Mouse Polling Rate set to 500hz. No difference.
Combos of resolution set in the headset or in the game. No difference.
72hz Refresh Rate. Image high-frequency flicker, no difference otherwise.
Smoothing on (Pimax Crystal). Stutter worse.
NVidia CP, pre-rendered frames. 4 = more stutter, 1 is best.
Hyperthreading disabled (Process Lasso). No difference.
Quadviews Turbo Off. No difference.
All E-Cores off (Process Lasso). No difference.

Then I started messing with the P-Cores. Fortunately this can be done while the game is running. Pause game, alt-tab to Process Lasso, change settings. 

DCS seems to have a thing for the number of P-Cores. With only two enabled, lots of stutter. With four enabled, the least amount of stutter so far. ALMOST smooth. Up it to six and eight cores, the stutter becomes worse. Four active P-Cores seems to be as good as it gets and you really have to fly low and look sideways and concentrate to see the trees infrequently stutter. I'm almost sure that the stutter becomes constantly timed too, like one micro-jerk per two seconds but it's not reliably reproducible.

My conclusion is that DCS MT has issues with the number of P-Cores it uses. Fking around with that sht absolutely affects the graphical performance.

FWIW.

Oh, the first and last P-Cores, disabling individually and together, no difference.

[sleighzy]

On 6/23/2024 at 9:40 AM, sMashPiranha said:

Does the single thread exe run ok for you?  It's the only way I can play at the moment.

You on an old version? Single threaded was removed a couple of patches ago, both exes are identical and DCS is multi-threaded only.

[Sparviero1978]

Il 7/12/2024 at 02:44, Panzerlang ha scritto:

Hours...HOURS! 13900k, 4090, 64GB RAM, game on SSD (not C drive).

In-game graphics settings make zero difference. Ditto resolution. Both, max or minimum, same stutter jerking. Quadviews makes a difference but it's not the fundamental issue. Other things tested:

Windows Defender, DCS and Saved Games excluded. No difference.
Windows Power Service disabled. No difference.
Mouse Polling Rate set to 500hz. No difference.
Combos of resolution set in the headset or in the game. No difference.
72hz Refresh Rate. Image high-frequency flicker, no difference otherwise.
Smoothing on (Pimax Crystal). Stutter worse.
NVidia CP, pre-rendered frames. 4 = more stutter, 1 is best.
Hyperthreading disabled (Process Lasso). No difference.
Quadviews Turbo Off. No difference.
All E-Cores off (Process Lasso). No difference.

Then I started messing with the P-Cores. Fortunately this can be done while the game is running. Pause game, alt-tab to Process Lasso, change settings. 

DCS seems to have a thing for the number of P-Cores. With only two enabled, lots of stutter. With four enabled, the least amount of stutter so far. ALMOST smooth. Up it to six and eight cores, the stutter becomes worse. Four active P-Cores seems to be as good as it gets and you really have to fly low and look sideways and concentrate to see the trees infrequently stutter. I'm almost sure that the stutter becomes constantly timed too, like one micro-jerk per two seconds but it's not reliably reproducible.

My conclusion is that DCS MT has issues with the number of P-Cores it uses. Fking around with that sht absolutely affects the graphical performance.

FWIW.

Oh, the first and last P-Cores, disabling individually and together, no difference.

Try to fly the mission for a while, than restart: in my experience the massive drops strongly reduced. I know it is not a fix, but maybe, if it is common, it may help developer to understand the problem.

[Panzerlang]

10 hours ago, Sparviero1978 said:

Try to fly the mission for a while, than restart: in my experience the massive drops strongly reduced. I know it is not a fix, but maybe, if it is common, it may help developer to understand the problem.

I noticed that last night but I also messed with my RAM. Two sticks removed and with the latest BIOS update I finally have XMP working. Even over a big city (I flew for about 30 minutes) there was much less stutter. Trees seem to be the biggest culprit.

[Chaffee]

I've been away for awhile, so I'm wondering if anyone has experimented with un-parking cores to solve stuttering in DCS, e.g:
 

If this is a multithreading issue, I'd guess there's a decent chance turning your parked cores on permanently via the registry might solve the issue.

I haven't tried it, as I have other problems to solve right now, but I'd like to hear about it if anyone wants to give it a shot.

Edited December 11, 2024 by Chaffee

[rforce]

@Chaffee

hi i have heavy stutters sometimes with the F-18  (Kaukasus,Persian Gulf)

I testet it, but no improvement.

 

 

[waqarshk]

Dear @Panzerlang @Papamiraculi @Chafee. I and a friend are on same high end specs with Pimax Crystal. both have 4090 with 64gb DDR5 ram, DCS on seperate SSDs - only difference being I am on 14900K and he is on 9850X3d CPU. After a lot of trial and test, my issues are more or less solved with the following steps. (I will copy paste the actual settings when I am back from work). 

While I reverted to a fresh install of Windows 10 and ditched Win11. unparked the cores, and had a free install of DCS and a new saved games directory - I believe what worked was a new DCS saved games directory. try that one first - rename your current saved games folder, and let DCS make a new one. On top, tweaking the Quad view and PimaxXR helped as well. I am not doing the core toggle but i did see 3-4 going to 100% when i was facing stuttering. 

PD @ 1.5 is too high btw - see if lowering it helps. Increase the Foveated rendering to 130-140 to have a better view vs increasing PD. I am on DLAA while my friend is on MSAA 4x with PDs at 1.2 and 1.4 respectively.- both are stutter free now.. (btw my test scenario was standard i.e. F16 Cold start in Persian gulf, and see the stutter in the F15s taxing as well as flying by.)

[jackd]

On 5/30/2024 at 9:57 PM, Mork said:

Hopefully it works for you, at least it worked for me.

Lijkt goed te werken, aangepast voor mijn i9 14900k, dank voor de tip !