The game is getting stuck all the time, textures are slowly loading

[Silent Film]

After the latest three game updates, my game is getting stuck all the time, plus textures need some 15 minutes to load.

I got 30-40 FPS as usual, which was fine for me, but the game now keeps getting stuck like after each 30 seconds or so, it gets stuck for 3-5 seconds, and then it continues, then gets stuck again.

Also, when I change aircraft textures, they need 15 minutes to load completely. First they appear black, then low resolution texture parts are slowly loading, and then normal resolution textures are finally loaded after 15 minutes.

Also, textures on every map I use are loading very slowly.

Edited April 29, 2024 by Silent Film

[razo+r]

Are you running DCS on a SSD or HDD? 

[Silent Film]

13 hours ago, razo+r said:

Are you running DCS on a SSD or HDD? 

On another SSD separate from the Windows 10 SSD.

[Lange_666]

Pagefile settings ?

Also, you can remove the fxo & metashaders2 folders from your saved games DCS folder (after these are deleted, new ones will be created on next run which will take a bit of extra time on each map).

[AdrianL]

Check the health of your SSD. Tools like CrystalDiskInfo, etc can help with this. I had a friend with this issue and, in his case, his SSD health was bad and he had to replace it.

And if you are running an Anti-Virus tool, is DCS folder excluded?

Also ensure the GPU drivers are updated.

[okopanja]

It would help if you could provide:

- specification of your hardware

- screenshot your settings

- more information on which mode of play you use

 

[Silent Film]

AMD Athlon(tm) X4 845 Quad Core Processor 3.50 GHz 64-bit
16 GB RAM, 32 GB virtual memory
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050
Windows 10 Home 64-bit 22H2

This started happening after the latest three or so updates. But also at the same time I have installed Microsoft FSX on the same SSD, but I don't know how could that be causing such problems in DCS.

[SMH]

Me too.

What really gets me is staring at a blank, black screen for entire whole minutes after I exit the sim. LOL! 

Doesn't happen every time. Nor are the stutters and texture loading consistent. Only in MT, ST still performs well.

Oh, I also hate the loading of a low res texture before the high res one. (And even the ST version does this since the last update.) It just takes more time and looks really bad. I'd rather see nothing (or even a black object) before the appropriately sized textures loads for the apparent screen size of the given object.

Edited April 30, 2024 by SMH

[okopanja]

I gather the Max FPS is capping you at 40 FPS for some reason known to you already?

You might want to check all of prior advice's, but since 2.9 several of people I played with dropped out due to the low performance hardware.

You might want to:

- try ST vs MT variant (one of those guys who was really heading for exist, actually prolonged his playing with going single-threaded, he also had 4 cores)

- control the CPU/GPU overheating (e.g. GPU-Z) (I am guessing: but I think you are probably CPU bound)

Otherwise: its probably time to consider your next HW major upgrade (sorry for stating this)

[Silent Film]

Here is an example. I posted this in another topic, but it also fits here.

Before the new 2.9 version, I have had smooth gameplay with 20-30 FPS. Now for some reason I got more FPS, 30-50, but my gameplay is getting stuck all the time. I have tried to limit FPS to 30 and to 40, but it didn't help. I believe that with 30-50 FPS I should have a smooth gameplay.

[AKULA_OPTIMUS]

2.9 and MT has been a blessing and a curse for A LOT of people. Performance is a lot better, but the stuttering is hellish. I would have abandoned the game because of that, luckily, one of the many possible solutions worked for me. My problems were exactly like yours, and the only thing that worked for me was to turn off and back on again, the affinity of one of the 4 cores of my PC while playing, have you tried that?

[Silent Film]

On 5/21/2024 at 10:49 AM, AKULA_OPTIMUS said:

2.9 and MT has been a blessing and a curse for A LOT of people. Performance is a lot better, but the stuttering is hellish. I would have abandoned the game because of that, luckily, one of the many possible solutions worked for me. My problems were exactly like yours, and the only thing that worked for me was to turn off and back on again, the affinity of one of the 4 cores of my PC while playing, have you tried that?

I don't know how to do that.

But I have switched my 32GB page file fom my documents HDD disk to the Windows 10 SSD disk, and now it works better, but not perfect.

I am amazed though that in version 2.8 I have had 20-40 FPS and it ran smoothly, and now in version 2.9 I got twice more FPS, 30-60, but the gameplay is getting stuck.

[AKULA_OPTIMUS]

3 hours ago, Silent Film said:

I don't know how to do that.

But I have switched my 32GB page file fom my documents HDD disk to the Windows 10 SSD disk, and now it works better, but not perfect.

I am amazed though that in version 2.8 I have had 20-40 FPS and it ran smoothly, and now in version 2.9 I got twice more FPS, 30-60, but the gameplay is getting stuck.

Its very easy. When you´re on the plane, you open the windows task manager, go to details tab, right click on DCS, set affinity, and you´ll see the four cores, unmark the last one, accept, right click again, mark it again, so you have all four selected, go back to the game. Check if stuttering gets better.

I´m telling you this because I also have a 4 core CPU, and a 1050ti, and this solves most of the issues.

When playing in multicore, always one of the cores get stuck at 100% while the others have irregular performance, but if I do this, then all 4 stabilise at a smooth 80-90%. 

The not so good thing, is that you have to do this EVERYTIME you get into an aircraft.

 

[Czar66]

On 4/29/2024 at 1:59 PM, Silent Film said:

After the latest three game updates, my game is getting stuck all the time, plus textures need some 15 minutes to load.

I got 30-40 FPS as usual, which was fine for me, but the game now keeps getting stuck like after each 30 seconds or so, it gets stuck for 3-5 seconds, and then it continues, then gets stuck again.

Also, when I change aircraft textures, they need 15 minutes to load completely. First they appear black, then low resolution texture parts are slowly loading, and then normal resolution textures are finally loaded after 15 minutes.

Also, textures on every map I use are loading very slowly.

 

 

On 4/30/2024 at 9:20 AM, Silent Film said:

AMD Athlon(tm) X4 845 Quad Core Processor 3.50 GHz 64-bit
16 GB RAM, 32 GB virtual memory
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050
Windows 10 Home 64-bit 22H2

This started happening after the latest three or so updates. But also at the same time I have installed Microsoft FSX on the same SSD, but I don't know how could that be causing such problems in DCS.

CPU Bottleneck. Textures loading is heavy on CPU too, not only storage bandwidth.

AMD Athlon X4 845 is a very old CPU. I'd recommend a new CPU with cache L3 of 12mb+ + Vital components up to date.
2016, the year your cpu was launched, was another world in comparison to 2024.

Source: I went from i5 4th gen to i3 10100 and then to i5 10400 and saw the difference at textures loading.
 

Edited May 22, 2024 by Czar66

[Silent Film]

2 hours ago, AKULA_OPTIMUS said:

Its very easy. When you´re on the plane, you open the windows task manager, go to details tab, right click on DCS, set affinity, and you´ll see the four cores, unmark the last one, accept, right click again, mark it again, so you have all four selected, go back to the game. Check if stuttering gets better.

I´m telling you this because I also have a 4 core CPU, and a 1050ti, and this solves most of the issues.

When playing in multicore, always one of the cores get stuck at 100% while the others have irregular performance, but if I do this, then all 4 stabilise at a smooth 80-90%. 

The not so good thing, is that you have to do this EVERYTIME you get into an aircraft.

Yes, this helps! Thank You!

The long as I fly the same aircraft on the same map, it works. But as soon I change the aircraft or the map, I have to do it once again.