investigating Issue with stuttering and fps loss

[Mosley]

Issue : When I load into the Mountain Coin mission for pg in the apache it will be running fine in vr at a smooth 90fps thru vitual desktop, while starting up the apache it will start to stutter, sometimes after a stutter the fps drops and all the times on the fps counter go up (frame, sim, etc). Then i will be around 60fps but instead of the 3 bars being somewhat smooth at the bottom of fps counter they go up higher and  fluctuate up and down (looking like a saw tooth in task manager). the times listed also go up as well with mouseover fps counter.  

I have seen this while using the caucus map, pg, nevada and mariana 

Oddities that I have noticed : After stuttering thru the startup sometimes it will stutter and the fps will go back to 90 fps and run smooth again for a duration. Another odd one is when i got into the area where the targets are in the mission it was stuttering and if i alt tabbed so it showed game out of focus stuttering stops. When tabbing back in it starts again.  I have also had it doing the alt tabbing will sometimes bring back the 90 fps.

I also have a mission from the user files with the Apache and the a10 and I dont have the issues when using the a10.

Things I have tried : Changing settings to Low makes no difference. I loaded Windows Performance Recorder/Analyzer and recorded a 10 minute or so session I did with the panzer mission for the Apache and Nevada map.  While looking at process lasso and task managers usage I can see that none of the resources are maxed, they are around 80% and when a stutter happens video card and cpu shows a drop to 0% usage then back to 80%.  The performance analyzer shows a spike in the nvidia driver kernel modules time ( at least thats what chatgpt said ) at the same time the FPS tanks. 

Being that I can use the A10 on the same mission and I dont have the performance issues it would lead me to think its something with the Apache, but tabbing out of focus and it stops plus the nvidia driver issue has me lost

Any Ideas?

 

 

System Specs : 7900x3d 64gb DDR56000Mhz 2Tb WD Black M2 Asus 4070Ti Quest 3  

[BIGNEWY]

Hi, 

please attach your dxdiag and dcs log after a session so we can take a closer look, but please not we already have VRAM optimisations planned for the AH-64D for a future patch that should help. 

thank you 

[Mosley]

dcs.logDxDiag.txt

This morning I did the panzer mission but i added rain,  ran fine , fired on the AAA/Sam group with the fcr worked fine , got locked by aaa i missed turned away from target got hit and lost a engine then fps dropped to the 50-60 range. 

This has been a issue for me thru several different nvidia drivers and some amd drivers as well. I dont have this isssue with other flight sims.  I see you mentioned Vram optimization and I thought it might be something similar since vram usage seems to be 90%+ on the settings i use normally but when i set everything to low Vram was around 6gb and still had the stutter effect. 

 

Im curious why alt tabbing out of the game causes the stuttering to stop, but when alt tabbing back in it starts within seconds. 

I could understand the fps dropping if the Gpu was at 100% but it maxes out around 80-85%. Its not 90fps to 80 then back to 90 its more like 90 to 0 to 90.  Gpu usage will do 80%-0%-80%. I thought maybe thermal throttling but temps are fine and system handles long handbrake encodes using all cores and gpu stress test like furmark. 

 

I also use process lasso to put dcs on the first 6 cores and virtual desktop on the last 6 cores.

Noticed this in the log at the end

2025-02-07 17:48:51.803 ERROR   VISUALIZER (Main): rendering thread is stopping unexpectedly long time

Another issue that pops up is when i click quit to desktop or quit sometimes it does and sometimes it doesnt. 

Dcs goes not responding and I have to close it,  

[Mosley]

I found one part of the issue, for the performance loss of going from 90fps to as low as the 60's this was being caused by Process Lasso's Pro Balance feature.  This was changing the priority of the game to a lower setting which was causing the fps to drop.  After turning the feature off now it runs at a smooth 90fps but i get a stutter a couple of times a minute.  Half way there I guess, now to look into the stuttering.

[BIGNEWY]

Hi Mosley,

Process Lasso can cause issues with DCS MT. Consider disabling it.

Hot plug Events
Disable hot plug in your CONTROLS section.

There is a GPU-related error
(Re-)install the latest GPU drivers. Don't overclock your GPU or RAM.

[jnr4817]

what issues does PL cause, details please? a lot of users use this.