do not run as administrator Bug/Freeze erratic behavior after DCS 2.9.14.8222 (March 19 2025 Update)

[keisentraut]

Running without Admin privileges solved this for me.

 

[Veritech]

I currently don't have "Run as Administrator" ticked and DCS behaves with having freezes/stutters every 30 seconds and then proceeds to have major 10/20 second freezes. I started having issues some updates ago, now they've become unbearable. 

I reinstalled Windows, drivers, DCS, XMP on/off, etc.

DCS is currently unusable as it is.

[rob10]

Just now, Veritech said:

I currently don't have "Run as Administrator" ticked and DCS behaves with having freezes/stutters every 30 seconds and then proceeds to have major 10/20 second freezes. I started having issues some updates ago, now they've become unbearable. 

I reinstalled Windows, drivers, DCS, XMP on/off, etc.

DCS is currently unusable as it is.

This thread is specific to an issue with exported MFD's.  Unless that's specifically your problem (which almost for sure would be fixed by not running DCS as admin) then please create your own thread and more importantly include your dcs.log (may be just dcs if you have extension names turned off).  From your description it's impossible to know what's going on or provide you any help.

[Veritech]

Is it? I started to have precisely the same issue as described by many users. 

I don't currently run HELIOS, but I do run a multiscreen environment in Windows (not used in DCS). My issue started at the same time as stated by some users. 

If it's not related, it's curiously close to what other users are currently experiencing.

[rob10]

2 minutes ago, Veritech said:

Is it? I started to have precisely the same issue as described by many users. 

I don't currently run HELIOS, but I do run a multiscreen environment in Windows (not used in DCS). My issue started at the same time as stated by some users. 

If it's not related, it's curiously close to what other users are currently experiencing.

Well, you said it started "some updates ago".  This thread is related to an issue that's only been a problem since the last update.

Either way, without at a minimum a log file, all you're going to get are blind guesses what your issue is.

[Special K]

vor 17 Stunden schrieb Veritech:

Is it? I started to have precisely the same issue as described by many users. 

I don't currently run HELIOS, but I do run a multiscreen environment in Windows (not used in DCS). My issue started at the same time as stated by some users. 

If it's not related, it's curiously close to what other users are currently experiencing.

If you do not provide a log, we can not do anything anway. Just saying.

[Whippet41]

Thanks- I was running admin for both the shortcut and the.exe file.  Removing the admin property from the shortcut and DCS.EXE (bin-mt) fixed the issue.

 

 

[blihp]

thankyou, this fix worked for me. Was proper pulling hair out. 

[Mandoble]

I'm suffering stutter effects from time to time. A mission starts with stutter effects all along the mission, or the very same mission starts smooth like silk along all the mission, and that happens without changing anything, just restarting or playing that mission again.

 

What I see in the log is:

2025-03-27 09:09:55.849 WARNING EDCORE (Main): hypervisor is active
2025-03-27 09:09:55.849 WARNING EDCORE (Main): CPU HAS PARKED LOGICAL CORES (this can be source of stuttering and reduced performance especially on hybrid CPUs with P/E-cores).

My specs:

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-14700KF

32,0 GB RAM

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super 12GB VRAM

Windows 11 Pro

Then I read this:

 

How to stop cores from being parked?

 

 

Hello If you want to turn off Core Parking, please take the following steps:

1. Navigate to the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00\0cc5b647-c1df-4637-891a-dec35c318583.
2. Change the "Attribute" key value from "1" to "0".

But also this other way which touches a different value:

 

 

Edited March 27 by Mandoble

[Qcumber]

40 minutes ago, Mandoble said:

How to stop cores from being parked?

I use this app.

https://bitsum.com/parkcontrol/

[- Sonic -]

mmm interesting...I will update Dcs and remove admin from start DCS MT

[Mandoble]

30 minutes ago, Qcumber said:

I use this app.

https://bitsum.com/parkcontrol/

And that is all behind the stuttering? I mean, disabling core parking solves it? Others recommend to disable hyperthreading from BIOS as well.

BTW, might you check if changing the powersettings from Parkcontrol does exacly the change the youtube video explains for the registry?

[Qcumber]

23 minutes ago, Mandoble said:

And that is all behind the stuttering? I mean, disabling core parking solves it? Others recommend to disable hyperthreading from BIOS as well.

BTW, might you check if changing the powersettings from Parkcontrol does exacly the change the youtube video explains for the registry?

I just use this to toggle core parking on/off. I no longer have stuttering but I don't think this was my cause of stuttering. I still keep the core parking off anyway. 

[Mandoble]

5 minutes ago, Qcumber said:

I just use this to toggle core parking on/off. I no longer have stuttering but I don't think this was my cause of stuttering. I still keep the core parking off anyway. 

What do you think was your stuttering cause then?

[Qcumber]

1 minute ago, Mandoble said:

What do you think was your stuttering cause then?

I play exclusively VR and have had intermittent issues with stuttering for a while. I'm pretty sure mine were due to erratic GPU frametime spikes due to hardware and DCS settings. I recently upgraded from a 4070 to a 5080 and did a range if benchmarks looking at GPU and CPU render times. Even at what appears to be a steady 72 fps some frametimes exceed this and are not always obvious. This causes microstutters. If I carefully control settings so that all frame times are under 13.9 ms then I don't get any stutter. 

[Mandoble]

As suggested by Qcumber, I downloaded and installed Parkcontol (which is free). In Windows 11 I created a new power plan with the name "Bitsum Highest Performance" (you can do that from Control Panel -> Hardware and Sounds -> Energy options -> Edit energy plan), then launched Parkcontrol, selected the "Bitsum Highest Performance" from the top dropdown list (it lists all the existing Windows power plans), configured this settings and clicked "Apply". After that I Iaunched the game several times and ran several missions without any stutter effect.

So, if you have stutter and you see this line in your DCS log "WARNING EDCORE (Main): CPU HAS PARKED LOGICAL CORES (this can be source of stuttering and reduced performance especially on hybrid CPUs with P/E-cores)" then more than problably this is going to solve the problem (while ED fixes it in the game).

nullnull

[- Sonic -]

After updating DCS to the latest version, removing the "Run as Admin" flag, and adjusting some settings to reduce CPU load, things seem to be improving. On an online server (up to 30 players), stuttering has disappeared (though I need to test more thoroughly). All cores are running well.

The internal DCS Frame Rate Counter (locked at 120, as I use a 120Hz G-Sync monitor, 32") sometimes turns red, indicating a CPU bottleneck. The last core appears to be running significantly higher than the others (100%). The GPU is running at 70%, so I assume I could push it further with different settings.

I don’t think I can optimize much more—while the RTX 2080 Super has some headroom, the CPU (i5-9600K) seems to be the bottleneck.

Maybe I can offload more from the CPU and shift more load to the GPU, but I need suggestions for additional settings

[LAC912]

To all those who have been experiencing issues with DCS version 8222 and follow. As we know 8222 introduced the "mission save" feature along with other feature upgrades.  Less then a week before this was released (Mar 19th) I took delivery of a new computer. Installation of a fresh copy of DCS was done on the 14th. Life was good and DCS was fully functioning as excepted on all new top line hardware & software. Then on the 19th I installed, as I usually do, the most recent DCS update. BOOM....my enjoyment of flying in DCS stopped. The following four weeks has been with supports guidance, all about testing to determine the root cause of why my system was unable to function with 8222. I'd like to say those weeks worth of efforts were successful in resolving the problems but that simply isn't the case. As of yesterday I rolled back to 6818-2 and my flight enjoyment has been restored to it's full function. As an aside, the only software that was having a problem with my new system has been DCS. The OS & all other software have been fully operational.

I have come to the realization that 6818 will be, at least for now will be the only option I have to continue enjoying DCS. I see in this post some have found solutions for the issues but others seem to be in the same boat I'm in where future DCS updates can longer be used. Thru my own testing over the past weeks I came to the conclusion that my new equipment was not to blame for the problems with DCS but rather there was a issue with the code in 8222. Support at this point has not been able to locate the problems sighting "we don't see any issues". At least in part that statement comes from no or few users reporting problems according to my understanding.