Constant Stuttering Frequence since yesterdays update

[ejbhimself]

i receive stuttering every few five or so seconds since yesterdays update, running exclusively in a self created training mission which worked perfectly fine before, so it's not any sort of my own shenanigans. i guess genuine techies - which i am not - reported this in depth, so i'm just here in order to express my hopes for a quick fix.

or should i turn back to the older version, since a fix is not in sight?

best regards.

[Dangerzone]

On 6/1/2025 at 3:30 AM, ejbhimself said:

i receive stuttering every few five or so seconds since yesterdays update, running exclusively in a self created training mission which worked perfectly fine before, so it's not any sort of my own shenanigans. i guess genuine techies - which i am not - reported this in depth, so i'm just here in order to express my hopes for a quick fix.

or should i turn back to the older version, since a fix is not in sight?

best regards.

I've experienced the same. Something has changed that is causing microstutters for me too. 

What I've found interesting is that I'm running on 72FPS, and get drops to 60FPS momentarily, and then back to 72FPS. 

If I change to 90FPS, I get 90FPS, and then drops down to around 78FPS momentarily for the stutters, and then back to 90FPS.

If I change to 120FPS... same thing. Drops down to may be 105 but then back to 120FPS. Each time it says "CPU Bound" but I don't believe it is a CPU being overworked, because if I can get 120FPS mostly, with the stutters down to 105FPS - why can't I get a constant 90FPS or 72FPS? 

I tried using a utility called RivaTuner by 3DGuru to lock my frame times in (72FPS for instance). This has significantly improved the stutters, but not eliminated them completely. I find if I set it to 68 - I can get consistent 68 without any stutters at all. Setting it to 72 still has me stuttering down below 68 though - so it's very strange.

I'm focused on these FPS rates as this is what my VR headset can set the refresh rate to. If you are on 2D, you might be able to reduce the FPS to whatever gets a consistent 'lock' with FPS. 

My CPU is running at 5.8Ghz. I can change this to 5.2Ghz and there's no noticeable difference. So it seems that it's not an issue of the CPU not being fast enough either. 

At a guess - it seems DCS isn't working well with interrupts, or some scheduling is causing some serious hiccups / interference within the main simulator thread. 

I don't believe multithread wasn't bedded down before they dropped single-thread, and had some issues. I'd say they're still playing under the hood with the multithreading stuff (which honestly - needs to be played with more anyway) - but this has triggered something negative with the latest version. 

Best you can do really is try the set of usuals:

• Verify core parking is disabled (Use Park Control)
• Try Process Lasso and use Sets to reserve P-Cores only for DCS
• Disable Tacview if installed
• Set windows Powerplan to Ultimate
• Try (after DCS has loaded) - going into task manager and disabling DCS access on Core 8 )

Yes, these are bandaid solutions, but until ED do something about this (and I don't expect anything significant to happen until Vulcan) - we need to do our bets to find workarounds.  

Hope one of these helps.

Edited June 1 by Dangerzone

[sleighzy]

Drop your DCS log file (C:\Users\username\Saved Games\Logs\DCS\dcs.log) here so somebody can look at it and offer advice.

[Flanker35M]

S!

This is how DCS looks with it´s built in metrics after latest updates. Before it ran buttersmooth. To test this one just go to Fw190A or any plane of that matter, select The Channel, Free flight and fly over the city at the coast looking to either side from cockpit.

 

 

dcs.log

Edited June 3 by Flanker35M

[ejbhimself]

for the ed-members: i wanted to rollback to the last update, but the command-box way doesn't work. i found this one here where an ed-staff member provided an easy rollback file, which i tried and worked for me, but of course, the version is not the last one, but way too old. if you could simply provide one for the last update, which would, in that case, be the last one for me to use every time until the problems get fixed - if ever -, this would be nice. thanks in advance.


---->

 

Edited June 3 by ejbhimself

[Art-J]

@ejbhimself It's just a text batch file. Open it with notepad and type in any version number you need instead of that old one. You can quickly check all recent version numbers in update thread:

 

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

I have the same issue. At first I tried to fix it myself, but nothing I could think of made any difference so after pulling out my hair (stuttering issues when DCS has been running flawlessly before is quite frustrating) I decided to look on the forum, and here it is: more people talking about the exact same thing.
And yes the stuttering on the main menu stops after about a minute, but even in a mission I am seeing "cpu limited main thread" more often than I care about.

[Flanker35M]

S!

Some more stuttering. I got rid of the "hacksaw" effect by not using VSync, but limited FPS within game. Not really keen to fly before this is solved  Track and log attached.

dcs.log LastMissionTrack.trk

[ejbhimself]

just had my logs given to the support, but they got no clue what this is all about, after viewing the logs. solving it would be one thing, but without a clue this might turn out to be a very, very frustrating year.

[Dangerzone]

1 hour ago, ejbhimself said:

just had my logs given to the support, but they got no clue what this is all about, after viewing the logs. solving it would be one thing, but without a clue this might turn out to be a very, very frustrating year.

Normally the different levels I've observed are

1) ED acknowledging / being aware that some people are having issues

2) ED able to replicate the issue

3) ED working on resolving the issue.

At the moment we don't even know if we've reached level 1 yet - as I've seen no acknowledgement from ED that they're even considering there's an issue. Sometimes it's done in silence, and I was hoping that it's just lack of communication and they're actually aware of an issue and are looking into it, but after hearing your experience that they don't even know what this is about is concerning indeed. 

It's understandable that with so many different hardware configuration and user settings that this isn't an easy one to deal with. But if the common denominator here is the latest DCS update among a variety of different users, it would seem that we're at the mercy of ED actually investigating this internally. 

[Flanker35M]

S!

Did some more testing last night and found out the following. When having VSync enabled I get the "hacksaw" indication on the metrics window(built in game) when flying at low altitude. Without VSync there is no "hacksaw" effect visible on the metrics. Also this "hacksaw" effect is visible only when flying at very low altitude Vsync enabled aka treetop level. If going a bit higher the effet goes away and all is smooth. Will do more testing but could it be the Clutter and grass setting can affect this as it tries to draw grass etc when at low altitude?  As said, testing more

 

Another thing I noticed that when not using VSync and just the built in FPS limiter in DCS the spiking of the green line(simulation) gets worse the closer you set it to the monitor´s refresh rate. A quick estimate is within 25FPS. Again the spiking gets worse the lower you go in altitude being worst over towns or otherwise demanding scenes. I would rather use VSync than FPS limiter due tearing and with VSync giving smoother experience. As of now I set the limiter to 300 and use VSync getting a smooth experience. A couple patches ago I could use limiter without issues, even with my old GPU RX6950XT vs current RX9070XT.

Edited June 5 by Flanker35M

[xi0nc]

Hi. I'm new in DCS and after 3 months i've learnt to check forum before update 

 

[Dangerzone]

3 minutes ago, xi0nc said:

Hi. I'm new in DCS and after 3 months i've learnt to check forum before update 

 

Very wise. Works great if you're single player, but if you're into multi-player, it's a little less helpful.

Being so new, you probably didn't know that we used to have 2 versions - an Open Beta and a Stable release. Those who wanted a more stable option could opt for Stable release, and those who wanted the latest changes yesterday could go with O.B. This worked OK IMO originally for those who wanted to use it (even if a number didn't really understand it properly), but then Stable Release got neglected, going months without updates, and no real 'bedding down' of a version occurred before moving onto the next version, and eventually it because unmanageable for stable release server operators with more forced to move to Open Beta to keep up. Eventually ED dropped Stable release altogether, and only carried on Open Beta as the main version. 

I have wondered about actually starting some sort of website/voting thing where people give feedback as to which are the better / more stable releases of DCS so there's a list we can work with for a multiplayer aspect who want stable again, but after thinking about it for a while I don't think it'd be that popular so probably wouldn't work.

[SharpeXB]

6 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

Eventually ED dropped Stable release altogether, and only carried on Open Beta as the main version. 

I think you’ve got it backwards. They dropped the Open Beta or kept the beta testing internal to ED. The public release is a stable version. 

Edited June 5 by SharpeXB

[MAXsenna]

I think you’ve got it backwards. They dropped the Open Beta or kept the beta testing internal to ED. The public release is a stable version. 

Well, you could argue Stable is the new OB.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[SharpeXB]

3 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

Well, you could argue Stable is the new OB.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk
 

No not really. The beta testing is just all closed now instead of open. There’s no such thing as “Stable” and “Open Beta” anymore. Just one public release version.

[MAXsenna]

No not really. The beta testing is just all closed now instead of open. There’s no such thing as “Stable” and “Open Beta” anymore. Just one public release version.

It was a joke.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[dutchili]

no stutters, but crashes that are not mentioned in the dcs.log.
Here is an example. After about 20 minutes of flying, the video froze, sound continued for a minute, then a full system reboot. Not an incident.

dcs.log

DxDiag.txt

[Flanker35M]

S!

Disabling Clutter/Grass helped a bit, but the "hacksaw" effect was still there is solely tied to VSync being on.  Tried every setting to see what happens, but nothing helped

dcs.log

Edited June 5 by Flanker35M

[sleighzy]

2 hours ago, dutchili said:

no stutters, but crashes that are not mentioned in the dcs.log.
Here is an example. After about 20 minutes of flying, the video froze, sound continued for a minute, then a full system reboot. Not an incident.

dcs.log 200.67 kB · 2 downloads

DxDiag.txt 100.67 kB · 1 download

Your issue is unrelated so you probably shouldn't hijack other people's posts on a different topic. Regardless, I've run your DxDiag report through the DCS log analyzer, plus some research on the "DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION" error mentioned there. The DCS log file doesn't have a crash, so this will be Windows killing it.

Your system crashes with Bluescreens.
The following kernel-events have been detected:
DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION

• Remove any overclocking (including XMP).,
• Run SFC and DISM to check your Windows.,
• Check for any updates of your BIOS or chipset drivers.,

Application Errors
InstalledPackagesAgent.exe: c0000005 (InstalledPackagesAgent.exe)
DeviceSetting.exe: was hung for 63.99s and killed

For the SFC and DISM checks, open a command prompt as administrator and run the below two commands separately and then restart your PC.

dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

sfc /scannow

Have a google for the DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION error as there are references there, namely around hardware and chipset drivers.

If this continues to happen then raise a new post attaching your updated logs instead of this thread.

[Dangerzone]

7 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

Well, you could argue Stable is the new OB.

That's what I was insinuating.  ie: the last two versions having the stuttering issues. Seems that we're the beta testers, but also the ones that need to diagnose and resolve the issue.

Closed Beta always existed, but we also had open beta. Now, that extra step of testing has been removed (the open beta) leaving one less level between them and us (by 'us', those who used stable release). Since one of those steps has been removed, so we're all in the open beta testing together.  For those of us that used to favor stable release - there's definitely a difference - but I also appreciate that there re those that never really understood the concept though between OB and SR or just always ran OB as their version - so I understand how some would see things from a different perspective.   Tomato/Tomarto...

[Rene Coulon]

Getting the same judders and stutters....I have a DCS stress test mission, and before the last update it was smooth as silk...now its Terrible.  

Incredably frustrating that as a community this KEEPS HAPPENNING

[MAXsenna]

8 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

That's what I was insinuating.

I know.

8 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

Closed Beta always existed, but we also had open beta. Now, that extra step of testing has been removed (the open beta) leaving one less level between them and us (by 'us', those who used stable release). Since one of those steps has been removed, so we're all in the open beta testing together.

Exactly this.

[YoYo]

3 hours ago, Rene Coulon said:

Getting the same judders and stutters....I have a DCS stress test mission, and before the last update it was smooth as silk...now its Terrible.  

Incredably frustrating that as a community this KEEPS HAPPENNING

I agree that stutter can appear at the beginning of the mission, then it goes away and everything returns to normal (this is caused by all modules being loaded at the same time now, which was not the case before - I don't know why this was changed, it was ok). However, if the strange CPU behavior is constant, I recommend unparked CPU's cores (if it is not done by the user - especially with Windows 10 and with 12, 13 and 14 series processors of Intel).

Personally, Im happy with the DCS performance and I have no problems. Some people see performance problems on the Germany map, which is currently the most demanding map of all maps. Here it is worth setting the LOD of trees and buildings.

[Flanker35M]

S!

And again some more testing. So the culprit for "hacksaw" effect was indeed the VSync(in game). If using GPU setting = no hacksaw. But still had the spikes of the green graph(simulation). So as a last resort turned off Full Screen, ALL stutters and spiking gone! Smooth as butter again and could even up my settings a bit without performance loss. A happy camper!