June 2025 - DCS VR Optimization Stutter/Jitter Generic Checklist

[Dangerzone]

After being corrected / shown a better options with my VR optimization the other day by @actually_fred  (Thanks again!) - I just wanted to put down a checklist/summary that I currently have for VR optimization for both critique, and also for potential help - as optimizing VR in DCS seems to have a lot of different nuances, and to say I have spent over 20 hours in the last 2 months trying to fix issues would not be an exaggeration. So, here's a summary I wrote up - current as at June 2025. Some of these may be wrong (as I've recently been corrected about the FPS  limiting), so please feel free to comment / correct / etc, but hopefully they will be helpful to others who are having performance issues and/or doing diagnostics.

Please note: Some of these may have the opposite effect depending on your system. It's best to get a baseline check - and then test.

FPS Limiting / Turbo Mode

If you find using FPS limiting (such as Rivatuner) creates better frames with fewer frame drops - this points to a bigger problem that may be betterr overcome by removing FPS limiting and using OpenXR Toolkit and setting Turbo Mode to ON.  (Alternatively Quadviews FR also has turbomode and this could be used too).   (Thanks Fred!)  In short, you should not need to or be using FPS limiters in VR. (And if you are - try removing the limiter and use TurboMode instead.) As with everything in this list, test though, as YMMV.
 

DCS Autoexec.CFG

Add the following to DCS's Autoexec.cfg file in the saved games\config folder:

no_device_hotplug = true  -- Disables searching for new devices after starting - may reduce performance/stuttering
disable_write_track = true   -- Disables track saving - may help reduce performance issues
options.graphics.stereo_mode_use_shared_parser = true  -- Disables rendering of unseen parts in VR ?? Don't do if it causes artifacts
bkg_load_signed_plugins = false  -- Stops all modules loading at start by default. May reduce load and close times?
DLSS_Preset = 'K'   -- No performance improvement but worth having for visuals if using DLSS
HUD_MFD_after_DLSS = true   --Not so much for performance, but clarity of MDF's - only works if using DLSS
 

... is there any others I'm missing?

 

Disable CPU Parking

CPU Parking can cause stuttering in DCS. Windows updates (and other functions) can re-enable this without the user being aware.

Note: Always worth double-checking this when experiencing stutters as Windows has a habit of undoing your changes. Park Control is a very useful tool to monitor and keep this disabled. 

 

DCS Settings

• Turn off "Full Screen" for best results in VR
• Consider reduce Preload radius if having jitters when first playing DCS
• Start with Sharpening on 0. (Sharpening in DCS can be a performance hit - YMMV. Increase only after getting stable results)

 

TACView

Can have CPU performance impacts. Best to have this disabled while investigating 

 

Keyboard & Mouse Polling Rates

Both gaming keyboards and more so gaming mice can have polling rates at 1000. This has been reported to create issues in DCS (especially when using the keyboard or mouse). Reduce the polling rates to 500 or below.

 

Process Lasso

Controversial. Some people report significant improvements limiting DCS to P-Cores only. Others (including ED's Log file AI Analyzer I believe) state to remove all affinity and let DCS do it's own thing. Yet others report denying access to core #8 after DCS starts fixing issues. YYMV.

If using - for Pimax users - make sure that Pimax software has access to P-Cores as well for the VR processing.
 

BIOS

• Enable Rebar
• Enable XMP BIOS Profiles (for RAM overclocking - note - some users have issues / crashes with this, so stress test!)
• Disable Speedshift, power management/saving & C-States (force CPU to run at max speed the whole time)
• On some BIOS's: Disable automatic software downloading. (Stops the BIOS from telling windows to download and install services).

 

NVIDIA CPanel Settings

• Set performance mode to Prefer Maximum Performance.
• VR Pre-rendered frames. Some say to set to 1, others to 2 or 3. YMMV - each needs to test their own.
• Make sure Rebar is Enabled (NVIDIA Inspector). 
• Set RBAR Size limit to 0x0000000400000000 (NVIDIA Inspector)
• Set RBAR Options to 0x00000001
• LOD BIAS. Allow can help with some FPS, but CLAMP is better for better visuals. Only go ALLOW if GPU bound and need to squeeze a bit more. (Better to lower settings in other areas?)
• Low Latency Mode: Avoid ULTRA! (Use off or On as Ultra can cause jitters)

 

Windows Checklist

• Set Power plan to Ultimate (and verify it stays there after windows updates)
• Disable XBOX Game Bar
• Disable Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling   (Only enable if fully GPU bound)
• Disable Game Mode
• Exclude DCS Directories (Saved games and install) from Antivirus Check. (At your discretion!) 
• Set DCS.EXE to High performance. (Regedit - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\DCS.exe Add or set DWORD 32bit option of "PerfOptions" to value 3
• Stop timer from sleeping - Run "bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes" in elevated prompt    
• Disable Memory Compression  (run "Disable-MMAgent -mc" in Elevated Powershell, or run "Enable-MMAgent -mc" to revert)
• Consider a fixed pagefile size of 32768 (or higher) 
• Remove any 'Gaming RGB' services and applications from startup.
• Turn off Windows Indexing on Drives
• Disabled Superfetch (Sysmain Service) in Services. (Stops Windows from preloading frequently used apps into RAM / Reduces background disk/CPU usage)
• Search all USB Devices in Device Manager and disable power management (allow this device to turn off to save power). 

 

Miscellaneous

• Disable VR Hanger. (Reduces the amount of unnecessary VRAM used / can help with F10 map /. GPU RAM issues)
• Consider using Quadviews. (Uses more CPU resources, but free's up GPU significantly. YMMV!)
• Avoid USB HUBS where possible and plug in devices direct to motherboard.

Experimental:

Best to avoid unless needing to dig deep:

• Disabled Microsoft Device Association Root Enumerator (Research what this does and if needed first)
• Changed NVIDIA Shader cache from driver controlled to 10GB
  Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\System\GameConfigStore  Set 32bit DWord Value GameDVR_FSEBehavior to 2   (Disables fullscreen optimization)
• Consider disabling any unused Audio devices (Onboard Realtek, etc) as well as unused devices (wifi / bluetooth adapters, etc). Marginal gains, but can help with troubleshooting if they're causing IRQ/Interrupt issues.
• Consider reducing Soundcard rate down to 44000 (Marginal gains, but can help with troubleshooting)
• Turn off windows core isolation memory integrityy.

 

In addition to these, if chasing general performance optimization, it's worth checking out @Ready's post:

 

 

Edited 22 hours ago by Dangerzone
Improved formatting

[Mordants]

I watched a youtube vid and found the wise cleaner he mentioned at the end to be extremly good, used to have the odd glitch and minor stuterring when looking sideways in VR. No longer! 

 

[Ready]

Nice helpful list! Some of the items work the other way around for me though. Recommend running baseline tests before and after each change and keep a log of all the changes with their impact on your performance. I have also spend months aiming to get the best out of my system. Did you take a look at my list of changes? There might be some items in there you might like to add.

 

[Qcumber]

16 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

I just wanted to put down a checklist/summary that I currently have for VR optimization for both critique, and also for potential help - as optimizing VR

Good post. I think there is a lot of potential misinformation out there that has not been tested recently. Please see my post at the bottom as I am trying to test these parameters objectively.  

16 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

NVIDIA CPanel Settings

From what I have tested so far none of these appear to make any difference in VR performance or with stutter. Again I need to complete testing and then I will post my results. 

16 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

Start with Sharpening on 0. (Sharpening in DCS can be a performance hit - YMMV. Increase only after getting stable results)

I am not sure about this. My gut feeling is that sharpening has no effect on performance in VR but I have not yet tested this. 

16 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

Disable VR Hanger. (Reduces the amount of unnecessary VRAM used / can help with F10 map /. GPU RAM issues)

This and reducing pre-load radius can reduce VRAM by about 1GB. However, you don't really need to do this if you have at least 12GB VRAM. 

16 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

Consider using Quadviews. (Uses more CPU resources, but free's up GPU significantly. YMMV!)

Yes. In a lot of situations this can help. But not always. My preliminary tests suggest that you only really benefit from QVFR if you use a narrow centre view. Anything above about 3.5x3.5 has diminishing returns. I am running tests at the moment and really need lots of data from other users using different hardware and settings. If anyone wants to help then please see this post. 

 

[speed-of-heat]

16 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

Exclude dcs.exe from Windows Core Isolation / Memory Integrity

as far as i am aware, you can't do this on a executable level, it's done at a system level or not at all .

[Dangerzone]

12 hours ago, Mordants said:

I watched a youtube vid and found the wise cleaner he mentioned at the end to be extremly good, used to have the odd glitch and minor stuterring when looking sideways in VR. No longer! 

 

Thanks Mordants - I wasn't aware of this one. I'll be sure to check it out!

3 hours ago, Ready said:

Nice helpful list! Some of the items work the other way around for me though. Recommend running baseline tests before and after each change and keep a log of all the changes with their impact on your performance. I have also spend months aiming to get the best out of my system. Did you take a look at my list of changes? There might be some items in there you might like to add.

Thanks. I've posted a link to your post on the first post of mine. I think we're trying to achieve something slightly different (yours is more about getting the most performance out of your system, mine is focused more on troubleshooting jitters/stutters, but the two definitely overlap in some areas). 

As for some working the opposite way - could you tell me which ones, so I can tag them in the original message. I'm not saying that my list is anywhere near right - it's more for discussion (and I'll update my list as people correct me). The reason I've posted this thread is to get feedback on what's I have wrong. (After being corrected about using FPS limiters and that it's an indication of needing 'turbo mode on' - that made me realise some of the information I have been getting (and even giving too) has been wrong, and while it may help in some areas - it's covering up a far better solution. 

3 hours ago, Qcumber said:

This and reducing pre-load radius can reduce VRAM by about 1GB. However, you don't really need to do this if you have at least 12GB VRAM. 

Thanks for this. What I found was that having preload radius up high (on a 4090) created major stuttering when I was taking off in a helicopter on CW Germany and rotating to face the opposite direction. Reducing the preload radius reduced the stutters. I thought having so much VRAM upping preload should do the opposite, so I'm very confused about this. However I also wonder/question if there's different types of 'stutters' - one that deals with initial loading/preloading/etc - and another one that deals with IRQ interrupts / ticks / or whatever turbo mode fixes, etc. 

Thanks for also adding the link to your post as well. At the moment I'm finding VR in DCS extremely confusing when it comes to optimizations, what works, what kinda works but doesn't really, etc. 

3 hours ago, speed-of-heat said:

as far as i am aware, you can't do this on a executable level, it's done at a system level or not at all .

Thanks. I think you're right - you have to turn off core isolation memory integrity completely. I'll update my original post.

[Qcumber]

6 minutes ago, Dangerzone said:

What I found was that having preload radius up high (on a 4090) created major stuttering when I was taking off in a helicopter on CW Germany and rotating to face the opposite direction

I would appreciate if you can send me XRFrameTools logs of comparison tracks of this so I can take a look. One with minimum pre-load and one with max pre-load, then we can compare the difference.

I should add that CWG needs some optimization. It would also be useful to see the same applied to a more optimised map such as Syria. 

[Dangerzone]

2 hours ago, Qcumber said:

I would appreciate if you can send me XRFrameTools logs of comparison tracks of this so I can take a look. One with minimum pre-load and one with max pre-load, then we can compare the difference.

I should add that CWG needs some optimization. It would also be useful to see the same applied to a more optimised map such as Syria. 

Hi QCumber. Sure - I hope to be home this weekend, so will try and give this a test then.

I've only been flying on CWG lately, so not sure how this goes with other maps. I actually thought that CWG was already optimized (given that it runs so well with the incredible amount of detail) - so are you saying that there's more optimization that's required on it. (Besides the bit up north of course where people seem to be getting some frames tanking - but I would take that as more of a bug than just optimization?)

Either way - leave this with me and I'll test on Syria when I can and see if it is any different, and if not - get you some logs.

Cheers

DZ

[Ready]

16 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

Thanks. I've posted a link to your post on the first post of mine. I think we're trying to achieve something slightly different (yours is more about getting the most performance out of your system, mine is focused more on troubleshooting jitters/stutters, but the two definitely overlap in some areas). 

As for some working the opposite way - could you tell me which ones, so I can tag them in the original message. I'm not saying that my list is anywhere near right - it's more for discussion (and I'll update my list as people correct me). The reason I've posted this thread is to get feedback on what's I have wrong. (After being corrected about using FPS limiters and that it's an indication of needing 'turbo mode on' - that made me realise some of the information I have been getting (and even giving too) has been wrong, and while it may help in some areas - it's covering up a far better solution. 

 

Yes I think our objectives have quite some overlap. I aim at getting the best performance out of my own hardware, which to me translates in a stable/stutter-free experience, which for me began when I first got my G2 and was fighting to get a decent picture in my headset. So I  try to get as close as possible to 90fps without microstutters (1% lows), which I try to realize by stripping and silencing Windows (which is a pretty big chunk of it) and optimizing all the hardware, DCS and the additional software my rig is running.

Your checklist is fine; it points to items for people to look at. Some of the things that work differently for me (and are sometimes contrary to popular belief or recommendations that are given here and there); game mode, full screen, HAGS, HPET, overclock on my CPU and GPU, limiting FPS.

So my main point would be to check the recommendations, but not blindly follow everything and test things for yourself (if you have the time and interest to do so). Look at the numbers and the experience in the headset (sometimes for me they did not match). Write down the changes and their impact in a log to track and compare and use various tools to do so. 

[Dangerzone]

6 hours ago, Ready said:

Yes I think our objectives have quite some overlap. I aim at getting the best performance out of my own hardware, which to me translates in a stable/stutter-free experience, which for me began when I first got my G2 and was fighting to get a decent picture in my headset. So I  try to get as close as possible to 90fps without microstutters (1% lows), which I try to realize by stripping and silencing Windows (which is a pretty big chunk of it) and optimizing all the hardware, DCS and the additional software my rig is running.

Indeed. Where I've been running no shadows, no smoke, no heatblur, etc - doing everything on low to try and figure out what darn thing is causing these stutters and how to get rid of them. For now I've been fine with DCS running at 50% of what it could be - just to get a smooth experience, and then once I've got that stable and proven, I can start working my way but up to the best visuals possible. 

 

6 hours ago, Ready said:

Your checklist is fine; it points to items for people to look at. Some of the things that work differently for me (and are sometimes contrary to popular belief or recommendations that are given here and there); game mode, full screen, HAGS, HPET, overclock on my CPU and GPU, limiting FPS.

This is a major reason why I wrote the checklist. I feel like I've been 'groping in the dark' with DCS experiences trying to stumble across a solution. In some cases it seemed there were combinations, not just one thing that helped. By how much, I don't know. Part of a combination of changes too was due to the amount of hours invested, and then trying 2 or 3 things at once because the load times to get into DCS and close down again in the last couple of versions have been extreme, so I also tried utilising my time more efficiently. Dealing with the stutter issues hasn't been a smooth experience for me (excuse the pun).

The FPS limiter was a solution I stumbled across, but then as pointed out by someone else - bad idea - here's a far better idea. The idea of making this list is to encourage discussions on things that may be wrong, or work better. Most of what I've found is lists, but no deeper information on when it's applicable, why it works, whether it's still applicable today, etc. Diagnosing these issues is at best a dogs breakfast to try and work through. (At least it was for me).

In that spirit, are you saying that Game mode improves the experience for you? Same with Full Screen, HAGS, and HPET? That now that I have a solution, I should try undoing these settings one at a time because they actually give better performance? The list is more for me to learn from and be corrected than it is just giving other people ideas of what to try. 

6 hours ago, Ready said:

So my main point would be to check the recommendations, but not blindly follow everything and test things for yourself (if you have the time and interest to do so). Look at the numbers and the experience in the headset (sometimes for me they did not match). Write down the changes and their impact in a log to track and compare and use various tools to do so. 

Oh - 100%. This definitely isn't a "Do this". It's a "Check list" of things to try, as well as a list of things that need more discussion. Some of these things were recommendations, but I don't even know the why or how they are supposed to make a difference, or whether they're suggestions that are so old, that things have improved and they're no longer relevant. (HAGS, Full Screen, etc)?

Edited Thursday at 10:31 PM by Dangerzone

[actually_fred]

HAGS is *usually* best left on nowadays but it’s still a “can vary - try it and see” thing. For people holding back on win10 or old versions of win11 it’s more likely to be good to turn it off 

Edited Friday at 11:54 AM by actually_fred

[Ready]

12 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

For now I've been fine with DCS running at 50% of what it could be - just to get a smooth experience, and then once I've got that stable and proven, I can start working my way but up to the best visuals possible. 

...are you saying that Game mode improves the experience for you? Same with Full Screen, HAGS, and HPET? That now that I have a solution, I should try undoing these settings one at a time because they actually give better performance? The list is more for me to learn from and be corrected than it is just giving other people ideas of what to try. 

For DCS in-game settings I found it to work the best by just turning everything down and one by one check what each setting does for your performance and your personal visual experience when you play around with it. Imho some things are just too taxing for very limited gain and some I can even hardly spot. When I am in the middle of the action I also don't really look at how nice reflections are etc. It is still immersive when everything is at low because I get used to it. But I do get irritated by trees popping up, unclear instruments, lags or microstutters and things like that, those things for me break the immersion. Some settings can be played with while in the game. For example the sliders for trees etc. I turn them down when I know we will fly low in green fjords.

Best to try each change for yourself. Just run a test before/after and also see what your experience is within the headset. I sometimes had good numbers but strange things happening visually. I sometimes tried a couple of settings at the same time, trying to save some time, but to be honest it does happen that I still have to go back and check them one by one because the effect was counterproductive and I was not sure which one was the cause. So I would recommend to just take them one at a time. The current experience is pretty stable and I still have quite a backlog of things to check and further work on. But I am not in a hurry and sometimes just like to fly as well

[mrsylvestre]

Thanks for that impressive (and telling...) list. 

One trick you may add under the Windows sub-list: ticking "disable full-screen optimisation" in the "compatibility" tab of the DCS.exe properties (accessed by right-clicking on the executable). It may, or may not, improve frame rate pacing (fluidity) depending on the DCS updates.

So far, on my system, the 2.9.16.xxx updates have been disappointing (perhaps the new "memory use optimisations" have unwanted side effects) and this leads me to one aspect worth noting: most of us try to push the DCS graphics fidelity options as far as our PC's can manage while maintaining a sufficient framerate for VR. Sometimes, when stutter appears, it is just a question of backing down one notch on one or two options (shadows, texture resolution, chimney smoke or whatever). But sometimes, after a DCS update, a system that was running smoothly suddenly stutters no matter the graphics options and that is extremely frustrating. It has even been the case in the past that setting more demanding options (e.g. shadows) would make the game run better (more stable framerate). Go figure.

One last piece of general advice: only change one parameter at a time and do a regression test each time (fly a standard mission in an identical way to spot performance variations). This is also important when updating GPU drivers or the VR software as these are known to occasionally mess things up without necessarily being DCS's fault.

Edited Saturday at 12:07 PM by mrsylvestre
Typos

[Mr_sukebe]

Feel free to merge in anything that I captured here:

 

As long as we have a decent guide, I don't really care who the thread owner is.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

On 6/13/2025 at 2:34 AM, actually_fred said:

HAGS is *usually* best left on nowadays but it’s still a “can vary - try it and see” thing. For people holding back on win10 or old versions of win11 it’s more likely to be good to turn it off 

Yes and it also depends on if you're playing other games too, and which options you want to be enabled. Apparently Frame Generation *requires* HAGS to be enabled.
I also found that disabling HAGS drops the framerate in Cyberpunk by 50% 
Game Mode is also something I keep left enabled. I see no performance penalty...

 

Also, core isolation / memory integrity / VBS has very little if any performance penalty for modern CPUs as they have hardware accelerators for it. So it really depends on what you have (on my system on or off falls within margin of error).

[actually_fred]

1 hour ago, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

Yes and it also depends on if you're playing other games too

Yep, and the current nvidia driver has a known issue in that it often crashes in D3D12 games with HAGS off.

[Dangerzone]

On 6/12/2025 at 8:59 AM, Qcumber said:

I would appreciate if you can send me XRFrameTools logs of comparison tracks of this so I can take a look. One with minimum pre-load and one with max pre-load, then we can compare the difference.

I should add that CWG needs some optimization. It would also be useful to see the same applied to a more optimised map such as Syria. 

hi Qcumber,

I tried downloading and running the XRFrameTools installer, but was unable to get it to install. It did nothing. (There was no popup, no setup, anything). Just wondering if I'm doing this right, or if it installs silently behind the scenes, etc?

On 6/13/2025 at 10:34 AM, actually_fred said:

HAGS is *usually* best left on nowadays but it’s still a “can vary - try it and see” thing. For people holding back on win10 or old versions of win11 it’s more likely to be good to turn it off 

Thanks actually_fred. I'll try changing mine and will see if I notice any difference. Also - very strange, but I was playing DCS on the weekend and stumbled across the stuttering again (with Turbo mode on). I task swtiched out and loaded up Rivatuner and task switched back in, and it locked straight to 72 fps, and went from flashing between Orange & Red CPU bound, to a green GPU Bound - and a theoretical limit in the high 90's. (I was running at 72fps). 

I don't doubt that the FPS limiter in Rivatuner is not ideal, and may cause microstutters, but it's far better than the frequent jittering that I get without it. (This changes depending on the mission/conditions. It's as though I must be close to the limit of CPU binding with whatever the spikes are, and once it goes over, it starts to fall apart). Very confusing to see how many different settings work so differently for different users. You've almost got to be an IT Technician just to use DCS in VR these days it seems. 

[Qcumber]

5 minutes ago, Dangerzone said:

I tried downloading and running the XRFrameTools installer, but was unable to get it to install. It did nothing. (There was no popup, no setup, anything). Just wondering if I'm doing this right, or if it installs silently behind the scenes, etc

It's probably your antivirus. I had to run an exception for the latest version.

@actually_fred has anyone else reported this issue? 

[Dangerzone]

29 minutes ago, Qcumber said:

It's probably your antivirus. I had to run an exception for the latest version.

@actually_fred has anyone else reported this issue? 

Hmm - thanks. I'll check this out. Normally it will pop up with an alert if it blocks something, but I'll check it out and then will try again. Thanks! 

[actually_fred]

Make sure you have the windows installer service running. If not, set it to start automatically and reboot.

 

if you don’t have the windows installer service or it won’t start, you need to reinstall windows - it’s broken, usually due to an over eager attempt to “de-bloat” it.