Freezes for multiple seconds at a time

[_picon]

dcs.log

 

 

 

I'm experiencing some fairly hard freezes while playing DCS, rendering it unusable. Attaching a video, and DCS log (but not from the same run).

It is not limited to the Hornet module, it seems. It is only DCS that freezes, while DCS is frozen, sound is happening, and I'm also able to alt-tab to another application.

 

I did try removing all the plugins mentioned in .../Saved Gamex/DCS/Export.lua, no difference.

If needed, I can share an ETL file (captured with gpuview/xperf), but it is a bit too big to go here.

 

Other ideas welcome.

 

Unfortunately, I don't really know when this started (haven't played for a while)

[Rudel_chw]

29 minutes ago, _picon said:

Other ideas welcome.

have you excluded the dcs folder from antivirus action? Its periodic scanning may be interfering with dcs

[_picon]

It is indeed excluded.

In fact, during the freeze period, DCS CPU usage goes way down

[silverdevil]

10 hours ago, _picon said:

I'm experiencing some fairly hard freezes while playing DCS, rendering it unusable. Attaching a video, and DCS log (but not from the same run).

i see two lines in log

2025-09-05 10:07:13.664 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)

2025-09-05 10:07:15.396 INFO    APP (Main): CPU cores: 10, threads: 16, System RAM: 32509 MB, Pagefile: 4864 MB

you should either get more ram or make a static pagefile of 32 GB. try those two suggestions and come back if you still have issues.

https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/how-to-manage-virtual-memory-on-windows-11

Edited Friday at 08:53 PM by silverdevil

[_picon]

Even with a larger page size, still the same issue. Also, changed the power settings to best performance (ie, no parked cores)

Not sure if relevant, but I do get this message in the log around the time the freeze happens:

"2025-09-06 12:17:41.781 WARNING WORLD (Main): ModelTimeQuantizer: ANTIFREEZE ENABLED"

 

I would expect that the explanation be somewhat straightforward by looking at the ETL file (and see the stack traces) by someone who has access to symbols (that is, not me :-))

 

[silverdevil]

18 minutes ago, _picon said:

ModelTimeQuantizer: ANTIFREEZE ENABLED

this is a fairly common error i think. really no good solution.

do you have WinWing MFDs? if so do you have vsync or gsync enabled? turn those off and retry.

[silverdevil]

On 9/5/2025 at 6:20 AM, _picon said:

I'm experiencing some fairly hard freezes while playing DCS, rendering it unusable.

i did a finer look at your log and compared it mine

on the left are my settings and the left are yours. the red font indicates settings you may change to improve performance. you can make a copy of your options.lua and directly edit the values using a text editor.

[_picon]

Not exactly the same problem as the others that reported the ModelTimeQuantizer: ANTIFREEZE ENABLED issue, it sounds like.

These are not some temporary stutters, these are 5-15 second long stops. Outside the freezes, it is theoretically 200fps-ish (for that particular flight that I'm using as an example).

Confirmed that the issue reproduces even at Low graphics settings.

Also, increasing RAM to 96GB does not change the repro.

 

nullImage of CPU usage during the freeze.

Confirmed that during the freeze, almost all threads are idle. The only really threads active is one that calls into Visualizer.dll, and another that looks like the sound thread. Almost no other threads are active during the freeze period

 

[sleighzy]

Can you attach a longer log file that covers the period of this occurring, the one attached here is very short.

The log shows you have parked cores, and are still on Windows 10. Windows 11 will better support your hybrid CPU and scheduling. Core parking can be disabled via the ParkControl software, can’t comment re: Windows 10 though. Log analyzer indicates disabling actually cores for that for Windows 10…but that won’t necessarily fix your issue.