Massive stutters, especially in MP close to objects

[Ulukaii]

My DCS installation is suffering from massive stutters coming from CPU and I can't pinpoint the issue ... any recommendations appreciated!

 

Situation

• PC is an AMD Ryzen 7600 X3D with 96GB RAM and GeForce 5080
• PC is literally used only for DCS, ultra-fresh Win11 installation, DCS + plugins, few tools (Notepad++) nothing else
• My DCS setup is moderately complex with following plugins used:
  • SimAppPro and full Winwing MIP
  • DCS-BIOS for my simpit panels
  • TrackIR
  • In multiplayer, SRS

Problem Description

Many micro stutters and massive stutters in MP, especially when close to other objects (e.g. cold and dark on a carrier. ) Inbetween the stutters, if i do not limit FPS, theoretical FPS is 200+ . See Logfiles attached and video here: 

What I tried to solve the problem

Tried to solve the problem on multiple levels: BIOS, Windows, DCS. From the video above, it seems to be 'CPU-related so here is what I tried so far:

BIOS

• SMT off or on
• EXPO settings on, off etc

Windows

• Pagefile
• Process Lasso
• Unpark CPUs

DCS

• Followed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKLp8QTwyDA
• Most graphics settings to low

 

Next steps

Pretty much exhausted, next step will be full win reinstallation unless someone can see the problem from the logs or video ... thanks!

dcs.log

Edited Tuesday at 03:09 PM by Ulukaii

[sleighzy]

Does this occur on Single Player as well, or only multiplayer?

Does this only occur when moving your mouse? In the case of the mouse drop the polling rate of your mouse to below 500.

You also have Winwing MFDs. Can you ensure that you aren't running DCS as administrator. You can confirm this by right-clicking on both your DCS shortcut, and your DCS.exe file, and after selecting Properties check under the Compatibility tab to ensure that "Run as administrator" is not ticked.

You're also running DCS from the bin-mt directory. Run it from bin instead. They're both multithreaded and bin-mt will be removed in the future.

You also appear to have kneeboard files with errors, mods? Remove / fix those as well.

2025-09-30 14:50:43.264 ERROR   Lua::Config (Main): load error C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/1.lua:[string "C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/1.lua"]:17: attempt to index global 'mdc' (a nil value).
2025-09-30 14:50:43.264 ERROR   Lua::Config (Main): load error C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-02.lua:[string "C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-02.lua"]:18: attempt to index global 'mdc' (a nil value).
2025-09-30 14:50:43.265 ERROR   Lua::Config (Main): load error C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-03.lua:[string "C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-03.lua"]:12: attempt to index global 'mdc' (a nil value).
2025-09-30 14:50:43.266 ERROR   Lua::Config (Main): load error C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-04.lua:[string "C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-04.lua"]:19: attempt to index global 'mdc' (a nil value).
2025-09-30 14:50:43.266 ERROR   Lua::Config (Main): load error C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-05.lua:[string "C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-05.lua"]:20: attempt to index global 'mdc' (a nil value).
2025-09-30 14:50:43.267 ERROR   Lua::Config (Main): load error C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-06.lua:[string "C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-06.lua"]:16: attempt to index global 'mdc' (a nil value).
2025-09-30 14:50:43.267 ERROR   Lua::Config (Main): load error C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-07.lua:[string "C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-07.lua"]:12: attempt to index global 'mdc' (a nil value).
2025-09-30 14:50:43.268 ERROR   Lua::Config (Main): load error C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-08.lua:[string "C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-08.lua"]:19: attempt to index global 'mdc' (a nil value).
2025-09-30 14:50:43.269 ERROR   Lua::Config (Main): load error C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-09.lua:[string "C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-09.lua"]:9: attempt to index global 'mdc' (a nil value).
2025-09-30 14:50:43.269 ERROR   Lua::Config (Main): load error C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-10.lua:[string "C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-10.lua"]:9: attempt to index global 'mdc' (a nil value).
2025-09-30 14:50:43.270 ERROR   Lua::Config (Main): load error C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-11.lua:[string "C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-11.lua"]:9: attempt to index global 'mdc' (a nil value).
2025-09-30 14:50:43.270 ERROR   Lua::Config (Main): load error C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-12.lua:[string "C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-12.lua"]:9: attempt to index global 'mdc' (a nil value).
2025-09-30 14:50:43.271 ERROR   Lua::Config (Main): load error C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-13.lua:[string "C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-13.lua"]:9: attempt to index global 'mdc' (a nil value).
2025-09-30 14:50:43.271 ERROR   Lua::Config (Main): load error C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-14.lua:[string "C:\Users\uluka\Saved Games\DCS\KNEEBOARD/2-14.lua"]:9: attempt to index global 'mdc' (a nil value).

Have you also additionally tried without all your other peripherals plugged in, i.e. just running vanilla without head-tracking, mfds, etc. to rule out any issues with those?

Edited Tuesday at 10:50 PM by sleighzy

[Ulukaii]

Small stutters in Single Player, massive stutters in multiplayer. 

I will try the not running as admin and bin-mt change to bin. All others have been extensively tested. 

[Ulukaii]

@sleighzy all other sources that I read recommended to run it as admin ....

[Dangerzone]

54 minutes ago, Ulukaii said:

@sleighzy all other sources that I read recommended to run it as admin ....

I used to run it as administrator because many sources recommended it too. Later I was advised not to as it's no longer needed (and can now create issues), so I stopped - with no negative issues. It seems running DCS as admin was more of an old practice and as a common workaround to who knows what issues, and the current best practice is not to do so. (Really, it probably never should have been recommended in the first place.)

Definitely give it a go. It may not fix it, but it would be good to do as a test, and also to start migrating that way anyway.

Edited yesterday at 07:38 AM by Dangerzone

[sleighzy]

1 hour ago, Ulukaii said:

@sleighzy all other sources that I read recommended to run it as admin ....

Not sure what those sources are, may be from years ago, but definitely do not run as admin. It can cause issues reading/writing files, and is frequently the cause of mass stuttering and pauses when used with Winwing MFDs. 

42 minutes ago, Dangerzone said:

It seems running DCS as admin was more of an old practice and as a common workaround to who knows what

Yeah I think years ago it was spread that this was the way to run DCS as it gave higher priority / power management to the game thread and helped with performance. Don’t know if that was just bs but it isn’t needed and shouldn’t be done now. 

[MAXsenna]

7 minutes ago, sleighzy said:

Yeah I think years ago it was spread that this was the way to run DCS as it gave higher priority / power management to the game thread and helped with performance. Don’t know if that was just bs but it isn’t needed and shouldn’t be done now. 

Correct. Like before 2020 it was definitely a recommended practice for those reasons if you dig a little around here in the forum. 

[Ulukaii]

Holy smokes.

To my surprise,

• switching from bin-mt to bin and
• NOT running as administrator  

led to 2hrs of smooth gameplay. Will try again later and if stable, mark as resolved. 

Earth seems to be a globe after all

[The_Nephilim]

23 minutes ago, Ulukaii said:

Holy smokes.

To my surprise,

• switching from bin-mt to bin and
• NOT running as administrator  

led to 2hrs of smooth gameplay. Will try again later and if stable, mark as resolved. 

Earth seems to be a globe after all

I wonder why using the Bin.exe would be different arent they the same exe?? But I am glad you got it fixed. I may try running the bin exe..

Edited 22 hours ago by The_Nephilim

[MAXsenna]

4 hours ago, The_Nephilim said:

I wonder why using the Bin.exe would be different arent they the same exe?? But I am glad you got it fixed. I may try running the bin exe..

It shouldn't, but the bin-mt WILL be removed down the line. So it's just good practice to switch to the bin now. 

Not running as admin trick has been known for a while now. 

Cheers! 

[sleighzy]

Not running as admin is the key, most definitely when using Winwing stuff. No clue as to why Winwing causes things to freak out when running as admin, it's still a mystery.

Edited 11 hours ago by sleighzy

[MAXsenna]

Not running as admin is the key, most definitely when using Winwing stuff. No clue as to why Winwing causes things to freak out when running as admin, it's still a mystery.

Bad programming. It's not the first time.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Dangerzone]

Is Winwing software required to be running in order to use their peripherals?  I've only had experience with VKB and Virpil. The beauty about both is that all settings are uploaded directly into the devices themselves, so there's no software that's needed - thus no incompatibilities. 

I was under the impression that Winwing operated the same - but maybe I'm wrong. Does Winwing require software to be running in order for it to work? Is that why there's a conflict? (Otherwise, if not - I'm very curious to know how winwing could create problems with DCS running as administrator if they have no software running at all - it should just be like any other generic device)? What's going on there? 

[rob10]

Just now, Dangerzone said:

Is Winwing software required to be running in order to use their peripherals?  I've only had experience with VKB and Virpil. The beauty about both is that all settings are uploaded directly into the devices themselves, so there's no software that's needed - thus no incompatibilities. 

I was under the impression that Winwing operated the same - but maybe I'm wrong. Does Winwing require software to be running in order for it to work? Is that why there's a conflict? (Otherwise, if not - I'm very curious to know how winwing could create problems with DCS running as administrator if they have no software running at all - it should just be like any other generic device)? What's going on there? 

Depends what you're running.  For controllers like stick, MFD buttons, throttle you don't need it to run for inputs.  HOWEVER, for the lighting of A-A, A-G buttons to sync with DCS or for the UFC to actually display info from the game you do need SimAppPro running.  Although I agree it's not the greatest software, generally it doesn't cause a lot of issues.

[MAXsenna]

6 minutes ago, Dangerzone said:

Is Winwing software required to be running in order to use their peripherals? 

Depends. If you want lights and stuff that needs telemetry from the sim, yes. Just like Thrustmaster etc.

For just buttons and axis that use Direct Input, no. You don't even need need the WW software to configure the MFDs. You can edit the monitor.lua yourself, or even have Helios make it for you. And Helios does not need to run for exports to work, only if you are using a Helios profile profile which needs telemetry for the instruments. 

Cheers! 

Edit: Sniped by my buddy @rob10!  

Edited 7 hours ago by MAXsenna

[rob10]

That is a good point that the actual MFD displays also don't need SimAppPro (they're just an extension of your windows desktop being displayed).