Blackouts and stutters have become impossible to deal with every 5 seconds.

[sleighzy]

10 minutes ago, DmitriKozlowsky said:

Thank you

Is there a tech private that I can email dcs.log and dxdiag (?) to, instead of posting it?

Also where is dxdiag.log or .txt file?

Can you post your DCS log file at least, like everybody else who comes here for help? If you're worried about identifiable info in it just find'n'replace your username in the file.

[MAXsenna]

Thank you
Is there a tech private that I can email dcs.log and dxdiag (?) to, instead of posting it?
Also where is dxdiag.log or .txt file?

He wrote DM, just click his account, click the mail icon and attach like any post here.

Cheers!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[DmitriKozlowsky]

OK

I have reinstalled Nvidia drivers in safe mode. Restart. Set Nvidia Shader Cache to : Disabled. Restart. Deleted C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\NVIDIA\DXCache. Restarted. Set Nvidia Shader Cache to Driver Default. Restart. Deleted contents of C:\Users\USER\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\metashaders2. Restart

Ran DCS

Blackouts and freezes remain. With GPU utilization graph, in Task Manager, goes to zero for XX number of seconds. Then returns to normal, with DCS running, as if nothing happened. There is no application crash.

So , as expected, no change in performance. dcs.log file attached. I am unable to locate dxdiag.log file. Where would it be?

However in AV8B and M2000C in Nevada Free Flight, I get now get 180-205 FPS. For some reason RAZBAM mods have the best FPS on my system. But blackouts are universal. They happen in all modules with similar regularity.

 

dcs.log

[sleighzy]

20 minutes ago, DmitriKozlowsky said:

OK

I have reinstalled Nvidia drivers in safe mode. Restart. Set Nvidia Shader Cache to : Disabled. Restart. Deleted C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\NVIDIA\DXCache. Restarted. Set Nvidia Shader Cache to Driver Default. Restart. Deleted contents of C:\Users\USER\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\metashaders2. Restart

Ran DCS

Blackouts and freezes remain. With GPU utilization graph, in Task Manager, goes to zero for XX number of seconds. Then returns to normal, with DCS running, as if nothing happened. There is no application crash.

So , as expected, no change in performance. dcs.log file attached. I am unable to locate dxdiag.log file. Where would it be?

However in AV8B and M2000C in Nevada Free Flight, I get now get 180-205 FPS. For some reason RAZBAM mods have the best FPS on my system. But blackouts are universal. They happen in all modules with similar regularity.

 

dcs.log 94.77 kB · 0 downloads

This log file is missing the expected entry containing the RAM and page file size information. Potentially an issue with this. Have you run a memory test? 

For the DxDiag log you need to run the Windows DxDiag tool, save the output, and attach here. This may also help highlight RAM issues.

You also have the OH6 Gunner script. This has been known to cause performance problems in the past. Remove that from your Scripts\Hooks directory.

EDIT: This log file is not containing the expected entry for the CPU either. Just wanting to confirm whether or not you have removed this information from the log, or there is a much deeper problem with your PC. 

Edited 5 hours ago by sleighzy

[DmitriKozlowsky]

38 minutes ago, sleighzy said:

This log file is missing the expected entry containing the RAM and page file size information. Potentially an issue with this. Have you run a memory test? 

For the DxDiag log you need to run the Windows DxDiag tool, save the output, and attach here. This may also help highlight RAM issues.

You also have the OH6 Gunner script. This has been known to cause performance problems in the past. Remove that from your Scripts\Hooks directory.

EDIT: This log file is not containing the expected entry for the CPU either. Just wanting to confirm whether or not you have removed this information from the log, or there is a much deeper problem with your PC. 

I edited the dcs.log file to remove , what I consider, to be identifiable information erring on side of caution.

[Czar]

22 minutes ago, DmitriKozlowsky said:

I edited the dcs.log file to remove , what I consider, to be identifiable information erring on side of caution.

Information to identify the cause of the issue that is?

[sleighzy]

22 minutes ago, DmitriKozlowsky said:

I edited the dcs.log file to remove , what I consider, to be identifiable information erring on side of caution.

The amount of RAM you have, and CPU, should not be identifiable information. Can you send another log with that information please. The only "identifiable" information in the log file would be the username in the C:\Users\username path, which you've already updated to USER.

You're also running DCS from the bin-mt folder. Use the shortcut, or whatever you're using, to run in from the bin folder. Both of them are multithreaded and bin-mt and it's shortcut will be removed in the future.

[Nytehawk]

1 hour ago, sleighzy said:

This log file is missing the expected entry containing the RAM and page file size information. Potentially an issue with this. Have you run a memory test? 

For the DxDiag log you need to run the Windows DxDiag tool, save the output, and attach here. This may also help highlight RAM issues.

You also have the OH6 Gunner script. This has been known to cause performance problems in the past. Remove that from your Scripts\Hooks directory.

EDIT: This log file is not containing the expected entry for the CPU either. Just wanting to confirm whether or not you have removed this information from the log, or there is a much deeper problem with your PC. 

That's what fixed mine today.  I had a near perfect 4-second lag spike on the FPS counter (frames would dip from 90 to 30, frame times would spike from 11 to ugh, every 4 seconds) until I removed the OH6 Gunner script stuff. Best part, I wasn't even using OH6 anymore, so pfft.  Deleted the gunner_export_hook.lua and OH6GunnerDataExport.dll files to watch the lag vanish, added it back to confirm the issue came back, then removed the OH6 completely since I'm not using it anymore anyway.

Thank you for this!  I'd already narrowed down to a few things including OH6 since I started rebuilding my saved games folder and started slowly adding things back in to see what caused it.

[sleighzy]

On 10/15/2025 at 3:39 PM, DmitriKozlowsky said:

I cleared by Nvidia shader cache and C:\Users\USERNAME\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\metashaders2.

Did you clear the fxo folder as well? Have you tried completely renaming the Saved Games\dcs.openbeta folder to DCS.old and then trying again? You can copy your keybindings back from the Config\Input folder of that DCS.old backup after DCS starts up and recreates it.

Doing so would have removed that gunner script so would have ruled out the known performance issue of that if it is a factor / cause.

Edited 3 hours ago by sleighzy

[DmitriKozlowsky]

35 minutes ago, sleighzy said:

Did you clear the fxo folder as well? Have you tried completely renaming the Saved Games\dcs.openbeta folder to DCS.old and then trying again? You can copy your keybindings back from the Config\Input folder of that DCS.old backup after DCS starts up and recreates it.

Doing so would have removed that gunner script so would have ruled out the known performance issue of that if it is a factor / cause.

Yes. Blackouts remain.

I do not believe this is a fixable issue. It progressively got worse, with new DCS builds since 2.9.X  I think this is between Nvidia drivers, I use Studio drivers(but it does not matter), and DCS.

There is this Unigine GPU stress app, which stresses GPU and system to max. I have no problems with it, and I let it run for hours. I am told its considered excellent. I also use GPU for OpenCL simulation of fluids in Houdini. Again , no issues. Only DCS is the problem child.

[sleighzy]

12 minutes ago, DmitriKozlowsky said:

Yes. Blackouts remain.

I do not believe this is a fixable issue. It progressively got worse, with new DCS builds since 2.9.X  I think this is between Nvidia drivers, I use Studio drivers(but it does not matter), and DCS.

There is this Unigine GPU stress app, which stresses GPU and system to max. I have no problems with it, and I let it run for hours. I am told its considered excellent. I also use GPU for OpenCL simulation of fluids in Houdini. Again , no issues. Only DCS is the problem child.

Replicate the issue and then attach a full log. I'm not familiar with the stress testing app, or the process it follows, so may differ from how DCS is using your CPU.

The regular drop every 5 seconds would seem to indicate that some process (we'll assume DCS at this stage) is running something. This is potentially impacting the CPU so the GPU can drop to zero frames as no frames are being created during this time for it to render. This is why I ask about things like scripts that DCS has loaded, e.g. the gunner hook, etc. as potential areas for investigation.

Can you also provide screenshots of the in-game perf overlay (RCTL+Pause/Break), and from the task manager for your CPU and GPU so we can see if there are spikes there that coincide with this.

[MAXsenna]

2 hours ago, Nytehawk said:

Thank you for this!  I'd already narrowed down to a few things including OH6 since I started rebuilding my saved games folder and started slowly adding things back in to see what caused it.

I assume you're using a mod manager for this? Just checking.