Stutters on 9800X3D 96 RAM in MP

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

10 minutes ago, SpecteRED said:

I'm talking about the voltage curve

I’m not undervolting, so it’s just the default settings. My temperatures stay low because I can hear that by the sound level of the fans. I have a custom fan curve that lets them speed up when the temperatures reach high levels but that doesn’t happen in DCS (other than due to a bug a while ago that was fixed).

[MoleUK]

13 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

According to he's OP, he's not using VR but TrackIR. Just mentioning it.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk
 

Gotcha, got my wires crossed there.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

14 minutes ago, SpecteRED said:

I'm pretty sure it's not about the Windows settings, because with the same Windows settings, I used 2 different processors and there were statters on one, but not on the other. 

That sounds like you swapped the hardware without reinstalling windows? AMD CPUs require very different things from the windows scheduler than Intel CPUs. When doing a complete reinstall, it’s very easy to forget something in windows, so I’m just making sure

[SpecteRED]

3 минуты назад, Raven (Elysian Angel) сказал:

That sounds like you swapped the hardware without reinstalling windows? AMD CPUs require very different things from the windows scheduler than Intel CPUs. When doing a complete reinstall, it’s very easy to forget something in windows, so I’m just making sure

I thought so too, and after that I reinstalled win 10 - it didn't help. after that, I installed win 11 23h2 - it didn't help, then I installed win11 24h2 - it didn't help.... Now I'm thinking of trying 25h2, but there's little hope. There were the same lags at all stages.

[Av8tr]

On 10/17/2025 at 9:26 AM, SpecteRED said:

My spec Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 96 RAM (6000 GHz 30 CL), 4070 ti (12 Gb), SSD - Samsung 990 PRO 2 Tb.

I have small stutters in the multiplayer. And it's very annoying. This happens most often on earth and when there are many AI scripts on the map (for example, 4YA servers). I've tried on Growling Sidewinder server (just take off) and it will be fine

What I've tried:

• I set the graphical settings to minimum, but it didn't help
• enabled/disabled SMT in bios
• turned on/off EXPO
• overclocked the RAM
• limited FPS (120/ 80)
• turned off the first CPU core
• disabled core parking (C-State - off in Bios)
• reduced the mouse frequency
• turned off my Virpil deviсes and TrackIR
• G-sync on/off
• Fullscreen on/off

What else can I do?

a screenshot from the 4YA server (Iraq), there were only 4 players. But on the map of the Caucasus, where 30+ players are the same.

null

 

 

You mentioned this was in multiplayer. Are you completely stutter free in single player as well?

I'm asking because this is a major way to diagnose if it is an issue with your system instead of the multiplayer performance of DCS in general.

I've been playing DCS for 11 years on 5 different systems. They were all Intel based until I switched to a 9800X3D about 7 months ago and I've been quite happy about it.

That being said, stuttering in multiplayer in DCS has always been an issue for me and a lot of people. Especially when the server gets overloaded. The server can list 64 people as maximum amount, but it seems like when it is around 30 to 40 plus players the stuttering gets really bad.

Switching to a 14700K from a 9800X3D isn't going to make your stuttering problem better, it will make it worse. Especially if you are not having issues with it in single player. Also, the majority of 14700K chips are defective. Mine started failing after only 4 months and it wasn't overclocked either. There was a defect in the manufacturing process when Intel was making those chips. Some people have issues from the first day of install, some have gone a year or more with no issue. It will at some point most likely fail either way. That is why I replaced mine with a 9800X3D chip.

You can set your graphics setting to low, medium, or high but there a couple specific settings that greatly impact stuttering from my observations. Those settings are SSLR and civilian traffic. I don't know why these settings give me stuttering on the 9800X3D in single player, but they do. I have turned off both settings and DCS still looks absolutely stunning on my 42-inch 4k monitor. I will attach a screenshot of my settings for you to look at in this post.

I have had stuttering issues in single player in DCS due to my RAM as well in the past. The 9800X3D seems pickier with RAM than on Intel chips in my experience. I have gone through three sets of RAM on my latest PC before finding a set that worked well. It was the AMD specific G.Skill Trident 2x32 6000mt's RAM. The first set of a RAM was a 4x16 6000MT's set from TeamGroup and my machine did not like it all. It gave me a lot of blue screens, stuttering and crashes in DCS and other simulators and games. Second set was a 2X48 4800MT's set from Corsair that would overheat and give me the same issues.  

Have you updated your processor and chipset drivers for your 9800X3D from the AMD website as well? You need to do it for both categories if you haven't. It makes a major difference also.

Also, make sure you do not have Ryzen Master, Nvidia Experience app, or ASUS Armory Crate installed as well. These programs eat up resources in the background. In the case of ASUS Armory Crate, you will want to reinstall your entire Windows install and make sure not to install it again.

Lastly, sometimes when loading into a server the VRAM on your graphics card can go over budget when loading everything in and needs a little bit of time to release it. This is more noticeable on some of the higher detailed maps like the Sinai map for instance. You might notice some stuttering or hanging during that time as well.

 

 

Edited Sunday at 11:01 PM by Av8tr

[MAXsenna]

I thought so too, and after that I reinstalled win 10 - it didn't help. after that, I installed win 11 23h2 - it didn't help, then I installed win11 24h2 - it didn't help.... Now I'm thinking of trying 25h2, but there's little hope. There were the same lags at all stages.

I get confused, as there are some similar threads around the past few days.
You completely wiped the disks and installed a new version of Windows, or you upgraded? There's a way you can completely refresh Windows without reinstalling. Similar to a full repair of DCS.

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[SpecteRED]

17 минут назад, MoleUK сказал:

The stutters when players join/disconnect is very intermittent. It will only happen on some servers, and only some of the time. You mentioned using your wifes machine earlier, you might want to try having both machines logged into the same server at the same time if possible. You will likely see them both stutter at the exact same moments.

A server like growling sidewinder for example is far less likely to have any of these join/disconnect stutters, but a more busy server like 4YA will have them more often. Particularly if 4YA are still using non dynamic slots, I haven't checked in a while if they're still on the old slots or not.

that's exactly what I did, logging into the same server from different PCs. I have very strong lags (drops from 120 to 20-30 fps), she also has lags, but much less (drops from 120 to 105-110 fps)

5 минут назад, MAXsenna сказал:

I get confused, as there are some similar threads around the past few days.
You completely wiped the disks and installed a new version of Windows, or you upgraded? There's a way you can completely refresh Windows without reinstalling. Similar to a full repair of DCS.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk
 

I always perform a clean installation.

I've been trying to solve this problem on my own since June. I've been trying to solve it with DCS support for the last month...now i'm here

Edited Sunday at 11:04 PM by SpecteRED

[MAXsenna]

I always perform a clean installation.
I've been trying to solve this problem on my own since June. I've been trying to solve it with DCS support for the last month...now i'm here

Gotcha! Thanks!

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[SpecteRED]

@Av8trI don't see any lags in the single version.

all drivers are updated to the latest versions (even tried beta versions)

if I set all the settings to the absolute minimum, the situation does not change. at a minimum, 2 GB of Vram is used out of 12

[Av8tr]

4 minutes ago, SpecteRED said:

@Av8trI don't see any lags in the single version.

all drivers are updated to the latest versions (even tried beta versions)

if I set all the settings to the absolute minimum, the situation does not change. at a minimum, 2 GB of Vram is used out of 12

If you don't see any lag in singleplayer then it is just an issue with multiplayer in DCS in general. It's been around since I started playing DCS in 2014. Sometimes it gets better during certain updates and other times it gets worse. The only time I managed to get rid of stuttering in multiplayer was during a brief moment during DCS 1.5 when I bought 128gb of RAM that I used on an older PC.

Edited Sunday at 11:11 PM by Av8tr

[SpecteRED]

Yesterday I tested the game with another user on the same server (we took the same helicopters and just stood on the ground). Both have a frame rate limited to 120. Whenever someone logged into the server, my frame rate dropped to 40-60, and my friend's dropped to 110-115.

I'll try to buy another motherboard like my friend's, even though it's worse than mine. (ASUS TUF GAMING B650-PLUS).... if it doesn't help, I'll try to buy exactly the same processor as I have now.

[Lange_666]

Kinda drastic solution if you ask me.
You will probably end up with the same problem as you have now, spend quite a bit of money for no solution.
I to have quite some stutters lately when in MP, mostly in VR where before it was as good as stutter free. 

Edited Wednesday at 11:34 AM by Lange_666

[Hiob]

41 minutes ago, SpecteRED said:

Yesterday I tested the game with another user on the same server (we took the same helicopters and just stood on the ground). Both have a frame rate limited to 120. Whenever someone logged into the server, my frame rate dropped to 40-60, and my friend's dropped to 110-115.

I'll try to buy another motherboard like my friend's, even though it's worse than mine. (ASUS TUF GAMING B650-PLUS).... if it doesn't help, I'll try to buy exactly the same processor as I have now.

There are a ton of other variables (in game and in windows *and in bios) that could affect this.
Buying hardware to solve this is a complete waste of money. It won't fix anything other than by pure chance.

non-exhaustive list: (some may not affect this remotely, others might in unforseeable or unintuitive ways mind you)

- preload radius
- V-sync settings
- pagefile settings
- anti-virus
- background processes
- gfx settings
- how the fps limit is enforced
etc. pp.
 

Edited Wednesday at 10:46 AM by Hiob

[MAXsenna]

2 hours ago, SpecteRED said:

Both have a frame rate limited to 120. Whenever someone logged into the server, my frame rate dropped to 40-60, and my friend's dropped to 110-115.

Excuse me, but why would you think this is related to your local hardware? Does your friend live nearby and have the same ISP, subscription, router, etc?

Pretty sure now this is network/ISP related. And DCS network code is rumoured to be pretty bad, even if I've never experienced it so. What's your download speed during updates. Worse than Steam?

Apologies for not noticing that this is your issue before. 

Cheers! 

[SpecteRED]

27 минут назад, MAXsenna сказал:

Excuse me, but why would you think this is related to your local hardware? Does your friend live nearby and have the same ISP, subscription, router, etc?

Pretty sure now this is network/ISP related. And DCS network code is rumoured to be pretty bad, even if I've never experienced it so. What's your download speed during updates. Worse than Steam?

Apologies for not noticing that this is your issue before. 

Cheers! 

as I already wrote, there is no such problem on my second computer with a different processor. and it's in the same room as my first PC. So there's no problem with the network.

[MAXsenna]

1 minute ago, SpecteRED said:

as I already wrote, there is no such problem on my second computer with a different processor. and it's in the same room as my first PC. So there's no problem with the network.

Yeah, you actually did. Remember now. 

But, network is also local. Hmmm... 

[Hiob]

20 minutes ago, SpecteRED said:

as I already wrote, there is no such problem on my second computer with a different processor. and it's in the same room as my first PC. So there's no problem with the network.

You should AT LEAST verify, that you and your buddy, have the same system settings (game and nvidia control panel) and the same exceptions (or lack thereof) for AV.
E.g. somebody entering the server may(!) (I don't know) cause some pre-cashing of assets (aka loading from disk), which may cause latency and a momentary drop of fps. This may trigger the AV to scan the loaded files. 
Just an example for a possible chain of cause and effect.

Since your FPS drop to around 60ish, it may also be V-sync related. Remeber V-sync will drop to the next lower tier if it can't hold 120,60,30,15 fps. (Unless fast V-sync is enabled or V-sync is disabled altogether)

But there is more possible difference. What do you guys have running next to DCS? (Like Hardware Telemetry, RGB crap, proprietary software from Logitech etc. ...other stuff) is it all the same? probably not

[SpecteRED]

12 минут назад, Hiob сказал:

You should AT LEAST verify, that you and your buddy, have the same system settings (game and nvidia control panel) and the same exceptions (or lack thereof) for AV.
E.g. somebody entering the server may(!) (I don't know) cause some pre-cashing of assets (aka loading from disk), which may cause latency and a momentary drop of fps. This may trigger the AV to scan the loaded files. 
Just an example for a possible chain of cause and effect.

Since your FPS drop to around 60ish, it may also be V-sync related. Remeber V-sync will drop to the next lower tier if it can't hold 120,60,30,15 fps. (Unless fast V-sync is enabled or V-sync is disabled altogether)

But there is more possible difference. What do you guys have running next to DCS? (Like Hardware Telemetry, RGB crap, proprietary software from Logitech etc. ...other stuff) is it all the same? probably not

I turned off absolutely everything for the test (all applications, antivirus). Only the discord worked (it worked for him too)

We had the same settings in the game, Nvidia was in default.

[-=Shin=-]

do you use Tac View? If yes, try to turn it off and test..... a squadron mate had this problems...turned off his TacView.....all fine again ^^ 

[SpecteRED]

1 час назад, -=Shin=- сказал:

Используете ли вы TacView? Если да, попробуйте отключить его и проверить... у товарища по эскадрилье были такие проблемы... отключил TacView... всё снова в порядке ^^ 

no. I'm only using one mod to increase the number of buttons for the gems.

[MoleUK]

4 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

Excuse me, but why would you think this is related to your local hardware? Does your friend live nearby and have the same ISP, subscription, router, etc?

Pretty sure now this is network/ISP related. And DCS network code is rumoured to be pretty bad, even if I've never experienced it so. What's your download speed during updates. Worse than Steam?

Apologies for not noticing that this is your issue before. 

Cheers! 

I never did monitor network usage spikes during the stutters when players connect/disconnect/reslot. 

While I can say that every single person connected to the server gets the stutters at the same time when this is happening (and this has been the case for years), I can't speak to how the severity of the drops might differ between machines. Never tested it. Some hardware/software setups might recover from the stutters quicker tho for sure.

Mine are fairly minimal, except when role select is open. If you leave role select open the stutters when players join/disconnect/reslot get way way more severe. Which again says to me it's more about the game itself not being optimised well for long lists or refreshing the UI, in the same way that it really struggles when refreshing the list of MP servers.

4 hours ago, SpecteRED said:

as I already wrote, there is no such problem on my second computer with a different processor. and it's in the same room as my first PC. So there's no problem with the network.

This is probably completely unrelated and is a shot in the dark, but is there any chance that the machine that suffers more severely from the stutters (the 9800X3D) also have 1-2 CPU cores pegged at 100% CPU load even while idle on the main menu? This is a known bug/issue, but I don't know if it's been connected to actual performance problems directly.

If it does show that behavior, please check if your wifes machine suffers from the same bug or not.

[MAXsenna]

@MoleUK Exactly what I was thinking, and where I'm going at. Throwing new hardware after this, is probably futile.

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[MoleUK]

11 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

@MoleUK Exactly what I was thinking, and where I'm going at. Throwing new hardware after this, is probably futile.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk
 

Yeah imo it's unlikely to make much/any difference.

I will note again that servers that use dynamic slots (and only dynamic slots) tend to suffer less from this problem overall I think.

On servers that have both dynamic and non-dynamic, while role select is open on the non-dynamic slots you will get stutters when players join/dc. If you switch to the list of dynamic slots, the stutters stop. At least last time I did testing on this.

I'm guessing the role select/join/disconnect stutters only overspill into general gameplay when the server starts to chug. Which again might be avoided entirely if the server only uses dynamic slots to reduce the strain when the list refreshes. But whatever way ED have the UI refreshing stuff just seems to be problematic if it's causing hiccups for modern CPU's/servers.

Edited Wednesday at 06:16 PM by MoleUK

[SpecteRED]

55 минут назад, MoleUK сказал:

This is probably completely unrelated and is a shot in the dark, but is there any chance that the machine that suffers more severely from the stutters (the 9800X3D) also have 1-2 CPU cores pegged at 100% CPU load even while idle on the main menu? This is a known bug/issue, but I don't know if it's been connected to actual performance problems directly.

If it does show that behavior, please check if your wifes machine suffers from the same bug or not.

I don't have a any processor core that's running at 100%

[Hiob]

2 hours ago, MoleUK said:

 

This is probably completely unrelated and is a shot in the dark, but is there any chance that the machine that suffers more severely from the stutters (the 9800X3D) also have 1-2 CPU cores pegged at 100% CPU load even while idle on the main menu? This is a known bug/issue, but I don't know if it's been connected to actual performance problems directly.

When 1-2 cores are hogged by some process (bug or otherwise), that‘ll definitely have impact on performance. The CPU has a limited budget for power and heat.

(Unless it’s just a misreporting, can be easily cross checked by monitoring the temps and watts)

@SpecteRED do you guys have the same bios version and chipset drivers installed?