Yet Another Track IR stuttering when panning thread

[wolfitoXtreme]

hello good people,

I know there are already a couple of posts regarding this issue, however I cannot seem to find an specific answer that fix the problem for me, I'm stating to believe the problem is manifested ultimately with TrackIR but is not directly tied to a defective CPU/GPU or other hardware.

I was able to minimized the stutters or at least the perception ot them with 50 smoothness and speed 2 within TrackIr software and 120 frames cap in Nvidia App, but still the stutters are there not that much but they are.

I occurred to me that although DCS recorded tracks are of almost no use, they do record every input from the player, even the jittery ones.

All I'm asking here is... Can someone who does not have this problem and have TrackIr or VR, record a 3 minutes track flying low level over a forest or medium size town and panning and share it here with me so I can definitively discard my other components as having a problem, I own the P51, Bf109 and the Normandy map only besides the stock ones, just in case, I'll appreciate that a lot thanks.

I've been after this issue for months so you can imagine I tried almos everything, BIOS, in-game, global, monitor, windows settings, disabling devices and services, excluding from antivirus, performance analytics software (LatencyMon, Afterburner, HWiNFO, PresentMon), bechmarking... you name it, I probably did it. My PC seem to be alright but I have the stuttering, it also happens when using mouse for panning BTW, but I have a crappy one so...

I also tried MSFS, they are there too, IL2 not that much but still a little bit.

thanks,

wolfitoXtreme

Edited 22 hours ago by wolfitoXtreme

[sleighzy]

Attach your DCS log file after replicating this issue.

On a sidenote; MSI Afterburner can introduce stuttering (note I'm definitely not saying this issue, just to be aware of it and disable in case it muddy's the waters with your investigation) due to the frequency of polling it does CPU power monitoring. If you decide not to uninstall it then disable, or drop the value, for the CPU power polling (can't recall if it was power only).

Nvidia app also has performance issues with overlays. Turn those off. (I distrust it enough given folk's experiences to uninstall it).

Edited Saturday at 11:37 PM by sleighzy

[SharpeXB]

Do you experience the same problem with TrackIR disabled and just using the mouse to pan around?

[wolfitoXtreme]

14 hours ago, sleighzy said:

Attach your DCS log file after replicating this issue.

On a sidenote; MSI Afterburner can introduce stuttering (note I'm definitely not saying this issue, just to be aware of it and disable in case it muddy's the waters with your investigation) due to the frequency of polling it does CPU power monitoring. If you decide not to uninstall it then disable, or drop the value, for the CPU power polling (can't recall if it was power only).

Nvidia app also has performance issues with overlays. Turn those off. (I distrust it enough given folk's experiences to uninstall it).

OK thanks, this is the log file, no other software was running appart from TrackIR, and whatever normal stuff the system does. No Nvidia overlay either. This is bugging me since I bought this system, no fancy stuff was installed then. As I mentioned I tried lots of stuff without success.
 

dcs.zip

[wolfitoXtreme]

14 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Do you experience the same problem with TrackIR disabled and just using the mouse to pan around?

Yes indeed, as I said, but it is a crappy office like mouse, I experienced the same with a first person shooter I tried out because the same, do not want to buy a fancy gamer mouse if I can avoid it.

Could you, or someone else please share a 3 minutes track here with me, flying low level with some forest and/or buildings around and panning with either VR or TrackIR (stock plane, stock map), so I can definitively discard any physical problem and focus with whatever settings might be wrong for me. I will appreciate that a lot, thanks.

 

Edited 22 hours ago by wolfitoXtreme

[Art-J]

Here's the track and my gfx settings. Normandy 2 map (to push the GPU harder than Caucasus) and stock free flight P-51 mission. 

Old'ish computer here: RTX3070, i7 9700k CPU and 32 gigs of RAM. Drivers version 566.36. TrackIR soft version? I don't know, but certainly old, before that infamous, problematic last year update.

All I can say on my PC panning seems smooth both while playing and in replay. Occasional microstutter here and there, but any smoothness irregularities are caused by my head movement and aggressive yaw curves rather than GPU stutter.

 

P-51_Norm2_test.trk

[Czar]

1 hour ago, wolfitoXtreme said:

Yes indeed, as I said, but it is a crappy office like mouse, I experienced the same with a first person shooter I tried out because the same, do not want to buy a fancy gamer mouse if I can avoid it.

Seems something on your computer because all mouse today are smooth.... ..curious.

1 hour ago, wolfitoXtreme said:

Could you, or someone else please share a 3 minutes track here with me, flying low level with some forest and/or buildings around and panning with either VR or TrackIR (stock plane, stock map), so I can definitively discard any physical problem and focus with whatever settings might be wrong for me. I will appreciate that a lot, thanks.

I'll cook something for you in that regard.

Edit: ah, Art-J already done it. Will do one regardless.

Edited 21 hours ago by Czar

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, wolfitoXtreme said:

Yes indeed, as I said, but it is a crappy office like mouse

TrackIR is also a “crappy mouse” in terms of its 120Hz polling rate. If you see stuttering with it turned off that tells you it’s not TrackIR causing this. 

1 hour ago, wolfitoXtreme said:

Could you, or someone else please share a 3 minutes track here with me

What’s better and easier is for you to post your own track and let others replay it and try to duplicate your problem. 

Edited 21 hours ago by SharpeXB

[Czar]

41 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

What’s better and easier is for you to post your own track and let others replay it and try to duplicate your problem. 

I agree with this.

Either way, here is a SU25T track with looking around. 

Low Flying SU25T.trk

[The_Nephilim]

10 hours ago, wolfitoXtreme said:

Yes indeed, as I said, but it is a crappy office like mouse, I experienced the same with a first person shooter I tried out because the same, do not want to buy a fancy gamer mouse if I can avoid it.

Could you, or someone else please share a 3 minutes track here with me, flying low level with some forest and/or buildings around and panning with either VR or TrackIR (stock plane, stock map), so I can definitively discard any physical problem and focus with whatever settings might be wrong for me. I will appreciate that a lot, thanks.

 

well if you experience with other games it is probally not just DCS that is causing this issue.. Do you use trackIR with the 1st person shooter you mention here? I would say maybe some 3rd party program causing issues..

 

You said you tried everything almost but there has to be something causing this.. have you looked at task manager during a gaming session to see what might be taking up more resources then they should?

 

Have you tried a clean boot and retry the games to see if you get stuttering? Also what are your PC Specs?

Edited 12 hours ago by The_Nephilim

[wolfitoXtreme]

10 hours ago, Art-J said:

Here's the track and my gfx settings. Normandy 2 map (to push the GPU harder than Caucasus) and stock free flight P-51 mission. 

Thanks, sadly even with your same settings your track and @Czar one looks awful here, even worse of what I'm experiencing when playing. I thought was the input reaching the game, I do not know what to think at this point. Thanks both.

10 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

What’s better and easier is for you to post your own track and let others replay it and try to duplicate your problem. 

Here you have two tracks I just recorded, I bet they are gonna play smooth everywhere else. 

wx_P-51_Norm2.trk wx_TF-51_Caucasus.trk

Edited 10 hours ago by wolfitoXtreme

[wolfitoXtreme]

1 hour ago, The_Nephilim said:

well if you experience with other games it is probally not just DCS that is causing this issue.. Do you use trackIR with the 1st person shooter you mention here? I would say maybe some 3rd party program causing issues..

No the shooter with the crappy mouse only, I played other games using a gamepad though, RDR2, Lords of the Fallen, no stutters there when turning around not the same as a sim but.

My system.
...
*PC specs:*
- CPU: *AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D* 5.2GHz Socket AM5
- CPU cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 240
- GPU: *Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER* Windforce V2 16GB
- RAM: *DDR5 Corsair Vengeance RGB 64GB 2x32GB 6400MHz CL34* 
- 1st HD SSD: *M.2 Western Digital Black SN850X 1TB NVMe PCIe Gen4* (DCS is here)
- 2ns HD SSD: *M.2 Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB NVMe PCIe Gen4*
- Mother Board: *Gigabyte B650 EAGLE AX* Socket AM5 (latest BIOS F32g)
- PSU: *Corsair RM1000x 80 Plus Gold 1000W* ATX 3.1 PCIE 5.1 Modular
- Case: Corsair 4000D Airflow Black
- Display: *AOC CU34G2XP* (3440x1440) 180 Hz, using DP port connected to GPU
- OS: *Windows 10 Home,* latest.
- TrackIr, latest version
- Hotas WartHog
- Vipril Pedals
...

Not sure is related to a program in the background, I have this since day one, I did a clean Windows installation, removed the antivirus, etc at that time, anyhow I'm attaching the running processes while playing today.
process.txt

Edited 10 hours ago by wolfitoXtreme

[The_Nephilim]

so is DCS the only game where you get Stutters in? What nVidia drivers are you using? Did you do a DDU Uninstall and remove bloat on nvidia drivers before installing? the only Hog I seen besides DCS in your Process was Defender.. have you made exceptions for DCS.exe and the folders/saved games ?

 

Also have you run Crystal Disk or other benchmark Program for your NVME Drives to see it is running the correct speed? 1 other thing have you tried running your monitor @120/60Hz, when using trackir?

 

 

EDIT: I just looked at the log and was wondering what your VRam usage is during these missions?

Edited 9 hours ago by The_Nephilim

[Lange_666]

6 hours ago, wolfitoXtreme said:

Thanks, sadly even with your same settings your track and @Czar one looks awful here, even worse of what I'm experiencing when playing. I thought was the input reaching the game, I do not know what to think at this point. Thanks both.

I don't think a replay is fully representative compared to what you get in game.
I recorded a few tracks to post here but i didn't because during gameplay it was all fine but when viewing my own recordings i saw a lot of stutter when panning during replay that wasn't there while recording. Also, slow panning is fine, fast panning shows a bit of stutter when playing your tracks and if i compare that to mine with a very aggressive curve setting, the more it becomes visible.
The moment i took control while playing the track, the stutter vanished. Why that is i don't know (yet).
Same happens with other peoples tracks. So i see no real difference when i compare your track with mine.
Also, tracks are not representative since they are recorded on one system and then played on another with completely different specs.
The best way to compare is not a track but a video made while playing. 
 

Edited 4 hours ago by Lange_666

[escaner]

Display the fps counter in DCS and deploy it with the arrow to see the graph. I had microstutters every second due to Tacview in highly populated maps, they appeared as CPU spikes in the graph. If not, is the fps counter stable at 120? If the graph is a more or less a flat line (no spikes) but gets below 120, the panning with TrackIR is not smooth. Maybe try locking it at 60fps then or lowering the graphics settings for low level flights.

[Hiob]

Trackfile won't help with diagnosing performance issues. It is just a table with some numbers, not a recording. It rendered independently on the machine that "replays" the trackfile.

Microstuttering when panning around usually comes down to a) a messed up combination of refresh rate (fps), and settings like v-sync, g-sync, max fps.... etc. or b) a choppy frametime graph due to e.g. background processes running.

When it happens in other games all the same, it doesn't make much sense to try to find the problem in DCS.....

[Lange_666]

Tacview is certainly the culprit for the difference between smooth panning while playing in game and some stuttery panning while playing a recording.
I just commented out the Tacview entry in the export.lua and the induced stutter while panning in a recording is gone.
Re-enabling Tacview and it's there again.

Also, as escaner points out, when FPS is not stable (on the monitors refresh rate (or a division of it)), TrackIR can induce some extra stutter.
 

[Czar]

1 hour ago, Hiob said:

It rendered independently on the machine that "replays" the trackfile.

The word is not "rendered" for that.  His PC is 100% rendering the scene. Some of the simulation however is not being calculated when repaying a track.

1 hour ago, Hiob said:

When it happens in other games all the same, it doesn't make much sense to try to find the problem in DCS.....

100% agree.

If it is happening on shooters as OP pointed out, something off is going on in OPs side.

9 hours ago, wolfitoXtreme said:

No the shooter with the crappy mouse only, I played other games using a gamepad though, RDR2, Lords of the Fallen, no stutters there when turning around not the same as a sim but.

Those are GPU heavy games right? I know RDR2 well, idk about LotF.

Have you overclocked your CPU or RAM...or GPU? If so, undo it all and try DCS again.

[Hiob]

24 minutes ago, Czar said:

The word is not "rendered" for that.  His PC is 100% rendering the scene. Some of the simulation however is not being calculated when repaying a track.

Yes it is. That's exactly what I meant. When replaying a track on a different machine, it is rendered from scratch and completely independent from what is happening on the machine the track was "recorded" on. A trackfile is just a collection of values like positions, input values, direction, speed and acceleration values and a ton of other variables.

[Czar]

4 minutes ago, Hiob said:

Yes it is. That's exactly what I meant. When replaying a track on a different machine, it is rendered from scratch and completely independent from what is happening on the machine the track was "recorded" on. A trackfile is just a collection of values like positions, input values, direction, speed and acceleration values and a ton of other variables.

I think it was just the wording, my bad.
"The rendering is dependent on the machine that replays the track." No?

Edited 1 hour ago by Czar

[Hiob]

4 minutes ago, Czar said:

I think it was just the wording, my bad.
"The rendering is dependent on the machine that replays the track." No?

Exactly. 

[BIGNEWY]

track replay without user mods, dcs log from the same session and your dxdiag would be optimal. 

There are various reasons people see stutters, and with over a decade here on the forum helping people I know the cause is not always obvious so its best to get as much information as possible.

thank you  

 

21 hours ago, wolfitoXtreme said:

OK thanks, this is the log file, no other software was running appart from TrackIR, and whatever normal stuff the system does. No Nvidia overlay either. This is bugging me since I bought this system, no fancy stuff was installed then. As I mentioned I tried lots of stuff without success.
 

dcs.zip 11.7 kB · 8 downloads

Some basic advice

Please use the bin\DCS.exe instead of the bin-mt\DCS.exe. Both use mt, but the bin-mt folder will be removed by us eventually.
Your Windows version is outdated. Consider upgrading.

Verify that this is configured correctly in Windows:
Game Mode disabled,
Hardware accelerated GPU scheduling disabled

Check mouse polling rate, high polling rates can cause issues sometimes. 

Check your scripts folder in saved games dcs, some scripts can create problems, try without them. 

You may find turning off SSLR helps. 

thank you