Solved: Stutter Cause: SSD

[GreenD]

Hi,

 

Disk stuttering means that the computer is trying to write to the hard drive, but the hard drive will not accept it. This ends up making the operating system stutter as it tries to access the drive.

It's a problem of some solid-state hard disk when the work is too much.

 

I had the same problem but stops the core parking fix it. I think that the extra power let more free time for my SSD to write without suttering.

 

Check if you have energy plans in your bios too..

[kobac]

Hi,

 

I had the same problem, and i thought that was the SSD but the problem was the "core parking".

 

In my case i solved it in this way:

 

Open Regedit

...

Find:

"ea062031-0e34-4ff1-9b6d-eb1059334028" "Change characteristics" "1" to "0"

F3 to search the next, one for energy plan that you have in your machine. All of them change 1 for 0

 

I hope that it helps ;)

 

Sorry on which characteristics do you think? There exists:

 

Default [value not set]

Attributes [1]

Description [@%SystemRoot%\system32\powrprof.dll,-764,Specify the maximum number of unparked cores/packages allowed (in percentage).]

FriendlyName [@%SystemRoot%\system32\powrprof.dll,-765,Processor performance core parking max cores]

ValueIncrement [1]

ValueMax [64]

ValueMin [0]

ValueUnits [@%SystemRoot%\system32\powrprof.dll,-81,percent]

[HiJack]

Who is affected

It only applies to Windows 7 X64 and X32 and only in systems using more than 2 physical CPU's and/or more than 2 "logical" cores - ie: Core i7's.

 

The Problem

Core Parking is a feature of Windows 7 that is causing rare performance problems. I don't notice it on my home i7 / Win7 system but some people are getting microstutters and odd behavior in certain programs. Without the following " tweak" you may see CPU spiking in your programs and Windows Task Manager - some CPU cores will be "turned off" / "parked" depending on load and they will be dynamically turned on or off and dynamically loaded up or down as the system deems necessary - the scope for glitches / pops / clicks / dropouts etc.... in such an environment is simply enormous. To the best of my knowledge, there is no known "switch" to turn it off - no utility I am aware of to "tweak" it off.

 

The Fix

- Go to Regedit

- Select Edit > Find... and find this key: "Specify the minimum number of unparked cores"

- Within this key, there is a value called: " ValueMax " This value represents the % number of cores the system will park

- Change the value of " ValueMax" to 0 so that, it matches " ValueMin "

- You will have to find the key a few times and repeat the process for each time it is found - the number of instances will depend on the number of power profiles in your system. To do this go back up to Edit > Find Next. (I had 3 instances of this key in my registry.)

- Do a full shutdown and power-off and cold-re-start.

Edited October 23, 2012 by HiJack

[GreenD]

Sorry on which characteristics do you think? There exists:

 

Default [value not set]

Attributes [1]

Description [@%SystemRoot%\system32\powrprof.dll,-764,Specify the maximum number of unparked cores/packages allowed (in percentage).]

FriendlyName [@%SystemRoot%\system32\powrprof.dll,-765,Processor performance core parking max cores]

ValueIncrement [1]

ValueMax [64]

ValueMin [0]

ValueUnits [@%SystemRoot%\system32\powrprof.dll,-81,percent]

 

Ups Attributes, sorry, no characteristics.

[kobac]

Ok thx, my friend.

[vJaBoG32]

Still stuck to stutter

 

no joy, even with ValueMax Change.

This SSD from Kingston seems to make Problems with DCS World.

In other Games or Applications like War Thunder, FSX, Sony Vegas, ...

no Problem at all.

[Lange_666]

Changed my hardware recently (like totaly), put in 2 SSD's (Samsung EVO's), one for OS, the other for sims, no more issues (Win 8.1).

[Wolf Rider]

I tried every possible setting, on the SSD, on the HD, system managed, fixed, no swapfile, small swapfile, big swapfile, write cache on/off, pre- and superfetch enabled/disbaled and all the other tweaks, you name it. All i could find that could solve the issue i tried. No joy when the OS was installed on the SSD.

 

 

Hmmm... I have windows 7_64bit on an SSD and the sim installed to a separate SSD... no stutters.

 

SSD's are Intel 180Gb 520's

(I also have Core Parking turned off... Core Parking, is not so much the "energy plan", but the percentage at which the next core kicks in. ie when core 0 hits 60%, Core 1 kicks in... http://ultimatecomputers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3644)

Edited December 17, 2013 by Wolf Rider

[SkateZilla]

Yea, SSD is the way to go. Should be in the recommended requirements for DCS.

Don't forget to configure it correctly.

Set SATA to AHCI in BIOS before installing the OS, or TRIM wont work.

Also disable de-fragmentation and indexing on SSD, or it will fail soon.

Also disable on-board sound chip and use add-in sound card.

 

If you running out of SSD space, you can use compression, and unlike with HDD, it actually does both, increase your capacity and speed!

 

Tweak RAM timings, set them the lowest you can with the added voltage.

AMD CPU or Intel with HT OFF + low RAM timings + SSD + Sound Blaster = DCS smoothness!

 

Soundblaster has no effect on performance,

the XAudio2 stack is Rendered on it's own CPU Thread.

 

AS for the SSD Causing the Stutters,

-Look at Services running, Windows Will have services running that will constantly read and write to the drive, (Indexing, etc).

-If the SSD Isnt properly Aligned it will effect performance.

-If the BIOS settings arent correct it will effect performance.

-If the controller drivers arent up to date it will effect performance.

[camsr]

I am going to make a wild guess and say your PSU and/or MOBO are just not handling the power draw from your video card. Conversely, maybe it is SATA bus saturation OR page faults from small SSD cache.

 

One thing to attempt in software is Interrupt Affinity tuning.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff547969%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

When a large memory tranfer occurs to hardware, it can cause issues with threads by way of cache page faults. Background processes need to be kept on cores that use the interrupt of the accessed device. A simple tuning example would be a Quad Core CPU with an app running on two cores, only one of them has interrupt affinity to the necessary hardware. That leaves one core kicking out the app and page faults are reduced.

[AtaliaA1]

I am going to make a wild guess and say your PSU and/or MOBO are just not handling the power draw from your video card. Conversely, maybe it is SATA bus saturation OR page faults from small SSD cache.

 

One thing to attempt in software is Interrupt Affinity tuning.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff547969%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

When a large memory tranfer occurs to hardware, it can cause issues with threads by way of cache page faults. Background processes need to be kept on cores that use the interrupt of the accessed device. A simple tuning example would be a Quad Core CPU with an app running on two cores, only one of them has interrupt affinity to the necessary hardware. That leaves one core kicking out the app and page faults are reduced.

 

 

Interesting read. I haven't seen anything on IRQ and Interupt channels sense win98 days.

[camsr]

It makes a difference in parallel systems. Some threads need more time than others, so cores with less to do can better handle interrupts.

[ZaltysZ]

Changed my hardware recently (like totaly), put in 2 SSD's (Samsung EVO's), one for OS, the other for sims, no more issues (Win 8.1).

 

Then the fault was in old SSD or mobo (if you have changed it too). Do you still have that SSD? If you do and want to experiment a bit try hooking it up and disabling a TRIM. Commands:

 

To disable: fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 1

To enable: fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0

 

TRIM is supposed to lessen the performance decrease of future writes once drive fills up a bit, however TRIM has its own performance penalty. If your drive is pre-SATA 3.1, it does not support queued TRIM, and that means it stalls all other drive commands until it is finished. That penalty is rarely noticeable in desktop environments, but usually shows up in servers or other systems with high disk workload: lots of parallel small writes and reads, or too much unbuffered IO.

 

I think it is worth to test without TRIM if you have some sort of SSD related IO "stalls", especially if SSD is old.

[Gloom Demon]

On some motherboards some SATA ports are realized through a separate chip, not the south bridge. Connecting high speed devices to such a port usually results in deteriorating performance - maybe you should try changing SATA ports?

[vJaBoG32]

Then the fault was in old SSD or mobo (if you have changed it too). Do you still have that SSD? If you do and want to experiment a bit try hooking it up and disabling a TRIM. Commands:

 

To disable: fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 1

To enable: fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0

 

TRIM is supposed to lessen the performance decrease of future writes once drive fills up a bit, however TRIM has its own performance penalty. If your drive is pre-SATA 3.1, it does not support queued TRIM, and that means it stalls all other drive commands until it is finished. That penalty is rarely noticeable in desktop environments, but usually shows up in servers or other systems with high disk workload: lots of parallel small writes and reads, or too much unbuffered IO.

 

I think it is worth to test without TRIM if you have some sort of SSD related IO "stalls", especially if SSD is old.

 

You`re the man! Nothing worked out and i was close to kick mainboard and SSD, because of stutter (in mp dogfights you hit nothing with this problem). Now DCS runs smooth (with disabledeletenotify 1). Only small lags in a few certain situations. Thanks!!!

[ZaltysZ]

You`re the man! Nothing worked out and i was close to kick mainboard and SSD, because of stutter (in mp dogfights you hit nothing with this problem). Now DCS runs smooth (with disabledeletenotify 1). Only small lags in a few certain situations. Thanks!!!

 

Keep in mind that disabling TRIM will gradually degrade write performance of Your SSD. Once slow down becomes unbearable, reenable TRIM and fill up the disk fully with some arbitrary files, and then delete those files - this will get your SSD TRIMed. Alternatively, search for ForceTRIM app on internet - it will help with filling the disk up. Do this when it gets unbearable, don't make it a daily routine or your SSD will wear off. Also, the more free space you have, the later You will notice the degradation.

[vJaBoG32]

copy, thx.

I´ll get a new SSD anyway, so for now this works out.

All AHCI Driver i tried didn´t solve the problem (mobo has new SATA3 cons but SSD is a old SATA2 Kingston) .

Edited December 26, 2013 by asticher

[ZaltysZ]

copy, thx.

I´ll get a new SSD anyway, so for now this works out.

All AHCI Driver i tried didn´t solve the problem (mobo has new SATA3 cons but SSD is a old SATA2 Kingston) .

 

Do you have an HDD too? If yes, could you try one thing? Reenable DeleteNotify, create TEMP folder on that HDD and change environmental variables (TEMP, TMP, TEMPDIR) so that they will point to it. You can do that via Control Panel>System>Advanced System Settings>Advanced>Environment Variables. Change only "User variables" and then restart PC. Constant truncation of temp files is probably the reason why trim gets triggered.

[panther494th]

i have ssd instaled 1.2.6 stutters after 2 mins after that cant play it FC3.it was fine with 1.2.5.

BUT i have 1.2.7 open beta and that runs fine . till we had a small update now im loseing the ESC key in game aggggggggggggg

[Skitter]

@ZaltysZ, Thanks for the hint

To disable: fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 1

To enable: fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0

 

It works for my SSD. I moved all temp directories to another drive.

I think DCS is using the C:/Users/User_name/Saved Games/DCS/Tracks while you fly...so I moved the directory to another drive, using the below tutorial:

 

http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-move-windows-7-personal-folders-my-documents-another-drive.htm

 

We'll see how it'll go...

 

Cheers

[Akki]

I have Win 7 x64 on a pair of Kingstons HyperX 120gb mounted in RAID 0 (240gb). No stuttering issues here. This setup has very high read access and low DCS load times.

[javelina1]

@ZaltysZ, Thanks for the hint

 

 

It works for my SSD. I moved all temp directories to another drive.

I think DCS is using the C:/Users/User_name/Saved Games/DCS/Tracks while you fly...so I moved the directory to another drive, using the below tutorial:

 

http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-move-windows-7-personal-folders-my-documents-another-drive.htm

 

We'll see how it'll go...

 

Cheers

 

What's your feedback? notice any difference?

[yufighter]

The best solution to this problem is installing Windows 8.1

 

FRAPS Benchmark test for different mission

 

Pictures 1, 2 - Win 7 and pictures 3 - Win 8.1

[AtaliaA1]

The best solution to this problem is installing Windows 8.1

 

FRAPS Benchmark test for different mission

 

Pictures 1, 2 - Win 7 and pictures 3 - Win 8.1

 

 

How is FRAPS when it comes to benchmarking a DX9 software title?

 

I did look in the support page to see but there was no information pertaining to DX9. Change logs mention DX10. I should think it would matter what the software is "Benchmarking" between the different DX offerings?