Stutter Problems? Try These!

[Guest Glenn]

First off, many thanks to all those who responded to my plea for help regarding stutter problems yesterday. Your time and input is much appreciated.I think I have found a reason for 90% of my stutters and hopefully this will help others here too. Let me start by saying that the ideas came from a magazine called "Smart Computing" (www.smartcomputing.com). No, they didn't have an article on FS9, but with a 2 year subscription, I was sent an add-on mag (single issue) called "Windows A-Z". In it is an article on how to tweak your OS. What is especially good about the article is that while we all know that certain things will give small improvements/degradations in the OS, this article explained just how MUCH a certain feature in Windows can affect the whole system performance (given in relative terms). After reading only half the article, I decided to give the first 2 suggestions they had a try. I removed that nice big Autumn picture I have as a desktop, and I removed the Automatic Windows Update (I check every couple of days anyway) feature. What a difference!!!! It was like night and day! I went from having an unflyable approach to one in which the stutters were barely noticeable, and I'm sure when I've finished the rest of the article, I'll have more performance increases. I was just about to either give up and retire from flight simming, or go out and spend a whack of cash on a new video card that I didn't need. Think about getting that mag - it might save you a LOT of headaches - both in FS and in other areas.Glenn

[Guest Bigshot]

Who would have thought? Good to hear. The video card almost always gets the blame when most of the time it is completely innocent.

[Guest Glenn]

Amen to that. And what added to that mix too was that I tried out the sim on my old machine with an NVidia card and it was MUCH better, although the graphics weren't as nice. Go figure. :-)Glenn

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Glenn,Glad to here of your success!I suspect when most folk refer to their sim being super smooth in all situations and free from stuttering they are in fact referring to straight but not necessarily level flight. The one thing I have noted is that FS2004 seems consistently smooth, even at relatively low frame rates, in moderately dense scenery areas until, that is, you execute a turn. Then the stutters start to appear. Depending on the steepness of your bank, your situation, altitude and the direction you are looking, these irregular hesitations can vary from being barely noticeable to making the screen update unrealistically jerky. This is annoying and, so far, there does not seem to be a convincing cure which makes it just a tad frustrating.The problem is FS2004, out of the box, performs very well, even in turns, on a wide variety of systems which, presumably, was the intention of the designers. Unfortunately, our needs are greater and when we start to move those sliders to the right, pile on the addons and tweak our graphic cards for those perfect images those feelings of disappointment at the consequent impact on performance become all to evident. Then we begin our obsessive endeavours to achieve the impossible. Why? Because our expectations are often much too high. Gradually, this dawning of reality lights our consciousness and so begins our search for the compromise that will satisfy most situations and stop us from perpetually fiddling (I haven't quite got there yet!). Also we begin to accept the realization that we should be prepared to make adjustments to the sim from time to time as the flying situation demands it. These sliders were put there for a purpose. Not only can we tune the sim to perform acceptably well for the most part, but occasionally we come to know that we don't need to see those fancy water effects so we switch them off, nor do we need all those new autogen objects so we push the slider to the left. In time each of us learn what changes to those sliders affects the sim the most to satisfy our individual needs.The road to contentment lies with the knowledge that we have mastery over making adjustments within the sim and that all ouside influences that may affect the sim's performance have been catered for. Those outside influences can range from inadequate or faulty hardware setups to drivers that are not yet tweaked to produce the standard of results WE have come to expect in our particular hobby.I am as guilty as the next person for occasionally allowing my passion for the hobby to overtake my better judgement and sense of fair play. This leads to making statements passionately held at the time of their utterance but subsequently regretted in the cool light of day.My own belief is that a major part of the problem lies with the impression given that most simmers are getting great results with a wide variety of system capabilities and software configurations. There is no reference standard so the rest of us are unable to make any sensible judgements from statements made. It's a bit like statistics being used much as the drunk used the lamppost: not so much for illumination but more for leaning upon! Maybe those who make such bold assertions about the sims performance on their hardware are deluding themselves because they habitually fly in areas where the sim would generally perform very well. I just don't know.There is no fix that will suit everyone in every situation. And this is why posts such as yours can be quite helpful as some may well benefit from your findings. Sadly the majority won't, however, but that is not to say your observations are far from being relevant nor that they shouldn't be stated.I just wonder what the design team at MS think about all this as we scrabble around trying to make this sim work the way we want and making all those myriad discoveries along the way. Fascinating, isn't it?Mike

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi all.I'll repeat it again:Almost all issues with stuttering is caused by processes or programs running in the background of the operating system. Processes that update anything, or check for virus contamination, or run on any type of 'timer' would easily cause stuttering. Spywaye or adware are also problematic. I suspect registry settings pointing to folders or programs that no longer exist could cause delays as the operating system searches for these non-existant things.There is nothing inherent in FS2004 that will cause stuttering. Real weather updates can cause pausing, and there may be multiplayer issues that can cause pausing. I don't think these pauses will ever be fixed.Freezing and crashing are another issue. That is often caused by hardware configuration problems or actual hardware failure ( many times due to heat ). Incompatible software running concurrently with the sim could also cause freezing or crashing of the sim.FS2004 puts quite a load on the entire computer and its operating system. That should be expected from the program that is the DirectX "flagship". MS wanted to push the O/S and the hardware.It would have been nice if MS would have enclosed a troubleshooting program with the sim that would examine and suggest fixes for the sim's hardware/software/OS environment... but that might have taken months to develop.Glenn's post is quite helpful in defining the types of processes that can cause problems.Dick