Sandy bridge but no smooth flight: only @ 60 fps

[PaoloA 0]

I have a SB 2600k, 570 GTX (latest Nvidia drivers), 8 GB and 120 GB SSD system only for FSX. I tried almost everything, read all the topics about stutters, microstutters, vsync and external FPS limiters, but still can't solve my problem. I have a fresh install of FSX (SP1 & SP2). When I use the default 737 on KSEA and take off the ground and autogen is stuttering. Only when I set FSX frame limiter to 60 FPS the flight is supersmooth when FPS are at 60. If the frames are below 60, I.E. at 40 FPS (limiter or unlimited), the stutters are back. I tried this with Vsync on (via Nvidia control panel and in fsx.cfg) and off (The stutters are somewhat less but there is a lot of tearing). Also when I use the JAVA external FPS limiter the flight is only smooth when limiting fps at 60 fps and the fps are actually at 60 fps. When the fps drops below 60 fps, the stutters are back. It doesn't seem to be a performance issue because I can maintain FPS at 40 fps in every situation. The flight isn't smooth though. Is my problem correlated to the refreshrate of my monitor (samsung PX2370 @ 60 Hz)? When I change the refreshrate of my monitor to 50 Hz the flight is smooth at limiting the frames to 50 fps and actual frames at 50 fps. Again, if frames drop below 50 fps, the stutters are back. Can somebody please help me, I really want a smooth flight with my expensive system!

[andy1975 13]

Hello PaoloA, I can recall that when using an external FPS limiter you shold limit only to half the refreshrate of your monitor, so with yours at 60Hz (which is mine too btw.) use the FPS limit at 30 only ... and 30 FPS in FSX is quite a lot and satisfying! Hope that helps! Andreas EDDN

[PaoloA 0]

Thanks for your answer. The point is that I tried an external FPS limiter to limit the half of the refreshrate (30 FPS) but the stutters are still there. I don't know if they are really stutters because the FPS are always at 30 fps. It is more that the movement in FSX is not fluent / smooth and the autogen and ground is a choppy movement in stead of smooth movement.

[Guest jahman]

You should re-post in the MOBO, RAM, CPU's & Other Hardware forum for best results. What RAM do you have? What Clock are you running the 2600K at? From what I've read others with your hardware post, one of the causes for stutters is (relatively) slow RAM. Although faster RAM (1,600 MHz) won't entirely cure "the stutters", it can reduce them. Sorry I can't be more specific, but search in the Hardware forum and you'll find the answers you're looking for. As for clock, 4.5 GHz and up is what I recall toher running their 2600K at for best results. This should tide you over until the real HW experts chime in! Cheers, - jahman.

[Lange_666 167]

Those stutters PaoloA is talking about are not causes by "slower" RAM's.It's caused by a combination of VSync, FSX's FPS rate and the monitors refreshrate. Just out of curiosity: Did you solve it?

[Paul J 349]

Your 60 fps doesn't make sense, Paolo: I have never heard of anyone getting remotely near 60 fps at KSEA. Unless you have minimal graphics, no traffic, no weather, clouds., etc., 20 - 25 is the norm with the 2600k at 4.5.. What gives?

[flytn 0]

When you say stutters, does that mean the frame rate is jumping around between certain numbers? Or just when it drops it starts to get jerky. I have a 2600k that is OC'd and a cfg file that is tweaked and I still get stutters, or perhaps a better way to describe it would be the frame rate drops in heavy load in certain situations. Your problem sounds different though. Have you used nvidia inspector to see what the vsync settings are? Not sure that would help and I'm sure you've checked it, but its worth a shot! Hope you can figure out what is wrong.