FSX stutters at regular intervals, please help!

[lemonid 17]

Hello everyone!

 

This is my first post here, but I've been reading this great forum for a long time now and so far it has helped me with many issues. So let me first express my appreciation to all the efforts you guys show in helping fellow simmers!

 

Now with the topic. I know that fight with stutters is a never ending story for some and since I'm currently experiencing similar problem I believe I've read all the topics regarding this matter that are out there. Nothing seems to solve the interruptions I get though:(. Here's how it is: no matter what I do, whether I fly complicated addon plane in the vicinity of some payware scenery, or it is default cessna in some less demanding area - FSX stutters at regular intervals. It's like every minute fps drop from 24-30 to 5-10 and stay like this for several seconds. It is so annoying, especially when sometimes I have to pause the sim just before the touchdown in order to provide smooth air passage and not crash my plane.

 

I have tried virtually EVERY tweak, every solution I found. Nothing seems to help. I thought this might be caused by some background process (since it is really regular), checked the monitor, but couldn't find anything interrupting. I switched weather engine off, deleted FSUIPC module, defragmented HDD, rebuilt fsx.cfg and followed many other advices, tweaks, etc. - still nothing.

 

This leads me to conclusion - could it be my hardware then? Just yesterday I got myself some brand new GTX560Ti, cause initially I had thought my GPU was a bottleneck. This purchase generally boosted the performance, but couldn't prevent stutters either. Now I've heard a lot about the superior Intel CPUs and how their architecture is way better when it comes to FSX. Unfortunately I got AMD FX4100,3'6GHz,overclocked to 4'1GHz - do you think this might be the problem? Should I change the motherboard and CPU?

 

Here are my specs:

AMD FX 4100 Quad Core

MSI 760GM-P21 FX

GigaByte nVidia GTX 560Ti

Hitachi HDP725050GLA360

Windows 7 64

 

My FSX installation is on separate partition, but it's not a physical drive. I am no IT specialist and maybe there is something I'm missing here. I would really appreciate any help! Thanks!

 

 

 

 

[newtie 533]

Anti virus?

 

If so, shut it down and recreate a new fsx.cfg

 

Mark

[lemonid 17]

I shut it down each time I turn on FSX... I mean I turn off all of its firewalls. Should I try and uninstall it completely and then rebuild fsx.cfg?

[tunnelcat 1]

Isn't this the FSX hyperthreading issue? If you have a computer with mulitple hyperthreaded cores, doesn't this stuttering problem occur specifically with FSX? I sure notice it on my system when I have it enabled. I've taken to turning it off whenever I run FSX to smooth things out. I've looked into getting Process Lasso to make this easier to do, but I'm unsure of how to use it, so right now, I turn hyperthreading off in my BIOS whenever I want to do a long stint of FSX.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Couple of things... Most likely is that there is some process that starts up in the background, like AV or an updater..

 

Way to spot this is to run FSX in windowed mode and have the Task Manager run in parallel, showing processes, sorted by CPU usage.  For more detail, run Procmon and look at the trace.  I had a Java Quickstart running at one time, that did something similar.

 

Secondly, it is part of FSXs architecture that it "re-lights" the outside view every minute.. this causes some CPU activity, but should not impact your framerates to that extent.

 

Lastly, as a test, try turning all traffic and weather to zero and see if the problem still occurs.

[lemonid 17]

tunnelcat: correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that AMD processors didn't support hyperthreading? but then again - I'm not a specialist and maybe it has something to do with AMD cpus either. If so, I would love to know how to switch it off?

 

Bert Pieke: about background processes - just today I totally uninstalled my AV programme and it didn't help at all. I've been checking any other background processes via Task Manager for couple of days now, but can't find anything that would interrupt explicitly in the moment when FSX starts to stutter. I haven't used that Procmon tool though, think I'll give it a try today and see what I get. About the traffic - I use World of AI and have dozens of airlines installed, but I tend to keep the slider not higher than 30. I'll switch it off completely then, like you adviced, see if it helps. I'm just wondering if the uninstalling all the airline packages I have might do the trick? Could it be the case?

 

Thanks for all the answers!

[ACA034137 37]

FSUIPC autosave?  turn it off

[virtualstuff 750]

 

Hello everyone!

 

This is my first post here, but I've been reading this great forum for a long time now and so far it has helped me with many issues. So let me first express my appreciation to all the efforts you guys show in helping fellow simmers!

 

Now with the topic. I know that fight with stutters is a never ending story for some and since I'm currently experiencing similar problem I believe I've read all the topics regarding this matter that are out there. Nothing seems to solve the interruptions I get though:(. Here's how it is: no matter what I do, whether I fly complicated addon plane in the vicinity of some payware scenery, or it is default cessna in some less demanding area - FSX stutters at regular intervals. It's like every minute fps drop from 24-30 to 5-10 and stay like this for several seconds. It is so annoying, especially when sometimes I have to pause the sim just before the touchdown in order to provide smooth air passage and not crash my plane.

 

I have tried virtually EVERY tweak, every solution I found. Nothing seems to help. I thought this might be caused by some background process (since it is really regular), checked the monitor, but couldn't find anything interrupting. I switched weather engine off, deleted FSUIPC module, defragmented HDD, rebuilt fsx.cfg and followed many other advices, tweaks, etc. - still nothing.

 

This leads me to conclusion - could it be my hardware then? Just yesterday I got myself some brand new GTX560Ti, cause initially I had thought my GPU was a bottleneck. This purchase generally boosted the performance, but couldn't prevent stutters either. Now I've heard a lot about the superior Intel CPUs and how their architecture is way better when it comes to FSX. Unfortunately I got AMD FX4100,3'6GHz,overclocked to 4'1GHz - do you think this might be the problem? Should I change the motherboard and CPU?

 

Here are my specs:

AMD FX 4100 Quad Core

MSI 760GM-P21 FX

GigaByte nVidia GTX 560Ti

Hitachi HDP725050GLA360

Windows 7 64

 

My FSX installation is on separate partition, but it's not a physical drive. I am no IT specialist and maybe there is something I'm missing here. I would really appreciate any help! Thanks!

 

 

 

Simple question does the aircraft textures load instantaneously when switching views as follows...

 

Load the VC from a 3d party add-on then wait 40 seconds and then switch to spot view repeat this but then then the other way around make sure to wait 40 seconds.

 

What is you're result?

 

Cheers,

[lemonid 17]

FDX2168-Chris: I got autosave off in fsuipc.. Besides, I uninstalled it once and it didn't change a thing..

awf: I performed the test you'd recommended: I believe the textures load instantenously each time.

[SolRayz 392]

hmm...have u tried Nick N's defrag procedure?

[SpaceNova 1]

Every 61 seconds FSX recalculates the lighting, maybe that could be it? This can be bypassed by dividing the processes across the cores, so try setting the affinitimask to 14 in the .CFG

Hope it helps

[tunnelcat 1]

tunnelcat: correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that AMD processors didn't support hyperthreading? but then again - I'm not a specialist and maybe it has something to do with AMD cpus either. If so, I would love to know how to switch it off?

 

Oops, you're right. AMD does not support hyperthreading. I've been using Intel too long. :huh:

 

I've noticed that Process Monitor has been recomended. It's a wonderful tool, but the learning curve is very steep. It logs everything unless you know how to set the filters and I've had some difficulty because of the overwhelming information. It can be done with a little persistance. I was using it to find out which service or program was not unhooking from my registry and causing a temporary account problem when I logged off and back on. There is another tool called Process Explorer, from Windows Sysinternals as well, that may help you too.

 

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

 

This tool shows you everything that's loaded in the background and when it starts and if it's running. You can then go to this guy's link and see which Microsoft services are safe to disable for your OS.

 

http://www.blackviper.com/

[virtualstuff 750]

FDX2168-Chris: I got autosave off in fsuipc.. Besides, I uninstalled it once and it didn't change a thing..

awf: I performed the test you'd recommended: I believe the textures load instantenously each time.

 

In general how is your performance on your system when running other applications or simulations/games ?

 

You see directly the textures from the 3d model no grey or other colours or wireframe first from the model?

Did you test with a default FSX cfg file and the trike?

 

Questions since your hard drive is a 7200 rpm drive;

- what are you're settings in FSX screenshot or attachment from your FSX.cfg file will do ;-)

- Texture size of installed textures?

- run windows explorer and go to the FSX default directory \ texture (sort on largest file size first) and make a screenshot

- AA and AF settings from your gti 560 ti?

 

Thanks,

[nermingk 1]

I had the identical problem a year ago. it drove me crazy. I tried all the above. Nothing. When I did not know what to do, I accidentally saw that my CPU temperature is above normal (very high). I cleaned the computer from dust (CPU fan and PSU fan) and the problem disappeared. Everything worked perfectly again. I suggest you try it. After countless uninstalling and installing, monitoring the processes, I've solved the problem in such a simple way.

I say again: try it. maybe it help you. Just try to keep cool CPU and see what happens

 

 

all the best

[JRBarrett 3,034]

Do you have a wireless networking card in your system? I had one which caused this exact symptom... exactly once every 60 seconds it did something which caused a sudden spike in CPU usage which caused a noticeable stutter in FSX.<br /><br />I'm not sure what process the card was running each minute... I suspect it had something to do with network discovery. If I disabled the card temporarily in the networking control panel, the problem went away.