FSX FPS Stuttering

[abasa12 38]

Simmers,

 

A recent issue has started to occur within my flight simulator, and in a way it's in continuation of a previous issue. A few months ago I started getting some quite serious FPS fluctuations (although my FPS are always low, it was a good 60-70% of FPS lost every thirty or so seconds, before returning to normal). I started noticing it around when I installed EZDok and TrackIR. Anyway, it was having some quite adverse effects on not only my FSX in general, but add-ons. My Majestic Q400 has been going crazy ever since, and support over at MJC is great, though no solution has yet been reached. Eventually, I disabled hyperthreading by means of msconfig (from 8 cores to 4 loaded). Unfortunately, although this appeared to work, the issue still persisted. I found that the FPS fluctuations were as a result of CPU being at 100%, and eventually (I had previously tried the Affinitymask setting to no avail), I used the Task Manager to manually set the affinity. I've tried this all at both 4, 6, and 8 cores loaded. Currently I have 4 loaded. Since this affinity tweak, I have been having even more significant FPS issues. The FPS is generally higher, and the fluctuations are shorter (the periods of low FPS), though the FPS count is so low I would consider it stuttering, where it will freeze momentarily at less than 1FPS for a second or so, before returning to normal, and jumping back and forth. I've especially noticed the issue at FB KDEN (which is strange, as it should have a very high FPS count), though I haven't done much flying anywhere else. I've done a lot of messing around with the settings (trying with and without the manual affinity setting, fiber frame settings, general performance settings), to no avail. I have used the Bojote FSX.cfg tweak. Unfortunately, none of this has really worked. I've attached a video at the bottom of the issue. This is the case for pretty much all aircraft, and it makes flying nearly impossible. My settings are quite low, and have worked previously. Not sure as of yet if this is just an issue with FB KDEN, or the sim as a whole, though I believe it to be a whole-sim issue. The issue also persists even when the CPU percentage and memory are quite low.

Thanks for any and all help - greatly appreciated!

 

 

-Derek

Sorry - no video, but the FPS will go from being relatively high, to low, to freezing occasionally, before going back to low FPS. It will go to high FPS every so often, however, and that's how I know that the FPS should be higher (the high FPS are the FPS I would expect).

[nhssaini 1]

Hi

AS an immediate solution, I would say delete your cfg  and let FSX rebuild a new one.

Good luck

nhssaini

[BeechPapa 32]

Have you investigated whether it could be a system wide problem such as antivirus issue or windows errors? I would take a close look at the windows error log and perhaps the background services and programs while FSX is in operation.

 

You probably already use Sysinternals Process Monitor to check VAS usage so follow these instructions and you can use the same program to investigate CPU usage per process over an extended amount of time, such as when in flight. This can help to find what the CPU is doing at those 30 second intervals when it stutters.

 

http://superuser.com/questions/453909/log-cpu-by-process-over-time

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

You are running a marginal PC for FSX, and loading it up with addons, and applying all kinds of tweaks to the cfg.. and then you are surprised when it does not perform well..

 

Maybe starting with a clean fsx.cfg and no addons might be a way to regain control over your system..

[cianpars 1,164]

Rebuilding the fsx.cfg is a good start.

 

Affinitymask 14 helped my smoothness quite a lot.

 

I found too much road traffic and AI could cause stutters - have you tried turning off?

 

I found these sort of problems with certain video drivers - have you updated yours recently?

 

Can often be a background process - anti virus software can be an issue, but you may want to check what other processes you have running.

 

Other than that - with a marginal system, it may just be a case of needing to use lower settings.

 

IAN

[JSkorna 137]

Your computer is very under powered for FSX + add-ons. Please follow the suggestions about turning down your settings.

[cianpars 1,164]

CPU needs to be overclocked to gain best results in FSX.  If you have a desktop, then with cooling, you could get it to run (say) 40% or more faster.  That even applies to some of the top end CPUs.

 

40% faster means roughly +40% FPS in FSX ballpark.

 

If it's a laptop, then I don't normally suggest overclocking as those things in my experience run to hot even at stock.

 

IAN

[abasa12 38]

Your computer is very under powered for FSX + add-ons. Please follow the suggestions about turning down your settings.

That wasn't the issue - I've lived with low FPS for a very long time and with no real concerns. This was different than that, and as it turns out it was the Antivirus that was causing the brunt of the issue with this. I had never experienced the stuttering before - that was the issue (along with the CPU).

Have you investigated whether it could be a system wide problem such as antivirus issue or windows errors? I would take a close look at the windows error log and perhaps the background services and programs while FSX is in operation.

 

You probably already use Sysinternals Process Monitor to check VAS usage so follow these instructions and you can use the same program to investigate CPU usage per process over an extended amount of time, such as when in flight. This can help to find what the CPU is doing at those 30 second intervals when it stutters.

 

http://superuser.com/questions/453909/log-cpu-by-process-over-time

Thanks! As it turns out it was the antivirus I had running that was causing the majority of the stuttering (I realized that as I was analyzing the resource monitor). I'll be sure to look at that, though, to see if it further helps.

You are running a marginal PC for FSX, and loading it up with addons, and applying all kinds of tweaks to the cfg.. and then you are surprised when it does not perform well..

 

Maybe starting with a clean fsx.cfg and no addons might be a way to regain control over your system..

It's not quite that. Low FPS are something I've grown accustomed to, so it's not the bad performance that I was asking about. It was the distinct FPS drops that were what frustrated/mystified me. The bad performance is not the kind of thing I would be asking about. But on the topic, I know that my PC isn't anywhere near top-of-the-line, but what do you think would be the best area to improve? I'm considering getting a new desktop system, and other than the graphics card (which I know is very outdated), what do you think needs the most improvement? I have an i7 and 8GB of DDR3, along with 750GB hard drive space. Is the i7 not enough, or is it the DDR3? Thanks!

 

-Derek

Rebuilding the fsx.cfg is a good start.

 

Affinitymask 14 helped my smoothness quite a lot.

 

I found too much road traffic and AI could cause stutters - have you tried turning off?

 

I found these sort of problems with certain video drivers - have you updated yours recently?

 

Can often be a background process - anti virus software can be an issue, but you may want to check what other processes you have running.

 

Other than that - with a marginal system, it may just be a case of needing to use lower settings.

 

IAN

My settings are already quite low, though thanks for the tips! My traffic is down, and I have tried it with traffic off as well, to try to improve performance. You're right for the antivirus, though, - turns out it was causing the majority of the stuttering, and now I can fly with far more consistent FPS at the airport, Unfortunately, Affinitymask 14 didn't do anything to improve the general FPS of my system (I've tried it in the past), though thanks!

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

If you are going to build a new PC for FSX,  depending on your budget, I would go to NCIX

and order an i7-4770K on an Asus Z87 motherboard with 2X4GB of fast RAM.

Then add at least a GTX 660 video card.

 

Budget for $1500 CAN.

[abasa12 38]

If you are going to build a new PC for FSX,  depending on your budget, I would go to NCIX

and order an i7-4770K on an Asus Z87 motherboard with 2X4GB of fast RAM.

Then add at least a GTX 660 video card.

 

Budget for $1500 CAN.

I'm still waiting a while, but that was more or less the exact plan I had in mind.

[Pilatus Matt 8]

One thing that I didn't see mentioned is anything regarding your display driver version. Some drivers deal with FSX, Vsync, and everything else better than others, and it might not be the latest one that gives you the best results. I Was having stuttering issues with the GeForce 335 driver, and had to revert back to the 320 driver which fixed the stuttering on my GTX 760.

 

If you have an older card, you might want to try the 307 or 314 drivers as I have recalled that those play nice with FSX.

[BeechPapa 32]

Thanks! As it turns out it was the antivirus I had running that was causing the majority of the stuttering (I realized that as I was analyzing the resource monitor). I'll be sure to look at that, though, to see if it further helps.

 

Glad to hear you worked it out!