fsx-ms Turning to the community for help. Stutters

[Angelo Cosma 61]

Hey guys, I have been doing a lot of research online and digging up old threads but our situation and hardware setup is rather unique that I need to turn to the community to get some more outside the box ideas flowing. 

 

FSX stutters quit bad even though achieving a very acceptable framerate on the ground FSDT KLAX approx 30 on the ground. 

 

I made the PC:

 

Intel i7 3790K 4.40Ghz, 8GB DDR3 Ram, ASUS P8Z77-V, EVGA 670Gtx, 500gb Samsung SSD, Corsair H100. 

 

That pc runs a triple head to go, VGA to three displays running at 1280X1024 each, giving a final resolution of 3840X3072. Even though I get 30fps on the ground when taxiing turning, turning in flight, usually short final there are several hiccups to near slideshow effect then it will resume to normal fps again. 

 

I have tried a lot of combos with NVI. BP=0, SGSS, 8XSQ, 8XS, no transparency AA, Vsync 1/2, Vsync off, FPS 30 in NVI and unlimited in the sim. Graphics drivers are up to date and current.

 

I am not sure what else to check or do. REX and Texture max load have been decreased down to 1024 REX and 2048 fsx.cfg. I also deleted the shader cache, as well as rebuild a fresh fsx.cfg and re add the necessary tweaks. 

 

HIGHMEMFIX, Disable preload, WideViewaspect true, TBM 80, TML 4096 or 2048, nothing else other than that. BP causing artifacting so that's why I remove it. 

 

The visuals show just the outside, no 2d panels or VC. So I am really struggling to figure out why this PC is having a hard time with a relatively easy load and low low levels of AA. 

 

 

[bobterri 13]

I, too, had a very similar problem with FSX-SE on a new computer running Windows 10, as you can see from the thread I started:

 

http://www.avsim.com/topic/483993-newcomputer-fsx-se-windows10-stutters/page-7#entry3388333

 

In the end, I never solved it with FSX-SE, however, I installed P3D and have not had stutters.

 

I know that doesn't solve your problem, but that's how I solved mine. 

[Angelo Cosma 61]

I am running FSX Retail MS SP2. 

[MarkW 1,490]

Get Process Monitor and watch it while FSX, FSX-SE or P3D is running and when the stutter happens look at which process has fired.  I guarantee you will be able to eliminate a lot of things this way (by shutting down that process if it is not needed by the sim).  The other thing to do is use Process Lasso to move all processes outside of the flght sim (including EZ Dok, and other dll.exe files) off processor 0.  This will fix a lot of the problems.  It will take a bit of messing around but worth it in the end.

[Angelo Cosma 61]

So it is not likely a AA setting or combo with NVI or NCP? What is strange is a ways back this was not as pronounced. Yes there were the occasional stutter but now it looks and feels bad. I haven't added or changed any programs or sceneries when things were running smooth(er). This is a dedicated PC strictly for SIM / Outside visuals. There are no erroneous programs on here like iTunes, other games, programs etc. It is a very clean system.  

[Guest]

Hi Angelo,

 

I'm a little confused? The PC hardware specs you list in your signature are very different from those you originally listed?

 

Assume you are using 670GTX, that's very high Resolution for that GPU to handle especially if you use NVI to set SGSS AA.

 

I don't know much about Triple head to go so, but I'd try reducing AA or use a different GPU.

 

 

How much VRAM does that 670GTX have?

 

Cheers Rob

[Angelo Cosma 61]

Hi Angelo,

 

I'm a little confused? The PC hardware specs you list in your signature are very different from those you originally listed?

 

Assume you are using 670GTX, that's very high Resolution for that GPU to handle especially if you use NVI to set SGSS AA.

 

I don't know much about Triple head to go so, but I'd try reducing AA or use a different GPU.

 

 

How much VRAM does that 670GTX have?

 

Cheers Rob

 

Hello Rob, thanks for the reply. The PC spec'd in my first post is the PC in question. My sig specs is my primary FS PC, this one has been running another sim with a 3 screen setup. The card appears to have 2gb of VRAM. The only thing that confuses me is the PC can attain 30fps on the ground at FSDT locations. So even with it being 2gb it has the ability to push nearly 30fps all the time. I am wondering why the stuttering is so situational.

 

Right now AA is set to 8XSQ and 4x multisampling for transparency AA. I turned SGSS off to help but it didn't seem to do much. I also turned Vsync from 1/2 (which gives 30hz) from 60hz displays to OFF, and went FPS 30 in NVI. Still no dice. 

[Angelo Cosma 61]

Bump.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,930]

Mark suggested you install and run Process Monitor. Have you done that yet? You might have services grabbing resources.

[Angelo Cosma 61]

It is on the list but I wont have access to the system again until next week. I do plan to do so very thoroughly although it really is a barebones software running PC not too many extra programs installed but I will let you know. Meantime can anyone suggest a starting point for Nvidia Inspector / Control Panel settings to start out with?

[Ray Proudfoot 8,930]

It doesn't matter if you've not installed many programs. The number of services running in Windows could be excessive.

 

What OS is it? If 10 it could be doing all sorts of things that you're unaware of.

 

I'd start by reducing all sliders to near minimum and checking for stutters. If you don't see them increase each one at a time until they start. The last one changed will be the culprit.

 

I might also be inclined to stick to a single display just to rule out multiple displays being the problem.

[Angelo Cosma 61]

Windows 7 64 Bit. I will try what you suggest.

[Slayer 190]

Why not try the basics first like all traffic sliders to off and your autogen sliders to normal. While at it turn down cloud density and don't go higher than 70 or 80 miles. 3 screens exponentially increased your system load so you can't run at same settings as someone whith a single screen. Even with a titan it will struggle to keep up. You can see this if you run it in a window and decrease your window size by about a third...

 

Btw are you using Nvidia surround or no? You won't get good performance without it.

[Angelo Cosma 61]

Using a Triple Head to go. It runs everything down to one connection to the gfx card.