Hi All

I've watched countless "settings" type videos and posts to try to optimize P3D V4, however no matter what I try, can't seem to get rid of micro-stutters

I've even tried to put all sliders to the left and increase them one by one to find the underlying issue, but it's still there.

The FPS counter can't seem to hold steady as it moves from 10 to 40 and back all the time. I have a G-SYNC monitor and have tried both V-SYNC on/off and locking the FPS to 30 but it has no effect.

What I also find surprising is that moving all the sliders to the right doesn't have a massive impact on the max FPS I can get.

My specs are below

Intel i7 - 6700K @ 4.00 GHz
16.0 GB RAM
GTX 980

Any ideas on what I could do to help make the FPS smoother? Is there something in Nvidia Inspector perhaps?

Many thanks

 

What's your Sim settings? What add-ons if any do you use? I left my frame at unlimited. 4xSSAA, reasonable draw distance and I don't have stutters.

In terms of Add-ons, I usually use the below

*Flytampa EHAM - I love this airport so tend to use it as my homebase
*PMDG 747 V3
*ORBX Global
*ORBX Open LC Europe
*Active Sky 

I've tried with smaller aircraft like the A2A C172 in default airport and results are still similar.

In terms of settings, I use 2xMSAA, FXAA on, Anisotropic 2x and Ultra Texture Resolution. My Resolution runs at 3840x2160 as I have a 4K monitor. I've already tried reducing this to Quad HD or FHD, and even switching to 30hz, but again , no noticeable difference in FPS
 

I do not have V4 yet but Nvidia Inspector was causing stutters for me in V3...

 

Also,try this thread in this forum:

Rick

2 hours ago, papab said:

Also,try this thread in this forum:

Rick

Thanks, I did check however there is no option for me to select 59 Hz in the Nvidia control panel. It's only 60 or 30 - have tried both and made no difference

At this point, you'll need to get a "baseline":

1.  Remove any overclocking (both GPU and CPU)
2.  Back track and start with a fresh/clean install of V4 with NO add-ons.
3.  Reset NCP to default via "restore" (do not use NI)
4.  Turn all the graphics settings down to their lowest
5.  Use FRAPs (do NOT record video only timeframe data) logging tool to capture timeframes
6.  Select EGLL airport
7.  Do a pattern loop around EGLL (make sure you keep it around 250 KTS) - note markers so you can easily repeat the test

Use FRAFS to view the recorded FRAPS data, look for any timeframe data >40ms, if you find some data points above 40ms (your average FPS should be around 200-250 for this test), then you have a problem with your hardware/driver/OS or something else is running in the background.

Check that you have the latest Intel Chipset drivers installed (motherboard's web site).  Check your Device Manager and make sure you don't have any "!" exclamation points on any items listed (expand them all).  Also confirm you have the latest BIOS version for your MB.

Bring up your Event Viewer and make sure you don't have any red "X" warnings, if you do, resolve them (this will take some Google searches to find out how to resolve).

Now manually download nVidia's latest drivers, next step is to use DDU to remove your video drivers, then "run as admin" on the latest nvidia drivers to install.

The ONLY REASON I'm suggesting this long process is because you've indicated you turn all graphics settings to min and still had stutters ... if that is NOT the "real case" (people often exaggerate what they've actually done when trying to resolve an issue, don't take it personally), then do items 1-6 first and report back with your FRAPs data and/or FRAFs screenshots.

Cheers, Rob.

 

I was totally perplexed as to why I was getting such horrible stutters with V4 until this past weekend when I reset my Inspector Prepar3d profile to the default settings, and under my Nvidia control panel changed my V-Synch from adaptive to just "on". After changing the V-Sync setting, I can now run the game stutter free on my GTX 1070. Previously, I had really bad microstutters like you had described. Also, with V3 I seemed to get the smoothest performance by using Inspector to limit my frame rate to 30 frames per second, but with V4 I seem to get better performance by leaving this setting off, and have the V-Sync turned on within Prepar3d, with tripple buffering enabled, and the ingame frame rate set to unlimited.

Try using monitoring software like:

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

Run your P3D windowed and run the monitoring software. While flying you should be able to see how taxing you are on you GPU and CPU

Your CPU core 0 will consistently be running be running 90-100% the other cores will jump around depending on whats going on inside the sim.

This is a very informative topic with a very helpful reply from Beau Hollis

http://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6315&t=124932

Adjust your graphic setting until you get your GPU averaging in the air around 60-70% it will momentarily jump here and there to 100% (that's ok)

At this point you will know that your GPU is not being overtaxed. You will need to make CPU bound settings to affect your frame rate and your stutters.

Personally limiting frame rates with the slider inside of P3D induces stutters for me. I limited my frames to 30 with running my monitor at 30hz with Vsync, triple buffering and the frame rate slider set to unlimited inside of P3D.

Rob, loafer87gt and laserit, thank you all for your suggestions, looks like I have a lot of homework to do.

Will test this out asap and come back to you

Boeing:

I would definitely suggest following Rob's process, but FYI as another possibility I have found that my 6700k (same chip as yours... HT on) still responds to an affinity mask setting of 85 (i.e. running P3D only on the physical cores, not the virtual ones) to eliminate stuttering.  It is very reproducible - with anything other than 85 (including default), I get stuttering; when I change the AM in the config to 85, stutters gone.  The stutters I saw were big ones though, every second or two.

I suspect this is because I am also running Trackir, Spad.next and Active Sky and there is a conflict there between one or more of those add-ons and the P3D threads (had this same problem in v3), but I have not gone through a controlled process to test with and without to find the true culprit.  Since for me the sim is extremely smooth and fast with that AM=85 setting, I would rather fly than tweak at the moment.

If you still see stutters after running through the process above, you may want to try it.

Also, I have a G sync monitor and I run unlimited frames and vsync/triple buffering off both in the sim and in Nvidia Control Panel.

 

2 hours ago, PurdueKev said:

Boeing:

I would definitely suggest following Rob's process, but FYI as another possibility I have found that my 6700k (same chip as yours... HT on) still responds to an affinity mask setting of 85 (i.e. running P3D only on the physical cores, not the virtual ones) to eliminate stuttering.  It is very reproducible - with anything other than 85 (including default), I get stuttering; when I change the AM in the config to 85, stutters gone.  The stutters I saw were big ones though, every second or two.

I suspect this is because I am also running Trackir, Spad.next and Active Sky and there is a conflict there between one or more of those add-ons and the P3D threads (had this same problem in v3), but I have not gone through a controlled process to test with and without to find the true culprit.  Since for me the sim is extremely smooth and fast with that AM=85 setting, I would rather fly than tweak at the moment.

If you still see stutters after running through the process above, you may want to try it.

Also, I have a G sync monitor and I run unlimited frames and vsync/triple buffering off both in the sim and in Nvidia Control Panel.

 

Good morning PurdueKev

Many thanks for this, I tried and can confirm the stuttering is nearly completely gone now!

I've set affinitymask to 85, turned off vSync in P3d and NCP with FPS set to unlimited ( I also have a G SYNC monitor). My FPS is now more stable between 35-40fps, even using heavy 3rd party add-ons likes the PMDG 747 at EHAM.

However I do have a follow up question if you don't mind. My total CPU utilization in task manager is around 48%, but looking at the individual cores, cores 1, 5 and 7 barely have any load while core 0 is near 100% and cores 4 and 6 around 90%. So it seems to mean the majority of the CPU load is being taken up by 3 out of the 8 cores. Would you know if this is normal behavior? Does it have to do with HP? I've never disabled hyperthreading so assumed it must still be on (no specific menu I can select in my BIOS)

Many thanks

Turn Off G Sync and Triple Buffering

It is the idea of this affinity mask setting to prevent P3D using the HT "cores" but only use the physical cores. "85" translated into binary simply means "(0)1010101" thus only those cores with a "1" should be loaded by P3D.

thanks AnkH

I've just launched a flight and am in climb out phase just now. What i'm noticing is a huge improvement in FPS/stuttering, however now I seem to be getting a case of blurries. My LOD radius is set to highest, and didn't get any blurries prior to setting the affinity mask. Is this a know issue and is there another tweak I need to put in place to reduce it?