P3D v4 stutters after ~3-4 hours of flight

[ark4diusz 324]

Hello Guys, 

I have read tons of topics about stutters, tried to implement solutions into my sim, but it didn't work... That's why I decided to open new topic, because my "stutters" problem is kinda different I suppose. 

Problem:

My problem are stutters, which appear after 4-5 hours of the flight. Taxi, take off and first phase of flight is smooth, but after few hours (can't say excatly when, because meanwhile I am sleeping or doing other things) I am getting micro stutters (freezes every 3 seconds I think). As for today I've made 6 long hauls flights, and the scenario was always the same as I described above.

PC specs:

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K (no OC)

GPU: EVGA GeForce 1080Ti 

Motherboard: MSI Z97S SLI Krait

RAM: Crucial Ballstix 2x8GB DDR3 1666 mHz

PSU: Corsair RM 850W 80 Plus Gold

Monitors: Philips 4K 40'' as main; AOC 23'' as second (for charts, EFB)

OS: Windows 10 64 BIT 

Flight Simulator and addons:

P3D v4, PMDG 747/777, ORBX sceneries; AS16+ASCA; Chaseplane; Aivlasoft EFB; ACARS software

P3D settings:

http://imgur.com/a/fkA28

http://imgur.com/a/D1RGy

http://imgur.com/a/V1GcW

 

http://imgur.com/a/CMz0l

http://imgur.com/a/Et1oC

Other settings: 

Nvidia Control Panel - monitor refresh rate changed from native 60Hz to 30Hz 

P3D.cfg - one tweak: TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=10

CPU/GPU utilisation during flight:

CPU utilisation: http://imgur.com/a/puiGz However CPU #3-7 tend to fluctuates from 20%-80% for 5-10 seconds, then all 3-7 cores stay at 100% for 2-3 seconds and then start to fluctuate again

GPU: http://imgur.com/a/ClXco

 

What have I triad to get rid of stutters: 

Delete shaders/CFG file - no result

I tried to change monitor refresh rate (from 30 to 60 Hz, etc) tried to use vsync on/off - no result

I thought that it may be FSUIPC/simconnect issue - so I disabled FSUIPC, autosave, didn't use EFB aivlasoft, ACARS software - no result

Tried to lower my settings, especially: AA from 4SSA to 8xMSAA; texture resolution from 4096 to 2048; tried to disable shadows/dynamic reflections - no result 

 

I suppose that there is problem "outside the sim" because I am getting stutters after 4-5 hours of flight. However I didn't find in task manager any processes which seems to be strange... or maybe I haven't noticed? 

 

As you can see, I wanted to include as much info as possible, because this is very annoying. I really consider to reinstall my OS...

I will be grateful for any tips

Best,

Arek

 

[Zaros 8]

Yes noticed the same thing, not sure if it vas related since when i tested it something strange occurred, i was sitting at KFSO gate with the 747 with around 38 fps, i took a 10 min break and when i returned my frames was around 15 fps, my vas was also really high and it kept growing.. 20gb ish

Anyways that fixed itself somehow, yesterday i did a flight from MMMX to EHAM and i also noticed some small hiccups although vas use was pretty stable around 4 gb ish and i was using dxtory to lock fps to 30 it didn't drop below that either.

also curious what can cause this behavior.

[1st fltsimguy 466]

I am interested in this for two reasons, totally unrelated.

Firstly I posted over in Hanger Chat to find out more on those who fly long haul flights, even going to bed and then continuing. True timeframe simulation.  So far I'm hearing some interesting responses on what simulation means to different folks.

Secondly, yes I noticed this similar to Zaros. Not sure about long hauls as you mentioned. But have run a flight, let her sit at a terminal while I went and had supper and came back and my system seemed to be bogged down. Upon reboot the sim and start where I left off, no issue back to great performance.  Secondly actually let this happen again and took off, somewhat sluggish stuttering and then after 15 minutes or so, things cleared up. I have no idea what's going on.

[joemiller 269]

Heat

[lodestar 186]

i would try one flight without Chaseplane. Check RAM usagge. If ok, be sure to disable automatic updates and scans, set windows update service to manual(in services.msc), and most important - turn off hibernate in power options. Short version - with hibernate enabled, system becomes sluggish after some time(hours). To disable it for all power plans permanently, open CMD and type: powercfg.exe /hibernate off

I can't test it becouse i don't own any long haul aircraft for V4 yet.

[GSalden 4,655]

Try without your tweak as it taxes your system heavily.

 

[glider1 90]

Stuttering is a pain. I'd two two things.

1) Put all settings back to default and compare after 3-4 hours.

2) I'd measure the temperatures of your CPU cores and GPU over time and then ask the question:

"When it starts to stutter, are my temps higher than they were when it was not stuttering?"

[glider1 90]

When I think about it, another thing to measure and compare before/after stuttering would be a graph of your harddisk usage and pagefile size over time. Maybe something is leaking?

[Olmba 27]

Maybe a blind shot, but when i added affinity mask in *.cfg (HT on) i obtain very stable fps, but  have some strange behavior in both stutter and ground texture quality after about 1 -2 hours of flying.

Removed affinity mask entry in the *cfg and these behavior disappeared. To obtain stable fps, I set my monitor to 30 Mhz and locked fps to 30. 

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

I've seen this before. It is accumulative System RAM exhaustion. You get this sometimes in  XP, and then you get a CTD, that could be hours down the road, if you fly that long. When this might occur, also depends on how much RAM your system does have. I have 12 GB's, so someone with 16,24,36, will see this long after I might, or in fact, never will...due to the tremendous RAM reserves, the user has, as against my 12 GB's baseline for my observation. One factor that exasperates this, is if you have all the Scenery Settings at max...or are running very high zl factor ortho, which places high demand on load-in to system memory. Stuff 'n stuff....

64 bit allows you to use full RAM, but, it doesn't guarantee that the program fully releases all the RAM it consumes as the flight over territory progresses.  Upon nearing the RAM capacity, the program (FPS) starts to stutter, choke (as this thread has seen), and eventually, the program closes, or merely hangs up.

It's not heat....it's the above...but in a most rare case, if heat, it could be CPU throttling down in freq cycles. I think it RAM related, though. Post edit: It never hurts to take the time after reading this thread, to fully clean and vacuum out your system interior, and clean any clinging dust/debris off of your system fan shrouds and blades. The Q-Tip is a user's friend...lol. Most notably, your CPU cooling fin(s).

[ark4diusz 324]

6 hours ago, joemiller said:

Heat

What kind of heat? I think my temps of CPU and GPU are normal? 

5 hours ago, lodestar said:

i would try one flight without Chaseplane. Check RAM usagge. If ok, be sure to disable automatic updates and scans, set windows update service to manual(in services.msc), and most important - turn off hibernate in power options. Short version - with hibernate enabled, system becomes sluggish after some time(hours). To disable it for all power plans permanently, open CMD and type: powercfg.exe /hibernate off

I can't test it becouse i don't own any long haul aircraft for V4 yet.

Thanks for sugestions, will try. When I got stutters, I disabled chaseplane, but stutters were still here. You suggest to completely disable chaseplane before flight and check after 3-4 hours is it was a problem?

2 hours ago, glider1 said:

Stuttering is a pain. I'd two two things.

1) Put all settings back to default and compare after 3-4 hours.

2) I'd measure the temperatures of your CPU cores and GPU over time and then ask the question:

"When it starts to stutter, are my temps higher than they were when it was not stuttering?"

1) Thanks, didn't try this. I've only make settings lower while getting stutters. Will try default settings before flight.

2) Will monitor temps

3 hours ago, GSalden said:

Try without your tweak as it taxes your system heavily.

 

Forgot to add that I have tried without tweak, no luck 

1 hour ago, glider1 said:

When I think about it, another thing to measure and compare before/after stuttering would be a graph of your harddisk usage and pagefile size over time. Maybe something is leaking?

Sorry for asking, but how can I check that? Is there any program that could verify if my hard drives are ok? I have 3 SSD hard drives atm: 1) for OS and programs 2) P3D&X-Plane; 3) Other games

1 hour ago, Olmba said:

Maybe a blind shot, but when i added affinity mask in *.cfg (HT on) i obtain very stable fps, but  have some strange behavior in both stutter and ground texture quality after about 1 -2 hours of flying.

Removed affinity mask entry in the *cfg and these behavior disappeared. To obtain stable fps, I set my monitor to 30 Mhz and locked fps to 30. 

Didn't use AF tweak 

13 minutes ago, Sesquashtoo said:

I've seen this before. It is accumulative System RAM exhaustion. You get this sometimes in  XP, and then you get a CTD.

64 bit allows you to use full RAM, but, it doesn't guarantee that the program fully releases all the RAM it consumes as the flight over territory progresses. 

It's not heat....it's the above...

So I assume that my RAM speed could be a bottleneck in my setup? 

Thanks guy for help, many useful tips. Unfortunately, it seems that I have to spend xx+ extra hours to find out what's going on 

Best,

Arek

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

7 minutes ago, ark4diusz said:

What kind of heat? I think my temps of CPU and GPU are normal? 

Thanks for sugestions, will try. When I got stutters, I disabled chaseplane, but stutters were still here. You suggest to completely disable chaseplane before flight and check after 3-4 hours is it was a problem?

1) Thanks, didn't try this. I've only make settings lower while getting stutters. Will try default settings before flight.

2) Will monitor temps

Forgot to add that I have tried without tweak, no luck 

Sorry for asking, but how can I check that? Is there any program that could verify if my hard drives are ok? I have 3 SSD hard drives atm: 1) for OS and programs 2) P3D&X-Plane; 3) Other games

Didn't use AF tweak 

So I assume that my RAM speed could be a bottleneck in my setup? 

Thanks guy for help, many useful tips. Unfortunately, it seems that I have to spend xx+ extra hours to find out what's going on 

Best,

Arek

Not actually RAM speed settings, but RAM system accountancy.  I have 12 GB's RAM system in total.  If you have more than that...this choking/stuttering FPS degradation,  and even a CTD from RAM usage exhaustion will be much further down the road from my own experience, or even if ever...since you end the flight and shut down the program before you even reach that tipping limit. Not how fast your BIOS memory timings are set to.  RAM pool capacity 'in system'. :)

[lodestar 186]

3 hours ago, ark4diusz said:

Thanks for sugestions, will try. When I got stutters, I disabled chaseplane, but stutters were still here. You suggest to completely disable chaseplane before flight and check after 3-4 hours is it was a problem?

Yes, my first guess was the RAM usagge in fact, mostly becouse of TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=10. But i added chaseplane becouse i've read a lot of complaints here in forums, especially about stutters and freezing. In the screenshots you provided about CPU and GPU usagge and temps are ok, i assumed you took the screenshots when stuttering occurred?

I was thinking, you can try all suggestions above one by one, but maybe you should try one long haul flight without TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=10(without any tweak)and with a slightly lower settings - like disabling building shadows and all traffic - i saw you have road traffic enabled and some ships. Maybe it's not about this, but i would try it just to eliminate this possibility. I still belive it's RAM or some of the backround tasks.

[Zaros 8]

2 hours ago, lodestar said:

Yes, my first guess was the RAM usagge in fact, mostly becouse of TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=10. But i added chaseplane becouse i've read a lot of complaints here in forums, especially about stutters and freezing. In the screenshots you provided about CPU and GPU usagge and temps are ok, i assumed you took the screenshots when stuttering occurred?

I was thinking, you can try all suggestions above one by one, but maybe you should try one long haul flight without TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=10(without any tweak)and with a slightly lower settings - like disabling building shadows and all traffic - i saw you have road traffic enabled and some ships. Maybe it's not about this, but i would try it just to eliminate this possibility. I still belive it's RAM or some of the backround tasks.

Already tried this but doesn't help as expected since it uses vram.

Not 100% sure if this was the case also in P3D v3 but when you look at top-down view you will notice it only loads a certain area around you, pretty sure i haven't seen this before.

I've also added all my prepar3d folders, appdatafolders etc to exception list in my antivirus, let it rebuild most cfg files and shaders but still notice it. 
Are you guys running latest nvidia drivers under win 10?

[sfgiants13 83]

Would RAM useage be an issue with 16GB?  I'm running very similar settings on V4 as I did with V3 (with the addition of road traffic which has almost no FPS hit) and I'm getting stutters from the very beginning even with great FPS and FPS matching my monitor refresh rate.  Sometimes I can get it to run smooth at the beginning but if I bounce around to various airports testing things out that goes away quickly and it's back to stuttering.  Dropping the settings down still doesn't help.  I'm going to try a fresh windows install and then see if that cures it.