Stutters make V3 and V4 not usable

[INACTIVE 19]

Hello guys,

I have had this issue for a really long time now (Around a year) and I have tried a lot of things to fix it. But till this day I have never found anything to fix this issue for me. I have a weird kind of stutter in my sim that makes flying with less than 45 FPS impossible / not fun at all. I have made 3 videos in 3 different stages of flight with this issue and they will be linked below.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79i_bgjY0kc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpaffbnsqJk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSYxEafzUbc

I would be really thankfull if you guys help out.

SPECS:

Intel I7 6700K (No overclock)
Asus 980TI Strix (No overclock)
128 GB HyperX RAM
P3D installed on Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB SSD
Asus Z170-A Motherboard
Be Quiet! 100W powersupply

Information:

Prepar3d V4 (Hotfix 1 installed)
Windows 10 (Version 1703)
Addons: All Global packs by ORBX. Active sky (No effect on stutters). All PMDG P3D V4 aircraft. Flytampa scenery. Envtex. FSUIPC. GSX.

Changes made to the system: None (No overclock, No NVIDIA inspector)
Changes to CFG files: none

Thank you very much for the help.

Robin C.
The Netherlands

[RichieFly 719]

I would suggest that you check to see what else is running on the computer.

For example: file sharing apps, anti-virus including Windows Defender and other utility-type programs.

You can check this by starting the Task Manager then click the 'Open Resource Manager' link on the Performance tab.

From the Resource manager, you can check to see what's running along with P3D. Focus on the Disk activity section. You can sort by the various columns. 

I've found that this is often the problem. It's usually some Microsoft telemetry nonsense hogging the computer.

I apologize if this is something you've tried or are familiar with. I'm not trying to be pedantic. 

[MistyBlue 8]

I have found one of the biggest causes of stuttering for me across multiple different PC's with P3D (v3 and 4) on them is as simple as getting the refresh of the monitor sync'd with the frame rate of the sim.  In my case I have set the refresh of my monitor to 50Hz and in the sim chose 50 fps with vsync off.  I have a smoothness I haven't seen before.  Still some stutters here and there very dependent on what addons and settings you're running, but nothing like before.

There is of course the Affinity Mask setting which you can add to the prepar3d.cfg until you find something that makes your frames more consistent.  I have mine at 245 for my 4790k processor which seems to work good for me.  Mileage will vary.  A good post on that is here:

I wouldn't change anything else in the config as it seems a lot of those tweaks are moot these days with the advancements LM have made in P3D.

[Mikelab6 89]

Did you exclude all your sim folders to be live scanned by you antivirus software ?

Also, if your monitor's refresh rate is 60 hz and your FPS is lower then 60, you gonna have stutters.  I have almost the same hardware than you, and I have some stutters if my FPS goes under 60. If my FPS is higher than 60, it's smooth as silk.  The PMDG don't help to save FPS.  Try to save some FPS by disabling or lowering some traffics settings and beware of AA 8xSSAA setting, it will eats your FPS.  Use 8xMSAA to have higher FPS in IMAGE and TEXTURE QUALITY option

Also I found that using FPS locked at XX = first core at 100%.  Running at unlimited solved this...  I am using Vsync and triple buffering.

In GRAPHIC / WORLD option adjust TESSELLATION FACTOR slider to full max (Ultra)

 

Mike

 

 

[somiller 694]

ferrarirmc,

I would second RichieFly's recommendations, but I'm guessing more of a CPU/GPU bottleneck. The scenario in your videos shouldn't have required any scenery requests that would have required disk activity, so unless it is another process hogging the disk it probably was not P3D.

I am running similar hardware specs (6700K, but with GTX 1070 which isn't much faster than your 980ti) and I get great performance out of P3D 4...much better and more consistent than P3D 3.4.

Look at the CPU section also. If you see abny of the cores, but especially core 0 constantly at 100%, or rising and falling frequently reaching 100% I'd guess it's a CPU bottleneck. Many things could cause CPU bottlenecks, obviously in addition to P3D 4. I am using the free version of Process Lasso https://bitsum.com/?inproduct to shift ALL P3D activity to physical cores 0,2,4,6, and I have other NON-Windows apps using only logical cores 5, 7. The reason this is important is that P3D is very CPU heavy, and if it has to compete with other processes on the same core it can cause bottlenecks which cause stutters.

Determine your GPU utilization. I run pretty high scenery and lighting settings, and my GPU rarely runs above 80%, and usually is between 45%-55%. I use GPU-Z to check video card info and GPU utilization. https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

I dealt with a problem recently where P3D 4 was having some minor stutters. I determined (using the "Process" tab in Task Manager) that for some reason Cortana was constantly using 4%-10% CPU, and I have Cortana disabled in "Group Policy Editor". I had to right mouse on Cortana and selected "Go to Details" to find that it was actually a process called "SearchUI.exe" using the resources. I was able to solve the problem, but honestly can't remember exactly what I did to solve it.

 

Steven Miller

[mtrainer 136]

Did you list your specs properly?  A 100 watt power supply and 128 GB of RAM?   Neither one of those makes sense....

Mark Trainer

 

[INACTIVE 19]

9 hours ago, mtrainer said:

Did you list your specs properly?  A 100 watt power supply and 128 GB of RAM?   Neither one of those makes sense....

Mark Trainer

 

I do have 128 GB ram, And the powersupply is a 1000W not a 100 that was my mistake!

 

Robin

[INACTIVE 19]

Thanks guys for the help so far, I'm gonna look at it right now and get back with the results ASAP

 

Thanks you!

Robin

[INACTIVE 19]

14 hours ago, RichieFly said:

I would suggest that you check to see what else is running on the computer.

For example: file sharing apps, anti-virus including Windows Defender and other utility-type programs.

You can check this by starting the Task Manager then click the 'Open Resource Manager' link on the Performance tab.

From the Resource manager, you can check to see what's running along with P3D. Focus on the Disk activity section. You can sort by the various columns. 

I've found that this is often the problem. It's usually some Microsoft telemetry nonsense hogging the computer.

I apologize if this is something you've tried or are familiar with. I'm not trying to be pedantic. 

Thank you very much sir for the help. It didn't help sort the issue but thank you for the help!

 

Robin

[INACTIVE 19]

14 hours ago, MistyBlue said:

I have found one of the biggest causes of stuttering for me across multiple different PC's with P3D (v3 and 4) on them is as simple as getting the refresh of the monitor sync'd with the frame rate of the sim.  In my case I have set the refresh of my monitor to 50Hz and in the sim chose 50 fps with vsync off.  I have a smoothness I haven't seen before.  Still some stutters here and there very dependent on what addons and settings you're running, but nothing like before.

There is of course the Affinity Mask setting which you can add to the prepar3d.cfg until you find something that makes your frames more consistent.  I have mine at 245 for my 4790k processor which seems to work good for me.  Mileage will vary.  A good post on that is here:

I wouldn't change anything else in the config as it seems a lot of those tweaks are moot these days with the advancements LM have made in P3D.

I have tried things with AffinityMasks but it has no effect on this issue, Tried it again today but no effect. Thank you very much for the help!

 

Robin

[fluffyflops 1,845]

Ive found in my experience. 3 things will cause your sim to stutter amd be crap

1. Unnecessary tweaking and fiddling with your config files because some twitch streamer told you too

2. Unnecessary crap on your pc normally caused by "un PC savey"  simmers 

3. Pcs with numerous accounts and versions of sims on the pc, installed once again by the above.

 

In 16 years of enjoying this hobby 99.9% of issues ive seen with peoples slow and buggy pc's is unnecessary crap installed on them 

[fluffyflops 1,845]

2 minutes ago, ferrarirmc said:

I have tried things with AffinityMasks but it has no effect on this issue, Tried it again today but no effect. Thank you very much for the help!

 

Robin

i see you have p3d v4 installed,  how long ago did you do a nice clean reinstalling of windows and the updates ?

[INACTIVE 19]

1 minute ago, tooting said:

Ive found in my experience. 3 things will cause your sim to stutter amd be crap

1. Unnecessary tweaking and fiddling with your config files because some twitch streamer told you too

2. Unnecessary crap on your pc normally caused by "un PC savey"  simmers 

3. Pcs with numerous accounts and versions of sims on the pc, installed once again by the above.

 

In 16 years of enjoying this hobby 99.9% of issues ive seen with peoples slow and buggy pc's is unnecessary crap installed on them 

Well, I have just done a fresh Windows install without anything on it. And the issue was still there, i havent changed anything in the configs, I only have 1 account on my PC

 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,924]

Robin,

You don't mention resolution. 4K or 1920x1080? I would set fps to unlimited, turn off v sync if you're at 1920x1080.

[INACTIVE 19]

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Robin,

You don't mention resolution. 4K or 1920x1080? I would set fps to unlimited, turn off v sync if you're at 1920x1080.

Using a 2K resolution

Already using the settings you are talking about (unlimited and vsync off)

 

Robin