Stutters revisited...and another solution!?

[Cruachan 705]

Hi,

Yes, I know, what more could be said about this wearisome subject other than what has been said before...many times? This particular 'solution' may not help everyone, but I believe deserves to be considered when all else seems to be failing.

Recently, on a whim, I decided to update my graphics drivers. Why? No reason, just curious I suppose. We simmers are nothing if not a curious bunch and, in that, I am no exception..lol!

I used DDU to uninstall the previous set (385.02) in Windows7 SAFE MODE and installation of the 390.65 driver set was uneventful. After using them for several days they seem very stable and without any issues. 

I deleted Prepar3D.cfg and the Shaders folder content. The sim's settings were reconfigured using a combination of my original settings and the Prepar3D defaults and I was good to go. Frame rates at default KVPS were very healthy so I locked at my usual 30 and set off down the runway. Performance seemed on a par with the previous driver set but, rather disappointingly, there was more micro-stuttering. So, I reset and this time tried Unlimited with VSync enabled (no Triple Buffering). Virtually no stutters (micro or otherwise) silky smooth with frame rates ranging from 60-80+ fps. This configuration has remained unchanged over the past couple of days while testing continued.

By now we are all aware that the causes of stuttering and micro-stuttering are legion and proposed solutions offered rarely help everyone. So much is dependent on hardware and the acceptance of realistic in-sim settings and, it has to be said,  very few of us have identical setups. The ideal foundation appears to be to match frame rate with a monitor refreshing at 30Hz. Even then it is difficult to understand how some users can still achieve fluidity in dense scenery situations with all sliders maxed out. I know I can't.

The quality of 3rd Party Scenery and aircraft plays an important role and their creation requires special skills and knowledge to do correctly. Adherence to the Prepar3D SDK specifications is mandatory for good results and I have discovered there are few better at doing the former than Jarrad Marshall. 

Now, to the point: While testing I thought I would take the opportunity to explore some of my recently purchased discounted bonanza of ORBX Scenery products. Jarrad Marshall's FTX KSEZ Sedona Airport was first in the queue. This is an exemplary example of a carefully crafted product. Performance was excellent with not a single stutter throughout a 30min flight, including several touch-and-goes as I tried my best to return safely to terra firma.

Next, I tried FTX KCGX Meigs Field while noting that System memory occupancy rose to around 8.5GB. At first all was well and then, while flying over the city, the stutters began. If I banked the sim stuttered, if I pulled back on the stick the sim stuttered, pushing forward - same result, sim stuttered. The sim continued to stutter while cruising straight and level. Fiddling around with settings had no effect as did resetting the situation or restarting the sim and/or the Operating System. Stuttering continued no matter the situation. My favourite testing stomping ground is FTX ORBX 1S2 Darrington in the PNW. I always see great performance with hardly any stuttering but, even there, those blessed stutters persisted!

In fact this is not new to me as I have experienced this phenomenon on a few occasions in the past. I have attributed it to repeatedly jumping around from situation to situation in a single simming session. The only solution, I found, was to start afresh by rebooting the System a minute after shutdown. This ensures all memory content has been cleared prior to rebooting. Then I start Prepar3D and fluidity, once again, rules the day!

When a particular flight situation is loaded, much more is being loaded than is actually required. I thought that LM had taken measures to mitigate this issue but perhaps this area still needs some further attention. When a new flight situation is loaded, at least some of the memory content appears to be being cleared before the new load continues. Somewhere down the line, perhaps after loading several flight situations, this may be causing problems and I'm speculating that somehow this can manifest as one of many causes of stuttering.

So, if you should experience anything of a similar nature, don't waste time fiddling with settings, try rebooting the System first.  Works for me.

Mike

[Guest]

 

31 minutes ago, Cruachan said:

So, if you should experience anything of a similar nature, don't waste time fiddling with settings, try rebooting the System first.  Works for me.

I never ever do two flights in a row without a reboot of my PC. In fact, quite often, if I want to fly but have done some browsing on the internet first, or created a new flightplan using PFPX, or changed some settings of addons, etc. I like to reboot my PC before I start P3D. P3D runs best on a freshly started system.

 

13 minutes ago, tooting said:

Meanwhile back on planet earth.... 

 

Meanwhile in Aerofly FS 2... If you want to enjoy Orbx scenery at full detail and as smooth as butter (with an fps that's above 100) Aerofly FS 2 is your solution! (Obviously you'd miss ATC, weather, AI, deep systems, etc. but well... if you want smoothness, get AFS2.)

[Nyxx 6,993]

5 minutes ago, J van E said:

I never ever do two flights in a row without a reboot of my PC. In fact, quite often, if I want to fly but have done some browsing on the internet first, or created a new flightplan using PFPX, or changed some settings of addons, etc. I like to reboot my PC before I start P3D. P3D runs best on a freshly started system.

To add to that I also run CClean, before the reboot. 

Also with just buying UTL I got a few stutter back, well minor so I tried knocking everything off not only cores 0-1 but 2 also. wow super smooth.  

[fluffyflops 1,858]

7 minutes ago, Nyxx said:

To add to that I also run CClean, before the reboot. 

Also with just buying UTL I got a few stutter back, well minor so I tried knocking everything off not only cores 0-1 but 2 also. wow super smooth.  

20 years on we are still messing around with config files because of junk coding from fsx 

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, tooting said:

20 years on we are still messing around with config files because of junk coding from fsx 

Not me. My performance tweaking days have been over since I switched to P3D years ago. No core tweaking, no nothing.

[dmarques69 316]

Just to add a little knowledge to this, a finding that i did yesterday that shows the sensibility of P3D.

I started a flight with the normal settings that ive been using in the last months that give me a silky smooth experience ... noticed a few minutes after takeoff.... slow loading auto gen, bluries and stutters... after some swearing and some head scratches i remeber what changed in my system in the last days, i removed the OC from the CPU(because i was having crashes in other game with it), so was running slower :P after i OC the boy again, all went to normal.

[simmerhead 885]

I've been using Mike's method for a while. The only time P3Dv4.1 seems to be dead stable is after a fresh boot and fresh start. Every time I run into stability issues I have been doing scenery changes, scenery changes or multiple flights without reebooting.

When doing my traffic benchmark a few weeks ago I also discovered that performance was affected by each config change (with a vanilla install). If I reebooted between each change, performance got noticable better. I double and triple checked this.

Also, be careful to let the sim "settle" before starting a flight. Let everything load and wait a minute before you start playing. The FSX trick of going into spot view and do a few 360 spins around the aircraft to let the scenery load properly into memory might also be useful.

[Bobsk8 12,723]

32 minutes ago, J van E said:

Not me. My performance tweaking days have been over since I switched to P3D years ago. No core tweaking, no nothing.

I never tweak anything, and my 4 year old middle of the road Desktop runs P3D V 3.4 smooth as silk, with all kinds of add ons running. Don't understand why so many have problems. 

[GSalden 4,657]

Once every 2-3 months when P3D has loaded everything I see a framerate which is 40-60% lower than usual.

The solution for me is deleting the p3d.cfg file and let p3d built a new cfg file. Then I delete that cfg file and put back an identical cfg file as the one I deleted first.

Than my framerate is back up again..

[Adrian123 1,015]

For me, it's not a "frame rate" issue. It runs high constantly. It becomes a slight micro stutter issue of which Ive never found a solution after reading and trying all the voodoo snake oil stuff. Worst FPS killer I have found is stuff never intended for P3DV4 or XP11. Simple observation.

[Cruachan 705]

1 hour ago, tooting said:

20 years on we are still messing around with config files because of junk coding from fsx 

Oh come on, Pete, dated and inefficient maybe but certainly not "junk".

Regards,

Mike

 

[Cruachan 705]

2 hours ago, GSalden said:

Once every 2-3 months when P3D has loaded everything I see a framerate which is 40-60% lower than usual.

The solution for me is deleting the p3d.cfg file and let p3d built a new cfg file. Then I delete that cfg file and put back an identical cfg file as the one I deleted first.

Than my framerate is back up again..

Now that defies all logic but then, when have computers ever been logical..lol Nevertheless, such measures often do work and may be forcing the reconfiguration of some core sim files back into their default state. Might explain why your original P3D config file continued to work thereafter. If not then it must be by magic or a liberal measure of digital luck!

Did you try rebooting your System before deleting the original Prepar3D.cfg?

Regards,

Mike

[Mace 1,926]

Mike, I'm surprised that you didn't try unlimited/vsync sooner.   I thought it was all over the forums in the research I did.  It seems to be working well on my new system with P3Dv4.   Maybe not for 4K -- haven't researched that yet, haven't gone to 4K yet.  (New system -- 8700K, 32Gb, 1080Ti.).  I may eat my words once I load up EGLL with all the goodies, but so far -- so good.

Whoever said they are tired of messing around with cfg files -- I can say I haven't messed with the P3D.cfg file one single time since I moved to it over a month ago.  No AffinityMask, Fiber Frame this or that, nothing.   That's pretty shocking for me, as I am an endless fiddler.  Or was.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Mace said:

No AffinityMask, Fiber Frame this or that, nothing.

Yikes, those words alone make me shiver...!

[Cruachan 705]

12 minutes ago, Mace said:

Mike, I'm surprised that you didn't try unlimited/vsync sooner.

Hi Rhett,

Oh, believe me, I've tried on many occasions. For whatever reason this combination did not suit my previous NVIDIA driver set. Now it seems to be the other way around. May just be System related, I don't know. It's early days but so far I'm happy.

Regards,

Mike