Trying to eliminate stutters...

[Bobu 0]

Hey guys, first post. So I bought xp11 about a week ago, and I have been on a quest to get a stutter-free experience. Here's how it all started.

First, here are my original system specs:

Windows 10 x64
4770K overclocked to 4.4 GHz.
32 GB RAM
GTX 770 (@GB VRAM)
1920 x 1200 60 Hz Display
XP11 installed on SSD
Custom Scenery on 7200K drive

When I first got xp11 things ran okay, so I decided to install some Ortho Photo Scenery. I figured I could turn off the auto-gen stuff, and combined with running clear skies and all the other sliders to the left (Except Texture Quality and AA), I should be good. I installed Ortho for Colorado, and I was able to get a solid 60 fps without clouds, traffic, etc. Texture Quality was on High, and it looked okay. The only problem I had was a stutter that consistently appeared when I panned left or right (I use Track IR). This is where my stutter obsession began.

Things looked great and I was even getting 150 to 200 fps, but there was this persistent stutter. Not always, but I could reproduce it at will if I just looked around left and right a few time. This stutter does not appear to happen with a fps drop. The FPS is solid all the time, even when this happens. For reference, for my testing I always use the default C172 flying out of KDEN on runway 25 flying west. Clear skies, same time of day. 

Okay I ran through all the settings in NVIDIA, used all the tweaks, but that stutter remained. I started to wonder if maybe the custom scenery on my 7200K drive was the issue, so I moved the Colorado Ortho stuff to the SSD. Same problem. I ran across a bunch of lua tweaks, put them in, and things were smoother, but the stutter was still there.

At this point I am thinking it must be the fact that my GTX 770 only has 2GB VRAM. But in xp the gpu and cpu data shows .01 and below, so it doesn't look like my CPU or GPU are overloaded. In any case, I decide to go out and buy a new GPU.

Last night I install my GTX 1070 8GB VRAM graphics card. The good news is I can turn things up to max and the sim is super smooth and glorious to look at. The bad new? Yeah, it still stutters. It just looks better doing it. So I guess I can scratch "not enough VRAM" off the list. And again, my CPU and GPU are basically idling in XP, most of the time running in the 0.008 range, because I am still running no weather, AI, and my sliders are to the left (except Texture Detail and AA). Okay what have I missed? Maybe it is my CPU. 

My CPU is overclocked to 4.4 GHz, so I wonder what would happen if I went back to stock settings? Maybe the overclock itself is adding some issues, but I assumed that my stutter would become worse when going from 4.4 to 3.9 (in Turbo mode). I fire XP back up with no overclock, and the sim is still silky smooth and locked at 60 fps, and there is still a slight stutter. No worse than overclocked. In fact, it takes a little longer to load but I really cannot tell any difference when flying.

My fps is locked solid at 60 fps, either with the GTX 770 or GTX 1070, overclocked or not. I only see the stutter when I pan to the left or right, and then only occasionally. When staring straight ahead, smooth. So what else have I tried?

1. Monitor refresh rate of 59 and 60.
2. Change monitor resolution to 1920 x 1080 instead of 1920 x 1200 
3. Thread Optimization On and Off in NVIDIA
4. Set higher priority to Track IR process in Windows
5. Set XP to only use Cores 2, 3 and 4 (and leave 1 to Windows)
6. Hyper-threading on or off in BIOS
7. Turn off Virus protection
8. Turn off Windows Defender
9. Fresh install of NVIDIA drivers
10. Remove NVIDIA HD Audio
11. Used Process Lasso, setting XP to not use core/threads 0/1. Also in high priority mode. 
12. Run XP Windowed and Full Screen, with every combo of V-Sync.
13. Overclock GTX 770 GPU
14. Turn off Z axis in Track IR (don't ask)
15. Run X-Plane.exe as Administrator

Again, the sim is silky smooth when looking around, and panning, save for the occasional stutter. My FPS never drops below 60. I reproduced this this morning, and the computer was just turned on and the stutter happened within 5 minutes. So heat is also not a likely factor. 

Hey, I am still in this fight guys, but I am running out of stuff to try. So what is left, besides building a new computer? 

My wife (and I) thank you for the help! 

Rob 

Edited May 10, 2018 by Jim Young
Removed excessive spacing

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Hi,

I have only noticed stutters if I pan with a joystick or mouse, just slight ones as I initiate panning.  I believe it is a polling issue, one suggestion is try tweaking your flight models per frame to see if that improves things or make things worse, adjust in one direction or the other first.  Keyboard initiated pans do not stutter, they are much smoother and if I record a flight video from GEForce Experience I use the keyboard to pan if and when possible.  I assigned my arrow keys for panning and shift-U and shift-D for panning up and down, worked wonders.  I too use extensive Ortho scenery, it covers the West Coast from the border of Mexico, east to the eastern border of New Mexico, and north to southern British Columbia in about a 300-150 mile swath as it progresses north.  Ran out of disk space to do more but with that much ortho scenery I can fly from Vancouver BC down to Phoenix Arizona over my Ortho scenery, or down to San Diego, an ample jet flight in my jet aircraft.  With my specs the sim is silky smooth even over default scenery with nearly everything maxed, only thing I did was dumb down AA a bit.

John

[Bobu 0]

Thanks John. I am going to try that right now. Yeah, Ortho is great. Just these darn stutters. Ugh. 

[dmarques69 316]

 XP as one issue that causes stutters when loading enviroment, like aiports or buildings or changing weather depending on your settings and system, if you take a look at the org, you gonna find some posts about it. Open your taks manager when you are flying in a second monitor and check if those stutters hapen when loading starts...

[Murmur 3,941]

Try disabling or enabling vsync. It is in the lower left of XP11 rendering settings. Although it can also be forced in the nvidia control panel I think. If vsync is enabled, you should also have triple buffering enabled (it should be in the nvidia control panel as well).

So you can try these combinations:

.) vsync disabled in XP, and "vertical sync"->"force on" in nVidia control panel. Triple buffering on.

.) vsync enabled in XP, and "vertical sync"->"use the 3D application setting" in nVidia control panel. Triple buffering on.

.) vsync disabled in XP and "vertical sync"->"force off" in nVidia control panel. Triple buffering off.

See if there's any improvement in one of these combinations.

 

[Bobu 0]

1 hour ago, Murmur said:

Try disabling or enabling vsync. It is in the lower left of XP11 rendering settings. Although it can also be forced in the nvidia control panel I think. If vsync is enabled, you should also have triple buffering enabled (it should be in the nvidia control panel as well).

So you can try these combinations:

.) vsync disabled in XP, and "vertical sync"->"force on" in nVidia control panel. Triple buffering on.

.) vsync enabled in XP, and "vertical sync"->"use the 3D application setting" in nVidia control panel. Triple buffering on.

.) vsync disabled in XP and "vertical sync"->"force off" in nVidia control panel. Triple buffering off.

See if there's any improvement in one of these combinations.

Thanks for the help. Tried all of those. 

 

[Bobu 0]

16. Tried all settings for flight models per frame. 

 

[Bobu 0]

2 hours ago, dmarques69 said:

 XP as one issue that causes stutters when loading enviroment, like aiports or buildings or changing weather depending on your settings and system, if you take a look at the org, you gonna find some posts about it. Open your taks manager when you are flying in a second monitor and check if those stutters hapen when loading starts...

Thanks. Opened task manager but stutters happen anytime and consistently in the flight. I expect a little stutter when loading, but this happens throughout the flight. 

[Bobu 0]

Okay i got it sorted out. I downloaded a overclcking tool from Intel, which wasn’t very good, but it does show if your CPU is beng thermally throttled. And my previous overclock was. I kicked the voltage and OC down a notch or two, and that eliminated 75% of the stutter. Decided to overclock the GTX 1070 a little bit, and that got rid of the last bit of stutter. 

I was able to just about crank everything up, and it looks awesome with the Ortho stuff. Looking forward to getting in some flights now!

 

[mjrhealth 820]

Another one is disable threaded optimisation in control panel can cause issues at times

[Bobu 0]

4 hours ago, mjrhealth said:

Another one is disable threaded optimisation in control panel can cause issues at times

That was #3.