Prepar3D V4.5 is behaving very "Stuttery" and "Laggy"

[BrendanMan33 1]

Hello all,

I'm writing this one today because i'm quite stumped as to why my simulator is performing so poorly. I have never had this problem before in my time of flight simulation from FSX to P3DV4.5... I have tried loading different aircraft shedding different graphics, addons, weather, etc, and i'm not sure what else to do. Please let me know if I can send you any log files and I have listed my PC specs below. 

[Added] I have also tried clearing shaders, .cfg's, and changing my settings but there is no improvement.

Thank You

[SPECS]

Windows 10

i7-4790K @4.00GHz

ASUS ROG GTX1070-8GB

32GB Ram

ASUS Z97 Motherboard 

 

My Mods List

 

 

Edited December 7, 2019 by Jim Young
Removed Link as the link showed one piece of software that was pirated. An AI program.

[Bob Scott 7,712]

Any other processes running in the background that might produce high CPU loads (AV scan, file indexing etc)?

[BrendanMan33 1]

No. In fact I am getting an average of 20 FPS but a lot of freeze frames are occuring

[downscc 1,327]

Long frames are caused by loading scenery objects, about all you can do is reduce the scenery display distance.

Performance will suffer if you are using more than about 6.5 GB of your 8 GB VRAM.  I've found that when using high resolution textures and complex scenery like Orbx Honolulu that I'm hitting 10 GB of my 11 GB VRAM and things turn into a slide show.

[Evros 310]

Sounds like you are maxing out your CPU. If that happens, frame time delivery will no longer be smooth because delivery time is jumping all around and that is causing stutters.

[BrendanMan33 1]

2 hours ago, downscc said:

Long frames are caused by loading scenery objects, about all you can do is reduce the scenery display distance.

Performance will suffer if you are using more than about 6.5 GB of your 8 GB VRAM.  I've found that when using high resolution textures and complex scenery like Orbx Honolulu that I'm hitting 10 GB of my 11 GB VRAM and things turn into a slide show.

After running some tests the max memory being used is 4.5GB to 5.0GB, So about half of the maximum available memory.

1 hour ago, Evros said:

Sounds like you are maxing out your CPU. If that happens, frame time delivery will no longer be smooth because delivery time is jumping all around and that is causing stutters.

This looks to be the problem... My CPU is at 100% utilization while running P3D v4.5. Interesting though that despite completely "nerfing" my settings in the game and flying any of the P3D provided aircraft it does not make my CPU usage any lower? Is this known to be a performance problem with the P3D client?

[Added] Even playing DCS with maximum settings only utilizes 45% of my CPU... Makes me certainly believe that Lockheed has an optimization problem.

Edited December 5, 2019 by BrendanMan33
Added

[SteveW 1,792]

Have a look at this discussion where i've outlined the possibilities of maxing the CPU. It could be you need to look at VSync and other Display Settings.

 

[newtie 533]

Rebuild your .cfg file which will reset everything.

Thereafter, change one thing at a time and observe performance.

Cheers,

Mark

[threexgreen 3,133]

Any chance you're using a high texture resolution setting? I recently started getting stutters above 1000ft up to cruise altitude and this setting was the culprit (for whatever reason). Try lowering that.

[chapstick 2,755]

16 hours ago, downscc said:

Long frames are caused by loading scenery objects, about all you can do is reduce the scenery display distance.

Performance will suffer if you are using more than about 6.5 GB of your 8 GB VRAM.  I've found that when using high resolution textures and complex scenery like Orbx Honolulu that I'm hitting 10 GB of my 11 GB VRAM and things turn into a slide show.

How do you even get your settings reasonably low enough to get 6.5 GB? I have my settings cranked to the left and still hit 7.2 - 7.5 at large airports in the NGXu/FSL 320.

[AnkH 2,232]

Try this:

- check your monitor refreshrate. If you have anything that results in a even number when divided by 30, you are fine. If not, put the monitor refresh rate on such a number (e.g. I have reduced my monitor refresh rate from 144Hz to 120Hz).

- you open your prepar3d.cfg with a suitable software, e.g. Notepad++ and you add this on top of the config:

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=85

- put your sliders on a reasonable level, not too high but also not too low. Try to reach 35-40FPS when using "unlimited" in your P3D settings. With your hardware combo, you might be able to use rather high antialiasing settings and dynamic lighting, stuff that mainly uses GPU power. Due to the relatively low CPU performance, you might need to find a compromise for autogen draw distance and density.

- if you have your sim set up to have those 35-40FPS, tick VSYNC on, check that TripleBuffering is not ticked and set the FPS limiter to 30.

- check in your nVIDIA driver menue for Prepar3d that "use maximum performance" is selected.

Now you should get a smooth sim. If not, you need to lower the settings, no miracoulous trick can bring you more FPS...

[Evros 310]

1 hour ago, AnkH said:

AffinityMask=85

How is that supposed to help with anything?

[planechaser 46]

BTW are you using Dynamic lighting with SSAA?

No matter your GPU this is a performance killer , even with a 1080TI

 

I get severe lagging FPS jumping from 18-50 in some add-on airports with SSAA and DL. GPU spikes to 99% .

During the day , I turn DL off and keep 4xSSAA

Dusk/Dawn/night - turn on DL , use 8XMSAA and FXAA on and no FPS hit and max GPU load is around 65%

[planechaser 46]

BTW are you using Dynamic lighting with SSAA?

No matter your GPU this is a performance killer , even with a 1080TI

 

I get severe lagging FPS jumping from 18-50 in some add-on airports with SSAA and DL. GPU spikes to 99% .

During the day , I turn DL off and keep 4xSSAA, smooth .

Dusk/Dawn/night - turn on DL , use 8XMSAA and FXAA on and no FPS hit and max GPU load is around 65%

[Christopher Low 5,325]

2 hours ago, Chapstick said:

How do you even get your settings reasonably low enough to get 6.5 GB? I have my settings cranked to the left and still hit 7.2 - 7.5 at large airports in the NGXu/FSL 320.

It depends on what screen resolution and graphics settings you have. I run P3D v4 @ 1920x1080 resolution with a 2GB GTX 770.....but then I have Dynamic Lighting disabled, shadows limited to my own plane (internal and external), and I fly in calm weather with clear skies Having said that, I also run the simulator with 4xSSAA and 16x AF, scenery complexity and autogen density sliders all the way to the right, and high detail AI planes @ 100%.

Edited December 6, 2019 by Christopher Low