Extra RAM made a world of difference for stutters

[Ducky1955 4]

I have a four year old system and wasn't sure if I'd be able to run FS2020 on it at all, much less as anything other than a slide show. I did need to upgrade my video card just to get it to install and run, but otherwise I was pleasantly surprised by the performance. I was able to set the graphics to medium and still have a very smooth flight except for those occasional annoying stutters. On my system it quickly became apparent that the stutters were due to the hard drive being over taxed. the drive was constantly at 100% usage and when the I/O queue also hit 100% then the system would stutter and pause while waiting on the HD. Since I have a gigabit internet connection (through Google Fiber) I turned off the rolling cache and that helped a little, but the HD usage was still pegging and the stuttering was still annoying. I only had 8gb of system RAM (the bare minimum to run FS2020) so this morning I added another 16gb (total now 24gb) and WOW what a difference. The stutters around Kansas City (my home town) have completely disappeared. I still did get some micro-stutters around Southern Manhattan, but yesterday it was a total slide show with more pauses than actual flying.  

Test flights this morning were with the DA-40 (I'm not a big-iron person for the most part)

System specs:
Intel i7 6700 @3.4ghz 8 cores (4 physical - 4 hyperthreaded)
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 w 4gb RAM @1920x1080
24gb Ram (DDR4-2400)

Edited August 26, 2020 by Ducky1955
Added system specs

[wthomas33065 994]

7 minutes ago, Ducky1955 said:

I have a four year old system and wasn't sure if I'd be able to run FS2020 on it at all, much less as anything other than a slide show. I did need to upgrade my video card just to get it to install and run, but otherwise I was pleasantly surprised by the performance. I was able to set the graphics to medium and still have a very smooth flight except for those occasional annoying stutters. On my system it quickly became apparent that the stutters were due to the hard drive being over taxed. the drive was constantly at 100% usage and when the I/O queue also hit 100% then the system would stutter and pause while waiting on the HD. Since I have a gigabit internet connection (through Google Fiber) I turned off the rolling cache and that helped a little, but the HD usage was still pegging and the stuttering was still annoying. I only had 8gb of system RAM (the bare minimum to run FS2020) so this morning I added another 16gb (total now 24gb) and WOW what a difference. The stutters around Kansas City (my home town) have completely disappeared. I still did get some micro-stutters around Southern Manhattan, but yesterday it was a total slide show with more pauses than actual flying.  

Test flights this morning were with the DA-40 (I'm not a big-iron person for the most part)

System specs:
Intel i7 6700 @3.4ghz 8 cores (4 physical - 4 hyperthreaded)
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 w 4gb RAM @1920x1080
24gb Ram (DDR4-2400)

Absolutely.  I too had 8GB and saw my memory maxed out, so I bought another 8 GB and saw immediate improvement.  So much so I bought another 16GB and went to 32.  Now to be honest,8GB of that additional 16GB seems to be nothing more than a heat sink.  I think I've seen max memory usage at around 20GB.  But memory is so cheap it was a no brainer.

[SeanMo 140]

It felt like what people were experiencing wasn't a CPU or GPU problem, but a moving things in and out of memory problem. Memory is historically cheap right now. Newegg has a 32GB (2x16) 3200mhz XMP2 set for $90. Because of a glut of memory, expect these (and SSD) prices to trend even lower heading into Black Friday. 

[wthomas33065 994]

44 minutes ago, SeanMo said:

It felt like what people were experiencing wasn't a CPU or GPU problem, but a moving things in and out of memory problem. Memory is historically cheap right now. Newegg has a 32GB (2x16) 3200mhz XMP2 set for $90. Because of a glut of memory, expect these (and SSD) prices to trend even lower heading into Black Friday. 

Memory is definitely an issue, but CPU's especially low end ones need help.  For example.  I keep my Terrain and Object Level of Detail sliders between 25 and 50 so that I limit how much calculatin the CPU has to do when it loads in new scenery areas.  I also ALWAYS wait for a time after my flight loads.  I use my Camera Pan to look around in the cockpit, and as long as it stutters, I keep waiting.  When I finally get the ability to move my head around the cockpit with no stuttering, then I take off.  Makes a HUGE difference.

[Pevenhull 39]

My system is 

Corsair 850W PSU

ASUS 370 Mother Board

Corsair 80 Water cooling

32 Gb Corsair RAM

250 Gb M.2 Samsung

1 Tb Hybrid HDD

Intel i5 8600 clocked to 4.5 GHz

RTX 2080ti std clock.

ASUS ROG 4K 34" curved monitor.

 

Saitek yoke with Bodnar board for Pitch and Roll.

Saitek quadrant

Saitek pedals.

 

Scenery is true to Bing Maps Aerial View

Weather is true to view from my window.

 

130 - 135 fps.

 

Happy as Larry.

 

Edited August 26, 2020 by Pevenhull