Micropauses exactly every minute during bush flights (video)

[MrFuzzy 2,124]

Hi all,

After having shot this video and written this post, I played in free flight mode and I realized that this issue apparently concerns bush flights mode only (I tried the Sierra Nevada and the Balkans ones). Exactly every minute, consistently, I have a micropause in which both CPU and GPU usage % drop.

Too bad I played only these challenges since the release, so I was not aware of the fact that during free flight, starting from the world map, this does not happen. 

What does MSFS do every minute during bush flights? Anyone else experiencing this?

###

After having tried all the tips and tricks listed here and in other forums / Reddit I decided to start from scratch and run MSFS in potato mode, in order to remove as many variables as I could from the equation.

Test conditions:

• i7 7700K @ 4.7 GHz
• 32 GB 3200 MHz CL16 DDR4
• Geforce GTX 1080 Ti
• 1 TB Samsung 970 Evo NVME SSD

Fresh install of:

• Windows 10 v2004
• Geforce Drivers 452.06 (latest)
• Windows Wallpaper slideshow is off (I mention it because it can actually give the symptom described)

The video was shot on the 2nd leg of the Sierra Nevada bush trip and I started the recording once airborne and leveled at about 4,800 ft in order to avoid any interference from scenery / objects loading. In fact please note that in the first section of the video, with High-End graphics settings and all data / traffic turned on, my system sits comfortably at 75+ fps with a perfectly flat frametime graph and a CPU usage of 50-60%.

At 00:25 I have the first CPU / GPU usage drop which causes a micropause in the simulation. The task manager (not shown in the video) did not report any background tasks spiking, on the contrary the usage of both CPU and GPU dropped.

Exactly one minute after, at 01:25 I have the second CPU/GPU drop and micropause. The external view delivers 80+ fps as expected.

One more minute (02:25) and another micropause occurs! 
So I turn down all the graphics settings, switch the data off and turn all the traffic down. My system now delivers 120+ fps.

Guess what? A micropause around 3:30 and another one around 4:04 😞

So I open Riva Tuner and limit the framerate at 30 fps. Now the CPU and GPU occupation drop to about 30-35%.

But this is not enough to get rid of the issue: exactly one minute after the previous micropause, at 5:04 I have another one! 6:04, one more! 7:04, one more! They are like a Swiss watch, one every minute.

The following attempts to eliminate the issue failed:

• Revert to the previous version of Geforce Drivers
• Revert CPU and RAM to default frequencies
• Set Windows Game mode on / off
• Use Process Lasso to modify affinity and turn off Windows thread boosting
• Turn data off (see video)
• Turn down all graphics settings (see video)
• Limit framerate to 30 fps (see video)
• Gsync / Vsync on / off
• Turn Rolling cache on or off
• Changing System Performance setting to Background processes
• Added Steam folder to Windows Defender exceptions
• Disabled Windows Defender
• Moved / disabled the virtual memory

Thank you for any suggestions.

 

[Turpentine 383]

Funny because I started my first bush flight last night and noticed EXACTLY the same thing. In other VFR flights I never experience these stutters. I haven't tried much in the way of tweaking to get rid of them (even tried Process Lasso, no luck).

An idea: I believe that FS makes an automatic save of the bush flight (something mentioned that in anohter thread). Could it be that this is what causes these intermittent stutters?

Despite these occasional stutters, I was surprised at how much i'm enjoying these bush flight adventures, I had tons of fun in the first leg. I really hope Asobo or 3rd party developers will come up with more of them in the future.

[Marco Manieri 194]

Did that leg 2 days ago (twice actually... first time I mismatched the actual runway of the strip and landed in between bushes and small trees, went too heavy on brakes after landing that I flipped... had to restart 🤪), never noticed anything like that. My FPS also where much higher than usual.

Edit: i'm on SSD (SATA)... could it be related to the autosave stuff?

Edited August 28, 2020 by Marco Manieri

[MrFuzzy 2,124]

Thanks guys, it gave me a big headache because initially I was 100% on these bush flights (I finished the Balkans one yesterday) and I thought the issue was generalized.

Marco, I also risked to land in the bushes the first time, I went around just in time but then I botched the landing and stuck my nose in the sand 😄 I have to start over!

Funny enough, the autosave feature is also bugged because: the first time you quit your flight (airborne) and resume it everything is fine, you restart exactly from that point and you can complete the leg.

The second / third time it shows only the first waypoint instruction in the navlog. The following time the navlog is empty and if you finish the leg because you are a smart guy and remember where to go from previous attempt, the achievement is not recognized and you have to restart it!

Edited August 28, 2020 by MrFuzzy

[PuffeB 27]

Could it be a background service in Win10 that interrupts FS? Do you have SSD TRIM enabled in Windows? I read a post that after an update of windows some time ago, trim was activated very frequently on the computer. You could try to disable suspect services on your computer.

[wim123 765]

36 minutes ago, PuffeB said:

Could it be a background service in Win10 that interrupts FS? Do you have SSD TRIM enabled in Windows? I read a post that after an update of windows some time ago, trim was activated very frequently on the computer. You could try to disable suspect services on your computer.

thats not it, its the autosave feature in the bush flight adventures.

[MrFuzzy 2,124]

Yeah, in fact it happens only in bush flight challenges. Now I need to find a way to disable it...

[spacedyemeerkat 421]

On 8/28/2020 at 6:55 PM, MrFuzzy said:

Yeah, in fact it happens only in bush flight challenges. Now I need to find a way to disable it...

I am seeing these micropauses in bush flights, too, although there's nothing suspicious happening according to resource monitoring. Did you ever get to the bottom of the issue?

[Andreas Stangenes 1,628]

The bottom of the issue is that MSF is programmed to autosave the flight every 60 seconds. If you time your stutters you will see they coinside with this save feature. AFAIK you cannot disable it. 

[MrFuzzy 2,124]

1 minute ago, spacedyemeerkat said:

I am seeing these micropauses in bush flights, too, although there's nothing suspicious happening according to resource monitoring. Did you ever get to the bottom of the issue?

Autosave cannot be disabled unfortunately. I finished all the bush flights and got the achievements so it doesn't bother me anymore...

[spacedyemeerkat 421]

Ah, okay. Thanks both. You would have thought having MSFS installed on a fast NVMe drive would make a difference but oh well.

That said, hugely enjoying these flights (although the latest patch has inadvertently broken them). Hope they add more, and preferably with some nice commentary. In fact, I'd happily pay for that.