Finally fixed game stutters

[RobJC 2,069]

Hey guys, just wanted to share how I fixed the stutters I was seeing in this sim. For background, I have a 4770K CPU (overclocked to 4.3 GHz) paired with a GTX 1070 and 32 GB RAM running 1440p with all SSDs.  I have most of my settings on Ultra or High, and the visuals are excellent. But I was getting occasional stutters although the game was super fluid and I was getting around 27 FPS. I started investigating the cause of the stutters, initially thinking that my GPU could not keep up. I put a small overclock on the GPU but the stutters remained. I have tweaked the NVIDIA settings, and in-game settings until my eyes started to bleed, at which point I ran across a thread on process lasso. I did the recommended tweaks (set priority, disable windows dynamic thread priority) and saw considerable improvement in the stutters, but they were still there. So here is how I resolved my sim stutters.

While the sim was running (flying from Denver to Telluride) I loaded up process lasso and watched the graph while simultaneously having the sim dev FPS overlay up. At first I noticed that the GPU was red the entire time, and the Main Thread was yellow, but with frequent red spikes. When the red spikes clustered, the stutters occurred. I then sorted my CPU % column in process lasso to see what was happening during the spike. First, the CPU (all cores) were maxed out. A process linked to Malwarebytes was running for just a split second. I stopped that program and did a retest. It then ran fine until a process related to WebEx ran. I turned that off. Now the sim runs stutter free and the Main Thread is constantly yellow with occasional green (rarely a red bar). The GPU graph shows red with lots of yellow spikes. Smooth as butter.

In conclusion if you are getting occasional stutters but the sim is smooth otherwise, it is most likely not your GPU but rather a process that is running periodically that your CPU is consumed by. You need to track down those processes. 

BTW, I tried the CPU priority changes but that did not solve the problem. For some reason when certain processes run the CPU just cannot balance the load well enough. All cores max out during the spikes, so my original thought of dedicating only specific cores to the sim would not have helped. 

In any case, 27 FPS is amazingly smooth with my old CPU and GPU, so if you have anything more modern than mine you should be solid once you track down the offending processes. 

Rob 

 

 

Edited September 15, 2020 by RobJC

[alexcolka 183]

What version of lasso are you running? freeware or pro? I would like to know more about that and what to disable.

Thanks,

Edited September 15, 2020 by alexcolka

[RobJC 2,069]

3 minutes ago, alexcolka said:

What version of lasso are you running? freeware or pro? I would like to know more about that and what to disable.

Thanks,

Free version.

PROCESS LASSO:

For flightsimulator.exe (start sim first) I set:

- Priority class > Always > High {SELECTED]
- Priority class > Always > Windows dynamic thread priority boosts enabled [NOT SELECTED]

NVIDIA Control Panel:

- Power management mode: Prefer maximum performance
- Texture filtering quality: High performance
- Threaded Optimization: Off
- Triple Buffering: Off

 

[alexcolka 183]

1 minute ago, RobJC said:

Free version.

PROCESS LASSO:

For flightsimulator.exe (start sim first) I set:

- Priority class > Always > High {SELECTED]
- Priority class > Always > Windows dynamic thread priority boosts enabled [NOT SELECTED]

NVIDIA Control Panel:

- Power management mode: Prefer maximum performance
- Texture filtering quality: High performance
- Threaded Optimization: Off
- Triple Buffering: Off

 

Thank you Rob will try those.

[jackdleach 11]

I would highly recommend shutting down all non-essential background services and applications prior to running this.  In recent years my little bit of playing with FSX:SE didn't really matter as I could never push the boundaries of my system (I didn't use any add-ons, really, tinkered only), but with 2020 being such a resource hog (for good reason)...

I build a system from the ground up specifically for this, and the first thing I did after installing Windows was remove everything unneeded, the check all my startup services, etc.  So, the OS is squeaky clean (or as squeaky clean as Win10 gets anyway...).  If I were running this on a box not dedicated to the sim, I'd definitely come up with a batch script that shut all that stuff down prior to firing up the sim. 

Anti-virus, backups and update services are notorious for causing performance issues when they run.  If they can't be turned off entirely, at least try to be careful of their scheduled run times and turn off live monitoring during flights, etc.

[jackdleach 11]

(re-reading that post sounded a bit condescending - not what I intended at all, was more of a post for future lurkers that might have come across it due to the title and wanted some general tips...)

[SmokeDiddy 262]

2 hours ago, RobJC said:

Hey guys, just wanted to share how I fixed the stutters I was seeing in this sim....

Thanks for this!  I am running very similar hardware, i5 6600k oc'd to 4.5Ghz, GTX 1070 native and SSDs.  Currently just setting the Process Lasso Priority class > Always > Windows dynamic thread priority boosts enabled [NOT SELECTED].  I still get micro stutters, but I will try your recommendation above and see where I'm at. ~Robert

[RustyFlyer 182]

2 hours ago, jackdleach said:

"...and turn off live monitoring during flights, etc."

That partially, if not fully, defeats the purpose of having AV software. Mine has now become a relatively ancient system, and I keep my AV monitoring active at all times; and I experience very, very few micro-stutters. I have also read some threads that indicate that having [significant] AI traffic active is often times the [a] culprit with regard to micro-stutters.

[jackdleach 11]

1 hour ago, RustyFlyer said:

That partially, if not fully, defeats the purpose of having AV software.

Partially, maybe, but hardly fully.  I'd suggest it's a matter of risk... how much risk of a virus being downloaded to your machine while using a flight sim?  There's many ways aside from AV to be security-conscious, and I think turning off active monitoring during a sim session is relatively low risk, provided you're careful about what is running during that time.  Sketchy add-ins may be a risk, and email is usually the only other thing that "listens outside" that's also risky, but that can be mitigated fairly easily by closing your email client or having it download headers only by default.  Anyway, it's a bit far afield the original post now, and I'll respect anyone's opinion/practices on matters of security, but that's my 2cents worth.  Cheers

[MrFuzzy 2,118]

11 hours ago, RobJC said:

NVIDIA Control Panel:

- Threaded Optimization: Off

Why this?

[GSalden 4,656]

Make sure you don’t run any unnecessary background programs like AV , App updates , Windows updates , Apps running in the background 

[bobcat999 8,444]

2 hours ago, MrFuzzy said:

Why this?

There is always divided opinion whether Threaded Optimization should be on or off in Nvidia Inspector.  Does anyone really know which way it should be and why?

Also, last night With TAA on and Anisotropic set to x16, I was getting no visual difference whether Supersampling was set to x2 or x8.  I have heard that the higher you go the more VRAM it will consume, so looks like this can be set low.  I noticed even on x8 I still had shimmering wire fences anyway.

Makes you wonder if some of these setting are actually changing things properly, for instance the Vsync settings obviously aren't working as intended yet.

Edited September 16, 2020 by bobcat999

[G-RFRY 1,708]

My AV is set to silent mode in my sims no stutters.

[RobJC 2,069]

Update: I spent about 5 hours flying the Baron and C152 last night and this sim is really amazing when you aren't experiencing stutters left and right. I think the G-Sync monitor I have is doing a lot of the heavy lifting, because even at 20 FPS it is smooth. Panning around is silky smooth in the cockpit, but i do get the initial takeoff stutters as the CPU is flat out. But as soon as I take off it smooths right out. I have even flown out of Heathrow and it works very acceptably. 

I will post my in-sim settings when I get a chance. 

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

9 hours ago, MrFuzzy said:

Why this?

I set this to off and it’s stutter city. My belief is it should be set to on. It does as it’s name suggests, optimises the threaded stuff. As far as I understand it tries to spread workload of main cpu thread to other threads, thus lowering CPU bottleneck.