Hard Stutters

[Alpine Scenery 1,609]

16 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

I wasn’t on about that. I was on about the bit where you basically said don’t use 4K....

Was just stressing that it isn't going to help visuals much over 1440p. People are going to use whatever they want.

 

[lambourne 211]

It might be worth getting on the official discord, meeting someone ingame for a flight round the same area and seeing whether they get stuttering at the same time and place as you. I noticed that the other day and frankly I was glad because that showed it's a sim problem, not a me problem.

[cchiozza 106]

All very good advice, i will try anything because the stutters kill it for me. I get the stutters like clockwork. every 1 to 2 seconds. I can run P3D5.1 Maxxed out not issue and I know everyone says you cant compare just a baseline that makes me think I have something set wrong.

[Turpentine 375]

I don't know as much as many other posters here, but I thought I would share my experience.

I run MSFS at 4K (render scaling 70) with most settings to high on a 55" TCL TV with a 2060S and 10700k. With a GA aircraft (say the Carenado Mooney) I get about 30-35 FPS in NYC and other large cities, 40-45 elsewhere. No stutters, at least absolutely nothing that takes away from my enjoyment. Now, what I have found to work best for me is to forget the NVidia panel and just use RivaTuner Statistics Server (aka RTSS). In RTSS I do use the Scanline Sync option (it's kind of a function that tries to emulate G-Sync on non-Gsync hardware).

Good luck, I hope you find a solution.

Edited January 25, 2021 by Turpentine

[cchiozza 106]

Thank you again for the help. Any idea on your scanline settings? I have not tried. Do you use vsync?

[onurair 24]

Do you have the stutters everywhere or is it specific to a location? I have hard stutters or call it pauses when approaching to zurich. No matter what setting I use.
Everytime approaching RWY 28 somewhere out 15 - 20 miles on the approach I have pauses. It smoothes out when getting closer to the airport. 

No addons or modds only fsdt zurich. The pauses are there also without fsdt lszh. 

I have that pauses on few other locations. However no idea how to troubleshoot. 

[cchiozza 106]

No they are everywhere.

[somiller 694]

The worst I usually get is on landing at many airports as soon as I touch down I get a repeating 1 second "skip", which many times disappears as soon as I turn onto a taxiway. It's not every airport, but many, and I have no idea what causes it or how to fix it. The other issue I have is pauses/stutters that happen when my GPU, CPU, are coasting at around 65% or so GPU and 30% or so GPU. In every case I have available RAM and VRAM, and no or little disk activity, and little network activity. It's like something is blocking the use of system resources.

I know this doesn't necessarily compare with the OP's problem...but maybe related - heck I don't know. It's frustrating, because I mostly see pretty good performance running MSFS.

[Turpentine 375]

17 hours ago, cchiozza said:

Thank you again for the help. Any idea on your scanline settings? I have not tried. Do you use vsync?

Let me be clear: I am yet entirely sure what scanline sync does 🙂  bobcat999 and I have been trying to figure out, but our understanding remains pretty incomplete. What I get is that it does replace v-sync by setting the vertical area on the screen where the screen tearing, if there is any, happens. So if scanline sync is active, you turn off v-sync (or leave it on, it makes no difference for me, it seems to be overrriden by RTSS)

In terms of settings, there are two options:

1) The one I use: I set the value of scanline symc to 40. From what I understand, any tearing wouid then happen at the 40th pixel line from the top of your screen. Note that scanline sync is active as soon as you choose a value different than zero. Also, do NOT use a FPS limiter with this setting: it's pointless, scan sync allows FPS to vary on the spot, without the stutter side effects.

2) The one bobcat999 uses (I believe): in RTSS, if you click on the "Scanline sync" text, you notice that it a "x/2" or "x2" shows up next to it. Select "x/2" and then set some non-zero value. If you have a 60hz screen, this will automatically limit your FPS to 30 (60/2). If anyway your FPS tends to hover in the low 30s in MSFS, that might be the best option. in my case FPS tends to be more around 40, so I use the #1 setting to keep those extra FPS.

Again, sorry if this does not sound very scientific; explanations around the web about scanline sync are not very helpful. All I know is that for me, forgetting about the nvidia panel and using RTSS+scan sync makes for a more enjoyable experience at 4K even on what is not a very powerful card. 

[bobcat999 8,476]

I can't add any more to what Turps has said - it is bang on and I fully agree.

All I know is I am very happy using RTSS, and I am still experimenting with the settings. 

As I am rock stable at 30fps now without stutters, it is difficult to notice any difference now, unless it goes backwards / gets worse with experimentation - then I set it straight back!

It does seem using RTSS is very forgiving once you have a basic setting.  For me, limiting frames to 30 at x/2 scanline sync (-1 setting) appears to be the smoothest I can get, and to be honest, I don't see much difference changing the scanline settings if I limit to 30, but I believe I can just visually perceive the best performance from my setting above, but it isn't easy. 

Obviously I have to use specific aircraft on a specific test run to compare, and looking sideways at low level with trees / buildings going past is the acid test; if it is going to stutter, it is normally then when I see it.

Interesting note from Turps about scanline at x/2 without the frame rate limiter. (that would still deliver 30 fps for me as I have a 60Hz 4k monitor), so I will try that after work.

The testing continues, but all i can advise for now, is as Turps has said - turn everything else off in terms of Vsync or frame limiters, and download a copy of RTSS and give it a go.

In terms of smoothness and lack of stutters / skips, it was a game changer for me!

 

 

Edited January 26, 2021 by bobcat999

[cchiozza 106]

Fantastic info! that makes the most sense to me, I literally had no idea how to use it. I will do more experimenting and report back. Thanks again for the input.

[hanhamreds 592]

I'm starting to think all these stutters are frametime issues with the game engine.

So for example on a 60hz display running at 30fps you should be getting something like this.....

New frame - duplicate frame - new frame - duplicate frame - new frame - duplicate frame and so on.

 

But rather people are getting ..... New frame - duplicate frame - new frame - new frame - duplicate frame - duplicate frame etc etc 

If it is frametime issue then we cannot fix that as end users 

Edited January 27, 2021 by hanhamreds

[cchiozza 106]

Very true if it is that. AGreed

[Tony P 160]

On 1/26/2021 at 8:18 AM, Turpentine said:

Let me be clear: I am yet entirely sure what scanline sync does 🙂  bobcat999 and I have been trying to figure out, but our understanding remains pretty incomplete. What I get is that it does replace v-sync by setting the vertical area on the screen where the screen tearing, if there is any, happens. So if scanline sync is active, you turn off v-sync (or leave it on, it makes no difference for me, it seems to be overrriden by RTSS)

In terms of settings, there are two options:

1) The one I use: I set the value of scanline symc to 40. From what I understand, any tearing wouid then happen at the 40th pixel line from the top of your screen. Note that scanline sync is active as soon as you choose a value different than zero. Also, do NOT use a FPS limiter with this setting: it's pointless, scan sync allows FPS to vary on the spot, without the stutter side effects.

2) The one bobcat999 uses (I believe): in RTSS, if you click on the "Scanline sync" text, you notice that it a "x/2" or "x2" shows up next to it. Select "x/2" and then set some non-zero value. If you have a 60hz screen, this will automatically limit your FPS to 30 (60/2). If anyway your FPS tends to hover in the low 30s in MSFS, that might be the best option. in my case FPS tends to be more around 40, so I use the #1 setting to keep those extra FPS.

Again, sorry if this does not sound very scientific; explanations around the web about scanline sync are not very helpful. All I know is that for me, forgetting about the nvidia panel and using RTSS+scan sync makes for a more enjoyable experience at 4K even on what is not a very powerful card. 

Turpentine,

Any chance you have a gSync monitor and have it enabled/disabled in NVidia Ctrl Panel  ?

Thx

[Turpentine 375]

13 minutes ago, Tony P said:

Turpentine,

Any chance you have a gSync monitor and have it enabled/disabled in NVidia Ctrl Panel  ?

Thx

No, I have a 55" TCL TV, no G-Sync. That seems to be the point of Scanline Sync, to try to mimic the behavior of G-Sync on non-G-Sync hardware. At least that's what I read somewhere.