Stutter Experiment - Can I ask you to join in?

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Howard,Many thanks for your contribution."Another thought: I've had Friday Harbor as a default flight for some time (before SP1 was installed) and it's important to note that I had the stutters and minor jerkiness when SP1 wasn't installed! Therefore, the problem may not be entirely due to SP1. It would help if someone who doesn't have SP1 installed trys your test to see what results they have with the original FSX."You make a very good point and I would encourage any pre/non-SP1 users to also relate their experiences. However, if these issues (I am including the blurries) are going to be the subject of formal investigation I imagine ACES will only be interested in so far that any solutions will be aimed at the SP1 user base.I think Friday Harbour is a good starting point at which to conduct tests such as these because the area has a good variety of stuff, (including autogen and water) to challenge the sim without being too extreme.Cheers!Mike

[tf51d 284]

>Hi Frank,>>My normal practice prior to simming and gaming, software>installation or defragging (? whether really necessary with>defragging) is to right click the AVG system tray icon and>select "Quit AVG Control Center". Avgcc.exe then closes>and is removed from the Processes list in Task Manager.>>I don't use EndItAll these days but checked it just now>and I see that a couple of AVG related items are locked, viz.>avgamsvr.exe (Alert Manager) and avgupsvc.exe>(Update Service). The 2 items that can be closed/stopped are>avgcc.exe (Control Center) and avgemc.exe>(E-Mail Scanner).>>When I watch these 4 Processes in Task Manager (sort the list>so they appear together at the top), without quitting AVG>Control Center, the only activity I see in the CPU column is>avgcc.exe. It was very brief, showed 1% and occurred>while loading a flight. I watched for a few minutes longer and>nothing occurred. That's not to say nothing would occur over a>longer period, of course.>>My feeling is that I only need to quit the AVG Control Center.>Nevertheless your experience is interesting and should>certainly be noted.>>Mike>Mike, Are you sure when you close the AVG Control Center, you are actually disabling Automatic Anti virus scanning? I don't have AVG, but with Norton, there is an option in it's control center to disable automatic virus scan. In general AVS modules are separate from their control finctions, and will continue to run even if the control panels are closed or terminated. As you know AVS will definitely cause stutters in FS!

[brucets 94]

Mike - I tried all your suggestions and if anything the stuttering got worse. One thing is very clear, however, and that is I have to run *unlimited* frames. Locked frames at any level is detrimental.Here's a link to a short video I made using the settings from my post above. You can see I'm not entirely stutter free but it isn't too bad either:http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5090861007904197793Thanks for your efforts on this!!!Bruce Scott

[oktorn777 0]

Hi Mike,Yes I'm running xp and do regular defrags with perfectdisk 7. My main harddrive is a samsung HD501LJ 500Gb which unfortunately is quite a bit slower than I expected.Reducing the target frame rate even lower than 30 isn't an option for me because of smoothness. I also have "wait for vsync" on. Without that setting I get very distracting tearing effects on my monitor. With vsync on and another refresh rate than 30 (locked to 25 for example) I get quite heavy and irregular stutters (not bound to hd activity).So I ended up with vsync on and the frames locked to 30 for my setup which is nearly stutter free, the fluidity is quite good, but heck it's nowhere near reallife and I'm really asking myself if such fluidity even can be achieved in video games or not.As a sidenote, I just changed from a CRT to LCD and my first impression is that the CRT gives you a nicer fluid feeling than the LCD. Maybe there is setting I'm missing tjat I don't now of?regards,C.G.

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Tom,"Are you sure when you close the AVG Control Center, you are actually disabling Automatic Anti virus scanning?"I'm pretty sure, although do confess to not being 100% certain. However, this has been my normal practice for years and have never seen any problems while simming, gaming, installing/removing software, etc. I've always found AVG to be very user friendly.Here is an image showing what is under the wing of the AVG Control Center:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/173045.jpgMike

[Cruachan 705]

Hi C.G.Thanks for reporting back."I'm running xp and do regular defrags with perfectdisk 7"Yes I'm a PerfectDisk fan (currently using version 8) as well so I'm sure that base is covered well."Reducing the target frame rate even lower than 30 isn't an option for me because of smoothness"That says it all. If '30' gives you the required smoothness in performance then '30' it should remain.Vertical SyncI don't care what they say, but I too see tearing with this switched off so my 'Simming and Gaming' profile has this set to 'Always On'. I have an LCD Monitor: Hyundai ImageQuest Q17 17" TFT LCD 20ms Digital Monitor refreshing at 60 (1280x1024x32) and it continues to serve me well.Cheers!Mike

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Bruce,Hey, that video is just what we need! Thanks VERY much for going to the trouble.I would encourage everyone to have a look:http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5090861007904197793Your video demonstrates very clearly the problem at it's best and is more or less what I too am seeing currently. It would be interesting if Phil Taylor would now comment. Is this what we should be seeing and what ACES would consider within acceptable limits for performance in this situation after SP1?What do others think?Cheers!Mike

[tf51d 284]

Looks to me from that shot that Auto virus scan is active. Like I said, I don't have AVG, but doesn't it have an option to disable AVS without closing the control center? This is what I do when I run FSEdit: That reminds me I need to update my virus defs! :-)http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/173057.jpg

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Tom,"Looks to me from that shot that Auto virus scan is active"Yes, it should be as I haven't 'Quit' the AVG Control Center ;)Mike

[Guest abulaafia]

Nice video. IMHO it is absolutely normal for a 360 pan to have these - very minor, IMO - sutters. Had the same in FS9, actually a bit better now with FSX. ==Marten:Weber==P-D920 oc3.64MHz 2GB RAM WinXP ATI X1900+1024MB 2xSATA250 2xVIEWSONIC 19"Best AI available today: www.world-of-ai.com

[Guest abulaafia]

I found that the ONLY anti-virus program that absolutely doesn't interfere with anything on the PC is avast! ==Marten:Weber==P-D920 oc3.64MHz 2GB RAM WinXP ATI X1900+1024MB 2xSATA250 2xVIEWSONIC 19"Best AI available today: www.world-of-ai.com

[PhilTaylor 45]

I agree, that is normal. You are just not going to get away from that, given as you pan 360 we have to load a lot of data.I would term those "micro-stutters".If the frame rate drops more than half, or the screen goes white, thats a "macro-stutter" and isnt normal. Those are an indication of too-high settings, or a config issue, etc.

[Guest abulaafia]

CRT looks more fluid correctif you changed to LCD now, you should turn wait for vsync off - what's your reason to keep it on?==Marten:Weber==P-D920 oc3.64MHz 2GB RAM WinXP ATI X1900+1024MB 2xSATA250 2xVIEWSONIC 19"Best AI available today: www.world-of-ai.com

[Cruachan 705]

"I agree, that is normal. You are just not going to get away from that, given as you pan 360 we have to load a lot of data.I would term those "micro-stutters".If the frame rate drops more than half, or the screen goes white, thats a "macro-stutter" and isnt normal. Those are an indication of too-high settings, or a config issue, etc."Thanks very much Phil for chipping in with those helpful remarks. Now, at last, I feel we are getting somewhere, at least as far as the 'stutters' are concerned.What we are seeing in the video is what we should be aiming for. If you have no stutters while running this flight situation then you are very lucky indeed. As for the rest of us, we now know what is accepted as being 'normal'. My thanks again go to Bruce for his initiative in making this video for us. It's just what was needed to clarify this frustrating issue.Mike

[tf51d 284]

>Hi Tom,>>"Looks to me from that shot that Auto virus scan is>active">>Yes, it should be as I haven't 'Quit' the AVG Control Center>;)>>MikeI checked on this for you, as I sspected, closing the Control Center does not disable your auto scanner. That means for every file that FSX opens, (Which is a lot) Your scanner (Resident Shield) is checking, this most certainly can cause stuttering in FSX. This is the proper way to turn off Resident shield, while you are running FS! (Or any other App, you need Aito virus Scan disabled.) Look at Question 205 http://www.grisoft.com/doc/51/us/crp/0/num/205#faq_205