From Hard Pauses back to near Flawless Performance

[Maxis 1,859]

16 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

That is the issue with the Windows architecture.... Whenever Windows wants to do some "housekeeping", it can interrupt any running programs... The only way I know of to avoid these kind of problems, is to disable as many Windows services as possible.

Just to add to that, there can be Adobe updates, Java updates, Google updates etc that run on timers as well..

All of that .. turned right off and offload as many background items as possible. For example .. I use a USB DAC\AMP instead of the onboard Motherboard sound. Adobe ? not installed. or any other non sim related item. Portable versions of essential programs if required so they run and when you exit the program it truly exits.

Yes a little extreme but i built my sim rig for simming only. everything installed on it must contribute in some way to that purpose. Otherwise Ill use my laptop or tablet.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Maxis

[planechaser 46]

Been happening since the FS9 days! Windows is so bloated sometimes that whether you have a Celeron running at 2.0 GHZ or the almost released I9 13900k running at 5.7 Ghz all cores, it does not matter. When sometimes useless Windows processes decide to run, its either a FPS drop or pauses/stutters. 

It would be nice to strip down the OS to the bare minimum to run ( just the main core files , sound/GPU drivers , LAN or wireless) , like a console.

ANY cpu intensive game will suffer from this. Best to do is do your research and only use your PC for gaming., no more. Strip down your O/S as much as you can, lots of info online about this. Don't install any bloatware garbage on your gaming system.

For anything else, a $500 laptop will do the trick. 

[Noel 4,492]

6 hours ago, ErichB said:

I'm also getting these hard pauses.  What does  audiodg.exe actually do?  Can you not just shut it down completely instead of swapping cores?

This WAS NOT the cause of hard pauses.  It MAY have contributed to the odd stutter, but not certain.

[RJC68 823]

For anyone interested I have been experimenting with "Bill's Process Manager" and the screenshot below is while at FL380 over the south coast of the UK in the Fenix with FSLTL. I have moved the FSLTL injector, Spad.next, stream deck and all the Fenix apps to cores 16,17,18 & 19 which are the e-cores on my i7 12700K. The displays in the Fenix are being rendered on my internal GPU which you can also see. Looks promising so far. I am running Win 11 Pro which is supposed to have better optimization for 12th gen CPU's. MSFS is DX11 & TAA 

 

Edited October 19, 2022 by RJC68

[Mace 1,904]

2 hours ago, RJC68 said:

For anyone interested I have been experimenting with "Bill's Process Manager" and the screenshot below is while at FL380 over the south coast of the UK in the Fenix with FSLTL. I have moved the FSLTL injector, Spad.next, stream deck and all the Fenix apps to cores 16,17,18 & 19

Can you instead start those apps (FSLTL injector, Spad.nxt, Stream deck, etc.) using a batch file with affinity set for each app?

Or is a batch file not feasible to start those apps?

[RJC68 823]

38 minutes ago, Mace said:

Can you instead start those apps (FSLTL injector, Spad.nxt, Stream deck, etc.) using a batch file with affinity set for each app?

Or is a batch file not feasible to start those apps?

I have no idea and that is beyond my programming skills lol

[Mace 1,904]

1 minute ago, RJC68 said:

I have no idea and that is beyond my programming skills lol

Making a batch file doesn't require any programming skills at all, I mean if you can type in Notepad you can make one.

Anyway, my point is, historically I've had bad experiences with process affinity apps...although I've not heard of "Bill's Process Manager".  Whereas just setting affinity in a batch file is about as basic and unobtrusive as it gets.

[RJC68 823]

Just now, Mace said:

Making a batch file doesn't require any programming skills at all, I mean if you can type in Notepad you can make one.

Anyway, my point is, historically I've had bad experiences with process affinity apps...although I've not heard of "Bill's Process Manager".  Whereas just setting affinity in a batch file is about as basic and unobtrusive as it gets.

Ah I see,

I am just googling now to see if it is possible to set multiple applications in one batch file.

[ThomseN_inc 1,128]

22 hours ago, vin747 said:

I have a static desktop wallpaper and still get this hard pause every 60 or 80s only with the Fbw neo. All other planes are okay. Go figure!

Yeah same here! 😞

[Mace 1,904]

1 hour ago, RJC68 said:

Ah I see,

I am just googling now to see if it is possible to set multiple applications in one batch file.

Sure you can do it with multiple apps.  Here's a batch file I have used in the past (not presently) with FFC affinity, which is hex to push these apps to the last two cores (Core10,11) of my hyperthreaded 8700K:

@ECHO OFF
echo.
echo Starting Pilot2ATC with AffinityMask . . .
start "Pilot2ATC" /affinity FFC "D:\FSTools\Pilot2ATC_2018_x64\Pilot2ATC_2020.exe"
echo Starting SimSounds with AffinityMask . . .
start "SimSounds" /affinity FFC "D:\FSTools\SimSounds\SimSounds.exe"
echo Starting LittleNavConnect with AffinityMask . . .
start "LittleNavConnect" /affinity FFC "D:\FStools\Little Navmap\Little Navconnect\littlenavconnect.exe"
echo.

 

Probably the only part that needs a little thought is the hexadecimal part...but I use the built-in windows calculator to figure that part out.  You also need to know how many cores your cpu has but you can find that out from Task Manager, Performance tab.

Only reason I mention it is that the apps like Process Lasso seem to compromise stability so much, at least in my experience with them.  If all I want to do is load apps on certain cores and a batch file like the above allows me to do that, no overhead, no muss no fuss...

[RJC68 823]

11 minutes ago, Mace said:

Sure you can do it with multiple apps.  Here's a batch file I have used in the past (not presently) with FFC affinity, which is hex to push these apps to the last two cores (Core10,11) of my hyperthreaded 8700K:

@ECHO OFF
echo.
echo Starting Pilot2ATC with AffinityMask . . .
start "Pilot2ATC" /affinity FFC "D:\FSTools\Pilot2ATC_2018_x64\Pilot2ATC_2020.exe"
echo Starting SimSounds with AffinityMask . . .
start "SimSounds" /affinity FFC "D:\FSTools\SimSounds\SimSounds.exe"
echo Starting LittleNavConnect with AffinityMask . . .
start "LittleNavConnect" /affinity FFC "D:\FStools\Little Navmap\Little Navconnect\littlenavconnect.exe"
echo.

 

Probably the only part that needs a little thought is the hexadecimal part...but I use the built-in windows calculator to figure that part out.  You also need to know how many cores your cpu has but you can find that out from Task Manager, Performance tab.

Only reason I mention it is that the apps like Process Lasso seem to compromise stability so much, at least in my experience with them.  If all I want to do is load apps on certain cores and a batch file like the above allows me to do that, no overhead, no muss no fuss...

Thank you for this,

I found a good article on configuring the hex part, I have an i7 12700K with 12 cores, 20 logical processors 

I will certainly give this a try

[RJC68 823]

1 hour ago, Mace said:

Sure you can do it with multiple apps.  Here's a batch file I have used in the past (not presently) with FFC affinity, which is hex to push these apps to the last two cores (Core10,11) of my hyperthreaded 8700K:

@ECHO OFF
echo.
echo Starting Pilot2ATC with AffinityMask . . .
start "Pilot2ATC" /affinity FFC "D:\FSTools\Pilot2ATC_2018_x64\Pilot2ATC_2020.exe"
echo Starting SimSounds with AffinityMask . . .
start "SimSounds" /affinity FFC "D:\FSTools\SimSounds\SimSounds.exe"
echo Starting LittleNavConnect with AffinityMask . . .
start "LittleNavConnect" /affinity FFC "D:\FStools\Little Navmap\Little Navconnect\littlenavconnect.exe"
echo.

 

Probably the only part that needs a little thought is the hexadecimal part...but I use the built-in windows calculator to figure that part out.  You also need to know how many cores your cpu has but you can find that out from Task Manager, Performance tab.

Only reason I mention it is that the apps like Process Lasso seem to compromise stability so much, at least in my experience with them.  If all I want to do is load apps on certain cores and a batch file like the above allows me to do that, no overhead, no muss no fuss...

I created the batch file successfully and every program runs apart from the fsltl-trafficinjector.exe, it opens then closes.

Do you use FSLTL by any chance? If so can you see if you can get it to run via a batch command

Appreciate your help 

[Fielder 3,661]

On 10/18/2022 at 12:50 PM, Noel said:

 

This may also be a red herring but I'll share it because the flight I'm in now, flying out of Lima PE to Cuzco, all aspects of taxi, turning, take off the on up to altitude were virtually 100% flawless.  I had a lot of this prior to SU10, a lot of very stable, smooth flights, but then things when to H E L L !  Not sure if this last maneuver really helped, but one of the files that seemed to be associated w/ stutters (running ProcMon) was audiodg.exe.  This is the most common file playing while running MSFS!  I had done this early on to no avail, but that was when looking at the hard pause issue.  So just prior to this flight I assigned audiodg.exe to Core0 and Core01, and took flightsimulator.exe and FSUIPC7 off of those two of my eight cores.   Voila, this flight has been perfection city!  And Lima is a huge area w/ gobs of buildings.  Nary a hiccough for the entire flight no matter how hard I turned during taxi, etc. 

 

I just tried this in SU 11 beta. First time I ever had a stutter free flight in SU 11 beta in DX 11. DX 12 was always smooth regardless, but not DX 11 in SU11.

So, I set flightsimulator.exe to all 12 cores except 2,3,5,and 6. And set audiodg.exe to only cores 5 and 6.

No stutters flying into John Wayne Burban KBUR (orbx 2) which is the airport most likely to stutter I have ever purchased. Before I  had to  concentrate to land there (bad stutters). 

Thank you, Noel !

[Mace 1,904]

54 minutes ago, RJC68 said:

I created the batch file successfully and every program runs apart from the fsltl-trafficinjector.exe, it opens then closes.

Do you use FSLTL by any chance? If so can you see if you can get it to run via a batch command

Appreciate your help 

I do not use FSLTL -- at least not yet.  

Is it possible that fstl-trafficinjector.exe is supposed to run and close by design?  Or maybe it's still running in the background?

One thing you can do is see how you have been starting that program (via shortcut?) and look at the shortcut properties and see if it requires a command line switch or something like that.

[Cpt_Piett 4,613]

7 hours ago, Fielder said:

So, I set flightsimulator.exe to all 12 cores except 2,3,5,and 6. And set audiodg.exe to only cores 5 and 6.

Why didn't you set MSFS to 2 and 3?