How much 'stuttering' do you experience in MSFS?

[Cpt_Piett]

22 minutes ago, Noel said:

If your capture was valid which of course I assumed it was which was why I just spent $900+, then it's ultimately the very low FTV that is playing the biggest role in creating this sense of smooth motion thru Gsync.

I think it was valid. And the capture itself shouldn't have affected MSFS performance, as the recording software was on different cores than MSFS. 

I think you'll be happy with the G-sync monitor. If not you can send the bill to me - and I'll split it with Ian 😉 He's probably not reading this anyway as he's busy building his man-cave. 

[Noel]

7 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

I think it was valid. And the capture itself shouldn't have affected MSFS performance, as the recording software was on different cores than MSFS. 

I think you'll be happy with the G-sync monitor. If not you can send the bill to me - and I'll split it with Ian 😉 He's probably not reading this anyway as he's busy building his man-cave. 

LOL!  I think it's a great idea, the new monitor, and scales up as hardware processing capacity scales up.  If for some (odd, unforseen) reason it isn't doing what I think it's going to do I'll send it back.  My biggest dilemma is unloading perfectly good other hardware!   

What's unfortunate is guys like you who pick up highest end hardware who are still getting as you stated, "...stutters though, of different origin. It's hard to eliminate these completely. E.g. I get some stutters that I think are related to scenery loading - it's like the sim pauses very briefly."  

Unfortunately Gsync doesn't solve this which until I learned about it sort of guessed it might.  Unfortunately dialing back TLOD doesn't address this fully either.  I think you are right--scenery loading in large chunks.  This was the case in P3D v4.5 as well and the pauses were longer.   Surely some at Asobo see this and hopefully are looking at ways of addressing it.  

[Cpt_Piett]

11 minutes ago, Noel said:

What's unfortunate is guys like you who pick up highest end hardware who are still getting as you stated, "...stutters though, of different origin. It's hard to eliminate these completely. E.g. I get some stutters that I think are related to scenery loading - it's like the sim pauses very briefly."

Unfortunately yes. You can see the stutters very easily in the "evening flight over LAX" video I shared in the other thread. To me the animation looks very smooth and fluid most of the time - and then there's these stutters. Or perhaps "brief pauses" would be a better term. I didn't include the fps counter in the video - but it was around 60fps. Doesn't help at all when something is causing these brief pauses. 

I might have some of the most recent hardware, but I also have high expectations - perhaps too high. In that video I had pretty much everything loaded (3 payware airports within a relatively small area, FSLTL, GAIST etc). It's possible these stutters would not be there without all those addons. But - then there's the default scenery with all that PG which itself is very heavy on the mainthread. As we know with PG it's not always optimized for best performance - Vancouver is an example of that. London too I guess. 

[Noel]

35 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Unfortunately yes. You can see the stutters very easily in the "evening flight over LAX" video I shared in the other thread. To me the animation looks very smooth and fluid most of the time - and then there's these stutters. Or perhaps "brief pauses" would be a better term. I didn't include the fps counter in the video - but it was around 60fps. Doesn't help at all when something is causing these brief pauses. 

I might have some of the most recent hardware, but I also have high expectations - perhaps too high. In that video I had pretty much everything loaded (3 payware airports within a relatively small area, FSLTL, GAIST etc). It's possible these stutters would not be there without all those addons. But - then there's the default scenery with all that PG which itself is very heavy on the mainthread. As we know with PG it's not always optimized for best performance - Vancouver is an example of that. London too I guess. 

I think we can safely say we have the sim running as good as it possible can, currently.  At least that's how it seems to me now.  And honestly these minor hitches which are very infrequent most of the time are tolerable since 99.98% of all animation is dandy.  Hopefully they can pinpoint the source(s) and improve on it some more.  What I haven't done quite yet, as I think @sniper31 is doing better at, is accepting you can't just run everything all out and expect 100% Nirvana:

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/625977-how-much-stuttering-do-you-experience-in-msfs/?do=findComment&comment=4867361

So next troubleshooting obsession (OMG, I'm succumbed!) will be dialing back various settings to see if anything attenuates these brief pauses we get.  It's so few now it may well be quite sensitive to playing with some other settings.  PG for example--I will start there and disable PG and see if there is any impact on the specific types of issues we still see.

 

[RJC68]

You do all realize SU11 is going to bring us 300fps + 🤣

Sorry I am still dealing with the post full moon madness lol

[RJC68]

13 hours ago, Noel said:

Actually what I was saying was that the line, the horizontal line, migrates vertically.

That's unfortunate I'm sorry you didn't have success witnessing this.  From this end it's always reproducible.  I just landed at KATL in the PMDG 738 w/ the enhanced nightlighting and captured the entire 1h flight from KMSY from cold and dark to shutdown.  At lower frame rate the more important ultra low frametime variance becomes in delivering smooth flight.  I remained stunned at the quality of animation it's in a word:  perfect.  Of course at 30fps close in objects like taxiway lights or signs during taxi will travel laterally enough such that it becomes possible to discern frames as kind of a blurring, but it's really modest and rapidly diminishes into perfect fluid clarity as you look farther out and fly higher up.

Because the tear line is what it is I have a new screen coming that will closely parallel this from Cpt_Piett's frametime variance analysis using hardware Gsync and it looks to be close enough to give it a try.  Next Monday I should be able to see for myself!

Landing at KATL.  Coming down from altitude the night sky was begging for some...SHOOTING STARS!  Where are they?!

This is captured from cold and dark at KMSY to shutdown at KATL:  the ultra low FTV does correlate with perception of fluid, 100% hesitation-free motion:  99.59% of all frames had less than 2ms of variance.  If the tear line could be removed in this software solution it would be impossible to beat.  The few stutters were just too much for my hardware in that plane but it was really very minimal anyway.

No Worries Noel,

I have also been experimenting with some different things lately. I think it all boils down to what you can achieve with your hardware. For instance I have found one of the best scenarios for me personally is set my TV to a custom refresh rate of 50Hz then use the in Sim Vsync at 100% and I use Riva to lock in the fps to 50 and I can achieve a frametime graph that looks like a solid line. I started with ultra settings and dialed a couple back to high so I can maintain 50fps and a solid frametime graph. Yes as we all see I get the very odd blip every now and then but for the most part it's a wonderfully smooth experience plus the GPU still has some breathing room.

Looking forward to hearing about your new display and Gsync experience 

[sniper31]

@Noel @Cpt_Piett Hey guys, been following the discussion here. I am basically on the same page as both of you regarding the smoothness of the sim. First of all, Noel, I think you will be happy with your new monitor. I have several monitors, and my G-Sync ones are always the best. It is very noticeable. And speaking of your other monitor that is still in great shape, keep it around and find an alternate use for it. That is why I have so much extra hardware including monitors. You never know, you might need it for troubleshooting some day, or as a back up. In this day of streaming, extra monitors make great movie and TV show displays. They can be used for console gaming too. If you don't do that, maybe you have a friend or family member that does. You can always donate monitors to new small businesses in need of tech, Goodwill or the Salvation Army. You could even check with your local schools. There are countless options out there, especially with the holiday season upon us 🙂 

As I've said elsewhere, for me, even having high level hardware, I still try and keep my sim settings balanced. Right now, I am conducting my first flight with my new 13900K cpu, and so far, first impressions are great. I have not changed any settings in sim, and everything is nice and smooth. I am flying right now from EBBR to LIRQ in the Fenix A320, and my P cores are between 40 and 47 degrees Celsius, with my CPU Turbo boosted to 5.6 Ghz. I have not done any overclocking beyond that yet, but I am running DDR5 with XMP enabled. My takeaway is that all this concern about 13900K temps going crazy high while simming should be tempered IF you have some good cooling going on. Both of you know about my cooling focus, so i won't repeat it here. Suffice it to say that so far, the 13900K is a nice upgrade. I did already have the DDR5 RAM and a Z690 motherboard due to my 12900K, so it was much more affordable for me to get the new CPU.

[Cpt_Piett]

34 minutes ago, sniper31 said:

As I've said elsewhere, for me, even having high level hardware, I still try and keep my sim settings balanced.

I read your post in the other thread that Noel linked to, and I think you make a good point. I tend to try to squeeze too much out of the sim. The good thing about FSLTL though, vs real-time traffic, is that it's possible to tune the amount of AI traffic in order not to overwhelm the mainthread completely. 

Do you find there's a significant performance benefit with the 13900 vs the 12900?

[sniper31]

3 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Do you find there's a significant performance benefit with the 13900 vs the 12900?

It's early for me, but so far, yes. But I am still on my first flight with the 13900.

[Noel]

1 hour ago, sniper31 said:

@Noel  And speaking of your other monitor that is still in great shape, keep it around and find an alternate use for it....You never know, you might need it for troubleshooting some day....

I am conducting my first flight with my new 13900K cpu, and so far, first impressions are great.

Thanks..and I already have one of those back up screens!  Perhaps I can donate it, and keep the Dell it is a good screen still.  Good suggestions!

I'm excited to hear some specfics about your new CPU and I'm considering it as well.  I started to get cold feet when I looked at Single Thread Performance (Passmark):  it is only 15% faster than my 9900K at 5.0gHz, and though it doesn't say in their chart I think it's just looking at turbo max on a perf core versus overclocking (a little in terms of single thread!) more than turbo will do.  Still, 15% is really not at my threshhold for that kind of upgrade for a new motherboard and ram.  I like to see 25% or greater in general.  Hopefully that single thread performance benchmark doesn't translate to MSFS very well! 

• Peak temps in MSFS on the main thread or whole CPU?  I remember you also have basement ambient temps.  BTW, where in Colorado?
• The way MSFS is currently setup I still get the rare stutter pretty much only on final approach--a commonly experienced phenomena.  But prior to that it's pure fluid motion w/o the slightest hesitation.  The way you have MSFS setup, even w/ your new CPU, have you eliminated all of these as well?  I believe they are very different from just poor general FTV such that you can solve that as I have, and hopefully with Gsync, yet still get a few of these.  I'm going to try dialing back PG and see what impact.   I also absolutely noticed both Seasons products increased general stutters for me so disabled them.  I will reinstall AccuSeason and see if perhaps with the other improvements I've made (disabling unused Windows processes/services, Process Lasso getting everything else off the main thread, etc) I can once again enjoy seasons.  Anyway, that question again:  The way you have MSFS setup, w/ your new CPU, have you eliminated ALL stutters from all sources now?

 

[sniper31]

44 minutes ago, Noel said:

Anyway, that question again:  The way you have MSFS setup, w/ your new CPU, have you eliminated ALL stutters from all sources now?

Well, I honestly can't say one way or the other if I have eliminated ALL stutters, as that has not been my focus. I definitely am after smooth flying, in heavy demanding situations. In general, I can say that even with my 12900 as well as my 5800X3D setup that I never was annoyed by stuttering, which tells me that it didn't happen that often, if at all. Now, I know, once in awhile, and not every flight, I will get a pause when the sim loads some heavy scenery, but in recent memory I CAN say I don't have any stuttering OR pauses on final approach and landing. Overall, my experience has been and is a very smooth one in MSFS with my settings and hardware setup. I can't claim that XYZ is the reason why, as it is MY system and the way I have setup my MSFS. I can give suggestions of things to try for people, but for you people like you and Cpt_Piett I know you both as well as others on here have your own knowledge and experience on how to make your simming experience smoother. 

As to cooling, as was talking more about how I build my cooling setup, not that I have my setup in a cool Colorado basement. Yes, that is fact, and it does help, but more to my point was the importance of one's cooling setup for thier sim rig. Not everyone lives in cooler climates. Anyhow, I have referenced my cooling build in another thread, so I don't want to repeat it here. 

The temps I quoted above were for all Performance cores, from the main thread to all the other threads on the Performance cores. I can't say more how good the 13900 is yet as I am still on my first flight. It will take me a few days of use before I can throw out a better opinion. And, like I said above, I did not have to buy new RAM or motherboard, just the CPU. So, for me, it wasn't as difficult a decision as it my be for someone that has to spend much more money to get a 13900 like yourself. Going from the 9900K to a 13900K would make you have to buy a new CPU and motherboard, and possibly RAM, as I'm sure you are aware.

EDIT: Oh, I can say I have been using Accuseasons for over a year now, and I have not noticed it affecting my performance. I also use FSLTL and GSX. 

[Noel]

2 hours ago, sniper31 said:

Well, I honestly can't say one way or the other if I have eliminated ALL stutters, as that has not been my focus. I definitely am after smooth flying, in heavy demanding situations...

The temps I quoted above were for all Performance cores, from the main thread to all the other threads on the Performance cores. I can't say more how good the 13900 is yet as I am still on my first flight. It will take me a few days of use before I can throw out a better opinion. And, like I said above, I did not have to buy new RAM or motherboard, just the CPU. So, for me, it wasn't as difficult a decision as it my be for someone that has to spend much more money to get a 13900 like yourself. Going from the 9900K to a 13900K would make you have to buy a new CPU and motherboard, and possibly RAM, as I'm sure you are aware.

EDIT: Oh, I can say I have been using Accuseasons for over a year now, and I have not noticed it affecting my performance. I also use FSLTL and GSX. 

Goodness, my bad I didn't see the temps sorry. That is amazing, the temps you're reporting, and ultra reassuring.

A 15% bump *should* help me to better cope with:

• AccuSeasons--not sure yet haven't reinstalled to test but previously, pre all of the things I did to get sterling smooth performance so it may well be fine.  It was subtle mind you but I was after eliminating ALL sources of microstutter and I have in spades.
• RT Online Traffic.  I'm currently coping pretty well with that already, but more CPU can't hurt.
• A little higher TLOD, but frankly cost:benefit there is marginal in my experience.  I'm typically at TLOD of 100-110 in the PMDG 738 into any terminal.  But this again is where I might get a brief stutter, very few, a couple is about it. 

I decided to disable PG and do a flight from KSMF>KSNA, this one.  This is a busy area around LA and I had no perceptible stutters except right prior to stopping my taxi into the gate there was brief hitch, that was it the entire flight.  Next flight will be w/ PG off still, and AccuSeasons back in.

And the FTV/Stuttering reports:

 

[sniper31]

@Noel Oh, that reminds me! I forgot to mention in my last post (too much info there I guess), but I have been simming with PG turned OFF for several months now. I did not turn PG off for performance reasons, because even on my 12900K I don't think PG affected performance too much. I turned off PG simply because I have grown tired of the melted buildings and monolith looking trees etc. It has been two year plus now, and the PG has not really improved, in my opinion, so I just turned it off and have been happy for months now without it. I think MSFS looks great without PG anyway. That said, after turning it off, I have noticed a little bit of performance improvement. 

[Mace]

3 hours ago, sniper31 said:

Well, I honestly can't say one way or the other if I have eliminated ALL stutters, as that has not been my focus. I definitely am after smooth flying, in heavy demanding situations. In general, I can say that even with my 12900 as well as my 5800X3D setup that I never was annoyed by stuttering, which tells me that it didn't happen that often

Hmm...so you can compare and contrast the 12900 with he 5800X3D setup.  And now, the 13900.  Or have you done that already and I just missed it?

[Noel]

1 hour ago, sniper31 said:

@Noel Oh, that reminds me! I forgot to mention in my last post (too much info there I guess), but I have been simming with PG turned OFF for several months now. I did not turn PG off for performance reasons, because even on my 12900K I don't think PG affected performance too much. I turned off PG simply because I have grown tired of the melted buildings and monolith looking trees etc. It has been two year plus now, and the PG has not really improved, in my opinion, so I just turned it off and have been happy for months now without it. I think MSFS looks great without PG anyway. That said, after turning it off, I have noticed a little bit of performance improvement. 

Way back when people were saying there was a big perf penalty having to do w/ 3D PG Cities or something like that, I tried with and without and I agree it's not bad at all, the autogen.  In fact often I can't tell the diff.   I wish I knew what real performance increases come from a new CPU vis a vis my 9900K.  15% is kind of hard to fathom considering my CPU is ~3y/o now.  I understand the modest increases in single-thread come from running into limits on maximum clock speed.  In fact if you look at clockspeed for my [email protected] v 13,[email protected] or 5.8Ghz, it's right in there around 15%.  Which implies, at least w/ Passmark, there really is no IPC improvement to hang your hat on.  So I guess the real perf benefits come to those apps that are very multicore threaded.  And single-thread limited apps don't stand to improve very much, relatively speaking.   This is why I believe our performance is probably very close together, about 15% of difference which would feel significant for sure.  I've always aimed for at least 25% increase before upgrading and usually closer to 35%.  I will wait for 7900x3D before jumping the gun anyway.  At this point, w/ Gsync Ultimate coming soon, all I care about is running RT Online Traffic (still using Simple Traffic w/ it, w/ no control over density) which I do now w/o troubles, would like Seasons again, and to have no hiccoughs ever from gate to gate.  I don't need more frame rate though will get it w/ unlocking to Gsync--unless there is an argument to allocate more resources towards something other than more frames and in doing so reduce another potential source of stutters.