FSLTL related pulsing micro stutter, and probable fix

[Noel 4,649]

I've noticed on occasion lately a subtle but definite fixed interval stutter upon arrival into the most demanding terminals.  Looking out into the distance from 36K feet you probably won't notice it.  But looking at this at close range, for example during taxi after landing observing the blue taxiway lights I noticed this pulsing micro-stutter, around maybe every 1/2 second, again mainly in really demanding terminals and metros.   For a while I thought it might be that I had HAGS on but I disproved that idea to myself.  I'm not a 100% sure but it's happened a couple of times already:  I changed the CPU core affinity of fsltlinjector.exe, or whatever it's actually called I forget now, from its default all 8 cores, to Cores 0-3, so effectively took its operation off of the MSFS main thread.  Upon doing the the pulsing issue disappeared immediately.

I tried using FSLTL's routine to remove local traffic, but that did not affect this pulsing condition.   I tried to write code that would automate that but didn't get there.  Process Lasso does this but has some bad side effects for me so don't use it with MSFS any more.

[DModjo 127]

I thought the main thread was Core 0

[Mace 2,014]

8 hours ago, Noel said:

  I changed the CPU core affinity of fsltlinjector.exe, or whatever it's actually called I forget now, from its default all 8 cores, to Cores 0-3, so effectively took its operation off of the MSFS main thread.  Upon doing the the pulsing issue disappeared immediately.

What did you use to change its affinity?   Command line or batch file?

[Noel 4,649]

I wanted to create an argument to put in the .exe launch string but couldn't get it to work, so just changed it thru Task Manager.

[cianpars 1,262]

Interesting.  I can't sim without FSLTL but I've noticed much better smoothness when I switched it off.  I believe that the performance degredation may be more likely down to the 4k textures, but FSLTL won't give us an option for lower rez ones and batch changing them has caused difficulties for some as well as needing to keep doing it after every update.

I will be interested to see how it runs on a different thread and will try that later. 

Thanks for the tip Noel.

[meerkat 86]

The latest update installers do not all aircraft textures, but only those changed. So, you don't have to resize the whole bunch of textures again. And, performance wise it's worth the effort.

[sonny147 605]

1 hour ago, Noel said:

I wanted to create an argument to put in the .exe launch string but couldn't get it to work, so just changed it thru Task Manager.

Do you have to d that everytime in W11 ?

[Noel 4,649]

21 minutes ago, sonny147 said:

Do you have to d that everytime in W11 ?

I've not found a method to do that as part of FSLTLinjector.exe's startup, so I do it each time I start Win 10.  TBH, it's a new finding and I may not bother with it until I see the pulsing issue.

[sonny147 605]

iam trying now on W11 with a 7800x3d FSTL on cores 1-3 only looks promising , apparently just read that in W11 once the affinity is set manually it does not reset, i will keep testing and report back   

[El Diablito 448]

2 hours ago, cianpars said:

Interesting.  I can't sim without FSLTL but I've noticed much better smoothness when I switched it off.  I believe that the performance degredation may be more likely down to the 4k textures

I can't remember who it was but somebody posted a workaround for changing the textures in FSLTL using some kind of mod, it was a few months ago. It was using an exe called "Compressonator".

I changed from 4k and I can't say it made much of a difference if I'm honest and now the aircraft textures look really bad up close.

I'll probably change back once I get around to it which will mean a complete reinstall.

[sonny147 605]

I use FS traffic models with FSTL , they seem a little better performance wise 

[sonny147 605]

15 hours ago, sonny147 said:

iam trying now on W11 with a 7800x3d FSTL on cores 1-3 only looks promising , apparently just read that in W11 once the affinity is set manually it does not reset, i will keep testing and report back   

well i was wrong about affinity and W11 , i checked again in task manager following a reboot and windows did reset the affinity for Fstl injector, if anybody knows how to set affinity permanently in W11 ( without using lorby) that would be nice ! but too be fair i am also using DLOD as well and its petty smooth to be honest 

Edited January 30 by sonny147
added

[cianpars 1,262]

19 minutes ago, sonny147 said:

well i was wrong about affinity and W11 , i checked again in task manager following a reboot and windows did reset the affinity for Fstl injector, if anybody knows how to set affinity permanently in W11 ( without using lorby) that would be nice ! but too be fair i am also using DLOD as well and its petty smooth to be honest 

I know this can be done with Lasso, but I guess you could probably write or modify a bat file to do it.  If I have a little time later ( Perhaps when the WU update is downloading 😀) I will do a bit of googling.  I'm sure it can't be that hard to add something to the bat file I use to open all my FS related apps.

However, it's the injector application that needs to be changed rather than the FSLTL application which opens with my bat file.

[Noel 4,649]

7 hours ago, cianpars said:

I know this can be done with Lasso, but I guess you could probably write or modify a bat file to do it.  If I have a little time later ( Perhaps when the WU update is downloading 😀) I will do a bit of googling. 

Lord knows I've tried with several approaches thru Google and ChatGPT search, to no avail.  Post it here if you have success!

I do own Process Lasso but stopped using it because suddenly it started impacting the main thread way too much, but at that point I was taking everything off the main thread and it worked great for awhile then as I say noticed big CPU impact.  I will have another look after this flight ends...

Edited January 30 by Noel

[mobeans10 204]

Try Process Governor. It allows you to set priority and affinity for processes and can start with windows so you only have to set it up once.  Once installed the icon will be in the "hidden icon" section on the windows task bar. Double click the icon and you will get the config screen. Hit the add button for each process and then double click the red areas to manually input data, ie, enter "flightsimulator.exe" for the process, "high" for the priotiry and then "2-15" , or whatever you affinity requirements are in the affinity section.  No quotation marke needed, I added them here for clarity. I've only just discovered it as I was also having issues with Lasso so I can't report on anything other than it does persistently set the priorities and affinities follwing a windows reboot if you set it to start with windows.

https://github.com/SystemXFiles/process-governor/releases/tag/v1.2.0

I currently have it set up to start with windows and then once the flight sim is up and running I turn it off. The priorities and affinities obviously remain once set

Edited January 30 by mobeans10