Stutters Ruining Enjoyment

[Mace 1,964]

Also, I would test with an empty Community folder and use a default airplane.  Also make sure nothing is being loaded in the exe.xml.  Goal is to test with a completely stripped-down sim.

[flyforever 269]

I remember the days when 18 fps was considered the gold standard for flight simmers, since that frame rate is the speed at which the eye sees discreet frames turn into a movie. Yes, I do get stutters in my simming, but as I reflect on how far we've come, I think we're in a very good place.

I suspect that with msfs2024, the sim will go off the single thread and open new possibilities, among which stutters may a thing of the past. Let's not forget that from the first sim until now, we've had the same core sim. It's only the speed of our cpus that has helped us in creating almost stutter free experience.

[F737MAX 5,749]

@alr5100 have you excluded all flight sim-related files and folders (inlcuding your add-ons) from live scanning / real-time protection by your anti-virus program/Windows Defender?

Like others have suggested, I would try a clean, default MSFS. Just to test whether there is a conflict between mods or outdated mods you're using.

Stutters on short final is a known issue, with many threads on the official forums:

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/stuttering-on-final-still/611736

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/stutter-and-fps-drop-when-final-approaching-any-airport-dx12-even-worse-happens-everytime/553455

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/freeze-lags-while-touchdown-but-fps-around-50-while-approaching/405138

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/two-years-of-stutters-finally-fixed/582405

However, on my 5800X3D, running many, many add-ons in MSFS and generally high to ultra settings, I don't see any pauses or large stutters on final.

[David Roch 1,986]

10 hours ago, Sethos said:

Just a minor note; did you install the chipset drivers for your PC? They are fairly important for the 3D cache CPUs https://www.amd.com/en/support/downloads/drivers.html/chipsets/am5/x670e.html

This.

@alr5100
Please try the following:
1/ create a Windows restore point manually.
2/ download IOBit Driver Booster 11 Free here. It is a powerful tool that uses a huge up-to-date database (the positive aspect).
3/ scan for obsolete system drivers and install updated ones one by one (don't bother updating non-system drivers).
4/ reboot and launch MSFS.
(After that, I'll recommend uninstalling Driver Booster because it is an insistent and intrusive PITA as long as you use the free version)

Hope it helps.
For my system, it was sort of magic solution for landing stutters.

 

Edited May 11 by David Roch

[Bunchy 227]

14 hours ago, alr5100 said:

Hi All, 

 

I am having a consistent micro stutter on short final for the last couple of months that is ruining the enjoyment of nearly all my flights. I have spent over 100+ hours fiddling with the sim/settings and tweaks to try to solve the issue to no avail. 

 

The stutters occur on all four aircraft I primarily fly, which are the PMDG 737, Leonardo MD-80, Fenix A320 and the Inibuilds A300.

 

Around 500 feet all the way to touch down I get these stutters which really ruins an otherwise beautiful flight with incredibly smooth performance. 

 

 

 

SYSTEM SPECS 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D 16-Core Processor, 4201 Mhz, 16 Core(s), 32 Logical Processor(s)

GPU: ASUS TUF Gaming OC RTX 4090 24GB

Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming WiFi 6E

Ram: 64GB G.SKILL Trident  Z5 RGB DDR5 6000MHz CL30 (2 x 32GB)

 

The problem also occurs whether I am recording a flight using OBS or just flying without recording it. 

 

I typically can get well in excess of 100+ FPS with DX12 and Frame Gen, but my smoothest experience is with FPS locked to 90 in NVCP, DX12, TAA. Mostly Medium and High Settings and Ultra for terrain pre-caching and terrain vector data. TLOD 100/ OLOD 100. 

 

I have the sim on its own dedicated NVMe drive separate from Windows, and my sceneries are linked from its own SSD using Add-On Linker. I have not tried moving all my scenery onto the NVMe Drive with the sim but unsure that would help.

 

The stutters occur both on SU14, and SU15 Beta.

 

Things I have tried with no success over the last 2 months to stop the final approach stuttering include but are not limited to:

 

Turning off frame gen

Locking frames at 60,50,45…makes no difference. 

Flying offline (Not on VATSIM) makes no difference.

Trying DSR Factor scaling with DLSS. 

Downscaling the image using Render Scaling. 

Turning down TLOD and OLOD to 10.

Run with rolling cache (I usually have rolling cache off)

Disabling all aircraft effects like tire smoke

Capping frames using Riva Statistics Tuner

Turning off GSYNC and using Scanline Sync

Tried using AUTOFPS / Dynamic LOD

Cleared Shader Cache Many Times

Many more things I am not thinking of. 

 

Visually the stutters seem to coincide with scenery popping when I am in the final 200-300 ft of the approach, when taxi-way signs and fences begin to pop in, it seems like the stutters are synchronous with the scenery popping in at this critical phase of flight. 

 

Any help is appreciated with this matter since it’s really made me not want to invest the time in doing any flights knowing that the final approach is going to be ruined by stutters while the first 99% of the flight is perfectly smooth. 

 

Thanks!

 

Yes I see this as well. I'm on SU15 beta.

I thought it was because of the fenix and payware airports, but I've recently been flying the CJ4 into smaller default airports and I see stutters on final approach also.

Maybe there is something underlying thats an issue, but I've not managed to shift it.

Done all the shader cache clearing, turned PG off etc

[Piotr007 173]

I restarted on my end activesky/live weather after a few legs in 1 session. It helped somewhat.

[Noel 4,565]

2 hours ago, F737MAX said:

have you excluded all flight sim-related files and folders (inlcuding your add-ons) from live scanning / real-time protection by your anti-virus program/Windows Defender?

When I did my in depth testing on this 11/22 I found there was zero issues w/ Defender and real-time protection.  I have no stutters, and have not excluded anything.

[psolk 3,077]

3 hours ago, flyforever said:

I remember the days when 18 fps was considered the gold standard for flight simmers, since that frame rate is the speed at which the eye sees discreet frames turn into a movie. Yes, I do get stutters in my simming, but as I reflect on how far we've come, I think we're in a very good place.

I suspect that with msfs2024, the sim will go off the single thread and open new possibilities, among which stutters may a thing of the past. Let's not forget that from the first sim until now, we've had the same core sim. It's only the speed of our cpus that has helped us in creating almost stutter free experience.

FPS in a movie have zero to do with FPS in a flight sim, I never remember 18FPS beign the standard and the 24FPS "myth" was debunked a LONG time ago that you only needed 24 FPS because that was what films and TV were filmed at and then came the other "myth" that there was no difference above 30 FPS which again, while MSFS can be smooth at 30 FPS there is a very big difference between 30-60 and even 60+ can be noticeable. 

It really comes down to the individuals eyesight as much as anything.  Some people are far more sensitive than others similar to how some have far better eyesight than others.  

For those experiencing stutters recently I was seeing the same thing and this may or may not be related.

 

[ieydis 53]

My suggestion - get rid of Process Lasso.  This is really not needed in MSFS and for me it caused more stuttering.  I also highly recommend using the AutoFPS tool if you haven't tried that yet.  It will automatically lower your LODs on approach and improve performance/stutters.

Ilya 

[ha5mvo 261]

17 minutes ago, psolk said:

FPS in a movie have zero to do with FPS in a flight sim, I never remember 18FPS beign the standard and the 24FPS "myth" was debunked a LONG time ago that you only needed 24 FPS because that was what films and TV were filmed at and then came the other "myth" that there was no difference above 30 FPS which again, while MSFS can be smooth at 30 FPS there is a very big difference between 30-60 and even 60+ can be noticeable. 

It really comes down to the individuals eyesight as much as anything.  Some people are far more sensitive than others similar to how some have far better eyesight than others.  

For those experiencing stutters recently I was seeing the same thing and this may or may not be related.

 

You are absolutely correct!

The 18 FPS actually stems from older versions of Microsoft FS and has to do with the sample frequency of the gauges and inputs(being 18 per second) so if you go below 18 cycles you'd lose data.

Otherwise, all you said is 100% correct 

[tfm 196]

Also have you tried without the NCP framerate limiter?

[tfm 196]

And turn off rolling cache?

And turn off photogrammetry?

[Piotr007 173]

I had to shut down activesky msfs to stop the lag.

Anyone else having issue with activesky?

[Sethos 4,583]

6 hours ago, Noel said:

Which method?  RTSS has a couple of capping methods--one is superior and causes no stutters anywhere, the other, not sure.  I wrote about this late 2022 and others have tried and confirmed the same for them.  FG on or off, no difference w/ regard to stutters.

 

Well, assuming we're talking about the actual framerate limiter; none of them as async introduces stutter and latency, where as the others just introduce massive latency, in excess of 100ms with FG. Even CapFrameX advises against using it;

https://twitter.com/CapFrameX/status/1620511329416265728

Scanline sync I don't know, assume that's not an actual cap.

Edited May 11 by Sethos

[hhbrbg 143]

 It’s worth a try, if nothing else works. Check if the display frequency you have selected in MSFS, matches the frequency you selected in windows for your gaming monitor.