AC: Stuttering reduction

[Rick Malm]

What can a user do to reduce or eliminate stuttering even in practice runs where their are no other cars on the track?

With Lotus F1 on Monza track I sometimes get as many as 6 stutters per lap, sometimes its 0 which is great.

What is the key cause of stuttering when running AC local vs MP which involves network response time as well as AC MP implementation?

Background:

My system: CPU: Intel i7-4770K Haswell 3.5GHz (some small amount overclocking was installed from Main Performance)
Video: NVIDIA | EVGA GeForce GTX 780Ti to 3 ASUS VE278Q 27” monitors 85hz refresh

I use a SSD memory for the AC install (The SSD is my C: drive)
My cpu usage is about 26% when AC is running. Processor Affinity shows all checked (0 to 8), Priority=Normal,
window resource monitor shows the cpus are getting used and none are any where near 100%, more like 40-50% and there are graphics showing PARKED cpus.

I turned off the car interior controllable items: no wheel, no driver arms.
I set Frame Limit to match my monitor max at 85.
FRAPS shows FPS will dip to 67 in some corners.
I tried reducing smoke generation and mirror resolution, I turned blur off completely.
I have not turn off HDR yet.
I have not tried to us msconfig and kill all background processes. I typically have firefox running in the background
which is the larger memory user (then Spyhunter4, explorer, LCore, office.bin, Steam....)
I have not tried to ALT-TAB out of AC when I see stuttering to see what is running with the resource monitor.
After I ran the resource monitor and looked at the CPU tab and saw a number of PARKED cpus I downloaded and ran a disable parking utility (edits the registry). This seems to have helped. Any problem with doing this?

http://coderbag.com/Programming-C/CPU-core-parking-manager

http://www.coderbag.com/Programming-C/Disable-CPU-Core-Parking-Utility

AC settings: Fullscreen Rendering ON | Triple Screen ON (6065x1080) | Vsync - OFF | Frame Limit - 85 | Aniso x 8 | AA x 4 | FXAA x 3 | Shadows -Low | World Detail - Maximum | HDR Color Sat On @ 92%| Smoke Generation – Low||Smoke in Mirrors OFF| Motion Blur - OFF | Mirror Resolution High| CubeMaps at Low | Faces per Frame - 4

 

[Rui Santos]

Yeah but i didn't say that.
And again - you post that you have no stuttering. Then post to say you do.
That my friend is where the bullshit detector goes off the scale.

I said some time ago (after 1.0) and after some quick test that i had no more stutters, but unfortunately yes they're back after more extended tests, i'm not here losing my time ok? And i don't blame those who have several problems with AC, usually i try to help if i can! When i have problems i usually post them on AC forum not here...

 

[Bernd Graf]

What apps do you run during a race? I found stutters increased occasionally with some apps running.

 

[Rui Santos]

What apps do you run during a race? I found stutters increased occasionally with some apps running.

No apps...

 

[testdriver69]

v1.2 still hickups
i guess it is windows 10... experience was way better on w8.1
i will let it go for a while, i am done with trying different settings, a waist of time

 

[hurricaneman]

Have you tried increasing maximum number of sounds from 64 to 128? It works for me.

 

[Rick Malm]

Not using any apps is what works for me. (and w7)

 

[hurricaneman]

I'm using apps and no stuttering after changing max. number of sounds in audio.ini file

 

[Rick Malm]

Worth a try, thanks for the suggestion.
For others
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\assettocorsa\system\cfg\audio.ini"

 

[hurricaneman]

I also have vsync off and fps limited to 62.5

 

[Rick Malm]

Agree with vsync off but I dont limit fps but have hear others have success with fps limits.

I always run RSR live, and acti, pedals, gears, and performance delta and in a few days of v1.2 only say 1 jerk. I had more problems when I ran ov1-f1-2104 hud and corners performance (1 jerk per lap and with traffic it was higher) so I quit using those apps completely. Just tried 4 laps at National 12 AI no jerks.
Of course any recommendation are a function of cpu(s) and clock speeds, monitor and graphics card(s) types and speeds, and lots of settings. So its hard to make general recommendations.

 

[yusupov]

my embarrassing question for the day -- how do you limit fps in AC? its been changed to ms so ive turned vsync on but i get a stutter or two at least once an outing thats really bothersome.

 

[Rick Malm]

options, display, 1/2 way down the items is a slider for framefate limit.

 

[testdriver69]

i changed max. number of sounds in audio.ini (btw only available to edit when you set latency to very low - in game) no change

i even tried to set all gfx to minimum and play in 640x480 - same stutters - they seem to happen always in the same spot on the track . i tested Zandvoort with the gt86 ... practice , solo drive no other cars ... i get 5-6 hickups per lap
adaptive vsync does not help either ... i dunno
my hardware : W10, msi H97M-G43 , i5 4690k / 1x GTX 780 3GB/ m2sata ssd / 8GB ram playing on a 144hz asus gv248 monitor

the game is super fluid but those sudden hickups make it no fun to play

 

[Rick Malm]

I once had the hickups in a specific corner as well. It got worse during a 10 car Quick Race vs Hot Lap due to the higher graphic load. I also had the load of 3 monitors on 2 GTX cards.

Start by removing all the usage of in game apps even the standard ones from AC.

If you have not already do it, set your AC in game graphics settings to min like discussed earlier in this thread
and well a in game settings for min load on the graphics card and same with Nvida settings.

Make sure you dont have any other windows process running eating cycles. I use Fraps and found plotting the data (frametime) with FrapsUtilityViewer help see the hickup frequency and size and pointed me towards
some specific apps that caused the issue to be worse. (frametime of hickup got larger with time and its period
was repeating).

I also found that running MSI Afterburner also helped capture FPS, and frametimes
and plot them to keep track of how many were happening vs my settings changes.

You might try a graphics benckmark and see if you have problems with it as well.
https://unigine.com/products/heaven/download/
Look back in this thread for details of Heaven settings then make changes
to your Nvidia settings and in AC game settings that are as also shown in this thread.

You might try grapics.ini MAXIMUM_FRAME_LATENCY=1
if it is set to 0. Maybe they changed the default.

 

[testdriver69]

1350 points on heaven in ultra extreme everything .. as expected for a gtx780
fraps does not recognize the hickups - it is like they don't exist for the system
and guess what - the hickups exist on track, i can turn around the car after a hickup and drive this section again and there it is, like bump on the track... i give up for today .. to much time wasted for nothing
thanks for all your support and ideas

 

[Rick Malm]

What track, what car, Hotlap or Quickrace?

 

[testdriver69]

Zandvoort,gt86, hotlap i can draw a point of hickups map if you want

 

[Rick Malm]

No problem 2 touring laps. You will have to sent me the corner and the speed you need to take it at
and where to align on the track (like 1meter from the inside corner, 2meters past the apex...)
Also if you send me a replay I can see exactly what your car does at the point you tell me.
Just put the replay in DropBox and I will pick it up if its too larget to attach in this thread.

 

[testdriver69]

ok now i am completely puzzled ... atm i have fraps up and running with movie capture 30fps and half-size i have no freezes !! WTH !!!! ... this computer is driving me nuts , what does fraps do ? i have a steady 150 FPS during gameplay , fraps record with 30 fps ... hickups gone ! 5 laps no hickups . turn off fraps hickups there again !
any idea ?

 

[testdriver69]

now i had a 15 cars GT86 race at zandvoort an no hickups... it def is a setting i am missing and kunos needs to work on the game .. a lot