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

 

[Tim Lundy]

That is your Inspector interface. Click on the wrench/screwdriver icon and that will bring up the options. Don't worry about the other files that were contained in download.

Antialiasing section -
Mode - override application
Setting - multisample 4x
Transparency Super Sample - 8xSGSS

Texture filter section -
Mode - User
Setting - 16x

Vsync - force on

Then start playing with the in-game settings till you find a nice balance.

Thanks Just a quickie before I head out. Do I do this with the base profile, keep all the other settings the same, and then do I have to save it as "Assetto Corsa" to retain my unique settings? Does the app have to be open and set to Assetto Corsa in order to be effective and does it override the settings in NVidia Control Panel?

Sure do appreciate all the help...and patience.

Chuck Norris Edit: I may have found the answers here: http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/how-to-get-the-best-visual-quality.77338/page-2 I'll try and experiment later and see how it goes.

 

[Gary Horneck]

I use a base global profile since the settings work well for GSCE and rFactor also. App does not have to be open, probably bad to have it open. It will override Control Panel with new options.

 

[Blkout]

That is your Inspector interface. Click on the wrench/screwdriver icon and that will bring up the options. Don't worry about the other files that were contained in download.

Antialiasing section -
Mode - override application
Setting - multisample 4x
Transparency Super Sample - 8xSGSS

Texture filter section -
Mode - User
Setting - 16x

Vsync - force on

Then start playing with the in-game settings till you find a nice balance.

FYI, SGSSA level has to match the MSAA level, so if you want to use 8xSGSSAA you have to use 8xMSAA in conjunction with it. That being said, 8xSGSSAA is way too demanding for a game like Assetto Corsa unless you're running a low resolution or low detail level. 4xSGSSAA should be way more than enough to clean up the image and even that is likely going to be tough for most people to run and maintain 60fps if you want all of the eye candy turned on.

 

[Gary Horneck]

I disagree. I have a GTX 980, and I see Tim has a 970, and those are the settings that work with my card (and probably close for a 970). There is no "must, or have to" with all the variations in card capabilities.

 

[Blkout]

I disagree. I have a GTX 980, and I see Tim has a 970, and those are the settings that work with my card (and probably close for a 970). There is no "must, or have to" with all the variations in card capabilities.

OK then...if you say so.

 

[bazingaracer]

Stuttering is related with refresh rate, AC is having some troubles with these values, the values presented in game options do not match with the values of our screen (at least for me). I fixed it with the following steps.
First I have checked what is the refresh rate that I have for my resolution (in Nvidia Control Panel, also I have disabled there Vertical Sync for AC profile), then I went to Video.cfg file setting there the correct refresh rate. In game options panel I have set fps to max (200), disabling also Vertical Sync. With Nvidia inspector I have limited fps to 58.
Now In game a smooth and stable 59.7 fps, which is perfectly fine for my 60Hz refresh rate, without stuttering.

 

[Tim Lundy]

That is your Inspector interface. Click on the wrench/screwdriver icon and that will bring up the options. Don't worry about the other files that were contained in download.

Antialiasing section -
Mode - override application
Setting - multisample 4x
Transparency Super Sample - 8xSGSS

Texture filter section -
Mode - User
Setting - 16x

Vsync - force on

Then start playing with the in-game settings till you find a nice balance.

I must have missed something. I followed those recommendations but turned off AA and AF in AC and the game looked like heck. I turned AF and AC back on at max and the game looked excellent again but no better than before I downloaded Inspector, although it was pretty much perfect anyway. I thought the AA settings in Inspector would override the game settings but it didn't appear to be so because the game was aliased all to heck until I turned those settings back on in AC.

 

[Gary Horneck]

Oh well... sort of worked for me. I'm done with AC anyhow. If I had a dollar for every hour I have spent trying to make it look decent...

 

[townnet]

2. Try turning off FXAA, there's no need for that with 4xMSAA.

But i notice that my 42" TV with FXAA+4XMSAA is much smoother. If only 4XMSAA the jaggies are noticeable.

 

[Radu Oros]

But i notice that my 42" TV with FXAA+4XMSAA is much smoother. If only 4XMSAA the jaggies are noticeable.

Idk if it was said above, but you can put AA up to 8x (same as msaa in the game?). The folder from my documents in cfg/video - aaquality=8. But don't change the AA in game, otherwise will reset back to 4x in the file.

 

[Blkout]

But i notice that my 42" TV with FXAA+4XMSAA is much smoother. If only 4XMSAA the jaggies are noticeable.

In general, FXAA causes considerable blurring of textures so it doesn't surprise me that its "smoother" but most people really dislike the look of FXAA if traditional MSAA is available. But it is an option for those that prefer that look.

 

[slimsymeat]

I have G-Sync and get the occasional stutter. WTF...

 

[Joao Alves]

The cause of the stutters in AC is completely unrelated to what G-Sync fixes.

That said though, from what Stefano has been tweeting out recently, we may see a nice reduction in stutters and overall optimization.

 

[Bryan O'Connor]

I have a below average set up and must say i don't notice any stuttering since i moved to SSD. I would occasionally get the odd stutter with the HDD.
Could it be this rather than graphical issues? This is the same problem people complain about with titles like Battlefield 4 and it's usually related to either the HDD reading and writing something in the background or the VRam on your card maxing out.
The DICE forums are full of people blaming the game when they have not been realistic with their graphics settings to their systems capabilities (must haz all da GRAFIX!!1!) or they have programmes running in the background - even Windows changing the desktop background will cause a massive stutter in games.

 

[Andy_J]

I don't have any stuttering at all, well not that I notice. I only use a GTX770 card, with an I-5 processor oveclocked to 4.4 ghz with a normal HDD. I use the normal Nvidia "allow application to overide settings" in the control panel. I never bother with anything else. Just the settings in the game all maxed.
I run without post processing on for MP, but have it all on for offline. I am more than happy with the performance and the looks of AC. It runs very smooth for me in MP and offline.

I am sure too may people get hung up trying to get perfection, when they should be playing the game.

My graphics look ok to me.

 

[Rui Santos]

I don't have any stuttering at all, well not that I notice. I only use a GTX770 card, with an I-5 processor oveclocked to 4.4 ghz with a normal HDD. I use the normal Nvidia "allow application to overide settings" in the control panel. I never bother with anything else. Just the settings in the game all maxed.
I run without post processing on for MP, but have it all on for offline. I am more than happy with the performance and the looks of AC. It runs very smooth for me in MP and offline.

I am sure too may people get hung up trying to get perfection, when they should be playing the game.

Congratulations if the game works well for you, now if i have stutters with better system than yours what do you want me to do? Ignore the stutters and pretend i'm stupid and don't notice them??? WTF???

 

[Requiem84]

Congratulations if the game works well for you, now if i have stutters with better system than yours what do you want me to do? Ignore the stutters and pretend i'm stupid and don't notice them??? WTF???

We'd like you to try to solve it as a grown-up, working your way through any possible fixes, not use your CAPSLOCK unnessecary and act classy.

On a side note, version 1.1 is said to have graphical optimisations. I hope they work for you.

 

[Bryan O'Connor]

No more stutters since 1.0 ... BUT game replay is not recording in MP so i don't know...

Congratulations if the game works well for you, now if i have stutters with better system than yours what do you want me to do? Ignore the stutters and pretend i'm stupid and don't notice them??? WTF???

Maybe you don't need to pretend

 

[Rui Santos]

Maybe you don't need to pretend

Thanks for your comment Bryan, thanks to people like you i learn every day in my life what i don't want to be

If you think that saying "I am sure too may people get hung up trying to get perfection, when they should be playing the game" for people who have issues i'm not the stupid here...

 

[Bryan O'Connor]

Thanks for your comment Bryan, thanks to people like you i learn every day in my life what i don't want to be

If you think that saying "I am sure too may people get hung up trying to get perfection, when they should be playing the game" for people who have issues i'm not the stupid here...

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.