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

 

[Blkout]

Main Performance asked me to reinstall W7 from scratch on my SSD since I was having some hangs with no minidumps. So I did it as well as removing norton and enigma software. The drivers were from the ASUS CD for the motherboard, per Main Performance instructions. Then I re installed most of my office apps and GSCE, AC, and SNOW which really makes the GPU grind but the speed of movement is not high like AC and GSCE. What
Windows Experience Index What number would you expect given my system?

Component Details Subscore Base score
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770K CPU @ 3.50GHz 7.8
7.8
Determined by lowest subscore
Memory (RAM) 16.0 GB 7.9
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti 7.9
Gaming graphics 10849 MB Total available graphics memory 7.9
Primary hard disk 341GB Free (447GB Total) 7.9
Windows 7 Home Premium

System
Manufacturer ASUS
Model All Series
Total amount of system memory 16.0 GB RAM
System type 64-bit operating system
Number of processor cores 4
Storage
Total size of hard disk(s) 1379 GB
Disk partition (C: 341 GB Free (447 GB Total)
Disk partition (D: 518 GB Free (932 GB Total)
Media drive (E: CD/DVD
Graphics
Display adapter type NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti
Total available graphics memory 10977 MB
Dedicated graphics memory 3072 MB
Dedicated system memory 0 MB
Shared system memory 7905 MB
Display adapter driver version 9.18.13.3788
Primary monitor resolution 5760x1080
DirectX version DirectX 10
Network
Network Adapter Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller

All of that looks fine Rick. The WEI score is also as expected. Mine is a 7.8 also, with 7.9's in all the of the same categories. It always gives your total system rating the lowest score from the subsets. I really don't put much faith in that index as it relates to comparing systems but I was just curious if one subset test was going to be way off the mark. It wasn't though.

 

[Blkout]

Yes, When I bought it it was set for the base overclocking to 4Ghz but the
supply was defective and got replaced and unknown to me the overclocking setting
that came with the product got reset. I then have some kind of sw or hw issue causing hangs. Main Performance wants me to hold off on overclocking again until that issue is resolved. I do want to do it sometime in the future. I have the liquid cooler installed to support it as well as a bigger power supply.

Makes me wonder if your system hangs are related to your AC stuttering because really nothing else makes sense. Maybe you have an intermittent hardware failure in the making and its just simply showing signs here and there of causing system issues.

 

[Blkout]

Well you should be able to push 4.0 ghz wo breaking a sweat at all, not much extra wattage at all.you need a few guides to oc i can dig some up.

I did my i7 3.7 ghz running 4.3 ghz with ddr3 ram timings and 2100 bus i think off the top of my head, on air to boot i could easily go way higher if i got a liquid system. and i could go probably higher oc in general idle is 45c ish atm but its summer and that can vary up to 50c.

http://www.overclockersclub.com/guides/overclock_intel_4770k_guide/

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-4770k-haswell-review,3521-10.html

All of that is well and good to squeeze out a few more fps, but honestly, his CPU running at 3.5GHz or 4.0GHz isn't going to change his stuttering.

 

[cerebus23]

Since we really do not know the cause of it it is hard to say what may make it better or worse.

I run reasonably high settings and i do not seem to have it as bad as him it an occasional type thing.


Plus AC is hardly optomized as well as it should be, The game throwing cpu warnings with ai is proof of that, its much improved though and it should get better in the coming months.but this is a fairly long and ongoing issue for some people.

Friday should be interesting.

 

[Stelios]

I have been reading some of these posts, i wonder why you can have stutters.
I run triple screens 5760x1200 with a single 780 with an i7 950 and i get 1 stutter per 30 laps, or none at all.
I would suggest doing a clean installation of the nvidia drivers using DDU if u havent already.
Some people are problem magnets i know but this is too much

 

[Rick Malm]

Stelios, I agree, too much

Main Performance had me get the driver from
http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/75991/en-us
Then
Use Nvidia GeForece Experience to make sure its up to date 337.88 which is the latest.

This stuttering was happening for a month after installing AC, then I wiped my SDD clean last week and did a total OS reinstall and downloaded
the 337.88 again. I just checked its the latest up to date.

I see http://www.guru3d.com/news_storyhttp://www.guru3d.com/files_details/display_driver_uninstaller_download.html
but have never used it. I assume I would have to do this by moving one of my triples to the
native motherboard DVI port or I will make sure to save a system restore point and use mode would work with not cable movement.

 

[Blkout]

Stelios, I agree, too much

Main Performance had me get the driver from
http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/75991/en-us
Then
Use Nvidia GeForece Experience to make sure its up to date 337.88 which is the latest.

This stuttering was happening for a month after installing AC, then I wiped my SDD clean last week and did a total OS reinstall and downloaded
the 337.88 again. I just checked its the latest up to date.

I see http://www.guru3d.com/news_storyhttp://www.guru3d.com/files_details/display_driver_uninstaller_download.html
but have never used it. I assume I would have to do this by moving one of my triples to the
native motherboard DVI port or I will make sure to save a system restore point and use mode would work with not cable movement.

Rick, there would be no point in using that if you did a complete reinstall of Windows since that completely erased all existing drivers. DDU is fine to use but not necessary in your case.

 

[Requiem84]

Based on the amount of extensive troubleshooting you have been going through with the help of the members of this forum, I think it is safe to assume there is a fault in either your software or hardware.

It seems you have run through all possible settings.

As faulty CPU's, to my knowledge, are extremely rare, I'd bet on a faulty SSD, faulty memory or a software related issue.

Compliments for your patience and endurance on this matter Rick!

 

[Stelios]

@Rick Malm . Try this, works to solve some problems people have.

Use DDU , do a complete driver uninstall and then install the driver but while in installation choose custom and UNTICK geforce experience. Worth a try.

 

[Andre Marques]

Keep in mind that this game is in alpha stage, some updates may cause some stuttering and you will have to tweak the video options all over again. Every 3 or 4 updates i have to change my settings to get the game as smooth as possible, i'm quite sure they will optimize this in the future.

 

[Rick Malm]

Rick, there would be no point in using that if you did a complete reinstall of Windows since that completely erased all existing drivers. DDU is fine to use but not necessary in your case.

Mike,
Since we think its a cpu or gpu issue: what about running a real benchmark instead of a game where target performance numbers are known for specific processors? Or a diagnostic of some sort.

I dont have either. I gave you my windows number of 7.8-7.9 but you did not comment.

I guess I would need to compare with someone else with a i7 and 780ti like Stelios who at least give me a compare point with AC and stutters.
I am still under warranted so having these numbers would help vs just a statement about stutter counts. Stelios: "triple screens 5760x1200 with a single 780 with an i7 950 and i get 1 stutter per 30 laps, or none at all."

 

[Stelios]

Mike,
Since we think its a cpu or gpu issue: what about running a real benchmark instead of a game where target performance numbers are known for specific processors? Or a diagnostic of some sort.

I dont have either. I gave you my windows number of 7.8-7.9 but you did not comment.

I guess I would need to compare with someone else with a i7 and 780ti like Stelios who at least give me a compare point with AC and stutters.
I am still under warranted so having these numbers would help vs just a statement about stutter counts. Stelios: "triple screens 5760x1200 with a single 780 with an i7 950 and i get 1 stutter per 30 laps, or none at all."

I can try any benchmarks you want. I remember unparking all my cpu threads.... some time ago, dont know if this helps.

 

[Rick Malm]

Stelios
Thanks, since it really sounds like this could be an apples to apples compare.
Unparking did help so mine are unparked. Maybe some people will have some good suggestions of benchmarks or disgnostics to use. I have not clue at this point.
When I was at IBM reseasch we use linpack (for floating point) and whetstones (floating and fixed point) but that was ages ago.

Thanks for the offer to run so we could compare. I would also like to ask you for you Nvida Control panel values if you have time
and what is your Windows Experience Index vs mind at 7.9.
What cpu? Mine is CPU: Intel i7-4770K Haswell 3.5GHz (not overclocked)

Nvidia Control panel settings

• Ambient Occlusion: off (not supported for AC)
• Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
• Antialiasing – FXAA (not supported for AC)
• Antialiasing - Gamma Correction: on
• Antialiasing - Mode: off
• Antialiasing - Transparency: Multisample
• CUDA - GPUs: All
• Maximum Pre-Rendered Frames: 1
• Multi-display/Mixed-GPU Acceleration: Multi display performance mode
• Power management mode: maximum performance
  
• Shader cache: on
• Texture Filtering - Anisotropic Sample Optimization: on (tweakguide recommends on for performance)
• Texture Filtering - Negative LOD Bias: Clamp (tweakguide recommends Clamp)
• Texture Filtering - Trilinear Optimization: On (tweakguide recommends On)
• Threaded Optimization: Auto (tweakguide recommends Auto)
• Triple Buffering: On (tweakguide recommends On if Vsync On but I only have in game Vsync On and I think Nvida setting of Vsync off overides the In game Vsync On)
• Vertical Sync: I have tried them all. Adaptive, and vertical sync on in game might be the best

 

[Stelios]

All settings in nvidia drivers are default except

• Maximum Pre-Rendered Frames: 1

Which is changed it from 0 to 1 using nvidia inspector.

My cpu is an i7 950 , its a lot older than yours and slower i am afraid...
I run vsync off.

 

[Rick Malm]

Hmmm. Oranges and apples but would still be interesting to get a whetstone number from both.

 

[Sebastian Wolff]

All settings in nvidia drivers are default except

• Maximum Pre-Rendered Frames: 1

Which is changed it from 0 to 1 using nvidia inspector.

My cpu is an i7 950 , its a lot older than yours and slower i am afraid...
I run vsync off.

same here

 

[Blkout]

Mike,
Since we think its a cpu or gpu issue: what about running a real benchmark instead of a game where target performance numbers are known for specific processors? Or a diagnostic of some sort.

I dont have either. I gave you my windows number of 7.8-7.9 but you did not comment.

I guess I would need to compare with someone else with a i7 and 780ti like Stelios who at least give me a compare point with AC and stutters.
I am still under warranted so having these numbers would help vs just a statement about stutter counts. Stelios: "triple screens 5760x1200 with a single 780 with an i7 950 and i get 1 stutter per 30 laps, or none at all."

Rick, I did reply above:

"All of that looks fine Rick. The WEI score is also as expected. Mine is a 7.8 also, with 7.9's in all the of the same categories. It always gives your total system rating the lowest score from the subsets. I really don't put much faith in that index as it relates to comparing systems but I was just curious if one subset test was going to be way off the mark. It wasn't though."

You could run one of many other game benchmarks but it would really likely only point out a serious CPU or GPU issue causing a lack of performance, You can download Unigine Heaven Benchmark and run it if you want, I don't have your exact setup but I'm sure they would be reasonably close given my CPU is slightly faster but GPU is slightly slower, I'll just disable SLI and use a single overclocked 780.

 

[Rick Malm]

Rick, I did reply above:

"All of that looks fine Rick. The WEI score is also as expected. Mine is a 7.8 also, with 7.9's in all the of the same categories. It always gives your total system rating the lowest score from the subsets. I really don't put much faith in that index as it relates to comparing systems but I was just curious if one subset test was going to be way off the mark. It wasn't though."

You could run one of many other game benchmarks but it would really likely only point out a serious CPU or GPU issue causing a lack of performance, You can download Unigine Heaven Benchmark and run it if you want, I don't have your exact setup but I'm sure they would be reasonably close given my CPU is slightly faster but GPU is slightly slower, I'll just disable SLI and use a single overclocked 780.

Ok I will install your suggestions and put a link here to where others can get to it as well.
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2205/unigine-heaven-dx11-benchmark-4-0/mirrors

Fun to just watch, I started without pushing the settings and vsync off 22 to 49 frames per sec. In fast pan around the dragon the background is jerky not butter smooth like the slower pans and zooms. Some tearing seen even in medium speed pans. I did turn on vsync in the settings as it was running and this improvement the image.

Then I changed to higher resolution and highers is 4096x1080 and added extreme tessellaton. This showed stuttering/hitching/jerking in even slower pans. Score
09:59:31 Benchmark results:
09:59:31 Time: 260.776
09:59:31 Frames: 7546
09:59:31 FPS: 28.9367
09:59:31 Min FPS: 9.63541
09:59:31 Max FPS: 60.4727
09:59:31 Score: 728.915
afterburner attached of both runs but focus on the test2 with heavy loaded settings. Notice in increase in stutters in the frametime trace from afterburner vs test 1 where the load is lower. Nvideo settings are the n1 n2 images.
Notice my Heaven settings are max and NOT full screen (creates more load than full screen) I took 8 videos of the screen and will put them on dropbox if anyone is interested. Here are links to 2.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21174582/CIMG3081 heaven is jerking.MOV
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21174582/CIMG3087.MOV

 

[Tom Blackett]

deleting my assetto corsa documents folder did the trick for me

 

[Rick Malm]

deleting my assetto corsa documents folder did the trick for me

Did you have some setups, mods or any changes in My Documents/assetto corsa?

Would not help my Heavy benchmark jerking