Visual Stuttering Solutions Anyone?

[JBaymore]

Aside from engaging the services of RAMSA......  ;) .......... what solutions have you all found for the issue of a slight "stuttering" occasionally in the visuals?  Happens most often in fast aircraft or tight turns..... and these seem to happen in high density areas and low altitudes and high AI traffic.

Any fs9.cfg file changes that seem to help this.....such as changing the TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT number and such?  (been playing with that)

Any Win XP tricks besides shutting down all background stuff?

Any ATI Control Center settings tips aside from shutting off fast writes (already done)?

Appreciate anything and everything...... I want to get the new computer and sim installation "tricked out" to the maximum settings that I can support with the hardware I have (see below).

I have so far found that even with THIS machine I have to keep 3-D clouds to about 50% or they just KILL me with the "stuttering" problem.  That 50% setting there pretty much allows me to keep all the other settings set to max except MIPMAP which is at 4 to keep the "shimmers" away.  

Boy..... those stunning clouds are one of the "big features" of FS2004....... and they are almost unuseable at 100%, high coverage, and long cloud draw distances.


best,

..................john

[Brett_Henderson]

I think the occasional "burp" you get is a load beyond most any home PC's ability.

I thought an upgrade to the big-cached, fast, 64bit Athlon (3800), high-end v-card (ATI 9800pro256) would set me free. Honestly ? It doesn't handle it much better than an XP2500.. etc. Sure.. I can run higher frame-rates in general with maxed scenery settings, but that stutter still happens.. like you said, during steep turns with those beautiful clouds filling the sky.

Maybe when M$ gets a true 64bit O/S and FS200X is designed to take advantage of it AND a new, PCIexpress v-card AND 2GB of RAM ? I don't know. I think it's just a processing/graphical spike of geometric proportions. An annoyance to be sure, but not worth building a PC around... yet

[Jared]

Also what are your FPS limits set to?

I have the same sort of situation when I set them much above my computers limit of around 25.

I typically leave mine set at 20 with no problems..

[yancovitch]

good to know i'm not the only one.....

[TacitBlue]

Do you have the lates, most updated chipset driver? I dont know how, but that affected my system a lot the last time I reformatted, and forgot to re-install the chipset driver. I was getting less than half of the FPS I am able to get with it installed.

[Brett_Henderson]

It's not really a frame-rate problem.. Mine never falls below 30.. even at O'hare, lot's of AI.. lots of clouds, all sliders maxed. It's just an occasional "flicker" and only under certain conditions.. Like when the screen is being forced through the weird vectors (steep turns) and there are loads of 3-d clouds. It doesn't even last through the whole turn and not even on every turn. Just now and then and just for an instant (I'd bet some people don't even notice it happened).

I think it's just something.. outside of spending $4000 on a computer (not even sure that would help) that we'll have to live with.

[JBaymore]

Yeah.... framerates are NOT the issue here at all...... mine stay VERY high during the "stutter".  (I use the "average" framerate display in the fs9.cfg setup to get a better picture of what is happening).

The stutter seems to be independent of the framerates.

And yes... all the chipset, video card, sound card, and other "drivers" are the latest versions.


best,

...............john

[Brett_Henderson]

I don't "really" understand how 3-D stuff is displayed, far as what the computer is up to, mathematically, but I have a general understanding. Keeping it simple..  clouds are pretty complex geometric figures and displaying them from one angle only is tough enough. All that happens (if you're flying straight at them) is they get redrawn larger, (frame-rate)times per second. If they have to get redrawn not only larger, but from an angle that is also changing (turning) .. I can see where the math gets complex. Make it MULTIPLE changing angles (climbing turns (steep to boot)) and it's not a matter of 10+10+10=30 ...   It's more like  10x10x10=1000.  

I think it's just a processing/display load that bogs even the fastest, best equiped, most up-to-date PC down for that  tiniest fraction of a second and it's just something we'll have to live with.

I could be wrong, though  ::)

[JBaymore]

OK folks in FS2004 "Stutterland" ..... I just found this solution myself from searching the term "stutter" a lot online, and it is a real doozy.

[Jared]

Sweet! Johns the man of the hour!!!

I'm off to try it in a bit, will let you know after some testing..

[Brett_Henderson]

WOW..  It worked, far as I can tell. My 9800pro256 was set to 255. Changed it to 64 and so far.. no stutter (except when you first pop in to the 2-D cockpit from changing views).

THANKS JOHN !!

[Jared]

I declare a sticky!

[Scottler]

If it works as promised, it DEFINITELY should be sticky...I've installed it and I'll check it out tomorrow after work to see the result!  

[sonic]

Off to try it know mine was set at 255 also I dont have a high end card but a maybe high middle. Havent tried it yet though

[Joe_D]

Although I didn't have a serious stuttering problem, there were times when I did get a momentary stutter when a demanding aircraft was combined with demanding scenery particulary during a fly-by with AC.
Flying the Lockheed "Connie" over NYC for example.

After setting the latency on my X800 pro to "64",