Temp Stutter Fix

[Sly]

Hi Guys

This may help a few who are suffering stutter even though they have high end rigs.

If you run Nvid inspector and look at GPU loads

Chances are they show 99%
Each time the GPU hits its limit it resets so to speak... causing a single frame stutter.

If you look at simple Blue sky it will still show 99% load

First re-alization...... no matter what you have hardware wise you are not going to be able to run everything maxxed.

Download DX Tory and install. http://dxtory.com/
You only need the free trial version

This is a vid capture app...... much like Fraps

On the Advanced page you will see FPS limiter check box and spinner.

This is operative even when not recording

Check and set frames to 25

Set your AA and options re-alistically.

Here are my specs and settings

I7 @4.1Ghz 8gig RAM GTX 580 1.5g

Screen Res 1900x1200 FS

Anso x2

SSAA 2x2

Everything on highest, proc fauna -off, DOF off

Smooth judder free, visually delightfull , and frames locked hard on 25.

Keeps my GPU hovering nicely around the 80% mark and off the limiter.


Why does this work ?

Guessing here but, although the GPU is capable of rendering .. the lighting calculations are hitting the limiter.
Which is not buffered ......

Now I see proper scalability

15% load when looking at blue sky and 80 % when looking at 5 duchess's and heavu scenery.

Try it... its just like fraps , but do not be tempted to push the fps setting higher .. it will worsen your judders if you are using advanced lighting.
If you still get judders, check your GPU load if over 90 you need to lower Frames or Detail or Lighting

Sly

I am sure the guys at RSC will come up with something but this may help in the meantime.... also sorry but no Idea for Radeon owners

[GeorgeT93]

Thanks for the info, Sly!

Devs, please look into this, as it seems a great way to decrease some of the game's overhead by limiting the framerate. Perhaps a framerate limiter could be built into TS2012's launcher options to maybe smooth things out for folks who are having stutters (I know that using an internal framerate limiter helps many MS Flight Simulator X users to smooth out their experience.)

Great find, Sly!

-George

[styckx]

The problem with limiting your FPS to 30fps also causes TS 2012 to take 800 years to load a scenario. It needs it done natively. I started loading Altoona In Winter before even writing this post and it's still loading. With the FPS limiter off I could have loaded this scenario 3x over..

And it's still loading.. And loading.. And Loading... And finally done. Still stutters though even with pre-rendering frames.

[Importz2k1]

It still stuttered for me aswell.

[Sly]

The problem with limiting your FPS to 30fps also causes TS 2012 to take 800 years to load a scenario. It needs it done natively. I started loading Altoona In Winter before even writing this post and it's still loading. With the FPS limiter off I could have loaded this scenario 3x over..

And it's still loading.. And loading.. And Loading... And finally done. Still stutters though even with pre-rendering frames.

Hi Bill

Thats why the ability to alter the fps limit whenever is good.... whilst its loading push it to whatever you want and then drop it down .....
I didn't mention it as didn't want to get confusing + the fact you will prolly have to set differnt limits depending on complexity of the route / scenario you are driving.

Also....On my machine If I turn off the second screen (even when in windowed mode) I get a huge boost .... it appears that the RW settings may be applied to the whole desktop
This may be relevant for you with your set up

Sly

[Sly]

It still stuttered for me aswell.

hiya what is your spec and settings?

Sly

[Importz2k1]

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
G.skill Ripjaws X Series 16gb (4 X 4gb) 240-pin Ddr3 Sdram Ddr3 1600 (Pc3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800cl9q-16gbxl
Phenom II X4 980 3.70 GHz Processor - Socket AM3 PGA-938
XFX HD-695X-CNDC Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

Not overclocked. As far as game steeings, everything on high, flora and dof off.

[styckx]

Hi Bill

Thats why the ability to alter the fps limit whenever is good.... whilst its loading push it to whatever you want and then drop it down .....
I didn't mention it as didn't want to get confusing + the fact you will prolly have to set differnt limits depending on complexity of the route / scenario you are driving.

Also....On my machine If I turn off the second screen (even when in windowed mode) I get a huge boost .... it appears that the RW settings may be applied to the whole desktop
This may be relevant for you with your set up

Sly

Hiya Paul

Yeah.. You have more patience than I.. I've been a "set it to max and forget it" gamer for years. I just never had to worry about "tweaking".. TS 2012 ruined my habit and technically and logically speaking I can't come up with an answer as to why this game is so utterly demanding and acts the way it does. Some have more patience than I. I spend a ton of money to just `play it the way it was meant to be played' (on AMD/Intel hardware) and I'm just not sure how TS 2012 is "meant to be played". I doubt anyone has an answer for that at this point.

My 6990 will be arriving in about 4hrs, curious to see what differences I see or not. My habit for years with Railworks was just to come home, and run it and escape from the stressful reality of work and life.. That habit is broken thus, making me unusually stomp my feet a little. Just frustrating.

[Importz2k1]

Yeah.. You have more patience than I.. I've been a "set it to max and forget it" gamer for years. I just never had to worry about "tweaking".. TS 2012 ruined my habit and technically and logically speaking I can't come up with an answer as to why this game is so utterly demanding and acts the way it does. Some have more patience than I. I spend a ton of money to just `play it the way it was meant to be played' (on AMD hardware) and I'm just not sure how TS 2012 is "meant to be played". I doubt anyone has an answer for that at this point.

My 6990 will be arriving in about 4hrs, curious to see what differences I see or not. My habit for years with Railworks was just to come home, and run it and escape from the stressful reality of work and life.. That habit is broken thus, making me unusually stomp my feet a little. Just frustrating.

I have to agree with styckx, I just want to play. Although my pc is not top end, I did however spend over 1,300.00 on it just play Railworks, hoping to get rid of the "stuttering" and that was on RW2. (it worked)
But now with RW3 I am back to having the same problem. It's a bit frustrating to drop so much money on pc parts to not be able to run a $30 game correctly.
I am being patient and hopeful that the devs will get it right. Time will tell I guess.

[Sly]

Hi Guys

Sorry but As I mentioned earlier on I have no idea on Radeon ... last one I had was 12 years ago.

You won't run it on max as far as I can see......... the engine is there for the next five years or so and by that time SSAA could be up to 16x16

I do know the guys are working on it .. I only posted because it worked for me with a Nvid card....
reckon I am about 60% of the maximum available to us and the whole experience is the best I have ever achieved.

I know I am onto something with capping the fps.

This also explains why lower cpu rigs appear to have less problem, they are cpu limited thus keeping the GPU off of hard stop.

Keep at it guys .. I am wondering if the Radeon interface is not giving full application control ?

Sly

[Importz2k1]

Ok, now how do I get rid of this program? I uninstalled it, searched for files and it was all gone. But when I launch RW, the counter is still there and it's limiting me to 25 fps?
I'm verifying game integrity to see if that get's rid of it.

Edit: Nope, it's still there. Any ideas?

[Sly]

Click on the shortcut and then close the window

[ca2kjet]

It's highly unlikely that the stutters are caused by the GPU. The GPU can run 99%-100% all day without a hitch. Stutters usually appear from the CPU or audio processor or combination of both. For me, the only time I get stutters is when sound changes in some form or another. This also may be related to the multi-core setup that isn't complete, so the game may not be running efficiently and there is the possibility that the CPU is being overtaxed.

I can, and I'm sure many others can, run this game at its highest settings. The limitation for me is my CPU and most likely the same for others. You can tell this by adjusting your resolution. If your FPS goes up with reduced resolution then your graphics card is the problem, but if you can reduce the resolution to whatever you want and it makes no difference then it's the CPU that's limiting you. I can get the same performance with 1024x768 as I can with 1920x1600. I expect to be able to run this game maxed out once I can use all my cores.

Usually these are the things that are CPU intensive: physics, animation, particle effects, decals, polys, sound and lighting/shadows (which is why running highest detail shadows is out until I can use more cores)

And usually, the GPU handles physics(if available), texturing, bump-mapping, AA/AF, HDR, bloom, and of course resolution.

I can max out every single setting and the only thing limiting me is the shadows, which means, CPU limitation. Unless RS decided to program TS2012 oddly that the GPU and CPU are doing non-standard processing.

EDIT: I should also mention that the temp fix suggested by the OP is not a bad idea. The reason it works is because the GPU load is brought down to a more manageable load on the CPU.

[Toripony]

It's highly unlikely that the stutters are caused by the GPU. The GPU can run 99%-100% all day without a hitch. Stutters usually appear from the CPU or audio processor or combination of both. For me, the only time I get stutters is when sound changes in some form or another. This also may be related to the multi-core setup that isn't complete, so the game may not be running efficiently and there is the possibility that the CPU is being overtaxed.

I can, and I'm sure many others can, run this game at its highest settings. The limitation for me is my CPU and most likely the same for others. You can tell this by adjusting your resolution. If your FPS goes up with reduced resolution then your graphics card is the problem, but if you can reduce the resolution to whatever you want and it makes no difference then it's the CPU that's limiting you. I can get the same performance with 1024x768 as I can with 1920x1600. I expect to be able to run this game maxed out once I can use all my cores.

Usually these are the things that are CPU intensive: physics, animation, particle effects, decals, polys, sound and lighting/shadows (which is why running highest detail shadows is out until I can use more cores)

And usually, the GPU handles physics(if available), texturing, bump-mapping, AA/AF, HDR, bloom, and of course resolution.

I can max out every single setting and the only thing limiting me is the shadows, which means, CPU limitation. Unless RS decided to program TS2012 oddly that the GPU and CPU are doing non-standard processing.

I agree. My proof is in my exhaust fans. This laptop has two distinct fans with separate vents, cooling tubes, etc, one for the i7-2600 CPU, one for the integrated 5870 card model GPU. In RW2 my graphics vent has never gotten past barely warm, the fan speed has never stepped up. On the other hand my CPU fan has constantly run full speed with RW2 and I've removed a cover and added on (with tape, lol) a Walmart window fan to allow me to run it with will graphics maxed. After upgrading to TS'12, my graphics (GPU) fan stepped up its speed for the first time ever! I checked with my hand... there's heat. It's not scorching HOT like my CPU vent but there's a little bit of heat coming from there now. However, my CPU is now even hotter and the addon fan is no longer keeping my CPU cool. I have to turn my giant "Appalachian CPU cooler" up on high (very noisy; had to turn up the "Boneyard", lol) to stay cool now when all settings are maxed.

So, there's been a step in the right direction, but I don't think this is what RSC was shooting for. I think they are still experimenting with the tuning of this new engine. And hey, I know this sounds like a lame way to judge performance but nothing else has changed about my environment except the 2012 code and the amount of heat coming from this "fixed" laptop. As lame as it sounds, I can't find a hole in my conclusions.

[imnew]

Sly,

This sounds good, gonna try it when i get off work tonight.

Thanks