How to reduce stutter on my system

I just purchased P3D4 and am trying to get it running smoothly. That might be difficult with my system:

I5 6600k OC'd to 4.3 Ghz, GTX 950, 16 G RAM, running Win7-64. P3D is installed in the root directory of my hard drive.

I have Orbx FTX Global and Global Vector, REX TD with Soft Clouds, and Active Sky installed.

It seems to stutter less if I run frames unlimited (this is true for my FSX setup as well) Things are pretty smooth in flight when looking forward out the windscreen, but looking out of the side views or in spot view, the sim is running smooth, but with some minor but annoying stutters.

I have not done any tweaking to my .cfg file (been warned against it). Trying to find a set of slider settings that will help reduce the stutters. Right now I have things pretty much middle of the road. I'd like to know if there are specific culprits as far as stuttering goes that I can play with.

Thanks!

I'd start by reducing AI traffic, water settings, and shadow quality, as well as lower settings for weather display. You might try 20-25 fps setting, rather than unlimited. The unlimited will reduce your graphics quality, since the sim is trying to paint the scene as fast as possible, while it has a lot more time to paint the scene with the lower frame rate setting.

Others may have differing opinions, but that's my take, with the info you gave.

Also set ActiveSky to 3 cloud layers not the default 5. Looks the same but not as much performance hit.\

Vic

Thanks for the replies.

I had already turned off AI, cars, boats, etc. Also already had set AS cloud layers to 3. (I had to do that with my FSX setup also).

I turned off a couple of features of Orbx Vector, and set the Level of Detail slider to medium from high.

I have gone back and forth between frames set at 20, 30, and unlimited. Unlimited seems to have the least stuttering.

It probably doesn't help that I am doing all this testing while flying the Majestic Q400, which is known to be a demanding plane.

I suspect that a better graphics card would improve things somewhat. But I doubt that I could spend 100 bucks and get anything significantly better. Better to probably save up and build a new rig around a faster processor and get a higher end GPU (or 2). But that's another thread for another day, lol.

Overall, I'm actually kind of surprised that P3D4 is running as smoothly as it is on this hardware. It is kind of cool in the sense that it is almost like what one might have expected out of MSFS XIV, had they not trashed Aces Studio.

Search for background processes to shut down (unrelated to the Sim)

Optimise and defrag the hard drive the sim is installed on - it's a large installation of a huge number of files.

ORBX folder should be defragged separately

The GTX 950 is almost certainly holding the system back but is NOT the cause of the stutters.

Search for background processes to shut down (unrelated to the Sim)

 

Optimise and defrag the hard drive the sim is installed on - it's a large installation of a huge number of files.

ORBX folder should be defragged separately

 

The GTX 950 is almost certainly holding the system back but is NOT the cause of the stutters.

Oh yes, defrag. I used to do that fairly often, but haven't in a while. I hadn't heard of doing the ORBX folder on its own.

It also turns out I didn't have the latest video drivers for the GTX 950. Got that taken care of this morning. I'll go defrag and give her a whirl!

I also used to use a little utility called enditall that would shut down background stuff before launching FSX. I'm going to see if that is still available.

Ok I think I've got it working well now. There was a setting in the MJC Q400 control panel that relates to how the Q400 FDE works with P3D that made things much better with the stutter.

Then I updated to P3D 4.2 and it all went horribly south. Turns out the latest version of FSUIPC 5 has an issue. The lag/stutter were horrifying. Rolling back to the previous FSUIPC fixed that.

Now it is running really smooth with really no noticable stutter. Running unlimited frames. Now I've been moving sliders to the right and checking shadow/reflection boxes and such, and it is handling everything very nicely.

Now I'm doing a few more flights from start to finish and I'm getting to see the new eye candy that P3D has, and I must say, I'm really pleased with how it looks. In particular I love that the z-order thing is fixed. That was where you would be looking down at clouds against mountains and they were flickering and dancing around. Gone. That was one of the last remaining niggles I had with FSX and I love seeing it gone. I just did a flight from Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis to Glasgow, Scotland and it was stunning.

Wow!

Thanks again for the help and suggestions.

To correct a mis-statement: The latest version of FSUIPC does not create the problem, it solves it.

FSUIPC 5.123e is the latest and will ONLY work with P3Dv4.x

Good to see you're otherwise sorted.

FSUIPC 5.123 still causes mega-stutters on my system.

Jorgen

FSUIPC 5.123 still causes mega-stutters on my system.

 

Jorgen

Version 5.123c did. 5.123e shouldn't. If it does flipping back to 5.122 sorts it.

When I go to Dowson's site I only see v. 5.123 - where do you find 5.123e?

Jorgen

When I go to Dowson's site I only see v. 5.123 - where do you find 5.123e?

 

Jorgen

http://forum.simflight.com/topic/80977-updated-modules/

scroll down until:

FOR Prepar3D 4 (64-bit)

 

Install complete FSUIPC version 5.123c Install FSUIPC5.123c

This is the 64-bit equivalent to 4.972 above, but it remains an ongoing development. Please see the History document installed for you in the FSUIPC Documents folder for details of the changes since the very first release, 5.10, two months ago plus, for the changes since 5.11 document within the ZIP itself.

IMPORTANT: 5.123 and later versions are only suitable for use with P3D version 4.1 and later! They will not work correctly with version 4.0.

 

Also, note that Version 5.123 will work fine with the next P3D4 update.

 

An up-to-date list of assignable P3D4 controls is now produced automatically, in the PDF Documents folder, each time FSUIPC5 is used with a new build of P3D.

 

FSUIPC version 5.123e only, for those with 5.123 or later already installed FSUIPC 5.123e

 

-- Appears to fix assorted Simconnect programs which occurred between 5.123c and the released version of P3D4.2. ("Appears" in the sense that the specific reason for the odd happenings is unknown but is something internally going on between some new use of the PDK in FSUIPC, and facilities in SimConnect. Follow up on this is needed with L-M).

-- the 'e' version fixes a problem of the Options not opening in certain circumstances, notable with ProSim running.

Thanks, old buddy!

Jorgen

It sure did!

Thanks again -

Jorgen