Bad stutter and freezes on- and offline (in vr)

Hello everyone,

i've been having this problem for some time now (september or october 2017), was hoping the new performance patch would fix this, but it didn't. So i'm trying to make this first post as detailed as possible. Maybe someone else hat this problem and knows a solution?

What happens:
When ever i drive in rF2 with other cars on the track on- or offline in vr i get really bad stuttering, sometimes freezes (up to a second, mostly about 0.1 or 0.2 sec) which basically destroyed online racing for me.

Things i've already tried:
- reducing graphical options (framerate is overall ok, with the new patch even a lot better)
- increasing cpu priority
- using the "use thread" option in the controller.cfg
- updating drivers for sound, gpu, steering wheel etc. and bios, even tried some older drivers
- overclocking my ram
- cursing a lot
- disabling CSW 2.5 P1 LEDs
- putting the game on HDD and SSD
- *edit Oct. 2018* reinstalled Windows 10
- *edit Oct. 2018* connected the pedals directly to the wheel and via USB to the pc

My system (let me know if i forgot something important):
- Windows 10
- Ryzen 1600x
- Asus Prime B350 Plus mainboard
- GTX 1070 Super Jetstream
- 16 GB DDR4 3200 MHz (running at 2800 MHz because mainboard limitations)
- 600W BeQuiet Straight Power psu
- Fanatec CSW 2.5 with P1 wheel, CSR Elite pedals and Thrustmaster TH8A shifter
- Oculus Rift

More i've tried to find out what's causing the problem:
I also tried to gather some information what might be the cause. First though was other applications might steal some CPU/GPU/RAM, but that doesn't seem to be the case. This also happens in any other game (vr or not vr). I can drive without any problems online and offline with lots of cars in Assetto Corsa, RaceRoom, Automobilista and Project CARS 2. With higher settings the framerate might drop, but i don't get those short freezes/stutters i get in rF2.

Data i've gathered:
I have recorded some videos, used the ingame performance monitoring to log a lap and made some videos that show the problems + some additional information about what's going on with the CPU, Ram and CPU:

Video 1 (CPU usage):
The first video shows mainly my CPU usage in the Task Manager and Process Lasso. At about 0:55 is the largest stutter/freeze. When this happens online my car just disappears and reappears at the same location after the freeze is over. You can see it in this video, watch the blue car disappear and reappear in the mirror, that was my car)


Video 2 (GPU usage):
The second video stutters almost all the time (it's not just the recording, it's running like that on my system), but doesn't have any extrem freezes like in the previous video). It shows what the GPU is doing in the Task Manager and GPU-Z (watch the gpu spikes in the taskmanager when the stutter happens):


In case anyone is interested i also recorded a video without the games vr support (but i had to use the vr headset and Virtual Desktop because i can't see my monitor from my racing seat): The video is running smooth.


Sorry for this wall of text, but i wanted to answer as many questions as possible before someone's asking I also uploaded a performance log from one of the stuttery laps.

Hope someone has some ideas what might be the cause and what else i can try. rF2 is in terms of driving my favorite simulation, but especially online it is almost unplayable right now and not fair towards other drivers because those freezes might cause bad crashes. If you need some additional information just ask (answer could take a few hours).

 

Have you run the Oculus Debug Tool to check your Headroom? If the Headroom is very low, you will get poor performance in VR.

 

How to improve the headroom?

 

$64M dollar question @MaD_King - My specs are lower than yours and I currently run around the +45% headroom area. Like others I have made sure that my drivers are up to date and started at everything low or off. I then made gradual changes to improve the look and have most settings at Medium [Track detail etc] or on. Currently testing at Nola for the VEC 6hr race and just had rain. Ran well, but not had the other cars yet. I think for everyone, it's a question of suck it and see, there is no one answer. One thing that I do try to ensure is the Windows 10 Power plan on balanced, NOT Performance [something to do with the Sensor and USB port power!!]. However, W10 seems to keep wanting to change this for me!!

At the moment, I seem to have to run the Debug Tool at each track, to check the Headroom and adjust graphics settings as necessary - the problem I suppose with non stock vs stock tracks.

 

Some more things you can try:

1. test your hardware so know for sure its not at fault.
   
2. disable all things you don't use in bios.
   
3. make sure your CPU cores are not "parked". You can use this http://coderbag.com/Programming-C/CPU-core-parking-manager-v3
4. try windows default Sata drivers, Amd's are sometimes slower.
5. try removing audio driver.
   
6. try this tool to clean your ram cache in win 10 https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1256
7. in your rf2 player file switch to record replays to ram. There are also some more lines in there that can help with performance.
   
8. try capping the framerate.

 

Thanks for the replies, saw it just now, for some reason i didn't get any notification.

Anyway: This is not just a rF2 issue now. I started to get bad stuttering in RaceRoom, Project CARS 2, Assetto Corsa, FlyInside Flight Simulator and IL-2 Sturmovik Battle of Stalingrad as well. It COULD be an VR issue, but some other VR games like Skyrim VR, Serious Sam VR etc. run absolutely fine. FlyInside stutters even without VR, Forza Horizon 4 with VR via Virtual Desktop enabled runs quite good without any stutters

I checked and tried some more stuff:

- It's definitely not a performance headroom thing. Even when i reduce the graphics and resolution to minimum, drive alone on the track and set the Oculus Debug Tool to fixed 45 fps i get those little stutters.
- Tried to remove all my USB- and audio drivers, disabled my Realtek Audio in my Bios. And maybe i'm just imagining it, but it feels like without sound there is a bit less stutter happening. But i'm not sure, there definitely is some stutter left. I also tried an external USB sound device and the stutter is as bad as before. So it's not the Realtek sound alone.
- Removing my USB-stuff also didn't help, but at least the VR-stuff must remain plugged in, otherwise i can't test.

I'm also starting to think i get two different kinds of stutters. The small stutters i recorded here and some longer stutters/freezes, that only happen online (see MarcoSaupes thread: https://forum.studio-397.com/index.php?threads/a-single-freeze-during-online-races.61342/ ). I thought they were caused by the same issue, but now i think those are completely different things.

And i made some screenshots with MSI Afterburner of my GPU-behavior while playing (usually MSI Afterburner is not installed, so that's definitely not the cause) and i noticed: Every few seconds the GPU-usage goes down a bit and the frametimes get higher. GPU/PSU issue maybe? I have no idea what's causing it. The only way to avoid it (or reduce it, it never goes away completely) is to activate vsync.

Here is a screenshot of MSI Afterburner (GPU Auslastung = GPU usage, Speicher Geschwindigkeit = RAM speed, Auslagerungsdatei Auslastung = page file usage):



It's really weird and i'm confused. I'm starting to think: Maybe i should trash this whole system, buy a new CPU, new mainboard, new RAM and a new PSU because my Ryzen system isn't powerful enough for X-Plane, DCS etc. anyway. It's getting really frustrating to the point where i can't enjoy racing and flying simulations in vr at all.

If anyone 's got more ideas what the cause of all of this could be: That would be great. Problem is: I don't have any additional hardware laying around to test another GPU, mainboard, PSU, Ram etc. That would make things a lot easier i guess.

Haven't tried that yet, i think i'll try this now and see what happens. *edit* No difference, still lots of stuttering.

 

I'm just curious if you tried point nr. 6.
Also, is it possible to try Win 7 or 8.1 on your system ?

 

Yep, i read about that emptystandbylist tool a while ago and tried it, didn't do much.

Going back to Win 7 or 8.1 is not an option for me. Don't have a key for either of those and downgrading is something, that should never be the solution to a problem. Other people use Win 10 and they don't have any problems.

 

If you have this windows 10 update
KB4100347
Uninstall and try your games

Why has my writing just gone bold

 

This sounds interesting. Read some stuff about that update and i'll try this tomorrow. If this does something your writing deserves to be bold.

 

GPU usage typically goes down when the CPU cannot feed the GPU quickly enough with new data, so it wouldn't indicate a GPU problem at least. Reasons for erratic CPU performance could be the throttling down of clocks due to heat/overclocking or some background software periodically using the CPU.

 

I've seen this issue before, so worth a try. Go in windows power option and select your option, balanced or performance. Go to minimum process state and change it to 99% or 100% save and exit. Good luck. Also delete cbash folder before start in user data.

 

Little update:

I didn't have much time to test a lot this week, but at least in some games it feels like uninstalling that KB4100347 update helped at least a bit (maybe it's just a placebo). I can drive around in rF2 a lot without getting much stuttering, but then suddenly it starts again (especially in races, not so much during practice alone on the track), first very subtle and and then more noticable. Didn't have time to test it online yet, so i can't say whether it helped to fix the longer freezes i had a few times or not.

And it's certainly not a temperature issue. Both GPU and CPU temperature are quite low and it doesn't look like it's a power issue as well since both CPU and GPU don't throttle down when the stutter happens. It's just that the GPU usage goes down suddenly.

Deleting the content inside the cbash and shader folder was one of the first things i've tried, but it didn't do anything.

 

Does your motherboard have xmp? If so make sure it's enabled.

 

@Neawoulf

If your hardware is overclocked especially the CPU, disable any overclocking.
Put your bios at default.
Download park control and process lasso pro (BITSUM).

All this brings together may be able to solve your problem.

See also if by pressing CTRL + F, the stuttering disappears (before the beta dx11 it solved my stuttering problems).

 

Sorry the answer took a while, i didn't have internet for about a week (technology certainly doesn't like me).

It's definitely not any overclocking related issue since both my CPU and GPU are running on stock values. I tried process lasso as well a few months ago, increased the priority for rF2 and the Oculus software, but it also didn't help.

*edit* And yes: XMP is enabled. I tried running the RAM on different speeds. The only difference is that the system starts to get unstable beyond 3000 mhz, which is a known issue with the Ryzen systems. Currently the RAM is running at 2800 mhz and the system runs very stable. */edit*

But it feels like the stuttering is a lot less present since i uninstalled that KB4100347 updated. So that might be at least one of the culprits. I didn't have time to race online yet, but i'll try to do that as well soon. Maybe ... just maybe the issue is solved? I hope so.

Btw. is there any way to prevent windows from reinstalling that KB4100347 update? Every time a regular windows update arrives it reinstalls the other update as well which is quite annoying. Of course uninstalling it again is always an option, but not a very comfortable one.

 

I have the same problem as you. With video sync it is quite stable and smooth (but big input lag), anything else gives all these micro stutters. Tried anything from fast sync to capping framerates and much more but nothing helped.

And also for me the uninstall of patch KB4100347 improved a lot.

My specs:
Triple screen 5760x1080
GTX 1060
Core i5-6500
16 gb ram
Windows 10

As uninstalling a security patch does not seem to be the best idea I hope a better solution will be found.

 

My take on this is the low singe core performance of the AMD chips.
I have a 2700x and while the multi core performance is amazing and blows away the Intels the singe core is far off.

 

I’ll post a link to a Microsoft page that shows you how to hide updates for win 10 so it stops them being installed after you uninstall them

 

@Neawoulf
Have you tried any BIOS updates lately ?