Hello, For what it's worth i just want to share how i solved my performance problems. my system i7 860 (quad)@2.8Ghz ATI HD 5850 i play at 1920*1080 everything on high, no shadows Software V-sync I had lots, lots of stuttering and low fps The main problem was HT(hyper threading) After i disabled that in bios, the stuttering was gone. then i monitored my cpu temperature, hell on 100% cpu load after a few minutes it was going as high as 99°celsius beceause of this my cpu was downclocking to +- 1.3Ghz I opened my pc case and removed the dust inside the cpu cooler. Did a test again (encoded a movie with handbrake), my temps are now under control, i can say that temps are at least 20° lower, my cpu does not downclock any longer. I should buy a new cpu cooler, i'm using the stock cooler. The last thing i did was the fix that MarcG proposed: POTENTIAL FIX OK this worked for me: Open your player.PLR file and find this line: Flush Previous Frame="0" // Make sure command queue from previous frame is finished (may help prevent stuttering) Change the 0 to a 1 Finally i can enjoy rFactor 2 again My system is now able to give me an FPS, +- equal to my monitor's refresh rate (59), almost on every track, with every car. I did not test them al but i have those 59 fps with Skip Barber at Limerock. If you have good performance at Limerock the the other tracks should be cool also. Online gameplay is also going great. I'm just glad i can enjoy the game again.
You might be interrested in reading this: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/...radeon-drivers-to-reduce-frame-latency-spikes
99 Celsius? Not good man.. No wonder why you had problems.. Hyperthreading is known for bringing extra heat to CPU, so before you turned it off it was probably more than 99 Celsius and that caused you problems, high temps. Get yourself a new cooler, also get some good thermal paste, Arctic has good ones, it can lower your temps even up to 10 C. On 100% cpu load your temps should not exceed 80-85C.. When you get stable temps, turn on HT again and see if its causing you stutters in game, I don't remember seeing that HT caused such thing, I would rather keep it on..
TJ Max for my i7 is 99°C. Tj max stands for Tjunction Max. When this temperature is reached my cpy will throttle(downclock), So it will never go higher then TJ MAX. you can monitor your cpu temps with multiple programs, i used a program called "Core Temp". The program also indicates the TJ max for my CPU.
if you have that temp you dont have a problem with the game, you have a big problem with the heatsink of the CPU, and more if you are running on Stock, and did not done any OC... The most important is searching for another heatsink, normally the heatsink provided by intel are so bad..is better an aftermarket one, will improve so much your temps...
This PLR file option is obsolete since the first update, and has been replaced by the GPU Sync option available either from the rFConfig program, or from the in-game UI Setting/Video Res tab. The functionality is the same, it's just from a different setting now.
Unless your overclocking the crap out of your i7 you have a problem! temps should be around 60°C at max you need to re-apply thermal paste.
Hi All, A good subject and one I have been meaning to post for a few days myself! I was having some stuttering etc on high quality tracks (ISI's own) and also on quite a few of the one's I have converted for personal use. Here's what got me great frame rates, plenty of CPU for physics and ALL stuttering completely gone!!!! My System First: OS. Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit. Latest AMD Catalyst Beta Drivers 12.11_Beta11 I have ALL settings in AMD's Vision Control Center set to allow GAME to decide best settings like AA etc. ------------------------------------ AMD Phenom 2 X4 955 BE O'Clocked @3500Ghz. Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 7850 2048 GB (Factory O'Clocked). ASUS M5 A78L USB3 (AM3+) Full ATX Motherboard. 8 GB single module Corsair Balistix Sport DDR3 1066 RAM. HANNS.G 28 inch 1900x1200 LCD Monitor. 650 Watt PSU. Etc Etc. My Rfactor 2 in game settings: Game Res 1900x1200 @60Htz (I always use my monitors maximum res). AA Level 4 SYNC: Video Circuit Detail: FULL Player Detail: HIGH Opponent Detail: MEDIUM Texture Detail: FULL Texture Filter: X16 Anisotropic Special Effects: FULL Shadows: MEDIUM Shadow Blur: OFF Movies: ON Sun Occlusion: YES Rain Drops: YES Road Reflection: YES Environment Reflection: YES Wind and Crowd Motion: YES Visible Vehicles: 14 (Could probably go a lot higher). 24 AI Drivers and myself (25). (I always race 24+ AI if track allows it). Mirrors: ON (Often use Virtual Mirrors in cockpit too). Hope I haven't missed anything important but all the main settings which can affect performance seem to be here. I was using pretty similar settings except for No Sync, No Road reflection (FPS Killer for me before), no wind/crowd movement, Low shadows and no Environment reflection (another FPS Killer for me). I was getting anywhere between 100 - 280 FPS on average on various ISI and/Or my converted tracks but of course micro stutters here and there on quite a few tracks, though not all, but it was enough to be very annoying and spoiled the experience of racing with the AI. I then searched in the forum and realised that having 100 - 280 FPS sounds great until you realise that it's not in sync with the monitors refresh rate (60Htz) so you're not seeing things in "real time" as you're driving. No wonder I couldn't catch the car on time half the time when in a spin etc lol. So now the things I changed to make ALL STUTTERING go away for good, Have all the settings as you see them above, have constant great FPS and just as important, SEE things happening on track etc in REAL TIME!! All credits go to the various posters in the forum here and for their patient work and sharing the info with the rest of us. I have been reading that some of these "cures" don't work for everyone and they keep having "stuttering" in game no matter what they try. I would just say keep trying various sync etc settings and hopefully all will be well. Here's all I did: Set SYNC to VIDEO In your player file, find the line "Max Framerate=" I have this set to this Max Framerate="62.00000" Again in player file, find Flush "Previous Frame=" I have this set to this Flush Previous Frame="1" One more thing I did which I think helped a LOT with the micro stutters. Change the line in your player file, Record To Memory="0" to Record To Memory="1" I would only advise the last option if you have 8GB+ memory available to the game, although it may work with 32bit Windows and 3.25GB RAM just as well if you don't do very, very long races (say 25+Laps). With these simple changes, Rfactor 2 has become a different game and is now just pure fun and a pleasure to drive against 24AI. On "most" tracks, that 62 FPS stays pretty much constant except maybe on tracks like ISI's Brianza 66 etc, Full rain/Storm conditions where it will dip to approx 35-55 FPS ONLY when passing the pit area with cars all around you. It's still very smooth and once past the pits it maintains a constant 62 FPS again!! Although Rfactor is still in Beta, I think it's already superb fun and a great simulator. It has the finest AI of any "Racing Sim/Game" I have ever played (And I've played/modded em all over the years lol). At long, long last a great single player experience for those of us who prefer to do our racing offline! I can't wait to see it evolve with great mods, plugins etc etc in future. I just wish ISI would make a tutorial for us who like to convert/mod tracks about the new AIW editor features like "Ready AI Speed Test" and "Reverb" etc. Ah well, I guess they're pretty busy and this info will come out in time. For now I will just continue using it the same way as the RF1 AIW Editor. Many thanks to all the posters who allowed me to find the info needed to make a great game utterly brilliant and so sorry for such a long post. Hope it helps a lot of you improve your RF2 experience too Andy_RF2
Things that I find can possibly help in reducing stutters and get some FPS, is changing this BIOS setup: - PCI Express speed - PCI bus latency - PCI primary slot PCI Express Speed My motherboard originally had a 100MHz PCI-E, I changed that to 115MHz. The FPS increase is not that much in rF2 (only 2-5 FPS), but quite big a jump in F1C (up to 10 FPS). But more importantly, for me, the stutter in rF2 is reduced further now. PCI Bus Latency I think this setting doesn't matter that much for today's graphic cards, but I could be wrong. The setting I use is either the lowest setting (32 in my mobo) or the highest setting (250 in my mobo). You need to try it yourself. I also need to do some more experiment with this setting. PCI Primary Slot My motherboard can define its primary graphic card slot, which by default is set to PCI. Changing this to PCI-Express should help although frankly I couldn't see the effect of it in game. Naturally I changed it to PCI-Express since I don't use regular PCI VGA card.
PCI Primary Slot is asking where to look first for the graphics card. About the only thing that this will help is with boot up speeds as the system won't have to poll every buss looking for the GPU. This is also helpful when using multiple GPU's as you are telling the system which GPU to use to send the graphics data to for display on your monitors.
PCI Express Speed can help to speed up GPU and give some extra power and frames but with some extra heat too. I run that at 110 Mhz, some people go higher, I've seen 125 Mhz. But one should be careful with that. PCI Bus Latency is best to keep somewhere in the middle, or a bit above 32. That doesn't affect GPU performance because it's PCIe, but can affect performance of other devices, sound problems etc. If you don't have any problems, you can leave it as is.
Flush Previous Frame in the PLR still works though, I had noticed that setting GPU Sync in rFConfig didn't change the Flush Previous Frame PLR setting.
With all of this info you failed to mention the setting that has by far the most impact on frame rates for AMD graphics cards: the Anti-Aliasing Mode. The only mode that looks good (relative to other racing sims) is Super-Sample AA. Unless you have your card set to that (in the CCC), all the other settings mean very little. If you don't (and are using Adaptive Multi-Sample AA, or god help you plain Multi-Sample AA), then prepare for your system to be brought to its knees...while you enjoy looking at rF2 the way it's supposed to look!
I agree with this. I was always irritated by the flickering of distant objects and aliasing that seemed to remain in some parts of the image. When I started using 8x Super-Sample AA (override game settings in Catalyst Control Center) I simply could not bear to return to inferior methods of antialiasing. I can gaze into the distance and see a pleasingly accurate image. Painted lines on the road do not break up into jagged fragments in the distance. SSAA does kill my frame rate. I only get 30-45 fps but I think it is acceptable.
I was just concentrating on the main theme of eliminating stuttering when I wrote all that info in the hope it would help some people However, you are correct in saying that I failed to mention anything about detailed settings in the AMD CCC. I looked at those settings and tested various AA settings for an hour this morning. You guessed correctly that they were set to Multi-Sample AA. I then changed to Adaptive Multi-Sample AA and loaded up Brianza 66. The FPS was lower as expected but very playable with approx 39FPS on start of race increasing to 45-59FPS once past the pit area with the occasional drop to 39-45 on about one other part of the track. Game still VERY playable and still NO Stuttering seen anywhere. Game was fluid and smooth with all other settings exactly as in my other post. I then changed up to SSAA only with all other settings remaining the same. Start of race on grid (24AI), 26-35FPS. Once past the pits, back up to an average of 34-44FPS!! Fluid, smooth and still completely playable with physics (CTRL+C) remaining constant and only half way across as it's (apparently) meant to be. Again, not one SINGLE STUTTER in pratcise, qual or race!! So in conclusion, "Bring the system to it's knees" is not what I experienced at all. If that were the case the RF2, or most other games would be very slow, totally UN-playable and giving maybe 20FPS or less. What I did find out was this, and many will disagree I know and that's fine as we all have our own opinions and views and see the game in different ways. I found that the "visual" difference between Multi-Sample AA, Adaptive Multi-Sample AA and the highest and best looking SSAA is not as great as I expected and that "jaggies" and other "artifacts" on screen close and distant don't look too bad even with Multi-Sample AA. I guess one has to decide between best looking image quality and as few jaggies as possible on fences, barriers and road markings etc. My personal view is that I prefer having the more fluid and smooth 62FPS just about everywhere on track and still having a great looking game with only using Multi-Sample AA or at a push Adaptive Multi-Sample AA. Just my opinion on this and I have no doubt other people will have a different view. I just enjoy RF2 the way I enjoy it and best of all, NO MORE STUTTERING CARS right in front of me which was totally spoiling the enjoyment!!!! Andy_RF2
