Logging Out-of-Realtime Physics Freezes [public-test]

[massimiliano1970]

The weird thing is, it never happened that much until recently. What does spdlog do? I googled it but the info is a bit sketchy.

massimiliano1970, it isn't deleting replay saves, it's a setting in your player.json, "Record To Memory":true. Setting it to true buffers replays to RAM instead of writing to disk at regular intervals. Try it if you're having regular stutters, it might help.

Thanks, I tried to put true, I had no improvement

 

[Ronaldoz]

I'm not entirely sure and have not read this thread that much, but to ensure it is not your hardware, I think you need to check:

- there are no computer updates (Windows) going on, you all probably checked it, but oke..
- if it's not 1 CPU core that is probably working at 100% (this is different then general / package CPU usage)
- if you are not running out of GPU video memory
- if the GPU does not hit 100% (I guess that means the CPU core clock)
- if your power supply unit, does not use more wattage then it could handle. (you never know)

I do have a bit faster PC then I used a couple of months ago, and I do not really got any performance issues anymore. Also not with replays. But at the somewhat older PC, I did have issues. But they where related to the hardware.

!? //In general I would just lower some settings. What I find usefull is to lower texture and detail related settings. Because that actually can make those stutters / freezing happen.

I hope someone could actually test that last suggestion. It helped me a lot, because I think rFactor 2 is heavy on texture / details kinda settings. Beside night / much AI / rain off course.

 

[Tygernoot]

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestions.

However, this really appears to be very much game-related.

The freeze occurs only once (to me at least), at 33 or 35 minutes (don't remember exactly) into the session, whereas the rest of the session I am running at 100+ FPS without a problem. This is regardless of the track, the FPS, the memory usage, the replay settings, etc.

I am on a reasonably modern system (Ryzen 3600, 32GB, GF1070, SSD's...). I don't experience anything similar in other games. If it were to depend on a 'faulty' system, people wouldn't be experiencing the exact same issue at the same interval. It would be intermittent. Instead, this problem is very much reproducible. It only appears to block the renderer now, whereas before it also blocked the physics. The car continues to drive on while the screen is frozen.

I checked the activity during the freeze, and the CPU and GPU activity actually drop considerably, as if they were idle. IMO there is something in the game causing a thread to hang for a short period.

That said, there might be ways to reduce this freeze. People have been trying to change replay, graphics and Windows settings throughout this thread, but nothing really conclusive to where the problem might be.

 

[OdeFinn]

Can somebody explain why setting "Inactive Sleep Time":-1, in player.json changes game snappier? I was in belief of that setting effect only when game is on background..

 

[kashif]

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestions.

However, this really appears to be very much game-related.

The freeze occurs only once (to me at least), at 33 or 35 minutes (don't remember exactly) into the session, whereas the rest of the session I am running at 100+ FPS without a problem. This is regardless of the track, the FPS, the memory usage, the replay settings, etc.

I am on a reasonably modern system (Ryzen 3600, 32GB, GF1070, SSD's...). I don't experience anything similar in other games. If it were to depend on a 'faulty' system, people wouldn't be experiencing the exact same issue at the same interval. It would be intermittent. Instead, this problem is very much reproducible. It only appears to block the renderer now, whereas before it also blocked the physics. The car continues to drive on while the screen is frozen.

I checked the activity during the freeze, and the CPU and GPU activity actually drop considerably, as if they were idle. IMO there is something in the game causing a thread to hang for a short period.

That said, there might be ways to reduce this freeze. People have been trying to change replay, graphics and Windows settings throughout this thread, but nothing really conclusive to where the problem might be.

I think I'm having the same problem as you.

 

[DJCruicky]

Hi,

The freeze occurs only once (to me at least), at 33 or 35 minutes (don't remember exactly) into the session, whereas the rest of the session I am running at 100+ FPS without a problem. This is regardless of the track, the FPS, the memory usage, the replay settings, etc.

This correspond with my pause I had in a league race last night.
I joined the server about 6:55pm and had a screen freeze about 7:30pm.
Also steam made a Dump. The timestamp is the same as the pause.

I am confused, this 35 minute bug was fixed in one update, then broken in one of the next.

 

[Bernd]

Let me answer the very valid question that @Bernd is asking. As most of you know, the problems that a few people are having with "freezes" are very hard to reproduce and (so far) diagnose for us. They have been reported for quite a while and we have always tried to follow up with users reporting them, but what has made it hard for us is that nobody can really reproduce this easily and for some people the problem only happens maybe hours into their session, at a frequency of maybe once a month. And this has caused me (it was my decision) to decide that in this special case we wanted logging to be on for everybody, at least until we gather more data and get a better grip on the problem. And this was done for two reasons:

1. The obvious one, we want to make sure that, if someone reports such an issue, we at least have a basic log file (only that option is on by default) that will show us the freeze and some information about it.
2. We are actually also gathering some data from users who do not have problems, just to make sure we also have a good understanding of the data we see when things are fine.

Just to be clear, this logging is only enabled by default for a limited time. As soon as we have a better grip on this issue (or issues) we will change this logging to become optional. I hope that clarifies our decision, and I also hope that people keep reporting freezes they have. So far we already have a few logs that help us, but we can still use more, so let's keep this topic "on topic" by posting those so our developers can keep analyzing data instead of wading through pages of discussions (which you are free to have in other topics, I'm not telling anybody to shut up).

I again have to repeat my whish to get an option that deactivates these logs.
I don't understand why this option can not be implemented.
It can still be set to log basic files by default, but it should have the option to deactivate it.
You have written, "Just to be clear, this logging is only enabled by default for a limited time. As soon as we have a better grip on this issue (or issues) we will change this logging to become optional."
So please, add the option to deactivate it.

 

[Filip]

I again have to repeat my whish to get an option that deactivates these logs.
I don't understand why this option can not be implemented.
It can still be set to log basic files by default, but it should have the option to deactivate it.
You have written, "Just to be clear, this logging is only enabled by default for a limited time. As soon as we have a better grip on this issue (or issues) we will change this logging to become optional."
So please, add the option to deactivate it.

Answer lays within the quote.
I guess they still don't have a better grip on the issue.
These problems can be hard to track.

Why do you want to turn off this logging?
Does it affect performance or just fills the disk?
Remind me please as maybe I want I want to turn it off too. I completely forgot about this.

 

[Bernd]

Answer lays within the quote.
I guess they still don't have a better grip on the issue.
These problems can be hard to track.

Why do you want to turn off this logging?
Does it affect performance or just fills the disk?
Remind me please as maybe I want I want to turn it off too. I completely forgot about this.

For me it's a basic thing, because i hate to have things running that are not necessary and/or not wanted, like, for example, background activities from installed software, that grab and send informations to the developer of the software, that can not be controlled by the user.
Such things, whenever i notice these, get eliminated immediately.
And if not possible, the software gets uninstalled in most of the cases.
And in this case, i also don't understand why there can not be an option to completely deactivate it.
There is absolutely no reason for that.
To get that option, has no bad influence or restricts something.
The default setting is "activated at low level", then you have the option to activate the higher level and the option to completely deactivate it.
Where is the problem?
And that writing data to an ssd wears it down, is just another argument.
If it's not necessary to write the data, because i have no problems that have to be logged, it's annoying.
And to the people that maybe again call me selfish: it has nothing to do with being selfish, because i don't take away something from others.
I just want to be able to turn off a for me unnecessary function.
Is that so hard to understand?

 

[Tygernoot]

I don’t recall the folder those logs are stored in, but have you tried making it read-only to see if that prevents them from being created? Maybe the game will just override the permissions again, but worth a shot

 

[Filip]

For me it's a basic thing, because i hate to have things running that are not necessary and/or not wanted, like, for example, background activities from installed software, that grab and send informations to the developer of the software, that can not be controlled by the user.
Such things, whenever i notice these, get eliminated immediately.
And if not possible, the software gets uninstalled in most of the cases.
And in this case, i also don't understand why there can not be an option to completely deactivate it.
There is absolutely no reason for that.
To get that option, has no bad influence or restricts something.
The default setting is "activated at low level", then you have the option to activate the higher level and the option to completely deactivate it.
Where is the problem?
And that writing data to an ssd wears it down, is just another argument.
If it's not necessary to write the data, because i have no problems that have to be logged, it's annoying.
And to the people that maybe again call me selfish: it has nothing to do with being selfish, because i don't take away something from others.
I just want to be able to turn off a for me unnecessary function.
Is that so hard to understand?

I understand your point, I was just asking for my self.
I also try to minimize or remove unnecessary process for one reason only: performance.
But I guess there is no significant performance impact nor disk occupancy so I won't bother with it.
Or has anybody done test for different log levels?

Btw you can try what Tygernoot said.

 

[Ryan_Walker]

Ended up getting a screen freeze last night on the server for one of the endurance leagues I take part in.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5s70d6y1dp5qb9f/NO_REPLAY_4_V5__RealTimeLogging_PT.csv?dl=0

 

[mantasisg]

Been having freezes for quite a bit of time now, maybe two months. Here I had quite significant freeze racing AI singleplayer with 1967endurance mod cars, second lap braking into T1.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/1jjvfll433m7kf0/Zandvoort_freeze_2ndlap.rar/file

 

[OdeFinn]

@Bernd one option which can he turned off/on, maybe you want to try
Disabling Windows RAM Compression
As administrator on PowerShell (right click on start...)
Check current status (prints on screen):
Get-mmagent

Switch off:
Desable-mmagent -mc

Switch on:
Enable-mmagent -mc

Restart computer after change.

For me it "flattens the curve" on VR frametimes and makes snappies windows.

 

[M Lynn]

So, after testing further, I STILL get the occasional big freezes. What's more, I've been checking the time in-game that it happens, and the biggest one usually happens between 32.5 and 33 minutes into the session, which sort of agrees with what Tygernoot says above. It's happened several times now, big freeze and the car carries on and I run off the road. It doesn't happen with other games or sims either.

 

[OdeFinn]

@M Lynn which tricks you have tried for fixing it?
Ok my case stutters originally started alongside with some windows update, after that I have altered several settings and current situation is stutter free.
Kinda list of my changes,
dropped older nvidia driver (439 if recall right) because then newest wasn't working fluently with shadow play and older gives better performance.
Disabled cpu's "external" SA sniffer, chip on mboard, controlled thru USB2 logic (this makes dirt rally 2 stutter a lot)
Lockeed AVX 1:1 with cpu multiplier
Updated ignore list on antivirus
Switched off windows disk cache flush
Switched off replay compression - game
switched off texture compression - game
Switched off background delay timer - game
Switched off windows RAM Compression

What things you have tried?

 

[Neawoulf]

Some of these points sound interesting and i haven't tried them yet. But i can't a lot of information about some of them and to be honest: I'm not sure i want to mess around with any system settings to get just one game to run better. Also i'm afraid those changed may cause issues somewhere else.

Disabled cpu's "external" SA sniffer, chip on mboard, controlled thru USB2 logic (this makes dirt rally 2 stutter a lot)

Haven't tried this and i can't find any information in google about it. How do i change this? Is it a BIOS setting? And does it work with all mainboard/cpus (i'm using a Ryzen 3600X on a Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite)? And what exactly does it do? Can it cause issues anywhere else?

Lockeed AVX 1:1 with cpu multiplier

Basically the same questions as above.

Switched off windows disk cache flush

I could do that, but i heard it can cause data loss if something bad happens (system crash, power loss etc.) Is it safe to use on the game SSD only (and does it do anything if not enabled on the system SSD)? Don't really want to risk anything with my system SSD.

Switched off background delay timer - game

Just tried to find this in the config files ... is it in the player.JSON? Only thing i can find there is "Delay Video Swap" and it's on "false".

Switched off windows RAM Compression

I read about this some time ago, but i also read that windows doesn't use RAM compression if there's enough free RAM left. I have 32 GB, so i don't think rF2 + Crewchief + VR software will ever use all my RAM. Is it still worth a try or is this something i can ignore with 32 GB of RAM?

 

[Lazza]

I read about this some time ago, but i also read that windows doesn't use RAM compression if there's enough free RAM left. I have 32 GB, so i don't think rF2 + Crewchief + VR software will ever use all my RAM. Is it still worth a try or is this something i can ignore with 32 GB of RAM?

You can check for yourself any time you want via the task manager, but it probably is doing some compression - right now I have 8.9GB free but 446MB compressed RAM (from 1600MB uncompressed).

Does it effect game performance? I think it's a long shot, as Windows does actually tend to be fairly smart on what it does and doesn't compress, but I guess it's something to test. Probably in isolation, to eliminate it as a cause.

 

[Neawoulf]

You can check for yourself any time you want via the task manager, but it probably is doing some compression - right now I have 8.9GB free but 446MB compressed RAM (from 1600MB uncompressed).

Does it effect game performance? I think it's a long shot, as Windows does actually tend to be fairly smart on what it does and doesn't compress, but I guess it's something to test. Probably in isolation, to eliminate it as a cause.

You're right, most of the stuff in my RAM is uncompressed, but a few MB are not. I think i'll try this later.

 

[OdeFinn]

Some of these points sound interesting and i haven't tried them yet. But i can't a lot of information about some of them and to be honest: I'm not sure i want to mess around with any system settings to get just one game to run better. Also i'm afraid those changed may cause issues somewhere else.



Haven't tried this and i can't find any information in google about it. How do i change this? Is it a BIOS setting? And does it work with all mainboard/cpus (i'm using a Ryzen 3600X on a Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite)? And what exactly does it do? Can it cause issues anywhere else?

This is not used by CPU control, it is only for user to see what voltages there are, cpu/bios values are handled on other hardware, so safe to disable.
If you see that "NUC126" and values under it on HWINFO64, then it's enabled, and after disabling and restarting HWINFO app there is no NUC line when successfully disabled. On upper picture it is enabled to show you what it shows.
yes it might be a bit hunt to find right USB Input Device, but usually its one of last ones.

Basically the same questions as above.

In BIOS called AVX offset, change it to 0, if you have overclocked heavily your cpu, then just remember at it will pump heat on synthetic stress testers, my i7-8700k is pumped to 5ghz all core, and AVX 0 will put on those testers thermals pretty high, none of actual real world app do that.

I could do that, but i heard it can cause data loss if something bad happens (system crash, power loss etc.) Is it safe to use on the game SSD only (and does it do anything if not enabled on the system SSD)? Don't really want to risk anything with my system SSD.

only marginal risk increment, can be activated/disable per disk

Just tried to find this in the config files ... is it in the player.JSON? Only thing i can find there is "Delay Video Swap" and it's on "false".

player.json

I read about this some time ago, but i also read that windows doesn't use RAM compression if there's enough free RAM left. I have 32 GB, so i don't think rF2 + Crewchief + VR software will ever use all my RAM. Is it still worth a try or is this something i can ignore with 32 GB of RAM?

windows RAM compression is always activated as default, how much it will analyse/use you ram content is up to windows.
you can check status of state on PowerShell, and sort of active compression is shown as @Lazza told.

texture compression on player.json:

my nvidia system info and settings