frame skips or stutters

Tygernoot

Hello all,

I have changed a few months ago from an AMD 6870 to an AMD 7950, a new 27" screen and installed an SSD as well. For the rest I have a Core i5 with 8GB RAM.

Ever since changing my setup I have this strange frame skip in rFactor that I cannot seem to remove. Every 5-10 seconds the game seems to hang for a fraction of a second. It's like 2 to 4 frames go missing, which is quite substantial and annoying in racing as you lack visual feedback and steering input during that time. It doesn't make it impossible to race, but I do notice it and it does have a small influence on the driving.

It's not an issue of simple fps drops. With v-sync the FPS stays stable at 61 running at 2560x1440 (60Hz being the screen refresh rate, I assume rF displays 61 by mistake or because it already renders the next frame) and without v-sync it goes anywhere between 60 and 400 depending on the track/amount of cars/etc. But regardless of the framerate, the frame skip keeps happening.

When watching a replay it never occurs at the same moment, just at a random 5-10s interval there's this tiny stutter.

I tried different resolutions, different settings, did a format and reinstall of Windows 7 (64-bit), but nothing seems to help. BIOS is up-to-date, I'm using the latest AMD drivers every time, all device drivers are installed, I have the rFactor versions installed on both the SSD and my previous regular HD, the HD does not appear to interact during racing (like swapping causing the frame skip), the CPU and GPU are not overheating at all despite being overclocked, etc.

The strange thing is that this only happens in rFactor (both 1 and 2). This is not a common issue for all games. Which makes me think there's a bug/flaw/issue in the rFactor engine causing this to happen. Perhaps it's something in the latest AMD cards series (7) or drivers? Perhaps I should have switched back to nVIDIA instead of taking another AMD card, but after my last 2 nVIDIA cards either fried or started showing artifacts I decided to give AMD a go and was quite happy up till now :rolleyes:

So now I'm running out of ideas... Does anyone else experience this stutter?

Thanks and best regards,
Tyger.
 
This is prolly no help but i've had the same issue once and it turned out a program tried to update itself every once in a while.
it was not allowed to update itself but tried anyways and i would get these skips in rf every 10 seconds.

i think it was avg, they had a faulty update once which caused this.

But, as far as i know rf should run smoothly by default, i dont think a new gfx card or hdd will cause such problems.
Maybe your new monitor wants to update itself :)

For the rest i have no clue.
 
BUMP i have the same issue.. almost like screen tearing.. I have a steady 120 fps but my screen is stutering
 
I have the same issue here too......

Fps is no issue either (can go up to 5 or 600 if wanted) but the stutter or hanging stays. This too after an update.
Tried all kinds of settings, but no help.
The thing that helped somewhat was setting the "max framerate" in the plr file to 60; now it's a bit less.

Wasn't there some "old trick" that could solve this? I can't remember.


Edit; had (almost) the same thing in rF2, but that was helped by cleaning the system (defrag and stuff) and setting a swap file; now 2 runs fine, this still doesn't.
 
Be sure you use +fullproc on the command line, disable VSync and then edit this line in your PLR file:
Code: 
Max Framerate="-60"

Note: That needs to be -60 not 60

These two changes almost always completely remove micro stutters.
 
If you look at the comment to the right of the "Max Framerate" setting it says:
Code: 
new: use negative values for alternate timing

Not sure exactly what it does different but it has been shown to help with micro stutters. I have also heard that you can remove the input lag caused by VSync if you set "Max Framerate" to -60 (or what ever you have VSync set to). I haven't tested this myself though. I don't use VSync.
 
Thanks Noel,

I tried it out and indeed the stutter was less, but almost the same as when I had the max framerate to 60.
It seems to "divide" the stutter; where TS said it's missing 4 frames, now it is as if 4 times 1 frame is missing.......hope you get my drift. It looks like the system is to light and when the start is there, the fps drops to 20 or 30.....you know what I mean? It looks like that, but the fps is in fact sometimes even 700....still does that.

The best result I got, was the fullproc with no max fps and setting the .exe file to compatibility with Windows XP sp3. Then it's at it's best for now. (v-sync off btw)
 
Turn down your resolution that should decrease the effect of the bottleneck in your system

Maybe a scale back if details too or a mixture of both

Think most pc users push their pcs to hard
 
I understand, but with 700 fps, I can't think of a bottleneck? The fps don't go down either when it's stuttering. Btw; I already tried turning the resolution down; didn't work.
 
I'm on nvidia & no problems like stutter or micro pausing at all

My friend has a bit of micro pausing he is on AMD 6950

Maybe it is an AMD problem ? -something in the ISI software causing it with AMD cards I mean
 
Noel, I don't know what this means

Be sure you use +fullproc on the command line
Click to expand...
Could you explain where you are entering this... what command line?
 
It depends on how you run the game. If you have an rF shortcut on your desktop: right click, Properties. In the Target field, add +fullproc after rFactor.exe (with a space) and before the closing " if they are used.

If you use something like a steering wheel profiler or some other launcher, well there are so many I couldn't list them all, but somewhere you may be able to specify the path to rFactor.exe, so you add +fullproc onto the end of it.

For the thread in general:
I don't know about AMD cards, but with several NVidia cards the problem was caused by pre-rendered frames. AMD cards might have the same issue. A search on Google should soon reveal how to change that setting (again, too many options to be listed in this post).
 
Kiro said:
not choke it with 60
Click to expand...

Well it is sort of pointless to run it higher then 60 if your LCD only runs 60hz. You just generate frames that never get displayed. I wish there were more options for 120hz LCDs without paying a ton of money.
 
It's not an AMD problem because I have it and don't have any stutters but I have v-sync(Video) enabled.
 
I built a brand new machine (specs in my profile) and had some stuttering at first. All of my graphics were maxed to test out the new system and graphics card. What it came down to for me was Shadows in game. I turned shadows to low (or off) and shadow blur off and no more stutters for me. Seems some courses that are very nice to look at have problems for me with shadows.

Just a suggestion. :)
 
Noel Hibbard said:
Well it is sort of pointless to run it higher then 60 if your LCD only runs 60hz. You just generate frames that never get displayed. I wish there were more options for 120hz LCDs without paying a ton of money.
Click to expand...
Yep, we've all been through that many times.
Different strokes for different folks.
Plus I'm sure we all know that the fps will run like 10% over whatever you set the cap at.
I run rF1 maxed out and never had a problem. I do get some tearing If I don't cap the fps.
My previous fix for that was more than 1 pre-rendered frame.
Now I run 1 and just cap it.

I read a thread in the rF2 section where a guy was analyzing rendered frames and apparently he was showing a single interlaced frame actually had 3 areas with 3 different fps.
Was news to me that there could be more than 2 but I quit electronics as a job in 1986.

Ya, vSync is pretty much worthless to us.
 
There was an article somewhere here on forum how to unlock your monitor to work @ 120 hz. I have set mine to 75 Hz, it was working well but later on because of an other game I've decided to restore it back to 60hz because it was easier for me to maintain 60 Fps in game than 75.
 
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