59 replies to this topic

[Mirkin]

Hi all

I have an issue which I haven't seen mentioned in any of the posts so I'm asking for any suggestions please.

I have I5 8G RAM GTX650 Solid state hard drive on 3 monitor cab. (I updated the RAM and CPU to try and get rid of this issue)

I have my video card set to max performance and virtually everything is set for performance in VP.

I've disabled virtually every service that I can in MSconfig. Graphics drivers have been updated as well.

With these things as they are VP is playing super smooth 95% of the time.

The problem is that every minute or so the ball just starts stuttering for a few seconds. This is on VPX, VP9.91 and PM5 tables. It's driving me mad. I have a frame rate of over 700FPS on creature from the black lagoon (VP9.91) and a solid 60FPS on Aqualand (VPX) and it doesn't drop below that even when the stutter kicks in. The strange thing is that before I installed VPX I had no stutter at all on any tables.

I have a feeling that it's something running in the background that's causing the problem but I have no idea how to check any further.

Can anybody offer me something to try because I'm out of ideas.

Thanks for reading.

[fuzzel]

Hard to tell but be sure to not overwrite any antialiasing or other filters in the NVidia settings let the application (VP) deside what to do. How much VRAM do you have on your GTX650? 1GB or more? If it's just 1GB it could be the problem. DirectX desides when to load textures and to cache them if the VRAM is too small DX needs to reload much more often.

[Mirkin]

Thanks for the quick reply fuzzel.

I think I just have 1GB on the graphics card. Maybe time for another upgrade! I'll have to check tomorrow as its getting late now.

Which graphics card would you recommend by the way?

Edited by Mirkin, 07 January 2016 - 11:00 PM.

[RustyCardores]

Is this on all tables or do you find just some have the issue?

[allknowing2012]

Try running without b2s backglass. Use vpinmame controller. If it's b2s that's the problem there are tuning things that can be done there.

[Mirkin]

Hi Folks

So I checked my card and it has 2GB Ram so I think I'm in the clear there.

The problem seems to be pretty much on all tables.

I've run Sapranos (because i know it has heavy resource usage) without B2S and with the settings I have its beautifully smooth except when this strange issue kicks in. (It's a great table by the way)

Does anybody know of any system monitoring software I can run to try and track the problem down?

[allknowing2012]

Have you used F11 to show frames per second? And what OS?

Just stick the windows performance window up on the bg and see what shows there...

[lizard]

This sounds like the aero issue, If you press F11  and the numbers are flickering you should try using aero. You don't mention what OS you are using. I spent tons of time chasing the same sort of thing and ended up installing windows 10 and have not seen a stutter since. If the numbers of the F11 display are solid then it is probably something else. Jimmyfingers gives an explanation somewhere in the beta thread. 

http://www.vpforums....=30418&page=175

[Pin-Pete]

I'm having stutters too. My OS is WIN 10 and graphic card is AMD Radeon.

[allknowing2012]

This sounds like the aero issue, If you press F11  and the numbers are flickering you should try using aero. 

I thought folks said not to use aero ? Is this determined by the windows theme used or is there a magic switch to turn off & on? Mine flashes - this is the first I have read about what F11 flashing meant.

[atarian]

This sounds like the aero issue, If you press F11  and the numbers are flickering you should try using aero. You don't mention what OS you are using. I spent tons of time chasing the same sort of thing and ended up installing windows 10 and have not seen a stutter since. If the numbers of the F11 display are solid then it is probably something else. Jimmyfingers gives an explanation somewhere in the beta thread. 
http://www.vpforums....=30418&page=175

It's good that you found those posts as gStAv summarised JimmyFingers suggestions with a nice graphic. Pasting it here as it is relevant to this thread:

gStAv graphic:

[lizard]

 

This sounds like the aero issue, If you press F11  and the numbers are flickering you should try using aero. 

I thought folks said not to use aero ? Is this determined by the windows theme used or is there a magic switch to turn off & on? Mine flashes - this is the first I have read about what F11 flashing meant.

 

From what i have read you can get some flipper lag with using it. I was using windows 7 when i was having issues with stutter and switched to  W10 before i came across the whole aero thing so i never tested with windows 7. It is determined by the windows theme but there is also some other settings which help also. The explanation is in the link i posted above maybe a couple of pages before and after also.

 

Edit: Other settings as atarian posted above.

Edited by lizard, 08 January 2016 - 03:35 PM.

[ClarkKent]

Just activate Aero and Desktop composition. This should do the trick. I had the exact same problem as you - I followed the trick atarian mentioned above (the ones JF/gStAv) and got rid of ANY stutter problems...

[Mirkin]

Hi Folks

An Update.

I've tried al sorts of things over the past week or so and still can't get the thing working right.

If I set the system as the Gstav graphic it's unplayable. I found a utility called GPU-Z and with these settings the the GPU is running at 98%!

I'm using the Gforce settings and aero settings as shown in the graphic right now but without extreme FXAA and ambient occlusion and the GPU is running at around 60% but I'm still getting occasional slow down for no apparent reason. The GPU load doesn't go up ans I'm not running at more than 600MB of mem out of 2GB.

I've managed to stop the stutter on my 9.91 setup by uninstalling my wifi drivers.

This software seems to be mega resource hungry and actually quite unusable on my rig which is very sad because it is a massive improvement.

Anybody got any more suggestions?

[atarian]

Although I now set the FPS as per the graphic in the earlier beta build phase I used to set my FPS to 120, and sometimes for a while 0 (ie: unlimited). Maybe try these with and without Aero. Have you tried those settings just in case it makes a difference for you? Also you said you have disabled a lot of stuff. I guess that includes Windows updates, WiFi, AV, etc?

Finally what about disabling a monitor just to see if it helps? Try ruling out one thing at a time.

Edited by atarian, 08 January 2016 - 10:30 PM.

[Mirkin]

Hi Atarian.

I never thought of disabling a monitor.

What is really puzzling is that the stutter/frame rate loss comes at any time and goes after maybe 2 secs. I don't see any performance issues in GPU-Z, the card seems to be running well within it's capabilities.

For the record I have disabled windoes update, windows defender, all virus software. I also tried with aero off/on, performance settings only. Everything I can think of.

If I put aero on I get flopper lag so I'm leaving it off right now as it makes no difference and flipper lag is worse than stutter in my mind.

It's a real pain grrrrrrrrrr.

[Jlr]

Hi Atarian.

I never thought of disabling a monitor.

What is really puzzling is that the stutter/frame rate loss comes at any time and goes after maybe 2 secs. I don't see any performance issues in GPU-Z, the card seems to be running well within it's capabilities.

For the record I have disabled windoes update, windows defender, all virus software. I also tried with aero off/on, performance settings only. Everything I can think of.

If I put aero on I get flopper lag so I'm leaving it off right now as it makes no difference and flipper lag is worse than stutter in my mind.

It's a real pain grrrrrrrrrr.

Make sure your drivers are up to date,also try disabling background apps to see if this helps.

[atarian]

I feel for you. I had so many issues with previous VP versions a few years ago and went through the same pains. It does sound like some bottleneck somewhere, some event kicking in, but what????

I am not sure if the suggestions in the other perf thread below might help, like playing with ddraw, etc but maybe worth trying. Other than that all I can't think of anything atm. Maybe posting a video of it by filming the screen might give some people some ideas.

http://www.vpforums....showtopic=33389

Edited by atarian, 08 January 2016 - 11:40 PM.

[atarian]

One thing just occurred to me and that is VPX renders in Windowed mode vs full screen, and you are running 3 screens and maybe that presents the occasional bottleneck for the GPU maybe related to the game not being in real full screen. Maybe check settings for each screen and make sure all are 32 bit, check other display settings to. Then try just disabling one screen and move DMD to play field monitor. Just to see if it helps.

Edited by atarian, 08 January 2016 - 11:51 PM.

[Mirkin]

Hi Atarian

I'll do a few more things later or tomorrow. It's eating my time and I have real life to attend to lol.

Thanks for the tips