Stutter

[Belanglos 1]

Hey,

 

lately I've been playing a lot of Arma 3 KotH again and I have an issue with micro stuttering. Irregularly (sometimes a few times in a 10s time frame) Arma has these split second freezes where I'm unable to do anything. I observed that it mostly happens when I or someone around me is shooting. This happens in multiplayer and singleplayer.

I recorded a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGJhhvIzbh0&feature=youtu.be The video is recorded in 30 FPS but I'm constantly above 100 FPS here.

 

System specs:

 

GTX 970

I7 4970k

8GB Ram

2 240GB SSDs (OS on first, Arma on second)

 

Things I've tried so far:

 

-Clean Windows install

-Set Windows sound to different audio quality settings

-Change number of in game audio sources

-Change graphics settings

-Move and/or remove Page file

-Set launch parameters

-Disable Antivirus and Firewall

-Disable BattleEye

-Use a Ram-Cleaner

-Unpark CPU cores

-Disable Hyper-Threading

-Change to a different 970

 

None of these have brought any sort of improvement, not even a little bit. Right now I'm running against a wall because I can't think of anything else I can try.

[stanhope 409]

I honestly see nothing wrong with that video.  What launch params are you using and what graphic settings are you running?

[Belanglos 1]

I've just uploaded one in higher quality. At 1:20 min 4 out of 5 shots cause the stutter. This is extremely annoying because it throws off your muscle memory when aiming which bacially makes me lose half of CQC encounters in multiplayer.

 

Graphic settings have no impact whatsoever. FPS fluctuate a bit, sure but it's the freezes I'm trying to fix.

 

Regarding launch parameters I've tried:

 

-nologs

-nosplash

-world=empty

-malloc=system/tbb4malloc_bi

-nobenchmark

-maxmem

... basically all the ones regarding cpu core count etc.

 

I monitored CPU and GPU parameters while playing and no temperature value was alarming. I did however see my GPU usage drop from ~90% to sometimes 0% which seems to be the cause of the stutter. Seeing as I already swapped out my MSI 970 for an Asus 970 I can pretty safely rule out a defective GPU though.

[Gunter Severloh 3948]

5 hours ago, Belanglos said:

GTX 970

8GB Ram 

Your ram is a bit low, 16gb at least 2800 to 3000 mhz is ideal, higher the mhz the better.

Your GPU is a 5yr old card as well, its considered a high end card for the Geforce Series.

 

A suggestion would be to upgrade those, at least the ram as much as you can afford.

I do see the stutter in your video, consider that the AI are respawning too so that will cause a draw on the system, are you

running any mods or is it just vanilla your getting the stuttering on?

[stanhope 409]

Get rid of the maxmem param, it's not gonna help you in any way: https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3_Startup_Parameters#Performance

[Belanglos 1]

The only mod I've been using has been JSRS soundpack but since I reinstalled Windows two days ago everything is Vanilla.

 

13 hours ago, Gunter Severloh said:

A suggestion would be to upgrade those

 

Yes I've been thinking about it but I'm hesitant to buy new hardware, I will do that as a last resort. Besides, I kinda doubt that my system runs out of memory in virtual reality. Wouldn't there be a difference in stutter between a 100 player KotH server and a pretty empty single player map? The stutter is always there with more or less the same severity.

 

11 hours ago, stanhope said:

Get rid of the maxmem

 

I have no launch paramaters right now and it makes zero difference.

 

Thank you both for helping.

[Belanglos 1]

So after trying Rising Storm 2: Vietnam I can rule out Arma as the culprit. It's even worse in that game. 

[Gunter Severloh 3948]

Possible that the SSD is failing, or have you checked any background programs running that could be drawing

on your resources when you run the game? just some ideas thrown out there.

 

I would recommend that since this sounds like a possible computer issue as in either failing hardware, or something else related cant be sure

i would ask @oldbear @Groove_C  @domokun and or @Tankbuster to respond to your thread here and give you their feedback

as they do alot of research and know computers, how the game engine works, and what could possibly be going on, they are the go to guys imo, lets see

if they respond and can possible give you an idea of whats going on i'd be interested myself to see what the issue is, and hope that you can get it solved.

 

This is the thread they are on alot

https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/187603-will-my-pc-run-arma3-what-cpugpu-to-get-what-settings-what-system-specifications/

 

[Dedmen 2588]

On 10/12/2019 at 8:02 PM, Belanglos said:

-nobenchmark 

Please don't do that. It disables benchmarking which Arma uses to detect exactly how capable your Graphics Card is. There is a reason that's not documented.

 

On 10/12/2019 at 8:02 PM, Belanglos said:

-malloc=system/tbb4malloc_bi

I don't see any sense in using the malloc parameter to explicitly tell the game to use the defaullt memory allocator. It already uses the default by default anyway.

 

On 10/12/2019 at 8:02 PM, Belanglos said:

... basically all the ones regarding cpu core count etc.

The cpuCount one is useless, the game can already detect how many cpu's you have.

I hope you're not trying to set enableHT or exThreads by yourself..

 

On 10/12/2019 at 8:02 PM, Belanglos said:

-maxmem

By the sound of things, you already have a memory limitation problem, so even further limiting the games memory is nonsense.

 

 

[Belanglos 1]

The parameters were just something else I've tried in a long list of possible solutions, I didn't really take time to look into what exactly they would do.

Yesterday night I ran memtest86 for a few hours and had zero errors over 10+ passes. I also switched RAM slots and ran them separately.

I disabled my on-board soundcard via BIOS and immediately noticed much less stuttering than before. Selectively updating sound card drivers and using older Nvidia drivers had no impact.

A failing SSD is something else I've considered so I swapped my System and Arma SSDs - no difference

I'm starting to think my mainboard is kicking the bucket.

 

[Belanglos 1]

So I've just ordered new parts.

When they arrive I'll change parts one by one to see what really caused the problems.

Maybe someone with similar hardware can profit from that in the future.

[Belanglos 1]

My SSDs caused the stutter. I don't know if they were close to failing or just not sufficient anymore in terms of reading speed. Since installing a new one everything runs smoothly.