Game stutters at regular intervals when recording in game

[ACG_Whovy]

Hi everyone,

 

I spent several months trying to figure out why my game was freezing when recording but after all my attempt I'm still clueless. Other pilots I'm flying with have less powerful PC builds but have no issue when recording.

So I finally decided to ask on the IL2 forum hoping someone could help me.

 

What's happening:

When playing on a server like Combat Box or Finnish I'm running around 140 to 200 FPS.

But when I press CTRL+R to record in game (using the IL2 recording sytem), my game starts to freeze at regular intervals but I'm still running the same FPS.

 

Find more in the video attached (sorry it's a GIF but you can still see the issue - FPS during the recording never dropped bellow 160)

 

What I already tried:

Disable my tracking device while recording

Change in game settings to the lowest graphic quality possible

Recording with third party software (it works perfectly)

Reinstall the game

Reinstall Windows

Upgrade from 16 Gb DDR4 3000 MHz RAM to 32 Gb DDR4 3200 MHz RAM

Upgrade my GPU from GTX 1080 Gaming Plus 8 Gb to RX 6800XT 16 Gb

 

What I didn't try yet:

Upgrade my CPU (eventhough I overclocked my CPU from 3.6 to 4.2 GHz)

Upgrade my motherboard

Upgrade my SSD 

Everything else that you could suggest

 

My setup:

GPU: AMD RX 6800XT 16 Gb

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 OC 4.2GHz (3.6 GHz initally)

CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 (great cooling performance, CPU never heated more than 70 °C)

RAM: CORSAIR VENGEANCE 32 Gb (2x 16 Gb) DDR4 3200 MHz

SSD: Crucial P2 CT1000P2SSD8 1Tb 2400 Mb/s (3D NAND, NVMe, PCIe, M.2)

Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX II

HOTAS: Thrustmaster 16000M

Head tracking device: Tobii Eye Tracker 5 (I'm using FacetracknoIR & Opentrack to make it compatible with IL2)

 

If you have any piece of evidence on what could cause this, I'd be happy to read you.

 

Best regards,

Valentin "Whovy"

 

 

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by ACG_Whovy

[AEthelraedUnraed]

My first guess would be SSD, since writing lots of stuff to disk is basically the one difference with normal usage. I'm not familiar with the term "Go" though; is it the word for Gb in your native language?

 

You didn't specify the software parts of your system. Which OS do you use? Is it updated? Are your drivers updated? Is your BIOS updated?

 

What shows if you go to the Resource Monitor (you can get there through the Task Manager)? Is there anything bottlenecking?

 

Does it still happen offline, in the simplest mission possible (i.e. free flight (no enemies) on the Lapino map)?

[ACG_Whovy]

10 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

My first guess would be SSD, since writing lots of stuff to disk is basically the one difference with normal usage. I'm not familiar with the term "Go" though; is it the word for Gb in your native language?

 

You didn't specify the software parts of your system. Which OS do you use? Is it updated? Are your drivers updated? Is your BIOS updated?

 

What shows if you go to the Resource Monitor (you can get there through the Task Manager)? Is there anything bottlenecking?

 

Does it still happen offline, in the simplest mission possible (i.e. free flight (no enemies) on the Lapino map)?

Hi AEthelraedUnraed,

 

First of all, thanks for your answer.

 

You're right, Go stands for Gb in my native language (French). I'll edit the post right away so everybody can understand.

 

Here are the missing informations:

OS: Windows 11 Pro Version 10.0.2261 (last update)

Drivers: all drivers up to date according to this website (https://www.touslesdrivers.com)

BIOS: Version American Megatrends Inc. H.30, 11/30/2020 / SMBIOS Version 2.8 (I have to check if it is the latest)

Monitors: HP 25mx configured for 144Hz

 

And here is what displays the task manager without recording:

 

 

With recording enabled:

 

And yes it does also happen offline, in free flight on the Lapino Summer 1942 map even though I run 240 FPS.

 

Here are the temperatures when recording on the Lapino Summer 1942 map in free flight and while stuttering:

 

Best,

Whovy

 

EDIT:

My BIOS is not up to date, I found later versions on the MSI official website, I should maybe try to flash it. Could resolve compatibility issues?

 

EDIT:

I saw that my BIOS last update was from 2020. Looking at MSI website I found that later versions have performance/compatibility improvements. I flashed my BIOS and launched a record on Berloga. At first glance it was working perfectly. I’ll run more tests this evening to confirm.

 

EDIT:

Short joy, tried on Finnish this evening and stuttered as much as last time.

I really don't understand what's happening...

Edited July 18, 2023 by ACG_Whovy
Results of my evening test

[AEthelraedUnraed]

19 hours ago, ACG_Whovy said:

And here is what displays the task manager without recording:

 

 

With recording enabled:

Hmm, in line with the expectations I mentioned earlier, the one big difference seems to be the SSD which has gone from 0% usage to 9%. I've always found this "disk usage" thing a bit hard to interpret, since it's not necessarily related to the max write speed (which you're not ever going to reach unless you're, idk, writing a *huge* chunk of RAM into pre-allocated disk space or something), nor to the amount of write ops. Just because I was interested, I asked the new Google Bard, but it seemed to be just as confused about the matter as I am and even after a lot of follow-up questions, I couldn't get any better answer than this:

Quote

The disk usage in the Windows Task Manager is a measure of both the amount of data and the number of separate write operations.

The amount of data is measured in bytes. The number of separate write operations is measured in operations per second (OPS).

For example, if you have a 1TB hard drive and your disk usage is at 50%, that means that 500GB of data has been read or written to the hard drive, and 500,000 separate write operations have been performed.

 

Honestly, I think the numbers Bard gives are bollocks, but if he's got the principle right, my guess is that IL2 does lots of different write operations and your SSD cannot handle that amount. Maybe the Resource Monitor gives more information? From your screenshot it seems like it's removed from the Task Manager (I'm still on Windows 10 so I cannot check) but Win+R and then resmon should still work.

 

EDIT: I had somehow completely missed that you'd already selected the disk part in the task manager. While recording, it shows an average response time (temps de réponse moyen) of 31ms up from 0ms. If the write operations block the rest of IL2's code from executing, this may very well relate to your problem (it would correspond to roughly 1 full second of "stutter" per 30s).

Edited July 19, 2023 by AEthelraedUnraed

[ACG_Whovy]

20 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

Hmm, in line with the expectations I mentioned earlier, the one big difference seems to be the SSD which has gone from 0% usage to 9%.

To test your hypothesis, I installed IL2 on my hard disk and tried recording on Finnish server. And it worked perfectly. Of course, it wasn't as smooth as my SSD but still, no stuttering. I tried on Berloga and offline too. Same conclusion. So I can safely say that my SSD is the problem.

 

My next question is: can I keep my current SSD and have it work as it should? If not, what type of SSD should I get to replace it?

 

Best regards,

Whovy