Help diagnosing CloD loading issue that is likely PC related.

[Volant_Eagle]

I've been having strange behavior with CloD on my PC for the last few months. It started happening after a hardware update so I'm certain it's a PC problem not a CloD problem. Since it's likely PC related I wasn't going to bother asking about it on the forums, but I haven't been able to isolate the problem and I only seem to be getting this problem with CloD.

 

Since CloD apparently cares about whatever is messed up on my PC, I figured someone with better knowledge about how the sim operates might be able help me troubleshoot. I'd really like to get this fixed as the behavior has certainly reduced my desire to play over the last few months.

 

 

The issue seems to be related with loading 3D objects. It started after I upgraded my PC from 2 to 4 sticks of RAM.

 

First, the 3D model in the loadout screen is now almost completely unresponsive, and it usually takes a noticeably long time to load in the details. At first it loads in looking like this:

 

and then after about 10 seconds it updates to this:

 

While in the lower detail state it's completely unresponsive when I try to drag it with the mouse. While in the fully loaded state it is nearly unresponsive. It will not drag around or zoom in, but after I try to move it, it will suddenly snap to a new angle several seconds later.

 

This issue doesn't effect gameplay so it's not that big a deal on its own, but it does show that something is seriously wrong with how my PC is rendering this game.

 

 

The second problem is actually a gameplay issue and is somewhat ruining my experience. It happens when first loading into an aircraft to play. At first the game comes up frozen in a messed up low-resolution state. It looks like this:

Everything is frozen and the aircraft is often off the ground like pictured here or sometimes inverted. After about 15 seconds the game finally finishes loading and everything plays completely normal without any hint of glitches after that. Here is a screenshot taken right after the game finally finished loading in:

As you can see, in the frozen state it was mostly the landscape and lighting that were messed up, the internal cockpit model appears to be fully loaded. External models seem to be the primary issue. After the sim finishes loading in it runs smoothly and everything seems totally normal. However there is a significantly higher rate on servers of the aircraft spawning in damaged, inverted, or me just exploding which is a really annoying way to have your career ended on an multi-player server.

 

Here is another example of the same thing in a different aircraft:

It does not seem to be server dependent. The first example was on the TWC server and the second example on the ATAG server.

 

I also get this same behavior in single player as well which is why I believe it's a PC issue. The only difference I can perceive between this glitch in single player vs multi player is less that in single player only the first spawn in takes about 15 seconds to unfreeze (I timed it). After that, spawns even on completely new missions are only frozen at low res for 1 to 5 seconds. In multi-player, I get a fairly long freeze for every single spawn in even if spawns are in the same aircraft type at the same airfield.

 

 

 

These bugs started happening shortly after messing with the video settings in game and the render settings on my GPU. So it could be related to that. However, the problems happened right away after upgrading from 2 to 4 RAM sticks, so I think that's more likely the cause.

 

Unfortunately the problem did not go away after taking the new sticks back out again. I believe something must have gotten damaged while it was running with 4 sticks but I have no idea what that something is.

 

System prior to update when everything was running fine:

CPU: Ryzen 7 5800X

GPU: Radeon 6750XT

Motherboard: MSI B550-A PRO (MS-7C56)

RAM: 2 sticks of Mushkin Enhanced Redline 32GB 3600Mhz DDR4

 

I added 2 more sticks of exactly the same RAM to bring the total to 128GB (I know, absolutely overkill but I'm hoping to move to VR in the future, and was wondering how far I could push this rig without upgrading other components). Immediately after doing this is when I started having these issues.

 

My XMP had not been turned on before and the memory was previously running at 2133Mhz. When I added the new sticks and rebooted, XMP was enabled and defaulted to the 3600Mhz limit of the RAM. I later found out that the 5800X only supports up to 3200Mhz. I've tried turning XMP off again, setting the speed with XMP to 3200Mhz and a few intermediary points, going back to just the original 2 sticks, going to just the 2 new sticks, and about every combination thereof, and nothing has alleviated this new buggyness.

 

I don't seem to be getting any buggy behavior in any other games. It's only CloD I have problems with now. I've also run my PC through stability tests and it's never come up with any issues.

 

Any insights on what the issue might be would be greatly appreciated.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

[Mysticpuma]

Go into My documents, 1C soft club, find the cache folder. Delete it.

Try again 👍

[Dawson]

5 hours ago, Volant_Eagle said:

These bugs started happening shortly after messing with the video settings in game and the render settings on my GPU.

 

What is your in game video screen refresh rate? I'll bet one of your changes was to set it high. If so revert, in game only, to 60 Hz.

[paul_leonard]

I second Mysticpuma.  Delete the cache folder.  It will be re-created on next start.  If there are corrupted texture files there, that could be the cause. 

 

If that doesn't work, also try checking on the integrity of your game files.  Go the the game page on Steam.  On the right side is a gear icon.  Click on that and choose Properties.  From the next pop-up menu choose Installed Files and from that menu choose "Verify Integrity of game files".  It will run and if there is anything corrupted or missing, the correct files will be redownloaded and installed.

 

Also a variation on what Dawson suggested is just to change your in-game Video settings to another set of settings and that might shake things loose.  I very much doubt this is a RAM issue.

[Dawson]

20 minutes ago, paul_leonard said:

I second Mysticpuma.  Delete the cache folder.  It will be re-created on next start.  If there are corrupted texture files there, that could be the cause. 

 

If that doesn't work, also try checking on the integrity of your game files.  Go the the game page on Steam.  On the right side is a gear icon.  Click on that and choose Properties.  From the next pop-up menu choose Installed Files and from that menu choose "Verify Integrity of game files".  It will run and if there is anything corrupted or missing, the correct files will be redownloaded and installed.

 

Also a variation on what Dawson suggested is just to change your in-game Video settings to another set of settings and that might shake things loose.  I very much doubt this is a RAM issue.

This seems to be an AMD GPU specific issue discussed here if you have access to the beta sections of the forum. 

 

Whatever you choose to do, make one change at a time, testing after each.

[Volant_Eagle]

Thanks for all the replies. 

 

Setting the in game refresh rate back 60Hz seems to have fixed the problem. It was at 180Hz and I had messed around with 165Hz and 144Hz with no improvement. Setting it to even the next step up from 60 (75hz) results in all of the issues in my original post and just as bad. As soon as I set it back to 60Hz; problem gone again.

 

It's great to have this issue finally solved, but is this a common problem with CloD? My memory could be wrong, but I believe I had set the game to the higher refresh rate a while before the issue started happening. I also remember with my old 1080p monitor having the game set to its max refresh rate of 144Hz with no issues. So I'm a little puzzled why I can't go over 60Hz now when I could before.

 

I verified my install on steam and everything checked out. I've tried many different settings in the AMD Adrenalin software but definitely not all of them, there are a lot. Lastly I tried clearing the cache and that did seem to have some effect. The bugs were still present at refresh rates above 60Hz, but they weren't as bad as before clearing the cache. Especially the wait at spawn was much reduced at all Hz levels, though still present above 60Hz. The aircraft model in the loadout screen was only smooth at 60Hz. But it was noticeably better at 120Hz that it was at any of the other high settings.

 

Anyway, thanks for the help and I hope to be in the virtual skies more often now!

[Dawson]

The issue is several years old but affects few of us as it requires an AMD GPU and a monitor with a high refresh rate capability, coupled with online play.

 

I first experienced it almost two years ago when I got a 2k monitor with high refresh. My previous 1080 monitor was limited to 60 Hz so it didn't come up.

 

If you keep backups of your ini files you can look at old ones to see if your refresh rate was over 60 Hz when you used 1080. Perhaps the issue needs higher resolution and refresh rates.

[Volant_Eagle]

Interesting. I'm certainly having this problem in single player as well. So being online must not be necessary to see this problem, although maybe it does make it worse or more likely.

 

I've tried setting the game to 1080p while still using my 1440p monitor. That didn't make any difference. I do still have my old 1080p monitor though. I could try hooking that back up and testing it at high rates when I get the chance.

 

I would be surprised if high refresh rate monitors and AMD GPUs aren't common among players. I would imagine more people are running Nvidia and standard monitors, but AMD and high rate have to be quite common.

 

Unfortunatly I don't have any beta access to the game. Can anyone who does confirm whether or not this is still a problem in the beta or not? (Assuming you're allowed to talk about it, and you have or know someone in beta with AMD + a high rate monitor)

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

Running AMD hardware as well. The model lagging when trying to drag it around has been there a while.

 

Another thing to try alongside Win 7 comparability is running game in pseudo mode. Makes it easier to Alt+Tab if needed. If want to do a rough reset just copy the config files, delete 1C folder altogether and restart the game. 
 

I have no issues with loading in, having only 2 x 32Gb DDR5. You can also delete shader cache on your GPU from the Adrenalin software and also from Windows. Run disc cleanup and select DirectX cache from the list.

 

Can check more when back home in a few weeks😑