Stuttering With Poll

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by PeteW, Oct 22, 2021.

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Do you see graphical stutters on TSW 2?

Poll closed Oct 29, 2021.
  1. Yes, regularly on all routes

    61 vote(s)
    44.2%
  2. Yes, regularly on only some routes

    38 vote(s)
    27.5%
  3. Yes, but infrequently

    28 vote(s)
    20.3%
  4. No, it's as smooth as butter

    11 vote(s)
    8.0%
  1. PeteW

    PeteW Active Member

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    Can someone confirm that it is not just me that gets graphical (and sound) stutters at irregular intervals which vary in length during gameplay? They are relatively short (guess about 0.1-0.3 sec).

    Along with the trees popping/changing as you get closer, this is easily, for me, the most immersion breaking thing. I have a pretty decent PC and am running graphics setting at the max. I have no mods.I have the frame rate limited at 100 FPS as that is the refresh rate of my main monitor which is an Ultrawide (3440 x 1440)
    I have almost come to except that these stutters exist. But since get the London Commuter route, this seems to be the worst DLC producing more regular stutters. So I thought I'd do a bit of research to see if I could see if London Commuter (aka BML) was worse or just me.

    I ran the following 3 (randomly picked) services and noted the CPU utilisation. I did not move around or touch the controls just noted the CPU Utilisation as reported by Windows Task Manager. I chose the routes as one was preswerved (i.e old) one was launch TSW2 and one was the latest and the one that seems to be most affected.
    They were
    1. GWE Class 166 @ Power 3 - Greenford to Paddington Service 2G11 @ 10:25am
    2. BML Class 166 @ Power 3 - Gatwick to Reading Part 1 Service 1V10 @ 09:58am
    3. SKA Talent 2 @ Power 5 Service RE9 Siegen @11:18am
    Here are my observations.
    - The stutters occur on all three routes.
    - The CPU utilisation spikes everytime a stutter occurs. It spikes by around 10% for small stutters. And upto about 30% for the longer stutters. The bigger the CPU spike, the longer the stutter. I don't know/can't tell if this is the symptom or the cause. My CPU has a baseline of approx 30%-40% Utilisation.
    - The stutters are irregular/unpredictable but never seem to occur in the first 30 seconds of the run starting
    - There are more stutters on London Commuter than the other two
    - CPU has a base usage higher on London - Commuter than the other two but not significantly.
    - Main monitor is an Ultrawide running at 3440 x 1440. I repeated the test on my sefcondary mointiro running at 1600 x 1200. This had little effect on the CPU utilisation and stutters still occur. This specific observation leads me to think that there is something going on in the software periodically that is causing the stutter issue.
    - There is a occasionally a double stutter i.e. very, very close back-to-back stutters which is observed on the CPU graph as either a double spike or a spike which has a flat top i.e. a longer period when the CPU is running higher than normal.
    I did a few additional tests with a Class 387 and higher power(acceleration) settings on BML. The thought was would it get worse if the train/graphics were moving faster. It does seem to get more stuttery at higher speeds.
    The graphs I have sort of show this but nothing definitive.
    I also enjoy driving using Camera 3 with the camera at the front of the train. This makes it feel like you are travelling faster and get a better view. That also seems to make things worse. I guess this can be expected as you get a bigger field of view. It hits my frame rate by about 10 FPS

    Are DTG looking at this? Is it on your radar dtg_jd ? I'm trying to add a fair bit of detailed information as that is always requested on the live streams to help assist debug problems.
    Is there a workaround?
    I suspect if the stutter cause was addressed, it would improve all routes across the board.
     
    Last edited: Oct 22, 2021
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  2. Mattty May

    Mattty May Guest

    I get quite a bit of stuttering on all routes whilst running the PS5 version of the game. I suspect it’s related to the 4.26 update as it seemed fine beforehand.
     
  3. PeteW

    PeteW Active Member

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    I guess this was aimed it PC users as it's difficult to compare across platforms
     
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  4. Jinoss17

    Jinoss17 Well-Known Member

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    I see stutters regularly on every route, but in a very different way. For example ECW has stutters, but barely noticeable: sometimes I don't even notice if I don't have the fps counter on.
    On the extreme opposite is DRA for example: in some parts of the route, FPS drops in the low twenties for milliseconds and it's hugely evident.
    Regarding tree popping I cannot agree more with you: it's horrendous and it seems much worse since 4.26.
     
  5. PeteW

    PeteW Active Member

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    I think we are saying the same regarding stutters. Sometime they are barely noticable probably as little as if you blinked you might not see it, but if you were paying attention you would.... but it is very minor. But the longer ones are very evident. And yes, at the same time the CPU utilisation spikes, the FPS drops significantly. I guess that is not a surprise given it is static for part of the second where the framerate is probably calculated from!
     
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  6. Jinoss17

    Jinoss17 Well-Known Member

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    I have to check if there's a CPU spike everytime there's a lag. At the moment I don't know because I've never paid so much attention at CPU and GPU usage as they are very low when I use TSW (I have a RTX2070S and an Intel I7 10700K and I'm running TSW in FHD, so my hardware is barely used when playing TSW).

    My personal view is that everyone on PC has stutters, even people who voted the "smooth as butter" option, but for different reasons they don't notice.
     
    Last edited: Oct 22, 2021
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  7. atpyatt

    atpyatt Well-Known Member

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    It isn't just you, I think it's tile loading, i.e. assets for an upcoming tile being loaded from the hard drive. Have you checked to see whether the stutters coincide with reads from your hard drive?

    On Clinchfield for example I don't think I get any stutters at all because the route is almost all trees, so I'm assuming that there are relatively few assets ahead to load. On the other hand on routes with large numbers of buildings, city scenes etc. it seems to be much more noticeable, which makes sense if my theory is correct.
     
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  8. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    On the PS5, because the fan motor is noisy, I can tell that sometimes the game stops using a lot of power because the fan motor stops momentarily and this coincides with the biggest stutters, which are I assume when the game is close to crashing. There are other micro stutters that occur without the fan motor stopping and these are like the stutters that have always happened. I don’t tend to notice them much unless they are really bad, as my brain is used to TSW being a slightly stuttery game. It appears to be across all platforms in varying degrees and how often and how severe it is appears to be when complex tiles are being loaded or numerous trains are spawning in the distance and how busy the timetable is overall.
     
  9. hyperlord

    hyperlord Well-Known Member

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    Oah I need to look up that great thread from geloxo - the game runs butter smooth since, no problems after core Update
     
  10. PeteW

    PeteW Active Member

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    I will check the disk usage and reply later
     
  11. Haribo112

    Haribo112 Well-Known Member

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    I also have these stutters. Do other people also have this: when you first load in to a route/service, and do a quick 180 degree spin with the camera, my game hangs for actual seconds before returning to 60fps.
     
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  12. PeteW

    PeteW Active Member

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    So the answer is there is no correlation betweenthe stutters and the disk usage. I see the SSD reading pretty constantly at around the 300KB/s mark. I do see spikes which are over 10 MB/s. But in the biggest stutters, there is no obvious increase disk read speed or the percentage time that windows task manager reports it is reading/writing to the disk. I would say that the higher read speeds are when it is reading more. Although there could be times when it is reading slowly for a long time. But the percentage read time doesn't seem to indicate that this is the case.
     
  13. PeteW

    PeteW Active Member

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    Yes. I seeing a swirling affect and a bit of a hang before it returns to normal.
     
  14. tom.frame

    tom.frame Member

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    The stutter problems comes down to the individuals PC. I have beyond the system requirements and I get them. I read online that there is a few files and a process called GameBarPresenceWriter along with another DLL that runs in the background. I have done some research and this runs all the time. I tried to shut it down and was successful but it comes back if you do a windows update or a disk scan. If you're doing anything regarding XBOX on your PC I wouldn't recommend you mess with it because its associate with XBOX . I don't think and this is only my opinion that the game has anything to do with it. Even if you had a top of the line computer it comes down to settings even with all the addons installed or uninstall you're bound to get it but still it comes down to settings and what's running in the background. Just my thoughts
     
  15. Mattty May

    Mattty May Guest

    Your PS5 fan shouldn’t be noisy. I’ve never heard mine.
     
  16. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    Although not a panacea, there's a a freeware utility called Windows 10 Debloater which gets rid of some of the useless crap Windows runs in the background, taking up CPU cycles, R/W cycles and RAM
     
  17. redrev1917

    redrev1917 Well-Known Member

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    I've had turn down my graphic settings on RH routes from ultra (which pre rh routes ran great) to medium.


    It's cut out 95% of all stutters
     
  18. PeteW

    PeteW Active Member

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    I hear what folk are saying about Window background processes. And certainly wouldn’t rule it out. Given PC runs at high FPS on the ultra wide monitor and i see similar issues even when going to the smaller monitor with a much lower res, also with the fact the CPU is twiddling it’s thumbs mainly (30% baseline), then it seems odd that even a spike to 40% causes a glitch, I’m not sure that is the issue. CPU spike is obviously just a a symptom of the problem and not the cause. I think I would be putting some analysis tools on the S/W to see if it is a software issue which is my guess. Would’ve great if someone from the DTG would actually take a look and see if they see the issue. Given I saw it before BML but not as bad, and BML stutters are annoying me so much, enough for me to spend time and get some info/data on the issue, I suspect it will be the last route I will buy. It’s just so annoying that I don’t want any more routes which are as bad. :-(
     
  19. Jinoss17

    Jinoss17 Well-Known Member

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    Windows background processes are completely negligible.
     
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  20. Crosstie

    Crosstie Well-Known Member

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    Very occasionally I can get a complete stop in the game which can last up to 5 seconds, but it always resumes. Also occasionally, I'll get a micro stutter, but neither are route specific.
     
  21. Factor41

    Factor41 Well-Known Member

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    You sure it's not coil whine? Mine has a buzz (almost exclusively where TSW is running) that changes depending on load. When departing London Victoria on BML when the frame rate drops right off, you can almost hear the buzz stuttering in time with the frame rate. When you get those momentary freezes, or drop back to the PS menu, it goes silent.

    As with Mat_Jam_Ca the fans are virtually silent on mine, but I know early ones had a bit of fan noise.
     
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  22. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, some do make a noise and some don’t. It probably wouldn’t if I had it horizontal but I have it stood up and the coil whine is audible on loads of them if you do that. It is a bit irritating but not enough for me to send it back to the shop. If I sent back everything that had minor faults or design flaws I would be sat on the floor in an empty house. Some things you just have to live with.
     
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  23. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    Same thing isn’t it?
     
  24. Factor41

    Factor41 Well-Known Member

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    More to do with the actual power usage - an inductance noise in the GPU components rather than the mechanical noise of the fan, I believe, which is why it starts and stops more abruptly than a fan kicking in and shutting off.
     
  25. Mattty May

    Mattty May Guest

    I think coil whine is more to do with the resonance of the chip.
     
  26. Crosstie

    Crosstie Well-Known Member

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    Whatever it is it would scare the be...us out of me if I heard it on my PC. Nothing that costs hundreds of dollars should make a distracting internal noise. Or is that a fact of life with consoles? Do they get hot to the touch?
     
  27. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    Ah well, I have no idea. I know motors have coils in them and everything I searched about noise from PS5 always had both terms ‘fan noise’ and ‘coil whine’ together so that’s where I got that from. Google and Youtube are not much use in explaining things if you don’t know exactly what you are searching for, and now I don’t know which it is, it could be neither or both. I am aware that it’s a very common problem though. If it worked perfectly I wouldn’t own it. Everything I have (either cheap or expensive) has something wrong with it.
     
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  28. PeteW

    PeteW Active Member

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    Crosstie I know my last gen AMD PC graphics card (RX 5700 XT) experienced coil whine. I had never heard of it but knew there was an odd sound coming from the card. That's what it was. My current card has no such issues.
    Having said that, shouldn't PS5 specific discussion be on that forum. It's certainly not relevant to this issue. Sorry don't want to come across as grumpy. But would really like to get someone to actually acknolegde this issue on the PC and not have distractions. I'm doing my best to give as much info as possible to describe the issue in order that it can be looked at. TrainSim-Matt can you/will you look at this please? The poll is showing 90% of users experience this problem. That is pretty significant.
     
  29. Crosstie

    Crosstie Well-Known Member

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    No, the OP didn't specify a particular platform in the poll. And stuttering is not platform specific anyway. You have to pose a question somewhere. You cannot repeat it across all forum sections. Besides, stujoy linked stuttering to the fan motor or coil whine on his machine. It's relevant to the discussion. Generally we're not fussy about where a discussion begins unless it's specifically about a particular platform.
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2021
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  30. davejc64

    davejc64 Well-Known Member

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    Everything running smooth for me.
     
  31. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    Apologies if my noise issues ended up taking up a few posts but it is true that stutters are not platform specific and the fact that the noise stops during the longest stutters is an indication that the whole game is stopping for a think which might indicate a separate issue to the more usual shorter stutters.
     
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  32. PeteW

    PeteW Active Member

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    Understand that the stutter issue is not platform specific which again leads me to think it is a software problem. My assumption was that discussion in the PC forum would be PC related. But I can see having a poll in all forums would be less than ideal.
     
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  33. redrev1917

    redrev1917 Well-Known Member

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    I upgraded my RAM today from 8GB to 16GB and now both Dresden and LC run far more smoother, not perfect but unless you are looking for it hardly noticable with the exceptation of Neustadt and Clapham Junction. I was finally able to turn back on Ultra graphics and TAA as well, absolutely hated having to run medium graphics on these routes.

    Im upgrading my CPU tomorrow to a AMD - Ryzen 7 3800XT from a Ryzen 3 so hopefully the last issues will resolve themselves as well.
     
  34. rocknicehunter

    rocknicehunter New Member

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    Mine stutters regularly and it is associated with a white flash on the screen. The flash varies in size, location and frequency. I'm running on a very fast laptop with 40 Gb ram and an SSD. I have all of my settings maxxed out and get a solid 40fps when these flashes do not occur..
     
  35. chieflongshin

    chieflongshin Well-Known Member

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    I run on ultra on an Alienware r11. Its2080ti, 32gb ram, i910900k, ssd. I use the game on ultra, TAA, 138% screen and I get between 45-60fps capped.

    I still get load in freezes and I will get spikes and stutters where the FPS drops into 20s momentarily. I don’t think I should have any stutters but it’s got worse
     
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  36. PeteW

    PeteW Active Member

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    I imagine 8GB of RAM is likely to be a limiting factor,But it’s not what is causing my stuttering issue.
    If my setup is causing issues will likely mean most folk are.
    I’m running 32GB of fast RAM, 5600x CPU, RTX3080, and. 3GB/s NVME SSD. That’s not a limiting setup.
    But it can’t run this game smoothly on a monitor that most folk would snigger at as being olde worlde.
     
    Last edited: Oct 24, 2021
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  37. chieflongshin

    chieflongshin Well-Known Member

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    Just connecting in with the above the most I've seen my RAM go up to was just shy of 17gb and I think VRAM was knocking 9gb if I've read correct
     
  38. davejc64

    davejc64 Well-Known Member

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    This is the thing people with differing hardware are going to get different performance issues, and gaming on PC has always been like that, cant really say about consoles because everyone on on them should have identical hardware, but of course now you have differing generations of consoles thrown into the mix,
     
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