High CPU load and frametime with Ryzen 9 5900x

[TripleHelix]

I've been having some trouble with high CPU frame times since upgrading my system which is making gameplay difficult. My system specs and VR settings can be found below:

AMD Ryzen 9 5900X cooled with an Artic Liquid Freezer II AIO (issue occurs with and without an overclock)
Gigabyte Gaming OC RTX 3080ti, no overclock
32GB 3200MHz Corsair Vengeance RAM (4x 8GB), XMP profile enabled
Samsung Evo 970 Plus 500GB M.2 SSD
Aorus Elite V2 motherboard
Valve Index: 90/120Hz refresh, SS 150%, motion smoothing on

I seem to get high CPU frame times when some instrumentation, AI jets, boats, buildings and rear-view mirror reflections are in view. On fpsVR it looks like an orange saw-tooth pattern with the performance graph. Weirdly it causes my virtual hands to stutter more than the VR headset display. This happens even when SS is set to 100% and refresh at only 90Hz.

My hardware is now pretty beefy and my last CPU which was an i7 9700K coupled with an RTX 2060 handled all of these things fine. I've searched these forums to see if anyone else was experiencing anything similar with this level of hardware but I couldn't find much. Do you have any advice as to how I can improve or stabilise performance?

[MiamiJoe1]

Youve got double the hardware I do and I very rarely get a stutter or jagged lines. I’m using a 1060 6GB with an i7 and 24GB Ram and a Quest 2 with the link cable. So I can choose to have Oculus run VTOL and that usually works much better, do you have the option to choose? I had to add the game to my Oculus library but you’ve gotta have the option. Also, 72Hz for now, see if that smooths it out. Lemme know, hope this helps.

[TripleHelix]

This is interesting. How do I do this? I usually use Steam VR as the platform as I've got an Index. Do I run VOTL through my Index using an Oculus Library or is there some setting in-game or in Steam that I need to change?

[TripleHelix]

Scratch that, found out how to do it. Ran it in Oculus mode and it seemed worse. I still get big random CPU spikes even in the menu when selecting missions and it worsens in game with a saw-tooth pattern of spikes. I took a screenshot but I can't work out how to post it here...

[TripleHelix]

I've done some more digging and found this. I think this chap may have had the same issue as me:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/667970/discussions/0/2275953283838747241/

As doing something like the above is relatively complicated for your standard user, would there be anything the devs could do in a future update to correct this?

[MiamiJoe1]

I dont know the man, and it is just one man, but I know someone who does! Ill shoot this issue over to him asap. ;)

[TripleHelix]

You're a gentleman and a scholar kind sir, I really appreciate you passing the issue on!

I did some tinkering using Windows task manager this weekend following the guide above and changing the core affinity for various Steam processes and the VTOL VR process. It was very interesting. If I set the Steam processes to one half of the CPU cores and VTOL VR process to the other half it made no difference to the problem. In my case I can't see Steam processes vying for processing power.

The issue is entirely with the way the VTOL VR process uses the processing power it has available. Even in the menu it's randomly spiking into the orange with fpsvr. It's unpredictable but worse when AI jets fly into frame as well as other CPU intensive things. It does continue to occur even if nothing is changing though. Interestingly if I restrict VTOL VR to using only a couple of cores it reduces the saw-tooth like pattern I see to just broad spikes. It's like the process almost runs away with itself into the orange and if you allow it to have access to other cores it maxes those out one by one as it switches between them until the CPU demand rapidly dies and all returns to normal (before it happens again of course). It's quite strange.

I would never pretend to be an expert on these things, I'm only an enthusiast. But the symptoms may point to something obvious to someone in-the-know. I've benchmarked my CPU and GPU again and the system overall is running sweet as a nut. It just seems something is going awry with VTOL VR.

[TripleHelix]

Small update: As a hail Mary I uninstalled and reinstalled both SteamVR and VTOL VR but the issue persists. It's a stubborn one

[TripleHelix]

Originally posted by MiamiJoe1:

I dont know the man, and it is just one man, but I know someone who does! Ill shoot this issue over to him asap. ;)

Any update at all MiamiJoe1? There has been a small patch update since we last spoke but it doesn't seem to have changed anything

[Mandalore]

Are you running any mods from the VTOL mods website? I have a similar setup to you, and I experience a stupidly high drop in frame rate and stuttering with a few mods installed that were adding more units to the game or tracking my performance, something to think about.

I dont think its a hardware issue, I would highly lean on it being a software issue. Given the game in itself is also not very large. If your noticing that even when you dropped the game usage cores but still had them maxed out etc, its potentially a memory leak, hazarding a guess from experience with other games.

but then again, im not a developer, software engineer etc etc. Even oculus told me the other day, my 3070ti is not compatible with the RIFT S that I have... lol...

Hope you figure it out soon,.

[derSanitoeter]

Did you try to turn off Motion Smoothing and go back to 100% SS first?
I mean - motion smoothing kills nearly every game experience for me.

[_provector]

It might sound stupid but check if your system drive is not at 100% usage in task manager. If so either kill/disable nVidia display container service completely or uninstall GeForce experience. For months I had choppy everything in windows until I spotted that one...

[ZbuffeR]

Same issue for me, same CPU and GPU.
In fact, I do see same stuttering as with my older PC.

Worst offender is enabling the S-CAM, the rest seem mostly ok.

I my case (Oculus Rift CV1) I can run the game in Oculus mode, and the stutter is less problematic, but that is only due to the better async space warp implemented by Oculus.

This is the only game that does this by the way, with or without VR.

[ChocolateRiderX]

I'm on laptop R9 5900HX also having the same problems 12ms CPU Frame time getting around 60FPS without reprojection. HP reverb G2

[TripleHelix]

Evening boys and girls. Apologies for the late reply. Really appreciate all the responses.

- Tried with motion smoothing on and off. Doesn't seem to make a difference
- Been running the OG game only, no mods
- Running in Oculus mode doesn't help either
- Never use Geforce Experience. Only heard bad things so I always avoid it
- System drive is never at 100%. Always plenty of free space
- SS I can even put it to a whopping 700% with the 3080ti and it's still the saw tooth CPU frametimes that limit the frame rate.

I'm currently running the game at 90Hz only as its just about as minimally annoying as I can make it. But even so, I'm on the third Desert Cobra mission and the choppiness really destroys the immersion.

Any further suggestions peeps? I'm also currently looking into an H3VR bug that involves intermittently lagging objects whilst moving them despite a solid 120Hz and perfect GPU frametimes. People are saying it can be due to background apps, but I have almost none to speak of. I wonder if my VTOL VR and H3VR issues are caused by the same thing hmmm...

[ZbuffeR]

H3VR and VTOL VR are very different, I have no major issue on H3VR.