Performance Issues with Starship – Sporadic FPS Drops
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Without a doubt, there is some issue with the Starship. It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then, after flying for a while, the FPS drops significantly and it becomes impossible to continue the flight. So far, it’s happened to me 2 times out of 10 flights, but it’s especially frustrating when the flight is long. I have no idea what might be causing it — I flew the exact same route twice: once the issue occurred, and the other time everything was perfect so it definitely doesn’t seem to depend on the duration of the flight. For now, I’ve put the Starship back in the hangar because of this.
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Have you downloaded v1.1? I had some complaints that I could not reproduce of performance degradation on long flights in v1.0, but that seems to have been solved with v1.1. Actually, I've been quite thankful that I haven't had any repeat comments about performance issues after v1.1. Given the fact that you say it doesn't occur every time, nor depends on the duration of the flight, I can't imagine what could be causing such an issue within my code.
If you want me to look into this, I will need some more information, like what other addons you have installed, what you were doing when you noticed the issue, whether you imported a flight plan, your typical flying habits and mission, just anything that might help us find the cause of the problem.
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Yes, I have version 1.1 installed, and this issue started appearing specifically with this version. My flights aren't excessively long — max 2 hours. I also don’t import the flight plan; I enter it manually via the keyboard. The GNS430 is turned off. Everything else is pretty much standard.
The first time it happened was during a night flight when I was playing around with the aircraft lighting, so I thought it might be related to that. But some time later, it happened again during the day.
I have no idea what could be causing it, since it doesn’t happen very often — but I’ve never experienced anything like this with any other aircraft. I’m posting this in the hope that someone else might have encountered a similar problem. I’ll do a few more flights and if the issue happens again, I’ll try to record it, although I’m not sure if that will help.
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Thanks for the additional info. I'm pretty confident that it won't be anything to do with the lighting. That's just not really something that can cause this kind of issue. If the issue lies anywhere, I would expect it to be in the avionics. Next time it happens, see if you can make any difference by powering off the avionics and then turning them back on again. Generally, see if you can cause any change by selecting different pages on the CDU, MFD, ND, etc. If you do take a video, please include the FPS counter, since the pattern of hiccups and their associated threads can be helpful for diagnosing the issue.
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After another two trouble-free flights, the same thing happened again. I'm attaching a video that shows the whole situation. The washed-out colors are due to using HDR, which OBS doesn't handle well. Also, when I pressed the record button, it set the mixture to lean because, as it turns out, I have the same key mapped for both that function in MSFS and for recording in OBS
Either way, you can see how the image isn't smooth due to the low FPS, but once the Pilot Avionics are turned off, the FPS returns to normal.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1MDrw8G-DU
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Thanks for sharing a video. That's interesting that only the pilot avionics switch causes the change, as there isn't much that's exclusive to that switch. Unfortunately, without the DevMode FPS counter that I mentioned above, I don't have too much to go off of. If it happens again, perhaps try the other two switches to see if they make any difference first, or if it really is only the pilot's avionics switch. That would be helpful, as well as a screenshot of the FPS counter with all the graphs. Thanks for volunteering to help! I'm very sorry you have to deal with this. It is so upsetting when you're one of the very few with a problem like this, and the developer can't reproduce it.
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Have you downloaded v1.1? I had some complaints that I could not reproduce of performance degradation on long flights in v1.0, but that seems to have been solved with v1.1. Actually, I've been quite thankful that I haven't had any repeat comments about performance issues after v1.1. Given the fact that you say it doesn't occur every time, nor depends on the duration of the flight, I can't imagine what could be causing such an issue within my code.
If you want me to look into this, I will need some more information, like what other addons you have installed, what you were doing when you noticed the issue, whether you imported a flight plan, your typical flying habits and mission, just anything that might help us find the cause of the problem.
@Black-Square Hello, The actual version is V0.1.1 ?
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@Black-Square Hello, The actual version is V0.1.1 ?
@NavyNhok said in Performance Issues with Starship – Sporadic FPS Drops:
@Black-Square Hello, The actual version is V0.1.1 ?
Yes.
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Thank you. That video showed exactly what I was looking for. Notice how the every-other-frame stutter is in the "manipulators" thread? We don't have any documentation on what this actually includes, but it's not usually anything I affect as a developer. I have brought this strange behavior to Asobo's attention, but they have shown no interest yet.
You can read about others encounters with this in v1.0 (I thought it was solved for 1.1, as nobody else has reported it again) here, and a BIOS setting that might have an important impact on this issue. If you try it, please let me know if it makes a difference for you!
In the meantime, I will investigate what systems are connected only to the pilot's avionics switch (more complicated than it sounds with how I've programmed Starship's avionics), and I might give you some more things to try, if you were willing. Thank you!
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@NavyNhok said in Performance Issues with Starship – Sporadic FPS Drops:
@Black-Square Hello, The actual version is V0.1.1 ?
Yes.
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I was just testing this a little, and I realized there is something you could try that would be immensely helpful. Sorry to ask for help, but it's very hard troubleshooting something that you can't reproduce on any computer you have access to, as you might imagine.
Next time you see this happening, could you try pulling the following circuit breakers, in this order, and see which one has an effect on the problem?
- RADAR
- ND No. 1
- PFD No. 1
- CDU No. 1
- HF
- ASI No. 1
- ALT No. 1
- SDU No. 2
- ADC No. 1
- Clock PLT
~Only proceed to these, if none of the above made a difference~ - DME No. 1
- FCS No. 1
- FMS No. 1
- ADF
- RAD ALT
- ATC No. 1
- NAV No. 1
Finally, if none of those made a difference, turn off the pilot's avionics switch for one final test.
That should really help narrow things down. I know that might seem like a lot of work, but hopefully it will go very quickly. Ironically, it's also not dissimilar from what a real aircraft might be asked to do by his maintenance technician to troubleshoot the real aircraft.
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I was just testing this a little, and I realized there is something you could try that would be immensely helpful. Sorry to ask for help, but it's very hard troubleshooting something that you can't reproduce on any computer you have access to, as you might imagine.
Next time you see this happening, could you try pulling the following circuit breakers, in this order, and see which one has an effect on the problem?
- RADAR
- ND No. 1
- PFD No. 1
- CDU No. 1
- HF
- ASI No. 1
- ALT No. 1
- SDU No. 2
- ADC No. 1
- Clock PLT
~Only proceed to these, if none of the above made a difference~ - DME No. 1
- FCS No. 1
- FMS No. 1
- ADF
- RAD ALT
- ATC No. 1
- NAV No. 1
Finally, if none of those made a difference, turn off the pilot's avionics switch for one final test.
That should really help narrow things down. I know that might seem like a lot of work, but hopefully it will go very quickly. Ironically, it's also not dissimilar from what a real aircraft might be asked to do by his maintenance technician to troubleshoot the real aircraft.
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The BIOS pic has me wondering: the people with FPS issues, could there be thermal throttling at play? My newest build has a 14th gen i9, and for those who follow tech is the Intel cpu that was famously self-destructing on launch. I came in late, but had some issues with stability that were resulting in my CPU asking for (and getting!) upwards of 500A.
I have since become keenly aware of CPU voltages and temperatures lol, but with some BIOS configuration it's been drastically reduced.
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@Black-Square Sure, as soon as it happens again, I'll check it like you asked.
One question. You listed FCS No. 1 twice. What should the second one be instead of FCS No. 1
And below is a screenshot from my BIOS.
@rafgath Sorry, FMS No. 1.
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@rafgath Sorry, FMS No. 1.
@Black-Square Another flight and another FPS drop (maybe because it's exactly the same flight every time). Please see the video link below. Luckily, I didn't have to click too many circuit breakers, as everything returned to normal after turning ND No. 1 off and back on.
https://youtu.be/4aDTWlVdmPM
