I don’t know if it’s really necessary but sometimes we encounter problems with our games and some blessed soul helps us solve it- hell sometimes we do it ourselves.
I thought of putting here -as the title very subtly suggests- what hit me and how I overcame it.
This is not about bugs encountered in game (which are firmly in the hands of the developers) but merely what we sort of cause ourselves (PBKAC), or maybe more often, belongs on the end-user side of things.
(Template)
Game Name
P: S:
DCS World
P: On startup there’s a light blue box with a list of modules that somehow can’t be activated or ownership can’t be confirmed for S: The PC has the wrong time. Right Mouse button on the date/time on the taskbar, select “adjust date& time” and select Sync Now
P: Massive stutters during gameplay S: Disable / enable CPU cores (last core works for me) after you load into a mission
P: Virus warning, with a block, from your Anti-Virus (Windows 10 defender here) for the HeatBlur F-4 (may affect others).
P: Track IR doesn’t get recognized- it works with every other game except Elite Dangerous. (Identified by lack of blue LED at the bottom of the camera) S: The TrackIR software must be installed in the C: drive (This was a female dog to troubleshoot… )
P: Crash to Desktop with this error (WIP) S: Reduce the size of the Virtual Memory (Pagefile on HDD/SSD) to the suggested size. (I swear to god, I got the weirdest problems with ED lately!)
MSFS 2024 (PC version)
P: Stuck at 68% at initial loading / long loading times S: Disable network adapter, run the game, after splashscreens when the Warning screen comes on enable network adapater - note that this doesn’t always works
WAR THUNDER
P: Crash during the black screen loading of the login page. (WIP) S: Update GPU drivers and reboot the PC.
GENERAL PC PERFORMANCE - COOLING
P: Under load every game (high performance software) runs slower than it used.to. Can be especially noticeable when the game is loading. S: This one is kind of obvious but sometimes we look for technical solutions when the problem is ‘mechanical’ - check your PC fans/filters/screens for clogging. You may get your ‘new’ PC back. This problem can creep up on you.
May also be your thermal paste - between the CPU/GPU and the cooling apparatus. The life of this substance varies. There are many YouTube videos on how to reapply.
P: Massive stutters during gameplay S: Disable / enable CPU cores (last core works for me) after you load into a mission
MSFS 2024 (PC version)
P: Stuck at 68% at initial loading / long loading times S: Disable network adapter, run the game, after splashscreens when the Warning screen comes on enable network adapater - note that this doesn’t always works
Is there a way to make this a ‘sticky’ kind of thing? Stand out somehow. I may be missing something but I have to search for it when I want to add something.
P: Frequent, regular, stutters/dips in FPS. Noticed on Afghanistan map. Dips in FPS occur ~every 200ms (parked at Kandahar, DCS Hornet, cold start) consistently, dropping the FPS in half.
S: Here’s one that seems to prove deleting your fxo & metashaders remains a viable technique. After removing the shaders and a [automatic] rebuild no dips observed, or were very minor (no more than ~10FPS - steady at 138FPS on this rig).
NOTE: This was observed on a circa 2016 system (32GB Memory, nVidia 1080, 8GB VRAM, in a 2D window, 1440); this older system seems to highlight issues of this nature more than newer, more powerful, ones.
This no longer works (for a long time actually), here’s my other solution which works currently for me:
MSFS 2024 (PC version)
P: Stuck at 68% at initial loading / long loading times S: Use RivaTuner to limit FPS to 30 and set CPU affinity to less number of CPU cores during game loading phase (in my case I disable 2 out of 4 cores for MSFS2024 exe), after the game loads up disable the FPS limit and enable all cores back
)
Glad to be of service.