Sever stuttering during startup and main menu - Resolved by unplugging a controller.

[albyone92]

Hello all I am having problems and currently cannot play the game. The story has 2 parts:
1) I install the game like evryone else and try to play. Result: 30 fps in main menu with big stuttering issues. Even with new game I could not play at all. I tried every possible setting (lowest to highest) and the performance was unphazed. Before you start saying something about my PC I can say with certainty that RAM, processor and GPU memory were not even at 50% capacity/effort.

2) I try to restart my PC and now it's even worse. 15 minutes (literally) to arrive at main menu, and the stuttering is severe (15 seconds (!!!) to accept a command). I tried uninstalling and reinstalling in 3 different SSD or HDD and nothing changed at all.
Also did a clean reinstall by deleting every folder related to X4.
Installed through Steam, overlay is disabled.

PC spec (all driver up to date and checked):

Processor: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080
Operating System: Windows 11
RAM: 32 GB
SSD: Samsung 990 pro 1 TB

Let me know if someone had a similar issue. it seems really similar to what happened to NVIDIA users this april but this was fixed, so I have no clue.

[Alan Phipps]

Please post a link to a recent DxDiag so that we can take a look at your system set-up. The information we really need in order to help you effectively (and how to provide it) was all covered in the 'Please read this before posting' Sticky at the top of this forum here.

I know you reinstalled, but have you verified since? You didn't actually say if your game or save was modded/edited or not.

If you use Samsung Magician/Rapid with your SSD then it might be worth trying again without them.

Processor loading at 50% can still mean that the thread running the main game loop is maxed out.

[Daemonjax]

I had that problem after putting together my new pc and installing a fresh copy of win10. I tried to figure out EXACTLY what the problem was, but since it was a new installation, after a couple hours I just decided to reinstall win10 again... and that "resolved" it. It was weird... it acted like the game was running in some kind of software emulation mode (like I was running it in a VM).

[albyone92]

Hello,

first of all thanks for the reply.

I have an update with respect to yesterday. The sever stuttering is better but still unplayable. The Nvdia Geforce overlay says the game is at 35/40 fps (stable) but the game is stuttering big time. I can start the flying instruction part but I move teleporting like I wa at 5 fps instead.

Missing info:
DxDiag (hope this works): https://pastebin.com/VZj1vpJf

Version and language: Latest version (6.20 I think), English
Whether or not your game is modified using any third party scripts or mods: fresh install, no mods, nothing
Game start being played: I can reach the main menu with much suffering and stuttering like described above
Exact nature of the problem, where and when it occurs and what you were doing at the time: explained above, occurs always
Any possibly relevant changes you have made to your game, system, or software before the issue occurred: fresh install so game has never worked
Where appropriate, additional symptoms, error messages, links to saves *, screenshots and crash dump files (see this Wiki entry): no messages at all, not even when I force quit. I also disabled steam cloud save but nothing changed

I verified multiple time througout all installations, nothing changed.

I have no rapid feature and I closed Magician. Also I installed the game in HDD (not Samsung) and still had the same effect.

CPU usage in main meno was 26/28 % at beginning and then went down to 18% average after a while in main menu, but stuttering continued.
GPU usage around 25% with 3.1/10 Gb in use
Memory 13.6/32 Gb (accounting also for firefox, but closing browser changes nothing)

Hope this is all the info you need.

[CBJ]

Can you also post the requested vulkaninfo, please? This sometimes shows up issues that the DXDiag does not.

One thing your DXDiag does show is that your system seems to be having an awful lot of trouble with Windows Update. You might want to look into this, in case it's causing (or a symptom of) wider system issues.

[albyone92]

Vulkan info: https://pastebin.com/tGPVUnKq

Today windows 11 told me that there are a lot of updates, but yesterday it wasn't like this. I'll try tomorrow morning to see if something changes in the meantime.

[Alan Phipps]

It might be worth disabling (in Control Panel, Device Manager, Sound/Audio Devices - right-click on a device in the list for a disable/enable pop-up) that VB Audio Cable sound device and its 9 year old non-WHQL Win7 driver, assuming that you don't use it for anything important. If you do want to keep it then look for a Win11 WHQL driver for it.

Also you have a Microsoft default generic driver for your onboard Realtek sound chipset. You should get the latest WHQL Realtek HD Audio Codec driver for that from either Realtek or the Windows Driver cache.

These *might* explain some of your update problems.

[albyone92]

I did what you said but that's not what fixed it. The Ps3 controller was attached via USB port. When I disconnect it the game goes to 142 fps and feels very fluid even in ultra.

I would say it's fixed.

[Alan Phipps]

Good to hear and enjoy the game.