Windows 2004 HAGS, Nvidia Pitool 261, Catalyst, DCS

Recently I was using the pitool catalyst setting at 10 in DCS.
For it to work I tuned DCS settings that the FPS was stable at half framerate with smart smoothing on while not exceeding 90% gpu usage.
If I could maintain that then the experience was very good and smooth.
However if the framrate dipped below half framerate then very bad double vision stuttering occured.
If the gpu utilization fell below ~50% then pitool tried to switch off smart smoothing, again stuttering.
If I switched off smart smoothing manually, fps increased, gpu utilization went up near 100%, but again stuttering and excessive lag.

Then I read about the new Windows 10 2004 feature “Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling” (HAGS) and the new Nvidia driver that supports that.
Installed the 2004 update, nvidia driver 451.48, pitool 261.
I switched HAGS on, rebooted.
Switched off smart smoothing, to try to cause stuttering immidiately.
The result: High GPU usage (up to 98%), higher framrates and almost completely eliminated the stuttering and lag for me while using catalyst at 10.
Still needs more testing but that is very encouraging.

The system used was i9900k CPU at 5.1Ghz, RTX 2080ti at 2Ghz and a 202 serial 5k+.

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Nice find…! :wink:

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following…

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@SweViver + @PimaxUSA + @mirage335: Interesting finding for You guys with access to 8KX’s to try out… :wink:

If this is indeed reproduce able You might want to look into a possibility to enable from the Pimax VR Experience (or PiTool at install).

And if not (I guess it should be possible to enable it using a registry edit or something, but I’m a Linux guy, not a Windows guy), then at least inform the user to do it at install time :wink:

If it works, maybe it should be pinned?

EDIT: Known issues here:
https://docs.microsoft.com/da-dk/windows/release-information/status-windows-10-2004

EDIT2: It’s not available for install for me yet, but they mention they’re rolling it out currently, so it’ll probably be available soon:

Note: You may not see Download and install on your device as we are slowly throttling up this availability over the coming weeks

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Really good. I’ll try later. Thanks.
Edit: At the moment that update is not ready for my desktop. It says soon.

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You can install the 2004 update via the Update Assitant.

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Worth a try. I suspect we need more control over the performance regressions in PiTool though. Not necessarily a good strategy to rely on a combination of unknown things to have things working.

As for “VR Experience”, since this is more of a ‘make sure you install this’ deal, rather than a configuration thing, it probably merits a README entry or similar.

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It’s an option in Windows settings… :upside_down_face:

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Very interesting, thanks! I wondered how this would effect thngs.

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What about ‘Game Mode’, does it need to be activated as for DCS i always had it off ?
Also, did not hear anything new about ‘Parallel Projection’, has the algorithm been optimized in latest Pitool (261) ?

Sounds like something we should include enabling inside the Pimax Experience or at least explain inside the experience the steps to enable.

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As far as I understand, and as weird as it may sound, “Game Mode” should just be left off… Always… Period (thanks Microsoft)… :rofl:

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Should I upgrade to windows 2004 even though my PC says it’s not ready? I have a modern 2080 Ti and i7 8700 PC with Z390 motherboard, latest bios. I have Windows 10 Pro even though I dont need any pro features. I’ve installed the latest graphics driver which supports the latest features of 2004 but with 1909 windows still installed.

Definitely! (Sarcasm ) :joy:

Update: It just showed up as available under my windows updates menu. I guess I can install it now :slight_smile:

Do you read the article?

no bugs no issues for now. In daily work applications (cubase, premiere) and any games 2D and 3D. Using many sound and Bluetooth devices. (Buglist of the article) Maybe I‘m just lucky and others are not.

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That was from June 16th and it said to not install it if it’s not ready. But it’s ready to install now for my PC. And I prefer the Hardware accelerated gpu scheduling feature.

Ok, the last problems i heard are 5 days ago … Good luck !

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I just installed the latest update. Haven’t played any games yet but so far no problems with my PC. It even sped it up. Responsiveness is much better. Only problem is my Intel Optane memory driver is having problems loading. This optane memory is supposed to speed up my E drive. Update: I fixed the optane thing by clicking “Repair” in program list on it and restarting computer.

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