Kunos Assetto Corsa CPU Occupancy > 99% Warning Advice

[Paul Jeffrey]

Kunos Simulazioni respond to recent CPU Occupancy > 99% issue with new advice for PC owners.

Following the popular update to build 1.12 of Assetto Corsa on Windows PC, Kunos Simulazioni have quickly realised a small proportion of users are suffering from a return of the CPU Occupancy > 99% issue that plagued many players during early builds of the game.

The return of the issue, attributed to amendments to the controls.ini file received in the latest build, has been acknowledged by the developers and advice has been issued on how to resolve this problem for the vast majority of players. With the update to the controls.ini file Kunos have brought to the game a more detailed FFB feeling for a number of wheel users, unfortunately this has caused problems for some players, especially those with older or home made wheel solutions. With the below advice issued today by Kunos the Italian team are confident any remaining CPU Occupancy issues will be resolved.

It is advisable to contact the official Assetto Corsa PC support forum if you still experience this issue after following the below steps.

FOR PC/WINDOWS USERS
With the new v1.12 update, we have introduced a new section in the "controls.ini" file located in your "Windows Documents\Assetto Corsa\cfg" path called "[FF_SKIP_STEPS]", that manages the force feedback update rate. The default value is now "0" instead of "1" and it overrides the old value located in the "assetto_corsa.ini" file (in the Steam game folder). This brings a more detailed force feedback and a better driving feeling. If you experience "CPU OCCUPANCY > 99%" warnings, please tick "Half FFB Update Rate" in the the UI Options -> Controls -> Advanced and this will bring the value back to "1". Not all the steering wheels can manage the maximum update rate, so no worries.

If you are using a very old steering wheel like the Microsoft Sidewinder or Saitek R440, or other hand-made ones, you need to open the "controls.ini" file, and set the "FF_SKIPS_STEPS" value to "4". It should look like this:

[FF_SKIP_STEPS]

VALUE=4

This should solve any "CPU OCCUPANCY > 99%" warnings related to the force feedback refresh rate.

Please always double check this value if you load controls profiles created before v1.12 update! In case, please create a new controls profile with the proper value!


Assetto Corsa is a racing simulation built for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The game is available to purchase now with a number of additional DLC packages available depending on the chosen platform.

The Assetto Corsa sub forum here at RaceDepartment is the place to go for Assetto Corsa news and community discussion. We have a whole bunch of mods to download, a specific area for modders to discuss their WIP projects and of course our epic Racing Club and League events. Head over and join in today.

Have you experience the 99% Occupancy issue? Does the above suggestion resolve your issues? What do you think of the 1.12 update? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[CptEinsicht]

I have it from time to time. But i think that this is a Hardware problem on my side because my cpu really sucks.
Happens only with plenty opponents.

 

[Ricoow]

I want to rage so much. Freaking snowbanks.

 

[Giorgos Kostis]

I don't trust the assetto corsa fps counter.

When i use MSI afterburner, it shows that only 18-20% of my CPU is used while Assetto corsa shows 3x as much.

 

[Mindo]

I have it from time to time. But i think that this is a Hardware problem on my side because my cpu really sucks.
Happens only with plenty opponents.

same here bro i have the same problem.with CPU...old q8300 is running hard and my 4gigs of memory ....its low, but i dont have a money

 

[Stereo]

CPU at >99% in AC just means a single core is completely occupied, other programs (like windows task manager) report all cores combined so it would be 25% on a 4-core or 12% on 8-core.

 

[xnorb]

AFAIK Assetto Corsa, in contrary to most sims, uses actual physics calculation for AI, so the first advice should be to lower the number of AI drivers on the road.

When i run AC with 24 AIs on my i5 3550, all cores are pretty much melting

 

[Epistolarius]

I don't trust the assetto corsa fps counter.

When i use MSI afterburner, it shows that only 18-20% of my CPU is used while Assetto corsa shows 3x as much.

Because the one in AC doesn't show total CPU load/occupancy in the first place...

http://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/i...ics-and-ff-frequency.31453/page-4#post-667481

CPU value is for the graphics thread. It shows the relationship between the time spent in the application (CPU) and the time spent to complete a frame (FRAME TIME). Values of CPU near 100% indicate a CPU-bound system graphically.
EX... if a frame took 16ms to complete and CPU is 50% it means that AC was able to prepare the frame in 8ms.. and the GPU took 16ms to render it. (GPU bound).. if CPU is 100% then it took the CPU 16ms to prepare the frame and the GPU is probably capable to go faster (CPU bound).
No relationship whatsoever with the value read in task manager.

PHY is relative to the physics thread, values above 100% indicates that the system is not able to calculate the physics in time (3ms per step) and that the game is now running slower than realtime (slowmo). Practically means there are too many AI and the CPU is not able to handle it.

 

[MaXKiLLz911]

I don't trust the assetto corsa fps counter.

When i use MSI afterburner, it shows that only 18-20% of my CPU is used while Assetto corsa shows 3x as much.

Same here.

 

[aphidgod]

Read the post above yours.

 

[Alex72]

I have it from time to time. But i think that this is a Hardware problem on my side because my cpu really sucks.
Happens only with plenty opponents.

Thats the idea though. When you have more opponents the cpu is more stressed and the FFB calculation will take it over the top and give you a warning. So if you did what the article suggest you might get away with not having the warning even with many AI.

 

[Piero Favretti]

I'm getting the "CPU Occupancy > 99% issue" error using the AccuForce wheel, i7 6800K 8/16 core processor, GTX 1070 and 32gb of RAM. WTH?!

 

[mister dog]

I'm getting the "CPU Occupancy > 99% issue" error using the AccuForce wheel, i7 6800K 8/16 core processor, GTX 1070 and 32gb of RAM. WTH?!

Yeah but that's all low grade material, you need beefier specs.

 

[Tobiman]

I'm getting the "CPU Occupancy > 99% issue" error using the AccuForce wheel, i7 6800K 8/16 core processor, GTX 1070 and 32gb of RAM. WTH?!

That's a 6core/12thread cpu btw. Regardless, that's really wierd. My i5 @ 4.5ghz is usually in the 60s even with a huge grid.

 

[PicoBp]

If it's FFB related, the problem is not the game, but your wheel driver. If it can't process FFB refresh at full rate, it will bog down your CPU by constantly waiting for the driver to send data to the wheel.

 

[Terra21]

i had the same question asked a while ago "may 2016" when my dated setup i5 3570,gtx680,16gb ram could run road america fine with 30 ai on the grid at 60 fps.and a fellow seeing my yt vid commented he could not get the same 60 fps results with better hardware a GTX 970 a, AMD 8350 OC and 16gb ram without the 99% warning always showing and the game slowing/stuttering.the solution i asked him to try which in the end fixed the problem was to manually enable multicore processing in windows 10.his reply was...
"Wow, thanks. No one ever told me, or even mentioned on the forums that you have to "enable" multi core processors in Windows? found a video telling "how to enable multi core processors in Windows 10." Kind of begs the question though. Why do my other games work fine, and report all 8 cores being used in MSI Afterburner? 36 AI on road America now work smooth as glass.thanks However only in AC was it a problem?"

so its just a suggestion to try out which has worked for someone in the past.. not sure if it was just because he had an 8 core amd or not..
...

 

[Joerg Baermann]

Instead of giving an advice they could make a temporary patch that corrects the values upon which wheel the game finds until a permanent solution is found.

 

[McM]

"Wow, thanks. No one ever told me, or even mentioned on the forums that you have to "enable" multi core processors in Windows? found a video telling "how to enable multi core processors in Windows 10."

WOW thanks from me to, didn't know that either... does that mean AC (and other games) can now use all 4 cores? Does that mean that having 4 cores enabled and I am just in windows, all 4 cores are running too and will kill my CPU faster? Some more explanations would be nice, very hard to understand what google is showing me as results. THX

 

[Joerg Baermann]

WOW thanks from me to, didn't know that either... does that mean AC (and other games) can now use all 4 cores? Does that mean that having 4 cores enabled and I am just in windows, all 4 cores are running too and will kill my CPU faster? Some more explanations would be nice, very hard to understand what google is showing me as results. THX

Windows 10 detects all cores by itself, just check the performance tab in task manager, msconfig's advanced boot option is only there to disable core detection at boot.
If anything you can disable core parking in Windows: https://bitsum.com/parkcontrol/ , and you can align their clock speeds via BIOS by letting them run synchronized at the expense of power-saving.
I would recommend the whole process lasso suite, there is a free version for both 32 as 64 bit systems, it is advised to read the manual since not all settings are meant to be tweaked on a regular PC.

 

[Tobiman]

The 911 GT3 Cup used to be really chatty and skippy which I really liked. This new update has smoothened out the handling of the car. Could that be as a result of the now symmetric ARBs?