New to AC: Performance Issues and intermittent CPU 99% Warning?

[mark_macrae_]

I'm pretty new to AC - less than a month. I started out on a controller and couldn't help but jump on the boxing week sale on the G29 wheel this week so was very excited to get back in. However the performance issues I am getting are REALLY getting me down on this whole thing.

I had noticed some slo-mo slowdowns while on my controller before Christmas so I don't think it's related to the new wheel - though I did find some threads that suggest ticking a "half update FFB" checkbox which I did... and it made no difference.

I have a few of the mods that everyone suggests downloaded in content manager...

It just makes no sense to me the 99% CPU warning as I have a second monitor which I can watch task manager showing around 24-50% CPU utilization and 80% GPU. There are no spikes in utilization that match up with the slow-downs in the game.

I've got a gaming laptop with an i7-7700 and GTX1060, 16 GB DDR4 RAM. Not the best machine by any stretch but I thought it would keep up with a 7-year old racing game.

 

[Neilski]

Two quick remarks:
Firstly, the CPU utilisation alert will be for just a single thread, so it won't show up in Task Manager as a 100%-busy CPU (a single busy thread will only have your 8-thread-capable CPU at 12.5% busy).
Secondly, when I see issues like this on laptops, I always check for overheating. Simplest way is to hit the button visible at the bottom of your Task Manager pic, and bring up the Resource Monitor. In there, you can ask it to monitor the CPU frequency, and in fact it'll probably do that by default; it'll be a blue line which should sit at the top of the CPU panel when the CPU is heavily loaded. If that dips in a way that seems coincident with your performance issues, you probably have dust clogging your cooling system. (Blow it out, hoover it out, or dismantle the machine...)

 

[Cote Dazur]

I don't think it's related to the new wheel

You are correct, it is not.

I have a few of the mods that everyone suggests

That could be an issue, as not all mod are optimized, either tracks or cars.
The main reason for 99% is too many AI running. AC AI use the same physic as the [layer, that is a blessing and a curse. The curse is that it is very taxing on your computer, so try less AI when you have the issue and see if it helps.
With time you will find graphic settings that look good enough and are more gentle on your lap top.

 

[pattikins]

Try turning off any unnecessary apps. In particular, the tyre app & the leaderboard (f9). Not sure about this one, but perhaps using Crewchief as a substitute for the AC hud.

 

[RasmusP]

Since you have content manager:
Install custom shaders patch (csp), if not configured, disable everything apart from "General", "GUI" and "TaskBar".
Not 100% sure about these names but you'll spot them when having it in front of you.

Then go on track and enable the csp render stats app!

The new TaskBar on the right with all the HUD apps is a bit overwhelming and has plenty of new icons but just look for the csp render stats app.

That app lists aaaalllll the frame times for every part of Assetto Corsa.
You'll see if a HUD app takes too much cpu time or the AI or the physics or the draw calls of an unoptimized mod car etc etc.

Frame time means at 100 fps, each frame will be 10ms long.
At 60 fps it will be 16.6666667ms long.


Btw, the 99% warning isn't even for a single thread like Neil said.
It means that the cpu took longer than 99% of 3ms for the physics calculation.
3ms is the tick rate of the physics calculation (and ffb update).

This can have multiple reasons and is quite complex.
It can happen when you have low fps (below 50) or when having very high fps without any fps limiter (content manager limiter, nvidia limiter, Riva tuner limiter, vsync).