[Jim Gorman]

hi 

lately i had some problems with fps, and maybe some others have those problems and can be helpfully.

Hi Stefano, (and others with the same/similar issue)

I have, until very recently, had the same problem. Here is how I cured it :- I replaced my CPU's heatsink and fan.

Your problem, if it is the same as mine, and it sounds exactly like the problem I was suffering, is your CPU is probably thermally throttling itself.

On my system, the thermal paste interface between CPU and heatsink looked dried out and patchy, and in the center it was particularly lacking adequate paste. A clean up and re-paste possibly would have cured it but I had a new, spare heatsink/fan to hand and decided to try it. The difference was immediate. No more reduction of CPU clock speed when the CPU temperature hit 85C to allow the processor to cool back down to around 79C. Around 5 seconds later or so, it was back to normal and the dreaded Assetto Corsa, >99% CPU OCCUPANCY warning disappeared from the top of the screen.

This was causing cyclical fps drops while racing, and, like you seem to be suffering, it always seemed to happen in the same areas of a track and usually when there are larger numbers of opponents. The race starts were also prone to frame drop. The obvious reason being, the CPU is having to work more. None of this is news to those of us on older hardware. What was surprising to me, and I should know better considering my background in some of this electronical trickery, is the importance of getting the heat away from the CPU! This should also be noted for those on newer hardware. Bad cooling costs frames!!

I also have a "not the most powerful system in the world" AMD Phenom II X4 975 @ 3.7GHz, 4GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX760 2GB VRAM. This is an issue I had since starting sim-racing 2 months ago and it was looking like I was doomed to small field races or, "heaven forbid, laddie", I'd have to spend some more money on more upgrades. The GTX 760 is a recent upgrade from a 512MB Nvidia GT9800 in an attempt to cure this problem. I almost stopped racing online when that upgrade failed to cure the issue.

Now, with my CPU running at more controlled maximum temperature around 65-70 degrees C while full blat through Eau Rouge, along the Kemmel Straight, throughout Les Combes and most importantly, beyond, all is smooth and there's no more of this nonsense.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbRyN7WfP30&t=18m50s

In conclusion, I would suggest you install some hardware monitoring software (such as OpenHardwareMonitor http://openhardwaremonitor.org/) and have a look at your CPU temperatures.


JimG