DF v10.0

I ran extensive tests today to pinpoint a problem I have been noticing.

I have a 144Hz high refresh monitor so is easy to see frame drops on moving 2D elements in windows apps.

The sympthom is uneven/jerky moving non hardware accelerated UI elements such as the Start Menu, FL Studio as a whole, Windows Explorer and other apps with fancy 2D menus with transitions. 3D Games or Edge are not accepted as I'm using HW acceleration and my 4090 munches through CP2077 like nothing.

I'm 100% sure it affects only 2D elements in apps and windows and I know is caused by DF because I tried no less than 15 times having DF on vs off to compare before writing here.

Something in DF seems to be polling the screen or system constantly, or something of the sort.

My windows version is 22H2 23466.1001

Machine:
5900X
64GB RAM
4090
1x4K 144Hz monitor + 4x 1080p60Hz Monitors.
Super well maintained Windows 11 installation. Process Lasso also helping managing core affinities.

Things I tried:
- Restarting the PC.
- Disabling custom affinities to all DF related processes.
- Forcing DF to run single core.
- Disabling hook to taskbar (not sure if that even applies)
- Setting DF with low priority.
- Setting DF in efficient mode (Win11 feature, applicable in Process lasso)
- Settings: Disabling scrolling under mouse cursor.
- Settings: Anything but Monitor Profiles, Windows Position profiles and Desktop Icon profiles is enabled. Everything else is disabled (not managed by DF)

Only closing DF fixes the issue. The service can still run without causing problems.

Best Regards.

Sacco.

Hello

So, here is a preliminary video. I'll record another after the system is up for some hours. After fresh rebooting is not as easy to spot and gets worse over time.

It might aswell be a windows thing and DF exacerbates it. I'm open to learn if you have some fancy ways to measure and diagnostic windows's UI performance.

https://youtu.be/41nVUTmd8Io

Here's a second video about 5h after booting. It is much easier to spot this time.

https://youtu.be/N9lE7NyL1EE

Here are my settings, just in case you find them useful.

More diagnostic, both made while DF was loaded.The PC has been running for two days with a sleep period in between.

Here are my results for Winsat dwmformal:

Windows System Assessment Tool
> Running: Feature Enumeration ''
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: WinSAT Direct3D Assessment '-aname DWM -time 10 -fbc 10 -disp off -normalw 1 -alphaw 2 -width 1280 -height 1024 -winwidth C(1144) -winheight C(915) -rendertotex 6 -rtdelta 3 -nolock'
> Assessing Desktop Graphics Performance
> Run Time 00:00:10.58
> Video Memory Throughput 512584.00 MB/s
> Dshow Video Encode Time 0.00000 s
> Dshow Video Decode Time 0.00000 s
> Media Foundation Decode Time 0.00000 s
> Total Run Time 00:00:10.78

---------

Here are my results for Winsat graphicsformal:

S C:\Users\spyro> winsat graphicsformal
Windows System Assessment Tool
> Running: Feature Enumeration ''
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: WinSAT Direct3D Assessment '-aname Batch -time 5 -fbc 10 -disp off -animate 10 -width 1280 -height 1024 -totalobj 300 -batchcnt C(10) -objs C(26) -rendertotex 6 -rtdelta 3 -texpobj C(1)'
> Assessing DirectX Batch Performance
> Run Time 00:00:00.28
> Running: WinSAT Direct3D Assessment '-aname Alpha -time 5 -fbc 10 -disp off -animate 10 -width 1280 -height 1024 -totalobj 300 -batchcnt C(75) -objs C(26) -rendertotex 6 -rtdelta 3 -texpobj C(1)'
> Assessing DirectX Alpha blend Performance
> Run Time 00:00:00.28
> Running: WinSAT Direct3D Assessment '-aname Tex -time 5 -fbc 10 -disp off -animate 10 -width 1280 -height 1024 -totalobj 500 -batchcnt C(125) -objs C(20) -noalpha -texshader -totaltex 10 -texpobj C(4) -rendertotex 6 -rtdelta 3'
> Assessing DirectX Texture load Performance
> Run Time 00:00:00.28
> Running: WinSAT Direct3D Assessment '-aname ALU -time 5 -fbc 10 -disp off -animate 10 -width 1280 -height 1024 -totalobj 500 -batchcnt C(125) -objs C(20) -noalpha -alushader -totaltex 10 -texpobj C(1) -rendertotex 6 -rtdelta 3'
> Assessing DirectX ALU Performance
> Run Time 00:00:00.26
> Running: WinSAT Direct3D Assessment '-dx10 -aname Batch -time 5 -fbc 10 -disp off -animate 10 -width 1280 -height 1024 -totalobj 300 -batchcnt C(10) -objs C(26) -rendertotex 6 -rtdelta 3 -texpobj C(1)'
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: WinSAT Direct3D Assessment '-dx10 -aname Alpha -time 5 -fbc 10 -disp off -animate 10 -width 1280 -height 1024 -totalobj 300 -batchcnt C(75) -objs C(26) -rendertotex 6 -rtdelta 3 -texpobj C(1)'
> Run Time 00:00:00.02
> Running: WinSAT Direct3D Assessment '-dx10 -aname Tex -time 5 -fbc 10 -disp off -animate 10 -width 1280 -height 1024 -totalobj 500 -batchcnt C(125) -objs C(20) -noalpha -texshader -totaltex 10 -texpobj C(4) -rendertotex 6 -rtdelta 3'
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: WinSAT Direct3D Assessment '-dx10 -aname ALU -time 5 -fbc 10 -disp off -animate 10 -width 1280 -height 1024 -totalobj 500 -batchcnt C(125) -objs C(20) -noalpha -alushader -totaltex 10 -texpobj C(1) -rendertotex 6 -rtdelta 3'
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: WinSAT Direct3D Assessment '-dx10 -aname GeomF4 -time 7 -fbc 10 -disp off -animate 10 -width 1280 -height 1024 -totalobj 150;200;241 -batchcnt C(50);C(200);C(300) -objs C(12);C(26);C(45) -noalpha -geomf4shader -texpobj C(0) -rendertotex 6 -rtdelta 3 -tierframes 60 -tiertime 1'
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: WinSAT Direct3D Assessment '-dx10 -aname GeomV8 -time 7 -fbc 10 -disp off -animate 10 -width 1280 -height 1024 -totalobj 75;100;120 -batchcnt C(25);C(100);C(150) -objs C(;C(17);C(29) -noalpha -geomv8shader -texpobj C(0) -rendertotex 6 -rtdelta 3 -tierframes 60 -tiertime 1'
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: WinSAT Direct3D Assessment '-dx10 -aname CBuffer -time 5 -fbc 10 -disp off -animate 10 -width 1280 -height 1024 -totalobj 75 -batchcnt C(25) -objs C( -rendertotex 6 -rtdelta 3 -texpobj C(1) -cbuffershader -cbufa 2 -cbuff 5 -cbufp 6'
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Direct3D Batch Performance 42.00 F/s
> Direct3D Alpha Blend Performance 42.00 F/s
> Direct3D ALU Performance 42.00 F/s
> Direct3D Texture Load Performance 42.00 F/s
> Direct3D Batch Performance 42.00 F/s
> Direct3D Alpha Blend Performance 42.00 F/s
> Direct3D ALU Performance 42.00 F/s
> Direct3D Texture Load Performance 42.00 F/s
> Direct3D Geometry Performance 42.00 F/s
> Direct3D Geometry Performance 42.00 F/s
> Direct3D Constant Buffer Performance 42.00 F/s
> Dshow Video Encode Time 0.00000 s
> Dshow Video Decode Time 0.00000 s
> Media Foundation Decode Time 0.00000 s
> Total Run Time 00:00:01.28

Hi

Here's the log file.

Time I started touching FL's UI to test responsiveness is 6:38:09

Hope that helps.

Hi.

I installed the beta, unfortunately makes no difference.

Disabling "Run as low priority process" also made no difference.

Here's another video of me testing DF on vs off. I hope you can see it, I know there is some micro stutter when is off but no big hiccups and the systejm feels more responsive when DF is not loaded.

You can also see how anytime you wanna do something with DF such as loading the settings screen, apply changes or closing it with OK can make DWM (I presume) stall with heavy stuttering. I understand stalling is sometimes unavoidable, but feels a bit excessive and might have something to do with the issue I observe.

https://youtu.be/0yLf3Fz7q2s

It is called FL Studio.

https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio-download/

You can download the free demo and load this attached project file.

Hi

I'm so glad you found an actual issue. I thought it was gonna be a much more complicated matter that depends on windows itself.

I'll do what you suggested for the time being. In reality I would have to do so with windows itself cause Explorer.exe is also affected so what I'm doing for now is to keep DF closed and only load it when I want to change my main monitor's resolution.

Thank you!