The Sopwith Dolphin -- Airfield Attack scramble mission is perfect as a test, as it stutters predictably (i.e. every time for me) within the first minute or so of the mission. This was observed with Mods On and Mods Off.

Start the mission, start the engine right away (set game preference 'warmed engine'), and take off immediately, your wingmates will follow right away. After wheels up bank to the right, and if you have TIR, gently swivel your head right<->left in order to detect the stutter. For me it is a big one, at least a second or more where the in-game image literally freezes.

Below are some screenshots captured over the course of several mission runs. I'm sure/hope that somebody has better software than Task Manager and Resource Monitor to quantify the stutter event. I've 'uploaded' the TM and RM screenies so they can be enlarged.

1) Dolphin Airfield Under Attack Mission Map to orient you
2) In game map: you are blue triangle (to the left), incoming hostiles are black aircraft icons (right) at the time of stutter. NB: The black icons are already there before the stutter, so not a spawn issue (?), but stutter occurs as distance closes within 10 km or so. This must be just beyond visual range?
3) Task Manager CPU activity at stutter: 4 red arrows point to stutter event 'spike' on all 4 cores (AFAIK). RoF.exe average usage is 45%, and even the spikes are not maxing the CPUs.
4) Resource Monitor Overview at stutter: red arrow (right side) points to disk activity during stutter (high disc activity to left is mission loading).
5) Resource Monitor Disc at stutter...

Interesting results there Bandy. I'll give it a try as soon as I can but I won't be using your mods for the test as I don't want to use any mods but will have mods on to see if that makes any difference.

Excellent results and analysis, Bandy. Pretty much catches the culprit with its hand in the cookie jar!

I can't recall if you said you have SSD or not.

Thanks Avatar. Yes, I'll try Mods Off next as well, ran out of time before I had to head out this morning.

Of note, RoF is not using all the system RAM that it could. With a 64 bit OS RoF is patched to have available up to 4 GB (the max for a 32 bit app). Sure would be nice to see it fill up more RAM and then swap out textures with the video RAM.

@ Hedgehog, I don't pretend to know what's going on here, but I would think/hope that my solid state drive is doing something to cut the texture load time. Where is the bottleneck causing the freeze/stutter guys???


EDIT: The freeze/stutter happens in Mods Off for me as well. And it is significant.

@Avatar, genuinely glad for you that you don't get it (from your post below), but not happy to hear that this is potentially one of those "minority bugs", i.e. only some of us experience it...

Bandy, might I suggest you try using a plane that everyone will definitely have? Like the Spad or DVII, for example, that way you might get more people to do it.

I just had a free moment between people at work here and hopped on real quick to try it out. (I have a home office so I just go to another part of the house to play. ) It's the Scenario Mission for the Dolphin, Friendly Airfield Under Attack. With mods off I tried it 3 times and only once did I have a slight hiccup upon takeoff when I looked over my right should at the other planes. It lasted maybe 2ms at most and was not bothersome in the least. The next two tries I didn't see that happen again.

I haven't flown the Dolphin much at all since I bought it and this mission was actually a blast to fly! Shot down two DVIIs and one DFW before another DFW's rear gunner got my engine leaking oil and I had to land... I'll have to explore some of these missions again as I've only been flying the Career mode when I play. I'll try again later with Mods on and see if that makes any difference.

Bandy, I may have to kill you...
All this time I've been blissfully unaware of this but tonight I ran the Dolphin mission about six or seven times and at first I wasn't sure if I'd seen a stutter or not, but then I was careful to watch for it and sure enough I got an unmIstakable micro-second stutter soon after takeoff...
I may never be able to ignore it again! Argh!
Mods off.

Apologies for formatting your rose-coloured glasses C_G, but doesn't the truth set you free? Or does one have to hunt it down and kill it?

Put my head out on the block and posted over at RoF forum LINK. As some have posted here, some post there that the stutter was always happening. I just don't think so, others seem to think so to, but we have no proof.

I thought I had old install of RoF on an old HD backup, but apparently deleted for space .
A clean install of ICE will not play without registration, which requires online login, which requires update. We may never know whether this encounter stutter is a new phenomenon or always occurred in the past.

Does anyone have an old install of RoF (at least summer 2011 or earlier) sitting on a backup drive? You can play a registered non-updated version of RoF, just don't Login Online by mistake!

Why, oh why didn't I take the blue pill?

Bandy, just curious. Could you try your stutter test again, but before takeoff, try looking left and right (and behind) with your TrackIR? I have noticed stutters in various missions, often at the start, when I first look left or right and my impression is the game is needing to cache the textures for the scene in those directions.

@arjisme
Oh yes, I see the "before take off" stutters every time when looking right and left, in fact I sometimes see my AI wing mates become "texturized". I do not perceive this as a problem, just normal mission loading.

Just want to be clear though, the pre-encounter stutter which this thread discusses is not one of those.

Cheers gentlemen.