Naturally I can’t say with 100% certainty but after three rounds of testing ATC Audio there is a strong correlation between ATC coms and micro-stutters. Any form of chatter on an active ATC freq. delivers at least an FPS displayed tank for the briefest of seconds. Sometimes it is noticeable in the actual display as a visible stutter or pause.
All three test were the same FLP from KMIA to KFLL at 3000ft. with AI traffic at 100% and ground aircraft at 100% as well.
Turning off the ATC ‘Audio’ seems to lessen but not eliminate the pauses/stutters. Likewise turning of the ATC message archive also seems to reduce.
To be fair there are times when the FPS tank per the FPS counter at times when there is no textual or audio ATC interaction going on. But these are not nearly as frequent and tend to be much less noticeable and shorter (almost imperceptible on my system), but they do show up in the FPS counter. These could be graphical or could still be ATC going on in the background (program).
As an aside, I will say that I think the stutters often just ‘look’ worse when at the airport or closer to the terrain. The amount of stutter (again per the FPS counter) can be exactly the same amount of time but if you have a frame of reference (building, aircraft, etc.) it appears worse. When the same thing happens at altitude there is much, much less in the way of objects to judge the length of pauses so it ‘seem’ to improve with altitude. This perception is also helped by the fact that as we gain altitude the overall FPS tend to increase. As a result there is more cushion to absorb(o) the impact of the drop.
I am confident that ATC/Traffic is a large portion of the stutter issue. I can’t say for sure but I would not be surprised if AI/ATC are constantly running even if we deselect in the Map or Options screen. There’s no way to know if they are actually ‘off’ as indicated or if they are just visually turned off in the sim from our perspective.
Anyway, sorry for the long post but Asobo should really take a look and the ATC-Traffic-Coms display and audio elements assuming they have not already.
Off to more testing, it’s kinda fun if I’m being honest with myself which rarely happens 