Synthesia drops the framerate randomly

[ofzatt]

Hi,
I'm using the latest version of Synthesia (10.5) and I found the software randomly dropping the framerate, though I am forced it to run with more than 13xx fps (set FrameMinMilliseconds to 0 and Vsync unchecked). With these settings, Framerate can be up to 16xx and Synthesia uses 45% CPU (i5 Haswell) and 80% GPU (750 Ti). The dropping bar is very smooth, but the software randomly flash drop frame while playing. And yes, I use synthesia with FL studio (via Loopmidi) and a windows video recorder. I tried the setup FrameMinMilliseconds to 1 and 2, but choppy is even more noticeable, although the framerate is very high (over 600 fps). What I need to do?

[Nicholas]

What do you mean by "randomly flash drop frame"? Does the screen actually flash?

I've noticed that unless the app is in full-screen mode (press Alt-Enter), that the OS (or graphics driver or something) seems to give it less priority than it should. Once in full-screen mode, things seem to proceed much more smoothly.

[ofzatt]

I dont know how to describe it. mean, it suddenly jerked. Here. this is more than 1400+ fps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mZ13gwLdz8

[Nicholas]

Yeah, those tiny hiccups are what I was talking about, too. Does switching to full-screen mode help make that happen less often?

[ofzatt]

not different, still flash drop .

[Nicholas]

I've also noticed that those sorts of tiny interruptions are very sensitive to the kinds of apps you have running in the background. Even just having a couple Chrome tabs open can make things a lot spikier. Does closing everything else (including non-essential notification area apps) help anything?

I'm not sure there is any way to make things perfect on a multitasking OS like Windows (vs. say, making Synthesia for a game console where the apps are allowed to have the full system's attention) and we could certainly do better with the some of the real-time programming in the app itself, but hopefully those steps help.