Alright, so after getting all the updates installed, it was time to drive for the first time on this 30 day challenge.
Three, two…. [FREEZE] …one, go!
Well, it didn’t get off to a great start. Almost immediately as I loaded up the Mercedes AMG GT3 and Road Atlanta, I noticed that it took a long time for the server to connect and the actual sim environment to load. Alright, no worries – it’s early for me too, maybe the internet needs some coffee.
Once I got into the car and started heading out, within the first 30 seconds of a lap, I got a freeze/stuttering experience but the car would come back and I could keep going. Ok, that sucks but let’s stay focused and keep going.
But then it happened again, and again, and again. Time for evasive actions.
Step 1: Check video quality settings
I remember at one point last month, a big Windows update wiped out my settings and driver stuff for the NVIDIA graphics card and in my attempt to fix stuff, I made a bunch of changes in the iRacing graphics settings. So I reset them all to somewhat default settings, while still allowing for three monitors.
Went back to racing and… still had issues. No perceived change. Frustration level: 4
Step 2: Check background processes and other things that could be using up the internet connection
I shut down iRacing and checked out what other processes were happening that might be using internet bandwidth:
- OneDrive – it was syncing 9GB of stuff, of which I should just not sync anything on this computer since I only use it for iRacing. Sigh.
- Other browser windows – there were a couple other browser windows, like Virtual Racing School, so I closed those down.
- Steam console – it was connected and I tried to close it but it kept popping back up. 🙁
Result? A somewhat perceivable difference so I decided to keep going and just get as much seat time in as I had already burned through 40 minutes of my hour.
Result: Limited quality track time
This was really frustrating. I got about 6 or 7 clean laps and most were ruined by the stuttering. My son was awake and I decided to figure it out later and at least see if my data was being logged by the Virtual Racing School system and while the lap times sucked, at least that worked.
Aha! Found the culprit!
Just as I was about to get out of the sim rig, I decided to search on the web for other people who have had this issue. Pages were loading slowly but loading and then suddenly, everything stopped loading. WTF? Did my internet go down? Checked networked status and no, packets are still being sent and received. I was about to get up to reset the router and modem when I looked over and saw my phone that I had used to record the part 1 of this day 1 video blog and it was uploading the HD video to YouTube.
I paused the upload, turned off the WiFi on the phone and looked at the PC. Suddenly, the pages were loading again. Then literally a few seconds later, I see a pop up from Windows that it was getting ready to install the Windows 10 Creators Update. Great. So two big upload and downloads were essentially eating up the internet connection.
Lesson learned? Make sure your internet connection is clear and prioritized for your iRacing. Having someone else uploading something, streaming a movie, having a Skype video chat, will not do you any favors.