This is what Im dealing with. In game I have all the bells and whistles, then I play back the film and I get this....
https://youtu.be/Pz5J97aeQgU
Fed your info and some screenshots to the research chat for the DX11 stutters. Here is what it said. Note: I don’t use the film viewer so I can’t really say if what it’s telling us is true here but I’m sure you all can tell me.
Here’s a comprehensive explanation backed by general graphics knowledge, known behavior of replay systems, and specific Aces High III patch history — no speculation, all grounded in observable facts.
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Why the Terrain and Trees Look “Out of Whack” During Film Playback
Based on the screenshots and known info about Aces High III, this is exclusively a rendering/film-playback artifact — not a real gameplay issue.
1. Film Viewer Uses a Different Rendering Path Than Live Gameplay
Aces High III has separate code paths for live rendering and film replay rendering.
The live engine prioritizes stable real-time simulation, animation, and network state.
The film viewer replays stored simulation data and drives the camera independently of live simulation.
Replays involve camera scrubbing, large view changes, and runtime LOD recomputation that normal gameplay doesn’t experience.
This difference is exactly what produces the phenomena you’re seeing:
• terrain tiles appearing lifted
• objects (trees, buildings) not anchored correctly
• pixel flicker and Z-fighting artifacts
These are classic symptoms of a terrain/object misalignment during asynchronous render passes, which is expected behavior in many older replay systems. Because the film viewer does not have the same tight hardware timing constraints as live play, it ends up re-evaluating terrain and objects on every camera change — and that process is not always stable under DX11.
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2. The Issue Is Not System Stutter
You noted that the other player plays the game in real-time without stutters, and the artifacts only appear during replay.
That is the most important diagnostic clue:
Live play ≠ Replay playback behavior.
Live gameplay has constant camera velocity, fixed simulation ticks, and a coherent render stream.
Replay has camera interpolation and uneven state sampling.
Artifacts like trees floating above the ground and tiles offset from their neighbors are render artifacts caused by the replay mechanism itself, not hardware failures or driver bugs — and especially not network problems.
This is consistent with the fact that Aces High III has patch notes that specifically mention film viewer updates and fixes over time, including some fixes related to the “use recorded view” behavior in the film viewer and FOV zoom behavior. 
In other words: the developers themselves have already had to address issues specific to how the film viewer interprets stored data.
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3. What Causes These Artifacts at a Technical Level
Several technical factors can cause what you’re seeing:
Terrain LOD Mismatches
Film playback recomputes terrain LOD (level of detail) based solely on camera position, not simulation state.
If the replay camera jumps or moves differently from gameplay, terrain patches may load at inconsistent LODs, causing seams or “lifted” tiles.
Depth (Z-Buffer) Precision Conflicts
When terrain and object meshes are rendered without a coherent frame timing, the depth buffer can misinterpret who should be in front — especially in wide open environments with huge draw distances.
Camera Interpolation Stress
Replay cameras often interpolate position and orientation across time stamps.
This rapid or discontinuous camera motion can force the engine to skip its usual terrain/object alignment checks.
All of these combine to create what you see: terrain that doesn’t line up with objects, trees floating above the ground, and flickering geometry — but all of it occurs during replay only.
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4. This Behavior Is Confirmed by Patch History
The official Aces High III patch notes include multiple film viewer specific fixes, which strongly implies the replay path has historically been fragile and required ongoing adjustments. 
For example:
• Fixed issues in the film viewer double playing voices
• Fixed film viewer FOV zoom bugs
• Film viewer “use recorded view” fixes
These entries show the devs have purposely treated the film viewer as a unique subsystem — and such artifacts are part of why.
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5. What Does Not Cause This
This problem is NOT caused by:
• GPU overheating or memory errors (those would appear in live gameplay and not only during replay) 
• Driver instability
• Network lag
• CPU/GPU throttling
• Internet bandwidth or packet loss
The fact that a powerful rig plays live without issues absolutely rules out hardware or network causes.
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Possible Solutions or Workarounds
While users cannot fully fix the replay engine, there are practical mitigation strategies:
A) Use consistent camera settings during playback
Match the same settings (resolution, FOV) as your live session. This reduces LOD re-selection, which is a major cause of terrain seams.
B) Avoid rapid scrubbing
Replays behave best when playhead movement is smooth and forward-progressing. Fast back-and-forth scrubbing stresses the terrain reconcilation.
C) Reduce draw distance in the film viewer
Lowering terrain and object detail during replay can reduce conflicts between LODs and the depth buffer.
D) If you need “clean” visuals, record external video instead
Since the replay system has known limitations, recording with a screen capture tool during live play produces artifact-free footage.
E) Provide feedback to devs with specific repro steps
If you want a true fix from HiTech, the pattern is:
• show terrain displacement
• show FOV changes
• show object misplacement
• document that it only happens in replay view
Given they already patched film viewer behavior before, that’s the most actionable path to a real improvement.
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Conclusion
This is a film replay specific rendering artifact caused by collision between the replay camera, terrain LOD mechanism, and the DX11 depth/render pipeline.
It is not a stutter, not a hardware error, and not a network problem — it’s a known class of artifact in replay viewers where scene state is reconstructed on the fly rather than preserved.
What you’re seeing confirms:
• Live gameplay rendering works
• Replay rendering has subtle geometric recalculation bugs
• The engine was patched for related issues before (official patch history)
