durp

For AMD make sure you run at the high-performance power plan in windows power options. AMD does have some issues with USB devices in the balanced power-plan. (this sorted out micro stuttering in intervals for me which was every 5-10sec) USB Devices: From what I have picked up here, try unplugging some of the not needed devices and see if it helps, if you say it does flicker your external MFD something is going on with the USB controller. (I also read somewhere that a wireless mouse can cause issues... just seach for 'wireless' on this forum. WIngWing Joystick/Throttle: They had an issue where the polling was too frequent. It's a lua file in your scripts directory. Hotplug: Disable it in DCS Likely a little less related to your problem: there was an issues with AMD and having fTPM enabled that caused now and then a massive system stutter, it would even affect audio playback. It does however not happen that frequent as you describe, but make sure you have that one fixed with a recent BIOS version for your motherboard.

Small update on the screenshots with the gigantic shadows from non existent clouds: After some 'communication' took place (unfortunately not here) someone mentioned it does appear that this is only happening on one server (AO) and even more specific only on one mission file. It will be looked into the mission file to see if the source of that can be pinned to that. What remains is the flat-shadows issue, as this was from the quick-start mission and not related to a particular mission/server.

Would be interesting to hear if the 'flat' shadows are now supposed to be smoothed (feature) or if this is something that is not supposed to be (bug). With DCS 2.7 "Flat" shadows referred to a basic shadow outline without smoothing. In 2.8 the Shadow:Flat option seems broken* and TerrainObjectShadows:Flat appears to look more like TerrainObjectShadows:Default (smoothed) with a similar (if not the same) performance impact. * It used to draw the aircraft shadow, unsmoothed. Now it doesn't do anything unless TerrainObjectShadows is set to either flat or default (and in either option the aircraft shadow is also drawn smoothed)

oops, yes. meant DCS 2.8.0.32937

I just went through even more old configuration backups for all of them it was: ["flatTerrainShadows"] = 2, ["shadowTree"] = false, ["shadows"] = 1, and I am certain the aircraft shadow was drawn, but terrain objects (buildings) did not had shadows. This was more a sanity check for me, but there is clearly something broken with the shadows in 2.8 neither I can find any reference to that shadowTree setting in the UI DCS 2.7 (aircraft shadows visible, buildings/trees shadow not rendered, see post above about the aircraft shadow) Shadows: Flat only Terrain Object Shadows: Off

still present in DCS 2.8.0.32937 go off center to the right and you're CLARA

are you sure? in 2.7 I did had that setting off ["flatTerrainShadows"] = 2 assuming 0 : default, 1: flat and 2: off also went through my backups of the configuration folder. in March it was set to '2' and thats a VR screenshot also from March. (apache) it was helping a lot with rotary when close at the ground, since 2.8 that is no longer the case and terrain-object-shadows appears to have remained the same (configuration wise) the other screenshot with the hornet is with terrain object shadows to flat nullsmoothed shadows, clearly not flat and ways too taxing for me DCS2.8 with todays update: Terrain Object Shadows: Flat 2.7 Screenshot from March: Terrain Object Shadows: Off Shadows: Flat only

DCS 2.7.18.30765 (todays update) did not address the issue keep using the modified file thankfully provided by FrecceTricoloriVirtuali

ready on the ramp Shadows: Flat only Secondary Shadows: Off Terrain Object Shadows: Off No Aircraft Shadows drawn, same as after hotfix 1 release.

This is after todays update, see no changes from before Shadows: Flat only (I read in another post this is still not working, will try to test it if I can find a spot where the sun is not occluded by non existing clouds) Secondary Shadows: Off Terrain Object Shadows: Off

Also make sure you are running a High-Performance power profile in windows (Power Options) with AMD. Had constant stuttering that appeared repeatedly in intervals (also on 2D) without. Installing Ryzen Master should give you 2 additional power profiles, AMD something High and AMD soemthing Balanced. It should be set to High for DCS.

Not sure if this is related to the same issue, but since you mentioned overdraw I might toss it into the bucket (plus it might give this some momentum). It sounds 'reasonable' that there might be a link between what is drawn in the TGP related to smoke if too many sprites are drawn like with those vapor trails. Vapor trails can sometimes also be very taxing (not sure if it was GPU or CPU, didn't check fpsVR) but it seems only to happen with the thin wingtip trails. The two screenshots are the same scene, just rotated around, in one screenshot the framerate is 15, in the other it's 40 (40 is my max., capped at 40). When more of those trails can be seen it tanks the fps, if you see less, its fine. Sounds similar to what the TGP issue is, just too much drawn. Mind that this is not 'smoke' (but the smoke system is still broken in 2.8). The vapor issue was already present in 2.7. (screenshots are crops from VR screenshots)

I thought the thread mentioned some clues already? The initial poster also shows it. DCS 2.7 flat shadows are drawn 'flat' without smoothing. DCS 2.8 initial release did render all shadows smoothed (more high then medium, compared to the detail, LOW is just a blob underneath objects), regardless of the "flat" setting. Which is very taxing on the GPU. People who already had medium/high probably then didn't notice any difference. DCS 2.8 Hotfix 1, fixed the issue of terrain object shadows drawn in a higher resolution (not drawn flat), but also disabled rendering of shadows using flat on the regular shadow setting. (That is, there is no shadow rendered underneath aircrafts anymore) A good starting point would be looking at the shadow rendering part. (the initial post also shows flat vs smooth shadows on the same settings)

I would love to use medium shadows , but DCS runs like ... on an RTX Titan/Threadripper combination, and with the current prices I see no option here to do any game-rig-only build this year.

It's a bit weird to see such difference between results. For the initial release of 2.8 flat shadows were rendered smoothed, which was very taxing on the gpu and cpu. With the hotfix, the terrain shadows can be set disabled again and the regular shadows set to flat, however, for me it does not render any aircraft shadows on the ground anymore, hence why the performance (for me) got better (no shadows). It's somewhat like turning off all shadows but keep the ground shading by the environment (clouds/sky) enabled so it does not look totally flat but not have any other shadows drawn (aircraft/terrain-objects) after the hotfix (duration 157min) before the hotfix (duration 117min) in both cases I had to turn off MSAA as it was not possible to run with 2x as with 2.7. this I mean with 'terrain based shading' without shadows this area would be totally unlit (shows also the present issue with the sky based shadows):

It performed better today on a ~30 player server. Shadows: Flat and Terrain Object Shadows: Off However, the aircraft shadows on the ground are gone now, as if I turned off shadows (cloud based shading including the everything-in-shade quirk was present, so it was not entirely like turning all shadow options to off), so it kinda got better. sort of.

I have set Shadows to flat and Terrain Object Shadows to Off. I did not had any aircraft shadows on the ground. with 2.7 the aircraft shadow was visible, but at least for me, I get don't get it anymore. With Shadows to Flat I can at least see the sky based shadows, including that quirk when it's clear sky and the whole area is in shade.

nullSame happens on the roofs at Beirut and probably other places since the 2.8 update. In this case it's in VR and visibility is medium. Textures are set to High. camera further away, textures replaced with something that appears to be a reflectivity map camera closer, starts flickering/z-fighting

It might be also worth looking at this: same display issue on my end but I did not had soft shadows turned on (I don't recall the name of that setting, but I had just a sharp plane outline as shadow) Now also my shadows are rendered with an soft edge. I was not able to use higher quality shadows in 2.7 and it might be that those are now on with 'flat shadows' and hence tank the performance.

still the same in DCS 2.8, you go off center to the right and off goes the meatball (and this overlay)

5ms frametime increase is quiet huge in VR and can turn from playable to unplayable. (the x-axis in my graphs is in ms) motionblur: off shadows: flat terrain object shadows: disabled secondary shadows: disabled visibility: medium (I had it on High during dcs2.5 times..) ice halos? (what setting is that?) fxo shaders were cleared before launching 2.8. in 2.7.xxx when flying out to the sea (caucasus) it usually ramped up to 70ish fps which is about 15ms (14.3) with the yesterdays update it stuck at 20.1ms or so (which would be about 50fps, but since this fps ramping was causing stuttering I clamped VR to 40fps, and if my HMD would support 60hz I would have to target 30fps, but it doesn't)

same here, and the updated in-game fps counter doesn't even show the right values. it stayed at 40fps in a straight line. fpsVR showed a different story. and that matched the stuttering experience (80Hz, so halfrate is 40fps as goal) the session times were about the same, 2.8 half an hour shorter, same map, about the same player count DCS 2.7.xxxx DCS 2.8.xxxx

Don't mind the sharpening but what was the idea behind the addition of the smoke pods to the viper and not tackle the existing smoke issue? The same happens with the Hornet and probably every other aircraft using the native smoke system. With the lack of aircraft velocity, the smoke poofs up and ..depending on the wind either stays there or walks as a gigantic smoke ball across the landscape. Weight on wheels is not the issue, you can replicate it by testing smoke pods on a rotary and stay stationary in the air, same result.

Flying on the aerobatics server you have a lot of uncommon 'traffic'. Once it's stuck in WO/Red it stays that way. Same here with the wave off not detected/deck-green state. If I ever find myself flying straight to it and have a replay that is <10min, I could post one, in hope it is broken.

Same issue here, if you are off centerline to the right it turns the lights off, and when using the overlay it disappears from screen. It comes back at some point, probably as soon as you hit the centerline again. I don't think this issue is related to the SC, tested it on the Forrestal and it was the same there. Introduced in one of the recent 1-3 updates. edit: observed with the Hornet, the other guy on the same flight had the same issue