TZeer

I tried your mission file and had no performance hit from the smoke itself. It was mostly tied to the numbers of objects in the scene in my case. Will continue to do some testing and see if I find anything.

This part was very interesting when reading the newsletter. But it leaves me with a big question... Objects...?? In 99% of all my performance tests I have done with this sim, the number of objects is what's holding it back. Yes, I get reduction from effects, smoke+++, but the big FPS killer in almost all settings has been the number of objects that's in view. To check the number of objects that is in view when you play, hit ctrl+pause/break two times. And it will bring up a FPS counter with a number of objects under it. For me, the magical number is around 1000 objects before it's starts taxing the CPU so much that it's not able to feed my GPU. You can reach 1000 objects in different ways. - 1 closeup high detail A-10C will give you about 100 objects - 1 M1A1 tank, will give you 6 objects - 1 l9c BUK radar will give you 76 objects (old model) You would think that it would be the same if you put down 100 tanks or 100 l9c BUK's. It's not. 100 tanks gives you 600 objects for the CPU to deal with. Which is no problem. Replace that with the BUK, and you suddenly have 7600 objects. And your FPS is down the drain. ( Before anyone argue that the BUK is radar and has more AI etc going for it, same thing is done with a different radar with new model and lesser objects, without CPU issue. And other model with no radar but high objects count is tested as well with same effect) I guess all of you know about the FPS issue that comes with dropping a CBU-87. Drop this baby in a remote area and look at the number of objects that suddenly goes up during the impact. In my case it goes from 40 objects and up to 2000+ while impacting. It absolutely hammers my CPU. Same thing if you observe a tank battle. Set up 20 tanks from US and 20 from RU, and observe the object count before, during and after the fighting is done. You will be surprised. Now, what I'm curious of is this. DCS World is already 64 bit right? (If installed on 64 bit OS) Multicore support is already far into the future since not mentioned in the newsletter. (Yes I know, DCS World uses 2 cores atm, 1 for sound, 1 for the rest) How will moving to "64 bit only" allow more units and larger missions if we still struggle with object-tracking hammering the CPU into oblivion? I can see that we in theory can have more units, bigger missions etc. But if nothing is done to reduce the number of objects that needs to be dealt with by 1 single CPU core, it's more of a "on paper only" option. Until we either get multicore support or 10 GHz CPU's. Or am I completely mistaken here? And the 64 bit only will be able to deal with this?

Wrong, if that was the case the FPS should be lower during daylight. And that's not the case. I can turn on the light during daytime, and you can hardly see the light if you are not looking for it. But it still cut's off 30+ FPS. Turn off light, and FPS goes up again.

Did a test with this track from you. My setup: GTX Titan i7 3820@ 4,6 GHz 16GB Ram SSD Those cluster munitions that get dropped bombards the CPU with objects. Every time the CBU drops, the number of objects goes through the roof. I'm observing over 10000 objects.... And for some reason the the smoke as well, kills my performance. Some parts I'm down in single digits with smoke, and CBU's at the same time.

I' m gonna do test with this as well. I guess you already know it, but my guess for the FPS drop would be number of objects in the scene.

Turning on the green floodlight in the cockpit causes a 30+ FPS loss. Here is the first screenshot. No floodlight. 110 FPS Second one, you can see the floodlight is starting to light up in the cockpit. Down to 91 FPS. And the third one, 78 FPS. I have done this test on both a 580 SLI setup and a GTX Titan. Both setups show the same behavior. I guess it's not a bug, but it would be nice if it would be possible to optimize it a bit. Specially for people who are already doing everything they can to stay above 30 FPS...

Do as Sorin suggested. Try flying far out in "no mans land" and see if you get the FPS drop. If not move location and repeat. I saw you already tried that. Do the FPS drop happen at the same time every time?

A few things I have noticed: - It's not your CPU. You have plenty of CPU power left. And looking at your FPS counter, the number of objects have gone down as well as your FPS. Number of objects in a scene has a lot to do with your FPS, and it's CPU related not GPU. - Your GPU usage goes down as well. You have spare VRAM. This makes me believe it's not your hardware that's the issue. These FPS drops you get, do they come only when you fly? Or can you sit still on the ground and still get the FPS drop after a set amount of time passed?

See if you can get hold of a software that monitors more of the GPU data. To check if you are running out of VRAM. What resolution are you using? How much VRAM is used when you fly?

Just tested this! Awesome mission, really enjoyed it!!! Thank you :)

Yeah, that one was the reason he sent me the second file which fixed some transparency issue.

Ok, after a long delay I have finally been able to do the testing. Sorry it took so much time, but one of my 580's went kaput, and I had no means to test it. Got myself a GTX Titan ( after robbing a bank :p ), and I have done the test as requested. The first one is the original boat-1.edm file. Gives me 77 FPS Second one is the first boat-1.edm file you sent me, this one gave me 115 FPS. And this one is the last one you sent me. 86 FPS. The big difference in those shots are the number of objects...

I tested your reference-mission and it's not possible to test the performance. If you hit your FPS key twice, you will get up an object count under the FPS. The object count is above 2000. And is clogging up the CPU. My "magic limit is about 1000-1200 objects before the CPU starts being a bottleneck. Above that and it doesn't matter how powerful my GPU is. But for reference, my FPS was never below 35 FPS. I can look around and make the FPS skyrocket.

Update, running single card GTX titan. No FPS drop visible. Don't know if it got fixed in the last patch or it's a SLI issue.

Have had a quick test of my new card now :) Very happy. Some small tests I have done so far: - Tbilisi, 1 unit on the ground, Kuky's increased visual range mod. Lowest FPS i get is about 95 FPS looking in any direction. With dual 580's I think I was down at about high 60 low 70. - Flying in a low populated area, 120-130 FPS in cockpit. Turning on the floodlight drops me to 90 FPS. With the dual 580's it took me down to around 60 FPS. My settings: 2560x1440 MSAA 2x HDR Normal Everything on high except water TSSAA is off Let me know if there is something specific you want me to check or test. Remember single screen only.

I'm currently running a i7-3820 @ 4,6GHz, I'm also getting my GTX Titan tomorrow or Monday. I'm only running single monitor @ 2560x1440, but I'll let you know the performance I get with it. Nope, not in DCS. It's also lower clocked at default speed. 3820 is 200Mhz faster on the speed. I would go with the 3820, or maybe wait for the Ivy Bridge-E that will come this year.

Something is wrong, you should get higher FPS then that. Post all settings and your driver version for the GPU.

I guess the default DCS: Blackshark profile? I never messed much in the nvidia settings. Only turning SLI on and off. But from a lot of testing with different settings, there are certain things that can drag down the SLI performance. Which in certain circumstances are bugs in my opinion. In other cases it's basically CPU bottleneck. As long as you are not hit by any of them, the scaling is very good with SLI.

I have used 2 x 580 GTX in SLI for a while. In my case I can say that I have had a pretty good increase in performance over a single card. Both cards at about 90% usage at the most.

You cant just look at the resolution alone. You have to look at what resolution you are getting per sq/inch. Even if the Oculus is running 1280x800 (640x800 each eye), it will be of higher density of pixels then your average 24" 1920x1080 monitors.

One of my GTX 580 is out of action. Bought a 7970 GHz Edition to replace my single 580... Was disappointed by the performance. It had a slightly higher FPS, but when I shot some rockets the FPS dropped to below 30. As soon as the smoke cleared the FPS went back up. Put my 580 back in again, ran the same test, even spammed more rockets, and no such drop with the GTX 580. Returning the 7970, and possible wait for something else.

Since you are not getting much improvement with overclocking it's most likely the GPU. To confirm this, run a monitoring program to check your CPU usage and CPU usage. For the CPU you can just take up task manager and look at the utilization. For the GPU, do as suggested above and check the CPU usage there. And disable crossfire.

Since the FPS hit comes when you fire the gun etc, it seems to be a GPU issue. I support the others that upgrading your GPU would probably give you a good boost :)

I'm running a i7 3820@ 4,6ghz + 16GB RAM, 2x580GTX in SLI I have no stutters when I fire rockets, within a limit. If I unload with all of them my FPS goes down a little. Clusterbombs kills the FPS.

Computer specs and graphic settings? Clusterbombs is well known for causing a significant drop. Rockets can give you a pretty good FPS drop as well if you fire a lot of them at the same time.