FPS ???

Hi,

My system is :

Windows 7 64bit

16GB DDR3 memory

i7 2600K @ 3.40GHz

Nvidia GTX 590 3GB

Asus P8Z68 Deluxe Motherboard

Crucial 128GB SSHD

Below are some pictures of my system running DCS Warthog on High and Low settings, what I'm looking for is advice to get it running smooth, has anyone here got the same setup? Advice on changing any of my components.

On Low settings I get between 50-60 FPS, I have Vsync set to on as I use my plasma TV at 1920 x 1080

On High setting I get between 15-30 FPS, I'm using Nvidia monitor and GPU-Z to get the information.

First 4 attached files are Low Settings, the other 5 are High Settings, I've also attached one of the processor cores working on high settings.

The only problem I can see is hitting the video memory limit on high settings, but what I don't understand is on Low settings why don't I get solid 60 FPS as I can't see any bottleneck in the memory or processor.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Nice 'screenshots' :lol:

What software is that?

GTX590 is dual GPU card, and in DCS 2x GPU do not equal 2x performance of 1x GPU in fact dual GPU does not scale good in this sim at all whichis why you won't ever see full load on that video card.

The CPU won't be utilized 100% ever also as sim runs on 1 core only and sound runs on second core, so overall at best you will see around 35% CPU usage which means CPU is bottleneck already.

You could use some sim files tweaking to get bit better performance as your CPU is quite good.... and I think you should overclock it a bit... it's an unlocked CPU so it's asking to be overclocked ;)

Frostiken,

Nvidia monitor and GPU-Z.

Its funny to see how DCS exploit really bad the computer power (with or without SLI/Crossfire) that give us low FPS (for bad graphic rending) and that not use correctly the power of the computer, like i have already see in FPS test more FPS for the same scene with maximum graphic setting than minimum setting (impossible for a "normal" optimization and correct graphic engine), and after people laugh to me when i say that it is extremely bad optimized...

People have to admit that : Better computer configuration possible (except maybe with HD 79xx) -> lower FPS possible...

GTX 590 its a double 580, the most powerful single card of the market after HD79xx, the power of a single or even half power of a 580 (cause sometime SLI/Crossfire will divide FPS by two) can't give for a so bad graphic rending a so low FPS...For the CPU (the actual best for any video game in 3D) no core are using at 100%, its a stupid thing to see for a software based to the CPU power...

Its totally unique, impossible to see it and when we compare the visual result its totally incredible to see how that can eat power for...nothing...I hope EDGE will be better, will correctly take CPU power and a dedicated CPU core for AI will be nice when we see how stupid are actual AI and i hope SLI/Crossfire will be correctly using...But graphic and FPS based to CPU power its the stupidest thing i have ever see, ok no patch for correct it (ED are busy to create only patch who correct nothing and give more bug for the moment) but i hope EDGE will not do the same stupid thing...

Its hard to see bad graphic with low FPS for a really good computer and for the price of all this simulator...

The only thing to do : prey for EDGE will be better and hope that ED will not release it in 20 year...

For the moment try to run on a single GPU, disabled SLI manually or with application profile.

Demongornot,

Couldn't agree more, it seems that some companies can't code and optimise correctly, just want to get their product out there making money, such a shame as I think it's a great sim, but I have problems enjoying it when it shudders and I have power in reserve.

Silky smooth in Low but takes away the feel of the simulation.

You don't need 60fps stable... limit the FPS in Graphics.cfg file (Look for line with MaxFPS) , I have mine set to 34 (in game it gets to 35fps)

Kuky,

I run ALL my games with Vsync on and they ALL run at 60FPF silky smooth because my Plasma TV is only 60Hz so I don't understand why I would want to set MaxFPS lower than 60FPS? As you can see I get 60FPS on Low settings?

Because you can't get steady 60fps on high settings, no mater what PC you have... simple as that

Limiting FPS to bellow this will eliminate highs and lows and FPS will be more steady giving more smoothness overall

Kuky,

OK, I see what you mean now .. :doh:

While on that line. I tried to change mine,but I can't seem to save it after. What am I doing wrong?

While on that line. I tried to change mine,but I can't seem to save it after. What am I doing wrong?

Are u using for example Notepad++? Try to run it as an Administrator.

Kalahari,

Make sure you save it as a .cfg file not a .txt file

Yes am using Notepad++,will try later to save it as u say. Thanks Britt007.

Water detail on medium, cockpit shadows off, mirrors off, and trees at 6000m helped a great deal on my system @ 2560x 1600. Everything else is maxed.

any reason you arent overclocking? you can get up past 4ghz easily with those new i5/i7 CPUs. You would probably see an increase in FPS too

any reason you arent overclocking? you can get up past 4ghz easily with those new i5/i7 CPUs. You would probably see an increase in FPS too

This, I even run a i7 950 at 4.17 GHz.

Britt007, welcome to DCS! I have just about the same system as you, but I have the GTX570. I've been down the same road as you. I wanted to know why DCS wasn't heating my vid card up, and taking full advantage of my hardware.

First of all, it's important to know that judging the performance of DCS can not be done the same as with other software. Games like BF3 for instance, are judged upon FPS and amount of stutter. They're graphics intensive applications. DCS:A-10C was originally built to military specifications for use by the Air National Guard in training A-10 pilots in a more economical manner (also the reason for the Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS). Cutting edge graphics wasn't important thing to the U.S. Military, the math was. The software had to operate within a realistic threshold both in regard to physics and aircraft sub-systems. That was the most important requirement. As such, DCS is very CPU intensive, and hardly GPU intensive at all. BF3 doesn't use a lot of floating point operations: an aircraft flying through the air and firing it's cannon is no different than a person running and firing their rifle. In DCS:A-10C, millions of calculations are being done on the airframe, the targeting dynamics, and the projectile physics. So, with this in mind, let's look at optimal settings:

SLI and Crossfire advantages are not seen in DCS in the conventional sense, i.e. splitting one half of the screen to each card to double performance. If it did, since DCS is CPU intensive, you would lose the PhysX capabilities and see only a small load on each vid card. The second card is better used to provide PhysX and superior Anti-Aliasing. I would switch PhysX from auto to the 2nd card (to dedicate) then switch SLI to SLIAntialiasing mode (and use 32Q or 64Q AA, whatever is available these days). Your second card will take on some cycles from your CPU. Moving on from SLI:

I seem to get more FPS out of higher settings than I do low, I know that doesn't make much sense, but I think with such a high powered system, the vid card power and features aren't really kicking in until the settings are high. Here's a post I put up recently on config. Be sure to check the link to TweakGuides that tells you specifically what each nVidia setting does, if you want to tweak to personal precision.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1405864#post1405864

NOTE: As an ED Tester, I don't work for ED. I'm just another person from the community like yourself, but ED uses me as a 'version lab rat' :). You can take my advice with a grain of salt, just like any other advice on the forum. It's mostly all opinion and speculation unless the person's tag is Developer or Wags.. then it's pretty much DCS gospel.

Enjoy tweaking your setup and getting the most out of DCS, in my opinion that's half the fun! I make mid-sixfigures from what I learned from tweaking systems for sims (truly, college didn't teach me half as much).

Here's my opinion on the subject of embracing the sim on it's own merits:

Up until a few decades ago, digital wizardry wasn't available. PCs were little more than glorified calculators, and phones had cords and radial dials that created sparks to communicate with routers as big as a house. During the emergence of this technological utopia we now comfortably inhabit, we were excited. There was something in the near future that was going to change everything. We couldn't wait to see what was next. Enter the military aircraft! They defied laws of physics and understanding as we knew them. How can that aircraft fly to a target at faster than the speed of sound, engage and destroy an enemy with ruthless efficiency, and return home with a grinning pilot? Black boxes.. intense mathematical calculations.. expensive new alloys.. secret sauce. We all wanted a taste of it. It was our gateway into this future we now know. Digital wizardry!.. and we could have a small peek inside through, what at the time, passed for a flight simulator.

 

This digital wizardry persists. These aircraft remain the most complex and effective machines ever built. But when you wake up and pay your bills, check the weather, watch the news, and make a significant purchase.. all within five minutes from your smartphone.. it's easy to forget that these steel dragons exist.

 

Slow down and open your eyes to this wonder. Read the manual, understand the hardware, THEN you can truly take flight and revel in the power you wield. Look closer and be humbled. The Warthog and ED will not disappoint.

An i7-2600k@4.4GHz / 16GB RAM / SSD / GTX580 rig limited to 30FPS here. Kind of low, I know, but the framerate pretty much never goes below that irrespective of the amount of ground units in a mission and whatnot, so everything's smooth as can be. I'm running at 4x MSAA and everything except civ traffic, water and shadows on high.

So if you want your DCS simultaneously fluid and good-looking what you need is a powerful rig and a conservative approach to framerates both I think.

StrongHarm,

When you put it like that I suppose I'm asking a bit much out of a £1200 machine to replicate the complexity of flight, and everything else going on around.

I'll try like you say with the SLI and keep trying to get them few more frames, as for over clocking I've never bothered, didn't see the benefits of pushing the limits for a few frames but I'll give it a go and see what I get.

 

SLI and Crossfire advantages are not seen in DCS in the conventional sense, i.e. splitting one half of the screen to each card to double performance. If it did, since DCS is CPU intensive, you would lose the PhysX capabilities and see only a small load on each vid card. The second card is better used to provide PhysX and superior Anti-Aliasing. I would switch PhysX from auto to the 2nd card (to dedicate) then switch SLI to SLIAntialiasing mode (and use 32Q or 64Q AA, whatever is available these days). Your second card will take on some cycles from your CPU. Moving on from SLI:

 

Very odd advice. Especially since your an official tester. The half screen SLI thing (or SFR as it used to be called) is no longer really used by anyone and never really did anything useful anyway. Current SLI modes use AFR (Alternate Frame Rendering). This is where each card renders a Frame one after the other. SLI works pretty well (as can be expected for a CPU intensive Flight sim). Also Nvidia recently fixed the BlackShark (read DCSA10) profile so most probs are gone with SLI now. Just leave its setting on Nvidia Recommended.

There is absolutely no advantage to mucking about with SLI AA or especially PhysX. Where do you get that from? I have yet to see any flight sim that supports PhysX, never mind DCS. SLI AA is pointless beacuse 4xAA is plenty in DCS and that card (590) wont even notice it is doing it, it is so easy for it.

About lower settings taking more CPU than high settings: this might apply to something like the Shadow options where Low setting causes shadows to be drawn by the CPU (costing FPS) , but switching them to High causes them to be rendered on the GPU (gaining FPS).. Cant remember 100% if this is the Case with DCS.

As for DCS performance, yes it is pretty abysmal. I too hope Edge can improve in this..I have my doubts though.

All this makes interesting reading ....

My being a tester has nothing to do with it. I'm just a community member like yourself. I do have 20 years of technical experience and have been through a lot of trial and error, since before beta, to get my personal system configed for DCS to my personal taste. My results are good, and others report the same. I'm not going to argue the semantics of SLI, I was using a generalization to articulate the fact that you don't get much out of SLI in alternate or split frame rendering in DCS. I know I use more of my second card if I use it for AA, and I get some more FPS and quality when I do it. nVidia simply fixed the switch in the profile, they made no specific change to allow SLI to be utilized more completely in DCS. I've spoken with them directly.

I took my time out to reply to this post to contribute my findings, DratsaB, not out of necessity, but to help out if I could. As I said in my post; feel free to take my advice with a grain of salt and tweak around until you find what works for you (then, if you like... take your time to put together long threads and screenshots to help others get the same results). Potentially helping someone is worth my time, arguing semantics is not. I've said what I can in this thread.. have fun.

Very odd advice. Especially since your an official tester. The half screen SLI thing (or SFR as it used to be called) is no longer really used by anyone and never really did anything useful anyway. Current SLI modes use AFR (Alternate Frame Rendering). This is where each card renders a Frame one after the other. SLI works pretty well (as can be expected for a CPU intensive Flight sim). Also Nvidia recently fixed the BlackShark (read DCSA10) profile so most probs are gone with SLI now. Just leave its setting on Nvidia Recommended.

 

There is absolutely no advantage to mucking about with SLI AA or especially PhysX. Where do you get that from? I have yet to see any flight sim that supports PhysX, never mind DCS. SLI AA is pointless beacuse 4xAA is plenty in DCS and that card (590) wont even notice it is doing it, it is so easy for it.

 

About lower settings taking more CPU than high settings: this might apply to something like the Shadow options where Low setting causes shadows to be drawn by the CPU (costing FPS) , but switching them to High causes them to be rendered on the GPU (gaining FPS).. Cant remember 100% if this is the Case with DCS.

 

As for DCS performance, yes it is pretty abysmal. I too hope Edge can improve in this..I have my doubts though.

I for one appreciate ALL input, and appreciate you taking the time to help, without people like you nubies like me would be stuffed.

And hopefully one day I'll be able to pass on my findings and help others.

I did find this and tweaking my Bios got me a few more FPS

My being a tester has nothing to do with it. I'm just a community member like yourself. I do have 20 years of technical experience and have been through a lot of trial and error, since before beta, to get my personal system configed for DCS to my personal taste. My results are good, and others report the same. I'm not going to argue the semantics of SLI, I was using a generalization to articulate the fact that you don't get much out of SLI in alternate or split frame rendering in DCS. I know I use more of my second card if I use it for AA, and I get some more FPS and quality when I do it. nVidia simply fixed the switch in the profile, they made no specific change to allow SLI to be utilized more completely in DCS. I've spoken with them directly.

 

I took my time out to reply to this post to contribute my findings, DratsaB, not out of necessity, but to help out if I could. As I said in my post; feel free to take my advice with a grain of salt and tweak around until you find what works for you (then, if you like... take your time to put together long threads and screenshots to help others get the same results). Potentially helping someone is worth my time, arguing semantics is not. I've said what I can in this thread.. have fun.

Err, ok just saying. Expect to be corrected if you post something incorrect. The physx stuff is garbage no? No point in filling a new guys head with erroneous info is all.

You talked to nvidia directly (other than their bogus tech support)? I have my doubts. But anyway, they actually changed some sli compatibility bit in the profile to stop Corruption on the MFCDs when using SLI and a non "every frame" mode. I never said they increased perf. There was no prob with BS and A10 sharing the same profile (as they still do). Just to do with SLI and the A10 s MFCDs. I know this and I have never spoken to them "directly" or otherwise. :huh:

One man's "semantics" is another man's Misinformation I guess