Low frame rate in Campaign Mission 1 due to enforced High Civ Traffic in mission.

Description: In Mission 1 of the Campaign, after spawning, when I look towards Sukhumi my FPS drops to 17 fps, far worse than usual.

With mirrors turned off, I was able to fly the mission (40-50 fps) but returning to FARP Paris, the frame rate dropped to 13 fps and I damaged the Gazelle on landing despite the Mission Success. In F2 external view and zoomed out to maximum altitude, the FPS drops even lower to 10 fps.

After trying various optimisations, edits and comparing the number of units, etc. to other missions that run well, I spotted the mission enforces High Civilian Traffic in mission options.

Setting Civilian Traffic to Low in the Mission Editor fixed the problem (17 fps -> 43 fps).

Although I don't have a strong CPU, it would make sense for High Civilian Traffic to be optional, as I'm unlikely to be the only player with weaker hardware.

DCS Version: 1.5.4.55952

Steam: yes

Map: Caucasus

SP/MP: SP Campaign and as a multi-crew mission

Airframe: SA-342M

Reproducible: yes

Screenshot:

Track Available: N/A

Controllers: X52 Pro (Throttle), MS Sidewinder FFB2 (cyclic), TrackIR

OS: Win 10 Pro

RAM: 12GB

GPU: GTX 670 2Gb

Mods: JSGME all disabled

Additional Info: CPU i7 860 @ 2.8GHz

DxDiag.txt

Hi,

Will look forward it, true that DCS doesn't behave the same at all from one computer to another, so I myself hadn't any kind of FPS issue with that setting.

Do you think I can let it on low setting or should I simply suppress it ?

Nicolas

Do you think I can let it on low setting or should I simply suppress it ?

I wouldn't enforce civilian traffic in mission 1, let each player run with their preferred setting unless the presence or absence of civilian traffic is an important part of the mission.

I'm using the low setting, as I can afford afford to lose a few fps and like the ambience and problems civilian traffic mixed with military targets brings. However a VR player might want the highest fps possible.

As I'm working my way through the campaign in multi-crew, I've only played mission 1 (avoiding spoilers) but have checked the other mission settings in the editor and tested some of the spawn fps.

SA-342M Campaign: Civ Traffic enforced in the mission

• M1 - 4 high traffic
  
• M5 low traffic
  
• M6 off
  
• M7 low traffic
  
• M8 - 12 not enforced, high unit count (300-400)
  

Only mission 6 had traffic enforced off, perhaps it's a full-on battle and civilian traffic isn't appropriate in the middle of a battlefield ?

Although I haven't flown any other full missions, the night spawn in mission 2 didn't seem as badly effected (steady +30 fps) as mission 1, however I've edited that as well, because low civilian traffic is an easy way to increase performance.

Additional Info / Off Topic:

Spawning into Mission 11 seems worst for fps and it *may* be problematical for me to play/run (less than 20 fps) without additional editing but it's a 'busy' mission and my performance is appropriate for it's content. It's strange it's 10 fps less than the other heavy missions but there might not be an easy fix (IIRC fps increases after M2000-5 have moved away).

Performance issues aside, I'm really enjoying the campaign and want to express my appreciation for the time and care that has obviously been put into it.

Well.

I'm learning some stuff...

I never enforced civilian traffic. I guess that as long as it's my personnal game setting, the mission was then saved with it.

I will check it, civilian traffic is not a wish from me, so apologizes if it may have led to very poor FPS, at least the issue is now identified. I will enforce it to low or to none depending the mission.

BY THE WAY : DO NOT edit yourselves the missions, (1) for obvious trigger reasons, (2) because sometimes, it can lead to a mission corruption which erases all the audios/scripts contained in the mission. So at least, if you really need to edit them, simply go after having saved the mission in the triggers and try to play one or two audios to make sure everything is ok. I say this because I suspect some "bug reports" like 'there are no audios", or "there are 3 drones on the same mission and nothing happens" to be the result of a "customer edition".

Nicolas