Huge stuttering/performance improvement - at a cost of less security

Hi all!

I've been struggeling with the regular performance issues in DCS, especially stuttering looking 3/9. It's been very annoying as I've got a decent setup, CPU clocked to 4.6GHz and a 2080ti graphics card.

Earlier today I read about "old" intel CPU's like my own (i7 6700K) having a big performance hit after the Meltdown and Spectre security breaches. The performance hit is dependent on the Windows version and CPU - I think it goes for most CPU's before the latest generation, with different extents.

I knew from before that there was a performance hit after the patches came out, but I never thought it was this bad.

So, in the name of FPS, I downloaded the little tool InSpectre https://www.grc.com/inspectre.htm

then turned off both Meltdown and Spectre protection and rebooted (some registry settings get altered, tool must be run as admin) - and now it's a new DCS world. I just can't believe the difference. All stuttering is gone! The only thing I noticed after this is some double vision on buildings - but I remembered a post somewhere on this forum to turn on Motion Smoothing in SteamVR and that worked like a charm!

I'd never recommend anyone to turn off these protection measurements in windows, but if you have the same performance issues and want to try it out, it's possible. For me it's either this insecure config or an upgrade to 9900k :thumbup:

Modda

Asus Z170 Pro - i7 6700K@4.6Ghz - 32GB DDR4 2400MHz - Zotac 2080TI Amp! - VivePro - TM Warthog - Logitech G Pro Rudder Pedals

Good suggestion.

I think im good with my current rig, but this might be a big help to others.

Earlier today I read about "old" intel CPU's like my own (i7 6700K) having a big performance hit after the Meltdown and Spectre security breaches. The performance hit is dependent on the Windows version and CPU - I think it goes for most CPU's before the latest generation, with different extents.

Where did you read that? I'm interested, because i thought that even newer Intel CPUs would still rely on software to negate those vulnerability.

Also you should probably post your findings in the main bug forum in the performance subforum. Your findings could very well be helpful for the devs.

I thought they redesigned the newer 9th gen versions to fix it. I could be wrong on that.

Anyone tried this?

Anyone tried this?

modda tried it...

I thought they redesigned the newer 9th gen versions to fix it. I could be wrong on that.

Nope, performance hit is supposedly up to 15-16% all across the board. This is another reason why AMD CPUs are selling well right now.

Are you at the May 2019 update of win10? As I understood it the may 2019 update with Retpoline should give you the performance back without sacrificing your sec.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Windows-Kernel-Internals/Mitigating-Spectre-variant-2-with-Retpoline-on-Windows/ba-p/295618

Are you at the May 2019 update of win10? As I understood it the may 2019 update with Retpoline should give you the performance back without sacrificing your sec.

 

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Windows-Kernel-Internals/Mitigating-Spectre-variant-2-with-Retpoline-on-Windows/ba-p/295618

Yes, I'm on the latest release but:

"Skylake and later generations of Intel processors are not compatible with Retpoline, so only Import Optimization will be enabled on these processors."

Modda

Where did you read that? I'm interested, because i thought that even newer Intel CPUs would still rely on software to negate those vulnerability.

 

Also you should probably post your findings in the main bug forum in the performance subforum. Your findings could very well be helpful for the devs.

You're right, the latest cpu's are still suffering, however they apparently managed to fix some of the spectre/meltdown variants.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13400/intel-9th-gen-core-i9-9900k-i7-9700k-i5-9600k-review/2

Modda