DCS CPU AND GPU Benchmarking

[VincentLaw]

The good news is though that much of the load will be going to the GPU instead, should make things run a hell of a lot better.

 

This is what my computer looks like while running DCS. Unless "much of the load will be going to the GPU instead" reduces the load on my GPU and uses more of the CPU... and maybe it does because I don't know that much about the topic, then I don't think it's going to help me.

 

I would appreciate if someone can help me understand how EDGE is going to affect my performance. If the answer is "It looks looks like you need a new graphics card" that is okay too. Right now I have an AMD Radeon HD 7500.

[joey45]

What's your specs?

 

EDGE is made from the ground up so it should be more optimized for current and future hardware.

[StandingCow]

 

This is what my computer looks like while running DCS. Unless "much of the load will be going to the GPU instead" reduces the load on my GPU and uses more of the CPU... and maybe it does because I don't know that much about the topic, then I don't think it's going to help me.

 

I would appreciate if someone can help me understand how EDGE is going to affect my performance. If the answer is "It looks looks like you need a new graphics card" that is okay too. Right now I have an AMD Radeon HD 7500.

 

DX11 should give everyone an upgrade... way more optimized.

[SkateZilla]

 

This is what my computer looks like while running DCS. Unless "much of the load will be going to the GPU instead" reduces the load on my GPU and uses more of the CPU... and maybe it does because I don't know that much about the topic, then I don't think it's going to help me.

 

I would appreciate if someone can help me understand how EDGE is going to affect my performance. If the answer is "It looks looks like you need a new graphics card" that is okay too. Right now I have an AMD Radeon HD 7500.

 

How many Hardware cores does your CPU Have... :)

 

DCS will only use Max 100% of one core and some of another for sound..

 

So on a 8 or so Core CPU it will show as 14-15% total usage.

[VincentLaw]

What's your specs?

Intel Core i7-3770 @3.4 GHz (8 cores), AMD Radeon HD 7500, 24.5 GB RAM, and Windows 8.1 64 bit. I know the video card is the choke point here, which is why I am concerned about people saying that EDGE will shift the load from my CPU to my GPU.

[SkateZilla]

Intel Core i7-3770 @3.4 GHz (8 cores), AMD Radeon HD 7500, 24.5 GB RAM, and Windows 8.1 64 bit. I know the video card is the choke point here, which is why I am concerned about people saying that EDGE will shift the load from my CPU to my GPU.

 

Only reason your GPU usage is high is because it's a low end GPU.

 

Now, if you drop a high end GPU in your system, Your GPU usage for that GPU will be lower in DX9.

 

 

The DX9 CPU Overhead Generalization:

 

Draw Calls take CPU Cycles and CPU Usage, More Objects = More Calls = More CPU Usage.

 

High Populated Area = More Objects = More Calls = More CPU Usage = GPU Usage Dropping due to CPU Not being able to process calls and send them to the GPU efficiently.

 

 

High End CPU + Low End GPU = GPU Being Fed efficiently as it's not really able to do much to begin with.

In DX9 = Low/Med FPS on Lowered Settings pretty much all the time. High Populated Areas might cause a small/med hit. GPU Usage should stay pretty much maxed, as Low End GPUs are quickly maxxed by moderately populated area's anyway.

 

High End CPU + High End GPU = GPU Being fed commands efficiently as long as the CPU can process them fast enough, in DX9 it's a bottle neck for both AMD and Intel regardless.

In DX9 = High FPS on High Settings pretty much all the time, Populated areas will see dips depending on Processor speed etc when the draw calls start hittin the CPU Thread Hard.

 

Mid/Low End CPU + High End GPU = CPU Bottlenecking the DX Commands, which causes GPU Usage to drop as well as FPS. in DX11 it's not as big of a issue as it is with DX9/10.

(Pretty Much Mid or Lower Level Intel and ALL of AMD at the moment)

In DX9 = High FPS on Higher Settings Most of the time, as objects start to populate, GPU Usage drops w/ FPS as the DX Process cannot process the Calls Efficently enough for the GPU(s).

 

DX11 has reduced CPU Overhead over DX9 and 10, so the impact of high populated area's should be lessened.

 

DX12 it's not an issue at all, as DX12 allows asynchronous processing of GPU tasks, as well as programming directly to the GPU instead of through DX CPU Processes, Removing the CPU bottleneck completely

*Which is Why AMD CPUs+nVidia GPUs or AMD CPU+AMD GPUs see the largest increases in the "tests"*

Edited April 18, 2015 by SkateZilla

[Fri13]

Intel Core i7-3770 @3.4 GHz (8 cores), AMD Radeon HD 7500, 24.5 GB RAM, and Windows 8.1 64 bit. I know the video card is the choke point here, which is why I am concerned about people saying that EDGE will shift the load from my CPU to my GPU.

The CPU is now bottle neck, it can't feed data to GPU fast enough as it is processing own in low consumption. So GPU will slow down as well. But you need DX11 capable card to really benefit from new DCS.

 

As CPU is now just basically sleeping, it doesn't benefit to have more cores allocated as it is just more complex. A better CPU is a single core with lots of cache, than multi core CPU with little cache each of core. Until you really got to process multiple process at once like OS does.

 

But what worries me is how AI simulation is going to be effected by DCS 2?

[T_A]

His CPU is fine and better than fine .

a single 3.4ghz i7 ivy bridge core can handle DCS without any issue.

my CPU is older (Nehalem based) and at the same speed and doesn't reach 90% on the busy core when running DCS.

his GPU on the other hand is weak for most settings but medium at a decent resolution.

 

in any case, to people worried about DCS 2.0 working slower, i don't think it works like that, pretty sure most people will see an increase in performance or be able to turn on more eye-candy atleast.

[Demon_]

i7 3770 (4 cores) 8MB L3 Cache

The Intel L3 cache memory is accessible to the socket. One core can use all the L3 cache memory (8MB) for his purpose.

Edited April 18, 2015 by Demon_

[HeadHunter52]

Did some testing on my system this week.

Core 2 Duo 3.0Ghz E8400

6GB RAM

EVGA GTX 750Ti SC

 

My GPU won't heat more than 43c with BOOST 2.0 implemented via DSR

RAM has at least 1.5GB free available

CPU - BOTH cores flying along above 90%

 

I didn't think both of them would be running so hard. Audio on one of them? Not THAT wild....

[nuts]

I have the AMD FX 8350,

EVGA GTX 660TI 3GB, and

8 GB Gskills Ripjaws low cass latency (8) 1600mhz DDR RAM, ON A BUDGET MOBO,

ASUS M5A99X EVO R2.0 AM3+ AMD 990X + SB950 6 x SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS.

 

BOTTOM LINE, kicking ass and taking names. I built this baby and it rocks, I should sell these rigs.

 

I hope that helps.

[Kisvakond]

Hello all,

 

I'm new to this forum and the DCS series.

 

I've read among the new EDGE features that the CPU multi-threading is not in the scope of development.

 

I have an old AMD config (phenom II X4 955 BE, HD6850) and I struggle with the frame rates (even worse with Crossfire). 2 CPU cores near peak load, two near idle. Just the well-known stuff, no hard feelings on that, really not a topic. :D

 

Now I have the following experience:

 

* When my aircraft suffers damage or when I'm hit by a missile and I just flat spinning towards the ground, my fps literally skyrockets (from 20-35 fps jumps beyond 60)! The same happens if I'm dead and I just cycle through the other units. The scenery remains the same (e.g I see my plane (or the wreckage) going down 70 fps, while it was 20 fps when I could fly it), so it doesn't look like GPU bottleneck for me. AI carries on with its stuff, continues dogfighting with wingmen, so I assume it's not the AI or 3D World portion, either.

 

* My fps won't increase if I just pass out after a hard turn, but the aircraft remains intact.

(sometimes I just pass out after a flame-out inducing negative push while trying to counter the ever-pitching habit of the SU-27, and for some reason I never re-gain consciousness. Ok, it's a flat spin but does not seem that bad, maybe 3 Gs. Why? :O)

* fps is varying with the different aircraft being flown. A SU-27 or the MIG-29 has a much lower frame rate than the SU-25T or the A-10A. Interestingly, clickable birds like the A-10C or the Ka-50 are in the middle in terms of fps drop.

 

All this tells me that the simulation of on-board systems of the player aircraft is a CPU hotspot and not the 3D world or the AI.

Maybe a false observation but aircraft equipped with radar and high-end avionics tend to give less frame rate than those with no radar or without MFDs.

A-10C is the odd man out, having no radar but a lot of clickable avionics to simulate up to the smallest details. :)

 

Now, I can undestand that there are tasks that you can't easily distribute between CPU cores as they shall exchange much information among them in a timely fashion. This would present sync problems that might cancel out the benefit of parallel execution.

 

But (and please correct me if I'm too naive or incorrect at any of my assumptions), the player aircraft simulation (avionics-electronics, physics, cockpit etc.) exchanges a low amount of data with the 3D world simulation (player aircraft simulation output eventually boils down to aircraft position and speed vector, projectiles fired, damage status etc.).

 

As far as I read it in the SU-27 manual, there is a fairly complex simulation of the fly-by-wire system with only a few inputs and outputs. Such mathematical models (even when simplified) are prefect subjects to be calculated asynchronously.

 

So my (purely theoretical) question:

 

Is there something against a CPU core dedicated to the player aircraft simulation (assuming that the level-x caches of the CPU is enough to solve inter-core data exchange)? That would be one for the sound, one for the player aircraft and one for the world being simulated.

Hopefully no one finds this topic boring or offensive.

It's just a slow quad-core CPU owner wondering.

 

I'm very curious about the new engine, hopefully it brings a lot of improvement. At least I would be happy with a consistent minimum of 35 fps. :)

 

Best Regards

[Hadwell]

[Joni]

Only reason your GPU usage is high is because it's a low end GPU.

 

Now, if you drop a high end GPU in your system, Your GPU usage for that GPU will be lower in DX9.

 

 

The DX9 CPU Overhead Generalization:

 

Draw Calls take CPU Cycles and CPU Usage, More Objects = More Calls = More CPU Usage.

 

High Populated Area = More Objects = More Calls = More CPU Usage = GPU Usage Dropping due to CPU Not being able to process calls and send them to the GPU efficiently.

 

 

High End CPU + Low End GPU = GPU Being Fed efficiently as it's not really able to do much to begin with.

In DX9 = Low/Med FPS on Lowered Settings pretty much all the time. High Populated Areas might cause a small/med hit. GPU Usage should stay pretty much maxed, as Low End GPUs are quickly maxxed by moderately populated area's anyway.

 

High End CPU + High End GPU = GPU Being fed commands efficiently as long as the CPU can process them fast enough, in DX9 it's a bottle neck for both AMD and Intel regardless.

In DX9 = High FPS on High Settings pretty much all the time, Populated areas will see dips depending on Processor speed etc when the draw calls start hittin the CPU Thread Hard.

 

Mid/Low End CPU + High End GPU = CPU Bottlenecking the DX Commands, which causes GPU Usage to drop as well as FPS. in DX11 it's not as big of a issue as it is with DX9/10.

(Pretty Much Mid or Lower Level Intel and ALL of AMD at the moment)

In DX9 = High FPS on Higher Settings Most of the time, as objects start to populate, GPU Usage drops w/ FPS as the DX Process cannot process the Calls Efficently enough for the GPU(s).

 

DX11 has reduced CPU Overhead over DX9 and 10, so the impact of high populated area's should be lessened.

 

DX12 it's not an issue at all, as DX12 allows asynchronous processing of GPU tasks, as well as programming directly to the GPU instead of through DX CPU Processes, Removing the CPU bottleneck completely

*Which is Why AMD CPUs+nVidia GPUs or AMD CPU+AMD GPUs see the largest increases in the "tests"*

 

 

This is just the very best explanation of how things work in DCS and gaming in general that I even seen. THANKS.

 

 

I just got a gtx970 and had a gtx 670 before, and Im seeing worse performance than with the 670 and I realized the GPU usage was getting lower as I reached the ground and populated areas. At first I said WTF? But then I thought it could be due to the CPU not being able of sending enough tasks to the GPU. I run max settings by the way.

 

Now that I read this, I can conclude that I was correct, unless I understood things wrong.

 

 

Right?

[OnlyforDCS]

I too am getting strange performance drops after an upgrade (From GTX 760 to GTX 970). However you misinterpreted what Skate wrote, if the rest of your system stayed the same, and you did not change your graphics settings after the upgrade, you should be getting the same FPS or higher after such a significant upgrade. However, there is a possibility that the driver quality and support for DX9 games for Nvidia's latest 9xx series cards has dropped somewhat in the last few releases. At least that's what I believe, as there is no other way that I can explain some of the performance losses I have had in DCS since upgrading.

[Joni]

I too am getting strange performance drops after an upgrade (From GTX 760 to GTX 970). However you misinterpreted what Skate wrote, if the rest of your system stayed the same, and you did not change your graphics settings after the upgrade, you should be getting the same FPS or higher after such a significant upgrade. However, there is a possibility that the driver quality and support for DX9 games for Nvidia's latest 9xx series cards has dropped somewhat in the last few releases. At least that's what I believe, as there is no other way that I can explain some of the performance losses I have had in DCS since upgrading.

 

Config are almost the same, only shadows are high now and were mid before. Also with the 670 I was running DCS in 1440x900 and Im now in 1920x1080.

 

Performance is good though, but with extreme populated areas like harbors, then the gpu usage drops and therefore the clocks on the card drop as well resulting in an less fps.

 

This didnt happend with the 670 cause the usage was more given it had less to give.