Severe Framerate dips while firing Vikhr Missiles

[briguy3]

Hi.

 

I've tested this with both the KA-50 and the Su-25T. The Frogfoot is the one I've taken tracks with and recorded frametimes with, but I can anecdotally confirm the same thing occurs while in the KA-50.

 

The issue seems to be linked to the Shkval sensor itself, something to do with the picture in picture rendering going on. I've ruled out mirrors as a performance variable here as well.

 

I've included both track files and frametime graphs (taken with the fraps benchmark utility, which AFAIK does not impact performance whatsoever.) There's a bit more info in the imgur album with the frametime graphs.

 

Through normal play on version 1.5 I average around the 90-100 fps mark. When I'm higher up it gets better than when I'm lower, but I don't think that's anything out of the ordinary.

 

imgur album with fraps frametime graphs - http://imgur.com/a/9zbPO

 

Track files attached, individual runs each with the shkval ON and OFF.

 

System Specs

Monitor: 2560*1440 @ 100 Hz

Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme 4

CPU: Intel i7 3770k cooled by Corsair H100i

GPU: NVIDIA Geforce GTX 980 (reference)

Memory: 16GB Corsair Vengeance & 8 GB G.Skill RipjawZ @ 1600MHz

DCS is installed on a 256 GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD

 

 

 

UPDATE OCT 2 2015 - I think the cause of this with my rig, and perhaps others as well, is the fact that the game defaults for whatever reason to Borderless windowed mode, regardless of the "fullscreen" option box setting. (Bug for another thread, I'm sure) Pressing Alt+Enter will get it to run in native fullscreen and seems to fix many of the problems I'd viewed with microstutter and smoothness of the sim overall. Perhaps this contributed to the vikhr issue?

frogtestingskhvalon.trk

frogtestingskhvaloff.trk

Edited October 3, 2015 by briguy3

[Sanguchito]

Same, FPS are overall way better on this version but when using Shkval I get a bit of lag.

[gienkov]

Same here, huge drop. It may be because of smoke rendering on Shkval screen? Or too much smoke.

[McBlemmen]

I suffer from FPS loss with vikhrs if i am in Hover Mode. I can't be sure but i strongly suspect it's because of the first puff of smoke that is caused by the initial short rocket boost to launch the missile (that then gets replaced by a secondary motor.. atleast that's what it appears as in game). This initial smoke puff lasts longer then the actual missile smoke and "gets in the cockpit" i think.

 

Though obviously this wouldn't be the case in the su-25t so you guys may have a different problem. I think i'll start a seperate thread as soon as i get a track file

 

Although trying to recreate it with some quick ME target practice it does seem to be the smoke in the TV display... maybe it's both but having the helo drift trough the initial smoke in hover mode is hard to recreate, also under certain light condition i find the initial puff of smoke very hard to see. It needs to be late night or early morning

Edited October 2, 2015 by McBlemmen

[tob.s]

same here, drops me from around 80 to 10 fps on impact :-( then slowly normalizes

[Rogue Trooper]

Same here, severe drop as the Vikhr gets close to target and at impact.

Shkval is fine at high setting when scanning and is still fine with the vikhr half way through flight but suddenly drops as the vikhr gets closer to target.

Edited October 2, 2015 by Rogue Trooper

[ThePanic]

Same issue for me as well on the Ka-50 when firing vikhrs on impact get a massive slowdown 60fps down to 12 or so. Might be unrelated but my gpu temp went up about 10c when firing vikhrs.

[decipher]

testing this in the ka-50 instant action - target practice mission.

 

i have VSync on 60, the FPS is rock-solid on 60 even when zoomed in onto the SHKVAL screen and when firing the VIKHR, but it will drop to 52 FPS one second BEFORE the missile hits the target.

 

it should be noted that this happens even when i look away to the opposite direction (with trackIR). so neither the SHKVAL screen, nor the actual target or missile or explosion is in my view at all.

 

Settings:

Tex: high | Terr Tex: high | Civ Traffic: medium | Water: high | Vis Range: high

Heat Blur: high | Shadows: medium | Res: 1680x1050 | AR: 16:10 | Monitors: 1 screen

Res C. Displays: 512 | MSAA: 4x | HDR: on | DOF: off | Lens Effects: Dirt+Flare

Clutter/Bushes: 410 | Trees Vis: 9078 | Preload Radius: 150000 | Anisotr. Filter: 16x

Model Vis: normal | Flat Terrain Shadows: off | Disable Aero Interface unchecked

Vsync checked | Fullscreen checked

 

System:

i5 3570 @ 4Ghz | GeForce GTX 660 2GB | 8GB RAM | 256GB SSD | Win7 Pro 64bit

Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS | Saitek Rudder Pedals Pro | Trackir Pro 5

Edited October 4, 2015 by decipher
added system/settings info

[M1Combat]

I'm getting the same thing here. I've also tried all sorts of things like looking away to fix and nothing works.

 

Also...

 

The Vikhrs don't "seem" to have the awesome smoke that some of the other weapons do now? Like the rockets even... Maybe there's something to that? Maybe they're using an old smoke type?

 

I was flying around behind Shahdoh the other day with him in a Sabre with like six smoke pods and me in a Mustang... No frame rate drop at all. Smooth as silk. Is there a way to temporarily turn the smoke off on the Vikhrs to see if it's the smoke or something else about them?

Edited October 6, 2015 by M1Combat

[M1Combat]

Did some testing with this...

 

I lased a target just as if I would if I was firing at it but had my wingman fire (AI)... No performance loss.

 

I lased the ground about 5Km out and fired and no performance loss.

 

Fired a KH25 from quite a distance and no performance loss.

 

 

Win-10 x64 <-- System.nfo link

 

Nvidia GTX660

MSI Z77 MPower

Core i5-3570K

8GB G-Skill DDR3-1600

 

Saitek X65F/Fanatec ClubSport Pedals/GlovePie Virtual Joystick

GamesCom/Plantronics 780 USB Headset

Edited October 6, 2015 by M1Combat
Add specs

[Toast]

Do you guys notice Vikhrs are missing more? Maybe it is just tied to this frame drop issue but I noticed that vikhrs are losing track a lot more if there is any yaw at all they will not track, maybe this was intentional? Is this more realistic?

[XCrosser]

I did some testing with this tonight. The only setting I changed was shadows (all else are at their highest except civ-traffic and vis-range). I turned shadows completely off and it didn't drop even 1 frame. Even flat shadows had an impact on frames but it wasn't as much as when shadows were on high.

[vicx]

Sounds like it could be dynamic lighting from the Vikhr engine creating shadows. Maybe the light falloff from engine light source is set incorrectly.

[dmayan]

Same issue here. All smooth butter until 1 sec prior to impact, then it slowly goes back to normal

[kirk7312]

same bugs here. FPS drops under 10, when missile hits the target.

[goestrip]

only in cockpit view

 

Same issue, first with the KA50 itself where i get mostly 45/50 fps (in cockpit) while i usually am around 70/90 with other modules.

And for the vikr, big drop on impact with shkval looking at it, down to 8-15fps, but only in cockpit view (even while looking away, as mentionned before) but on external (F2 or F6) views, no problem at all, 100+fps

[Kamov Akula]

Ditto

 

Frame rate drops progressively as vikhr missile approaches target, and seems to be at the lowest at impact. I experience this on both Ka50 and Su25.

[kirk7312]

this bug isn't fixed in this update.:(

[Feuerfalke]

The FPS are related to the viewscreen only.

 

If you fire a Vikhr and keep the Vikhr-Screen on, the FPS drop the further the missile goes.

If you switch the screen off / reset targeting while inflight, the FPS instantly are back to normal.

 

 

Keeping fingers crossed for a quick fix.

[Jinks]

The FPS are related to the viewscreen only.

 

If you fire a Vikhr and keep the Vikhr-Screen on, the FPS drop the further the missile goes.

If you switch the screen off / reset targeting while inflight, the FPS instantly are back to normal.

 

 

Keeping fingers crossed for a quick fix.

 

 

Did some testing on instant action (Ka-50 shooting range). 130 fps stable drops to as low as 25 when missile approaches target then slowly recovers. To confirm what Feuerfalke said, turning off shkval mid-flight instantly restored frame rate as mentioned.

 

Also.. Doesn't matter if you look somewhere else (turning completely away and looking at the back of the cockpit for example). Even when using F6 to follow missile the frame rate is effected in exactly the same way. Changing "Resolution of Cockpit Displays" helps. From 1024 --> 512 improved the drop from -100ish to -50ish. When set to 256 it was more like -20.

Edited November 5, 2015 by Jinks

[dburne]

Resolution of cockpit displays - anything above 512 is a real killer fps wise when viewing the missile through the shkval.

Mine is manageable at 512, but if I set to 1024 the hit to the frame-rates is severe, especially as the missile explodes on the target.

 

Hopefully they will get this tweaked and tuned for better performance going forward.

[kirk7312]

Tested Hotfix 3. This bug is still there....:cry:

[Jinks]

Spent a bunch of time poking around the files hoping to find a temporary fix. Haven't really had much luck. I'm not aware of a way to edit the smoke effects for vikhr only. The issue is the shkval but figured it would be a quick fix until the issue is addressed.

 

There is a way to reduce the smoke until it had almost no impact on FPS however it also reduced smoke on missile trails from SAM's which is undesirable.

 

Altering this line seems like a happy medium between seeing the smoke and not dropping to 20fps if fully zoomed in. defaults to 5. Zero does work but removes all smoke trails.

 

[DCS World folder]\Config\Effects\ParticleSystem2\smokeTrail.lua

 

detailFactorMax = 2.5

 

 

 

During the testing I've noticed a few things. It's when the shkval is zoomed in fully that it's an issue. If you use wider view the FPS hit is negligible. As such I've started to get into the habit of immediately zooming out after the missile hits to recover a stable frame rater faster.

 

There is a combination of particle effects that dip the frames. The smoke trail from the vikhr is the biggest fps killer. There is also a smoke plume after the strike that lingers for a few seconds that hits fps but nowhere near as bad.

 

Perhaps there's a way to not render all those particles inside the schval view screen without losing much.

[Jinks]

Problem still exists in 1.5.0.45208.37

 

Figured out how to remove smoke (well sorta) from only the vikhr.

 

Posting the information for anyone else struggling with this. Purchased the BS2 module a few weeks ago and would rather continue to use the beta until this problem is addressed. Seems better than having the shkval look like a coleco vision display.

 

Make a backup of...

blahblah\DCS World OpenBeta\Config\Weapons\schemes\missiles\vikhr.sch

 

Open the file with Notepad++ and alter the values to those shown here.

 

 

@ Line 105:
               ["nozzle_position"] = {
                   ["value"] = {
                       [1] = {
                           [1] = -1000,
                           [2] = 1000,
                           [3] = 1000,
@ Line 117
               ["smoke_transparency"] = {
                   ["value"] = 0,
@ Line 129
               ["tail_width"] = {
                   ["value"] = 0,

@ Line 151 these subsections appear again - I changed those as well.

 

 

This effectively pushes the smoke very far away from the missile - and makes it completely transparent so it's not seen. You'll see zero smoke - which is weird, but this doesn't change smoke from any of the other missiles which is good. SAM launches, air to air etc is unaffected.

 

 

If a video of the frames dropping from 130 solid (with shkval zoomed in fully) to less than 20 would help anything I'll post one to youtube.

 

Perhaps the drop is not as severe on all computers but there's obviously some issue with the shkval displaying smoke. Zooming into the smoke trail fully from the pilots perspective with the shkval turned off does not change the frame rate... It's the combination of the two that's killing the frame rate.

 

This high tech representation shows how the shkval stares right down the line of fire of the missile - rendering all the smoke at zoomed in levels.

New Bitmap Image (3).bmp

Edited November 14, 2015 by Jinks

[kirk7312]

Thanks for the solution,

But, do you think it is caused by vikhr smoke? In my case, FPS drop seems only happens when vikhr hit the target.