Flying near trees causes great fps loss.

[msalama]

But I did notice something anyway, namely that it's the ground objects that are most likely causing this. There're no problems if I follow (or pilot) a high-flying AC, but when I get near the ground, the spiking starts. Were the building / town 3D objects changed for v1.5.3?

 

EDIT: Ach, sniped by Enduro ;) But yes, that's exactly where most of the stutters occur.

[Enduro14]

right on this is also something i noticed is when in highly populated areas the cpu will increase usage but at same time the gpu usage will lower and sometimes dramatically and then the stuttering would occur.

That happened for me at the "new" ultra or above visibility draw settings. Once i turned to high it evened out and my frames now stay locked at 60fps vsync. Hopefully this is an indicator of something that can be looked at or its simply a case of our Processors are not up to the task with this new engine and a couple more hardware generations need to happen before we can max out and be super fluid. Not the answer many like to hear but maybe that is the situation.

 

ps. I also observe the same in 2.0 and nevada

[msalama]

Not the answer many like to hear but maybe that is the situation.

 

Maybe. But if a i7-2600k@4.6GHz / 16GB RAM / GTX980 4GB / SSD rig going from v1.5.2 to v1.5.3 can't run this thing properly on high settings anymore - or even on _lower_ settings, for that matter - then I think I'm done with this sim. I mean it's all well and good to aim for maximum quality, but we're talking about a rig that clearly exceeds minimum specs here fergawdssakes...

 

But enough of my whining, we'll see if I ever get to the bottom of this. But if I do, I'll certainly report back.

[Enduro14]

ya their has to be something going on as your rig should easily run it?

[msalama]

ya their has to be something going on as your rig should easily run it?

My point exactly, although I do remember there was another previous version (v1.2.something) that gave me similar grief too. But that went away with a subsequent patch as I remember it, so maybe there's hope still ;)

[Kuky]

Maybe. But if a i7-2600k@4.6GHz / 16GB RAM / GTX980 4GB / SSD rig going from v1.5.2 to v1.5.3 can't run this thing properly on high settings anymore - or even on _lower_ settings, for that matter - then I think I'm done with this sim. I mean it's all well and good to aim for maximum quality, but we're talking about a rig that clearly exceeds minimum specs here fergawdssakes...

 

But enough of my whining, we'll see if I ever get to the bottom of this. But if I do, I'll certainly report back.

 

See my PC is very similar to yours, the CPU, well and motherboard, are only different. I presume you don't use 4K resolution and if so, I don't see you should be having issues running smooth FPS on at least, medium visibility settings.

 

I cap my FPS at 38 using autoexec.cfg and running High visibility its mostly stable at that limited 38fps (I don't really need 60fps now anyway) and I use max distance for forests also and no flat shadow. Over cities it does go down to high 20's but its not stutter fest, either. If I turn on mirros for example, yeah, that'll start to stutter. I really don't know, if you have tried flat shadow, just HD resolution and Medium visibility distance setting, you should see nice FPS. Something is up with your PC config... some BIOS config maybe, or graphics driver setting... I just don't see you with such similar PC having so much worse performance then mine? :noexpression:

[Kuky]

I've just taken off my fps limit and let the DCS run up to 60fps. On high settings (I had forests on 30km distance and only disabled mirrors, depth of field and sun glare... MSAA at 4x and still 4K resolution) and it was stable at 60fps and only went down to 40fps over large forests when I am low. I am certain now that tree shadows are the cause in lower FPS. But see, if I leave my fps limit at 38 I won't even notice this and DCS will be smooth pretty much all the time.

 

I had GPU-z running and it was showing high GPU usage, up to 99% and vRAM was around 2.6GB so all working fine.

 

There's one more thing you could try... check if your video card is actually in 16x PCI-E slot? GPU-z can do this for you, or you can check your motherboard manual and see what PCI-E slot is the main one that has 16x Bus Interface and make sure the video card is in that slot.

[Kuky]

Alright, I think I have the solution.

 

Please see my DCS Options Setting in attached image

 

Note I have High settings (including visibility distance) and trees at at 25Km... so nothing shabby or low in the setting.

 

My FPS was stable 60fps and I did not have any stuttering

 

The Terrain Flat Shadows are disabled, but Shadows are set to FLAT ONLY

 

Please try it and see how you go :joystick:

[Enduro14]

Alright, I think I have the solution.

 

Please see my DCS Options Setting in attached image

 

Note I have High settings (including visibility distance) and trees at at 25Km... so nothing shabby or low in the setting.

 

My FPS was stable 60fps and I did not have any stuttering

 

The Terrain Flat Shadows are disabled, but Shadows are set to FLAT ONLY

 

Please try it and see how you go :joystick:

 

If only we could do this and still maintain the cockpit dynamic shadows....

[Kuky]

If only we could do this and still maintain the cockpit dynamic shadows....

 

I think I have solution for that also. Try this Shadows.lua file attached (it goes into ...DCS*/Config/Effects folder - whatever the DCS version it is) and set Shadows in Options to LOW

shadows.lua

[Enduro14]

Will do I'll be down for couple of days got surgery, hope that works as that will extremely help in 3D for performance while also keeping in the pit immersion

[Necroscope]

My FPS was stable 60fps and I did not have any stuttering

:

 

Hi Kuky,

 

it's really great that you have so high FPS. But thing is that once you'll load some mission - your FPS count will decrease significantly. I.e. yours 20 FPS over the cities will be around 10 over war-thorn cities, which is not so cool.

 

I have 60+ in free flight too looking to sea or sky, but forest throw FPS to 50, and units fighting on the ground to 30-35 then.

Saying this only to indicate that we can't just say - "forest or new vis-settings impact is not significant due still playable FPS". FPS was barely playable before changes and now additional visibility-load lowered it to unplayable state. Especially when units fighting near the city in forest. :)

And the stuttering we have now is not appearing in strict FPS<30 state, but in "lower FPS = higher stuttering" conditions.

 

More to say - it's quite OK if settings were changed to make things better in distance, but does this really necessary in my Ka-50 with 100m flying altitude at maximum? Why do I need to load something at 140km from me if I can't even see things more then 10km away?

 

P.S. No offense please. :)

Edited February 25, 2016 by Necroscope

[msalama]

Something is up with your PC config... some BIOS config maybe, or graphics driver setting...

 

:doh: Sorry, but no. This machine has always ran DCS flawlessly apart from an odd version now and then (and those probs were all fixed by subsequent patches), and nothing at all has changed in the computer itself. Moreover, v.1.5.3 just doesn't run properly even if I adjust everything waaaay down (have of course tried that too), so it _isn't_ just the default increased visibility settings that are causing this. So what do you _really_ think is the most logical conclusion to arrive at here?

 

I'll however keep on tweaking & see if things improve. If not however, well there's another patch coming in the future I think? Oh, and let me remind you again that v.1.5.2 indeed ran flawlessly at all times with the platform configured the exact same way it is now...

[msalama]

The Terrain Flat Shadows are disabled, but Shadows are set to FLAT ONLY

 

So I've got all shadows OFF at the moment + am using Mustang's FPS tree mod too. Should I expect to see an improvement if I now turn some shadows back ON, and why?

[EntropySG]

I think I have solution for that also. Try this Shadows.lua file attached (it goes into ...DCS*/Config/Effects folder - whatever the DCS version it is) and set Shadows in Options to LOW

 

Hi Kuky,

 

I am using exactly your settings and getting good fps. I also tried to get cockpit shadows back on using your shadows.lua.

 

Which works, shadows are on, but they look very strange and flicker inside the cockpit. any ideas?

[droopy114]

Alright, I think I have the solution.

 

Please see my DCS Options Setting in attached image

 

Note I have High settings (including visibility distance) and trees at at 25Km... so nothing shabby or low in the setting.

 

My FPS was stable 60fps and I did not have any stuttering

 

The Terrain Flat Shadows are disabled, but Shadows are set to FLAT ONLY

 

Please try it and see how you go :joystick:

 

Damn, those shadows setting drive me crazy, always thinking having better performance with Terrain Flat Shadows set to on .....will test this, thank you for advice.

[Esac_mirmidon]

The better perfomance is with terrain flat shadows on.

[Flocke.LE]

@msalama:

 

could you please try the folowing and report back if it helps:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2685875&postcount=58

[majapahit]

@msalama:

 

could you please try the folowing and report back if it helps:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2685875&postcount=58

 

if NVidia 'shadowplay' (spool auto video capture) is a problem, then your drive where the video is saved is too slow / or incompatible controller >< drive anomaly

[Flocke.LE]

if NVidia 'shadowplay' (spool auto video capture) is a problem, then your drive where the video is saved is too slow / or incompatible controller >< drive anomaly

 

:huh: sorry but you did not understand what i mean.

 

I stated:

- when enabling shadowplay it reduces stutter on my system

- when disabling it, the stutter is back

 

so actually putting stress on my system removes stutter in dcs world

Edited February 25, 2016 by Flocke.LE
explaining

[majapahit]

:huh: sorry but you did not understand what i mean.

 

I stated:

- when enabling shadowplay it reduces stutter on my system

- when disabling it, the stutter is back

 

so actually putting stress on my system removes stutter in dcs world

 

that's completely bizar

[msalama]

could you please try the folowing and report back if it helps

 

Sorry, but I only have the driver without Shadowplay installed & won't install anything unneeded/extra on this computer. But thanks for the suggestion anyway :)

 

However, if what you say is true and turning on Shadowplay _eliminates_ stuttering, then there's something badly wrong with v1.5.3. Which, given the performance issues we're seeing, is very much possible IMHO...

[Tonike]

Sorry, but I only have the driver without Shadowplay installed & won't install anything unneeded/extra on this computer. But thanks for the suggestion anyway :)

 

However, if what you say is true and turning on Shadowplay _eliminates_ stuttering, then there's something badly wrong with v1.5.3. Which, given the performance issues we're seeing, is very much possible IMHO...

 

If you're experiencing the same stutterfest as I am in the "Low frame rate" thread, then the shadowplay doesn't have any affect on it at all. The example video I made on the other thread was recorded via shadowplay.

[Theskyline35]

try my file

 

extract and paste in "...\Config\Effects"

 

I finally tried, it's a lot better however it still sutturing land when looking at planes/cities, framerate drop hard from 75fps to things like 45fps

[archer86]

Low flight over trees is really annoying ,I am getting stutters despite normal fps like 40-45.

I am getting 60 fps nearly everywhere, only low flight on forests reduce my fps to minimum 40.

 

is 40-45 fps low for dcs standards?

I am testing with fraps and those numbers are not noticable stutter fps numbers on other games, that why I am curious about the dangerous fps(stutter) limit number for Dcs