Videos of Poor Performance in 1.5.3

[Bluelight]

Ok guys, I decided to make this new post because I am seeing a lot of people with this same issue and people are giving suggestions such as "this is how the game is meant to be" or "turn down your draw distance" etc.

 

My problem, like many others, is that of low CPU and GPU usage and yet, looking at certain areas and towns cause huge FPS drops. I can assure everyone that this is not a matter of having too high of settings (as you will see at the end of the videos) nor is it a matter of CPU of GPU overheating (I have check this even though it isn't showing on the overlay.) I have no CPU throttling, power management is off, CPU is overclocked, etc etc. This also does not seem to be an issue of bottlenecking as the CPU usage only rarely spikes up to 97% and usually is around 60%.

 

So here is the proof of this weird occurrence. Either some of us have something wrong or there is a major issue with the game and how it performs. As I will mention in the notes below, this may be ok in 2D but is detrimental in VR and unusable. Both videos were done in 2D mode instead of VR, but the readings are about the same.

 

----------------------

Video 1:

(LOW SETTINGS)

 

This video shows the harbor tour using the U1-H1 Huey in DCS World 1.5.3. You can clearly see in this example of low settings, that I have usable framerates looking forward at the water and to the right side, GPU and CPU usage is also higher looking these directions along with the higher FPS. But the moment I turn back towards the town, not only does the FPS plummet but so does the CPU and GPU usage. The GPU usage (first percentage not 2nd one,) is anywhere between 20-40% and goes OUT of boost clock when looking at the town.

 

These framerates, if just playing in 2D, probably wouldn't be so bad but they equate to 45fps looking forward and 18 FPS looking at the town in VR which is absolutely unusable.

 

Something is very wrong here.. I have been told it is just how the game has always been but that's hard to accept and this is pretty poor performance to be honest. I have the latest drivers, etc etc. Is there some magic setting somewhere that will fix this and make it use more of my GPU so I can get a stable fps?

------------------------

 

Video 2:

(HIGH SETTINGS)

 

Same as first video only on HIGH settings with visibility turned to ultra. The usage of the CPU and GPU seems to be about the same even with these higher settings, yet the FPS is overall lower. These FPS are more representative of what the first low settings would give me in VR.

 

----------------------------------------------

 

This makes no sense at all to me and I have noticed the same sort of behavior in 2.0 when sitting in the Huey or a10c in Vegas (30 fps in VR.) I find it hard to accept this as normal behavior nor a problem with my hardware. I realize I have an older CPU but when the CPU isn't maxed out, the GPU should be a hell of a lot higher than 40%.

 

Notice the lower memory usage as well. I especially would like to hear from devs on this.

 

Thanks.

[adrianstealth]

a total emphasis needs to be put on optimisations for the DCS engine

 

with a very high spec system DCS is the only title that brings it to its knees

 

(water cooled overclocked i7 with gtx 1080 gamer X )

[Bluelight]

a total emphasis needs to be put on optimisations for the DCS engine

 

with a very high spec system DCS is the only title that brings it to its knees

 

(water cooled overclocked i7 with gtx 1080 gamer X )

 

I agree.. but what worries me is this stuff seems to have been going on for a while and its like either the devs dont know about it or aren't paying enough attention to it in terms of its important to VR performance. Thats why I posted this.. This game should not bring a good system to its knees like this.

 

Considering 2.0 has the same problem and I just dropped $50 for NTTR, I really want to see them do something about this. No sense in continuing to update the game and ignoring this type of problem.

 

To any devs reading.. I'm not trying to be an ahole.. I understand how hard it is.. I just want to know what I can do "if anything" to combat this, what you guys are doing, and why its happening.

[BitMaster]

two things come to my mind you can do:

 

In NV settings, set your GPU to MAX PERFORMANCE mode and not OPTIMIZED, that causes it to scale up n down with MHz, whereas the max-perf setting will hold it at max MHz.

 

Set your Display Mode to Single-Display mode only..if that applies to VR..I dunno.

 

then..if needed, you can uncheck ( in Bios ) Intel Speedstep Technology if your CPU has it, that will then keep it at its base clock and boost clock, whereas Speedstep will clock it down to 1600MHz usually if in idle. That may not be relevant with the i7-950...not sure anymore if yes or no.

 

Also..my 980 GTX uses all of its 4GB VRAM pretty quick whereas yours stayed at around 2.8GB..

dunno..maybe mission..maybe something else.

 

Happy FPS hunting :)

[Fakum]

Subscribed

[the_soupdragon]

where did you get that harbour tour mission?

[Bluelight]

two things come to my mind you can do:

 

In NV settings, set your GPU to MAX PERFORMANCE mode and not OPTIMIZED, that causes it to scale up n down with MHz, whereas the max-perf setting will hold it at max MHz.

 

Set your Display Mode to Single-Display mode only..if that applies to VR..I dunno.

 

then..if needed, you can uncheck ( in Bios ) Intel Speedstep Technology if your CPU has it, that will then keep it at its base clock and boost clock, whereas Speedstep will clock it down to 1600MHz usually if in idle. That may not be relevant with the i7-950...not sure anymore if yes or no.

 

Also..my 980 GTX uses all of its 4GB VRAM pretty quick whereas yours stayed at around 2.8GB..

dunno..maybe mission..maybe something else.

 

Happy FPS hunting :)

 

Good suggestions but I already have speedstep turned off for my overclock and I have the mode set to single display for everything. Now I am not sure the other settings you are referring to in the Nvidia control panel about max performance unless it is the power management thing and I do have that on prefer maximum performance. I think thats what you meant. If so then I already have all those things setup.

 

I also recently tried the "no tree shadow" mod and if it helped the fps it was only a little. I then turned off shadows completely and installed the starway textures mod. The starway thing didn't seem to hurt the fps so I left it for now without shadows. Turning shadows off helped a little on FPS but still doesn't help to utilize my hardware correctly.

 

I am going to try the page file thing now as I just sat back down at the PC since yesterday but I did also notice yesterday that when I looked at that problem area, it has over 2000 objects being displayed and over 200,000 triangles.

 

This is almost definitely the cause of the FPS drop, however, it doesn't explain why when looking at those areas it doesn't utilize my hardware to handle it. If it doesn't kick the gpu into high gear doing so then of course it will cause the fps to drop like crazy. I mean, it even makes the gpu usage drop looking at it which is the opposite of what it should do.

 

More testing to do now :)

[Bluelight]

where did you get that harbour tour mission?

 

It came with the U1-H1 Huey that I bought this weekend. I'm just using that as it is the first mission I tried in VR and saw how bad that area was.

[Fakum]

"I am going to try the page file thing now as I just sat back down at the PC since yesterday but I did also notice yesterday that when I looked at that problem area, it has over 2000 objects being displayed and over 200,000 triangles."

 

This is interesting! What App are you using that provides this info? And what "Page File" thing are you referring too? I have not seen discussions about page files (even on these forums) in many years.

 

Thanks,

[Bluelight]

"I am going to try the page file thing now as I just sat back down at the PC since yesterday but I did also notice yesterday that when I looked at that problem area, it has over 2000 objects being displayed and over 200,000 triangles."

 

This is interesting! What App are you using that provides this info? And what "Page File" thing are you referring too? I have not seen discussions about page files (even on these forums) in many years.

 

Thanks,

 

Well someone told me in another thread (i thought this one but was mistaken) that disabling the windows page file would help the situation but I just tried it and it didn't make any difference so I wouldn't be too concerned. :/

 

At this moment I am out of ideas.. really need a dev or tester to come in here and explain what is going on.

 

To be honest I feel like if you were able to set the amount of trees loaded in a particular area somehow then that may help the situation. I think a lot of the objects in the scene are trees in the distance but my tree distance is set to minimum and so is my view distance.

[Sn8ke]

Please have the stuttering addressed. 4.9ghz i7 4790 and two Titan X's with horendous stuttering. Was smooth as silk with a solid 60 FPS even with cockpit mirrors pre 1.5.3

[Bluelight]

Please have the stuttering addressed. 4.9ghz i7 4790 and two Titan X's with horendous stuttering. Was smooth as silk with a solid 60 FPS even with cockpit mirrors pre 1.5.3

 

Has 1.5.3 been out for a while? How long?

 

If it has been this way for this long that's pretty bad. I know they are working on 1.5.4 for release real soon but wonder if this has been addressed and I dont think it has considering 2.0 does the same thing.

[MikeMikeJuliet]

Very good OP.

 

As said, we are not trying to be aholes, and that said this issue MUST be solved. If a program has sub-par performance, no amount of content in it will compensate. "It has always been like this, get used to it" is not an excuse for poor performance and taking VR into account you really don't want to cause your VR playerbase to vomit every 5 minutes... literally.

 

Actually in my opinion, DCS has a rather mediocre options menu when it comes to graphical settings. The more adjusting we users are allowed to do, the bigger is the chance for each user to find settings that give them good enough framerate.

 

As stated in the OP this actually does NOT seem like a CPU bottleneck, but rather bad optimization. The complexity of the simulation seems to not be the issue here, which means comparison to other software's performance is also valid given similar situations with large amount of drawn objects, and it seems many perform much better.

 

I hope someone from ED sees this thred and at the very least gives us info on what this is about. With all appreciation, I know such issues are difficult and time consuming to fix, but unless DCS runs up to par, it's bye-bye for VR for the sim.

 

With the utmost respect,

MikeMikeJuliet

[wedge_one]

I remember back in 1.2 the performance was awful. Then 1.5 first beta was released and was praised for its improved performance.

 

My bet is on the terrain engine for Caucasus and poor VGA drivers optimizations. The first we can only hope it'll be addressed with the release of 2.5.

[docWilly]

Guys,

I know you will hate me for that but as a longtime simmer (decades really, especially with FSX) I always had FPS issues and stuttering no matter what tweaking I did. I was so upset after years that I opened my wallet and got me a new rig (specs below). With all current DCS releases up to 1.5.4 and mods running (like starways textures) I have no issues anymore.

I am well aware, that not everyone can afford investing in a complete new hardware but nonetheless: either you give it a try and set up your system completely from the cratch or get powerful hardware.

I was one of those simmers that really would not accept such an advice and I tweaked like hell to no avail for years.

It´s not 1.5.4 it´s in your rig (either system, settings, corrupt or leftover files, programms running aside consuming power etc etc).

[Fakum]

Guys,

I know you will hate me for that but as a longtime simmer (decades really, especially with FSX) I always had FPS issues and stuttering no matter what tweaking I did. I was so upset after years that I opened my wallet and got me a new rig (specs below). With all current DCS releases up to 1.5.4 and mods running (like starways textures) I have no issues anymore.

I am well aware, that not everyone can afford investing in a complete new hardware but nonetheless: either you give it a try and set up your system completely from the cratch or get powerful hardware.

I was one of those simmers that really would not accept such an advice and I tweaked like hell to no avail for years.

It´s not 1.5.4 it´s in your rig (either system, settings, corrupt or leftover files, programms running aside consuming power etc etc).

 

That's interesting, I'm not really that far off from your specs myself, maybe my ram is 16 vs your 32, and as far as I know, over 16 hasn't showed any performance increases?

[Bluelight]

Guys,

I know you will hate me for that but as a longtime simmer (decades really, especially with FSX) I always had FPS issues and stuttering no matter what tweaking I did. I was so upset after years that I opened my wallet and got me a new rig (specs below). With all current DCS releases up to 1.5.4 and mods running (like starways textures) I have no issues anymore.

I am well aware, that not everyone can afford investing in a complete new hardware but nonetheless: either you give it a try and set up your system completely from the cratch or get powerful hardware.

I was one of those simmers that really would not accept such an advice and I tweaked like hell to no avail for years.

It´s not 1.5.4 it´s in your rig (either system, settings, corrupt or leftover files, programms running aside consuming power etc etc).

 

I can promise you that if you try to replicate my test using afterburner with the same LOW settings I had, you will see the same thing. Your FPS may not be exactly the same but I can promise you that you will not see more than 50% GPU usage and will not have maxed out CPU cores when looking at an area with over 2000 models showing and you will.

 

Does it make sense to you that when someone is not maxing out either of those components, that the problem is hardware and that new hardware is the way to go?? No... now if I was seeing 100% usage on my CPU or GPU then fine, but thats not what is happening so your suggestion about "you need to upgrade your equipment" has no merit. How is your 32 GB of ram gonna help you when as you can see in my test, only 4-5 GB of my 24 GB is being used.

 

Especially when others that have the same or better specs as you see the same issues.

 

My question to you would be, are you using this in VR? My guess is no... and if not, then you don't notice the problem as I explained in the OP. This isn't much of an issue to drop from 190 fps looking one direction, to 50-70fps looking another direction... IF you are running the game in non-VR.

 

If you are in VR, this equates to 18-30fps and is unusable.

 

I am almost certain I am right that you don't play it in VR claiming to have no problems... and that it makes no sense that hardware upgrade would solve anything. Also, my system is freshly installed and my GPU is brand new... I will be upgrading to a 1070 soon though, but I still dont expect a difference considering it happens the same with a 1080.

 

Now, if I am wrong are you DO play it in VR and are making claims that this problem does not affect you.. especially if you do the same test I did.. then I welcome your suggestion on setting changes cause thats the only thing left... and since I have tried it on the lowest possible settings in game.. it would have to be advanced settings outside of the game.

 

I don't hate you.. and thanks for trying.. but I must totally reject your logic that this has anything to do with hardware and that upgrading to the latest hardware is going to fix it.

[Bluelight]

Ok I am changing this post from one of frustration to one of hope. I have asked Skatezilla to come over here and give us some input. He seems to have a name for the GPU issue.. so he knows about it. Whether there is a solution on his side of ours, thats what I await to hear from him here hopefully soon. :)

Edited July 8, 2016 by Bluelight

[amazingme]

Hi guys! Well, I am satisfied with the current DCS engine, with what is capable of doing (good or bad), comparing to other "flight sims" on the market, especially last night when I flew the Bf on 1.5.4 and it felt.. orgasmic.

Unfortunately, there was no CUDA or CTM when the game was first developed, so they had to use the CPU to do those physics calculation and this seems to have come around against us today.. But, I'm sure ED will take all these into consideration, we just need to keep calm and.. play.

The VR technology is quite new so you can't re-do an entire engine in such a small time frame just to make 'everyone' happy.. And keep in mind that ED is a 'niche' company and DCS is not a MMORPG..

I bet you'll have a big smile on your face when 2.5 will come out ;)

[SDsc0rch]

you're getting what

 

~30fps right?

 

you're flying a helo for petes sake! you're already moving so slow.......

 

[ ducks! ]

 

lol

[NeilWillis]

Have you tried binning your options.lua file and starting with a clean sheet?

 

It has made a difference for a lot of people with frame rate issues in the latest release.

 

It is a good habit to get into to uninstall all mods, do a repair, do the update, bin the options.lua, do a repair, then see what you get in terms of performance before re-loading mods one at a time and re-assessing.

 

Also, remember to restart DCS World between all changes to options as they will not take effect until you have.

 

It is always very easy to blame the software, but start with the basics, and of course, make sure your hardware is optimised too.

[BiBa]

Have you tried binning your options.lua file and starting with a clean sheet?...It is a good habit to get into to uninstall all mods, do a repair, do the update, bin the options.lua, do a repair...

Can you please depict those procedures step-by-step in a detailed manner?

[Fakum]

Same here with that request, although my MODS are run through JSGME only, I have never heard of that. I spend more time reading here than actually flying, but I know I cant read everything, so I must have missed a post.

[Fakum]

Did Bluelights post get removed from this thread? I just got an email notice of a response to this thread with his response incorporated in the email. Maybe I'm in the wrong place? Anyway, I am one that is certainly appreciative of his input so far, mostly because he has helped me understand a lot of the technical matters that I have no knowledge of.

[Jacks]

This issue has put my off DCS and I will probably give it another go in a couple of months (after 12 months of daily play) as this issue makes it unplayable for me and so I will not be buying any modules or lining ED pockets till this issue is recognised and addressed. And please no more try this lower setting type suggestions. The problem is not my system it is DCSand if I lower my settings anymore I might as well remove my 980 and use the motherboard graphics!

 

Oh before people ask I have done 5 clean installs of both live and OB and tried with and without mods and I have tried deleting options and graphic luas and trying repairs. Nothing helps!

 

Good luck everyone

Edited July 22, 2016 by Jacks