[RESOLVED]DCS 1.5.7 stutters heavily unit related

[tobyeez]

It's funny that someone mentioned ground defense being the issue. Even before the update when I would look at my ground defense vehicle the sim would freeze up for a moment so I think this has been narrowed down.

[Drexx]

Nothing more taxing to this game is a full multiplayer server and some ground forces moving around for some reason, thats why I need to be vocal on this, not many people could test it the way I can

[Johnny_Rico]

Nothing more taxing to this game is a full multiplayer server and some ground forces moving around for some reason, thats why I need to be vocal on this, not many people could test it the way I can

 

 

I help out with our clans DCS server and it is pretty loaded most evenings with 30 players and a bunch of AI to kill ......

 

.... just seeing how the new patch is working out ... fingers crossed

[Drexx]

Its still stuttering, every 3 secs, almost like a runtime loop is getting hung on something, The less units I put on the map the less pronounced it is, the more units , the more pronounced (the stutter gets a lot more accentuated), running the server locally, the stutter is also pronounced less, than connecting to a remote server, its almost like the runtime for updating the units through the netcode is getting hung up on something, I had to bring the units on my server down to 400 from 1100, I had 1100 units running buttery smooth on 1.5.6. Also on another note, the slingloaded crates are SUPER fragile again, you have to drop them like a feather or they destroy themselves.

[EntropySG]

that is very bad news for us. We will also be testing internally, but if we find the same as what Drexx reports (I dont see why we would not), it means our members still won't be able to update DCS in order to fly on our server, yet at the same time, are not able to fly on other servers which updated.

[Drexx]

I forgot to mention, this is only noticeable in helicopters, press right control + pause and watch the frame-rate, you can see it noticeably dip every 3 secs like clockwork

[EntropySG]

ok we finally took the step and upgraded to the latest version (1.5.7.8899.335) in the 132nd.

 

During today's training we had 6 A10s, 2 Mi-8s, 2 Mirage and 3 Ka-50s, as well as 3 players as ATC/AWACS connected via LotAtc and nobody had any lag or spikes. We were very happy with the performance of 1.5.7 maybe it helps to know that some users and not all have the issue, in order to track down what is causing it for those who have it.

[Johnny_Rico]

ok we finally took the step and upgraded to the latest version (1.5.7.8899.335) in the 132nd.

 

During today's training we had 6 A10s, 2 Mi-8s, 2 Mirage and 3 Ka-50s, as well as 3 players as ATC/AWACS connected via LotAtc and nobody had any lag or spikes. We were very happy with the performance of 1.5.7 maybe it helps to know that some users and not all have the issue, in order to track down what is causing it for those who have it.

 

 

The mision you played what was the object count ?(in the DCS editor you can see this)

[lemoen]

The effect is not on every mission and maybe not even with lots of units. It may be more specific, look at the Su27 campaign's first mission (The familiarisation flight), that one gives the same 2000ms "lag" / framerate dips. It is in Blue Flag MP (lots of units) also.

[BIGNEWY]

I am currently looking into this, seems related to some units, but not pinned it down yet, I will speak to an ED team member on Monday.

[FlightControl]

Thanks BIGNEWY!

[SNAFU]

Yea, had a few more tries yesterday.

Have a lot of red units, ground units, and only blue planes - all client, and late activation stuff.

On red side I can have EWR's no problem, but when I add a blue EWR to the mix, I start seeing the stutter. In this case 130fps dips to around 80, every second type of thing. Awacs is no problem. Removing the blue EWR and Im back to a more solid 130fps again (goes to like 126fps).

 

So without knowing, it sure feels like the EWR's pick up ground units, and when there are many of them, we get this stutter. The more ground units, the heavier the stutter gets.

 

I have just discovered a maybe related issue in the current 2.1.1.9006 release.

 

I have 60+ FPS but a stutter every second or so. I have EWR 1L13 and 55G6 systems on the red US AGGR side and SAM Patrio ICC and EPP-II, ECS AN/MSQ-104, AMG AN/MRC-137 and HAWK TR AN/MPQ-46 on blue US side acting as EWR. When I delete the US group the stutters are gone.

 

Will try to find out which of these units cause the stutter and report this for the 2.1 section.

[BIGNEWY]

I have just discovered a maybe related issue in the current 2.1.1.9006 release.

 

I have 60+ FPS but a stutter every second or so. I have EWR 1L13 and 55G6 systems on the red US AGGR side and SAM Patrio ICC and EPP-II, ECS AN/MSQ-104, AMG AN/MRC-137 and HAWK TR AN/MPQ-46 on blue US side acting as EWR. When I delete the US group the stutters are gone.

 

Will try to find out which of these units cause the stutter and report this for the 2.1 section.

We do have some SAM issues in 2.1 and the ED team is aware

[SNAFU]

Thanks for the info. I have no replace the Patriot SAM units with a single HAWK SR and the stutters are gone. So I guess it must be one of the patriot units.

[twistking]

Hello,

i am not sure my if i experience the same problem, but my problems are probably related:

 

I expereienced very bad performance in a mission when in general vicinity of an populated airport. Normaly i've got between 40 and 120 fps, but now it got down to 14. Unplayable.

I thought that it was a bug with certain assets and tried to remove units one after another, but i could not find one single asset, that caused the problem.

I did notive however, that every aircraft that was on screen would decrade performance in a linear manner.

Every high quality modell (tested with l-39 AI/uncontrolled and the newly done mig 29 AI/uncontrolled) reduced fps around 3-4 fps as long as it was in the direction the camera was looking and within a certain distance. Medium Quality models like the an-30 had only minor impact of 1-2 fps when in sight (but the fps decrease would still stack up).

The weird, problematic aspect is, that this impact stacks linear, so if you put 10 aircraft in a row and look at one at a time, frame drop is insignificant, but if you look at the whole row, the impact is roughly 3-4fps times the number of assets in the frame.

 

This linearity in performance decrease per asset is sth. that i never experienced in any game and right now it means, that i can only populate an airport with few aircrafts, before the fps drops below 20. First i thought maybe the LOD-component was broken, but even than i would not expect around 4fps per asset.

I am not sure, with what update the problem occured. Right now i'm on steam stable branch.

Edited August 31, 2017 by twistking

[BIGNEWY]

Hi twistking

 

what is you system spec?

[twistking]

Hi twistking

 

what is you system spec?

 

Sorry, i forgot to mention that. I am running an "old" i7-860 @~3,8gz, 8 gb ram, nvidia gtx 770, windows 10 64bit. System on ssd, dcs on relatively fast hdd.

My pc is not the newest anymore, but my system still is in "good shape". very stable, no problems, however single thread performance is probably subpar for todays standard...

 

I suspect my problems to be less system related, beause the performace hit i experience is purely fps-based, not stuttery or laggy. Switching units to a compeltely different part of the map is instant without lag, so system memory and video memory can still keep up.

I simply get that clean, stackable 3-4fps drop for every HQ asset in sight.

 

I just downloaded the latest nvidia drivers and will try again. i'll let you know, if that changes anything.

 

*update*

new drivers, integrity check for dcs, pc reboot did not help.

I however discovered, that the problem only occurs when the asset in question is an simulated aircraft (even though "uncontrolled"). i replaced the parked aircrafts with their static counterparts from the "static objects catergory" and the performance hit was subtle.

So it maybe has more to do with the simulation/physics and less with the rendering.

Edited August 31, 2017 by twistking

[twistking]

i realized, that all the HQ assets i tested, happen to be also available as modules. maybe these come with more complex physics, even when only used by AI.

 

if it's not the rendering but the simulation, i don't understand why the fps drop only occurs when the asset is in the frame. i reckon the simulation should work regardless of an asset being on screen or not.

[Joni]

Thats an issue dcs always had, dont know the technical aspect, but it seem to be that things impact more on visual rendering.

[twistking]

sure, maybe it is not a new bug, but an shortcoming of the engine. Maybe i just now experienced the problem, because it was the first time, i populated an airport with more than 4 aircrafts.

 

However to me it still feels like buggy code, that puts a unnecessarily high burden on cpu.

To recap:

- Ground vehicles and "static (aircraft) objects" have only small, reasonable impact on fps

- HQ aircrafts have big fps impact even when being "uncontrolled". Impact on fps stacks up in linear (!) way for every asset on screen

- LQ (lower quality/older) aircrafts have lower, yet noticble impact on fps, that also stacks up for every asset on screen

- system ram and vram seem not to be the problem, as there is no lag or stutter when switching units

- running on "old" i7-860 @3,8ghz (limited single thread performance compared to newer cpus)

 

-> the weird thing is, that fps drops only appears when unit is on screen, while fps drop for the same aircraft as "static object" is insiginificant, maybe pointing towards some unholy relationship between physics simulation and renderer.

 

Could someone maybe just do a quick test and line up 10 to 20 "l-39" (or similar quality) aircrafts at a parking strip (start from ramp / uncontrolled) in caucasus (i tested at sochi) and compare fps for a certain number of assets on screen.

Then swap out the aircrafts with assets from "static objects" and redo the test.

Edited September 1, 2017 by twistking

[EntropySG]

Hello all, I think I found something.

 

So, we have this huge combat mission in the 132nd that we made.

Its full of scripts (mainly moose) but also CTLD, MIST, AutoGFT. We have hundreds of units in the mission, full sets of tankers, multiple awacs, patrolling CAP, all doing their thing, ground units patrolling areas and constantly (!) moving around, you name it.

 

When I host the mission on our server and join as client then join as game master, then outside view zoomed out I get 180-200 fps.

 

When I open the SAME mission file and go into the mission directly from the mission editor, I get what people are describing.

Gentlemen, I go down from 180fps to a whopping TWENTY fps with stutters that are so bad that I cant even zoom or pan, as the rotations of my mousewheel wouldnt even register between the stutters.

 

That info surely must help to solve the problem?

 

EDIT:

1st test: I deleted ALL triggers, so the mission will now not run a single script, nor will it spawn any units that are spawned dynamically via MOOSE. No ground units will move or patrol. Result -> same stutters

2nd test: In addition to 1, I now deleted ALL helicopters from the mission. Result -> stutters

3rd test: in addition to 1 and 2, now ALL planes are gone. -> stutters

4th test: in addition to the above, ships gone -> stutters

5th test: in addition to the above, remove statics -> stutters

6th test: its the ground units. revert mission, put everything back in, scripts etc, everything. Remove ground units -> stutters completely gone

7th test: put in 200 APC AAV-7 into the mission file -> no stutters at all

8th test: put in another 100 AAV-7 those now all have waypoints so they will move around -> no stutters at all

9th test: remove all BLUE ground units -> no stutters at all

10th test. It might be the SAM untis. When I take them out, stutters get reduced by a lot (but still there). However, its a combination. When I create a blank mission with just sams, I get no stutter.

 

Preliminary Conclusion from a 30 min test: The problem, at least in this test scenario is clearly tied to the host, and not a MP client. Furthermore, it appears that it is tied to ground units, but not any ground units rather it might be a problem with specific ground units, now it remains to see who is causing the problem.

EDIT: Im on version 1.5.7.8899

Edited September 1, 2017 by EntropySG

[EntropySG]

Based on what I saw above, in an attempt to reproduce the issue, I opened a new miz file. and added tons of air defenses. In fact, every type of air defense there is on the red side. In addition, I added a couple of dozens blue A10s to get shot at. I expected this to result in heavy stutter but it runs buttery smooth. I start to wonder if it is 'something' that is in older miz files, but when you start a fresh file, the problem is gone?

[Johnny_Rico]

Based on what I saw above, in an attempt to reproduce the issue, I opened a new miz file. and added tons of air defenses. In fact, every type of air defense there is on the red side. In addition, I added a couple of dozens blue A10s to get shot at. I expected this to result in heavy stutter but it runs buttery smooth. I start to wonder if it is 'something' that is in older miz files, but when you start a fresh file, the problem is gone?

 

I have done some digging arround inside mission file and I noticed that some

stuff I removed from the mission still has references to it in the Dictionary file ?

 

eg I used to play a message to all with some text it was deleted from the misson

but the dictionary file still has it in there ?

Edited September 1, 2017 by Johnny_Rico

[SNAFU]

In our mission template we have over 1300 units in the NTTR, many scripts using MIST and MOOSE also above 80 clients slots and for training all kinds of SAM systems on red side. It runs smooth as long as the Patriot systems on blue side remain inactive. Activate the Patriot Radar and we have a small freeze every second with 50+FPS. Replace the Patriot SAM on blue with a HAWK SR we do not have any freezes.

 

The stutter caused by the radar is proportional to the total amount of units on the map I would bet.

Edited September 2, 2017 by SNAFU

[BIGNEWY]

Hi SNAFU

 

the SAM issue in 2.1 is known, and the ED team are working on it