Trees slow down too much in 2.5

[DaveRindner]

The update looks great and so far trouble free. At least for me. But I just don't like trees, grass. and Deffered Shade. Deffered Shaded scene looks ugly and garrish, regardless of Gamma and is an FPS killer. Trees if set to 100% slow down FPS. Trees at low % seem to grow out of the ground . Very distracting. Trees and grass, without Deffered Shading, are awfully bright. The leaf and conifer colors are too bright. The tree variation is low. They all look like instances of perhaps 2-3 base trees. They need to be more randomized in scale and orientation.

HDR ON and Flare lens effect is OK. But I don't see any difference when dirt lens effect is ON or OFF. Is dirt lens effect , a type of ambient occlusion, or is it literally some kind of dirt effect that I am not seeing.

[Quekel]

MSAA is killing trees performance,

 

I tried with HDR on and MSAA 2x trees 40% -> when getting low FPS drops from 60 to 40

 

with Deferred shading on and MSAA off trees 100% -> NO FPS DROP!

[Redglyph]

Even on visibility range set to Ultra, trees seem to "grow from the ground", the visibility is way too low, I have to set "Extreme" not to have those annoying trees poping up all the time, and no tree visible at all from even low altitude.

 

But extreme allows other things to be visible too early probably, which causes frequent freezes as the sim has to load objects (and since those are apparently blocking reads...).

 

Perhaps a separate slider, or balancing that differently helps? Or are there other problems doing that?

[Joker69]

For the trees I found a good balance with 80% setting. They are not seen growing as you are moving forward. At the same time you can have the trees ready up to the visible horizon. 8X anisotropic filter, MSSA at an intermediate value. Cockpit at 1024 at each frame. Obviously it depends a lot on the computer you have. I find the DCS 2.5 really spectacular. :thumbup:

However, it is necessary to do some personal tests for the settings in order to obtain the best solution according to the PC. Even the basic range of 2.2 for the GAMMA should be tested. It depends on the monitor and personal taste. Another important thing would be to have a monitor with high frequency (144) and possibly with G-Sync / V-Sync based on the video card. Finally do not use the HDMI connection but the DisplayPort.

[KeyCat]

The update looks great and so far trouble free. At least for me. But I just don't like trees, grass. and Deffered Shade. Deffered Shaded scene looks ugly and garrish, regardless of Gamma and is an FPS killer. Trees if set to 100% slow down FPS. Trees at low % seem to grow out of the ground . Very distracting. Trees and grass, without Deffered Shading, are awfully bright. The leaf and conifer colors are too bright. The tree variation is low. They all look like instances of perhaps 2-3 base trees. They need to be more randomized in scale and orientation.

HDR ON and Flare lens effect is OK. But I don't see any difference when dirt lens effect is ON or OFF. Is dirt lens effect , a type of ambient occlusion, or is it literally some kind of dirt effect that I am not seeing.

 

Try setting the object shadow to flat only else shadows whats killing your FPS.

 

I gained ~15 FPS doing so with trees at 100%

 

Even on visibility range set to Ultra, trees seem to "grow from the ground", the visibility is way too low, I have to set "Extreme" not to have those annoying trees poping up all the time, and no tree visible at all from even low altitude.

 

But extreme allows other things to be visible too early probably, which causes frequent freezes as the sim has to load objects (and since those are apparently blocking reads...).

 

Perhaps a separate slider, or balancing that differently helps? Or are there other problems doing that?

 

Do you have the tree slider at 100%? On ultra plus slider at max trees don't pup up for me.

Edited February 2, 2018 by KeyCat

[Nealius]

Even 2xAA is killing my frames, with Nvidia settings set to 2x "enhance application settings." Flat shadows on too. Getting 28-24fps when flying low.

[KeyCat]

If you enabled Deferred Shading enabling AA will eat alot of FPS. Try disable it and see if that makes a difference.

[Nealius]

Disabling AA and/or deferred shading doesn't affect performance much on my system. When looking at a hill full of trees:

 

Deferred shading off, MSAA 2x, Nvidia MFAA 2x: 19fps

Deferred shading on, MSAA 2x, Nvidia MFAA 2x: 27fps

Deferred shading on, MSAA off, Nvidia MFAA off, 33fps

 

My performance is actually worse with deferred shading off. And it looks like ass. Autumn trees look no different than spring when deferred shading is off.

[DaveRindner]

Sadly trees and grass, but especially trees look bad without Deferred Shading, and work poorly regardless of visibility range. Even at Ultra or Extreme and at 100% trees grow out of the ground. The higher the altitude the worse the effect, because there is less ground clutter to obscure the growing trees. I noticed that civilian traffic is likewise affected. Differed Shading is a FPS killer on my system, and it looks just awfull, regardless of Gamma. I do not understand what it is trying to do, or what it is really for. Maybe I am missing something, or my Quadro does not support a particular features used by Deferred Shading

NTTR is effected much less by tree growth, but Georgia Caucasus is heavily compromised.

I have rebuilt my metashaders, but on my machine, that approach does not change performance. I don't use MSAA, anisotropic filter, terrain object shadows, differed shading, and HDR. All these are set to off. The tree textures are brighter then terrain, which is distracting, as real trees are normally darker then ground, when viewed from distance and altitude.

Aircraft textures are High, Terrain textures low, Visibility is low. 1 Screen (2560 X1440).

In KA-50 and UH-1H, a helicopter can collide with trees. Problem is it collided with trees that do not appear in scene, but would appear if trees was set to 100%. You can test out this issue in Instant Action/KA-50/Free flight. Set the trees to 0 or very low number then fly into tree zone, which has dark patches where the tree would be. At very low altitude, in ground effect, slide the KA-50 over the tree splotch. it will collide with a ghost tree.

 

Highest FPS I have ever gotten prior to 2.5 are 38-40. In 2.5, with settings above I am lucky to break 30, with 24-26 being norm. With trees at 100% I get 12-15 FPS, which is unacceptable. So DCS 2.5 is a stepdown in performance from 2.2 and 1.5.8.

I was excited with 2.5 when it rolled out, but now not so much. Hopefully DCS will patch this up in short order.

 

HP Z230 , I7-3770 3.4/3.7, PNY Quadro K4000, 32gb ram, 2560X1440 1screen for DCS. System vintage is 2013.

[Redglyph]

Do you have the tree slider at 100%? On ultra plus slider at max trees don't pup up for me.

 

That slider is for the quantity, isn'it ? Has this changed? The visibility range does have an effect on how far one can see them, are both settings combined somehow?

 

Thanks for the tip, I'll tweak that when I have the time. :)

[DaveRindner]

The slider is for density of the trees. I am not certain what parameter controls when they appear. To me it looks like they are growing out the ground. I really dislike this implementation.

[Haukka81]

Slider is also range slider , 100% is max but medium , high etc vis settings also limit how far they are drawn. Just test in game .

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[DaveRindner]

I tried it every way I could think off. I could not find a settings that works.

[Mallard of Death]

Atrocious optimization.

[Nealius]

For me the slider controls when the trees appear. Set to 50% the trees only render in a 3.5nm radius.

[KeyCat]

That slider is for the quantity, isn'it ? Has this changed? The visibility range does have an effect on how far one can see them, are both settings combined somehow?

 

Thanks for the tip, I'll tweak that when I have the time. :)

 

I haven't noticed the slider change quantity/density, I think it's only how far tree's are rendering but i could be wrong.

 

Hope you get it sorted...

Edited February 3, 2018 by KeyCat

[DaveRindner]

I think it just plain looks bad, and works poorly. Set to zero, 2.5 runs faster and smoother.

The trees in 1.5.8 looked way better, and worked much better. Of course we could only judge 2.X performance from NTTR , so we never got to see 2.X performance and appearance in Georgia.

[Redglyph]

I haven't noticed the slider change quantity/density, I think it's only how far tree's are rendering but i could be wrong.

 

Hope you get it sorted...

 

It is, sort of, thanks!

 

Both settings determine how far the trees are drawn, but it's confusing.

[BitMaster]

Got mine all to 100%, all HIGH, Def.Shading, 4x MSAA 16xASF and get 75-80fps lowest in Mi-8 or Ka-50, two of the more taxing airframes.

 

Without MSAA it feels more fluent, not mainly becaue it gives almsot twice the fps but it just feels better flying and steering the chopper, more direct, frame time related maybe.

 

Tho both is real nice, I will set MSAA back to 0 and take the edges, fluent comes 1st.

[Tone71]

Got mine all to 100%, all HIGH, Def.Shading, 4x MSAA 16xASF and get 75-80fps lowest in Mi-8 or Ka-50, two of the more taxing airframes.

 

Without MSAA it feels more fluent, not mainly becaue it gives almsot twice the fps but it just feels better flying and steering the chopper, more direct, frame time related maybe.

 

Tho both is real nice, I will set MSAA back to 0 and take the edges, fluent comes 1st.

 

Same here. Everything set to High, Deferred Shading and Cockpit GI on, Trees at 100%, no DoF or MSAA; very smooth, great frame rate and no tree pop up that I can see. More than happy with performance and looks stunning.

 

If you pause the game and go into options you can actually move the Tree % slider and see the tree visibility distance change.

[msalama]

DS off, in-game 2 x MSAA on, NVI on enchance + 2Q MSAA & 2 x SGSSAA gives me a constant, fluid and good-looking 60 FPS everywhere on the Caucasus map. I do see an occasional glitch here and there, sure, but those are rare. Am I just one of the lucky ones or what?

[Redglyph]

It clearly depends more on the hardware than on luck. Clearly with an overkill setup of 1080 Ti, i7 8700, 32 GB and SSDs you are better off than with a 4-year old system.

 

Not everybody can afford that though, or is willing to just for a sim ;)

[Art-J]

Am I just one of the lucky ones or what?

 

Nope, your one of the few who play with DS off :D. Try to pull off the same with DS on and then you're lucky :).

[msalama]

It clearly depends more on the hardware than on luck.

 

I guess so. Regardless, my simputer is an old i7-2600K rig, although it does have 16GB of RAM and a brand-new(ish) 4GB GTX980 installed + a pretty well-slimmed/optimized OS (Win7 HP) + a sensible CPU / GPU OC scheme running too. But granted, it all does depend more on design than luck

 

And yeah, like us all I really can't get the DS option working properly. In places, it runs beautifully even with the abovementioned AA scheme on, but see even a glimpse of a forest and BAM! Things slow to crawl*. But then I'm not a big fan of DS anyway so it doesn't matter...

 

*PS / EDIT: I'm aware of DS and AA not coexisting too well so this is not a surprise, but I still thought I'd mention it even though it's no news to anyone persay.

Edited February 4, 2018 by msalama

[Tone71]

DS works fine for me.