'Simple' 2.5 Setup Guide.. Starting point to improve your FPS+

[PeaceSells]

Somebody that has a GTX 970 or higher. Please tell us if MFAA (not MSAA or SMAA or FXAA or whaterver) in Nvidia panel has any effect in game.

[capt_tom]

I'm no expert, but I did some simple things that I read about in different places on the forums.. I made a simple mission for each map and compared my fps. Here's what I found..

 

[...]

 

But here are my settings if you are curious. My triple-screen pc specs are in my signature. Cheers.

 

Thank you so much. Very helpful thread. I can fully confirm your testing results. See great improvements after deleting metashaders and using NVIDIA Settings with Rift CV1. :thumbup:

[Rocky49]

got frame rates at 45 in new cacuss map, vr settings1.4 but having periodic freezes, did all the options.lua, medashaders deletes but no help. the freezing and stuttering seems to be wide spread

[abyss123100]

https://imgur.com/a/lt2FQ

 

There is no appreciable difference when MFAA is enabled in the Nvidia Control Panel.

 

SPECS:

CPU - i5 4690k

GPU - 1060 6GB

RAM - 20GB

DCS is installed on an M.2 SATA SSD 500GB

Running at 1080p

Edited February 2, 2018 by abyss123100

[Mallard of Death]

Wow! 2.5 improved some performance issues I had, but overall, it works awful. From 60 fps it drops inexplicably to 40-44. When in the woods, it goes to 30! And TGP and shkval are frame killers.

 

Is it because it's beta or just awful optimization, or both, hmm...

[Sysprog]

I have rolled back all 'specific' graphics settings and done all the above and still get severe stuttering that i didn't get in 1.5.8. looking on the forum this does seem to be widespread, so lets hope a fix comes soon, as its unusable for me at present, no matter what settings. shame cause it looks stunning on high settings

[HiJack]

Tips: If you have an AMD card I recommend changing the Shader Cache settings from AMD Optimized to ON on a DCS profile. Normally you want the Global settings to AMD Optimized. I guess some of the same settings exist on an nVidia card.

[Retrofly]

If buildings and tree are causing a drop in FPS, try setting Object Terrain Shadows to flat, this really helped with frame drops.

 

DCS - Object shadows - Default

Frames: 7308 - Time: 120000ms - Avg: 60.900 - Min: 39 - Max: 74

 

DCS - Object shadows - Flat

Frames: 9152 - Time: 120000ms - Avg: 76.267 - Min: 63 - Max: 96

[Gliptal]

If buildings and tree are causing a drop in FPS, try setting Object Terrain Shadows to flat, this really helped with frame drops.

 

DCS - Object shadows - Default

Frames: 7308 - Time: 120000ms - Avg: 60.900 - Min: 39 - Max: 74

 

DCS - Object shadows - Flat

Frames: 9152 - Time: 120000ms - Avg: 76.267 - Min: 63 - Max: 96

Nice. Have you noticed a substantial decrease in image quality?

[Miro]

Yes, quality, especially in: close distance, over forrests decreased with flat shadows. It's first relase of 2.5, and it will be to colorfull to have no problems. I think ED fix it in nearest patches ;)

[Snacko]

I updated the first post to include the AA option of using DCS MSAA with your nVidia card's MFAA. At 2x I found the AA acceptable and it added 15+ fps to the Caucasus map for me.

 

You can read about it here.

 

I also added instructions to delete your FXO folder cache. I didn't notice any appreciable fps improvements, but it is recommended after major graphics updates, and may help with other's setups.

[TeeSquar]

Thanks Snacko for the simple settings.

 

I did the upgrade last night from the open alpha so my initial thought was that I wouldn't need to delete and reinitialize some of those files. I just remembered, though, that the 2.5 install asked if I wanted to transfer my open alpha info over upon completion of install.

 

To be safe, I guess I'll just go ahead and delete those files as it'll only cost me some reload time. Eh, more time to sit back and drink a beer.

[Snacko]

Somebody that has a GTX 970 or higher. Please tell us if MFAA (not MSAA or SMAA or FXAA or whaterver) in Nvidia panel has any effect in game.

 

Yes, I tested that yesterday. I also updated my first post about this. I read that you need to use the DCS MSAA x2 along with the nVidia Control Panel's MFAA x2 to Enhance the game's AA. I have a GTX 1080 TI and it did help a lot. Added ~15 FPS! The graphic quality was acceptable as well for me. That is what I am going to use for now...

 

Read my first post about it.. :thumbup:

[Snacko]

Snacko, when you refer to your Saved Games folder, presume you mean the 'DCS.openbeta' folder, as opposed to the 'DCS' folder? Because only the former has been updated to 2.5; the latter still corresponds to the 1.5.8 release version.

 

Yes, when I refer to the Saved Games folder I am referring to the 2.5 Open Beta.

(BTW, a month ago I converted my stock DCS folder to the 1.5.8 Open Beta. And it is still named 'DCS' folder since it was a update to get it to the beta. The update does not rename the game folder. So the folders could be called DCS and also still be the beta.)

[Hoffster]

My problem right now is not getting playable fps but crazy amounts of tearing. If i activate vsync in game it caps the frames at 30-40ish fps and stutters alot. I get 60+ without vsync.

The middle ground i found is using adaptive vsync in nvidia control. But still annoying tearing but not 20+ fps loss and stuttering...hmm to much give or take at the moment for me to be happy about the update.

 

I5-4690, gtx1060 6gb. 16gb ram.

[Auntystatic]

Solved my severe stuttering problem

 

I tried everything mentioned here and in other threads but nothing worked, even went from 3 monitors back to one, was getting nearly 200fps but still major stuttering then a suggestion from one of my stream viewers came in and I thought what the hell, I lowered my cpu speed (i7-6700) from 4.6GHz to 4.5GHz using the asus hero 8 mobo ez tune software, selected normal office pc with water cooling as selecting games pc with water cooling wanted to clock it @4.8GHz, the stuttering stopped imediately, now I'm back to my 3 monitors with no stutter at all, hope this info helps some of you out.

[Snacko]

Can some of you stating that MFAA works post a comparison screen? MSAA can't work, but MFAA might if you "Enhance Application Settings". No videos, the encoding would render the comparison useless.

 

Here you go. There is a difference. It's an easy thing to test.

[Peter22]

You have to look very carefully to the top-left corner of you screen. It is very small and red.

yeah i saw it once but for some reason is not displaying anymore :(

[DaveRindner]

Very little of this makes sense, and generally does not work in my system.

MSAA is absolutely FPS killer. With or without Nvidia panel AA settings.

Deffered Shading is FPS murder and it looks awfull.

Anisotropic Filtering. It slows down DCS 2.5, but not as bad as Defered Shade.

Any setting that has Low/Med/High set to anything but low decreases performance.

[Art-J]

yeah i saw it once but for some reason is not displaying anymore :(

 

If RCtrl + Pause doesn't work (though it should) for you, try RCtrl + ScrollLock. Both combos should activate tiny and barely readable monitoring data screen in top left corner.

 

Or just install ReShade and enable much bigger and better visible framerate counter in that one :D.

[Sarge55]

For whatever reason the command has changed, to turn on the FPS counter in game the key combo is L/Ctl + Pause/Break.

[Balzarog]

Very interesting. I use a Bluetooth extended keyboard and use Right-Alt + Right-Control+F16 (which is my pause/break key), and it works every time. It's very small and very hard to read on my 4K monitor (upper left corner) unless I'm on VR. Then it's quite large in the upper center of my view. I haven't tried it in TrackIR with Scale GUI enabled, so I don't know if that makes any difference.

[Snacko]

Working on some Reshade for 2.5. I plan on testing the AA that comes with Reshade at some point. My first tests were not promising. But Reshade is supposed to run faster if you put ReShade in 'Performance' mode which I have not done. But the ReShade shaders are looking good and only costing me about 5 fps I think. Here's some before and after pics. Still working on this..

 

Before:

 

Reshade:

 

Before:

 

Reshade:

Edited February 3, 2018 by Snacko

[Chic]

Working on some Reshade for 2.5. I plan on testing the AA that comes with Reshade at some point. My first tests were not promising. But Reshade is supposed to run faster if you put ReShade in 'Performance' mode which I have not done. But the ReShade shaders are looking good and only costing me about 5 fps I think. Here's some before and after pics. Still working on this..

 

Yah, ReShade is a must have in DCS. It used to be that Sweet FX/Reshade had no effect on FPS. Since the last few updates, however, it now costs some frames. 5 to 15% depending on your settings.

Still well worth it.

BTW Snacko, Reshade is supposed to be run in "Performance" mode always. Only put it in "Configuration" mode when changing settings.

[Chic]

A simple mod to increase the size of DCS frame counter.

Can't recall where I got it. Suffice to say, not my handywork.

Larger FPS Indicator Mod.rar