VR and Affinity

[btaft]

I realize this might be common knowledge for a lot of folks here.

 

I had known for a while now that DCS made use of at least two cores (one for the main app and one for sound). I had just assumed that DCS would actually make use of them without being told so.

 

Having recently updated to 2.5 and flying around in the past in 2.2 and 1.5 I had frequently experienced micro-stutters in what should have been relatively benign conditions and could never quite figure out why. I had assumed that the code was optimized or something like that. I would experience decent frames but would encounter numerous dips that made the whole experience uncomfortable. It would seem much better when no in VR but in hindsight that was likely due to the higher starting frames and not really noticeable

 

So when I started reading about people having favorable experiences with similar hardware (6850K @ 4.2 MHz 1080 GTX) I decided to dig a little deeper.

 

I started to think that perhaps with HT on that DCS was attempting the first two logical cores (0,1) which would be on the same physical and thus could possibly be competing for the physical core's "attention" possibly causing the micro stutters. I had experienced similar interactions in other titles (P3D). So I decided to start it up again this time using Task Manager to only use logical cores 2,4,6,8,10 essentially leaving the first physical core alone and reserved for windows and its background functions and ensuring that DCS did not try to occupy more than one logical core on any one physical core.

 

What a difference that made. Smooth performance on all three maps, no micro stutters, decent frames through out (45-90 with occasional dips into the upper 30's) all with relatively aggressive settings (at least for VR). Most of all it made it enjoyable again.

 

This can be done manually using task manager or their are programs such as Process Lasso that can perform that function and others like it.

 

I realize this is likely old news for some veterans, but figured it was worth posting for others who might be stumped with regards to why their PC isn't performing like they think it should within DCS. Hope this helps at least one person :)

[Bogey Jammer]

Well, I didn't know about that affinity setting… I'll check that when the stable 2.5 version will come out.

;)

[Wolf8312]

I realize this might be common knowledge for a lot of folks here.

 

I had known for a while now that DCS made use of at least two cores (one for the main app and one for sound). I had just assumed that DCS would actually make use of them without being told so.

 

Having recently updated to 2.5 and flying around in the past in 2.2 and 1.5 I had frequently experienced micro-stutters in what should have been relatively benign conditions and could never quite figure out why. I had assumed that the code was optimized or something like that. I would experience decent frames but would encounter numerous dips that made the whole experience uncomfortable. It would seem much better when no in VR but in hindsight that was likely due to the higher starting frames and not really noticeable

 

So when I started reading about people having favorable experiences with similar hardware (6850K @ 4.2 MHz 1080 GTX) I decided to dig a little deeper.

 

I started to think that perhaps with HT on that DCS was attempting the first two logical cores (0,1) which would be on the same physical and thus could possibly be competing for the physical core's "attention" possibly causing the micro stutters. I had experienced similar interactions in other titles (P3D). So I decided to start it up again this time using Task Manager to only use logical cores 2,4,6,8,10 essentially leaving the first physical core alone and reserved for windows and its background functions and ensuring that DCS did not try to occupy more than one logical core on any one physical core.

 

What a difference that made. Smooth performance on all three maps, no micro stutters, decent frames through out (45-90 with occasional dips into the upper 30's) all with relatively aggressive settings (at least for VR). Most of all it made it enjoyable again.

 

This can be done manually using task manager or their are programs such as Process Lasso that can perform that function and others like it.

 

I realize this is likely old news for some veterans, but figured it was worth posting for others who might be stumped with regards to why their PC isn't performing like they think it should within DCS. Hope this helps at least one person :)

 

Tried doing that with process lasso. Wasn’t able to get good results though I think because windows 10 didn’t function well restricted to one core. Think I’ll try again though, any advice on how to do it properly?

[btaft]

What I did was open up Task Manager (CTRL ALT DEL) after starting DCS. Click on the details tab. Hover over DCS.exe and right click on it and select "Set affinity". Once there click on the processors that you want it to use. Mine was set on logical processor 0. I unchecked that one and selected 2,4,6,8,10 only (if you have a four core processor then checking 2,4,6,8). Then that is it

[boedha68]

Will try it. Thank you. :D

 

Edit: I tried, i didn't work for me. It became slower.

Edited February 5, 2018 by boedha68