Perverse FPS issues?

[philstyle]

TLDR version: Does anyone know why I am getting these "low" frame rates (max 70 in cockpit) - especially given that (1) MY GPU is hardly doing any work (2) my CPU has room to spare on all cores (3) I have RAM and VRAM to spare also and (4) perversely, lowering my resolution from 1440p to 1080p has NO increase in frame rate, maybe even a decrease...

 

My Specs:

Win10; 16GBRAM;

i5 6600k;

Pali11GB D5X GTX 1080 Ti Super Jetstream;

SSD for DCS and OS;

Monitor 75Hz Iiyama Silver Crow 2560x1440;

newest Nvidia drivers.

 

DCS options in image and the base of this post.

 

So, I run DCS in 1440 (2560x1440) and I can't get my frame rate above about 60 FPS on the ground (Caucasus, or Normandy map). I took a look to see if there was a hardware constraint and there doesn't seem to be any. See this image below: noting the FPS (top right hand corner) and both CPU and GPU loads (CPU in green - GPU in the red MSI GUI). 1440p

There doesn't seem to be a hardware bottleneck right? And my GPU is basically running at 50%.

 

So I thought I'd drop the resolution down to 1920x1080, just to see what kind of FPS I would get, and the situation was basically the same, in fact FPS even seems slightly lower, and GPU load higher (due to non-native resolution I guess).

1080p

 

For the record. Vsync is OFF. Frame-rate limiters are OFF. DCS's Graphics.lua is set to the default 180 max FPS.

 

I've seen other people comment on DCS not working their GPU properly, and getting low frame rates: but I haven't seen anyone show an absence of increase FPS when lowering resolution.

 

Anyone got some tips for me here? I also accept that I may have made some obvious and silly blunder here, so don't be afraid to point out the seemingly obvious...

 

My current settings (note that switching to 1080p has no performance impact. . . )

Edited July 1, 2018 by philstyle

[Quadg]

DCS has always given its worst framerates on the ground.

even in 1.5

and some airports are worse than others.

changing resolution or screen settings never fixed it in the past.

you can go to the lowest screen resolution possible and not get a FPS boost.

 

but, on the 1920x1080 the big blip in the cpu seems to coincide with the big dip in the GPU so I would say you are CPU limited. are you overclocking the i5?

[philstyle]

are you overclocking the i5?

 

I think I might have a super mild OC on the i5.. but it is water cooled so I should be able to hammer it a bit.

I'm just not super comfortable with the best way to OC the CPU. My BOIS GUI is super user-friendly though so I should do some overclocking.

[philstyle]

I think I might have a super mild OC on the i5.. but it is water cooled so I should be able to hammer it a bit.

I'm just not super comfortable with the best way to OC the CPU. My BOIS GUI is super user-friendly though so I should do some overclocking.

 

Tried a relatively heavy OC from 3500 to 4800 on CPU.

Hardly a change in FPS, and not worth it for the fan noise.

[BIGNEWY]

60FPS on the ground is good, looking for more is futile :)

 

The only thing I would suggest is reducing the visibility range.

[vali_grad]

i5, gtx 1080 ...thats your bottleneck right there...dont expect to run with it like i7, i9... remove the grass clutter, set trees to 50%, and visibility to high, shadow default/flat, no heatblur..you will see a huge difference :)

[Haukka81]

His I5 is bit old but its not slow if OC enough.

 

 

And because dcs uses one core only for simulation and second to sound I7 or I9 wont do

 

 

4 cores is enough, but core speed is key.

 

 

BUT YES, CPU is holding that GPU even max OC , so:

Best would be to upgrade cpu to new I5- (or I7) with best OC potential. 5.0Ghz would be good place to go ;) , and then you got new DDR4 tech too :)

Edited July 1, 2018 by BIGNEWY
1.1 profanity

[petsild]

Looking at your results of CPU power you have in the DCS normally busy. The graphics doesn't do much work according the 58% utilization. Check if you have in the Nvidia panel consumption at maximum performance.

You can perform the same measurement and add a picture of the graph of the AFB, with the value of the frequency scaling of the GPU?

What would happen to change in the settings MSAA 2x for your assembly, maybe the graphics has prompted in better performance.

[Aluminum Donkey]

i5, gtx 1080 ...thats your bottleneck right there...dont expect to run with it like i7, i9... remove the grass clutter, set trees to 50%, and visibility to high, shadow default/flat, no heatblur..you will see a huge difference :)

 

The i5 6600k is certainly no bottleneck. It could probably stand a bit of overclocking, but as of now he certainly has plenty of headroom available; his CPU load on any core is roughly 60%. He should be able to get 100 FPS easily with max settings.

 

The i7 or i9 will *not* improve his performance. The CPU is not heavily loaded.

[Aluminum Donkey]

TLDR version: Does anyone know why I am getting these "low" frame rates (max 70 in cockpit) - especially given that (1) MY GPU is hardly doing any work (2) my CPU has room to spare on all cores (3) I have RAM and VRAM to spare also and (4) perversely, lowering my resolution from 1440p to 1080p has NO increase in frame rate, maybe even a decrease...

 

 

If you haven't already, go into your Nvidia Control Panel and select Manage 3D Settings. Scroll all the way down to Vertical Sync and set it to Off, both globally and under Program Settings for DCS World.

 

If it's on in any mode, it may limit the framerate.

 

Your problem isn't lack of processor speed, or vid card speed (obviously!) or anything to do with the screen resolution. You have a framerate limiter operating somewhere--it's a question of finding it.

 

Always try pressing Alt-Enter after the mission starts in DCS, it must be in full screen mode, and selecting Full Screen in System Options won't do it.

 

Finally, 60FPS is outstanding for flight simming and regardless of what anyone tells you, you're unlikely to notice *any* difference whatsoever between 60 FPS, 160 FPS, or 1600 FPS in a flight sim--except, of course, the number in the corner of the screen :) Still, it should be possible to sort this out and you should get 100 FPS or more (possibly much more in certain situations) because of your almighty graphics card. I have the same CPU as you but a much slower vid card (GTX 1070) and I can easily get 100+ FPS over water at altitude, and your CPU is certainly not a bottleneck, which should be obvious since it isn't running at anywhere near 100% load on any core.

 

Personally, I clamp my framerate at 40 FPS using Rivatuner because I can't tell the difference between that and 60 or even 75 Hz when flight simming, but I prefer a constant framerate no matter where I am on the map or what's going on.

 

AD

[ouPhrontis]

Glad you stated low in quotes, because it's not low. People obsess over these numbers, when you'd be hard pushed to tell the difference between 50 and 150.

[pagadi-zaiet]

60FPS on the ground is good, looking for more is futile :)

 

The only thing I would suggest is reducing the visibility range.

 

 

Days of monitors are coming close to an end... not just my opinion. VR is the future, we need 90+ and stable. What happen to Vulcan implementation? What is the current status? Can you find out please?

[Stacker]

Looks like you aren't in full screen mode there. If you can drag desktop windows (like resource monitor) onto your DCS screen then it's not running full screen - you're in borderless window mode.

[philstyle]

OK, loads fo good feedback so far in the thread, so time for a little update, and some responses.

 

 

glad you stated low in quotes, because it's not low. People obsess over these numbers, when you'd be hard pushed to tell the difference between 50 and 150.

 

Yes, I am aware that 50 to 70 FPS is still pretty good. I'm just keen to make sure I get the best possible from the hardware + software combination which is especially important for getting nice clean video for youtube.

 

 

 

If you haven't already, go into your Nvidia Control Panel and select Manage 3D Settings. Scroll all the way down to Vertical Sync and set it to Off, both globally and under Program Settings for DCS World.

If it's on in any mode, it may limit the framerate.

 

Vsync is definitely off everywhere I know that it exists (nividia global, nividia 3d application settings, in game etc...)

 

Your problem isn't lack of processor speed, or vid card speed (obviously!) or anything to do with the screen resolution. You have a framerate limiter operating somewhere--it's a question of finding it.

Always try pressing Alt-Enter after the mission starts in DCS, it must be in full screen mode, and selecting Full Screen in System Options won't do it.

Finally, 60FPS is outstanding for flight simming and regardless of what anyone tells you, you're unlikely to notice *any* difference whatsoever between 60 FPS, 160 FPS,...

Personally, I clamp my framerate at 40 FPS using Rivatuner because I can't tell the difference between that and 60 or even 75 Hz when flight simming

 

I wasn't aware that alt+enter was still required.. need to try that and report back.

In principle I am happy with over 50 FPS, but for Youtube recordings I like to get a minimum of 60 to at least get a smooth baseline video for upload. I'm right on the border of that now... so trying all I can to get it safely into 75FPS at most/all times.

 

Looking at your results of CPU power you have in the DCS normally busy. The graphics doesn't do much work according the 58% utilization. Check if you have in the Nvidia panel consumption at maximum performance.

You can perform the same measurement and add a picture of the graph of the AFB, with the value of the frequency scaling of the GPU?

What would happen to change in the settings MSAA 2x for your assembly, maybe the graphics has prompted in better performance.

 

Yes, is already set to maximum performance.

I will check with MSAA set to x2, to see what FPS results

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

The only thing I would suggest is reducing the visibility range.

Because Update 4 and more recent made my framerate plummet, I started looking at other ways to regain some of the lost performance, and I can indeed confirm that Visibility Range has a massive impact on performance, and - at least in VR - I can't tell the difference between Extreme and High.

 

 

I hope that whatever caused the performance problems (it's not just me who has been having issues with 2.5.2 Update 4+) will be undone in one of the upcoming updates, since even with the new settings I barely scratch 45 fps whereas up until Update 3 I had a rock solid 45+ (with higher settings).

[Rex854Warrior]

i5, gtx 1080 ...thats your bottleneck right there...dont expect to run with it like i7, i9... remove the grass clutter, set trees to 50%, and visibility to high, shadow default/flat, no heatblur..you will see a huge difference :)

 

I5 and a 1080 works just fine, i don't know who keeps spreading this myth but probably people that haven't had their hands on both, I went from an I5-4670K to an I7-8700K, still have my GTX 1080, makes no difference, even in known CPU intensive titles like Arma 3.

 

Back on topic though, I realized that my GPU was hitting a Temp limit, it's quite hot in France and it was stuck at 82°. While removing this Temp limit made things a little better, my GPU was still not at 100% usage. And unfortunetly that makes VR almost impossible to run because whatever settings i put, i will still be at 23 FPS per eye, seriously going from PD 1.0 to 2.0 didn't make a difference. Using VR preset didn't help either.

Edited July 1, 2018 by Rex854Warrior

[BIGNEWY]

I dont have VR, to expensive for me :)

 

Frame rates have been great for me personally but I am just on a 1080p screen currently.

 

I don't have any news about vulcan, when ED are ready to share something they will.

 

It all takes a lot of time and effort, so patience is the key.

[Goa]

for me best increase in performance is to delete max_fps line from graphichs.lua and then cap the fps to 60 via riva turner

 

If I use the ingame fps limiter by setting fps_max = 60 on graphics.lua I would get enourmous stuttering...dont kow why...

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

Frame rates have been great for me personally but I am just on a 1080p screen currently.

Well I don't complain about non-VR framerate either: on my 1440p screen it rarely drops below 120, and is most often around 160.

[Goa]

Well I don't complain about non-VR framerate either: on my 1440p screen it rarely drops below 120, and is most often around 160.

 

We have same hardware specs, it never drops below 120???

 

Are you running with low settings or what??

with all maxed out including msaa2x , mfaa on, medium fps is 70/80

 

what in game and nvcp settings do you have?

[BitMaster]

fps statements without a LOD reference are uselss.

 

 

 

I can get 180fps...or 25...depending on LOD @ WQHD

[Aluminum Donkey]

fps statements without a LOD reference are uselss.

 

 

 

I can get 180fps...or 25...depending on LOD @ WQHD

 

Wow, what are you doing to get it to tank to 25 FPS?! I have a 'lazy' system compared to yours, and even if I max everything out I'm not dropping to 25 FPS! Even mirrors on!

 

1440p also.

 

AD

[Goa]

Wow, what are you doing to get it to tank to 25 FPS?! I have a 'lazy' system compared to yours, and even if I max everything out I'm not dropping to 25 FPS! Even mirrors on!

 

1440p also.

 

AD

 

dude, just putt MSAA 4X and SSAA 1.5 or 2 and fps would drop to 24 fps....

[BitMaster]

Very simple:

SSAA 2x and the rest to full throttle = 24fps mostly ( but looks amazing )

 

Ssaa to 1.5 and all is ok ;)

 

 

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