Much better video card = same frame rate...

[Sub2K]

I just upgraded from a GTX 1060 6GB card to a 1080 Ti FTW3 specifically to increase performance in DCS 2.5, and my frame rate still sits at around 22 FPS (even when I change settings) when I'm 'Ready on the Ramp' in the Persian Gulf map.

 

The 1080 Ti is giving me fantastic frame rates in all of my other games, so I assume this is a DCS problem.

 

Any help appreciated. :helpsmilie:

[Mustang]

Please show us your DCS options settings.

[toutenglisse]

Hi, I assume DCS engine still has the issue with 3 screens high field of view like the setup you use.

 

This is from Tiborrr's DCS 1.5 hardware benchmark :

 

"My findings were:

- GTX 780 Ti, GTX 970 and GTX 980 Ti: they all perform pretty much exactly the same - around 38FPS (9FPS min ; 66FPS max)

- There must be a bottleneck somewhere... Not sure if it's CPU bound, GPU arch bound or DCS engine limitation."

 

"I strongly believe there is something with the DCS 1.5 engine not being able to feed the GPU in time when running 3 screens in high FOV ("3 Monitors" profile) WALL mode. "

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2624495&postcount=3

[Badlego]

did you check your cpu performance and temperature f.e. with task manager?

[Sub2K]

Hey Mustang,

 

I tried to upload a screencap for you, but I'm asked for a URL address when I click on 'Insert Image'...

 

Is it because I'm new and don't have enough posts yet?

[Sub2K]

Badlego: I only replaced my video card, those wouldn't change.

[Sub2K]

@toutenglisse,

 

That was for 1.5 though. I was really hoping that it wouldn't be the case in 2.5. :(

[Aluminum Donkey]

I just upgraded from a GTX 1060 6GB card to a 1080 Ti FTW3 specifically to increase performance in DCS 2.5, and my frame rate still sits at around 22 FPS (even when I change settings) when I'm 'Ready on the Ramp' in the Persian Gulf map.

 

The 1080 Ti is giving me fantastic frame rates in all of my other games, so I assume this is a DCS problem.

 

Any help appreciated. :helpsmilie:

 

 

Congrats on your nice new card :)

 

Dang man, hope you can get it all ironed out.

Have you removed all your old graphics adapter drivers with something like DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) and installed the latest ones for your new card?

In your Nvidia Control Panel settings, in DCS World, is your power profile set to Prefer Maximum Performance?

Is your Vsync turned off in Nvidia Control Panel? Sometimes that messes with things.

 

Wish I could afford a 1080 Ti ;) Still, I'm getting far better framerates than that (50+ FPS) with my wimpy lil' GTX 1070, so it's not a DCS limitation.

 

AD

[BoneDust]

I have the same issue.

 

Went from a 1060 6GB to a 1080Ti 11GB and only gained about 15fps with the same settings in VR

[derodo]

What CPU do you have?

 

As we already know, DCS is still very CPU-bound mostly because it’s not very good at multi-threading.

 

This same thing happened to me (sort of) when upgrading my ATI 7750 to a GTX 1080.

 

I expected a great performance boost, but it just went up so little...I was disappointed. Having a closer look at it, and asking in the forums, everything seemed obvious that in the end: even when the overall CPU usage was around 30%, the ground truth was that all the load was being handled by just one logical core; while the other 7 remained almost idle.

 

And the actual GPU usage never went higher than 60%. So the bottleneck in my case is my i7 3700K.

 

My FPS are around 50-60, sometimes over 100; and the biggest game changer was tuning down the “trees” slider. That’s by far what makes my CPU busier; so a dipping it down a little really helped (I have to admit I got greedy and moved all the sliders and options to their limits after installing the 1080 :) )

 

On the other hand, after playing a while with the new card I could really tell the difference in performance; before the 1080 everything slowed down to 10FPS when zooming in, now everything is rock solid and consistent at all times.

 

Long story short: right now you need a really powerful CPU to take the most out of a powerful GPU.

 

I’m looking forward to the Vulcan thingy ED is working on; as that might help improving multi-thread performance (hopefully).

[Sub2K]

@ Aluminum Donkey, Tks! It's just unfortunate (so far) that the upgrade doesn't help.

 

And... Check, Check and Check on the suggestions.

[Sub2K]

@derodo,

 

To be honest, I haven't checked whether my i7-2600K is bottlenecking DCS (it's been such a great CPU for everything else) . Doesn't DCS use all cores?

 

You got me scared that a CPU/MB/RAM upgrade is required to see some better frame rates... :(

[Sub2K]

@BoneDust,

 

At this point, I would settle for a 15 FPS gain... :(

[derodo]

Well...I can tell you my i7 3700K is not enough to use the full potential of the GTX 1080. That’s a fact.

 

With the settings I have (and I’m comfortable with) the GPU usage doesn’t get higher than 60-70% on average. Which means the CPU is lagging behind and is not able to feed enough draw commands to keep the GPU busy. I can see it going up to 90-100% usage under certain conditions, when I get really high frame rates (over 90)...single player, simple missions, high up (so almost no trees), etc.

 

To complete the picture, as I mentioned before, I can clearly see just one logical core doing all the work (peaking at 90-100%) while the other 7 sit idle (maybe going up to 25% from time to time). So everything fits and makes perfect sense with the results I see in DCS.

 

As I said, I’m perfectly comfortable as it is right now. I’m really REALLY looking forward to the Vulcan refactoring; I really think it will help us get better performance. But right now it’s what it is.

 

So far, my additional advice is (apart from checking power settings, vsync, etc) to bring down the “trees” slider in the graphics options.

 

It’s so critical in my case, sliding it to full left (no trees) I get ludicrous FPS; don’t remember the figures because it looks awful without trees so I just moved it back around the middle (maybe a bit further to the right) where I can see quite a lot of trees but still get decent frame rates (averaging 50 I think).

 

Hope this helps you getting better FPS; I know how it feels when you launch DCS after installing a brand new powerful GPU and going WTF?!?

[Tj1376]

@derodo,

 

 

 

To be honest, I haven't checked whether my i7-2600K is bottlenecking DCS (it's been such a great CPU for everything else) . Doesn't DCS use all cores?

 

 

 

You got me scared that a CPU/MB/RAM upgrade is required to see some better frame rates... :(

 

 

Man I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news... but a 2600k doesn’t have the performance to feed your 1060, let alone your 1080ti.

 

The easiest way to tell if you’re cpu or gpu limited is to look at the performance of the gpu. If it’s not at 100%, you don’t need a new gpu.

 

However. Hold onto that 1080ti. When intel releases the lastest cpu (which is based on the same arch of the current cpu) the current cpu will drop a bit and it will be a great time to upgrade the mobo cpu and mem.

 

Just my two cents

 

TJ

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Sub2K]

@derodo,

 

According to thebottlenecker.com, this CPU/GPU combo was only supposed to only have a slight bottleneck (although it only offers the stock 2600K at 3.4GHz, and mine is OC'd to 4.4), so I thought I was safe.

 

My fear is I already spent over CAD$1200 for this 1080 Ti, and what if I go out and buy new CPU/MB/RAM for $$$ and DCS's FPS still don't go up very much. That's a lot of $ (which I don't have) for one game/sim.

 

I'll try bringing down the trees, but I'm sure the rendering will be very disappointing.

 

Thanks for the constructive input!

[Tj1376]

Well...I can tell you my i7 3700K is not enough to use the full potential of the GTX 1080. That’s a fact.

 

With the settings I have (and I’m comfortable with) the GPU usage doesn’t get higher than 60-70% on average. Which means the CPU is lagging behind and is not able to feed enough draw commands to keep the GPU busy. I can see it going up to 90-100% usage under certain conditions, when I get really high frame rates (over 90)...single player, simple missions, high up (so almost no trees), etc.

 

To complete the picture, as I mentioned before, I can clearly see just one logical core doing all the work (peaking at 90-100%) while the other 7 sit idle (maybe going up to 25% from time to time). So everything fits and makes perfect sense with the results I see in DCS.

 

As I said, I’m perfectly comfortable as it is right now. I’m really REALLY looking forward to the Vulcan refactoring; I really think it will help us get better performance. But right now it’s what it is.

 

So far, my additional advice is (apart from checking power settings, vsync, etc) to bring down the “trees” slider in the graphics options.

 

It’s so critical in my case, sliding it to full left (no trees) I get ludicrous FPS; don’t remember the figures because it looks awful without trees so I just moved it back around the middle (maybe a bit further to the right) where I can see quite a lot of trees but still get decent frame rates (averaging 50 I think).

 

Hope this helps you getting better FPS; I know how it feels when you launch DCS after installing a brand new powerful GPU and going WTF?!?

 

 

Turn off hyper threading in the bios. You’ll pickup probably 5% gain in DCS (but other apps that can take advantage of hyper threading will suffer.)

 

TJ

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Sub2K]

@Tj1376,

 

I'm sure you're right about the 2600K.

 

Thanks for the heads-up on the new CPU release. I'll keep my eye on it!

[derodo]

@Sub2K

 

I know...it’s such a letdown. The impact of CPU/GPU stalling is definitely there, and it depends heavily on the nature of each software implementation.

 

In the case of DCS and a hw setup like ours, it really matters.

 

Again, keep calm. I’m sure you’ll be able to get a decent setup, maybe slightly lower quality than mine, but not much. I’m pretty satisfied with how DCS looks now. I have absolutely everything maxed out except for the trees; it looks gorgeous at 1080 (don’t yet have a 4K monitor).

 

And if your rig is overclocked to 4Ghz...you might get even better performance than me, as I just have my i7 at its default 3.8Ghz. But then again, it’s a generation ahead which I suspect might help too.

 

I won’t upgrade CPU/MB until ED releases the version with the new Vulcan based renderer. Then...I’ll see how it goes. I still have high expectations...time will tell.

[Tj1376]

@derodo,

 

According to thebottlenecker.com, this CPU/GPU combo was only supposed to only have a slight bottleneck (although it only offers the stock 2600K at 3.4GHz, and mine is OC'd to 4.4), so I thought I was safe.

 

My fear is I already spent over CAD$1200 for this 1080 Ti, and what if I go out and buy new CPU/MB/RAM for $$$ and DCS's FPS still don't go up very much. That's a lot of $ (which I don't have) for one game/sim.

 

I'll try bringing down the trees, but I'm sure the rendering will be very disappointing.

 

Thanks for the constructive input!

 

 

The problem with this logic is that the website is assuming the game can take advantage of modern technology. DCS is still largely a single threaded tool reliant on single threaded performance. The 2600k is no slouch, but it’s significantly showing it’s age in its single threaded performance.

 

Also- what’s your memory specs? Anything less than 32gb (and I honestly can’t remember if the 2600k supports 32gb) and DCS will start swapping. This swapping will draw cpu cycles away from building frames and also contribute to poor frame rate. You can get away with 16gb - that’s where I’m at - but I’m significantly disappointed in how I had to change settings to keep Caucasus under 16gb.

 

TJ

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tj1376]

Check this website out:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

 

Yes- I get that your overclocked and you will score higher than the 1952 that this website shows. But as you can see the current gen cpu is scoring 2864 and can also be overclocked (though no where near the same percent of the 2600k- it’s an overclocking beast!)

 

That’s a huge performance increase and where you need to allocate your dollars- although most agree you can save some coin and stick with the 8700k. :)

 

Good luck

 

TJ

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Sub2K]

@TJ,

 

I currently have 24 GB of DDR3 (had 16 GB previously). I really haven't noticed a difference though.

[Tj1376]

@TJ,

 

 

 

I currently have 24 GB of DDR3 (had 16 GB previously). I really haven't noticed a difference though.

 

 

 

Have you watched it while DCS is playing? I’d be curious if 24gb is enough. I’ve got 16 and am looking to upgrade but DDR3 is stupid expensive.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Sub2K]

Check this website out:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

 

Yes- I get that your overclocked and you will score higher than the 1952 that this website shows. But as you can see the current gen cpu is scoring 2864 and can also be overclocked (though no where near the same percent of the 2600k- it’s an overclocking beast!)

 

That’s a huge performance increase and where you need to allocate your dollars- although most agree you can save some coin and stick with the 8700k. :)

 

Good luck

 

TJ

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

@TJ,

 

I just downloaded and ran Passmark, and I got the following (typed since I can't upload an image):

 

PASSMARK: 5072 (92nd percentile)

CPU MARK: 8855 (75th Percentile)

2D MARK: 777 (76th Percentile)

3D MARK: 12745 (98th Percentile)

MEMORY MARK: 2504 (83rd Percentile)

 

You'd think I could run DCS 2.5 properly...

[Tj1376]

Much better video card = same frame rate...

 

@TJ,

 

I just downloaded and ran Passmark, and I got the following (typed since I can't upload an image):

 

PASSMARK: 5072 (92nd percentile)

CPU MARK: 8855 (75th Percentile)

2D MARK: 777 (76th Percentile)

3D MARK: 12745 (98th Percentile)

MEMORY MARK: 2504 (83rd Percentile)

 

You'd think I could run DCS 2.5 properly...

 

 

Out of the box pass mark used multi threading which DCS does not use effectively (it does push sound to core2 but nothing else really.)

 

Change your passmark scores to use single CPU and you should see results more in line with the website above. I haven’t used passmark in years, but that’s what I remember.

 

TJ

 

Edit- missed this...

You can run DCS 2.5 quite well. You just can’t take advantage of all the extra processing power of the 1080ti. It’s an important distinction because about everyone I talk to doesn’t recommend upgrading from the 2600k because it can run DCS so well. It was an overclocking single threaded beast in its day and is why it still (10 years after its creation!!!!) can run DCS today.

 

I think your expectations were “a bigger better graphics card will give me more frames” and that expectation wasn’t met and now you want to know why. The problem you have is that to take advantage of the power of a 1080ti you need to either a) increase how much data you feed it or b) increase your resolution (which leverages gpu and not cpu.)

 

For an almost ten year old platform, it does AMAZINGLY well.

 

TJ

 

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Edited September 1, 2018 by Tj1376