Valve Index Hands On

[Nagilem]

@supmua - Ok

 

First I make sure what is running on my PC by opening PL and seeing what the active processes are. I only want the stuff I will run to be active while in DCS.

 

I run the following apps

 

Category 1 - Priority: Normal, IO: Normal, Affinity: 0-1 CPUs

SRS

Discord

Voice Attack

 

Category 2 - Priority: Very High, IO: High, Affinity: 0-3 CPUs

VRCompositor.exe

VRServer.exe

VRHelper

 

Category 3 - Priority: Very High, IO: High, Affinity: 4-15 CPUs

DCS

 

I make sure all else is off after boot. Folks are going to say DCS only runs 2 cores worth of processing, and that *may* be true, but I have NOT found that to be the case in my review of the CPU utilizations via Afterburner. With this config, I push all 6 cpus and HTs to 50-80% during game play. I do run Moose and other scripts. Any less and I get shuddering during combat and other graphically intense portions of the game. YMMV

Edited September 10, 2019 by Nagilem

[Wicked.-]

I'm pretty I use the same PL settings as Nagilem but set DCS and VR compositor to RealTime. I don't bother with assigning cores, telling PL those programs get realtime priority is enough.

 

Nagilem, while it's true that DCS lights up all cores with activity, the data being sent to those cores is supplied from a single thread from a single core. Once the other cores receive the data from the single thread they make light work of it. Regardless, it's still bottle necked to 1 core, 1 thread. Like sucking through a straw instead of a firehose. I can have an assembly line with hundreds of workers but if I only have one truck supplying the parts for assembly, the assembly workers are limited to the speed of parts deliveries.

Edited September 10, 2019 by Wicked.-

[Supmua]

Valve Index Hands On

 

@supmua - Ok

 

First I make sure what is running on my PC by opening PL and seeing what the active processes are. I only want the stuff I will run to be active while in DCS.

 

I run the following apps

 

Category 1 - Priority: Normal, IO: Normal, Affinity: 0-1 CPUs

SRS

Discord

Voice Attack

 

Category 2 - Priority: Very High, IO: High, Affinity: 0-3 CPUs

VRCompositor.exe

VRServer.exe

VRHelper

 

Category 3 - Priority: Very High, IO: High, Affinity: 4-15 CPUs

DCS

 

I make sure all else is off after boot. Folks are going to say DCS only runs 2 cores worth of processing, and that *may* be true, but I have NOT found that to be the case in my review of the CPU utilizations via Afterburner. With this config, I push all 6 cpus and HTs to 50-80% during game play. I do run Moose and other scripts. Any less and I get shuddering during combat and other graphically intense portions of the game. YMMV

 

 

 

Thanks, will definitely try this tonight. I have tried 2 core utilization with process lasso and it didn’t turn out well, may be this will be better. Note that I’m quite happy with my current settings, but it doesn’t hurt to try out new things.

Edited September 10, 2019 by Supmua

[Nagilem]

@Wicked - Understood on the thread core relationship. I'm not sure why but I am seeing the work push to more than one core. On the 6 cores i've assigned and their HT pairs, I get ALOT of utilization. I think there is something spreading out the work. Running DCS, those 6 cores with HT pairs are typically running 30-50% average with spikes to 80-90% at times. I'll grab an afterburner chart later this week and post.

 

This seems to be a recent change because I used to only get ~10-20% utilization using all cores as of late May early June. I wonder if this was part of the update for VR optimizations?

[Supmua]

@supmua - Ok

 

First I make sure what is running on my PC by opening PL and seeing what the active processes are. I only want the stuff I will run to be active while in DCS.

 

I run the following apps

 

Category 1 - Priority: Normal, IO: Normal, Affinity: 0-1 CPUs

SRS

Discord

Voice Attack

 

Category 2 - Priority: Very High, IO: High, Affinity: 0-3 CPUs

VRCompositor.exe

VRServer.exe

VRHelper

 

Category 3 - Priority: Very High, IO: High, Affinity: 4-15 CPUs

DCS

 

I make sure all else is off after boot. Folks are going to say DCS only runs 2 cores worth of processing, and that *may* be true, but I have NOT found that to be the case in my review of the CPU utilizations via Afterburner. With this config, I push all 6 cpus and HTs to 50-80% during game play. I do run Moose and other scripts. Any less and I get shuddering during combat and other graphically intense portions of the game. YMMV

 

 

OK I got to try your settings, and early impression is positive. I didn't see intermittent spikes in frametime tracing that I did when forcing 2 Cores with Lasso--tried it in two *bad* areas (Khasab parking lot as well as downtown Dubai prior to sunset with lots of shadows.). So the basic idea is to avoid running DCS and VR processes in the same CPU core to minimize strain which could lead to stuttering or temporary drop in performance, but I think Windows should've been doing this in the background already. Maybe it is more efficient by forcing it to do this? Anyway, there seems to be no negative so far but not sure about positive gain...will leave it this way for the next week or so.

[Wicked.-]

@Wicked - Understood on the thread core relationship. I'm not sure why but I am seeing the work push to more than one core. On the 6 cores i've assigned and their HT pairs, I get ALOT of utilization. I think there is something spreading out the work. Running DCS, those 6 cores with HT pairs are typically running 30-50% average with spikes to 80-90% at times. I'll grab an afterburner chart later this week and post.

 

This seems to be a recent change because I used to only get ~10-20% utilization using all cores as of late May early June. I wonder if this was part of the update for VR optimizations?

 

 

It could be part of the optimizations. I was one of the ones that saw a noticeable increase in performance with my CV1. That increase drained away after subsequent updates though.

 

I agree the other cores are working on DCS and probably doing a better job now. To my knowledge though, DCS data still comes through a total of 1 core using 2 threads. 1 thread is for nothing but sound (seems wasteful) and the rest comes through the other. I originally tried setting affinity the way you are but ended up going with the REALTIME priority approach in the end. It will give you warnings that Windows my have a reason for lowering the priorities to High for security reasons. However, I built this computer for 1 thing and 1 thing only: Flying DCS in VR. That's it. There is no other priority as far as I'm concerned lol. I'll do a complete dance and wipe this sucker in a heartbeat without a second thought. Windows can kiss my ass. :D

[Supmua]

Valve Index Hands On

 

Does anybody see higher GPU utilization recently? In downtown Dubai, I'm almost always >90% which causes GPU temp to go up to 81C (despite having 9 fans). I'm not sure if this was due to SteamVR beta (which is now stable 1.7) or DCS OB or the fact that I increased my GPU boost clock to 1750 MHz from 1635.

 

EDIT:

nvm, that was my GPU fan setting, left it at default which is bad. Once I adjusted it properly max temp is 73C which is good. One thing I notice is that overclocking my GPU only yield improvement of 2 ms in frametime or less in stressed areas, which essentially results in no tangible improvement in FPS.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Supmua

[Nagilem]

@Wicked and Supmua - Here is what I have for performance using PL and Afterburner. Took this using the free flight over Dubai.

 

Currently using 148/138 with no other SS or AF. Game runs well, but I know I'm on the edge :). The only numbers I don't fully believe are the frame times.

 

 

 

Edited September 10, 2019 by Nagilem

[Wicked.-]

I just finished a 5 hour long marathon of flying the Snowfox mission on our squad server. ROCK FREAKING SOLID! lol I have no idea why other than the new SteamVR. I'm using 204% everything else 100% and no MSAA. I didn't notice a single stutter even at Kasab which is normally a hit

[Wicked.-]

Does anybody see higher GPU utilization recently? In downtown Dubai, I'm almost always >90% which causes GPU temp to go up to 81C (despite having 9 fans). I'm not sure if this was due to SteamVR beta (which is now stable 1.7) or DCS OB or the fact that I increased my GPU boost clock to 1750 MHz from 1635.

 

EDIT:

nvm, that was my GPU fan setting, left it at default which is bad. Once I adjusted it properly max temp is 73C which is good. One thing I notice is that overclocking my GPU only yield improvement of 2 ms in frametime or less in stressed areas, which essentially results in no tangible improvement in FPS.

 

Supmua, definitely dont OC your video card. The risk is not worth the return ever. Not only that, it can only process what it's sent by the CPU. From what I've seen, just the amount that is sent to the GPU works the hell out of it but my Asus 2080Ti OC never peaks higher than 80% usage so there's room if the CPU can send more.

[Wicked.-]

@Wicked and Supmua - Here is what I have for performance using PL and Afterburner. Took this using the free flight over Dubai.

 

Currently using 148/138 with no other SS or AF. Game runs well, but I know I'm on the edge :). The only numbers I don't fully believe are the frame times.

 

I would set DCS, vrcompositor and vrserver all to realtime. I have no more microstutters, in fact I can't remember a single big drop in frame rate the whole time. I did on a couple occasions see the carrier at distance look a little watery (no pun intended, it's the only way I can describe it lol) which normally means loss of frames but they were locked at 45.

[Wicked.-]

I decided to set MSAA to 2x and it ran really well in single player. At least back to normal. However I've gotten used to no MSAA and at distance objects are slightly blurred. But, without it, on my squad server, I was spotting bombers without zoom at 18NM. I guess there's no pollution in the Persian Gulf lol.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Wicked.-

[RealDCSpilot]

There is another option for a tiny performance gain, having an autoexec.cfg with "options.graphics.stereo_mode_use_shared_parser = true". Unfortunately it introduces problems with effects rendering of heat blur and cockpit lights being rendered for one eye only.

[Nagilem]

@supmua - I agree with Wicked. The risk to overclock vs the gain for me is not worth it.

[Supmua]

Most 2080Ti including mine are voltage locked by NVIDIA (unless you installed a special BIOS that remove this) so it should be save to OC a bit unless you let the card run too hot. GPU temp also limits the top clockspeed, for example, above 50C it won't go beyond 2100 MHZ. With my card, I can only sustain 2010-2025 MHz with prolonged use. The number that I'm using are less than what is used by via OC Scanner so I do not see a problem. Not only that, I do not see any temp difference between factory setting vs my OC setting. It's just that there is no FPS gain with DCS, but my life doesn't revolve around DCS. There are OC gains that I see from other games/software.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Supmua

[Wicked.-]

Most 2080Ti including mine are voltage locked by NVIDIA (unless you installed a special BIOS that remove this) so it should be save to OC a bit unless you let the card run too hot. The number that I'm using are less than what is used by via OC Scanner so I do not see a problem. It's just that there is no FPS gain with DCS, but I'm not just running DCS. There are gains that I see from other games/software.

 

 

Roger that.

[Baldrick33]

but my life doesn't revolve around DCS.

Blasphemy!

[Wicked.-]

Did any of you notice that Nvidia has take down some of it's recent drivers and the most recent one available is 436.02? I noticed the other day the link they had to the most recent at the time was a broken link but I didn't think it important enough to comment. Today, working from home, I hopped on DCS and the damn frame tearing is back. I've made no changes to anything and this is beginning to piss me off. I don't think it's DCS though but instead either Nvidia or SteamVR.

 

I am seeing the frame tearing in the DCS UI, while looking at the online server list. Meaning it could have something to do with network bandwidth. I checked that and am getting a smooth 200MBs DL and 11MBs upload so that's not the issue. I then decided to update the Nvidia driver again after seeing Supmua's previous post. When I pulled up the latest driver it was 436.02. The problem with that is, I had 436.15 installed which is no longer in the list. So, I guess they found an issue but didn't bother telling anyone that I've seen. Regrdless, I'll now be testing 436.02 again with the most recent SteamVR stable release. Just when everything was perfect yesterday......

[dburne]

Did any of you notice that Nvidia has take down some of it's recent drivers and the most recent one available is 436.02? I noticed the other day the link they had to the most recent at the time was a broken link but I didn't think it important enough to comment. Today, working from home, I hopped on DCS and the damn frame tearing is back. I've made no changes to anything and this is beginning to piss me off. I don't think it's DCS though but instead either Nvidia or SteamVR.

 

I am seeing the frame tearing in the DCS UI, while looking at the online server list. Meaning it could have something to do with network bandwidth. I checked that and am getting a smooth 200MBs DL and 11MBs upload so that's not the issue. I then decided to update the Nvidia driver again after seeing Supmua's previous post. When I pulled up the latest driver it was 436.02. The problem with that is, I had 436.15 installed which is no longer in the list. So, I guess they found an issue but didn't bother telling anyone that I've seen. Regrdless, I'll now be testing 436.02 again with the most recent SteamVR stable release. Just when everything was perfect yesterday......

 

Latest Nivida drivers still available on my end.

436.30 released yesterday.

[Wicked.-]

Latest Nivida drivers still available on my end.

436.30 released yesterday.

 

I use the drop down boxes for the desktop 2080Ti to search. Weird. I'll look again tomorrow.

[RealDCSpilot]

@Nagilem and Wicked

 

Guys, todays high end hardware like i9 7xxx, i9 9xxx and 2080ti's are made for overclocking, there is no "risk". All you have to provide is a good power supply and decent cooling solution. The gains are more than 10% extra performance for a 2080ti and a lot more for CPU OC. The standard clocking for these devices are just for super safe and energy conserving modes. You still have to know what you are doing of course...

Edited September 12, 2019 by Alec Delorean

[Montrose]

I have a 9700k very very basic OC of 5.1 on all cores, 32gig of RAM and M.2 drives along with a 2080ti and I can run my PIMAX 5k plus with a in game PD of 1.5 and PiTools Render of 2.0 (max) to get SP average 50fps and MP average of 40fps. Everything is smooth and I can read everything in the cockpit without Zoom which I no longer have mapped. MFDs are crisp and as clear as 1080p

[Wicked.-]

@Nagilem and Wicked

 

Guys, todays high end hardware like i9 7xxx, i9 9xxx and 2080ti's are made for overclocking, there is no "risk". All you have to provide is a good power supply and decent cooling solution. The gains are more than 10% extra performance for a 2080ti and a lot more for CPU OC. The standard clocking for these devices are just for super safe and energy conserving modes. You still have to know what you are doing of course...

 

 

I upgraded from a Zotac Amp 1080Ti Extreme which ran @ 1.9Ghz to the Asus RTX 2080Ti OC 1.9Ghz. I saw an increase of 8FPS in minimum FPS benchmarks which is what matters. That's $162.50 per frame which is pretty pathetic when going to a whole new generation of GPU. I don't give two shits about ray tracing because it doesn't do anything to increase performance in DCS. Also, I don't use a monitor other than to start SteamVR, DCS, Discord and SRS, so the ability of the RTX to push more pixels in 4KUHD games is wasted on me. All that being said, I don't see the point in OC'ing the GPU because the return isn't worth the risk. I use motion smoothing and can't stand the up and down spikes in FPS without it. Therefore, if overclocking both the CPU and GPU do not get me to the next level of locked FPS (45-60) what's the point?

 

On the other hand, overclocking the CPU is TOTALLY worth it because you actually see the results in FPS. Unfortunately I've hit my stable limit at 5.1Ghz with HT off at BIOS.

 

 

[Baldrick33]

I too saw little gain going to a 2080Ti and overclocking it gained a couple of FPS and a bunch of stability issues. CPU wise pushing an 8600K over 5GHz made a big difference.

[Wicked.-]

Latest Nivida drivers still available on my end.

436.30 released yesterday.

 

 

I went back to the Nvidia site and looked for 436.30 but again, on the main DL site for GeForce drivers, it wasn't there. But when I searched for ALL drivers it showed up.. Odd.