DCS World Patch Notes Discussion Thread

[speed-of-heat]

32 minutes ago, zildac said:

I'm seeing about a 3ms increase in GPU frametime now with ultra set. I used Syria Free flight in the Hornet as a test pre and post patch. I could pretty much maintain 45FPS circling the the map area just inland of the spawn point prior to the patch (around 1500 FT), now with ultra set I get the 3ms (ish) frametime inmcrease and FPS between 38-45, and of course some stutter. I've dropped to High and seems to be more or less comparable to pre patch performce with very vewry limited testing. Furthermore I;m not sure I can really tell the difference in the quality of the clouds between high asnd ultra.

 

its all in the aliasing... look at the horizon line and willsee much more "shimmer" at high than at ultra... 

 

is anyone else seeing increased memory usage? not related to clouds per say... but i am seeing upwards of 20gb used of vram in the caucuses 

[Hoirtel]

2 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

its all in the aliasing... look at the horizon line and willsee much more "shimmer" at high than at ultra... 

 

is anyone else seeing increased memory usage? not related to clouds per say... but i am seeing upwards of 20gb used of vram in the caucuses 

How do you tell used over allocated? I gather this is not the same

Edited June 2, 2021 by Hoirtel

[speed-of-heat]

1) it really doesn't make any difference if before it allocated 10 and now its allocating 20, but AFAIK there is no way to tell between the two so you have to go with the data as presented... 

2) it seems to have cleared up with a dcs restart... very odd, maybe as a result of building shaders ?

[zildac]

11 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

its all in the aliasing... look at the horizon line and willsee much more "shimmer" at high than at ultra... 

 

is anyone else seeing increased memory usage? not related to clouds per say... but i am seeing upwards of 20gb used of vram in the caucuses 

Hmm yeah, just checked the "shimmer" is more noticeable on High than Ultra for sure

[Hoirtel]

I've noticed more perf hit on the overcast and rain preset over the lesser ones. Makes sense I guess but didn't see this before. 

[Sr.]

45 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

its all in the aliasing... look at the horizon line and willsee much more "shimmer" at high than at ultra... 

 

is anyone else seeing increased memory usage? not related to clouds per say... but i am seeing upwards of 20gb used of vram in the caucuses 

Yep: For example, A-10CII, Free Flight Caucuses I'm using 14+ VRAM 

 

And a pretty major hit on GPU frametimes.

 

I have a homemade, simple mission I like to use to practice formation flying(NTTC map). I added a pretty thick cloud layer so I could also enjoy the cloud surfing.

 

Before today's patch, I would get 45fps/ frametime in the 12-14 range. Having changed nothing else, I'm now mid 30 fps and 18-21 GPU framtime... at 24,000 feet.

 

No sir, I don't like it.

 

 

 

Edit: Having been through each cloud preset from low-ultra.

 

Low is literally unplayable visually speaking.

Ultra is NOW unplayable performance wise.

High is ok performance wise (I'm back to the fps and frametimes I had pre-patch) but the distant shimmer is just...

I've settled on standard for now, since I get a tiny bit more performance back with no discernably less visual from high.

 

Where the clouds meet the hilltops, at a distance is probably the worst visual.

Edited June 2, 2021 by Sr.

[speed-of-heat]

Concur similar experiences, standard clouds seems to be the way to go… from a performance POV… but there is still unusually high quantities of shimmer that exists, which is as  distracting as the jitter, but not nauseating. 
 

which leads me back to my original conclusion, you may have fixed the VR jitter of clouds, but the solution is not performant or at the right quality bar,. Good effort, but, the consequences of the fix, are almost as unpalatable as the original problem.

[Gun Jam]

This new patch is a massive improvement I get Low-Ulta settings now that work, clouds with color detail and no jitter.

 

However there seems to be a new issue that popped up. In VR looking at distant object they change render distance as I look up/dn or L/R. For example I look dead ahead and observe the scene if I look up a cloud may change shape as in shrink its edges / disappear or a new cloud may appear. Has anyone else observed this?

 

Thanks

-Gun

[speed-of-heat]

Here are some harder performance numbers for clouds in VR on my 3090 run at 80% SS with MSAAx2 and everything i use in test 26, the actual individual settings are not the issue it's the deltas for CPU and GPU frametimes 

 

			Frametime in ms		Delta From baseline
Ver	Test	Baseline	GPU	CPU	GPU	CPU	Changes
2.7.1.70290	55	Test 26	11.06	7.33			baseline 2.7.1.70290 (clear sky)
2.7.1.70290	56	Test 55	12.76	7.53	-1.70	-0.20	light scattered clouds (low)
2.7.1.70290	57	Test 55	12.92	7.72	-1.86	-0.39	light scattered clouds (standard)
2.7.1.70290	58	Test 55	13.13	7.53	-2.06	-0.20	light scattered clouds (high)
2.7.1.70290	59	Test 55	14.88	7.64	-3.82	-0.31	light scattered clouds (ultra)
2.7.1.70290	60	Test 55	14.95	7.64	-3.88	-0.31	light scattered clouds (ultra)test 2

 

obviously this done with just the lightest of the cloud settings, I re tested ULTRA because it was such an unexpectedly high variance but it seems to be accurate.  So the good news is there is quite a lot of user configurable variation in performance and the bad news is the clouds at High and below shimmer like crazy... but even on the lightest of cloud settings it is going to cost you a lot of GPU frametime.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 3, 2021 by speed-of-heat

[Lange_666]

20 hours ago, speed-of-heat said:

but i am getting some stutter when rolling and looking out the side .. which was not there before with ultra clouds.. looking out the front is fine ... and the jitter is much reduced/removed and they do look fabulous 

 

Same here. On Ultra (only tested in VR) the FPS tanks a bit below ASW value (40 for me) when looking sideways or rolling which causes stutter. It's not there on High or lower.

So Ultra is a no go for me and then the jitter might be gone but on anything lower then Ultra there is quite some shimmering up to a point that edges of the clouds where it happens show a wave effect.

 

The clouds look very good in 2D but in VR they are fluffy up close, more of a soup, the contrast isn't there, even on Ultra (although less).

 

 

4 hours ago, speed-of-heat said:

Concur similar experiences, standard clouds seems to be the way to go… from a performance POV… but there is still unusually high quantities of shimmer that exists, which is as  distracting as the jitter, but not nauseating. 
 

which leads me back to my original conclusion, you may have fixed the VR jitter of clouds, but the solution is not performant or at the right quality bar,. Good effort, but, the consequences of the fix, are almost as unpalatable as the original problem.

 

Exactly!!

Edited June 3, 2021 by Lange_666

[Sr.]

I'm sticking with standard for now. The distant effect isn't quite as bad, as long as your not looking back toward the rising sun.

 

This is Overcast 7 around 8 a.m. NTTC. 23k ft

 

 

 

 

[Pride37]

38 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

Here are some harder performance numbers for clouds in VR on my 3090 run at 80% SS with MSAAx2 and everything i use in test 26, the actual individual settings are not the issue it's the deltas for CPU and GPU frametimes 

 

			Frametime in ms		Delta From Previous
Ver	Test	Baseline	GPU	CPU	GPU	CPU	Changes
2.7.1.70290	55	Test 26	11.06	7.33			baseline 2.7.1.70290 (clear sky)
2.7.1.70290	56	Test 54	12.76	7.53	-1.70	-0.20	light scattered clouds (low)
2.7.1.70290	57	Test 54	12.92	7.72	-1.86	-0.39	light scattered clouds (standard)
2.7.1.70290	58	Test 54	13.13	7.53	-2.06	-0.20	light scattered clouds (high)
2.7.1.70290	59	Test 54	14.88	7.64	-3.82	-0.31	light scattered clouds (ultra)
2.7.1.70290	60	Test 54	14.95	7.64	-3.88	-0.31	light scattered clouds (ultra)test 2

 

obviously this done with just the lightest of the cloud settings, I re tested ULTRA because it was such an unexpectedly high variance but it seems to be accurate.  So the good news is there is quite a lot of user configurable variation in performance and the bad news is the clouds at High and below shimmer like crazy... but even on the lightest of cloud settings it is going to cost you a lot of GPU frametime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great job, Speed-of-Heat!! That's exactly the experience I have currently. Ultra settings is a lot too taxiing for me. To meet approximately the same perf as before, I have to put them on low. Seems like I had no room regarding the reprojection at 45 considering my rig specs and the pretty high graphic settings I have.

And it's true that anything but ultra is showing distant cloud edges hard shimmering, which is pretty distracting...

I would say that the other good new is I find the clouds on low to be less blurry than before (and maybe a bit more contrasted as well.)

If they manage to reduce or eliminate this cloud edge shimmering, it would be good to go for me perf-wise and quite nice looking.

[Hoirtel]

1 minute ago, Pride37 said:

 

Great job, Speed-of-Heat!! That's exactly the experience I have currently. Ultra settings is a lot too taxiing for me. To meet approximately the same perf as before, I have to put them on low. Seems like I had no room regarding the reprojection at 45 considering my rig specs and the pretty high graphic settings I have.

And it's true that anything but ultra is showing distant cloud edges hard shimmering, which is pretty distracting...

I would say that the other good new is I find the clouds on low to be less blurry than before (and maybe a bit more contrasted as well.)

If they manage to reduce or eliminate this cloud edge shimmering, it would be good to go for me perf-wise and quite nice looking.

I think the cloud edge shimmering is more of a VR technology kind of thing rather than a DCS. As its similar to the alaising I see on buildings and fences etc. I haven't yet tried MSAA on x4 but I bet that would help (although prob unplayable). I say this as I noticed that when I look at cloud shimmer and tilt my head to 45 degrees to one side it reduces as does all other alasing. Maybe a VR headset maker can build a headset with the panels at 45 degrees..... 

[Pride37]

2 minutes ago, Hoirtel said:

I think the cloud edge shimmering is more of a VR technology kind of thing rather than a DCS. As its similar to the alaising I see on buildings and fences etc. I haven't yet tried MSAA on x4 but I bet that would help (although prob unplayable). I say this as I noticed that when I look at cloud shimmer and tilt my head to 45 degrees to one side it reduces as does all other alasing. Maybe a VR headset maker can build a headset with the panels at 45 degrees..... 

 

For sure aliasing is one of the VR tech weakness so far, but the cloud edges shimmering we are discussing is on a whole different level!!!

[speed-of-heat]

so the impact of moving MSAA from x2 to x4 is 2.5ms on the GPU ... I would normally say that anyone putting that level of overhead on their GPU for VR would be foolhardy. 

 

This is a forced behaviour, it more than takes away any performance benefit that was gained in 2.7 realistically if you drop to 50%-60% CRM you would get a similar performance regain... or turning of MSAA at x2; the only thing that is close to this kind of performance impact is SSAO...

[Hoirtel]

47 minutes ago, Pride37 said:

 

For sure aliasing is one of the VR tech weakness so far, but the cloud edges shimmering we are discussing is on a whole different level!!!

Ok, maybe I've got it wrong. I don't know too much technical aspects about how these things are rendered. To me it unfortunately looks like one of those areas that is aliasing prone, for example the solar farms on Nevada are terrible, just due to their size and shape they seem to not work well with the current VR panel resolution and glitter like crazy. However it would be nice if there is some sort of game fix that can be applied to the cloud shimmer.

[Charly314159]

@BIGNEWY When will the F-18 ACM modes be fixed? It has been broken and reported for nearly a month already... BFM was the last thing in which it was competitive after the hit the radar took (breaking the consistency with other modules). 

 

[BIGNEWY]

2 minutes ago, Charly314159 said:

@BIGNEWY When will the F-18 ACM modes be fixed? It has been broken and reported for nearly a month already... BFM was the last thing in which it was competitive after the hit the radar took (breaking the consistency with other modules). 

 

 

Team are working on solutions currently, when they have some they will be patched. 

 

thanks

[Charly314159]

@BIGNEWY Well it was working flawlessly before. Isn't it point of a beta program to be able to roll back when something breaks?

 

Will we get the usually strategy of burying to the bug under a ton of updates before trying to fix it in one or two years?

 

This is a game breaking one.

Edited June 3, 2021 by Charly314159

[Hoirtel]

1 hour ago, speed-of-heat said:

so the impact of moving MSAA from x2 to x4 is 2.5ms on the GPU ... I would normally say that anyone putting that level of overhead on their GPU for VR would be foolhardy. 

 

This is a forced behaviour, it more than takes away any performance benefit that was gained in 2.7 realistically if you drop to 50%-60% CRM you would get a similar performance regain... or turning of MSAA at x2; the only thing that is close to this kind of performance impact is SSAO...

Is ansiotrophic filtering likely to help with the cloud shimmer? Or just for textures like runways etc?

[BIGNEWY]

11 minutes ago, Charly314159 said:

@BIGNEWY Well it was working flawlessly before. Isn't it point of a beta program to be able to roll back when something breaks?

 

Will we get the usually strategy of burying to the bug under a ton of updates before trying to fix it in one or two years?

 

This is a game breaking one.

 

 

Code breaks in early access, it is part of the process, the team will fix it. 

[ShaunX]

4 hours ago, speed-of-heat said:

Here are some harder performance numbers for clouds in VR on my 3090 run at 80% SS with MSAAx2 and everything i use in test 26, the actual individual settings are not the issue it's the deltas for CPU and GPU frametimes 

 

			Frametime in ms		Delta From baseline
Ver	Test	Baseline	GPU	CPU	GPU	CPU	Changes
2.7.1.70290	55	Test 26	11.06	7.33			baseline 2.7.1.70290 (clear sky)
2.7.1.70290	56	Test 55	12.76	7.53	-1.70	-0.20	light scattered clouds (low)
2.7.1.70290	57	Test 55	12.92	7.72	-1.86	-0.39	light scattered clouds (standard)
2.7.1.70290	58	Test 55	13.13	7.53	-2.06	-0.20	light scattered clouds (high)
2.7.1.70290	59	Test 55	14.88	7.64	-3.82	-0.31	light scattered clouds (ultra)
2.7.1.70290	60	Test 55	14.95	7.64	-3.88	-0.31	light scattered clouds (ultra)test 2

 

obviously this done with just the lightest of the cloud settings, I re tested ULTRA because it was such an unexpectedly high variance but it seems to be accurate.  So the good news is there is quite a lot of user configurable variation in performance and the bad news is the clouds at High and below shimmer like crazy... but even on the lightest of cloud settings it is going to cost you a lot of GPU frametime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think you meant to add those tests to your 3090 settings thread rather than here.

 

I get very similar results and agree that the standard setting appears to be the way to go for now. Even that setting is a definite improvment over what we had, better contrast and definition and the wobbling has gone (though I also agree there's some major edge shimmering on them when looking towards the sun).

 

Baby steps I guess.

 

 

 

[speed-of-heat]

Hey @ShaunX nope i put them in both

 

[ShaunX]

19 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

Hey @ShaunX nope i put them in both

 

Nice one

[speed-of-heat]

2 minutes ago, ShaunX said:

Nice one

I mislike the science in "stuttering"