[REPORTED] Performance Issues

[lazduc]

I was told a long time ago that DCS was a rich man's sport and if I could not afford the

 

entry fees/equipment costs then I was playing in the wrong park and basically to move on.

 

A number of members agreed, something like, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

 

The rebuttal I posted which was much less critical/objectionable than I have read here of

 

late.....won me a year's banishment. This is my first post since....consider yourselves lucky

 

to be able to post critiques, frustrations, opinions, criticisms of any merits and faults.

 

Laz

[Hoirtel]

My SC VR Experience

 

Thought I would share my experiences, I am one of those finding that the SC is a pretty heavy tax on my system. I expected this, its a new, high res module that was never going to provide more for the same system tax. My experiences so far are mostly slowdowns and tearing specifically looking at the island which incurs a 25%-50% FPS drop. This is possibly due to the shadows issue however I have been using terrain object shadows on flat, and other shadows on low since before the SC (waiting for a 3000 series!)

 

I noticed that my system use specs are fairly normal except for my my vram is pretty much maxed out, which I don't normally see so I guess this is the cause of the slowdowns/tearing. I hope there might be some module optimising that could help but I have no idea about this side of things.

 

My own missions now which are much less demanding, a sparsely populated deck around the island helps tremendously. I have put the crane and a couple of deck machines there and used the low polygon f-18c and helicopter in the spaces behind the island, no extra deck crew, I think there is plenty around the boat as default to make it look great.

 

Interestingly I managed to fill cat 1 with the low polygon f-18's with very little impact overall, as this is away from the island. This with a couple of planes in the mid section makes the SC look busy for the stack and breaks and gets the best of FPS.

 

Overall, great module, really loving it. Worth every penny! Thanks ED.

[Gripen 4-1]

Thought I would share my experiences, I am one of those finding that the SC is a pretty heavy tax on my system. I expected this, its a new, high res module that was never going to provide more for the same system tax. My experiences so far are mostly slowdowns and tearing specifically looking at the island which incurs a 25%-50% FPS drop. This is possibly due to the shadows issue however I have been using terrain object shadows on flat, and other shadows on low since before the SC (waiting for a 3000 series!)

 

I noticed that my system use specs are fairly normal except for my my vram is pretty much maxed out, which I don't normally see so I guess this is the cause of the slowdowns/tearing. I hope there might be some module optimising that could help but I have no idea about this side of things.

 

My own missions now which are much less demanding, a sparsely populated deck around the island helps tremendously. I have put the crane and a couple of deck machines there and used the low polygon f-18c and helicopter in the spaces behind the island, no extra deck crew, I think there is plenty around the boat as default to make it look great.

 

Interestingly I managed to fill cat 1 with the low polygon f-18's with very little impact overall, as this is away from the island. This with a couple of planes in the mid section makes the SC look busy for the stack and breaks and gets the best of FPS.

 

Overall, great module, really loving it. Worth every penny! Thanks ED.

 

Can confirm the vram issue. Vram on my 2080ti is also maxed out on the Supercarrier

[Tinkickef]

Can confirm the vram issue. Vram on my 2080ti is also maxed out on the Supercarrier

 

 

Confirmed, all 11GB in use.

[Mr. Big.Biggs]

Confirmed, all 11GB in use.

 

Interesting that I noticed my vram at 85% when I was prepping for a flight so I said “no way” turned everything including the pc off and rebooted. Got back to same MP server at 60 65%.

Something going on there but way over my head.

[speed-of-heat]

Confirmed, all 11GB in use.

 

yep the super carrier seems to take about 1gb... which puts my 1080ti at 10.5

[bad_turbulence]

There is another set of SC's missions down the list - for the Caucasus map.

Try running repair if you don't see them.

Ok, thank you very much. I will give that a try.

[statrekmike]

So everyone who is having through, can you do me a favor? Try turning off vsync and see what happens. This may help us collectively narrow down the problem.

[Minsky]

So everyone who is having through, can you do me a favor? Try turning off vsync and see what happens.

 

And what should happen? I don't use vsync.

[statrekmike]

When I turned off vsync, my overall framerates when up a good bit. That being said, it is not ideal since I now have awful screen tearing and the framerate isn't steady.

[Wizard_03]

So everyone who is having through, can you do me a favor? Try turning off vsync and see what happens. This may help us collectively narrow down the problem.

 

 

2070 @1920x1080p 60 Hz monitor here, with Vsync off Flat Shadows I get about 90 - 120 FPS on the deck as pan the view around to the Island FPS drops to 60 - 70.

 

 

 

With Vsync on its 60 - 40 depending on if the Island is in view.

[imacken]

When I turned off vsync, my overall framerates when up a good bit. That being said, it is not ideal since I now have awful screen tearing and the framerate isn't steady.

 

That’s exactly what should happen when you turn vsync off.

[Ratcatcher]

So everyone who is having through, can you do me a favor? Try turning off vsync and see what happens. This may help us collectively narrow down the problem.

 

With vsync off I am still seeing a drop of about 50% FPS when looking toward the island.

[NineLine]

1070 is listed as the recommended GPU for the Supercarrier with "high graphics settings" (which means shadows on high).

 

Pure logic says that it's either your system requirements are misleading, or the Supercarrier is bugged/poorly optimized.

 

 

On my system, with shadows disabled, the Supercarrier is only 20% slower than Stennis, which is totally understandable because of the improved model, animations, textures etc.

 

After enabling shadows, with Stennis I see only a marginal 10% decrease in performance. But with the Supercarrier it's a whooping 54% hit.

 

So what exactly is "going on" under the Supercarrier's hood that makes some GPUs (but not CPUs) go crazy with 100% load and massive performance drop ONLY after enabling shadows?

 

We are in Early Access, we have listed this as investigating, it may even require an adjustment to system specs as well. We are looking into it. Thanks.

[NineLine]

That’s exactly what should happen when you turn vsync off.

 

In some cases vsync can hurt performance, when we test FPS internally we do all of them with vsync off. Gives a better look at what is actually causing hits, whereas vsync can hide or mislead somewhat.

[imacken]

In some cases vsync can hurt performance, when we test FPS internally we do all of them with vsync off. Gives a better look at what is actually causing hits, whereas vsync can hide or mislead somewhat.

 

I understand that from a dev testing pov. Makes perfect sense. From a players pov, however, vsync off is not a good idea, especially when running on a 60hz monitor. All that happens is your GPU is permanently maxed out, and you get spurious 60+ fps which cannot be displayed correctly.

[unlikely_spider]

I understand that from a dev testing pov. Makes perfect sense. From a players pov, however, vsync off is not a good idea, especially when running on a 60hz monitor. All that happens is your GPU is permanently maxed out, and you get spurious 60+ fps which cannot be displayed correctly.

You've got an Nvidia card - you can limit your FPS via Nvidia Control Panel. For FPSs I like V-Sync, but in flight sims I dislike the input lag that it introduces in TrackIR, and thus run with it off.

[imacken]

You've got an Nvidia card - you can limit your FPS via Nvidia Control Panel. For FPSs I like V-Sync, but in flight sims I dislike the input lag that it introduces in TrackIR, and thus run with it off.

 

Sorry, I wasn't asking how to frame limit my card! As an aside, I have mine limited to 58 to ensure Gsync kicks in at all times.

 

No lagging with TrackIR here. Vsync off on a 60Hz monitor is just horrible. Screen tearing etc. etc.

[unlikely_spider]

Sorry, I wasn't asking how to frame limit my card! As an aside, I have mine limited to 58 to ensure Gsync kicks in at all times.

 

No lagging with TrackIR here. Vsync off on a 60Hz monitor is just horrible. Screen tearing etc. etc.

 

I thought the G-sync was supposed to prevent tearing.

[imacken]

I thought the G-sync was supposed to prevent tearing.

 

Have a look here for some faqs.

https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/15/

[statrekmike]

We are in Early Access, we have listed this as investigating, it may even require an adjustment to system specs as well. We are looking into it. Thanks.

 

 

To be honest, while I agree that the system requirements (across the board) need to be adjusted upward, I do not think that doing it just for the Supercarrier is the right move. I mean, I know that a GTX 1070 isn't exactly a top of the line card or anything but a 50% drop in framerate just from looking at the carrier's Superstructure (again, on a empty deck) seems excessive to say the least. If this were a CPU load issue, I would probably be more understanding but since this is a GPU issue, I suspect that there are graphical aspects that could be downscaled to increase performance SIGNIFICANTLY while not really impacting the overall user-experience.

 

If anything, it might be worth creating a alternate "skin" that can be enabled in the special options (or in the mission editor) that would cut some of the texture resolutions in half. Even that might make a dent in the framerate problem.

 

A lot of us are aware that DCS is a beast to optimize due to the aging engine it is built on top of. We get that it makes things difficult in terms of the performance/visuals balance but unless ED is willing to make a RTX 20 series card the minimum requirement for "high" settings (and any shadows at all), it might be a good idea to explore other ways to ease the burden on systems even if that means lowering some graphical details when possible/practical on the carrier itself (and perhaps even the deck crew and deck assets as well). DCS and its component modules should still run okay on a 10 series card. It isn't so old a card that it should already be entirely out of the picture DCS-wise.

[Minsky]

I know that the yesterday's hotfix ( 2.5.6.49718 ) wasn't supposed to help with this issue, but just for the record: it didn't help.

Edited May 26, 2020 by Minsky

[Minsky]

If anything, it might be worth creating a alternate "skin" that can be enabled in the special options (or in the mission editor) that would cut some of the texture resolutions in half. Even that might make a dent in the framerate problem.

 

This probably won't help.

I just spent half an hour manually resizing each and every Supercarrier texture (~200 files) into the oblivion (512x512 and lower).

No performance increase at all.

I mean, zero frames.

It now loads faster, but that's about it.

 

If anyone wants to try it, here's the OvGME-ready mod: Supercarrier Ultra Low-Res Textures v01.zip (8 Mb)

Edited May 26, 2020 by Minsky

[statrekmike]

This probably won't help.

I just spent half an hour manually resizing each and every Supercarrier texture (~200 files) into the oblivion (512x512 and lower).

No performance increase at all.

I mean, zero frames.

It now loads faster, but that's about it.

 

If anyone wants to try it, here's the OvGME-ready mod: Supercarrier Ultra Low-Res Textures v01.zip (8 Mb)

 

That is odd, you would think there would be some (even minor) performance impact.

[bad_turbulence]

This probably won't help.

I just spent half an hour manually resizing each and every Supercarrier texture (~200 files) into the oblivion (512x512 and lower).

No performance increase at all.

I mean, zero frames.

It now loads faster, but that's about it.

 

If anyone wants to try it, here's the OvGME-ready mod: Supercarrier Ultra Low-Res Textures v01.zip (8 Mb)

wow, thanks for sharing. Pretty significant test you ran. Also, after you looked over the bugs that were part of the most recent patch, can you share which of the changes are most significant? Apparently, as you are reporting, they didn't do a frame-rate change, which is understandable considering what they must have on their plates. I can't get supercarrier to show up in missions, so you're one step ahead of me. :( But I'm sure it's user-error and I'll get to muscling the repair utility again tonight. Thanks again for your efforts with the texture mod.