Lag at low altitudes in forested areas.

[TacticalError]

I get really bad performance when I go low altitude in a forest (as an example just taking a right turn in the F-16 freeflight and going below 600ft agl) I go from 90-100 Fps to around 40 Fps, I belive it renders shadows at insane detail for hundreds of trees. I don't think this amount of detail is needed when flying at 600kts. The lag can be avoided by turning terrain shadows to flat, but that makes the game look really bad in the forests. I suggest an option to choose the distance at which shadows render at really high detail so helicopters can still enjoy beautiful shadows up close. I am not sure if the trees themselves getting higher resolution is a problem, since it almost goes away by turning shadows to flat.

 

I run a RTX 2070 Super, 32gb of DDR4 ram and a i5-10600k, DCS is installed on a M.2 NVMe SSD.

Here are my settings:

[Worrazen]

It's not what we call lag, but low FPS, to my knowledge it's pretty much normal for many to have half or worse the FPS down at tree level, trees also add burden on the CPU. Vulkan API and Multi-Threading improvements should alleviate this in the future.

 

As for the shadows being a culprit in your case, it may just be LODs and other things that need adjusting perhaps.

 

Also you don't have the most beefiest CPU, this sim does require the best of the CPUs out there for optimal performance. The extreme level probably not worth it, but an i7 over i5 is recommended when it comes to Intel CPUs.

 

But there's one other thing, I found out DCS doesn't support occlussion culling, this means all those shadows and trees that you can't see because they're behind the first line of trees you do see, are rendered fully for nothing, wasting resources.

Edited July 25, 2020 by Worrazen

[...]

You have one of the best computers for simulation, but DCS is very demanding even on the best machines.

 

I understand that no one spends $ 800 on an RTX2070 to fly with flat shadows.

 

Even Matt Wagner has MSAA on 2x

 

The best returns are always obtained with presets.

 

In my opinion, what kills your performance is MSAA 4x and Ultra range.

 

DCS is still not very well optimized.

 

I recommend you try with a preset (high) setting and after that, add things to see what affects performance.

 

The presets are intended to offer the best balance of performance vs. graphics quality.

Edited July 25, 2020 by La Unión | Atazar

[TacticalError]

It's not what we call lag, but low FPS, to my knowledge it's pretty much normal for many to have half or worse the FPS down at tree level, trees also add burden on the CPU. Vulkan API and Multi-Threading improvements should alleviate this in the future.

 

As for the shadows being a culprit in your case, it may just be LODs and other things that need adjusting perhaps.

 

Also you don't have the most beefiest CPU, this sim does require the best of the CPUs out there for optimal performance. The extreme level probably not worth it, but an i7 over i5 is recommended when it comes to Intel CPUs.

 

But there's one other thing, I found out DCS doesn't support occlussion culling, this means all those shadows and trees that you can't see because they're behind the first line of trees you do see, are rendered fully for nothing, wasting resources.

 

Point 1: Yeah, english isn't my primary language. What I meant was low FPS/performance, generally when playing games in our group we tend to say "lag" to all sorts of performance issues.

 

Point 2: i7 isn't the best in all cases... my i5-10600k matches a i7-9700k and can outperform a i9-9900k in some areas... I would say my CPU is on the beefier side of the spectrum.

[TacticalError]

You have one of the best computers for simulation, but DCS is very demanding even on the best machines.

 

I understand that no one spends $ 800 on an RTX2070 to fly with flat shadows.

 

Even Matt Wagner has MSAA on 2x

 

The best returns are always obtained with presets.

 

In my opinion, what kills your performance is MSAA 4x and Ultra range.

 

DCS is still not very well optimized.

 

I recommend you try with a preset (high) setting and after that, add things to see what affects performance.

 

The presets are intended to offer the best balance of performance vs. graphics quality.

 

I played around with settings more and have gotten to the conclusion that it must be related to shadows, the only 2 things that help with the problem are: Turning shadows to flat (Looks bad but the problem goes away) or turning shadows to medium instead of high, this makes it so the FPS doesn't fall to 30-40 rather 70-80, so it almost fixes it. Rest of it is probably just high detail textures rendering in.

 

My suggestion in terms of a permanent fix would be to make a separate setting for shadow quality on trees.

[Worrazen]

Interesting idea, I'll test it once I have my setup re-done.

[wilbur81]

I get really bad performance when I go low altitude in a forest...

 

Welcome to LockOn/DCS's famous Shadow-Performance-Monster from circa 2003 and counting. :thumbup:

[reece146]

I played around with settings more and have gotten to the conclusion that it must be related to shadows, the only 2 things that help with the problem are: Turning shadows to flat (Looks bad but the problem goes away) or turning shadows to medium instead of high, this makes it so the FPS doesn't fall to 30-40 rather 70-80, so it almost fixes it. Rest of it is probably just high detail textures rendering in.

 

My suggestion in terms of a permanent fix would be to make a separate setting for shadow quality on trees.

 

 

This is the crux of it - the shadows for each object/tree are calculated individually I think. Turn down your preload radius and trees visibility as an experiment. If you do this you may be able to switch shadows back from flat.

 

 

For a tactical flight you won't miss anything. For 'sight seeing" flights I turn those things up.

 

 

 

HTH

[QuiGon]

Seems like we will have to wait for a loooong time for a Vietnam Map... :music_whistling: