MASSIVE fps drop after update to 2.7

[SmirkingGerbil]

Many posts later - on a mediocre system.

With the settings I have described previously - which uses things like Ultra clouds, highest settings for textures and MSAA (but the higher end stuff off like SSAO).

Working great.

Even Marianas down in the dirt, flying over those beautiful trees, and all the ground assets never drops below 35 FPS.

Which I know for all the high end systems that is a sin, but back in the day 30 FPS was the holy grail, and 35 to 40 FPS keeps Marianas smooth.

Also, Syria and Marianas are stutter free. As I have mentioned before, I think the one thing that matters (at least on my system more than any other setting), is to set max FPS, based on experimentation and observations. Once I set mine to 45 in NVIDIA CP, even though I can hit 90 FPS depending on map etc. my flights over even the densest maps have been stutter free.

But of course, I am Track IR, and 2D.  FYI

[Hiob]

This may or may not be helpful for the VR guys:

 

(I can't reproduce for myself yet due to a lack of VR equipment)

From a friend with a Valve Index - the exclusive Full-Screen "tweak" which every pancake user should know about (for those unaware: you need to make sure by pressing Left-Alt+Enter that you are really in Fullscreen and not in a borderless window. The setting in DCS is not reliable. If unsure you can set the G-sync marker to Fullscreen only to be sure. This gives (can give?) a couple of FPS)...

 

works the same in VR. That means alt+enter on the "fish-eye"-window on the monitor gives also a couple of frames back.

 

Since this can easily tested and doesn't cost anything, I thought to mention it.

 

Good Luck!

[Lange_666]

5 hours ago, Hiob said:

From a friend with a Valve Index - the exclusive Full-Screen "tweak" which every pancake user should know about (for those unaware: you need to make sure by pressing Left-Alt+Enter that you are really in Fullscreen and not in a borderless window.

 

Now i have asked this question multiple times on this forum without a decent answer.

If the setting in DCS is not realiable, how do you really know you are in borderless window mode and not in full screen mode?

How can i see that somewhere? G-Sync marker? What if i don't have a G-Sync monitor?

Edited July 5, 2021 by Lange_666

[silverdevil]

6 hours ago, Lange_666 said:

 

Now i have asked this question multiple times on this forum without a decent answer.

If the setting in DCS is not realiable, how do you really know you are in borderless window mode and not in full screen mode?

How can i see that somewhere? G-Sync marker? What if i don't have a G-Sync monitor?

 

I have found and explanation, I think, on my own. There is no visual signal on the display telling you whether you are full screen or not. I know, in my case, I have a second monitor and if I click outside of DCS into the other monitor, DCS minimizes. As far as g-sync. If you do not have a g-sync monitor, then the g-sync settings are irrelevant.

[SCPanda]

8 hours ago, Lange_666 said:

 

Now i have asked this question multiple times on this forum without a decent answer.

If the setting in DCS is not realiable, how do you really know you are in borderless window mode and not in full screen mode?

How can i see that somewhere? G-Sync marker? What if i don't have a G-Sync monitor?

 

I think if you enabled fullscreen, the game is in fullscreen when you turn it on. However, if you alt+tab and alt+tab back, the game becomes borderless window mode. 

 

Because when you alt+tab out of the game for the first time after opening the game, it will take a second or two to switch to either the desktop or another window, which is normal for games running in fullscreen; and in the 2nd time you alt+tab out of the game (i.e. you have already alt+tab back into the game), it switches to another window much faster (basically instant), which I think is a indication you are in borderless since borderless is faster for alt+tab. 

 

However, I don't really notice any difference in fps, even if I uncheck fullscreen and use borderless. Maybe it's because I don't use any sort of v-sync. 

Edited July 6, 2021 by SCPanda

[Lange_666]

5 hours ago, silverdevil said:

I know, in my case, I have a second monitor and if I click outside of DCS into the other monitor, DCS minimizes.

 

That's a change introduced since 2.7. Didn't happen in 2.5.x or older.

 

 

 

[Hiob]

14 hours ago, Lange_666 said:

 

Now i have asked this question multiple times on this forum without a decent answer.

If the setting in DCS is not realiable, how do you really know you are in borderless window mode and not in full screen mode?

How can i see that somewhere? G-Sync marker? What if i don't have a G-Sync monitor?

 

Sorry, I had the same problem - until I figured out that "g-sync"-thing.

Without a g-sync-monitor I don't know a reliable way to tell if your running in fullscreen or borderless window.

Alt+Enter switches between those modes. Just press it a couple times and see if it makes a difference.

 

I'm aware that this doesn't work for everybody and I don't know why. For me it makes a difference of about 10% FPS.

I can't tell what's the trigger. I'm running the game in 4K and I have game mode, gpu scheduling and full screen optimisation off in windows.

 

Again, I just mentioned it, because it costs literally nothing to try - not even a lot of time.

 

EDIT: To the reason the fullscreen-setting in DCS is unreliable. I experienced the following. Usually, if I had all set up in time - that means having started trackir and selected the afterburner profile for DCS and then start DCS, it most probably starts in fullscreen. But if I'm messing around on my desktop or not just in time close the browser or have some downloads or steam running in the background while DCS is starting, it happens that it is in a "fullscreen" window only.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Hiob

[silverdevil]

6 hours ago, Lange_666 said:

 

That's a change introduced since 2.7. Didn't happen in 2.5.x or older.

 

i also noticed that it did not do this prior to 2.7. not sure if this is a symptom full screen or windowed. saw this post too from a while back.

 

i personally never ALT+ENTER so i am guessing i am always in full screen. inspecting my optios.lua i have ["fullScreen"] = true,

Edited July 6, 2021 by silverdevil

[Cabri]

On 7/3/2021 at 11:05 AM, B4ron said:

Ok, I finally found out now what causes the fps loss at least on my system:

 

1. Reflections in the canopy glass (and possibly on other glass surfaces too) that have been introduced with 2.7. When I switch to external view or emergency release the canopy, the performance increases immediately. Changing to a clear class mod brings no improvement, so the textures cannot be the issue. I hope that there will be an option soon to switch that off!

 

2. The new clouds. When I change the clouds in the mission editor to "nothing" there's no difference in fps. But when I reduce clouds density to 0, there's an immediate performance gain. I assume that the new clouds textures overflow my VRAM, since without clouds the VRAM usage is at about the same level as in 2.5 with clouds. An option to switch back to the old clouds textures or to reduce textures quality to lower than "low" would possibly help a lot of people.

 

These 2 effects have about the same performance impact for me. If I eliminate both I'm back on the performance that I had in 2.5.6.

 

Also, the new “obligatory” water reflections!  

Edited July 18, 2021 by Cabri

[Csgo GE oh yeah]

On 7/5/2021 at 1:53 PM, Hiob said:

This may or may not be helpful for the VR guys:

 

(I can't reproduce for myself yet due to a lack of VR equipment)

From a friend with a Valve Index - the exclusive Full-Screen "tweak" which every pancake user should know about (for those unaware: you need to make sure by pressing Left-Alt+Enter that you are really in Fullscreen and not in a borderless window. The setting in DCS is not reliable. If unsure you can set the G-sync marker to Fullscreen only to be sure. This gives (can give?) a couple of FPS)...

 

works the same in VR. That means alt+enter on the "fish-eye"-window on the monitor gives also a couple of frames back.

 

Since this can easily tested and doesn't cost anything, I thought to mention it.

 

Good Luck!

Going to test this now (if my headset doesn't black out on me)

edit* Hmm does nothing for me sadly. 

Edited July 18, 2021 by Csgo GE oh yeah

[Hiob]

15 hours ago, Csgo GE oh yeah said:

Going to test this now (if my headset doesn't black out on me)

edit* Hmm does nothing for me sadly. 

 

Yeah...

I noticed yesterday, while banchmarking, that the effect in 2D is not that noticeable anymore, too. It still a little better (1-2 FPS to be precise), but far from the effect it used to have.

Since that never worked for everybody - I wonder if it has something to do with drivers or windows-settings. Like game mode, fullscreen optimization and so on.

Perhaps the latest windows updates/ nvidia drivers solved some issues with the windowed mode in the first place.

Sorry - that would have been an easy profit...

[Csgo GE oh yeah]

No need for sorry, as it does not involving re-installing DCS or even windows to test it   

And still for some people it might do something, i mean you can test it in 10 seconds so no harm done. 

I really hope ED will be able to do something with the implementation of the new game engine/API or whatever it's called. 
A new engine is not a guarantee for better performance if they don't do it right 

[scampaboy]

It seems like the teething troubles when they released 2.1 with the new trees. Which ended up with people having to upgrade to a min of 16gb to run a single player mission. 
 

Who knows whether they ever actually fixed the memory leak.

 

What should be happening is the published system requirements need to be changed to take into account the performance loss. 
 

I’m just returning to DCS after a hiatus and have been weighing up what budget hardware to start me off. From reading all of these posts it seems the mid range user is hit the hardest maybe they should change the system requirements to show the “high” requirements as the minimum required. Then expectations can be adjusted to suit. 

[MattCri]

17 hours ago, scampaboy said:

It seems like the teething troubles when they released 2.1 with the new trees. Which ended up with people having to upgrade to a min of 16gb to run a single player mission. 
 

Who knows whether they ever actually fixed the memory leak.

 

What should be happening is the published system requirements need to be changed to take into account the performance loss. 
 

I’m just returning to DCS after a hiatus and have been weighing up what budget hardware to start me off. From reading all of these posts it seems the mid range user is hit the hardest maybe they should change the system requirements to show the “high” requirements as the minimum required. Then expectations can be adjusted to suit. 

well, this is already happening in a way

 

these are the (really hefty) system requirement for the marianas map

 

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS (LOW graphics preset settings): OS 64-bit Windows 8/10; DirectX11; CPU: Core i5+ at 3+ GHz or AMD FX / Ryzen; RAM: 16 GB (32 GB for heavy missions); Free hard disk space: 120 GB on Solid State Drive (SSD); Discrete video card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 / AMD Radeon RX VEGA 56 with 8GB VRAM or better; Joystick; requires internet activation.

 

RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS (HIGH graphics preset settings): OS 64-bit Windows 8/10; DirectX11; CPU: Core i5+ at 4+ GHz or AMD FX / Ryzen; RAM: 16 GB (32 GB for heavy missions); Free hard disk space: 120 GB on Solid State Drive (SSD); Discrete video card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 / AMD Radeon RX VEGA 64 or better; Joystick; requires internet activation.

RECOMMENDED VR SYSTEMS REQUIREMENTS (VR graphics settings): OS 64-bit Windows 8/10; DirectX11; CPU: Core i7-9700 / AMD Ryzen 3700X or better; RAM: 32 GB; Free hard disk space: 120 GB on Solid State Drive (SSD); Discrete video card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 2080 Ti / AMD Radeon RX 5700 or better; Joystick; requires internet activation.

 

Edited July 26, 2021 by MattCri

[Leg2ion]

On 7/26/2021 at 1:10 PM, MattCri said:

these are the (really hefty) system requirement for the marianas map

On 7/26/2021 at 1:10 PM, MattCri said:

RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS (HIGH graphics preset settings): OS 64-bit Windows 8/10; DirectX11; CPU: Core i5+ at 4+ GHz or AMD FX / Ryzen; RAM: 16 GB (32 GB for heavy missions); Free hard disk space: 120 GB on Solid State Drive (SSD); Discrete video card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 / AMD Radeon RX VEGA 64 or better; Joystick; requires internet activation.

 

Yep - and it still isn't brilliant in terms of FPS.  If I keep my 'normal' graphic settings whereby I get around 80-110 FPS on most maps, for the Marianas this drops to between 35 - 60 - quite a drop.

[jurinko]

My VR performance is back after the latest July update. I reset in-game graphics settings by selecting "VR", start a mission and then revert back to my custom settings. 

2.7 runs as good as 2.5 before. 

 

 

RTX 3070, 5600X, 32GB RAM, SSD.

 

 

Edited August 9, 2021 by jurinko

[JIMJAM]

Just a quick performance report swapping out a 1080 for a 3080ti. DCS Latest version...

System- I7 11700K OC to 5.1 hz 32 ram Z590 AORUS Fast SSD/ Geforce GTX 1080 TI overclocked.

1920X1080 overall all settings high except for SS settings off. All grass, details distance etc med, flat shadows, preload radius full

 

For me running vsync off produced micro stutters and with Track ir induces some dragging and nausea when turning head quickly.

Vsync ON smooth it out. I run a 1080TI but swapped out and out a 3080TI and saw no differences. If it is it sure ain't worth the insane prices people are scalping them for.

Worst performing map = Marianas,  Worst plane F-14.

[MattCri]

that's a lot of gpu for 1080p

 

getting decent gains with this shader mod https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3317762/

5-10fps more and better gpu usage in general, visuals are mostly the same for me.

Marianas is still 30fps or less even at 720p everything set on low, no trees no shadows, nothing and empty mission.

 

A new gpu is becoming necessary but out of the question for now, i can only find rtx 3060 for 800eur or more. The current market situation is absolutely unreal..

Edited August 11, 2021 by MattCri