VR sudden FPS drop

[NathB]

Hi,

 

I’m not new to dcs but fairly recently got into vr - quest 2.. and wow what immersion! 
 

I’ve just upgraded from a gtx 1070ti to a rtx 3070 and the rest of my specs are as follows:

AIO water cooled i5-8600k OC to 4.7 mhz

32gb ram

crap loads of storage +2tb of ssd and m.2 nvme ssd.

Running the latest dcs open beta 2.7.something or other 

 

Anyway to my point.. I’ve made myself familiar with the oculus tray tool having watched some videos and reduced some of my in game settings and when I start a flight, be it multiplayer or single player I get a solid constant 45fps and all is good.. for about 5-10 min and then BAM the FPS drops to 18-21fps and I get horrendous screen tearing and it’s unplayable. There isn’t even a particular event happening at the time of the drop, often just climbing away or flying straight and level, no explosion or anything happen that you would think might cause it and it doesn’t recover back to 45fps, just stays stuck at an unplayable frame rate. No other programs have launched or any other obvious event too. 
 

Any ideas/help? or anyone having the same issue?? 

Thanks!

 

Nath

 

 

 

[NathB]

Thanks RosyPlays!

 

Very much appreciate your help. I already have the Nvidia controls set, so I will try the others later when I am able to get on - I do have tacview but like many others I couldn’t ever get it to work properly, but definitely worth a try disabling it.

 

I will probably try them one by one to see if I can source an exact cause. Also thanks for the graphics settings link! I do actually run it fairly similar to your settings, but will have a play with them if I can’t source the problem.

 

Sadly I’m stuck with the link cable as I’m quite far from the router at the moment and airlink for me is unplayable, do you find it better than the cable or just nicer to not be tethered? 
 

[NathB]

So i'm still having some serious issues!

 

I made exceptions in the anti-virus for both the saved games folder and the main game folder on the ssd, I disabled tacview, did a clean install of my driver, didn't have any xbox recording going on in the settings.. AND i did a force "repair" and "cleanup" from the command prompt after having deleted the fxo and metashader2 folder from the saved games location as another thread had mentioned improved performance after doing so..

 

and yet I get now 20-30fps and then a huge drop to 6 fps in the Storm of war multiplayer server - I was getting better performance from my 1070ti card!!

 

Attached is the game settings and the log from the mission. I am NastyNate in the mission - couldn't get the F10 map to show everyone but wait 10s after starting and then press F1 to view my a/c instead of F2-ing through everyone else.. After I was airbourne in the right hand low level turn it dropped to 6fps in VR but on the replay it looked fine!? 

Ah can't attach the track file as it's over 5mb 

[Flappie]

Hi @NathB. No need for track file but these would be welcome:

• C:\Users\username\Saved Games\DCS...\Logs\dcs.log (mays appear as "dcs")
• dxdiag log (how to get one)

Do you use any third party software to monitor/boost your GPU? I'm talking about MSI Afterburner and the like.

If so, remove any configuration linked to DCS: let NVIDIA handle alone the GPU for DCS.

 

Also, you can try reseting your NVIDIA settings:

 

[NathB]

Hi Flappie,

 

Thanks for the message. Attached is the log and dxdiag.

 

I do have msi afterburner so I was will remove and restore the nvidia settings tomorrow (bit too late here now) and give it a go. Fingers crossed 

 

Thanks!

DxDiag.txt dcs.log

[Flappie]

Thanks. I don't see anything wrong in your logs.

You can try this as well:

• Delete all files in "C:\ProgramData\NVIDIA Corporation\NV_Cache" (hit "Ignore" when Windows tells you some files can't be deleted, that's OK)
• Delete all files in "C:\Users\username\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\fxo"

[NathB]

@Flappie So unfortunately I’ve had no luck whatsoever. 
 

Deleted fxo and nvidia cache. I also lowered my settings to the vr preset and whilst my FPS were higher after 10 min or so I still had a significant drop to around 20 FPS and horrendous screen tearing.

 

Having spoken to some other DCS users I did wonder whether my PSU is the problem? I do have a three year old Corsair RM650x which is meeting the minimum required for the 3070 card (just), but I’ve not had any other issues, pc crashes etc that would signify a psu issue.. do you really think that would cause a big FPS drop?

 

thanks again for the help 

[Flappie]

You're welcome. It could be a PSU issue since the game was running great with a lower end GPU, but I doubt it, unless your PSU is dying, but I doubt it since Corsair makes good PSUs.

 

Do you use a 3D wallpaper software? If so disable it and see how it goes.

[RvL]

Hi NathB,

 

Been reading through your posts.

I have made an post myself about problems flying VR in MP, mostly about CTD problems, but im also experiencing sudden framedrops to 20fps out of nowhere.

 

Im using the Oculus Rift S.

 

Just like you said, nothing really happens what explains the sudden drop to 20fps.

 

When it happens, im also getting some kind of screentearing and massive stutter/lag making it unplayable forcing me to exit the game.

 

Like you said in your last post thinking about buying a new PSU, i have just done that last week.

 

Having a RTX3070 myself, and used to have a corsair 550w gold, i upgraded to a Sharkoon 750W gold.

 

Unfortunally it did not solve the problem.

 

 

[BravoAlpha]

Mate, I had also issues with lagging / stuttering / ghost-like images when turning my head and / or camera view, the overall performance was really bugging. If you run 2.7.1 revert to 2.7.0 if you can, it really solved by itself that way. Something in the latest beta built is not working as intended I'm afraid.

[NathB]

Hey @RvL,

 

sorry to hear you’re also having the same problems! (Though I’m glad I’m not alone!).

A shame upgrading the psu didn’t work - I’ll save myself some money and not bother.

I nearly wondered whether doing a clean install of dcs world would help - but with all the maps and modules I can see that taking a long time! Have you tried rolling your nvidia driver back to and older one? I might give it a go. Do you have the same issue on any other games? I have yet to try but I wonder is it a dcs specific thing.. 

 

If you have any luck please let me know and I will if I come up with anything! 
 

thanks! 
 

Nath

 

 

[RvL]

We sure arent alone in this.

I believe 2.7 brought this with it.

In the earlier versions of DCS World i have never experienced the problems we are encountering right now with 2.7.

 

Lets hope its fixable and unfortunately part of the open beta.

 

I did not uninstall DCS, only the module and mods and did multiple slow repairs.

Those didnt help.

 

I also did not try previous NVidia versions.

Perhaps we can give that a shot, who knows.

 

I only play DCS, i do not fly any other VR games in my simpit. So no idea if this is a DCS only issue.

 

Yesterday though, after a playbreak for some days i installed the latest verion of DCS, and had a online PVE playtime for about 2 hours with no issues.

 

I did had some fps losses down to 20fps but i guess that was due to many things happening at once.

 

The weird visual lag or DCS crashing out of oculus did not happen.

Maybe it was a luckyshot, later today i will do some more online testing.

 

Lets see what happens.

I'll keep you posted.

Edited May 28, 2021 by RvL

[NathB]

That’s interesting - I didn’t have my new card before the update so I could only compare to my old 1070ti.

 

I also had a fault free session this afternoon on the Storm of war server - after the update yesterday.. an hour-ish sortie with FPS stable around 36-40. I did restore my nvidia settings in the control panel a couple of days ago and decided to put the ‘prefer maximum performance’ option back on, as well as vsync to ‘fast’, not sure how much that would have helped but who knows! 
 

Not sure what your preference is but I also made sure not to turn the mirrors on which could have also save some fps. 
 

let’s hope this is a sign of things getting better

[RvL]

Havent experienced CTD's or the extreme screentearing with massive lag/stutters.

 

But i still have big drops to 20fps on PVE servers with arround 20 or more players.

 

Changing my visual settings from low or very high doesnt fix it or make any change in fps.

 

I guess my RTX3070 doesnt seem to be the issue. 

I was thinking it might be my cpu, ryzen 5 2600. But member Flappie says its more then OK for DCS.

 

Im not at home to be able to make a screenshot of my settings.

 

but normally i have my settings like:

Medium to high with 4xmssa. Shadows flat. 

1.0PD with OTT AT 1.2.

 

When entering the cockpit i always turn off mirrors to save fps.

 

Tomorrow im going to try to restore Nvidia settings. See if that helps.

 

@NathB what module(s) do you fly?

Maybe its module depended.

 

Im mostly flying the F14, wich already eats more fps then any other module.

Edited May 30, 2021 by RvL

[Spetz]

FYI, one of the latest nVidia GPU drivers was crap. 466.51 maybe? They actually released a hot fix for it. I installed the bad one, had massive screen tearing, crap performance etc.. used DDU in safe mode, removed and redid the new hotfix version and sorted it all out. I believe 466.55 is the new, good one.

[Foxmike]

That sounds like the typical DCS/FS2020 stutter bug especially with high quality settings and high pixel headsets like Reverb. There are several discussions about that in the web. Nobody has an answer to that but the most stated reason shall be very bad engines and RAM management of these Sims. You can test if you could join the club by pressing Alt-Tab while the stutter begins and stay 1-10 seconds with "windows out of focus " message on screen. In most cases the framerate should recover to normal level in this 10s. Just try it and post it here if it has worked for you.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Foxmike
bad letters

[Mr_sukebe]

Try these:

- remove Tacview

- before starting DCS, log out of windows, then log back in again. This creates a “clean” new instance (or that’s my understanding)

- do NOT finish the 1st mission in DCS, then log straight into another one.  Instead, completely exit DCS, then go back in and join the mission. 
I believe that the third point fixed the issue for me.

 

My guess is that DCS missions are “locking” certain data sections in RAM, which is causing additional windows paging. 

[lemoen]

The massive framerate drop, screen tearing and 100% GPU usage is the VRAM being full and data being swapped into your system RAM. It happens on missions where there are too many unique ground units. If you have a high res VR headset like a Quest 2 and only 8GB of VRAM this will happen unless you really really turn the settings down A LOT. There might be somethings ED can look into that might help, see here for one example. 

 

[RvL]

Im having the same issues and am running a 3070 with a Rift S with groundtextures to low.

Im not sure this can be related with running low on Vram.

 

Even turning every setting to the lowest doesnt make any difference, same low fps dips etc.

[lemoen]

3 hours ago, RosyPlays said:

I'm running 45-55FPS Quest 2 VR with I7-9700K RTX3070 8GB VRAM 16GB RAM 3200Mhz maxed settings except SSAO,MSAA 5408x2736 90Hz with Air link no issues here.

It's highly possible it's a hardware issue or system software issue, if the issue is that serious I recommend investigating your components and system. 

One possible solution is to reinstall Windows 10 and replacing the faulty/suspicious components.

Edit: I have suspicion it's caused by Oculus link try using Oculus software instead of SteamVR. @NathB

 

 

 

I see you're using Airlink and don't have this issue. I wonder if there isn't a difference between that and Link system, where maybe the Airlink stream uses a lot less VRAM to be prepared. In every single case I had this, my total system video memory was clearly over 8GB but at least a few 100mb, and I've just been using Link because for the most part its the same but airlink eats the battery much faster. Some things I can try later...

[lemoen]

OK tried HIGHER settings than before, but with Airlink, same rotorheads server, scenario was similar. Still saw high VRAM numbers but the fps stayed stable and no glitching. I suggest to Quest 2 users to try Airlink instead of link.

[NathB]

I wish that was an option for me but airlink is unplayable for me as the router is on the other side of the house.

 

On 6/2/2021 at 10:40 AM, RosyPlays said:

Edit: I have suspicion it's caused by Oculus link try using Oculus software instead of SteamVR. @NathB

 

 

i use the stand alone version of dcs and don’t use steam vr.

 

but yes I’m concerned it’s a component problem, would be strange though, as I’ve never had any issues with my rig and can run the game on screen with over 100fps.

 

I found a YT video of someone saying to improve performance whilst using the link cable to set the priority of the oculus server in the task manager to “high”. Has anyone else tried this?

[nuttyjawa]

Just signed up for this topic :)

 

I have a similar issue - something that fixes it for me, is I go to my VR desktop view in the Oculus App whilst the game is running (Whilst doing this, everything is on a go slow mode, even the tracking of my controllers) I hit ctrl+alt+del and open task manager, I then bring back DCS into focus and hit the oculus button to go back to game.

 

Once the above is done, my performance is back to silky smooth - I'd be interested in whether this works for you guys

 

 

[Epic Gamer]

Had this same problem for a while on an Quest 2, swapped to Air Link and it is gone now.

[Epic Gamer]

1 hour ago, Epic Gamer said:

Had this same problem for a while on an Quest 2, swapped to Air Link and it is gone now.

Well it did go away. Now it is back, even when using air link. I have tried to use virtual desktop but I can not get DCS to work with virtual desktop.