3090 Consistent frame/ gpu usage drops

[Aurora juutilainen]

When look at the horizon I get consistent and repeatable frame rate drops and GPU usage drops in tandem (see screenshot)
When I look straight down at the ground for example FPS does not drop, and gpu usage stays around 96%

I tried turning SSAA from off to 1.5 to try and put more load on the GPU but this does not change the results and got the same ups and downs as the screenshot.

Any Ideas?

i9-9900KS
32GB RAM
3090
2560 x 1440

[silverdevil]

i have a 3090 and do not notice this drop. here are my settings. see if it helps. i do not have SSAA on in my setup. i read a lot that states SSAA can crush pretty much any system in DCS and other games. https://steamcommunity.com/app/286690/discussions/0/34096318957879276/ and https://linustechtips.com/topic/218824-what-is-ssaa-and-why-does-it-drastically-reduce-fps/ why the fps and gpu usage drops i dunno. one would think the gpu usage would go up trying to handle the graphics.

 

[Aurora juutilainen]

SSAA on or off doesnt seem to change much
FPS drops still show up tied with GPU usage
So far just a DCS issue

[silverdevil]

something else to try. i have seen this before (AMD cards have similar issue). try to restore the nvidia cp settings to default (after noting what they are). see what happens. also save your current DCS settings as a custom (buttons lower right corner). then pick the low preset. see what happens. i think some setting gets stuck and the gfx gets whacky. as i had stated before, since not everyone is having this bug, it is likely a software / hardware issue. 

 

good luck and clear skies!

[Aurora juutilainen]

I have ran a clean/full repair on DCS and played with graphics setting in both DCS and NVidia but still notice this bizarre behavior
on the Caucasus map when I look straight fps and gpu usage drops down to 50-60 then jumps back up, like it will count backwards from 100+ fps down to 50 then jump back up consistently in intervals, just up down up down over and over 

persian gulf will sometimes just get stuck at 65 FPS with lowish usage and stay there, like when I look out at the water or up at the sky, and will even stay at 65 after I look at a city for a bit, then eventually it jump up to 80-90 when looking at said city

Ive tried turning off gysnc, changed my refresh rate from 165 to 144, turned off trackir, disabled 2nd monitor

So far it's just DCS, other games I have tested do not do this

[Aurora juutilainen]

green is far away from the player airfield in the attached mission
yellow is when I am looking at the airfield and move the free camera closer to it
red is when I move the free camera even closer to the airfield 

as for the fps locking to 65 sometimes on Persian gulf I have no clue

CPU is not downclocking and staying around 5GHz
temps seem stable for both GPU and CPU
 

 

16 mavs.miz

[will-]

its how dcs has been.  besides lowering ur settings, i wish someone could solve this.  it doesn't matter if u have a 3090 or not.

[WipeUout]

This happens often to me as well although I have an RT 6900XT GPU.  I think it is a bug related to the full screen option.  Whenever I have a drop like this, I use the hotkey (ALT-ENTER) to toggle between full screen and windowed and it brings back the FPS rate where it should be.  It is also very hard to replicate and seems to happen randomly over dense terrain.  I fly over an area with plenty of GPU power left and all of the sudden, my FPS drops like if I had switched to windowed mode.  I fly again over the same area a few seconds later and nothing happens.

[will-]

12 hours ago, WipeUout said:

This happens often to me as well although I have an RT 6900XT GPU.  I think it is a bug related to the full screen option.  Whenever I have a drop like this, I use the hotkey (ALT-ENTER) to toggle between full screen and windowed and it brings back the FPS rate where it should be.  It is also very hard to replicate and seems to happen randomly over dense terrain.  I fly over an area with plenty of GPU power left and all of the sudden, my FPS drops like if I had switched to windowed mode.  I fly again over the same area a few seconds later and nothing happens.

i personally blame track ir, b/c still using a mouse to pan is always way smoother no matter what gimmicks ur running dcs at.

[Aurora juutilainen]

In regards to the OP  I have ruled out track IR and alt+enter

[Aurora juutilainen]

This is mildly frustrating to troubleshoot
I can free camera look around sometimes and the usage will stay high and FPS 100
if I look up at the sky the usage drops and fps locks to 65  the problem is sometimes usage and fps returns to normal by looking back down but it mostly just gets stuck this way half usage and 65 fps

both on Caucasus map and Persian gulf 

 

[Gryzor]

1 hour ago, Aurora juutilainen said:

This is mildly frustrating to troubleshoot
I can free camera look around sometimes and the usage will stay high and FPS 100
if I look up at the sky the usage drops and fps locks to 65  the problem is sometimes usage and fps returns to normal by looking back down but it mostly just gets stuck this way half usage and 65 fps

both on Caucasus map and Persian gulf 

 

 

Limit max fps from nividia control pannel to 120 or 90 fps MAX... I have the same problem. Limiting FPS resolved completely.

[Aurora juutilainen]

18 minutes ago, Gryzor said:

 

Limit max fps from nividia control pannel to 120 or 90 fps MAX... I have the same problem. Limiting FPS resolved completely.

Wow that fixed the second issue, thank you a lot!!! I'm curious how or why but either way glad that part has a workaround.

The original issue in the first post is still present and I can replicate it consistently by placing my camera exactly where it is in the screenshot for anyone that wants to have a crack at resolving that issue.

[SchumiF399]

Brand new 3080 ti owner here and I am having similar issues. I run 1080p triples and upgraded from a 1080ti. So far every other game has had crazy frame rate improvements but DCS has maybe seen a 10-12% increase. I was hoping my hard earned 1500 bucks would get this game to locked 60fps. 

[ThoWmas31]

I'm running with a  old processor ( 5930K  ) with 32  gb of ram and a RTX 3090 when i took a helicopter on Syria map my frames can't go higher than 45 - 50 FPS

 

i'm running 2560x1080 without Vsync ..

 

DCS have serious problem with game optimization 

[Leg2ion]

What is your PC power setting at? I had similar issues after building a new PC, whereby the FPS would drop like a stone every few seconds. Windows Advanced power settings were set to balanced. Set it to high and the regular FPS drops vanished.

[Aurora juutilainen]

Still have issues with DCS and GPU usage dropping relatively frequently, none of the other graphically demanding games I play have this issue.

[MadKreator]

Just for argument sake, have you looked in you export.lua folder and disabled anything(if at all) unnecessary? I was having weird drops and limiting, so it seemed as well.  I got a hold of a 3080 a few months ago and figured it would just destroy in comparison to my old card. Low and behold just like you, I didn’t notice that much difference in DCS. Ran across a post about the export folder, which I guess dcs reads and applies to every frame. I have scripts in there for Srs radio and voice attack, but when I got my WinWing throttle, it added some lines in there too. I deleted those, and commented out the voice attack lines( unless I’m using it) and left the srs radio up for MP. That seemed to significantly boost my overall fps. Might be worth checking out.  

On the other hand I thing that the engine DCS currently uses is so out of date and unoptimized that its kind of the life we are stuck with at the moment. I run a pretty good mix of mostly high with some medium settings, track ir, windowed mode with separate screen with mfd cougars mounted to . I just played with each setting by one and seeing what its really noticeable and I get a pretty average 85fps. Some heavily loaded airfields and over dense cities will drop to mid 70’s and up at higher alt, pretty consistent in the 95-110 range. Using  track IR I notice some hits depending on where you look but nothing drastic. Its not going from 100+ down to 60’s but maybe 10-15 difference.  My gpu usage does fluctuate no matter how I try to set things, and my cpu runs at a whopping 13% usage on average.

I would say Its more lack of proper optimization on DCS’s game engine end than anything. Hopefully the Vulkan engine implementation will help resolve things

Edited February 7, 2022 by MadKreator

[Boosterdog]

On 2/6/2022 at 4:09 AM, Aurora juutilainen said:

Still have issues with DCS and GPU usage dropping relatively frequently, none of the other graphically demanding games I play have this issue.

Try capping you frames to something around 200fps. I had similar. Frame rates dropping to 50 in clear skies and a countdown from whatever it was to that figure. Capping the frames stopped it for me. 

[Mav783]

Hellos guys, just wanna know if anyone found any fix for this issue ? I have a 3080 and have this FPS drop...The image freeze every 5 or 10 secondes, for just a little milisecond . Sometimes it work well. But when it do it, it's prety killing the game experience...And it do that at every session...What ever my setting

 

 

[Flappie]

Last week, a tester  had such issues whenever he would move his mouse. The problem was solved after he emptied his "fxo" and "metashaders2" folders. You will find them in your "Saved Games/DCS..." folder.

[Mav783]

11 hours ago, Flappie said:

Last week, a tester  had such issues whenever he would move his mouse. The problem was solved after he emptied his "fxo" and "metashaders2" folders. You will find them in your "Saved Games/DCS..." folder.

I already did for the metashaders2 but will try for the FXO ! Thanks for the advice  Keeping you updated with this.

 

Edit : ok i had the time to test it. It does not fix the issue totally but it's much better ! Thank for the advice 

Edited April 4, 2022 by Mav783

[Flappie]

You're welcome. Thanks for your feedback.

@Aurora juutilainen  You should give it a go if you haven't already.

[Mav783]

Hello.

I have an other question. Definitively i have perf issues with my DCS or my computer since somes months.  It's not new but i don't find verry recent thread about, so : do this is normal that DCS use almost 90% of my RAM ? Sometimes going to 98/99%... (i have 32Go running at 2933Mhz).

This issue is more visible in multiplayer much of the time. I can crash if i open an other window like Chrome, Edge or any small App (not enought memory), but after a time the RAM usage drop to 75/80/85%, better, but it stay unstable...

And i don't know if it is related to this, but, even when im under 80%of RAM, GPU and CPU normal usage, the game fall sudenly to low FPS (ly GPU usage is almost 100% all the time what ever my FPS, it is normal i think)...And the low FPS stay for a while. So to fix fix it i'm doing nothing more than a return on windows to come back to DCS, the FPS come back to normal...But sadly, a simple ALT/TAB is not enought to fix the issue, because sometimes it provoc it And if it do, i can ALT/TAB 20 times before to fix the drop. So it fix itself alone much of the time (i just wait), but it is ruining little the experience, because it happen every 15/20min to 1h. And it can stay more than 30min like this in low fps status.... What is verry strange about this issue is the fact that's not related to perf usage maybe more than half the time...

Thanks in advance for your help

Edit : 

  

On 4/4/2022 at 8:33 AM, Flappie said:

You're welcome. Thanks for your feedback.

I'm verry sorry to ping you like that but i'm scared my last message will pass unnoticed :s 

Anyway i will maybe see to install 48Go of RAM if needed. But i wanna try some fix before if it is possible.

Edited April 16, 2022 by Mav783

[Flappie]

Try these solutions, in this order:

Ensure Windows is up-to-date.

Ensure Windows GPU scheduling is turned off.

Ensure your Windows power setting is on High Performance. Ensure your NVIDIA setting is on Max Performance.

If you're using MSI Dragon Center, remove DCS from its Gaming mode menu.

Rename your "Saved Games/DCS.../Scripts/Export.lua" file (if you can't find it, it's OK, it does not come from the game).

Turn off in-game V-Sync. If you need it, use your GPU V-Sync instead.

Rename your whole "Saved Game's/DCS..." folder (do NOT delete it, it contains your custom bindings among other things).

Edited April 16, 2022 by Flappie