Low CPU (i7-9800X @ 4.1GHz) and GPU (RTX 3080) usage, and very poor framerates in MP

[mokrunka]

specs: RTX 3080, i79800, 64GB RAM, 3440*1440 resolution.

 

After some testing, i've found that in both SP and MP, my GPU load hovers around 40-60%. in SP, frame rates seem what i'd call 'playable' around 45-85 fps. In MP (mostly I play in GAW), i get around 15-20 fps on the ground, and 30-40 in the air. The CPU seems to hover around 30% max.

 

i've gone through the NV control panel and changed things that people recommend to 'performance' or 'application-controlled' where possible. Please see the game settings and NV Control panel settings below.

 

am i asking for too much here? or am i missing something?

 

would love to hear what others experiences with GPU drivers and GPU usage on the 3080.

thanks everyone.

 

[SCPanda]

53 minutes ago, mokrunka said:

specs: RTX 3080, i79800, 64GB RAM, 3440*1440 resolution.

 

After some testing, i've found that in both SP and MP, my GPU load hovers around 40-60%. in SP, frame rates seem what i'd call 'playable' around 45-85 fps. In MP (mostly I play in GAW), i get around 15-20 fps on the ground, and 30-40 in the air. The CPU seems to hover around 30% max.

 

i've gone through the NV control panel and changed things that people recommend to 'performance' or 'application-controlled' where possible. Please see the game settings and NV Control panel settings below.

 

am i asking for too much here? or am i missing something?

 

would love to hear what others experiences with GPU drivers and GPU usage on the 3080.

thanks everyone.

 

I have a i7 7700k and a 3080, 32 GB RAM. Playing on 1080p. CPU usage never goes above 70%. GPU usage is higher than yours I think. Almost full usage last time I checked. 

 

Graphics: everything high, MSAA 4x, ultra clouds, SSAA, SSLR, SSAO off, grass and forest max, forest and scenery details max, preload radius 60000, AF 16x, terrain shadows flat, cockpit global illumination on. 

 

Didn't mess with the Nvidia control panel except I turned on the MFAA, makes the AA even better in game. 

 

SP: 100-130 FPS

MP: Depends. Dogfight server I can get same FPS as SP. PvP BVR server I can get 50-80 on ground, 70-100 in air. PvE server with lots of objects I can get 40-70 on ground, 40-90 in air. 

Edited October 13, 2021 by SCPanda

[mokrunka]

Thanks SCPanda. Mind if I ask what GPU driver version you're on? Your system seems to run much better than mine for some reason. I think the main difference is that my preload radius is maxed out, but I didn't figure that would matter much, as I supposed it'd be loaded into RAM and wouldn't be a problem. Could you also share what RAM you have and the timings (or model number if you have it would be awesome). 

[SCPanda]

23 minutes ago, mokrunka said:

Thanks SCPanda. Mind if I ask what GPU driver version you're on? Your system seems to run much better than mine for some reason. I think the main difference is that my preload radius is maxed out, but I didn't figure that would matter much, as I supposed it'd be loaded into RAM and wouldn't be a problem. Could you also share what RAM you have and the timings (or model number if you have it would be awesome). 

No problem man. I think my driver version is 471.96. I have two 16GB 2400 mhz Kingston RAM. I forgot the model number since I'm not at home now. 

 

It could be the problem of DCS. What you could try is delete the DCS World folder under saved games in C drive. The game will recreate a new one, but you have to redo all the settings in game. Before you do that backup the old DCS World folder so you don't have to redo the controls. Your old controls files will be under DCS World>Config>Input you backed up. You can just copy and paste the Input folder into the new Config folder under DCS World. 

Edited October 13, 2021 by SCPanda

[Flappie]

Have you maxed out Windows power settings?

[Red Rooster]

I have a similar powered system with i5-9600 and 3080ti, and experience the same in MP with large numbers of AI units.  With tacview recording all units, my FPS drops to under 30 and CPU and GP cards are seriously under-untilised.  Turn tacview to record local player only and FPS goes up to 100!  At the same time CPU and GPU utilisation goes up considerably.

Don't know why as I'm using a 1TB NVME M.2 SSD, and 32GB ram.  Should be able to handle anything, but something about tacview messes it up completely.

I have my windows power settings set at Ultimate Performance...

[QuiGon]

Remember, that DCS effectively only uses one CPU core, so if one core is maxed out and the others are more or less idling, then a 30% overall CPU usage is the result.

Network traffic is pretty CPU heavy (including things like extrapolating player positions), so the CPU is usually the bottleneck in heavy MP environments, leaving the GPU underused.

Edited October 13, 2021 by QuiGon

[mokrunka]

3 hours ago, Red Rooster said:

I have a similar powered system with i5-9600 and 3080ti, and experience the same in MP with large numbers of AI units.  With tacview recording all units, my FPS drops to under 30 and CPU and GP cards are seriously under-untilised.  Turn tacview to record local player only and FPS goes up to 100!  At the same time CPU and GPU utilisation goes up considerably.

Don't know why as I'm using a 1TB NVME M.2 SSD, and 32GB ram.  Should be able to handle anything, but something about tacview messes it up completely.

I have my windows power settings set at Ultimate Performance...

Yeah, I've heard tacview is a huge resource hog. I don't use it but many people report disabling it helps.

9 hours ago, Flappie said:

Have you maxed out Windows power settings?

Yep, all of that is set to max performance.

3 hours ago, QuiGon said:

Remember, that DCS effectively only uses one CPU core, so if one core is maxed out and the others are more or less idling, then a 30% overall CPU usage is the result.

Network traffic is pretty CPU heavy (including things like extrapolating player positions), so the CPU is usually the bottleneck in heavy MP environments, leaving the GPU underused.

 

This is a great point - you're right, when I look at per-core usage, I do have one core fully utilized almost continuously. Thanks for pointing that out.

14 hours ago, SCPanda said:

No problem man. I think my driver version is 471.96. I have two 16GB 2400 mhz Kingston RAM. I forgot the model number since I'm not at home now. 

 

It could be the problem of DCS. What you could try is delete the DCS World folder under saved games in C drive. The game will recreate a new one, but you have to redo all the settings in game. Before you do that backup the old DCS World folder so you don't have to redo the controls. Your old controls files will be under DCS World>Config>Input you backed up. You can just copy and paste the Input folder into the new Config folder under DCS World. 

 

Thanks friend. I tried that version, and a couple others. Now back to 472.12 (latest version, I think). Doesn't seem to make a difference one way or the other.

[mokrunka]

An update in case it helps anyone. After much poking around, I discovered that my RAM was running at 2166MHz, rather than the XMP profile of 3600MHz... I had forgotten when I built this machine that I was having trouble getting my CPU overclock and RAM to together run with the RAM at 3600MHz. I had a pretty mild CPU overclock, but I turned that back down to the base speed, and set the RAM to the XMP profile, and it allow it to run at 3600. It seems this has actually netted me another ~10-15fps or so. Which is I suppose about as good as I can get. I seem to get around 30 fps on the ground in a full GAW server, and depending what's happening in SP, somewhere in the 40-80 range. I can live with that (most gfx on high, except MSAA, which is at 2X).

[SchumiF399]

I went from 32GB 2666mhz ram to 3600mhz and saw no difference. My best upgrade to my setup was installing dcs on an NVMe drive. The jump from a 1080ti to a 3080ti wasn’t the leap forward I had hoped. Waiting to get an alder lake cpu as apparently my 8700k bottlenecks my card.