Vsync not working

[Nealius]

I have Vsync enabled but I am having very weird framerates that do not match my screen refresh rate (60hz)

Previously, Vsync would lock my framerates at 60fps, or in heavy graphical areas like forests down to 30fps. Never any lower. 

Now I am seeing wild framerates ranging from 100s to 200s when looking up at the sky, 40s in some forested areas, and all the way down to 26 in heavy forested/shadows/dust/heatblur areas. 

Is Vsync broken for anyone else?

[Hiob]

Two things comes to my mind to check.

1. Are you running in fullscreen (alt+ enter) and does that change anything?

2. What are your settings regarding v-sync in the nvidia control panel?

[Nealius]

1. DCS is full screen from startup.

2. NCP is set to "use 3D application settings."

[Hiob]

1 hour ago, Nealius said:

1. DCS is full screen from startup.

Have you checked with alt+enter? The checkbox in the settings is unreliable.

Other than that, I have no ideas, sorry.

[Boosterdog]

Working for me. 

One thing i recently noticed (others probably knew it all along) is that DCS, regardless of whether you start it from the Updater.exe or the DCS.exe uses the "Black Shark" profile in the NCP.  Moreover, it appears there is one DCS.exe to rule them all (ie if I set something up in the DCS.exe for my OB install, it applied the same to the DCS.exe in the Stable version I had installed until recently. If you browse to DCS.exe and make an alteration you will see the profile defaults to "Black Shark (DCS.exe)". 

I assume that NCP "sniffs" for it as one of its pre-installed data basy things.  

Anyhoe.... are the Vsync "use application setting" options enabled in the Black Shark profile? 

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by Boosterdog

[Boosterdog]

4 hours ago, Hiob said:

Have you checked with alt+enter? The checkbox in the settings is unreliable.

 

I think this was working ok for me pre 2.7.7 but went wobbly again thereafter. @Nealius if you have a keyboard that can alter or mute the volume one thing you can do to check with some certainly and relativiely easy is right click on the desktop DCS icon and select "compatabilty"  and check the box "disable full screen optimisations".  If you open DCS and go into a mission and alter the volume, you shouldnt see anything if you are in true full screen. If you do see the volume bar, you are not in full screen and you can Alt/Enter. If you prefer mot to have the box checked all the time, run the game from cold a few times to see how the ground lies so you have a good best guess. 

In my experience the chances of launching into true full screen first time are greater with the box checked for some reason but its not a given. 

[Nealius]

Looks like NCP was the culprit. The exe profiler was running "fast" vsync. I thought I was using global settings.

Why does the alt+enter function even exist? There's no way to tell whether you're in full screen or fake full screen without the volume change trick. If not full screen it should be windowed, but it's not. And why would vsync or framerates even change between full screen and windowed for the same software?

[Hiob]

Alt+Enter is a function of windows, not DCS. It is ment to bring programs that run in a console window (aka former DOS-programs)* to fullscreen. A window can be the size of the fullscreen but still be a window.

Another way to determine wether you are in fullscreen or nor is the g-sync indicator if you happen to have a g-sync monitor (g-sync options in ncp).

*Remember that for the longest time, windows was still nothing but a shell, wrapped around a DOS basis. Resource intensive applications - especially games would still run "on DOS" - so in a console window inside windows. That's probably true still, but I'm not sure (may have changed with the introduction of 64bit Windows). But DCS certainly stems from those times.

[Boosterdog]

7 hours ago, Nealius said:

Looks like NCP was the culprit. The exe profiler was running "fast" vsync. I thought I was using global settings.

Why does the alt+enter function even exist? There's no way to tell whether you're in full screen or fake full screen without the volume change trick. If not full screen it should be windowed, but it's not. And why would vsync or framerates even change between full screen and windowed for the same software?

The in game Vsync forces on Vsync only in Windowed Mode and is a built in Game Feature independent of the NCP.  The NCP can read it however (hence the use application settings option). Im not sure, outside of Vsync if all the other NCP settings are similarily ignored in windows or if appies only to certain ones.  Outside of windowed mode the in-game Vsync has no effect and the GPU software takes full charge. In not dependent upon whether you use a profile or the general settings. 

If you disable the in-game Vsync and just activate in the NCP you will know what mode you have launched into if you toggle on a frame counter (or use in the in-game one if you can see it well enough). If you are in Full Screen you'll see the expected Vsync cap. If you dont you are not. As I say, with the full screen optimisation box unchecked I rarely, if ever, get lauched into windowed.

Here is the rub with Full screen-If you launch into the game in Full screen BUT you Alt-Tab out to look at discord or something when you return you will be in Windowed mode so will need to hit Alt/Enter to re-activete full screen.  If you are using Windowed mode, Alt -tabbing has no effect because its doing what it was designed to do which is put DCS into a window that can be alt/tabbed between and the ingame Vsync will always work. I dont think this is a DCS issue. Effectively you are telling the PC  "Yeah I know I wanted full screen but, y'know what, now I dont".  I think Full screen is the better option but it trades convienece for quality a little. 

In your case it appears you were launching into Full Screen but the NCP was using fast sync so the frames rates reflected this. Any frame counter is only a measure of the engine output and not the displayed frames which is why Fast Vsync makes it look like there is no vsync at all as its allowing the engine to go flat out in order to try and populate its two flip flop buffers with fully rendered frames.  

If you dont use an FPS or the volume thing usually moving your head around will less less smooth if you are not in Full screen (if the games is set up as above). 

Alt/Enter isnt a DCS thing its a Windows X86 default for switching between Windowed and Full Screen. My understanding was DCS is windowed. If I set my reolution lower, it certainly appears in a window. 

As an aside. I recently found another small issue when large frames rate increases could actually affect the game and the menu and cause the chip to effectivly get stuck in a loop wth the GPU forcing frames down. This tended to stop once in game but in the menu it always showed 50 fps not 60.  Adding a reasonable cap to the NCP (so between 120-199 fps) stops the error.  This error would only occur if the game launched in an interation that wasnt vsynced. 

Glad you sorted it.