Add independent cockpit texture settings and remove/revise old graphics precaching

[Rapierarch]

Dear ED,

 

Before my summer holidays I have said that I have some ideas to make ED experience better for everyone but I had to evaluate them and will share them when ready. The major focus point of my critics was lack of LOD models in game assets both for some core mods and AI assets.I see that this is moving to the right direction and still expecting LOD models for the rest of the assets and also I’m looking forward to seeing the final LOD levels for Apache and Viper. 

 

Current provided LOD1 and LOD2 models reduce CPU load 75% per asset but textures are still inherited from the main model and they still occupy a large portion in video memory. I’m sure that final lod levels will cap it and bring it to the level of Tomcat, KA-50 or Hornet. 

 

Last month I was mostly focused on small additions or tweaks which will impact performance and visual fidelity with minimal impact. So any interventions which require remodeling, or recording were out of the question. Also I have waited enough so that I personally and as many of hoggit users can test one of the basic solutions that I’m going to suggest now to implement. 

 

Your team can implement any of them pretty easily without tinkering the main code requiring internal testing. 

 

Here we go. Easiest first.

 

1- Separate cockpit textures from object textures and provide same level of quality settings for them:

Proposal: New setting in control panel:

 

Object textures: High, Medium, Low  

Cockpit textures: High, Medium, Low

Terrain textures: High, Low.

 

By allowing us to keep cockpit textures separated we can keep it at higher levels together with terrain textures and reduce object textures which mostly covers external models. 

 

Those models do not require the same texel density as cockpit and terrain textures since they are rarely seen closer than 30m.

 

This will allow fluent cpu frametimes and relax cpu memory controller tasks and allow especially VR users with 8GB gpu’s to enjoy the best visual quality in game.

 

Cockpit textures are already separated in the game install; they are only under the mods folder. You do not need to manually tag them even. Please make this setting available for us. 

 

2- Precaching function in graphics.lua: 

(actually this is easier than the other one but probably need internal discussion)

 

Proposal: revise and ,if not necessary, remove.

 

Precaching function given in graphics.lua (see below) apparently remains unchanged since the Lock-on game configuration files. 

 

Precaching =

{

around_camera = 50000;

around_objects = 10000;

around_types = {"world", "point"};

preload_types = {"map", "world", "mission"};

}

 

Many people in reddit dcs related forums, followed my advice to set both parameters to 0. Which lowered their ram and even Vram usage drastically and provided more resources to be available in their system for multiplayer and VR. 

 

I personally removed the full statement from the lua file and it has the same effect as setting the parameters to 0. It has been like that in my system for at least 5 months now. 

 

Since this is a sitting sim and max speed in game is almost limited by reality and we have huge game assets but still enough bandwidth for on time delivery to render pipeline: can you reconsider this setting and remove it if it is not necessary. It happens to not break anything in game but looks like it is the problem. 

 

Thanks and,

Kindest regards,

The LOD’s guy

 

PS: I'm going to post a lighter version with some more explanation in hoggit sub on reddit. You are welcome to read that too. 

[uboats]

If anyone wants to try, add below two lines to saved game\dcs\config\autoexe.cfg, and see if it works

options.graphics.Precaching.around_camera = 10000
options.graphics.Precaching.around_objects = 2000

 

Edited September 24, 2022 by uboats

[ttenor12]

Please ED, consider these points. While we know great things are coming, these two fixes don't really seem too hard to implement considering all that's been thoroughly explained in this post.

[ShaunOfTheFuzz]

VRAM limitations in VR have pretty much put my playing of DCS on indefinite hold over the last year. I just check in every month or so to see if any big improvements have happened and sadly the last big performance boon was OpenXR toolkit and open composite, both of which came from outside ED. Hopefully VRAM management is higher on the agenda than it seems to be.

I love buying modules for this sim, (I keep looking at the mirage lately) but I was badly burned by the performance of the Apache and I won't be buying any more modules until I can be sure these issue have been addressed to work for the 8GB cards that most people actually use. 

Edited September 24, 2022 by ShaunOfTheFuzz

[v81]

55 minutes ago, ShaunOfTheFuzz said:

I love buying modules for this sim,....

...8GB cards that most people actually use. 

 

2 pieces there I totally agree with.

On a multiplayer server with a dozen users and moderately complex mission in hitting 98% system memory.

I have a 5800X, 32GB CL16 3600MT/s ram an RTX3070 a decent SSD.

There is no way I should be struggling with performance yet I do.

For those with VR I'd like to say I don't know how you do it, but it looking like you're struggling to do it at all.

I've got just under USD$500 worth of modules I'm looking to buy on hold due to poor performance from ED (and growing as more interesting aircraft release).

Change my mind.

[Rapierarch]

2 hours ago, uboats said:

If anyone wants to try, add below two lines to saved game\dcs\config\autoexe.cfg, and see if it works

options.graphics.Precaching.around_camera = 10000
options.graphics.Precaching.around_objects = 2000

 

 

Thanks Uboat. No need to keep any precaching. We have been using it with distances set to zero "0" 

[uboats]

1 hour ago, Rapierarch said:

Thanks Uboat. No need to keep any precaching. We have been using it with distances set to zero "0" 

do you directly modify the graphics.lua or can you try my method and see if it works (avoid re-modify after each update/repair)

updated:

no effect to me, always 18-20G (total 32G)

Edited September 24, 2022 by uboats

[Rapierarch]

2 hours ago, uboats said:

 

no effect to me, always 18-20G (total 32G)

 

Yes I directly modify the lua file. And use a mod manager to implement it. I never trusted that autoexe.cfg . I suspect that this is not the correct format since graphics options actually begin later in the lua file. 

When it works you will start seeing that you can lower ram usage by lowering preload radius. Before that it did not have any affect on my system if you use 60000 or zero. Now I use 10000 as preload radius and it is plenty. Also memory usage keeps steady, I mean you will not experience a steady slow pace increase in memory usage in long flight.s

[Darrylx444]

Thanks, this sounds promising for VR. I will try editing the graphics.lua and report back.

[Sysrek]

So just simply edit the graphics.lua file with notepad and should be good to go?

[Rapierarch]

4 minutes ago, Sysrek said:

So just simply edit the graphics.lua file with notepad and should be good to go?

I use notepad++ but it should work too for this simple edit.

[Sysrek]

Ok just tried it. Quick mission in Syria with the Gazelle, VRAM. was at 9.8GB/10 (3080)

Edited September 24, 2022 by Sysrek

[AEhere]

I can also confirm I have been flying with the precache distances set to 0 without any issues and less memory usage for months.

[FupDuck]

On 9/24/2022 at 11:53 AM, Sysrek said:

Ok just tried it. Quick mission in Syria with the Gazelle, VRAM. was at 9.8GB/10 (3080)

 

How much did it use before the change? 

[Rapierarch]

On 9/24/2022 at 5:53 PM, Sysrek said:

Ok just tried it. Quick mission in Syria with the Gazelle, VRAM. was at 9.8GB/10 (3080)

 

Dear, you can hardly notice it in quick action missions. Especially old modules use old ai assets which have LOD's so even if they are loaded you wil hardly notice it. 

Make a mission starting on the runway. put one apache on the ground 30 km away from and all assets without lods like f-16, chieftain tank, btr-8, ural firefigihter etc all at a distance less then 50km but out of your visual range. Put as much as detailed models. 

Than start mission you will see the difference in your RAM and possibly VRAM if you can exceed vram in initial test without mod.  

Game will try to fill it up of course if there is unused place in it.

[Sysrek]

On 9/25/2022 at 3:03 PM, FupDuck said:

How much did it use before the change? 

The same.

20 hours ago, Rapierarch said:

Dear, you can hardly notice it in quick action missions. Especially old modules use old ai assets which have LOD's so even if they are loaded you wil hardly notice it. 

Make a mission starting on the runway. put one apache on the ground 30 km away from and all assets without lods like f-16, chieftain tank, btr-8, ural firefigihter etc all at a distance less then 50km but out of your visual range. Put as much as detailed models. 

Than start mission you will see the difference in your RAM and possibly VRAM if you can exceed vram in initial test without mod.  

Game will try to fill it up of course if there is unused place in it.

Ok I did not realize it was not an "instant" thing to notice. I will test further with Syria map and the F18 (newest mod I have).

[v81]

Wonder if it might be worth creating a standardized test mission that we can download, test and return our before / after notes?

Would also be a way to ensure that the mission consists of an appropriate mix of assets presently with and without LOD's, something like what might be seen on a busy online server.

[v81]

On 9/24/2022 at 2:19 PM, uboats said:

If anyone wants to try, add below two lines to saved game\dcs\config\autoexe.cfg, and see if it works

options.graphics.Precaching.around_camera = 10000
options.graphics.Precaching.around_objects = 2000

 

 

I don't have an autoexec.cfg in that location.

Is this a file that normally exists, or one that is created by the user in some cases such as this?

[Rapierarch]

4 hours ago, v81 said:

Is this a file that normally exists,

No you have to create it. 

I must say I have not tried that method so I do not know it works. I edit directly graphics.lua and use a mod manager to swap that file. I do not think precaching is one of the graphics options so I guess it is not working. Further on in the lua there is a section starting with graphics I believe those options can be modified by this format in autoexe.cfg but not precaching. 

I also would suggest to set them both 0 or at least set the around objects 0 because it seems to be causing most of the memory usage. 

 

[MsKatze]

There are both Saved Games and DCS install directory have graphics.lua, which one should I modify？

[tomeye]

I did the change in DCS install dir

[Northstar98]

On 10/9/2022 at 9:36 AM, MsKatze said:

There are both Saved Games and DCS install directory have graphics.lua, which one should I modify？

I did mine in the install directory

[twistking]

@Rapierarch i appreciate your effort, but i feel you've fallen a bit into a logical trap with the texture thing. I agree that current situation is not good, but i don't think that more options would be the most direct solution. The most direct solution would be for ED to revamp how texture sizes are handled in DCS and how the options affect textures. I'd think it could even be enough to have only one single texture option. I don't think that the user's all want different thing and fine-tune every texture aspect. In my mind everyone simply wants to set the textures size in accordance to their vram and/or dispaly resolution and/or fps target. Of course texture detail have to scale in a way that makes sense. A crisp cockpit texture is more important than the details on a tank many miles away. But i think that this is universal. I don't see that any player would set "object textures" high, but "cockpit textures" low. So the problem is not the missing options, but the lack of optimization of texture settings and texture handling in teh engine.
In fact this is a massive issue in DCS and i think i've already made threads about it: You basically have to run high textures, because all other settings give really inconsistent results: Even on "medium" select textures look like they are from 1998. It's a lack of care and optimization and not a lack of missing options.

That said, i do not mind having more options. Options are optional i guess, so there is nothing to loose, but i feel we miss the point, if we call for more options. We need ED to revise all texture sizes and i fear that this is a much bigger task.

[Rapierarch]

@twistking Hi,

This is a quick band aid solution that we do not need to wait 5 years for implementation.

[twistking]

2 minutes ago, Rapierarch said:

@twistking Hi,

This is a quick band aid solution that we do not need to wait 5 years for implementation.

Hi,
i see. It does indeed make sense in that regard. I did not consider this aspect for some reason...