investigating Large performance drop in VR after updating to 2.8

[durp]

It might be also worth looking at this:
 

same display issue on my end but I did not had soft shadows turned on (I don't recall the name of that setting, but I had just a sharp plane outline as shadow)

Now also my shadows are rendered with an soft edge. I was not able to use higher quality shadows in 2.7 and it might be that those are now on with 'flat shadows' and hence tank the performance. 

[some1]

7 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

On this video test, by @ismaeljorda, the performance drop does not seem very significant:

 

 

Even on the thumbnail you can see 10% increase in gpu frame times, cpu frame times went up from 10.5 to 13 (more than 25٪) and his fps dropped by 8 or 15, depending on if you look at momentary or average fps. How's that an insignificant drop? 

 

 

 

Edited October 29, 2022 by some1

[Rudel_chw]

2 hours ago, some1 said:

How's that an insignificant drop?

nice, changing my words  … to put it another way, how’s that a LARGE drop? 

[Eviscerador]

On 10/29/2022 at 10:53 AM, Rudel_chw said:

nice, changing my words  … to put it another way, how’s that a LARGE drop? 

Because you are talking about the best rig possibe to play DCS, with power to spare. In an average rig drops are more noticeable. They messed up something, like how 2.5.6 messed up lighting for months.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Eviscerador

[Mud]

My first impression is that the impact on FPS from the clouds is less than it used to be, but something else is more taxing, especially when on the ground.

[PLUTON]

I went through this file and realized that with a simple 2080 and an i7/7700k I get between 55&60 fps in VR on all my cards except the Caucasus where I lost about 5 fps? Which for me remains playable and relatively smooth.
Ha yes what I also lost was this slight stutter that I had when I looked at the ground on the side of the cockpit, in addition the clouds in 2.8 are of better quality than in 2.7.
For me, I haven't lost anything between 2.7 and 2.8 in terms of performance.
I have gained in quality which suits me.
Now I'm wondering if I should go with a 3090/4090 or keep my 2080.

[zildac]

Show of hands... how many here are running a 4090? 

I am, as per OP 86fps is now 60fps....

[Geoman]

[TR 1950X, 64GB RAM, RTX3090, DCS installed on m2-SSD, HP Reverb G2, Thrustmaster Hotas, Win 10 latest, GFX-settinings: VR]

Until now version 2.7 ran flawlessly on my rather outdated rig.

After updating to version 2.8, an otherwise fast rendering "2 minute fun ride of river run challenge" ends in heavy stuttering, with even the windows desktop included with massive CPU utilization spikes.

UPDATE: I let "DCS-Update-Witching-Utility.exe" witch everything, and let "DCS Updater Utility.exe" repair, clean and update. The fps-drops are gone, the simulation runs fast again without any lagging.

UPDATE2: The same symptoms re-occurred, only 20 later minutes into the simulation. Therefore I tried the stable 2.7 version. Here I got the heavy lagging and stuttering like in 2.8 !! So I reverted the to "522.25-desktop-win10-win11-64bit-international-dch-whql.exe" which is the NVIDIA driver version right before the latest version (526.47). With this older driver I did a "river run challenge" and a "case 1 recovery" without any issues. So maybe the graphics driver is also an issue or even the main culprit...

UPDATE3: Close, but no cigar. The stuttering came right back 1h after play. So I did a complete reinstall of Windows 10, this finally solved the problem. After 4h of testing no such problems. NVIDIA-Driver-Version: 512.15 (came right over Windows-Update)

Edited November 3, 2022 by Geoman
update3

[some1]

5 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

nice, changing my words  … to put it another way, how’s that a LARGE drop? 

25% drop in cpu performance is larger than what we gained in the last three cpu generations from Intel and AMD. In other words, we would need several years of hardware development to close the gap that ED manged to introduce with a single patch. 

I hope it's just the bugged shadows that cause current performance issues. 

[darkman222]

23 minutes ago, some1 said:

25% drop in cpu performance is larger than what we gained in the last three cpu generations from Intel and AMD. In other words, we would need several years of hardware development to close the gap that ED manged to introduce with a single patch. 

I hope it's just the bugged shadows that cause current performance issues. 

Yep. This is what I am really worried about. Just updated my PC a few weeks ago for a smooth running 2.7. Which was busted with one single update.

Edited October 29, 2022 by darkman222

[XCNuse]

14 minutes ago, darkman222 said:

Yep. This is what I am really worried about. Just updated my PC a few weeks ago for a smooth running 2.7. Which was busted with one single update.

I was hesitant to update; but actually had just done adjustments to my graphics settings not two weeks ago and was able to get a baseline.

I am 2D, and on an older Nvidia driver than most people like to be on (ie... not... the latest).

I am seeing performance dips in some rare places (extreme external view zoom ins across maps that always really hurt FPS); however general cockpit FOV and view? After resetting FXO and Metashaders and doing a repair after updating, I am not seeing any performance hits.

[zildac]

I was hesitant to update; but actually had just done adjustments to my graphics settings not two weeks ago and was able to get a baseline.
I am 2D, and on an older Nvidia driver than most people like to be on (ie... not... the latest).
I am seeing performance dips in some rare places (extreme external view zoom ins across maps that always really hurt FPS); however general cockpit FOV and view? After resetting FXO and Metashaders and doing a repair after updating, I am not seeing any performance hits.

You're one of the lucky ones in that case

[XCNuse]

Seems to be so.

So I guess as a going reminder to anyone and everyone; please share the important details of things like knowing FXO and Metashaders were indeed reset, what GPU you're using, what GPU Drivers you're on, etc.

 

I hope these don't embed but if anyone's curious to see some of my comparisons; note the very drastic visual difference in the zoomed in view looking at downtown Nevada; that is the one also that has the very dramatic FPS hit.

 

I have DCS frame limited to 80FPS for anyone curious about that; running a EVGA 3070XC3 and on 522.25; and I do not seem to have the shadow bug for the record.

Which is what I hope people are able to figure out today is why some people are getting the shadow bug, and others like myself are not; because I'm very much inclined to believe it's a GPU and driver issue; ignoring that ED has a fix for now; as we won't see it for some time.

 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[zildac]

9 minutes ago, XCNuse said:

Seems to be so.

So I guess as a going reminder to anyone and everyone; please share the important details of things like knowing FXO and Metashaders were indeed reset, what GPU you're using, what GPU Drivers you're on, etc.

 

I hope these don't embed but if anyone's curious to see some of my comparisons; note the very drastic visual difference in the zoomed in view looking at downtown Nevada; that is the one also that has the very dramatic FPS hit.

 

I have DCS frame limited to 80FPS for anyone curious about that; running a EVGA 3070XC3 and on 522.25; and I do not seem to have the shadow bug for the record.

Which is what I hope people are able to figure out today is why some people are getting the shadow bug, and others like myself are not; because I'm very much inclined to believe it's a GPU and driver issue; ignoring that ED has a fix for now; as we won't see it for some time.

 

  Hide contents

 

  Hide contents

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Specs are in my sig. Re driver there are only a choice of two for the 4090 the issue happened on both the previous and current version of the Nvidia driver. The only difference is 2.7 VS 2.8 so unless they are relying on something specific in an Nvidia driver I can't see how it's a driver bug.

[some1]

26 minutes ago, XCNuse said:

 

I have DCS frame limited to 80FPS for anyone curious about that; running a EVGA 3070XC3 and on 522.25; and I do not seem to have the shadow bug for the record.

Which is what I hope people are able to figure out today is why some people are getting the shadow bug, and others like myself are not; because I'm very much inclined to believe it's a GPU and driver issue; ignoring that ED has a fix for now; as we won't see it for some time.

You have the same shadows bug that everyone else. Note that the shadows in your 2.8 screenshots are smoother, while the 2.7 shadows are jagged. You've also lost the shadows under distant vehicles. The weird shadow glitches mostly appear at certain angles with terrain object shadows set to OFF, and you seem to have them set to FLAT?

Posting 80 fps screenshot when your fps is locked to 80 in both cases is completely meaningless.

 

[TEMPEST.114]

16 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

I understand ... just was trying to bring perspective .. the thread title suggest a large decrease in performance .. to me that brings to mind something very different from a 10% drop.

What part of DEPENDS ON THE RIG isn't connecting with you?

[=37.Sqn= Mjugen]

Ignore Rudel chw, he is disturbed individual.

Edited October 29, 2022 by =37.Sqn= Mjugen

[silverdevil]

Specs are in my sig. nvidia driver 516.94 (old; afraid to update). shadows seem okay to me. coming up to sunset in allepo.

[XCNuse]

40 minutes ago, some1 said:

You have the same shadows bug that everyone else. Note that the shadows in your 2.8 screenshots are smoother, while the 2.7 shadows are jagged. You've also lost the shadows under distant vehicles. The weird shadow glitches mostly appear at certain angles with terrain object shadows set to OFF, and you seem to have them set to FLAT?

Posting 80 fps screenshot when your fps is locked to 80 in both cases is completely meaningless.

One of those is 80FPS, and was clarifying why they were both 80 FPS; but you can still see a difference in CPU and GPU timings; and visual differences in color etc. otherwise I'm aware it's not entirely beneficial, that's why others were shared.

 

As said; I've noticed a very different appearance in the shadows; they're very high resolution compared to what they were, and yes; draw distance is... perhaps something like 1/4 what they used to be? roughly?

Beyond that; I'm too afraid to touch my shadow setting and watch it break and get shadows on top of things lol; but as it stands; I'm certainly not getting shadows on top of objects, which to me is the real bug; not the draw distance.

[TEMPEST.114]

Okay, after extensive testing here's my results:

1. In settings on the LEFT Column, if I turn SHADOWS and SECONDARY SHADOWS to OFF (where in 2.7 I had them FLAT ONLY / ON respectively) then I get about 12-15 fps back.

This has NOTHING to do with the RIGHT column and the 'TERRAIN OBJECTS SHADOWS' which have always been 'FLAT'.

 

2. Turning off SSAA/SSLR/SSAO now give me about 3-5 more FPS, whereas on 2.7 I had them on 1.5 / ON / ON respectively.

 

3. I have kept 'COCKPIT GLOBAL ILLUMINATION' ON in all tests because I'm not letting that go.

 

I believe that ALL SHADOWS in the new lighting engine are the culprits for the massive FPS drop we've seen many of us having. Of course newer rigs or supercomputers have a minor drop, but we can't all afford $6000 every few years on a PC just for DCS.

It's about time that the new engine/Vulkan stuff came out... My multicore CPU is wasted here, even if it is an i7 overclocked to a stable 5.0Ghz with 64GB DDR4 ram.

 

I hope that a patch will address the shadow issues AND NOT JUST FOR TERRAIN OBJECT SHADOWS but for all of them @BIGNEWY?

[Steel Jaw]

Not for the last time I say it:  ED doesn’t have enough internal testers…again I offer my own help to test in VR and 2d.

[TEMPEST.114]

34 minutes ago, Steel Jaw said:

Not for the last time I say it:  ED doesn’t have enough internal testers…again I offer my own help to test in VR and 2d.

Me too

 

[fagulha]

56 minutes ago, Elphaba said:

 

 

I believe that ALL SHADOWS in the new lighting engine are the culprits for the massive FPS drop we've seen many of us having.

Indeed, i set Shadows to OFF and got back around +15 fps in VR and lower frametime, smooth. Usually i have them set to Flat with no FPS issues.

[Pasquale1986]

13 hours ago, durp said:

It might be also worth looking at this:
 

same display issue on my end but I did not had soft shadows turned on (I don't recall the name of that setting, but I had just a sharp plane outline as shadow)

Now also my shadows are rendered with an soft edge. I was not able to use higher quality shadows in 2.7 and it might be that those are now on with 'flat shadows' and hence tank the performance. 

That happens, when you have shadows on but terrain shadows off - gave me some headaches as well today

[exil]

1 hour ago, Elphaba said:

Okay, after extensive testing here's my results:

1. In settings on the LEFT Column, if I turn SHADOWS and SECONDARY SHADOWS to OFF (where in 2.7 I had them FLAT ONLY / ON respectively) then I get about 12-15 fps back.

This has NOTHING to do with the RIGHT column and the 'TERRAIN OBJECTS SHADOWS' which have always been 'FLAT'.

 

2. Turning off SSAA/SSLR/SSAO now give me about 3-5 more FPS, whereas on 2.7 I had them on 1.5 / ON / ON respectively.

 

3. I have kept 'COCKPIT GLOBAL ILLUMINATION' ON in all tests because I'm not letting that go.

 

I believe that ALL SHADOWS in the new lighting engine are the culprits for the massive FPS drop we've seen many of us having. Of course newer rigs or supercomputers have a minor drop, but we can't all afford $6000 every few years on a PC just for DCS.

It's about time that the new engine/Vulkan stuff came out... My multicore CPU is wasted here, even if it is an i7 overclocked to a stable 5.0Ghz with 64GB DDR4 ram.

 

I hope that a patch will address the shadow issues AND NOT JUST FOR TERRAIN OBJECT SHADOWS but for all of them @BIGNEWY?

Wow! New/different shadows for the price of 15!FPS!

Haven't updated yet and I fear I won't until this is addressed. 

I hope ED will have a close look at it and not only stating that this is it somehow. 

Can't be true and I am really getting tired of spending money just to keep good visuals in DCS alive. I just (today) put in my 4090 with good hopes that this will be the last upgrade for a longer time period. Seems that wish lasted exactly one day...