investigating Large performance drop in VR after updating to 2.8

[darkman222]

Yeah. Exactly. RTX 4090 didnt last long until the 2.8 killed its performance. I am not complaining about not be able to play on "high" preset. There is just nothing left I can turn off to go back to the previous smooth performance in VR.

Sure, if the "high" preset performs worse after an update, okay. But if the mega "low" preset loses 20 fps thats a no go.

[some1]

4 hours ago, silverdevil said:

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

 

 

What shadows settings do you use? Because these are "default" aka highest quality terrain object shadows. These work as expected, but most people in vr use flat or off.

[exil]

44 minutes ago, darkman222 said:

Yeah. Exactly. RTX 4090 didnt last long until the 2.8 killed its performance. I am not complaining about not be able to play on "high" preset. There is just nothing left I can turn off to go back to the previous smooth performance in VR.

Sure, if the "high" preset performs worse after an update, okay. But if the mega "low" preset loses 20 fps thats a no go.

Well, the sad thing is with 2.7 the 'high' preset works flawless for the first time ever. This is the reason why I updated the card in the first place. 

But yes, you are right. Can't be true that you have to turn everything to low what used to work just because of an update. I mean, it is not like we are getting the follow up game of DCS World. It more or less a bigger update. Not to mention the announced VR improvements that just went south. 

At least, that makes me confident that there is something wrong under the hood and that ED will have a closer look. Otherwise it would be hilarious to announce VR improvements while it's actually the other way around. 

[silverdevil]

1 hour ago, some1 said:

What shadows settings do you use? Because these are "default" aka highest quality terrain object shadows. These work as expected, but most people in vr use flat or off.

i have my shadows set HIGH.

null

[MrShipwreck]

Replying to confirm significant drops in VR performance after updating to 2.8.

In 2.7 I was able to achieve 90 FPS stable at the settings I had implemented; however, when I updated to 2.8 I saw a 30+ FPS average drop. Whereas before I was getting 90 FPS average (85-95 range), in 2.8 with the same settings I was seeing 60 FPS (52-62 range), often dipping below and rarely climbing above (except when looking at something like open, empty sky.)

System: 12900KF, 32 GB DDR5, RTX4090, all NVMe storage, running on a Varjo Aero HMD at 39 PPD through OpenComposite.

I've since had to redo my settings. They are lower overall than they were previously, and still I only see 72 FPS average in game (whereas in 2.7 these settings would have pushed over 100 FPS on my system.)

Edited October 30, 2022 by MrShipwreck

[dutchili]

Are you guys just looking at the fps counter?

I am totally happy from when it displays 36. When i tune down my settings to get more fps, it doesn't improve the perceived fps. I do notice a increase in have performance (locking target, zooming the tgp etc)

When i set the oc settings to 90hz DCs says 45, but I perceive 20. That was at least the case in 2.7

In use oq2 and openxr (not modified), with Intel i7 and rtx3080. Pd at 1.4

36 fps when you in the air.

Game respons is much better now even when fps is at 18 and feels like 18.

[YoYo]

I noticed the same issue after the update.

[Sr.]

8 hours ago, MrShipwreck said:

Replying to confirm significant drops in VR performance after updating to 2.8.

In 2.7 I was able to achieve 90 FPS stable at the settings I had implemented; however, when I updated to 2.8 I saw a 30+ FPS average drop. Whereas before I was getting 90 FPS average (85-95 range), in 2.8 with the same settings I was seeing 60 FPS (52-62 range), often dipping below and rarely climbing above (except when looking at something like open, empty sky.)

System: 12900KF, 32 GB DDR5, RTX4090, all NVMe storage, running on a Varjo Aero HMD at 39 PPD through OpenComposite.

I've since had to redo my settings. They are lower overall than they were previously, and still I only see 72 FPS average in game (whereas in 2.7 these settings would have pushed over 100 FPS on my system.)

 

Yep.

 

I run my G2 at 60Hz, counter shows 61fps 99.9% of the time, so there is rarely enough going on in a map that  causes mine to even dip 1 or 2 ms. Even running high texture settings, full res in OXR. Since switching to 60 last year, I never see a "stutter", even flying inverted through Dubai.

I can even run 90Hz if/when playing NTTC (Nevada) with the same performance.

Last night, I hoped in to the FA-18, F-16 & A10-CII to check performance in Nevada... it was perfect as before until I grew near of anything casting a shadow, then immediately dipped to 47-49,50 fps and the stuttering kicked in.

[YoYo]

Since I have been testing the DCS since yesterday (I changed the CPU a few days ago), I was wondering what was going on, I noticed a drop in FPS as well. My favorite test - the Caucasus, mountains, lots of trees (forest), flying 20-50 meters over the ground and looking sideways 90 degrees to the direction of flight was much worse than on the i9 9900K, and now I have the i9 13900KF. Motion reprojection cant hold stable 45 fps and sutter is present as well. Too bad - but now I know the reason and I can actually confirm it. Something happened to the light / shadows which is causing too much demand for FPS in 2.8. With FPS shadows off and the reprojection back to normal, a stable 45fps with this flight, but previously I had MEDIUM shadows plus terrain object shadows on FLAT ONLY. Now I only have the same FPS like 2.7 on ..... OFF in 2.8. This is a tragedy    

Why does nobody in the DCS beta team fly in VR non-stop? I think there are people who only turn on for a moment (maybe), but it's not a test after all. This patch shouldn't come out like this. In fact, it does not give us much, the clouds are still not corrected and the stairs on clouds are visible in all their glory like one year before in VR.

I dont like it :/.

[slughead]

2 minutes ago, YoYo said:

Since I have been testing the DCS since yesterday (I changed the CPU a few days ago), I was wondering what was going on, I noticed a drop in FPS as well. My favorite test - the Caucasus, mountains, lots of trees (forest), flying 20-50 meters over the ground and looking sideways 90 degrees to the direction of flight was much worse than on the i9 9900K, and now I have the i9 13900KF. Motion reprojection cant hold stable 45 fps and sutter is present as well. Too bad - but now I know the reason and I can actually confirm it. Something happened to the light / shadows which is causing too much demand for FPS in 2.8. With FPS shadows off and the reprojection back to normal, a stable 45fps with this flight, but previously I had MEDIUM shadows plus terrain object shadows on FLAT ONLY. Now I only have the same FPS like 2.7 on ..... OFF in 2.8. This is a tragedy    

Why does nobody in the DCS beta team fly in VR non-stop? I think there are people who only turn on for a moment (maybe), but it's not a test after all. This patch shouldn't come out like this. In fact, it does not give us much, the clouds are still not corrected and the stairs on clouds are visible in all their glory like one year before in VR.

I dont like it :/.

It is a "beta" release. Bugs are to be expected.

[YoYo]

6 minutes ago, slughead said:

It is a "beta" release. Bugs are to be expected.

Sure, but now we can safely talk about a downgrade of DCS. 

[bart]

1 hour ago, YoYo said:

Since I have been testing the DCS since yesterday (I changed the CPU a few days ago), I was wondering what was going on, I noticed a drop in FPS as well. My favorite test - the Caucasus, mountains, lots of trees (forest), flying 20-50 meters over the ground and looking sideways 90 degrees to the direction of flight was much worse than on the i9 9900K, and now I have the i9 13900KF. Motion reprojection cant hold stable 45 fps and sutter is present as well. Too bad - but now I know the reason and I can actually confirm it. Something happened to the light / shadows which is causing too much demand for FPS in 2.8. With FPS shadows off and the reprojection back to normal, a stable 45fps with this flight, but previously I had MEDIUM shadows plus terrain object shadows on FLAT ONLY. Now I only have the same FPS like 2.7 on ..... OFF in 2.8. This is a tragedy    

Why does nobody in the DCS beta team fly in VR non-stop? I think there are people who only turn on for a moment (maybe), but it's not a test after all. This patch shouldn't come out like this. In fact, it does not give us much, the clouds are still not corrected and the stairs on clouds are visible in all their glory like one year before in VR.

I dont like it :/.

I was looking forward to 2.8 but sadly, I have to agree with you here YoYo 100%.

I was on the AO server earlier and the cloud shadows were coming on and going off in an instant like turning a light on/off in a room. Immersion killer to say the least! Prop animations seem off especially in my beloved Mossie, and I can see shadows on the ground underneath the aircraft when looking out the side of the cockpit fuselage! in VR. My GPU temps are also up 10deg from 2.7 on the same settings.

Like you, find it hard to believe that this patch was tested in VR prior to release. I would definitely expect some bugs to slip through the internal testing process on open beta releases, but not this many and not this big.

Edited October 30, 2022 by bart

[Sr.]

43 minutes ago, bart said:

I was looking forward to 2.8 but sadly, I have to agree with you here YoYo 100%.

I was on the AO server earlier and the cloud shadows were coming on and going off in an instant like turning a light on/off in a room. Immersion killer to say the least! Prop animations seem off especially in my beloved Mossie, and I can see shadows on the ground underneath the aircraft when looking out the side of the cockpit fuselage! in VR. My GPU temps are also up 10deg from 2.7 on the same settings.

Like you, find it hard to believe that this patch was tested in VR prior to release. I would definitely expect some bugs to slip through the internal testing process on open beta releases, but not this many and not this big.

 

Noticed this as well.

[heroe]

On 10/28/2022 at 4:33 PM, some1 said:

This is Hornet Ready on the ramp instant action mission in 2.8, with RTX4090, Ryzen 5800X3D and Reverb G2. 

This is the same spot in 2.7 I made a week ago an posted on the forums, using the same hardware and settings:

 

Compared to 2.7, the GPU frametime went up by roughly 10%. CPU frametime went up by roughly 30%. Yay.

Notice the different look of shadows in 2.8. In 2.7 I used terrain object shadows set to "flat". Terrain object shadows options "flat" and "off" do not work correctly in 2.8, which may be the reason for the performance impact. See: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/311147-strange-behaviour-of-shadows-on-28/#comment-5074052

 

Without VR the problem is also there, and yes, surely the problem is that the flat shadows of the terrain no longer work as flat, all the scenarios decreased their FPS and I'm sure it's because my flat shadows are no longer there, I hope they fix it soon this.

[TEMPEST.114]

On 10/29/2022 at 5:09 PM, silverdevil said:

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

You don't have a signature...

[TAW_Impalor]

Didn't you guys see the new FOV setting? Just dial it down to 10%! /s

[slughead]

17 minutes ago, TAW_Impalor said:

Didn't you guys see the new FOV setting? Just dial it down to 10%! /s

Why? How is that going to affect performance inside the cockpit when the new control is "external field of view"?

[TEMPEST.114]

1 minute ago, slughead said:

Why? How is that going to affect performance inside the cockpit when the new control is "external field of view"?

the '/s' on their post indicated sarcasm. 

It was a pointless waste of everyone's time.

 

[MrShipwreck]

11 hours ago, Sr. said:

Yep.

 

I run my G2 at 60Hz, counter shows 61fps 99.9% of the time, so there is rarely enough going on in a map that  causes mine to even dip 1 or 2 ms. Even running high texture settings, full res in OXR. Since switching to 60 last year, I never see a "stutter", even flying inverted through Dubai.

I can even run 90Hz if/when playing NTTC (Nevada) with the same performance.

Last night, I hoped in to the FA-18, F-16 & A10-CII to check performance in Nevada... it was perfect as before until I grew near of anything casting a shadow, then immediately dipped to 47-49,50 fps and the stuttering kicked in.

 

The Aero runs at 90 Hz, and so I capped my output at 90 FPS via OXR Toolkit in 2.7. With high settings basically across the board (with the exception of clouds, which I couldn't care less about and that chew up performance, but even still had set to normal.) Those settings were essentially solid at 90, with excursions above and below that were well within acceptable range and still quite enough for play matching refresh rate without issues. Tested in the F-16C on Caucasus ready-on-ramp and in free flight (and through numerous training flights and the like.)

 

With the update, I didn't change a thing. Loaded up the F-16C free flight module mission over Caucasus and it's 62 FPS right off the bat, dropping considerably when I look at clouds (into the low 40's!) Even with shadows off and clouds at low. When the clouds are out of the picture it will climb up to 72 FPS, but generally gets no higher. The settings I have to use just to achieve those numbers are worse, overall, than the settings I had in 2.7. Not sure what ED is talking about when they try to suggest they made VR optimizations, because they most certainly did not; especially when it comes to the 'new' clouds, which chew up about 30 frames on their own when set to high, yet still look like a pixelated mess. Or perhaps they thought they did, but then never bothered to actually test it, because just 10 seconds in game with a VR headset on would've shown the tester that whatever changes were made had a major negative impact on performance.

 

I've since decided to downgrade back to 2.7 and forego any multiplayer, for the simple fact that the performance hit is so egregious. 60 FPS doesn't sound bad on paper, but when taken against the refresh rate of 90 Hz on the HMD it creates problems like stuttering, doubling, and smearing when moving the head from side to side. It's also problematic when the FPS are that low to start because they take such a dramatic hit now under certain circumstances.. Like any time I look at a cloud.

 

Considering the raw horsepower of my system, those numbers are crazy bad. I get that it's a beta, and things are bound to go wrong, but this feels like it wasn't tested at all. One step forward, two steps back.

Edited October 31, 2022 by MrShipwreck

[Dangerzone]

8 hours ago, slughead said:

It is a "beta" release. Bugs are to be expected.

I would normally be the first one to agree with you regarding this in the past as it's most obvious, and have said it many times before myself.

However this no longer applies because now ED are actively recommending that multiplayer users use Open Beta as opposed to Stable Release! (This is on ED's own website). 

As such - the OB release really should be at least fit for purpose of ED's own recommendations (Multiplayer), and it's obviously not at the moment. 

[zildac]

 
The Aero runs at 90 Hz, and so I capped my output at 90 FPS via OXR Toolkit in 2.7. With high settings basically across the board (with the exception of clouds, which I couldn't care less about and that chew up performance, but even still had set to normal.) Those settings were essentially solid at 90, with excursions above and below that were well within acceptable range and still quite enough for play matching refresh rate without issues. Tested in the F-16C on Caucasus ready-on-ramp and in free flight (and through numerous training flights and the like.)
 
With the update, I didn't change a thing. Loaded up the F-16C free flight module mission over Caucasus and it's 62 FPS right off the bat, dropping considerably when I look at clouds (into the low 40's!) Even with shadows off and clouds at low. It climbs, when clouds are out of the picture, up to 72 but generally gets no higher. The settings I have to use just to achieve those numbers are worse, overall, than the settings I had in 2.7. Not sure what ED is talking about when they try to suggest they made VR optimizations, because they most certainly did not; especially when it comes to the 'new' clouds, which chew up about 30 frames on their own when set to high, yet still look like a pixelated mess. Or perhaps they thought they did, but then never bothered to actually test it, because just 10 seconds in game with a VR headset on would've shown the tester that whatever changes were made had a major negative impact on performance.
 
I've since decided to downgrade back to 2.7 and forego any multiplayer, for the simple fact that the performance hit is so egregious. 60 FPS doesn't sound bad on paper, but when taken against the refresh rate of 90 Hz on the HMD it creates problems like stuttering, doubling, and smearing when moving the head from side to side. It's also problematic when the FPS are that low to start because they take such a dramatic hit now under certain circumstances.. Like any time I look at a cloud.
 
Considering the raw horsepower of my system, those numbers are crazy bad. I get that it's a beta, and things are bound to go wrong, but this feels like it wasn't tested at all. One step forward, two steps back.

You've just summed up my weekend, and thoughts. Who TF tested this in VR?!

[Jenson]

I experienced the same issue, huge fps drop (from 60 to 45) after upgrading 2.8. Personally, I wouldn't trade a 20-25% fps drop for a nicer / dymanic weather etc. 2.7 works just fine for me. Thinking to roll back to 2.7 stable version now. 

I understand ED is trying their best to improve players experience in every update they release, but just want to add this feedback to bring more attention. Please fix this issue so the game is at least playable, thank you! 

 

[Wizard1393]

Just chiming in on the performance drop of 2.8, it's horrible compared to 2.7.

[Ready]

Yeah it is bad.

I just experienced a DCS easter egg for Halloween, heard funky spooky zombie noises while doing a cold and dark start in the hog.

It would have been a nicer surprise if some of these bugs would have been ironed out.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Ready

[Dangerzone]

4 hours ago, Wizard1393 said:

Just chiming in on the performance drop of 2.8, it's horrible compared to 2.7.

Are you running shadows? If you turn them off is there a significant improvement (to being better than 2.7)?