DCS VR Performance Optimization

[Ready]

Set DCS's max FPS to Headset Refresh Rate

When I set DCS's Max FPS above refresh rate my 1% and .02% are reduced. Setting Max FPS to 90 (Aero=90Hz) is the best setting for me.

Edited February 8 by Ready

[Phantom711]

@Ready

And that is for which refresh rate? 72? 80?

[Ready]

1 hour ago, Phantom711 said:

@Ready

And that is for which refresh rate? 72? 80?

The Aero's Refresh Rate is 90Hz

Edited February 8 by Ready

[motoadve]

8 minutes ago, Ready said:

I have my Aero set to 90Hz, it could also be set to 75Hz. 

How can you set your Aero to 75Hz? I have had an Aero for 2 years and did not know that.

 

[Ready]

Run all DCS + VR apps as administrator

I changed all the DCS related apps I use (Varjo, OBS, DCS, OpenKneeboard) to 'run as administrator' by creating shortcuts and editing it in there. This way I assure that all parts get whatever they need. I think it slightly improved the stability and performance of DCS and OBS, especially the .02% seems to have improved.

Set Graphics Performance Preference to High Performance

I added OBS, VarjoBase, Varjo Process Server and Varjo Compositor and set them to 'High Performance'. Not sure if it makes any difference, but just to be sure.

1 minute ago, motoadve said:

How can you set your Aero to 75Hz? I have had an Aero for 2 years and did not know that.

 

Yes you are right. I checked. It can only be 90Hz. Thanks

[Panzerlang]

1 hour ago, Ready said:

Set DCS's max FPS to Headset Refresh Rate

When I set DCS's Max FPS above refresh rate my 1% and .02% are reduced. Setting Max FPS to 90 (Aero=90Hz) is the best setting for me.

I've tried various ways of capping the FPS, including this one you mention but they all degrade performance. My assumption is that any form of capping requires CPU work and as there are two cores already maxed out by DCS it leads to more overload. Kind of like trying to restrain a powerful dog on a leash, best thing is to unleash it (go drown in a fkin' lake or something ). 

[Ready]

17 minutes ago, Panzerlang said:

I've tried various ways of capping the FPS, including this one you mention but they all degrade performance. My assumption is that any form of capping requires CPU work and as there are two cores already maxed out by DCS it leads to more overload. Kind of like trying to restrain a powerful dog on a leash, best thing is to unleash it (go drown in a fkin' lake or something ). 

For me it seems to work the opposite from you. If I let it loose, I see big FPS dips (to 60-70) sometimes. When I cap fps, the dips mostly stay gone.

I am considering reducing the max FPS to 85, to keep some headroom when I play on our busy server. Will tinker with it next time we have a flight night.

Another strange and possibly related thing I saw last December was when I adjusted the DCS graphics options to stay just below 90, like 87-88: the fps seemed to be more stable than when I reduced settings to get my fps up at 90. Somehow it seems that a limit is hit somewhere and this limit causes overloads/delays and dips. Unclear what is the cause of this. I have reinstalled W10 since and not tested this again. Will do so soon.

 

Edited February 8 by Ready

[actually_fred]

3 hours ago, Ready said:

I changed all the DCS related apps I use (Varjo, OBS, DCS, OpenKneeboard) to 'run as administrator'

Running things as administrator is a *really* bad idea, and can *create* issues that can only practically be fixed by re-installing windows (or chasing down a lot of undocumented filesystem locations and registry keys), as it can change things that should be owned by your user to require administrator permissions.

It also puts your system security at severe risk when joining multi-player servers.

It can help with OBS specifically because OBS contains explicit code to try and get high priority on the GPU, which requires administrator; running *everything* as administrator will not have the same effect as:

- most software does not contain the code that attempts to use the only-available-to-administrator high GPU priority

- even if it did, if everything has priority, effectively nothing does

- it always takes away from *somewhere* - when you run OBS as administrator and it uses that to give itself higher GPU priority, this is taking away GPU resources from other things, including DCS

Edited February 8 by actually_fred

[sigfan86]

14 minutes ago, actually_fred said:

Running things as administrator is a *really* bad idea, and can *create* issues that can only practically be fixed by re-installing windows (or chasing down a lot of undocumented filesystem locations and registry keys), as it can change things that should be owned by your user to require administrator permissions.

It also puts your system security at severe risk when joining multi-player servers.

It can help with OBS specifically because OBS contains explicit code to try and get high priority on the GPU, which requires administrator; running *everything* as administrator will not have the same effect as:

- most software does not contain the code that attempts to use the only-available-to-administrator high GPU priority

- even if it did, if everything has priority, effectively nothing does

- it always takes away from *somewhere* - when you run OBS as administrator and it uses that to give itself higher GPU priority, this is taking away GPU resources from other things, including DCS

Agreed. I remember an old computer programmer at my company once said, brute forcing via "admin mode" to get something to work is like raw dogging it with the town tramp. Youll feel the burn later when you least expect it.

[Ready]

6 hours ago, actually_fred said:

Running things as administrator is a *really* bad idea, and can *create* issues that can only practically be fixed by re-installing windows (or chasing down a lot of undocumented filesystem locations and registry keys), as it can change things that should be owned by your user to require administrator permissions.

It also puts your system security at severe risk when joining multi-player servers.

It can help with OBS specifically because OBS contains explicit code to try and get high priority on the GPU, which requires administrator; running *everything* as administrator will not have the same effect as:

- most software does not contain the code that attempts to use the only-available-to-administrator high GPU priority

- even if it did, if everything has priority, effectively nothing does

- it always takes away from *somewhere* - when you run OBS as administrator and it uses that to give itself higher GPU priority, this is taking away GPU resources from other things, including DCS

Thanks for pointing it out and explaining.

Changing authorizations for the handful of DCS VR related things seem to have improved my performance. I don't yet know exactly what caused the improvement and I check and reduce the rights that have no effect. I was not aware of running risks when joining MP servers. I normally disable Defender when playing and enable it again after disconnecting. But if I understand correctly this could expose my pc to additional risk. Will look into it further.

Edited February 8 by Ready

[Ready]

OBS Adjustments

Changed a bunch of OBS settings to further calm down its CPU/GPU consumption. Not sure if all of them have any effect, but the combined results are positive.

1. Updated OBS to latest version
2. Added OBS to Windows Graphics Settings | High Performance
3. Excluded OBS from Windows Defender
4. Changed OBS settings in Nvidia Control Panel
   1. Anti-Aliasing: Off
   2. Low Latency Mode: Ultra
   3. Power Management Mode: Prefer Maximum Performance
5. Changed some settings for OBS in Process Lasso 
   1. CPU Affinity: Core 0,1,2 (away from DCS)
   2. I/O Priority: Normal (might change it to High in the future)
   3. CPU Priority: Normal (might increase it in the future)
6. OBS Encoding (have to check the visual quality after a couple of recordings)
   1. Video Encoder: changed from NVENC HEVC(H.265) > NVENC H.264 (less CPU consumption)
   2. Rate Control: Changed Bitrate from Variable > Constant
   3. Preset: P5 Slow (Good Quality)
   4. Tuning: Low Latency
   5. Multipass Mode: Single Pass
   6. Profile: High
   7. Look-Ahead: Disabled
   8. Adaptive Quantization: Enabled
   9. B-Frames: 2
   10. Bitrate: reduced to 25.000Kbps (for 2k, in accordance with Youtube Guidelines)
7. Preview when flying: Disabled
8. Replay Buffer: Disabled
9. Aligned Audio Bitrate of all audio tracks (320)
10. Improved Microphone audio quality and volume by adding and adjusting some filters
    1. Gain
    2. Noise suppression
    3. 3-Band Equalizer
    4. Expander
    5. Compressor
    6. Limiter

Improved Microphone quality 

Added a couple more VB-Audio Cables and added one as Monitoring Device from within OBS. This way all the Filters that have been applied to my microphone in OBS also apply to SRS and Discord, hopefully improving quality and volume of the mic.

Winhance (new tool to Keep Windows debloated and optimized) Thanks @Reed for sharing.

There are quite some interesting things in there. I am too scared to let this tool do all the registry editing for my W10 since it is mostly made for W11 and I don't know what it is doing exactly. The creator mentions that in W10 it has some issues. I like the idea of adding the scheduler to keep things out. It seems to be a great app, but is a bit rough still when you can only switch on a long list of settings or switch them all off. Would be great if inside the categories you can just select the ones you want, so you can test their impact in a more controlled manner. Now you have to enable all or none, which worries me a bit. So I put some of the things on my list to check out.