There's a lua settings tweak to increase performance if you're currently CPU bottlenecked.

[MoleUK]

I posted this up on hoggit a few days back, figured I'd slap it up here for anyone fortunate enough to not use social media.

This is a bruteforce method that will reduce the draw distance of all planes / ground vehicles etc, so keep that trade-off in mind.

Open your graphics.lua file in the DCS config folder, find the line with all the values for your current view distance setting (low, medium, high etc), these values start on line 177. Find the "objects = {3000, 80000}" line for your current view distance setting, and alter the second value down from 80000 to your desired distance. I'd suggest starting at 60000 and see how it goes.

This sets the distance in metres at which all ground/air vehicles start getting calculcations done for them, in the direction you're facing in a wide arc. Hence why looking in certain directions on busy servers can tank your frames despite nothing apparant being visible, as the CPU is choking on all those distant objects.

Changing in-game settings never alters this value, so you have to do it in the .lua and probably re-apply it after each patch.

You can drop it a lot more aggressively if you're doing rotor gameplay or you have a particularly old CPU, drop it far enough and spotting can become a problem however.

If you're on VR or generally struggle with shadows performance currently, you may see a greater improvement.

[schurem]

Nice! ta mate!

[KCOOL]

Thank you! I will try this,

[jnr4817]

What’s recommended for rotorwing only in vr? 25000???

[MoleUK]

5 hours ago, jnr4817 said:

What’s recommended for rotorwing only in vr? 25000???

One user set it to 30000 for helo gameplay and said he didn't notice any negatives, so maybe start there and work your way up if there are problems.

[VirusAM]

16 hours ago, MoleUK said:

I posted this up on hoggit a few days back, figured I'd slap it up here for anyone fortunate enough to not use social media.

This is a bruteforce method that will reduce the draw distance of all planes / ground vehicles etc, so keep that trade-off in mind.

Open your graphics.lua file in the DCS config folder, find the line with all the values for your current view distance setting (low, medium, high etc), these values start on line 177. Find the "objects = {3000, 80000}" line for your current view distance setting, and alter the second value down from 80000 to your desired distance. I'd suggest starting at 60000 and see how it goes.

This sets the distance in metres at which all ground/air vehicles start getting calculcations done for them, in the direction you're facing in a wide arc. Hence why looking in certain directions on busy servers can tank your frames despite nothing apparant being visible, as the CPU is choking on all those distant objects.

Changing in-game settings never alters this value, so you have to do it in the .lua and probably re-apply it after each patch.

You can drop it a lot more aggressively if you're doing rotor gameplay or you have a particularly old CPU, drop it far enough and spotting can become a problem however.

If you're on VR or generally struggle with shadows performance currently, you may see a greater improvement.

Do this alter  also the Targeting Pods visibility?Right now there is a sort of wall at 40nm if I recall correcty which are about 80km.

[MoleUK]

10 minutes ago, VirusAM said:

Do this alter  also the Targeting Pods visibility?Right now there is a sort of wall at 40nm if I recall correcty which are about 80km.

Yup, it's effectively the universal draw distance for objects. So if you fly modern modules more regularly at the limits of the tpod etc, you may not want to reduce it. Or you may want to reduce it less agressively, say to 60km.

If you're flying cold war modules or helo's you've got a lot more room to be agressive in reducing the distance overall.

Because it's the draw distance for the entire direction you're facing, even reducing it by 10km might still free up some CPU overhead, as it's quite a wide arc. Don't know if it's the full 180 degrees, haven't done enough testing there to say for certain.

As an aside, I don't know whether the shadows are still being drawn for these objects even after reducing the object draw distance. I've seen one user report they're still being drawn, even before the objects pop in, which is really unfortunate if accurate.

Having a seperate draw distance setting we could alter for shadows could be a huge performance increase tool if that is the case.

Edited February 28, 2023 by MoleUK

[MoleUK]

If anyone does find a way to alter the draw distance for shadows, please let me know. I've been tinkering around in the lua and shader files but have yet to find anything. Only found one old line that says it no longer does anything.

[SkateZilla]

you know you can add this to autoexec.cfg in your /Saved Games/DCS/Config/ Folder?

graphics.options.objects = {3000, 80000}

[MoleUK]

6 minutes ago, SkateZilla said:

you know you can add this to autoexec.cfg in your /Saved Games/DCS/Config/ Folder?

graphics.options.objects = {3000, 80000}

Good to know. I like to do it manually for whatever reason. Not currently using a reduced range as the server im mostly playing on atm performs bizarrely well in VR (like, really shockingly well. Shadows high 120 FPS with repro), but may go back down to 60k when playing elsewhere so may set that up cheers.

I'll keep looking for any way to tweak the shadows for better performance, but I suspect any changes would be at the shader level which might break IC. A seperate draw distance slider for both objects and shadows would be tremenously useful, particularly if you could alter them while playing in-game as with tree distance etc.

Edited February 28, 2023 by MoleUK

[SkateZilla]

58 minutes ago, MoleUK said:

Good to know. I like to do it manually for whatever reason. Not currently using a reduced range as the server im mostly playing on atm performs bizarrely well in VR (like, really shockingly well. Shadows high 120 FPS with repro), but may go back down to 60k when playing elsewhere so may set that up cheers.

I'll keep looking for any way to tweak the shadows for better performance, but I suspect any changes would be at the shader level which might break IC. A seperate draw distance slider for both objects and shadows would be tremenously useful, particularly if you could alter them while playing in-game as with tree distance etc.

 

Every patch it will reset it back, having it in the autoexec.cfg will retain it after every update/clean/repair.

[MoleUK]

3 hours ago, SkateZilla said:

Every patch it will reset it back, having it in the autoexec.cfg will retain it after every update/clean/repair.

Yeah i'm just constantly tinkering with stuff atm so sticking to manually doing it for now lol. Crossing all my fingers in hope that tomorrows patch makes some of these kinds of tricks unnecessary.

Just fixing the object buildup problem would be a biggie for me, let alone MT etc. As that object buildup seems to be slowly stealing all my CPU time on my favorite server, and reducing the object draw distance unfortunately can't fix all of that.

Edited February 28, 2023 by MoleUK

[motoadve]

12 hours ago, SkateZilla said:

you know you can add this to autoexec.cfg in your /Saved Games/DCS/Config/ Folder?

graphics.options.objects = {3000, 80000}

I tried this, and  reduced to 60000 but did not see any changes, I tried it in a instant mission though, is it only for MP?

 

I9 10900K , 4090, Varjo Aero VR

[SkateZilla]

7 minutes ago, motoadve said:

I tried this, and  reduced to 60000 but did not see any changes, I tried it in a instant mission though, is it only for MP?

 

I9 10900K , 4090, Varjo Aero VR

the syntax might be wrong, I'll have to check it when I'm at home.

[motoadve]

This is my autoexec file.

 

null

 

 

[motoadve]

On 2/27/2023 at 10:05 AM, MoleUK said:

I posted this up on hoggit a few days back, figured I'd slap it up here for anyone fortunate enough to not use social media.

This is a bruteforce method that will reduce the draw distance of all planes / ground vehicles etc, so keep that trade-off in mind.

Open your graphics.lua file in the DCS config folder, find the line with all the values for your current view distance setting (low, medium, high etc), these values start on line 177. Find the "objects = {3000, 80000}" line for your current view distance setting, and alter the second value down from 80000 to your desired distance. I'd suggest starting at 60000 and see how it goes.

This sets the distance in metres at which all ground/air vehicles start getting calculcations done for them, in the direction you're facing in a wide arc. Hence why looking in certain directions on busy servers can tank your frames despite nothing apparant being visible, as the CPU is choking on all those distant objects.

Changing in-game settings never alters this value, so you have to do it in the .lua and probably re-apply it after each patch.

You can drop it a lot more aggressively if you're doing rotor gameplay or you have a particularly old CPU, drop it far enough and spotting can become a problem however.

If you're on VR or generally struggle with shadows performance currently, you may see a greater improvement.

Does this work for MP and SP?

Edited March 2, 2023 by motoadve

[MoleUK]

1 hour ago, motoadve said:

Does this work for MP and SP?

 

Yep, doesn't break IC or pure textures.

[motoadve]

2 hours ago, motoadve said:

I tried doing this but Windows wont give me the option to open the file as admin.

So I make the change and cannot save it.

I think it works, just did a mission in Project Overlord and performance was not bad at all.

[crazyeddie]

This seems to work fine, I get a few intermittent lags on some really heavily populated airfields as I pan into the dense areas, and this reduces that a lot.  Might take it down a bit more yet to see how it works out.

[jnr4817]

Set mine to 30k. No issues, but I’m a helo only guy. 

[SPAS79]

On 2/28/2023 at 12:11 PM, MoleUK said:

Good to know. I like to do it manually for whatever reason. Not currently using a reduced range as the server im mostly playing on atm performs bizarrely well in VR (like, really shockingly well. Shadows high 120 FPS with repro), but may go back down to 60k when playing elsewhere so may set that up cheers.

I'll keep looking for any way to tweak the shadows for better performance, but I suspect any changes would be at the shader level which might break IC. A seperate draw distance slider for both objects and shadows would be tremenously useful, particularly if you could alter them while playing in-game as with tree distance etc.

 

3dmigoto lets you selectively disable trees, buildings and objects (units, statics) shadows. Not what you really might have been pointing at but can be useful. And does not break IC.

[SkateZilla]

Sorry Guys.

Try
options.graphics.objects

I think i had them reversed by accident.

 

[muzica9]

1 hour ago, SkateZilla said:

Try
options.graphics.objects

 

 

and to set for current view distance set in dcs menu? mine is High.  or this syntax override all?

Edited March 3, 2023 by muzica9

[SkateZilla]

it should override all.

[jnr4817]

Any reason to do more than just the objects. There were several other variables to choose from.