Patch notes discussion 10th March - 12th April 2023

[jonfog]

50 minutes ago, Hillman said:

The performance gains on complex missions are great in MT.Complex campaigns that stuttered are now butter smooth.  In simple missions it's more or less as ST for me (which was 60-90 fps anyways)

My problem is that it seems like something has changed wrgt the support for OculusVR runtime; I'm not able to run DCS/Pico4 with the Oculus runtime in the new MT-patch. In ST it works as before. In ST you get into Oculus runtime by starting the Virtual desktop streamer with dcs.exe as a param and you have DCS in Oculus runtime. Now the same forces you into OpenVR/SteamVR. The screen flicker like mad, I'm positioned several meters to high in the VR world and need to recenter, the performance is slightly lower, visual quality is not as good as before and when I exit DCS I'm left in this anoying Steam world which I then need to exit to get back to Windows. Everything worked so much nicer and with less hassel with OculusVR.

What has changed in MT? Could we please get a --force_OculusVR parameter?

Very happy for the MT, just that the user experience was a step back in this particular area.

PS: also tried with the force_OpenXR with the same results.

 

Hi. I'm running a pico 4 setup too but with openXR/SteamVR. ( --force_enable_VR --force_OpenXR). I can tell since I can bring up the OpenXR menu and mess around. (Note that SteamVR will launch but then OpenXR somehow intercepts).

Altough I get a few FPS in MT and VR it works worse than ST. I get a slight seasick fenomena in MT. If I open the frame rate counter (RCtl+Pause) I get a "CPU Bound (rendering thread)" message both in 2d and VR. Anyone has a clue what that means?

[0414 Wee Neal]

9 hours ago, Cooler07 said:

Major improvement with bin-MT from 45-50 fps to 90-100fps

 

75fps in AH-64 with rain caucus map

 

System= 

i9900ks 5g

64 ddr4 3800 Corsair dominator

Asus ROG 4090 

Pimax 8kx normal FOV PD 1.5

OpenXR for Pimax 

(((((NOTE)))))) NOT running command line -forceXR -forceVR

 

Again not running the command line setting

 

DCS PD .5 

Max setting on all but clouds and shadows are flat with blur.

 

I will say I had just installed the 4090 on 3/9 and the FPS was 45 to 55 with lower game settings.

 

Also I don’t think it made any difference without the command line because I’ve been running game like that for a few weeks.

 

I’m seeing 75% increase load on ALL 8 cores and 16 threads.

Also see 25% use of VRAM and GPU AND 60 to 70% increase.

 

Have to say EXCELLENT JOB ED

Just curious why you use DCS.5 PD?

thanks

 

[muzica9]

i tested again in 2D/pancake. 4k all settings on high/ultra 

different story

ST 70-122 fps

MT 154-180 fps

so MT have effect for 2D. for VR not so much in my case(only +5 fps and heavy drops when looking to an area with units)

so, those who are extremely happy, probably use 2D. 

Edited March 11, 2023 by muzica9

[muzica9]

8 hours ago, Hotdognz said:

Just tried some other maps with MT after posting my initial thoughts and tried some heavey AI populated instant action missions, I now firmly believe I'm seeing no improvement in FPS in this first stage of the MT release on my rig, I can get better FPS my self by tweaking OpenXR Toolkit settings

Caucus CPU8.8/GPU 11.4
Syria    CPU8.8/GPU 13.4
Marianas CPU9.0/GPU 16.4
Channel CPU 8.8/16.5

Marianas still runs the worst as its the least optimized and has always run really bad even on a high end rig, Channel map whilst the CPU/GPU timings were similar felt smoother.

Looking forward to the next round, but so glad I upgraded to the 4090 still

similar timings for me in VR

those who waited for MT release to buy less than 4090 to play in VR, will be disappointed

 

  

33 minutes ago, 0414 Wee Neal said:

Just curious why you use DCS.5 PD?

thanks

 

he is tranding image quality for fps/perfomance. less than 1.0 PD looks like crap in VR. even if he upscale in Pimax tool at 1.5 final resolution is not the same.

Edited March 11, 2023 by muzica9

[Gripen 4-1]

WELL DONE @Eagle Dynamics!

This is a massive step in the right direction! It came late, but it impresses 

In the first free flight missions in the Hornet I thought: OK, a bit better, but not impressive at all; no witchcraft.

But then I started an AI heavy mission Syria: Airfield defense and........... WOW, after a lot of disappointment in the past, and a lot of ranting THIS is a real GAMECHANGER!

Went from 40 FPS 2.7.8 in VR to ~60 FPS on the Taxiway of the Mission Airfield Defense.

In 2.8.2 it was even lower than 40 FPS.

Please continue the journey and don't break it with eyecandy which is not needed at the moment.

The focus is good now, please maintain your efforts 

 

WELL DONE ED! 

Edited March 11, 2023 by Gripen 4-1

[Boosterdog]

My 5600X/3080 2D world is a much much happier place. Sadly I can only dip in and out of games at present but the intially look is impressive. Well done ED (but please bring  back Alt-Tab)

[Dragon1-1]

55 minutes ago, muzica9 said:

similar timings for me in VR

those who waited for MT release to buy less than 4090 to play in VR, will be disappointed

Well, I'm more or less good with my 1080ti now. It seems that there are some specific configurations which don't seem to get as much as everyone else. Might be worth documenting this to ED, I imagine there's going to be a lot of room for further improvements in the next few patches (especially now that the pressure is off a little bit). BTW, I noticed quite a few people with such complaints were running AMD GPUs. Might be a coincidence, but perhaps this is fixable.

I'll be upgrading to a 3090 eventually, but it'll be an aftermarket card. Skipping the 40 series for now, way too overpriced at the moment.

[Pochi]

Hi,

Is it possible to enable reshade with MT ?

Anyone tried it ?

Pierre

[Wali763]

Im on a 5800x3D CPU in OpenXR.

I dont see any improvement. Im using the frametime-overlay in the MS OpenXRTools and it seems CPU frametimes have gone up. I tested a large InstantActionMission with max units back and forth and CPU-frametimes are now mostly at 10,5 whereas before I saw lower numbers. Looking at the Taskmanager-performance tab in Non-MT I have at least 5-6 threads at idle, while in MT all seem to get used somehow. But ony thread is always at the max. Also the other mission I tested showed the same result. Anyway I also dont feel any difference when not looking at the numbers.

The biggest difference for me is visible when jumping into a cockpit. With MT on it now takes 5-10sec to fully load the image. So at first you hoover over the sea and have only the frame of the cockpit with no textures before you. In non-MT I did see this almost never, maybe only on very large MP-missions.

Also the lobby (hangar-floor) has a red tint now, but thats no problem. Colors in the cockpit look the same.

[ThorBrasil]

DCS MT is on the right path. I had a 10/15 FPS gain in Damascus on the Syria map in Mezzen air base on ground. In flight it was much more than 15FPS. The simulator became much more fluid. I think it's a big FPS gain. Thank you ED you are on the right track!

[Gunfreak]

My full screen VR mirror now looks like this, not very good for video capture, and obs open vr capture is just black.

And it's definitely MT that does it, when I start regularly it works just fine.

Edited March 11, 2023 by Gunfreak

[312_JS]

54 minutes ago, Pochi said:

Hi,

Is it possible to enable reshade with MT ?

Anyone tried it ?

Pierre

Yes, you just have to install into the new MT directory.

[Pochi]

Ok thank you.

So I just do another reshade install pointing to where the MT exe is I guess.

Pierre

[Beirut]

1 hour ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Well, I'm more or less good with my 1080ti now. It seems that there are some specific configurations which don't seem to get as much as everyone else. Might be worth documenting this to ED, I imagine there's going to be a lot of room for further improvements in the next few patches (especially now that the pressure is off a little bit). BTW, I noticed quite a few people with such complaints were running AMD GPUs. Might be a coincidence, but perhaps this is fixable.

I'll be upgrading to a 3090 eventually, but it'll be an aftermarket card. Skipping the 40 series for now, way too overpriced at the moment.

 

Yeah, it's pretty amazing to see a boost in performance like this for free instead of shelling out hundreds for a new card or CPU. And when this gets refined we might see even more improvements. I'm absolutely putting off getting a new card for now. 

 

More money for new planes! 

[Dingo (ZX-D)]

I have a  i7 9700K which has 8 cores and 8 threads but doesn’t come with the Hyper-Threading.

Does DCS MT still work with this processor?

[Wu70]

@Dingo (ZX-D) yes, it will work great

[sirrah]

Sorry if asked before, but is it correct that I no longer see the mission loading screen in VR? (screen now just stays black until the mission is loaded)

 

Fwiw; I think this is much better than the 0,1fps stuttering loading screen we used to have.

[SmirkingGerbil]

17 hours ago, Hiob said:

Pancake, 4K, single player

I have improvement between 20% (F-16 airborne above syria) and 40% (AH-64 sitting on the ground in marianas). All tested back to back after update and cleansing of the shaders between MT and OG.

I wouldn't name that nothing. 

Yeah. For me, like an entirely new game, amazing.

I created the post, because I suspect some folks are just letting DCS OB update, not reading any instructions (I am sure that never happens here), and launching "old" DCS by default.

I did it at least three times, just on muscle memory. Had to wait, finished the logon process, get to loading screen, exit, then go to my MT shortcut.

It was an agonizing 3 minutes to kill off old DCS, and run amazing stunning new DCS.

I am not discounting some folks are having issues, but end-user machines, home built rigs, even store bought are like a "Box of Chocolates". Folks may insist their machine is the most pure stable machine in the universe and it is all the code's issue. 30+ years of experience tends to put me in the 60/40 crowd. 60% user machine stuff, 40% Code update stuff. That 40% includes people not reading directions and launching the old DCS.exe.

[Hillman]

4 hours ago, jonfog said:

Hi. I'm running a pico 4 setup too but with openXR/SteamVR. ( --force_enable_VR --force_OpenXR). I can tell since I can bring up the OpenXR menu and mess around. (Note that SteamVR will launch but then OpenXR somehow intercepts).

Altough I get a few FPS in MT and VR it works worse than ST. I get a slight seasick fenomena in MT. If I open the frame rate counter (RCtl+Pause) I get a "CPU Bound (rendering thread)" message both in 2d and VR. Anyone has a clue what that means?

I get this message too. With a Rtx 4090 and 60 fps I guess it’s just natural that it’s the CPU that is the bottleneck. But that’s were MT really helps.

[Ramstein]

16 hours ago, SatThuVoBui said:

Is there anybody still running this game on a quad core CPU like a 7700K or before? I'm on a 6700K and while it's nice reading hype about huge performance boosts from plenty of other users (good job ED!) I still feel like I need to temper my expectations to maybe about slightly less than half of the median reported performance boost most other users are reporting. I'm also on 32gb of RAM with a 1080 Ti so up until this point CPU has always been the bottleneck. 

I am still running 7700k

[jonfog]

5 minutes ago, Hillman said:

I get this message too. With a Rtx 4090 and 60 fps I guess it’s just natural that it’s the CPU that is the bottleneck. But that’s were MT really helps.

Well I just ran the Spitfire Operation Jubilee which preivously had killed the FPS. During that I saw "CPU Bound (rendering thread" appeared in yellow mixed with "CPU Bound (main thread)".

My problem now is that the graphics are unstable, it seems like the picture displayed is shifting a pixel or two back and forth. This made me run the same mission in ST which just looks more stable (the picture that is) and it is just runs  a couple of FPS lower. So there seems to be a major improvement in the code itself

[Mistermann]

2 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

My full screen VR mirror now looks like this, not very good for video capture, and obs open vr capture is just black.

Odd - I just tested OBS because its used a lot.  It works just fine with MT executable.  I didn't do anything different with it.  Running as administrator?  I know I've had OBS issues in the past when I forget to run it that way.  

My VR headset is Pimax and I use the "OpenVR Capture" input source that I had to download from github.  I am also still using SteamVR.

Hope you get it working, @Gunfreak!

[Gunfreak]

10 minutes ago, Mistermann said:

Odd - I just tested OBS because its used a lot.  It works just fine with MT executable.  I didn't do anything different with it.  Running as administrator?  I know I've had OBS issues in the past when I forget to run it that way.  

My VR headset is Pimax and I use the "OpenVR Capture" input source that I had to download from github.  I am also still using SteamVR.

Hope you get it working, @Gunfreak!

openvr caputre works in steamvr, not with open xr run time.
But the stretched vr window is there in steam vr too, and not just openxr.

[Mistermann]

6 minutes ago, Gunfreak said:

openvr caputre works in steamvr, not with open xr run time.
But the stretched vr window is there in steam vr too, and not just openxr.

Ahhh - yet another reason for me to stay with "what's working" for me.   I've held off on switching to openxr for these types of reasons.

In my experience, I have never seen the "vr window" look good enough to record from.  I was under the impression that was the reason for OpenVR to begin with???

Regardless, I hope there's a fix for you.  I can't imagine losing the ability to record DCS sessions in OBS.  

 

[Honey]

fwiw, just wanna report that fps improvement is colossal: from 45 -> 82 fps in mp on 4YA with 20 players. Brilliant job, ED!