PSA: Geforce Experience might be killing your frames

[mhe]

After trying to help a guy from my group optimize his settings, there was a MASSIVE improvement once Geforce Experience was uninstalled. That system was a 10700K with a 3070 and 64GB of RAM. Same situation tested went from 50 to 80-100 fps, so almost double. That was on 2D in 2560x1440.

Telling the story in the group, another colleague uninstalled Geforce Experience and also almost doubled his FPS on the Marianas. He is running an 8700K with a 2080Ti and 32GB of memory. All other settings remained the same. Both systems were tested with the MT build of DCS.

I haven't tested out what exact component of Geforce Experience is the cause of this, but uninstalling it did improve performance by almost double in 2 independent cases. So I thought I'd share that finding and see if somebody can figure out what exactly is causing it and also bring it to ED's attention.

I myself haven't had this installed in years, so I wasn't even aware it could bog down systems so hard.

Would be very interested in figuring out the exact cause and wanted to give you guys n gals a heads up what might be holding you back.

Edited March 24, 2023 by mhe

[dFlow]

Can reproduce!
I gained about 50% more performance on Mariana islands map.

For example: had about 45 fps on supercarrier in Tomcat cockpit 
now: 65 fps, same setting

--> this is all in VR, so it gave me an incredible boost in performance.

This problem needs to be sorted out!

[mhe]

Maybe @Flappie can keep an eye on this issue and maybe try to replicate please? 

[Flappie]

Hi. Rule number one if you want a smooth game session: avoid additional software such as GeForce Experience, MSI Afterburner, ...

Adding more software in the process only increases the chances to encounter an issue.

Way before MT, there has been issues with GeForce Experience, especially Shadow (the thing that lets you stream/record movie clips).

[RafaPolit]

I have seen videos of people having same results on other games.  All these "NVIDIA Container"s that you can see on the task manager start affecting performance. I have a 60hz monitor, so I'm mostly capped by the monitor and not my system, so I haven't uninstalled it (yet), but it may not be a bad idea to try!

Edited March 24, 2023 by RafaPolit

[mhe]

4 hours ago, RafaPolit said:

I have seen videos of people having same results on other games.  All these "NVIDIA Container"s that you can see on the task manager start affecting performance. I have a 60hz monitor, so I'm mostly capped by the monitor and not my system, so I haven't uninstalled it (yet), but it may not be a bad idea to try!

 

You can test with vsync off to see how much difference it makes on your system. 

[FusRoPotato]

Tried removing it, including MSI. Made no difference whatsoever. Reinstalled both.

[SharpeXB]

I can’t see why GFE would affect anything if it’s not running while you’re running the game. It’s seems logical that the shadow recording feature could but of course you can switch that on and off separately. Myself I don’t see any impact from the Shadow DVR being on. (Running Stable version)

Edited March 25, 2023 by SharpeXB

[Mustang]

Latest nVidia drivers have high DPC latency issues, see comments https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/nvidia-geforce-531-41-whql-driver-download-discussion.447177/page-5

[mhe]

On 3/24/2023 at 1:05 PM, Flappie said:

Hi. Rule number one if you want a smooth game session: avoid additional software such as GeForce Experience, MSI Afterburner, ...

Adding more software in the process only increases the chances to encounter an issue.

Way before MT, there has been issues with GeForce Experience, especially Shadow (the thing that lets you stream/record movie clips).

I agree, but how many people just click through the default installation of the nvidia drivers? I bet that number is >90% of its userbase. And defaults do install Geforce Experience AND enable ShadowPlay, Ansel and whatnot. Most people will never know because they never look into it and just think that whatever performance they get is what they should be having.

And since those numbers will very much influence the feedback you'll get from the users dabbling into the MT build of DCS, I think it would be worthwile to bring this to the attention of the DCS community. What I mentioned was exactly what happened to both my friends who used the MT build and had massive gains just by getting rid of GFE. And there is a potential ton of similar cases out there.

You and me never use additional tools that aren't needed it seems, but that doesn't mean that the majority of people out there abides by these rules when it comes to their own gaming rigs. Sure, background processes always cost some performance, but the amount GFE costs  with DCS MT in many cases is something that deserves attention, no?

10 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

I can’t see why GFE would affect anything if it’s not running while you’re running the game. It’s seems logical that the shadow recording feature could but of course you can switch that on and off separately. Myself I don’t see any impact from the Shadow DVR being on. (Running Stable version)

 

Yes, it is logical. Most people just install the driver package and click through with it with the default settings. They don't even know these things are running in the background, hence they will never disable them. Just because something is a no-brainer for you and me, it doesn't mean that is the case for everyone out there. 

[Flappie]

1 minute ago, mhe said:

And since those numbers will very much influence the feedback you'll get from the users dabbling into the MT build of DCS, I think it would be worthwile to bring this to the attention of the DCS community.

I agree 100%. Let's spread the word and see if many users get the same result.

While we're at it, let's make a list of all potential troublemakers:

• Wallpaper Engine
• MSI Afterburner
• MSI Dragon Center
• GeForce Experience ShadowPlay
• Adrenalin custom colors
• WinWing script if called first in Export.lua
• MalwareBytes Anti-Malware
• Corsair iCue
• Windows Game Bar DVR
• OpenXR Toolkit FPS overlay
• Windows HAGS...

All these programs/features have caused trouble to some forum users over the years.

[GrEaSeLiTeNiN]

Turning off (not uninstall) GeFE and iCue did not make any noticeable diff. What helped me squeeze out 5-10fps was swapping turning off MSAA 2x and turning on SSAA 1.5x, and Full Screen off. SSLR and SSAO were kept on.  

Edit: SSAA currently not working! in MT that's why I got some fps back

Edited March 26, 2023 by GrEaSeLiTeNiN

[zildac]

I've been using the cleaned/debloated versions for months. Give them a go. Make sure you get the RTX or GTX version depending on your card.

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/531-41-clean-version.433367/

[mhe]

1 hour ago, Flappie said:

I agree 100%. Let's spread the word and see if many users get the same result.

While we're at it, let's make a list of all potential troublemakers:

• Wallpaper Engine
• MSI Afterburner
• MSI Dragon Center
• GeForce Experience ShadowPlay
• Adrenalin custom colors
• WinWing script if called first in Export.lua
• MalwareBytes Anti-Malware
• Corsair iCue
• Windows Game Bar DVR
• OpenXR Toolkit FPS overlay
• Windows HAGS...

All these programs/features have caused trouble to some forum users over the years.

Yes, big point being that GFE is the default to have installed with ShadowPlay for any Nvidia user who uses default settings as recommended by the GPU manufacturer, which cannot be said for anything else on that list (except maybe Windows Game Bar). But whatever. 

[pii]

2 hours ago, Flappie said:

I agree 100%. Let's spread the word and see if many users get the same result.

While we're at it, let's make a list of all potential troublemakers:

• Wallpaper Engine
• MSI Afterburner
• MSI Dragon Center
• GeForce Experience ShadowPlay
• Adrenalin custom colors
• WinWing script if called first in Export.lua
• MalwareBytes Anti-Malware
• Corsair iCue
• Windows Game Bar DVR
• OpenXR Toolkit FPS overlay
• Windows HAGS...

All these programs/features have caused trouble to some forum users over the years.

Everything and anything could cause trouble but that doesn't mean they all do. I have many on that list, installed and running, and I'm still getting in the 80+ FPS with MT on a 2080 ti

[rob10]

26 minutes ago, pii said:

Everything and anything could cause trouble but that doesn't mean they all do. I have many on that list, installed and running, and I'm still getting in the 80+ FPS with MT on a 2080 ti

Totally agree.  All of those things are well worth looking at and definitely may help.  But I just tried the moving SimAppPro to after Tacview (and turning off the updating in SimAppPro so it stayed there) and I didn't see any difference

[RafaPolit]

6 hours ago, GrEaSeLiTeNiN said:

Turning off (not uninstall) GeFE and iCue did not make any noticeable diff. What helped me squeeze out 5-10fps was swapping turning off MSAA 2x and turning on SSAA 1.5x, and Full Screen off. SSLR and SSAO were kept on.  

This is a "misleading" win.  The entire community is "blinded" by the increase in FPS, incredibly enough very few notice the graphical change.  At least in MT, SSAA is NOT WORKING (confirmed in multiple places).  So, by turning SSAA on and MSAA off, you effectively DISABLED anti-aliasing.  If your viewing experience is up to your standards, great, disable all AA and you are good to go.  I noticed the degraded look immediately and was no longer "happy" with the FPS increase, I was saddened by the graphical degraded experience.  Hopefully this will get resolved soon and we can see increased FPS but ALSO good antialiasing.

22 hours ago, mhe said:

You can test with vsync off to see how much difference it makes on your system. 

I cannot stand the tearing.  Yeah, it increases quite a bit of FPS, but the tearing for me is simply unbearable.  I need to buy a GSync enabled monitor.  Mine is more aimed towards graphic design, so it's really not ideal for gaming at this point.  Thanks for the suggestion.

[yogiklatt]

This definitely worked for me. I have a rather weak CPU (an old i7-6700K overclocked to 4.6 and a 2080ti) and the fps now pushed it well above the 45 fps in VR.

[EbonySeraphim]

It's absolutely a good idea to turn off as much stuff running in the background as you can if you're trying to squeeze the most out of a game's performance. If you aren't using GeForce Experience for ShadowPlay or streaming, close it. That being said, drivers and GeForce Experience are very unlikely to be a substantial issue alone. If GeForce experience open or closed made more than a 5% difference in performance, likely the small amount of vRAM that it uses up is just enough to exceed your particular system+GPU configuration and make the caching situation far far worse. You could close one or two other things that would have gained the similar benefit possibly, and there are a lot more programs out there using GPU acceleration especially in Windows 11.

CPU resources is also somewhat indirect in that I think even DCS MT doesn't truly saturate most 8+ core CPUs enough for background processes to have an issue. A background program could have bad behavior and nastily be causing Windows to let it pre-empt DCS in terms of scheduling a little bit too much despite not really having high demands itself. Good way to test that out a bit is to try setting that process (right click the process from the details tab in the Task Manager) and setting the affinity of that other process to 1 or 2 cores, and below normal priority. Likely that background task runs just fine and quietly.

[GrEaSeLiTeNiN]

10 hours ago, RafaPolit said:

At least in MT, SSAA is NOT WORKING (confirmed in multiple places). 

Ahh that's a bummer, thanks for the heads up.