Degredating frame rates

[threadkill]

I recently upgraded my mobo/cpu, and also transitioned from XP to Vista32. Yes, all to improve Black Shark playability…. 8~) After much tweaking of settings, disabling Aero (using Win Classic color palate), using the Affinity fixes, etc., I am getting more than double my old frame rates in the pit. That’s the good news.

 

The bad news is that after the first mission, I am seeing degradation in the frame rates and lag in the interface. Goes like this:

 

- Fresh boot: 59-60 FPS looking straight ahead. Everything rocks! Mission is Clear Tkvarcheli

- Exit mission; reenter same mission: 43-45 FPS

- Exit mission; takes ~ two minutes to get to the debrief screen. Additionally, in the UI, I do not see the proximity circles around the menu commands as the cursor touches the button. I move the mouse over the button and click, and I see the proximity circle a few-to-ten seconds later and then the screen switches. Exiting the game completely and restart; the lag is still present. Fresh boot and can start over.

 

CPU and GPU temps remain normal. Running a E8600 at 3.62 GHz and a GTX 285 SSC; plus a GT9600 for dedicated Physx processing (understand that DCS does not use). I’ve run Prime95 and other progs; system seems stable.

 

Tried deleting the lua-direct_output.dll and any/everything else I could find in this fantastic forum.

 

For Event logs, the only error I’m seeing is a WMI Event 10; but timing is not consistent with when the lag starts. However, if I have a memory leak or similar, I could be filling the pagefile and hitting the hard drive or something.

 

Disabled a few services that I know were unneeded; no change. There’s lots more running in the background that I need to research.

 

Rig:

780i mobo

E8600 at 3.62 GHz

Saitek 52

TrackIR

M18 Mouse

G15 keyboard

 

Learning a lot about Vista in the process, so this is all time well spent. Would appreciate any hints and tricks for a new Vista user. I’ve resisted Vista as long as possible, but DCS performance is the goal. Even with the issues, being able to see 70+ FPS in a game just thrills me to no end. Amazing the time and money I’ve spent to improve my DCS performance; would do it all again tomorrow.

ETA - The other thing I noticed is that with Vista, when I exit the game, the Temp folder is empty. Is this normal? I do have preferences to show all files and extensions.

Edited March 14, 2009 by threadkill

[JG14_Smil]

hello,

 

vista puts all temp and other such files in a user/../ virtual store/ BS folder. I am unsure about the rest, but if you are using an Affinity change, you need to do it each time you enter the helo.

 

hope you find the prob...

[threadkill]

Thanks for the reply, JG. Should have stated that I am using the Affinity Launcher tool and have verified that it flashed "Affinity Set" at the top left on each sucessive launch. Cheers for the temp file loc.

 

Update - I just completed map one of the first campaign and seem to have similar lag as above for multiple launches, so, the issue might be based on length of time in game as opposed to just multiple launches. Back to suspecting something with my memory, even if it does pass the usual diags. Will dig up memtest...

Edited March 15, 2009 by threadkill

[threadkill]

I was poking around and trying to think of what would fill a buffer. The keyboard! Went to the Options > Controls tab. In the Saitek column, I noticed that the cyclic directions were populated with directional commands. Since they're already assigned as analog controls in the Axis Command area (JOY Y, etc.), I cleared the entries.

 

In addition to the directionals, there were also default assignments to the the joystick buttons for lock, fire, etc. Since I have all of my commands mapped to the X52, it was easy to scan the entire X52 column and remove other entries. Entire column is now clear.

 

I just popped in and out of a few missions and not seeing the intereface lag. Hope this does the trick; off to fly